TorrentFreak Email Update

Cyberlocker Blocked After Police Discover “Criminal Network”

Posted: 05 Jul 2014 03:35 AM PDT

In the file-hosting and file-linking worlds there are laws in place to protect site operators from liability for their users’ actions.

When a site operator is informed via a valid notice that content being hosted or linked to is infringing copyright, removing or disabling access to that content ensures protection under relevant U.S. and EU legislation. That said, there are some gray areas which turn the tables on liability.

Some sites, often forum-style indexes that link to copyright movies, music and software hosted elsewhere, have more than just casual links with the external sites where the content is actually hosted. In fact, some anti-piracy outfits claim that many are operated by the same owners, or so close as to make little difference.

The idea is that one site provides the content while the other supplies links and valuable eyeballs. Acting together the pair collect all the revenue from advertising, affiliate schemes, and subscription payments, while maintaining in public that they still qualify for safe harbor.

Being able to prove that this is the reality behind the scenes is another matter, but this week Italian police say they managed to do just that. Reportedly exposing the connections between a linking site and an associated cyberlocker, police presented evidence to the authorities and obtained a domain blocking injunction from a local court.

As a result DDLStorage, a file-hosting site that has grown substantially in the past 15 months serving 460 million files while allegedly pocketing 1.3 million euros, is now inaccessible by direct means in Italy.

"This is a really important case for the anti-piracy battle,” says Luca Vespignani, General Secretary of anti-piracy group FPM.

“For the first time in Italy we can unequivocally reveal the presence of a direct and illegal connection between a pirate website and its cyberlocker. It is essential to investigate the organization of these structures to seriously disrupt digital piracy."

The investigation into DDLStorage found that the site started in Italy and had 120 servers located first in France and then the Netherlands.

“Just 3 per cent of users on the platform uploaded files and only 0.2 per cent were receiving revenues for the content they uploaded,” FPM said in a statement. “Uploaders were paid the more their content was downloaded by other users, with individual payments running up to €40,000 per year.”

TorrentFreak contacted DDLStorage and asked them for a response to the allegations that they’re involved in a criminal enterprise.

“We are not in Italy, we are not an Italian company,” the site told us. “We are online without any problems. We are working to resolve this problem with the Italian users.”

DDLStorage is indeed online, as the injunction only relates to Italian ISPs. However, the site’s comments suggest that it could be attempting to find a workaround to continue serving not only the world market, but the Italian market again too.

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

Twitter Removes Users “Pirated” World Cup Avatars

Posted: 04 Jul 2014 10:13 AM PDT

While over a billion people are enjoying the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, organizer FIFA is working around the clock to make sure that their rights are protected.

Stopping pirated live streams is one of the main priorities, but there is another concern. In all the excitement many social media users have added World Cup related logos and other pictures as their avatars, something that’s strictly forbidden by FIFA.

The football organization fears that use of their logos and emblems by others may cause serious damage. FIFA believes that this endangers the entire worldwide football community.

“Any unauthorized use of the Official Marks not only undermines the integrity of the FIFA World Cup™ and its marketing programme, but also puts the interests of the worldwide football community at stake,” FIFA says in an official statement.

Social media is particularly worrisome because the official logos may lead followers to believe that the user is somehow related to FIFA.

“FIFA's official logos, symbols and other graphic trade marks may not be used on any social media platform. FIFA's Protected Terms may not be used to create the impression that a page is officially related to the 2014 FIFA World Cup,” FIFA notes.

Considering the above FIFA sees no other option than to crackdown on Twitter users with official FIFA logos and images as avatars. In recent weeks Twitter has been asked to take action against several of its users, by removing their infringing profile pictures.

FIFA takedown notice

The requests were made for a wide variety of images including the World Cup emblem, logo and even the trophy. Twitter appears to have honored the requests and has replaced the infringing avatars with the default egg.

Most of the targeted accounts seem to be specifically related to football. However FIFA has also asked Twitter to remove the profile picture of @afobajee, a relatively random user.

Most of the affected users have changed their profile pictures to something non-infringing. However, others appear to have simply switched back to using official FIFA material.

We expect that FIFA still has their eye on the ball, so these infringing profile pictures probably won’t stay online for very long.

Infringing profile picture

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