Torrentfreak: “Pirates Prepare to ‘Blockade’ Anti-Piracy Outfit” plus 2 more |
- Pirates Prepare to ‘Blockade’ Anti-Piracy Outfit
- Popcorn Time Stops Working After Domain Suspension
- Court Lifts Overbroad “Piracy” Blockade of Mega and Other Sites
| Pirates Prepare to ‘Blockade’ Anti-Piracy Outfit Posted: 10 Oct 2014 02:01 AM PDT
Most recently Austrian anti-piracy group VAP completed its mission to have two streaming sites – Movie4K and Kinox – blocked by local ISPs. The achievement was the culmination of years of work through the Austrian courts right through to the European Court of Justice and back again. Several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) are now all blocking the sites and it’s widely expected that not only will VAP return for blocks of additional sites, but it will also be accompanied by recording group IFPI who will take on Pirate Bay and other sites. In the meantime, however, the Austrian division of the Pirate Party is complaining loudly about what they view as web censorship. So today, just a few hours from now, they intend to give the Hollywood-affiliated group a small taste of their own medicine. At 2pm Austrian time, party members and their supporters say they will descend on VAP headquarters in Vienna to air their opinions on blocking and other censorship measures. The organizers hope that their small offline ‘blockade’ will in some way mirror those experienced online. Under the slogan “Block the Blocker”, the pirates say they will form their own symbolic obstruction outside Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, 1040 Vienna, to raise awareness of why web filtering is highly problematic and useless for protecting artists. It’s a position broadly shared by several political parties in Austria including the Greens. Of course, the pirates won’t be able to fully block access to VAP’s building, since that would be against the law. However, if they did manage to achieve that somehow – even unintentionally – VAP employees could simply enter their workplace through another entrance, or perhaps an adjoining building. And with Kinox now circumventing the ISP blockade after adding a new .TV domain, there won’t be a pirate present today who doesn’t appreciate that irony. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
| Popcorn Time Stops Working After Domain Suspension Posted: 09 Oct 2014 01:05 PM PDT
There are several successful forks of the application available online, but this afternoon one of the most used versions suddenly stopped working. Without prior warning the Time4Popcorn.eu fork had its domain name suspended by the EURid registry. TorrentFreak contacted the developers who confirmed that they have indeed lost control of the domain. According to an email sent by EURid and seen by TorrentFreak, the registry explains that the domain name has been suspended on suspicion that it was registered using inaccurate contact details. “Upon verification of the contact data for your .eu domain name, we have reason to believe that your contact data is inaccurate,” EURid writes, asking the Popcorn Time team to show proof of identity.  As a result Popcorn Time’s website is no longer loading. However, what’s even worse for those who use the fork is that the application itself also stopped working as it requires the domain to load the user interface. The developers quickly switched the site over to time4popcorn.com, but it will take some time to update the application. “At the moment the desktop and iPhone versions aren’t working but in a few hours we’ll update the desktop version to the new domain and it should update automatically for most and will work,” the Time4Popcorn team tells us. “If for some reason some users didn’t get the automatic update, they’ll be able to re-download the app from time4popcorn.com,” they add. The issues with EURid show that the domain name is a weak link. This is problematic, especially for an application that claims it “will never be taken down.” The developers realize this and are working to resolve the vulnerability. “From the next update, beta 5.0, this kind of scenario will be nearly impossible. This incident of the service being shut down like this will be very unlikely to happen,” the team notes. One of the questions that remains is why EURid believes that the contact information is inaccurate. Is this the result of a routine check, or were they tipped off by an entertainment industry group? The latter doesn’t seem unlikely. The Time4Popcorn team doesn’t appear to be worried though, and plans to continue improving their application as soon as the issue is resolved. “This is a small kick to the balls at the moment, but we’ll come out of this much stronger and way better,” they say. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
| Court Lifts Overbroad “Piracy” Blockade of Mega and Other Sites Posted: 09 Oct 2014 07:06 AM PDT
The broad anti-piracy measures were requested by small independent Italian movie distributor Eyemoon Pictures. The company complained that the sites in question distributed two films, "The Congress" and "Fruitvale Station," before they were released in Italian cinemas. Several sites affected by the blockade decided to appeal the order, and not without success. Fulvio Sarzana, who acts as lawyer for several of the accused sites including Mega, told TorrentFreak that the sites in question can now be accessed again. The lawyer took up the case with the local Prosecutor, and pointed out that the blockades are overbroad. Instead of blocking access to a single file it makes entire sites unreachable. In addition, Sarzana noted that the measures are not needed as the file-hosting sites have strict takedown policies in place which allow copyright holders to remove infringing content. The Prosecutor was receptive to these arguments and after a settlement agreement with several of the affected services was reached last month, local ISPs were ordered to lift the blockades. “For Mega we negotiated a court settlement with the Office of the Prosecutor of Rome, which recognized the legitimacy of Mega’s activities and ordered the removal of the blockade. The same is the case for other hosting services,” Sarzana tells TorrentFreak. For another site, which prefers not to be named, it was necessary to take the case to the Appeals Court. In common with a similar case earlier this year, the Court held that the blocking order was indeed too broad. As a result this blockade was also lifted. “The Court held that the ISP blockade of the website was disproportionate because the copyright infringement occurs on individual pages. The entire website can therefore not be blocked for copyright reasons,” Sarzana notes. The lawyer expects that the Appeals Court ruling will have implications for the Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), which currently has the power to block allegedly infringing sites without a court order. Considering the recent Appeals Court decision, this procedure may be unconstitutional. This possibility has also been raised by several consumer groups who have asked the court to review AGCOM's legitimacy. Last week the Court of Rome referred these complaints to the Constitutional Court. Here it will be examined whether the current procedure violates right to freedom of expression and free speech, among other things. To be continued. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
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