Mega Threatens Legal Action Against Search Engine

mega_logoFile-hosting site Mega.co.nz has made the headlines dozens of times in recent years, largely due to its connections to Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and its subsequent rise to fame.

During that time and through little fault of its own, the site has been intermittently connected to copyright infringement disputes, with allegations from some that the site doesn’t take its responsibilities seriously enough. While those claims were recently debunked, the site is today making infringement allegations of its own.

The complaint involves MegaSearch.co.nz, a New Zealand based search engine and index with the sole purpose of enabling users to find files on MEGA, a site that is designed to be unsearchable.

“Megasearch.co.nz spiders the Internet for Mega links and extracts the titles. It is also crowdsourced so users can also submit their links. It has 900,000 files so far,” MegaSearch’s operator informs TF.

However, the site hasn’t gone unnoticed by MEGA, who are now threatening legal action over the way MegaSearch is presented to the public.

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“We write to you because the website http://megasearch.co.nz has come to our attention due to use of our registered trademark and copyright,” the company writes in a letter to MegaSearch dated today.

“Our company’s historical association with the well-known figure Kim Dotcom has led to the trademark ‘MEGA’ being globally recognizable. Our use of this brand is so extensive that it is likely to be considered unregistered trademarks in the IT sector. Furthermore we are awaiting confirmation of registration of the trademark ‘MEGA’ with the New Zealand Intellectual Property Office and anticipate acceptance will soon be granted.”

With that in mind, MEGA informs MegaSearch’s operator that all references to MEGA on his website are in breach of the file-hosting company’s rights under New Zealand and international law.

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In addition to trademark and copyright breaches, MEGA claims that MegaSearch is guilty of “passing off”, a civil law issue which prevents goods or services being presented as having a connection with another entity in order to trade on previously established goodwill.

“Your website appears to be clearly trading on the goodwill of well-known MEGA Limited and passing itself off as having an association with MEGA Limited, without consent,” the company writes.

“You have not been authorized or licensed to use any of the material and are implying an association with and endorsement by MEGA Limited that you do not have.”

MEGA’s demands are not lightweight either. The company wants an end to all infringement and a complete shutdown of the site.

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MegaSearch’s operator says this is the first contact that he’s had with MEGA. He says he’s surprised that a company with Kim Dotcom connections has taken this line with him.

“I thought this was massively ironic that KimDotCom is threatening to sue someone for copyright after everything he went through. He always claims that the ‘big bad government’ came after the little guy. This time he is the big bad guy,” he informs TF.

“I think it’s a little strong they don’t want to work with us. They just want the site gone in 7 days.”

What happens next probably lies on MegaSearch’s response. The site wouldn’t be drawn on how it will respond to the threats but if the operator’s claims of living in his mom’s basement are true, a fight with MEGA is probably best avoided.

MEGA was approached for comment but it’s currently the middle of the night local time.

Update: “The reason why Mega needed to take action was very simple, Mega is a highly successful global brand and Mega will always take steps to protect it’s brand,” Mega’s Graham Gaylard told TF.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

FBI Assists Overseas Pirate Movie Site Raids

fbi-logoThere are many thousands of so-called ‘pirate’ sites online today, each specializing in a particular area. Some choose to target movies or music, for example, while others take a more general approach.

What most sites have in common, however, is their appetite for content created in the United States. This means that wherever they are in the world, it’s likely that these sites will attract the attention of some of the world’s largest entertainment companies and their law enforcement partners. That scenario now appears to have played out in Romania.

According to a report from the prosecutor’s office at Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice, an investigation dating back to 2011 against a trio of movie and TV show streaming sites has just resulted in raids police and officers from organized crime units carrying out raids.

Although not detailed by officials, one of the country’s most popular streaming portals is now offline. Visitors to Serialepenet.ro are now being transparently redirected to a server operated by the Romanian Ministry of Justice carrying the message below.

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Fisierulmeu.ro, one of the most popular file-hosting sites in Romania, is also down.

According to the prosecutor, authorities carried out searches at four locations including the homes of several suspects and companies believed to be offering services to the sites.

Local TV outlet StirileProTV says that after searching in the U.S. and Europe, the FBI and local police managed to track down the operation to an office block in the capital Bucharest.

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The building contains Romanian web-hosting company Xservers which was featured in local media in connection with the case. Media allegations suggest that the company is somehow implicated in laundering money from the piracy operation but no official statement has yet been issued.

Several men were arrested on suspicion of intellectual property offenses, tax evasion and money laundering. Documents and computer hardware were also seized.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

UK Piracy Blocklist Quietly Expands With Proxy Sites

uk-flagOver the past several years more than 100 websites have been blocked in the UK for facilitating copyright infringement, and this list is getting longer and longer.

The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, there are plenty of alternative routes people can use instead.

So called reverse proxies are among the most used workarounds. These websites give people access to the blocked domains and effectively bypass the restrictions put in place by the court.

The media companies who demanded the blockades are not happy with these proxies and they instruct ISPs to add these to the blocklist as well.

Over the past few days several proxies were added, including torrentz-proxy.com, torrentsmirror.com, etproxy.com, extratorrentlive.com and extratorrentonline.com.

As with previous additions the newly blocked domains are covered by the High Court order, which provides copyright holders with the option to continually update the list of infringing domains.

The main domains of both Torrentz and Extratorrent were already blocked in 2013, after the BPI obtained a High Court order. The music group confirmed to TF that the latest blocks were added as an update.

“The High Court has declared that ExtraTorrent and Torrentz are operating unlawfully and infringing copyright. The Court Order which requires ISPs to block the sites also requires BPI to notify the ISPs of changes to the sites,” a BPI spokesperson says.

The BPI could not provide us with more details on which domains were included in this latest update, but it appears that all major proxy and mirror sites are covered.

As expected, the new blocks are only partially effective. ExtraTorrent informs us that they’ve become quite experienced at coming up with new ‘proxies’ and mirrors.

This is not limited to the UK, but also happens in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, China and elsewhere. After the UK blocked the proxies a few days ago traffic dropped, but not for long. A new alternative, etmirror.com, quickly took up the slack.

“The connectivity issues were totally solved after we launched a new mirror. It appears that all UK visitors are able to visit the website now as the traffic is back and still growing,” the ExtraTorrent teams tells TF.

And so the whack-a-mole continues, with copyright holders adding new domains to the blocklists, and site owners hopping from domain to domain.

The full list of sites to be blocked in the UK is now as follows (not including proxies and mirrors):

Rojadirecta, LiveTV, Drakulastream, Ebookee, LibGen, Freshwap, AvaxHome, Bookfi, Bookre, Freebookspot, popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, isoplex.isohunt.to, watchonlineseries.eu, axxomovies.org, afdah.com, g2g.fm, Bursalagu, Fullsongs, Mega-Search, Mp3 Monkey, Mp3.li, Mp3Bear, MP3Boo, Mp3Clan, Mp3Olimp, MP3s.pl, Mp3soup, Mp3Truck, Musicaddict, My Free MP3, Plixid, RnBXclusive, STAFA Band, watchseries.lt, Stream TV, Watchseries-online, Cucirca, Movie25, watchseries.to, Iwannawatch, Warez BB, Ice Films, Tehparadox, Heroturko, Scene Source,, Rapid Moviez, Iwatchonline, Los Movies, Isohunt, Torrentz.pro, Torrentbutler, IP Torrents, Sumotorrent, Torrent Day, Torrenting, BitSoup, TorrentBytes, Seventorrents, Torrents.fm, Yourbittorrent, Tor Movies , Demonoid, torrent.cd, Vertor, Rar BG, bittorrent.am, btdigg.org, btloft.com, bts.to, limetorrents.com, nowtorrents.com, picktorrent.com, seedpeer.me, torlock.com, torrentbit.net, torrentdb.li, torrentdownload.ws, torrentexpress.net, torrentfunk.com, torrentproject.com, torrentroom.com, torrents.net, torrentus.eu, torrentz.cd, torrentzap.com, vitorrent.org.Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

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Source: TorrentFreak

Authors Guild: ISPs Should Monitor and Filter Pirated Content

piratkeybWith a growing demand for digital books, the publishing industry is increasingly confronted with the issue of online piracy.

The piracy problem is high on the agenda of the Authors Guild as well, and the organization has sent a letter to Congress voicing its concerns.

The letter is addressed to the House Judiciary Committee which reviews the current state of the DMCA takedown procedure to see what can be done to bring the interests of copyright holders and Internet service providers closer together.

Claiming that piracy results in $80 to $100 million in losses annually, the authors emphasize that online copyright infringement is rampant. Not just on shady sites but also on legitimate platforms such as Google Play.

“Online book piracy, once the province of shady offshore websites, has migrated to mainstream American distribution platforms,” they write, adding that the current takedown process is “just not working.”

Instead of the current system where rightsholders have to report URLs of all infringing content, Internet services should implement measures to ensure that pirated content doesn’t reappear elsewhere.

“What we need instead is a ‘Notice and Stay-Down’ regime: once a webhost knows a work is being infringed, it should not receive continued ‘safe harbor’ immunity from claims of infringement unless it takes reasonable measures to remove all copies of the same work.”

The Guild notes that individual authors often don’t have the time or means to scour the Internet for pirated material. ISPs, on the other hand, can monitor and filter pirated content more easily, they claim.

“Technology that can identify and filter pirated material is now commonplace. It only makes sense, then, that ISPs should bear the burden of limiting piracy on their sites, especially when they are profiting from the piracy and have the technology to conduct automated searches and takedowns,” the Authors Guild writes.

The authors stress that Google and other Internet service providers are not doing enough to combat piracy. Instead, they allow piracy to flourish and share a part of the loot.

“In reverse Robin Hood fashion, the safe harbor rules allow rich companies to become richer at the expense of the poor, robbing creators of hard-earned income and the creative economy of hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” the write.

The Authors Guild asks the lawmakers to revise copyright law by making ISPs partly responsible for identifying pirated content. ISPs should only enjoy safe-harbor protections if they implement measures to ensure that pirated content remains inaccessible.

In theory, this means that widespread monitoring of shared content, something most companies are not too keen on. However, according to the authors it’s the only option to tackle the piracy problem.

A copy of the Authors Guild letter to the House Judiciary Committee is available here.

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


Source: TorrentFreak