TorrentFreak Email Update

Kim Dotcom Faces Appeal in Seized Property Battle
Pirate Sites Are Rife With Malware and Scams, Report Claims
Accused Movie Pirate Wins Extortion Case Against Copyright Trolls
VKontakte Signs Memo to Combat Movie Piracy

Kim Dotcom Faces Appeal in Seized Property Battle

Posted: 30 Apr 2014 03:18 AM PDT

While today Kim Dotcom appears to be doing well financially, a little over two years ago the flamboyant businessman was enjoying an even more lavish lifestyle. In January 2012, however, the bulk of his millions in cash and assets were seized following a raid on his New Zealand mansion.

Two days before the raid on Dotcom's home, foreign restraining orders were granted to enable the seizure of the entrepreneur's assets. Those orders ran out earlier this month and fortunately for Dotcom an attempt by the Crown to have them extended was rejected by the High Court.

Within minutes Dotcom took to Twitter to celebrate the upcoming return of his property but now, just two weeks later and on the final day the Crown could launch an appeal, the Megaupload founder is being met with renewed resistance.

This fresh appeal by the Crown will almost certainly delay if not considerably hamper the return of Dotcom’s property. It also means that the fledgling politician’s supporters will have to wait for the return of his performance and classic car collection before he can make good on a promise to hire a local racetrack.

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

Pirate Sites Are Rife With Malware and Scams, Report Claims

Posted: 30 Apr 2014 12:08 AM PDT

scam Most seasoned visitors of torrent sites and streaming portals know that many of the “download” and “play” buttons present are non-functional, at least in the regular sense.

In fact, many of these buttons link to advertisements of some sort, ranging from relatively harmless download managers to dubious services that ask for one’s credit card details.

A new report backed by the UK entertainment industry has looked into the prevalence of these threats. The study, carried out by the anti-piracy analysts of Intelligent Content Protection (Incopro), found that only 1 of the 30 most-visited pirate sites didn’t link to unwanted software or credit card scams.

According to a press release released this morning, the research found that of the 30 top pirate sites, “90% contained malware and other ‘Potentially Unwanted Programmes’ designed to deceive or defraud unwitting viewers.”

The “Potentially Unwanted Programmes” category is rather broad, and includes popups and ads that link to download managers. In addition, the report links one-third of the sites to credit card fraud.

“The rogue sites are also rife with credit card scams, with over two-thirds (67%) of the 30 sites containing credit card fraud,” the press release states.

While it’s true that many pirate sites link to malware and other dubious products, the sites themselves don’t host any of the material. For example, none of the top pirate sites TorrentFreak tested were flagged by Google’s Safebrowsing tool.

This nuance is left out of the official announcement, but the executive summary of the report does make this distinction.

“We did not encounter the automatic injection of any malicious program on the sites that we scanned. In all instances, the user must be tricked into opening a downloaded executable file or in the case of credit card fraud, the user needs to actively enter credit card details,” Incopro writes.

Most of the malware and “potentially” unwanted software ends up on users’ computers after they click on the wrong “download” button and then install the presented software. In many cases these are installers that may contain relatively harmless adware. However, the researchers also found links to rootkits and ransomware.

The allegation of “credit card fraud” also requires some clarification. Incopro told TorrentFreak that most of these cases involve links to services where users have to pay for access.

“There were 17 separate credit card schemes that were detected through our scanning, with many appearing to be similar or possibly related. Five of the sites had instances of two credit card fraud/scam sites, with the remaining 15 containing one credit card fraud/scam site,” Incopro told us.

“An example is someone visits one of the pirate sites and clicks a ‘Download’ or ‘Play now’ button, which is actually an advert appearing on the page, which then asks for payment details to access the content.”

This is characterized as “fraud” because these “premium” streaming or download services can result in recurring credit card charges of up to $50 per month, without an option to cancel.

The report, which isn’t available to the public, was commissioned by the UK film service FindAnyFilm and backed by several industry groups. Commenting on the findings, FACT’s Kieron Sharp noted that those who fall for these scams are inadvertently funding organized crime.

“Not only are you putting your personal security at risk, by using pirate websites you could be helping fund the organised criminal gangs who run these sites as a front for other cyber scams,” Sharp says.

It is clear that the research is used for scaremongering. Regular users of these sites know all too well what buttons not to click, so they are not affected by any of the threats.

However, there’s no denying that some pirate sites deliberately place these “ads” to confuse novice and unsuspecting visitors. Those visitors may indeed end up with adware, malware or run into scam services.

This isn’t in any way a new phenomenon though, it has been going on for more than a decade already. Ironically, the same anti-piracy groups who now warn of these threats are making them worse by cutting pirate sites off from legitimate advertisers.

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Photo: Michael Theis

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

Accused Movie Pirate Wins Extortion Case Against Copyright Trolls

Posted: 29 Apr 2014 11:40 AM PDT

far-cry Early 2010 the law firm Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver brought mass-piracy lawsuits to the United States. The law firm teamed up with several film studios and sued tens of thousands of alleged BitTorrent users.

A few months after the first cases were started the tables were turned. One of the alleged pirates sued the lawyers for fraud, abuse and extortion, due to their role in the “copyright troll” scheme.

Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver were named in a class-action lawsuit together with movie studio Achte/Neunte and the German tracking company GuardaLey, who together went after thousands of people who allegedly downloaded and shared the movie 'Far Cry' using BitTorrent.

Through the lawsuit, spearheaded by Dmitriy Shirokov, the troll victims were seeking relief based on 25 counts including extortion, fraudulent omissions, mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and abuse, racketeering, fraud upon the court, fraud on the Copyright Office, copyright misuse and unjust enrichment.

Among other things, the “copyright trolls” were accused of building their case on shoddy evidence and a false copyright registration.

Last year the Massachusetts District Court denied the class action, which meant the case continued with Shirokov as the only plaintiff. This severely limited the scope of the verdict. However, after more than three years Shirokov did win his case.

During the proceedings, where the law firm remained as the only defendant, it became clear that Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver could not present critical pieces of evidence. The company claimed that the requested documents were lost in a computer crash.

As a result, the law firm had no other option than to concede defeat, which it did through an offer of judgement. In a recent ruling Judge George O’Toole ordered Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver to pay $39,909.95, which includes attorney fees.

TorrentFreak spoke with Jason Sweet, whose firm Booth Sweet represented Shirokov. Sweet notes that the outcome is a “bittersweet victory,” as the class action status was denied earlier. Also, the awarded fees are a far cry from those requested.

Nevertheless, Shrirokov and his legal team are happy with the outcome. Their main goal was to make it harder for copyright trolls to operate in Massachusetts, and they believe that was achieved.

“The case did accomplish what we wanted it to. That is, to deter others from starting similar cases in Massachusetts. It served its purpose,” Sweet tells TF. While the case does not mark the end of copyright trolling schemes in the United States, it won’t make them any easier either.

As for Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver, they will now have to pay their dues. The law firm has left the copyright trolling trade already, and the recent verdict makes it unlikely that they will ever return.

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

VKontakte Signs Memo to Combat Movie Piracy

Posted: 29 Apr 2014 06:21 AM PDT

VKontakte (VK) has long been criticized for its approach to piracy. The site is awash with unauthorized content including movies and music, all uploaded by the social network’s millions of users.

As a result the United States Trade Representative labels VK a “notorious market”, a particularly unhelpful label for an operation with big ambitions.

But now, in a move designed to allow the company to move forward, VK has reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms watchdog.

The memorandum, which represents a consensus of how Internet companies should deal with pirated movies and offer legal alternatives, has already been signed by representatives of 36 Internet sites. Until now, however, VK has refused to sign.

According to the document, reported by Izvestia, VK has agreed to block infringing content “within a reasonable time” and look towards the introduction of fingerprinting technology. This will enable the site to effectively deal with the reappearance of content already taken down by rightsholders.

A source in Roskomnadzor said that VK will sign up before the start of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on May 22.

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