Torrentfreak: “Music Group Threatens Popcorn Time’s Blog Platform” plus 1 more

Music Group Threatens Popcorn Time’s Blog Platform

Posted: 29 Jan 2015 02:36 AM PST

In a few weeks time the Popcorn Time phenomenon will reach a symbolic milestone when the ‘Netflix for Pirates’ celebrates its first birthday.

Of course, after serving millions of users in a short space of time, copyright holders have their eyes on the now-several forks of the popular project. Today we have news of yet another effort to limit the software’s reach.

PopcornTime.io is considered by many to be the true successor to the original Popcorn Time project that was shut down just weeks after it launched in 2014. Its development team is proudly open source and operates with an ethos closely aligned with that of the original team. It also receives similar legal threats and the latest to involve the project is somewhat of a head-scratcher.

PopcornTime.io has a blog where it publishes important updates. The latest entry heralds the project’s latest Android client in all its bug-fixed glory. It’s presented using the Ghost open source blogging platform and quite bizarrely copyright holders are trying to change that.

“The Greek equivalent of RIAA are threatening @TryGhost with legal action because we host @popcorntimetv's blog,” Ghost founder John O’Nolan said this week.

“Good luck with that, Greece.”

Somewhat intrigued, TorrentFreak contacted O’Nolan – the former Deputy Head of the WordPress UI Group – who confirmed the threats.

“We were incredibly shocked to be contacted by a representative in 2015 requesting the personal information of one of our users without any basis. The clear lack of understanding here is worrying on many levels,” O’Nolan told TF.

And it gets worse. In the first instance O’Nolan thought that his company was actually hosting Popcorn Time’s blog, but in fact its being hosted by the project itself. All O’Nolan does is offer the completely neutral Ghost blogging platform.

To try and get to the bottom of this curious situation we contacted the organization targeting Popcorn Time. AEPI, the Greek Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property, did not officially respond to our request for comment. However, we did manage to learn more about this music group’s claim.

It appears that since Popcorn Time allows people to download movies and TV shows that have music playing in the background, AEPI believes that Popcorn Time should pay royalties and/or a music licensing fee to do so legally in Greece.

While it seems unlikely that the project is interested in any such license, the complaint to Ghost has only warmed relations between the blogging platform and Popcorn Time.

“If you ever have a need for more security/encryption features – don't hesitate to reach out,” O’Nolan ‏informed the project. “Likewise if you have any trouble with your current host, we'll host you.”

And as far as Popcorn Time are concerned, there’s only one blogging platform for them.

“We use Ghost as our blogging platform because it’s lightweight yet packed full of features. Unlike WordPress you can concentrate on writing your post. Throw in the fact it’s open source and written on Node.js and it’s the perfect match!” the team told TF.

It’s not been a good 2015 for AEPI thus far. Earlier this month the anti-piracy group lost its bid to have various torrent sites blocked by local ISPs. The Athens Court ruled that barring access to torrent sites such as KickassTorrents and The Pirate Bay would be disproportionate, unconstitutional, and would hinder ISPs’ entrepreneurial freedoms.

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

How Cunning VOD Pirates Plundered Taken 3

Posted: 28 Jan 2015 01:06 PM PST

Soon after its U.S. premiere on January 9, pirate copies of the new Liam Neeson movie Taken 3 began appearing online. While quality was decent for a ‘cam’ recording, it was nothing to get really excited about.

As it happened that didn’t matter too much since most downloaders were already preoccupied with the recent flood of high quality Oscar screeners. Nevertheless, those who ventured into a cinema to record Taken 3 are likely to have exposed themselves to considerable risk.

In many countries one can end up in jail for such activities, especially when recording is followed by uploading to the Internet. But just a week later new events meant that the Taken 3 pirates’ dance with danger would largely be forgotten.

Last Thursday an HD copy of Taken 3 appeared on all major torrent sites but thanks to an earlier tipoff, that came as no surprise to us. Several days earlier a source already told TF that a “pristine” copy of Taken 3 would become available on January 22. So how did he know? The answer lies thousands of miles away in the Middle East.

OSN is a pay TV network with its headquarters in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The network offers international entertainment content such as movies, TV shows and sporting events. Perhaps surprisingly to readers in the West, it also provides access to movies still running in U.S. theaters.

As can be seen from the image of an OSN TV screen below, Taken 3 was due to air on the PPV network on January 22.

TF was assured that a copy would quickly by pirated using OSN as several other popular movies had also been ‘capped’ from the same source in recent times. Sure enough, the first copies to appear online last Thursday all appeared with tell-tale Arabic subtitles or a suspiciously narrow image window where they’d been cropped out.

While it’s not easy to say whether all ‘subbed’ copies now online originate from the first original ‘capping’ of Taken 3, we know that the first ‘big’ copy on Western sites (uploaded by a group called CPG) was not the first overall.

Those honors fell to a group called “weleef” who uploaded this “exclusive” to Arabic forum ArabScene shortly after the first showings on OSN.

Of course, thanks to this source people from all around the globe were able to watch a good copy of the movie, despite it still playing in cinemas in the United States and elsewhere. Sadly, even those wanting to pay for the movie in the U.S. will have to wait until April 2015 for a VOD release.

Why Hollywood treats citizens in the Middle East and Asia better than its home audience is anyone’s guess, but if defeating piracy is the goal the practice might be backfiring.

Our source says that a Chinese VOD site already has 50 Shades of Grey listed for an end of February release, two weeks after its Valentine’s Day premiere in the U.S. Only a month to find out if that leaks too.

Update: A new and non-subtitled copy of Taken 3 is now flourishing online. The source? An OSN set-top box…

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