TorrentFreak Email Update

“Rogue” Video Site Goes Straight, Immediately Gets Raided By Police
Megaupload Sues Hong Kong Over Unlawful Shutdown
HBO Demands Takedown of Game of Thrones Screenshots

“Rogue” Video Site Goes Straight, Immediately Gets Raided By Police

Posted: 23 Apr 2014 04:56 AM PDT

Last week, just two months after the USTR published its 2013 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets, a Chinese online video company hoped to please local and US authorities by ditching its pirate reputation.

Shenzhen QVOD Technology, the company behind Kuaibo.com, made the 2013 USTR report and also incurred the displeasure of the Chinese with its alleged facilitation of online piracy. Aiming to make amends, a few days ago the company announced that it would block piracy in its software tools and invest in licensed content.

By yesterday, however, Kuaibo/QVOD’s overtures were being brushed aside when police in Shenzhen raided its offices. The photograph below, published by 91shouce.com, claims to show the raid in progress.

Details on what happened during the raid are unclear, but local news reports suggest that police isolated employees and told them not to use phones or computers.

In a statement the company rejected claims that people had been arrested and equipment seized, adding that it was operating as usual.

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

Megaupload Sues Hong Kong Over Unlawful Shutdown

Posted: 23 Apr 2014 01:17 AM PDT

Well over two years have passed since Megaupload was taken offline, and the U.S. Government still hasn’t found a way to serve the Hong Kong based company.

During all this time the Hong Kong authorities have kept Megaupload’s assets locked up, as part of a restraint order the U.S. Government had demanded.

In a move to unfreeze these assets, Megaupload has now filed an application in a Hong Kong court. Through this application Megaupload wants the local Department of Justice to set aside the restraint order.

According to Megaupload, the company should no longer be held hostage based on an order that was issued after a seemingly unlawful request by U.S. authorities. The restraint order has basically shut down the company by freezing all its bank accounts and other assets.

Among other things, Megaupload says it wants to use the assets to reunite former users with the personal files they lost access to after the raid.

"Over two years later, the US DOJ has yet to serve Megaupload or initiate substantive criminal proceedings against it, trapping Megaupload in a state of criminal limbo,” Megaupload’s global litigation counsel Ira Rothken says in a comment.

“During that time, the restraint order has prevented Megaupload from conducting business or paying bandwidth expenses needed to return cloud storage data to users. Needless to say, Megaupload and its cloud storage users have been severely prejudiced by the US Department of Justice's conduct,” he adds.

Megaupload believes that the restraint order was issued unlawfully, in part because the U.S. Government failed to disclose how the Hong Kong company would be served.

“As further argued in Megaupload's application, the US DOJ's inability to prosecute Megaupload over this long period of time is grounds to discharge the injunction independent from the US Department of Justice's nondisclosure," Rothken says.

To back up its request, Megaupload has submitted affidavits from two criminal law experts. Richard Davis, who is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and member of the Watergate Prosecution Force, and Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg.

Earlier today, the High Court of Hong Kong ordered the local Department of Justice to respond to Megaupload’s allegation. This response has to be filed early June, after which the court will decide on the issue.

If Megaupload wins its case the door will be open for a multi-billion dollar civil claim. Megaupload was previously valued at two billion dollars and before the raid was planning a listing on the U.S. stock market.

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

HBO Demands Takedown of Game of Thrones Screenshots

Posted: 22 Apr 2014 12:59 PM PDT

If one had to single out a current TV show that is most-often related with Internet piracy it would have to be Game of Thrones. The show has been shared by millions of people and just last week broke yet another swarm record with 193,418 simultaneous sharers.

There has been much discussion over HBO’s stance to this massive piracy. Last year, HBO programming president Michael Lombardo described the unauthorized downloading as “a compliment“, a statement that was followed up by plans to smarten up release schedules.

The theory at HBO parent Time Warner is that while piracy is largely undesirable, it helps to generate buzz and reduces advertising expenditure. The company also believes that when fans enthuse over Game of Thrones it’s excellent word-of-mouth promotion, so that makes today’s news even more unusual.

The developing situation involves fan site ScreenCapped.net. The site hosts user-uploaded screenshots of popular movies and TV shows which its users transform into fan-created artwork. The piece below is based on the The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

The site has a pretty large archive of screenshots from dozens of movies and TV shows, which until recently included HBO’s Game of Thrones and True Blood. But in a surprise move HBO has now accused the site of engaging in copyright infringement and ordered it to remove screenshots of these key titles. Screenshots from both shows no longer appear on the site.

Worried at the implications of the HBO DMCA notice, a petition has been launched on Change.org in support of the site and requesting that HBO reconsiders its move. In the petition, which at the time of writing has already received more than 2,000 signatures, ScreenCapped operator Raina Stephens lays out her request to HBO’s anti-piracy director Jake Snyder.

“The fans and staff of Screencapped.net ask that you remove the DMCA against Screencapped.net so that the site may continue to provide HBO fans with high quality screencaps for non-profit use,” Stephens writes.

Users of the site have been expressing their disappointment on Change.org.

“Come on, guys. You’re going to slap a DMCA claim on ONE site out of HUNDREDS for hosting screen captures?! It’s not like they’re hosting downloads of your episodes!” user Mandi S writes.

“Drop the claim so I can get my favorite screencap gallery back! How do you think we fan artists make those amazing arts that you KNOW you love. Get real and drop the suit, PLEASE.”

Another user, Alessia Colognesi from Italy, questions whether the move makes financial sense to HBO.

“It’s ludicrous to think that watching/having screencaps will take away from the income of money that you might have. The only reasons why screencaps exist is to let creative people share their love for something making graphics, designs and such; and that’s a good thing because that way other people can take a look at a show and maybe start watching it. Go do something better with your time,” Colognesi concludes.

While the precise motivation behind the takedown remains unclear, it’s difficult to argue with the two key points above. ScreenCapped isn’t offering the actual shows for download and discouraging fans from getting even more invested in a show via innocuous-looking screenshots seems to run counter to Time Warner/HBO’s “buzz is good” plan.

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