TorrentFreak Email Update

Police Arrest Streaming Site Admin, Several Domains Suspended
Popcorn Time ‘Rivals’ Prep TV, Android and ChromeCast Support
European ISPs Can Stop Logging User Data, Court Rules

Police Arrest Streaming Site Admin, Several Domains Suspended

Posted: 09 Apr 2014 04:56 AM PDT

Speaking with TorrentFreak late last week, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) clarified the stages behind Operation Creative, an ongoing campaign aimed at disrupting the activities of unauthorized content sites.

“At the first instance of a website being identified, evidenced and confirmed as providing copyright infringing content, the site owner is contacted by officers at the PIPCU and offered the opportunity to engage with the police, to correct their behavior and to begin to operate legitimately,” a spokesperson explained.

“In the contact sent to the website owners PIPCU clearly states that if a website fails to comply and engage with the police, then a variety of other tactical options may be used including; contacting the domain registrar to seek suspension of the site, disrupting advertising revenue and advert replacement.”

But while disruption is clearly on the agenda, the police can also rely on the traditional investigation and arrest process. Earlier this week, that’s exactly what they did.

Sometime on Monday morning, detectives from PIPCU carried out an arrest of a 26-year-old man in the UK. He was detained in York, England, a city located around four hours drive from PIPCU’s base in the City of London.

The man was arrested on suspicion of operating a number of streaming-related domains.

At the time of writing PIPCU has not responded to our requests for comment, but TF has discovered that earlier this week sports streaming domains BoxingGuru.co.uk, boxingguru.eu, boxingguru.tv and nutjob.eu were all suspended.

The sites currently redirect to a page carrying a statement indicating they are under investigation for online copyright infringement. Police have not yet publicly linked their closure with the arrest on Monday.

The logos of four key Operation Creative partners – BPI, FACT, IFPI and The Publishers Association – are displayed on the page although it seems highly likely that FACT were behind the recommendation to investigate the sites closed down this week.

All domains with ‘boxing’ in their titles linked to the world’s biggest boxing events. This would have put the sites on a collision course with FACT members including British Sky Broadcasting, BT Sport and cable provider Virgin Media, all of which generate revenue from that market.

Nutjob.eu linked to streams of a variety of sporting events including soccer, putting the site firmly in the cross-hairs of the powerful Premier League. Other links would certainly have proven unpopular with the NHL, NBA and ESPN.

While the sites certainly embedded videos and provided links to unauthorized content hosted elsewhere, their operator has always maintained he has nothing to do with placing the content online. Whether that holds true – or even if the police care at this stage – will be revealed as the investigation unfolds.

FACT did not immediately respond to our request for comment.

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

Popcorn Time ‘Rivals’ Prep TV, Android and ChromeCast Support

Posted: 08 Apr 2014 01:22 PM PDT

Unless you’ve had an Internet outage lasting a month, news of the Popcorn Time app will have appeared on your screen on several occasions. It dramatically burst onto the scene in March and stirred up a huge controversy, but just a handful of weeks later it was abandoned by its creators.

Being open source the project was easy for others to pick up but without the original GetPopCornTi.me URL it was always going to be difficult for new project leaders to immediately show they were the ‘real deal’.

Nevertheless, today there are two main Popcorn Time replacements, both of which call themselves Popcorn Time. To get some clarity, TorrentFreak caught up with the people behind both projects to find out about their plans. For simplicity’s sake we’ll refer to them by their current URLs – popcorn-time.tv and time4popcorn.eu.

Popcorn-Time.tv

Popcorn-Time.tv’s website has the same look and feel as the original Popcorn Time and offers four version of the software – Windows and Mac plus Linux 32 and 64 bit. Everything is open source and the project page can be found on Github. So where did this group originate?

“Our project started right after the original devs abandoned their project,” a Popcorn-Time.tv dev told TorrentFreak.

“I happened to be working on a new feature on a fork at that moment. When the devs closed their project, people started asking what should be happening and I pointed them to my repository where I was working on fixing everything. I end up being the most-used fork after a few hours.”

Shortly after another dev who had worked on the original Popcorn Time project agreed to merge his ongoing fork with what would soon become Popcorn-Time.tv. Together they released three new versions of Popcorn Time – 0.2.6, 0.2.7 and 0.2.8, the current version.

“A few days ago, however, the other developer went missing, the main repository and its website were shutdown as well. So I then set up a new organization (popcorn-org) and a new website (popcorn-time.tv) to keep going,” the Popcorn-Time.tv dev explained.

“In the general picture I would say we fit as the original Popcorn Time continuation. We haven’t added many features yet since we are working on getting everything more stable and usable by everyone. TV series and more are planned for the next month.”

Popcorn-Time.tv also informs TF that work is underway to allow their software to save downloaded movies for later viewing and that an upcoming rewrite and release of version 0.3.0 in around two weeks will sport a new UI.

Sneak preview: New Popcorn-Time UI

PopcornTVnewUI

Add Chromecast and multi-torrent tracker support on top and things are looking exciting for this version of the infamous software.

Time4Popcorn.eu

Although it has a similar feel, Time4Popcorn.eu’s website differs slightly from the original. It is less complex and carries just a single version (Windows) of the Popcorn Time software. Which version isn’t clear since its been repackaged by the site and currently the source is private.

However, speaking with TF the Time4Popcorn.eu team made it clear they have big plans, both on the feature front and in transparency terms.

“We are all Popcorn Time users, and when the original project was taken down it was clear to us that we would not let this technology die, and without hesitation we took the files and put them online for download,” Time4Popcorn.eu explain.

“The great response from the users and the amount of downloads a day made us very excited and we decided to invest our time in improving and preserving Popcorn Time.”

The people behind this version say they are the owners of file-sharing websites with millions of visitors a day. With their experience they want to ensure Popcorn Time stays online “forever.”

“Our knowledge in that field will help us to better understand what the users want and need to enjoy more of Popcorn Time,” they add.

So what next for Time4Popcorn.eu? Big things, apparently, including an imminent mobile version.

“At this very moment, we are working around the clock on the Android version of Popcorn Time and hoping to release it in the next two weeks,” the team reveal.

And, for those worried about the current closed-source, things will change on that front too. Once the mobile version is complete the source code will be published on Github and the community will be invited to help with its development.

“We will also publish our brand new release of the desktop version that will include seeding of the downloaded torrent (the current version does not seed the torrent!), a much faster torrent client and a new video player that will give us the ability to show not only MP4 videos, but all kinds of video formats that will increase the amounts of available torrents,” they add.

The team says that this version will also go open source on the day of release.

“For now, we are not doing anything besides staying up all night and developing this great app,” they conclude.

Conclusion

Having more than one version of one piece of software is certainly not ideal since it’s confusing for users, but at the moment the versions detailed above appear to be key to keeping the Popcorn Time dream alive. Which will win the battle (if they even see it that way) remains to be seen, but of course there’s aways a chance that a merger could be on the cards, if minds meet at the appropriate moment.

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

European ISPs Can Stop Logging User Data, Court Rules

Posted: 08 Apr 2014 07:23 AM PDT

In a landmark ruling, the European Court of Justice has declared Europe’s Data Retention directive to be a violation of Internet users’ privacy.

Under the Directive Internet providers and other telecom companies were required to log and store vast amounts of information, including who their subscribers communicate with, and what IP-addresses they use.

The local authorities could then use this information to fight serious crimes, but it was also been frequently used by third parties, in online piracy cases for example.

Today the Court ruled that the data collection requirements are disproportionate. In a case started by Digital Rights Ireland the Court effectively annulled the directive, and it’s now up to the individual member states to change local laws accordingly.

"The Court is of the opinion that, by adopting the Data Retention Directive, the EU legislature has exceeded the limits imposed by compliance with the principle of proportionality," the Court states.

“By requiring the retention of those data and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data,” it adds.

The judgement has far-reaching implications for large telecom companies, but also for smaller businesses including many VPN providers. With the new ruling these companies are no longer required to log extensive amount of user data as was required under the EU Directive.

While many ISPs are waiting to see what local Governments decide, the Swedish provider Bahnhof immediately announced that it would wipe all subscriber data it stored.

“Bahnhof stops all data storage with immediate effect. In addition, we will delete the information that was already saved,” Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says.

There’s also resistance against the Court decision. The Dutch Minister of Justice Fred Teeven, for example, wants local ISPs to continue storing user data for law enforcement purposes.

The European Court of Justice judgement is a clear victory for privacy activists, but mostly for the public who will regain some of their online privacy. While the ruling specified that some data retention may be needed, broad and mandatory retention laws and NSA-style data dragnets are no longer the standard.

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