TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Pirate Bay Founder’s Detention Extended Based on “New Evidence”
- BREIN: We Killed 200+ Pirate Bay Proxies in 2013
- RuPaul Trolls Pirates With Fake Album Leak on The Pirate Bay
- Pirate Bay Down Due to Network Issues
| Pirate Bay Founder’s Detention Extended Based on “New Evidence” Posted: 06 Mar 2014 03:14 AM PST
After several custody extensions Svartholm appeared in court again this week, and for the first time the hearing was open to the press and “Free Anakata” supporters. During the court session new evidence was presented which allegedly links Svartholm to the CSC hack. The prosecution said that an encrypted file found on Svartholm’s computer contained the Swede’s personal information as well as documents related to the hacks. According to the court this evidence warrants another custody extension of four weeks, which means that Svartholm will remain in detention until April 2nd. “Our suspicion has been confirmed, because the personal data found on Svartholm’s computer comes from the same place where the CSC files were stored. It reinforces our belief that it is obviously not a random person remotely accessed the computer to do all these things,” senior prosecutor Maria Cingari told Politiken in a comment. The prosecution believes that Svartholm was operating under the alias ‘My Evil Twin’ while his 20-year-old co-defendant used the handle ‘Advanced Persistent Terrorist Threat.’  Svartholm’s lawyer Luise Høj, who posed with a “Free Anakata” poster outside court, points out that the evidence in the encrypted container is not new. The container also holds documents from the Nordea hack and was previously used in the Swedish trial. “The same material was used in the Swedish case. In the encrypted container are CSC documents, Nordea material and personal information about my client. It is evidence that the Swedish High Court has considered and which they believed affected the case,” Høj said. In the Swedish case the Pirate Bay founder was acquitted of hacking Nordea because it could not be proven that Svartholm carried out the hacks himself. Svartholm later pointed this out in an open letter to the Danish authorities last year, but his extradition went ahead nonetheless. Svartholm’s lawyer hopes to use the same “remote access” argument in Denmark, but thus far the authorities aren’t being cooperative. “We have asked for investigative measures that can help to make it probable that my client’s computer has been accessed remotely, but so far, police have not been willing to comply,” Høj said. It is expected that the defense will get the opportunity to law out their argument in detail at a later stage. Svartholm is expected to remain in prison until then. Currently no date has been said for the trial yet, but it’s not expected to start before the end of summer. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.    |
| BREIN: We Killed 200+ Pirate Bay Proxies in 2013 Posted: 05 Mar 2014 12:55 PM PST
In its new report published this week, BREIN presents a laundry list of site and service shutdowns, payment processor and advertising disruptions, plus the results of takedown campaigns directed at companies such as Google. Most of BREIN’s annual declarations contain large-scale claims and the report for 2014 continues that tradition. Strategy “Briefly, BREIN’s enforcement strategy is aimed at forcing illegal sites or online services into copyright compliance and fulfilling their duty of care. If not, the sites’ hosting providers could identify them or take them offline, or if that offers no solace, providers can block access to them,” BREIN explains. In addition to identifying individuals behind sites, BREIN says it also targets their payment providers, advertisers and their intermediaries. The group also issues takedown requests, including many thousands sent to Google. Site takedown results In common with all previous years, BREIN has some big claims on this front. Cyberlocker linking sites were hardest hit in 2013, with BREIN claiming shutdown of 280 sites in total. The names of the sites remain a mystery, a policy maintained by BREIN throughout many years’ reports. Moving up to the sources rather than sites that merely link to them, BREIN says it closed down 10 actual file-hosting sites. In the streaming and Usenet realms the group claims the scalps of 66 and 38 sites respectively. Again, no details are provided. Of course, most readers will be interested in BREIN’s claims of successes against BitTorrent sites and as usual they are pretty lofty. The Hollywood-affiliated group says that it closed 118 torrent sites in 2013. Their names are…..unknown. The big feather-in-the-cap for BREIN in 2012 was of course the blocking of The Pirate Bay, but there was less to celebrate on that front in 2013. As previously reported, all that came tumbling down in recent weeks when The Court of The Hague decided to lift the ban and restore access for Dutch citizens. Nevertheless, in this week’s report BREIN is still claiming successes in upholding the ban throughout 2013, with claims that it took down an astonishing 206 proxy sites setup to circumvent the blockade of The Pirate Bay. Whether those sites remain down today is largely moot, as Dutch citizens can now access The Pirate Bay directly pending a Supreme Court ruling. Advertisers, payment processors and takedown notices A developing anti-piracy strategy is to try and cut sites off from their income. To this end BREIN says it deals with advertisers on the one hand and payment processors on the other. The group reports that in 41 cases payment processors divulged “identifying information” and discontinued service to sites. In another 100 cases advertisers reportedly offered a commitment not to advertise on sites offering content without permission. In common with many other anti-piracy groups, BREIN is now sending plenty of takedown requests to both sites and search engines. A total of 2.3 million URL takedown notices were sent to Google last year, making an average of around 44,000 per week. According to Google’s Transparency Report, most related to file-host search engine FilesTube, followed by now-defunct torrent site isoHunt. Conclusion There can be little doubt that in recent years BREIN has proven to be a major thorn in the side of many hundreds of mostly small, Netherlands-based file-sharing sites. However, while it seems unlikely that BREIN would be outwardly untruthful in its annual statements, the anti-piracy outfit provides zero evidence in support of its claims. Pirate Bay aside, not a single site is mentioned by name, even though the claim is that more than 700 (sites and proxies) were taken down in 2013. Effective? The rightsholders paying them must think so. Photo: Dan Zen Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.   |
| RuPaul Trolls Pirates With Fake Album Leak on The Pirate Bay Posted: 05 Mar 2014 06:32 AM PST
Unlike other leaks, however, this copy wasn’t exactly what most pirates were looking for. At first sight the album appears to be full length, and even the start of all tracks seem legit. However, those who continue to listen are in for a surprise. After the first minute or so the music becomes muffled, just as RuPaul breaks in with a message for the downloader. “Girl, you done stole my album. Uh Uh, you better don’t hookah, you better get your tail on over to iTunes baby, because I want to get some of that,” is how the first track “Freaky Money” goes after a 30 second intro. Then RuPaul continues with some random conversation, funny skits, as well as some additional pirate-shaming as you can hear below. It appears that it took quite a bit of effort to put the pirate leak together, as every track contains a unique message. In addition to poking fun at pirates, most of the conversation is about the tracks themselves, or just random thoughts. With the track “Modern Love” RuPaul starts talking over the music around a minute into the song. “It’s RuPaul up on WERQ, I’ve decided to change my radio station name to WERQ, ain’t that better? That’s right, you’re listening to WERQ, this is Ru, you’re listening to the BOOT motherfucking LEG of my album.” “I wasn’t going to cuss, because I thought, oh no, we can’t do that. But hey, this is some motherfucking pirated shit, this is illegal, bitch, you’re illegal, as.. as, you’re the one illegal!” On the final track “Born Naked” RuPaul again starts by condemning the person who downloaded the album, then continues to chat about the track and the people who participated in the ‘leak’, which is in effect an extended advert for the album. The parts where RuPaul talks over the tracks are actually quite entertaining at times, which makes it pretty unique. The tone isn’t too serious, although the message probably is, which is a good combo. It definitely beats the decoy files music labels used to upload, which wouldn’t play at all. Instead of frustrating potential consumers, RuPaul is sending a friendly reminder to those who perhaps forgot to pay. Ironically, those who like RuPaul will have to pay a visit to The Pirate Bay to grab a copy of this collector’s item.  Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.   |
| Pirate Bay Down Due to Network Issues Posted: 04 Mar 2014 02:12 PM PST Every time The Pirate Bay suffers a few minutes of downtime thousands of people start to worry that “the galaxy’s most resilient BitTorrent site” has been raided by the authorities.
Today the site has been down for a few hours as well. TF contacted the Pirate Bay team who informed us that they are facing some network issues that have to be fixed. There is no ETA for when the site will return, but it will come back online eventually. Stay tuned. Update: Well that was quick, hardware replaced, TPB is back. Pirate Bay DowntimeSource: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.   |
Late last year Gottfrid Svartholm was 
Luckily, this happened only once, and most downtime has a less dramatic cause. 
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