TorrentFreak Email Update

YouTube Terminates Top Indian News Network For Infringement
UK ISPs Quietly Block More Torrent Site Proxies
BREIN Takes Pirate Bay Blocking Case to the Supreme Court

YouTube Terminates Top Indian News Network For Infringement

Posted: 24 Jun 2014 03:14 AM PDT

While many people get away with uploading infringing content to YouTube, the site’s ContentID system ensures that content belonging to many of the world’s leading entertainment companies gets spotted when it’s uploaded by an unauthorized third-party.

Unofficial uploads can also be subjected to a DMCA-style complaint, whereby rightsholders inform YouTube that content is illicit and should be removed. Mistakes do get made, so content uploaders get a chance to issue a counter-notice in dispute. The mechanism is far from perfect though, with the system weighted in favor of rightsholders with the “little guy” struggling to make his voice heard.

While those uploading pirated TV shows and movies have little to complain about when a “strike” is placed against their YouTube account, legitimate companies can also be subjected to the same kinds of complaints.

This morning a leading Indian news network is waking up to that reality and a pretty big headache after multiple strikes were lodged against its YouTube account. Multiple strikes are very bad, as the message from YouTube below illustrates.

ZeeNews appears to be a decent sized player in the Indian market, operating via zeenews.india.com, a sub-domain of the prestigious India.com. Its Twitter account has 457,000 followers and its Facebook page 2.6 million likes. Overall, ZeeNews claims 140 million viewers across ten channels and the title of “India's Largest News Network”. It’s owned by Zee Media Corporation Ltd.

The precise nature of the complaints against the channel aren’t clear. The notice published by YouTube cites multiple complaints including those from “TF1″ and “Wizcraft”. TF1 could be the French national TV channel of the same name and Wizcraft might possibly relate to an Indian branding company – TorrentFreak is awaiting responses from both.

Meanwhile, ZeeNews’ YouTube account remains not merely suspended, but terminated. In most circumstances that means there is no chance of the account being put back online, but given ZeeNews’ prominence it may be able to deal with YouTube, especially if there has been some kind of error.

Emails to the contact addresses listed by ZeeNews are currently bouncing, but we’ll persevere.

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

UK ISPs Quietly Block More Torrent Site Proxies

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 10:41 AM PDT

Following a series of High Court orders, six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to several of the world's largest torrent sites.

The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, that doesn’t mean that the sites are completely inaccessible.

With every site that is added to the blocklist several reverse proxies are launched. These proxy sites give people access to the blocked sites and effectively bypass the restrictions put in place by the court.

The copyright holders who demanded the blockades are well aware of these workarounds and continue to ask ISPs to expand their blocking efforts.

This weekend the ISPs quietly added several torrent site proxies to their blocklists. TorrentFreak was able to confirm that Virgin Media and Sky are now blocking access to YTS proxy ytsre.come.in as well as the EZTV equivalent on come.in.

Interestingly, the other torrent site proxies, including ones for the Pirate Bay and Kickass, are still accessible.

YTS proxy blocked

Whether these measures will be effective has yet to be seen. The Come.in homepage is still accessible and the team behind the site has already replaced the blocked domains with new ones.

“We just set up new proxies and will be watching for any upcoming measures from ISPs,” Come.in’s Nick tells TorrentFreak.

“We monitor such issues on a regular basis. Most of the time we can create new proxies only after current ones are blocked. Come.in visitors should know that we always publish fresh proxy addresses on our homepage,” he adds.

And so the whack-a-mole continues, with copyright holders adding new domains to the blocklists, and site owners hopping from domain to domain.

As with previous additions the newly blocked domains are covered by the High Court order, which provides the movie studios with the option to continually update the list of infringing domains. A Virgin Media spokesperson clarified that no additions are made by the ISP itself.

"We are only blocking those sites we are required to block by the court order," we were told. "As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media supports the clear, legal framework put in place to protect against copyright infringement and we continue to comply with court orders specifically addressed to the company."

While the recent additions are permitted under the High Court order, these changes are being made in secret without any form of public oversight, which means that we don’t know precisely how many proxies were added. The full list of blocked domains also remains unknown.

TorrentFreak reached out to both copyright holders and ISPs, but thus far they have refused to make the full scope of their blocking efforts public. It’s unlikely that this will change in the near future.

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The full list of domains (that we know of) currently blocked in the UK is as follows:

Main sites: Megashare, Viooz, Watch32, Zmovie, Solarmovie, Tubeplus, Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.

Proxies: Ytsre.come.in, Eztv.come.in, Fp.kleisauke.nl, Fenopy.5gg.biz, H33tunblock.info, H33t.uk.to, H33tproxy.co, H33tmirror.co, Katunblock.com, Katproxy.com, Kat.dashitz.com, Kat.kleisauke.nl, Katmirror.com, Kat.5gg.biz, Kickassunblock.info, Kickassproxy.info, Pirateproxy.net, Proxybay.net, Malaysiabay.org, Piratereverse.info, Pirateproxy.net, Campeche.zapto.org, Tpb.rubenstadman.com, Piratebay.interflective.com, Dashitz.com, Tpb.evrl.com

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

BREIN Takes Pirate Bay Blocking Case to the Supreme Court

Posted: 23 Jun 2014 06:57 AM PDT

Four years is a long time to fight over a website, but that’s exactly what Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and pair of local ISPs have been doing since 2010.

The action began when BREIN targeted Ziggo, the Netherlands' largest ISP, in an attempt to force it to block The Pirate Bay. Ziggo were later joined in the case by rival ISP XS4ALL, with the pair teaming up against the prospect of a bad precedent and an avalanche of additional blocking demands.

The case has taken numerous twists and turns, with a court first deciding that blocking all subscribers was a step too far. BREIN responded to this defeat by taking the case to a full trial, which it won. The ISPs refused to give in, filing subsequent appeals on the basis that any blockade would be ineffective and would deny subscribers free access to information.

In January the Court of The Hague sided with Ziggo and XS4ALL, leaving the ISPs to unblock The Pirate Bay, an action they took immediately.

BREIN limped away with no blockade and close to half a million dollars in legal fees, but one last legal avenue remained – taking the case to the Supreme Court. According to XS4ALL, on April 25 this year it was summoned by BREIN to defend itself in the Supreme Court.

A statement issued by the ISP explains that the appeal will not see the dispute resubmitted in its entirety and judged on its merits as is often the case. Instead, the Supreme Court will only overturn the decision from January if it finds that the Court of the Hague “erred in law” or failed to comply with procedural rules.

“The facts as determined by the Court are fixed, the case will not be materially redone and the Supreme Court itself will not perform an investigation. The claimant [BREIN] cannot bring more new facts, nor contest the facts. Only the legal criteria which the Court has applied will be questioned,” the ISP explains.

“If the appeal is successful and the judgement of the lower court is set aside, it may be sufficient to conclude the case. If a new examination of the facts is necessary, the Supreme Court will probably refer back the case to the Court for a full retrial,” XS4ALL adds.

XS4ALL now has until September 5 to submit a statement for its defense.

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