Released in the first quarter of 2014, any minute now Popcorn Time will celebrate its one year anniversary.
It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the various forks of the project after generating hundreds of headlines between them. Needless to say, many have focused on how the project provides sleek access to unauthorized content.
Predictably that ease of use has proven most popular in the United States but interestingly Popcorn Time also proved itself a disproportionate hit in the Netherlands. Last September one fork reported 1.3 million installs in a population of just 17 million.
No surprise then that Popcorn Time has appeared on the radar of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. The Hollywood-affiliated group has been relatively quiet in recent months but is now reporting action aimed at stemming the flow of users to the popular torrent streaming application.
Denouncing Popcorn Time as an “illegal service”, BREIN reports that it has recently shut down “six Dutch Popcorn Time sites” and reached a settlement with their operators.
BREIN usually keeps the names of shuttered sites a closely guarded secret, but on this occasion has chosen to name four out of the six.
PopcornTime.nl, Popcorn-Time.eu, Popcorn-Time.info and PopcornTimeFilms.nl are now non-operational and currently display the warning message below as per their agreement with BREIN.
This site has been removed by the BREIN foundation for propagating Popcorn Time Software.
Popcorn Time encourages illegal use and uses an illegal online supply of films and television series.
WARNING: Popcorn Time software uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology allowing users to both up – and download. Streaming, uploading and downloading of illegal content is prohibited by law and will therefore result in liability for the damages caused.
NOTE: Uploading is illegal and causes greater damage than a single download.
SUPPORT CREATIVITY: Go to Thecontentmap.nl and see where you can legally download and stream.
Category: Censorship
The World’s Most Idiotic Copyright Complaint
At least once a month TorrentFreak reports on the often crazy world of DMCA takedown notices. Google is kind enough to publish thousands of them in its Transparency Report and we’re only too happy to spend hours trawling through them.
Every now and again a real gem comes to light, often featuring mistakes that show why making these notices public is not only a great idea but also in the public interest. The ones we found this week not only underline that assertion in bold, but are actually the worst examples of incompetence we’ve ever seen.
German-based Total Wipes Music Group have made these pages before after trying to censor entirely legal content published by Walmart, Ikea, Fair Trade USA and Dunkin Donuts. This week, however, their earlier efforts were eclipsed on a massive scale.
wipedFirst, in an effort to ‘protect’ their album “Truth or Dare” on Maze Records, the company tried to censor a TorrentFreak article from 2012 on how to download anonymously. The notice, found here, targets dozens of privacy-focused articles simply because they have the word “hide” in them.
But it gets worse – much worse. ‘Protecting’ an album called “Cigarettes” on Mona Records, Total Wipes sent Google a notice containing not a single infringing link. Unbelievably one of the URLs targeted an article on how to use PGP on the Mac. It was published by none other than the EFF.
Aussie ISPs Advocate “Three Strikes” Solution to Piracy
After developing a reputation for being some of the most prolific online pirates around, last year Australian citizens were told by the government that enough is enough.
Since years of negotiations between ISPs and entertainment companies had gone nowhere, service providers were told to propose voluntary measures to deter and educate pirating subscribers or have one forced upon them by law.
With a deadline looming, telecoms body the Communications Alliance has now published its draft proposal on behalf of its ISP members. Titled “Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code”, the 34-page document hopes to pacify rightsholders and their allies in government by outlining a graduated response mechanism to deal with file-sharers.
“The Copyright Notice Scheme Code is designed to facilitate a cooperative industry-led copyright notice scheme through which
Internet Service Providers and the owners of copyright works will work to deter the practice of online copyright infringement and inform consumers about available and lawful content alternatives,” the draft begins.“The Code provides for the creation of a copyright notice scheme under which ISPs will accept reports (in a prescribed format) from Rights Holders. The reports will identify Internet Protocol addresses that a Rights Holder alleges have been used to infringe copyright in online work of the Rights Holder. The reports will request that the relevant ISP notify the relevant Account Holders of the alleged infringements.”
Eric Holder Says Putting Reporter James Risen Through Hell Is A Good ‘Example’ Of DOJ Process For Leak Investigations
Attorney General Holder raised some eyebrows earlier this week when answering a question about his Justice Department’s notorious crackdown on leaks, and by extension the press, most notably saying this about its notorious pursuit of New York Times reporter James Risen, while claiming the DOJ did nothing wrong:
If you look at the last case involving Mr. Risen, the way in which that case was handled after the new policies were put in place [is] an example of how the Justice Department can proceed.
The District Sentinel aptly took apart most of Holder’s comments, and they also provoked a stinging rebuke from Risen himself last night on Twitter. However, I think the facts of Risen’s case deserve a closer look to see just how unbelievable Holder’s statement is.
Let’s recap: since the very start of the Obama administration (read: for SIX years), the Justice Department was trying to subpoena James Risen. It fought for him to testify at a grand jury of CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, which he refused to do, and when they were rejected by the court, it fought to have him testify in Sterling’s trial. They fought Risen on this all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Also, keep in mind, while the “new” media/leak guidelines that Holder bragged about are certainly a step forward, the old guidelines that applied to Risen’s case should have protected him just the same from the start—if they were actually enforced. He doesn’t get to pretend the preceding five and a half years didn’t happen just because he stregthened the Justice Department’s rules after public protest.
The case cost Risen and his publisher an untold fortune in legal fees, dominated his life, took away from time he could’ve spent reporting, and likely cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.
Along the way, we found out that the government had spied on virtually every aspect of James Risen’s digital life from phone calls, to emails, to credit card statements, bank records and more. (By the way, we still have no idea how they got this information. That’s secret.)
The Justice Department argued in court that not only was there no reporter’s privilege whatsoever — either embedded in the First Amendment or in Fourth Circuit common law — but also that journalists protecting sources was analogous to protecting drug dealers from prosecution.
If You Care About The Environment In Canada, You May Be Targeted As An ‘Anti-Petroleum Extremist’
The legislation identifies “activity that undermines the security of Canada” as anything that interferes with the economic or financial stability of Canada or with the country’s critical infrastructure, though it excludes lawful protest or dissent. And it allows the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service to take measures to reduce what it perceives to be threats to the security of Canada.
Clearly, that’s an incredibly broad definition, and would apply to just about any environmental or social movement — especially since even the most peaceful protests are often considered “illegal.” That, in its turn would allow Canada’s security agencies to collect information on these groups, and “disrupt” them. What’s also troubling about the leaked RCMP “intelligence assessment” that forms the source for the Globe and Mail story is the very clear political position it seems to be taking on fossil fuels and climate change:
The report extolls the value of the oil and gas sector to the Canadian economy, and adds that many environmentalists “claim” that climate change is the most serious global environmental threat, and “claim” it is a direct consequence of human activity and is “reportedly” linked to the use of fossil fuels.
Tumblr Censors “Torrent” Related Tags and Searches
It appears that piracy is becoming a growing concern for micro-blogging platform Tumblr.
Earlier this week users panicked following an increase in takedown notices, which resulted in the termination of several blogs.
While this uproar was rather public, there are also better concealed changes that seem to target pirated content. Tumblr’s decision to hide posts mentioning the word “torrent” for example.
Those who search the site for “torrent” related queries will notice that there are no results displayed, even though there are plenty of posts mentioning the word. The same is true for posts tagged with “torrent.”
Tumblr is hiding the results in question from both public and logged in users but the latter can make the posts show up if they switch off the “safe mode” lock on the right hand side of the screen.
Tumblr’s “safe mode” was turned on by default over a year ago to hide offensive “adult oriented” content from the public view. The same filter also blocks words such as “penis” for the same reason.
Stephen Kim Spoke to a Reporter. Now He’s in Jail. This Is His Story.
ON THE MORNING of June 11, 2009, James Rosen stepped inside the State Department, scanned his building badge and made his way to the Fox News office in the busy press room on the second floor. It was going to be a hectic day. Like other reporters working the phones that morning, Rosen was looking for fresh news about the latest crisis with North Korea.
Two weeks earlier, North Korea had conducted a nuclear detonation that showed the rest of the world it possessed a functioning bomb. The United Nations was on the verge of a formal condemnation, but no one at the U.N. or inside the U.S. government knew how North Korea’s unpredictable regime would respond and whether things might escalate toward war.
Rosen called Stephen Kim, a State Department expert on rogue nations and weapons of mass destruction. Kim, a U.S. citizen who was born in South Korea, spoke fluent Korean and had worked at one of America’s nuclear-weapons labs. He probably knew more about what was going on in Pyongyang than almost anyone else in the building.
The call, according to metadata collected by the FBI, lasted just half a minute, but soon afterward Kim called Rosen and they talked for nearly a dozen minutes. After that conversation, they left the building at roughly the same time, then spoke once more on the phone after they both returned.
A classified report on North Korea had just begun circulating, and Kim was among the restricted number of officials with clearance to read it. He logged onto a secure computer, called up the report at 11:27 a.m., and phoned Rosen 10 minutes later. A few minutes past noon, he left the building again, and a minute later Rosen followed. The destruction of Kim’s life would center on the question of what the two men discussed during that brief encounter outside the State Department.
Russia Reaches The Censorship Endgame: Banning VPNs, Tor And Web Proxies
Speaking at Infoforum-2015, Russian MP Leonid Levin, who is deputy head of the Duma Committee on information politics, indicated that access to anonymization and circumvention tools such as TOR, VPNs and even web proxies, needs to be restricted.
Steam Censors Kickass.to Mentions in Chat Client
Interestingly, it appears that Steam doesn’t want its users to talk about certain topics. When the popular torrent site KickassTorrents went offline earlier this week, one Steam user noticed that his messages on the topic were being censored.
“There is no warning or blocked message notification. The messages simply disappeared,” we were told.
After running some tests, which have been replicated by TF, it’s clear that messages mentioning the Kickass.to domain name are not coming through. It’s not just the domain that’s censored, but the entire message.
FCC’s Ajit Pai: By Making Sure The Internet Is Open And Free… It Will Inspire North Korea And Cuba To Censor
I should note, upfront, that I’ve had the chance to meet FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai a couple of times, and always found him to be interesting and knowledgeable, as well as engaged on important issues. Yet, for whatever reason, when it comes to net neutrality issues, the former Verizon lawyer (clue number 1) seems to have gone off the deep end, tossed all logic and intellectual honesty out the window, in an effort to just lash out angrily with whatever he’s got. We’ve talked about his incoherent attack on Netflix and his sudden and newfound love of transparency (never noted before…).
But his latest move just strips whatever credibility he may have had on the subject completely away. He’s insisting that the FCC’s new net neutrality rules (which he opposes) will inspire North Korea and Iran to further control and censor the internet (which they already control and heavily censor). And he’s not arguing this in a “they hate us for our freedom” way, but he’s actively lying and claiming that this move — a move to guarantee openness and not censorship online — will give the North Korean and Iranian governments the political cover to censor the internet. Let’s be frank, Pai’s statements are complete nonsense.
“If in the United States we adopt regulations that assert more government control over how the Internet operates … it becomes a lot more difficult for us to go on the international stage and tell governments: ‘Look, we want you to keep your hands off the internet,’” he said.
“Even if the ideas aren’t completely identical, you can appreciate the optical difficult in trying to make that case,” he added.