Posted: 04 Nov 2014 03:40 AM PST

Assisted by police in the Netherlands and France, in the summer of 2012 the FBI took down three unauthorized Android app stores. Appbucket, Applanet and SnappzMarket all had their domains seized. The event was the first of its kind in the Android piracy scene.

During the two years that followed the United States Department of Justice has slowly released more information on the operation, subsequent arrests, charges and pleas.

Yesterday, Scott Walton of Cleveland, Ohio, became the latest to plead. The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement before U.S. District Judge Timothy C. Batten Sr. of the Northern District of Georgia.

Walton was arrested in July alongside Joshua Ryan Taylor, 24, of Kentwood, Michigan. Both stand accused of being members of the SnappzMarket release group.

Another member of the group, Kody Jon Peterson of Clermont, Florida, pleaded guilty in April to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Peterson gave up his right to be tried by a jury and any right to an appeal. He also agreed to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation.

In common with Peterson, Walton admitted being involved in the illegal copying and distribution of more than a million pirated Android apps with a retail value of $1.7 million. He will be sentenced at a later date.

Members of Appbucket have also been facing the legal system.

During March and April 2014, Thomas Allen Dye, 21, of Jacksonville, Florida; Nicholas Anthony Narbone, 26, of Orlando, Florida, and Thomas Pace, 38, of Oregon City, Oregon all pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement after distributing Android apps with a value of $700,000.

Another indictment returned June 17 in Georgia charged James Blocker, 36, of Rowlett, Texas, with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

A further indictment in the same month charged Aaron Blake Buckley, 20, of Moss Point, Mississippi; David Lee, 29, of Chino Hills, California; and Gary Edwin Sharp II (also of Appbucket) with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement for their part in Applanet.

Lee was also charged with one count of aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringement and Buckley with one count of criminal copyright infringement.

The USDOJ claims that along with other members of Applanet they are responsible for the illegal distribution of four million pirate Android apps with a value of $17m.

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

Updated: Pirate Bay Founder Fredrik Neij Arrested in Asia

Posted: 04 Nov 2014 12:27 AM PST

Following the criminal convictions of Pirate Bay founders Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, each went their separate ways.

With Sunde in Europe and Svartholm then living in Cambodia, Neij moved to Asia to be with his Lao wife and their children.

As documented in the movie TPB:AFK, Neij and his family settled in Laos after getting married in a local ceremony. The country is one of the world's few remaining communist states and is one of east Asia's poorest countries with poor communications infrastructure and lacking healthcare system.

As a result, on several occasions the family has crossed the border into Thailand. That has proven problematic in the past, especially when the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok revoked Neij’s passport in 2012. Yesterday, however, things took a turn for the worse when police at the border in Nong Khai, a city in North-East Thailand, arrested Neij as he tried to drive across the border.

Early this morning Nong Khai Immigration police held a press conference to announce Neji’s arrest, parading him in front of the media flanked by several officers.

Thai border police had executed an Interpol arrest warrant similar to the one issued against Peter Sunde before his arrest in Sweden. According to Thai authorities, Neij and his wife had crossed the border an estimated 27 times before finally being caught.

If their press conference is anything to go by, Thai authorities appear to be making a big thing of Neij’s arrest. While trumpeting the alleged damages the Pirate Bay founders have caused the entertainment industries, Thai authorities used the arrest as a photo opportunity, posing for the camera and in some cases even smiling aside a bewildered-looking Neij.

According to local media, Neij is now being held in the Bangkok immigration office pending deportation to Sweden. The 36-year-old’s arrest completes the full set, with all Pirate Bay founders now in custody.

Gottfrid Svartholm, whose story is particularly well known, had moved to Cambodia. He was extradited back to Sweden in 2012 to face not only his original sentence, but two major hacking trials, one on home soil and the other in Denmark. He was found guilty in the latter last week and is now serving a three-and-a-half year sentence.

Peter Sunde is also in custody, having been captured on May 31, 2014 on a farm in Skåne, Sweden. The former Pirate Bay spokesman’s time in prison has also been eventful, but is very close to coming to an end.

Update: Local Thai media reports that “U.S. movie companies” hired a lawfirm to track down Neij. It’s also been revealed that in addition to having a house on the island of Phuket, Neij had five million baht ($153,000) in a local bank account.

Update 2: Video just in:

Update: 3: A video has appeared on The Pirate Bay which appears to instruct people not to talk to the police.

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

Make Thousands of Dollars From Piracy, The Timothy Sykes Way

Posted: 03 Nov 2014 12:59 PM PST

Turning lead into gold used to be the business of the alchemist, but today the Internet is awash with ‘proven’ techniques allowing anyone to go from rags to riches, if only they have the right knowledge.

One person prepared to share his skills with the world is Timothy Sykes. In 1999, while still in school, Sykes reportedly took just over $12,000 in Bar Mitzvah money and began trading penny stocks, transforming his investment into $1.65m before he hit 21.

With dozens of articles documenting his fame and fortune, in 2011 Sykes launched his own website, TimothySykes.com. It is here that others wishing to emulate his success are brought onboard with tempting offers such as the one below.

Of course, the kind of knowledge that enables people to get rich super quick doesn’t come cheap. A few initial ‘lessons’ aside, Sykes sells DVD titles such as “TIMfundamentals” for $397+ shipping. TIMTactics weighs in at a few bucks shy of $500, as do others. Sykes promises that by following his techniques the money invested can be recouped with single good trade, but there are people out there who prefer to make money without the initial outlay.

These people find happiness on The Pirate Bay where all Sykes’ content can be found just by searching for his name. But the money man is unhappy with people getting rich without the appropriate investment so he’s cooked up a new money-making scheme of his own in response.

In a series of lawsuits filed at the Illinois Northern District Court, Sykes’ Millionaire Media, LLC is now suing eleven BitTorrent users who allegedly downloaded and shared his works without permission. Currently, all targets appear to be Comcast users.

One of the lawsuits reveals that an individual was tracked by German anti-piracy company Excipio. He or she is accused of copyright infringement in the most aggressive terms.

“Defendant is an egregious online infringer of Plaintiff's copyrights. Indeed,
Defendant's IP address….was used without authorization to illegally distribute seven different copyrighted works owned by Plaintiff…,” the court filing reads.

The seven files – PennyStocking, PennyStocking Part Deux, ShortStocking, TIMFundamentals, TIMFundamentals Part Deux, TIMRaw and TIMTactics – were all wrapped up a single torrent. The court papers don’t provide evidence of distribution of all of those titles but note that the defendant distributed a small “bit” of the whole package in “multiple infringing transactions.”

“Through each transaction, Defendant distributed a ‘bit’ of the Infringing File. The PCAP shows Defendant's IP address, and the ‘bit’ that was distributed. Excipio verified that the ‘bit’ that was distributed belongs to the Infringing File by calculating its hash value,” the papers read.

Interestingly the hash of the file – 4f7fa6edd6bb1e13b5af478fbae4daafab968f51 – reveals an error in the evidence presented to the court.

“The Infringing File is a zip file that contains a variety of both text and video files owned by Plaintiff,” adding “Excipio further downloaded a full copy of the Infringing File, unzipped it, and reviewed each of the seven works contained in it.”

However, a cursory view of the hash in question reveals there are no ZIP files whatsoever inside the torrent, just plain video, audio and documents.

Technicalities aside, it seems fairly clear what will happen next. Sykes’ chosen lawfirm – Schulz Law – are well known in copyright trolling circles. In fact, lawyer Mary Schulz was sanctioned by the court in a Malibu Media case, something she is now required to report to courts in which she is admitted to practice.

For each infringed work, Sykes’ Millionaire Media, LLC demand statutory damages, attorneys' fees and costs. While the company “demands a trial by jury on all issues so triable” it seems likely that they’ll actually be looking for settlements from the 11 individuals they’ve targeted so far.

Another way to turn a small investment into big money, then.

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

MP3Juices Recovers From UK Police Shutdown With New Domain

Posted: 03 Nov 2014 09:19 AM PST

Over the past few months City of London’s PIPCU anti-piracy unit has been working together with copyright holders to topple sites that provide or link to pirated content.

One of the most-used tactics is to contact domain name registrars, asking them to suspend allegedly infringing domain names. This has resulted in the “shutdown” of a few pirate sites, with the MP3 search engine MP3Juices one of the most recent targets.

With millions of visitors each month MP3Juices was one of the largest sites of its kind, but that changed in September when the site lost its domain name. After the suspension weeks went by without a sign of life from the operators, until this weekend.

Yesterday MP3Juices returned using a new .to domain name. The surprise comeback was announced through the site’s official Facebook page. “We are back:) www.mp3juices.to. Have fun, post any errors/problems below,” the status update reads.

The unexpected resurrection was welcomed by many of the site’s followers, who were delighted to see their favorite MP3 search engine back in action.

MP3Juices is back

At the moment it’s unclear why it took more than a month for the site to move to a new domain. TorrentFreak asked the MP3Juices team for a comment on the comeback and their future plans, but they have yet to respond.

While PIPCU’s domain name suspension was bypassed by MP3Juices, it certainly wasn’t without damage. The site has lost most of its users, with many going to MP3Juices.cc, a site that launched last month.

The MP3Juices.cc team informed TF that they created their site for those who miss the old site. It offers a search engine similar to the original service, and has grown to 150,000 daily visitors in just a few weeks.

So the end result of PIPCU’s actions is that they damaged one site, but inspired the launch of another. Whether the actions of the police have actually resulted in less copyright infringement is doubtful, as availability of pirated content has increased.

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

PirateBay

Torrentfreak: “Android Pirate Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement” plus 3 more

Torrentfreak: “Android Pirate Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement” plus 3 more