Tuesday, February 28, 2017

How to Install Muximux on Docker using Kitematic GUI?

Install Muximux on Docker using KitematicWe already shown how to install Muximux on Docker commandline, which works on all platforms: Windows, Linux, and Mac. Muximux provides a lightweight Web UI to manage your HTPC or Home Server. For people who don’t prefer commandline installation, we presented Kitematic Docker GUI for Windows. In this post, I will show you how simple […]

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‘Kodi Box’ Consultation Launched By Intellectual Property Office

As BitTorrent usage continues year after year, a new piracy opportunity has been gathering momentum in more recent times. Known on the street as ‘Kodi Boxes’ after the legal software they use as a base, these devices enable consumers to access every type of media available, for a very small outlay.

While in the past a full-blown PC would have been used to consume movies, TV shows, music and live events via illicit sites, augmented Kodi setups can achieve the same on cheap set-top Android hardware, even phones and tablets. This barrier to entry is an all-time low in piracy circles and of serious concern to rightsholders.

These concerns are perhaps most visible in the UK, where police and anti-piracy groups have been tackling people who sell this kind of hardware for infringing uses. There have been some arrests and cases are pending, but there appears to be an underlying nervousness that current legislation simply isn’t up to the job. That’s where the government has now stepped in.

In a consultation launched by the Intellectual Property Office, the government calls for input from groups with experience of investigating and prosecuting offenses relating to illicit streaming devices, although anyone with relevant information can participate.

“Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) boxes (also known as set-top boxes, Android TVboxes or Kodi boxes) are small plug and play media servers, originally designed to allow consumers to stream legitimate content (locally stored or legal online content),” the IPO begins.

“Despite the legitimate use of this equipment, software is widely available (illicit Kodi extensions being the best known) which connect the boxes to illegal content through streaming websites, file lockers and BitTorrent trackers.”

The IPO notes that these devices are now widely available from well-known online retailers at low prices, something that has led to a sharp increase in use by consumers. This has unsettled those who make money from the official distribution of copyrighted content.

“Broadcasters and content owners have voiced concerns that, although a range of
existing legislation applies to the sale and use of these devices (as well as the
provision of illicit content streams), the legal framework does not provide sufficient tools to tackle this growing threat,” the IPO notes.

From information published thus far, it seems likely that the government will consider tightening up any branch of legislation that could apply to these devices, whether that concerns their advertising, sale, supply, or even end use.

Under the general banner of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988, the IPO suggests that several pieces of legislation may already apply to Kodi-type devices, including s297 – fraudulent reception of transmissions, s297a – unauthorized decoders, through to s296ZB – devices and services designed to circumvent technological measures

The latter will be tested later this year in the case against Kodi box seller Brian Thompson. It’s unlikely to be straightforward and experts have already warned that prosecutions using existing legislation raise issues.

But while tweaking copyright law seems an obvious choice, the government is urging consideration of other charges too.

Under the Fraud Act 2006, possession and/or making or supplying articles for use in fraud are highlighted, as is the offense of obtaining services dishonestly.

Like “fraudulent reception of transmissions” (listed above in the copyright section), “obtaining services dishonestly” could conceivably be applied to end users of Kodi devices, given the right circumstances. However, the former currently only warrants a fine while the latter has provisions for up to five years imprisonment.

The consultation is certainly interesting and one that is likely to provoke much debate moving forward. In some respects, however, it is a little puzzling.

While a tightening of the law may result in more straightforward prosecutions, it’s difficult to see how current legislation doesn’t already cover most eventualities, particularly when it comes to prosecuting people who advertise and supply boxes for illegal purposes during the course of a business.

However, perhaps the more worrying aspect is what appears to be a new focus on the end users of such devices rather than just the sellers. It’s worth keeping in mind that users of these boxes are merely streaming content from the Internet in much the same way as they would with a normal web browser, something that is probably not illegal under existing EU law.

The consultation (pdf) closes April 7, 2017.

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



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Putlocker Loses Domain Name Following Court Order

putlockerisWith dozens of millions of monthly views, Putlocker.is is the go-to video streaming site for many people.

Up until last weekend, the site was ranked the 252nd most-visited website on the Internet and it’s particularly popular in the United States, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

As one of the largest ‘pirate sites’ on the Internet, Putlocker is a thorn in the side of rightsholders. It’s also on the radar of the US Government after the Office of the US Trade Representative put it on its annual list of “notorious markets,” but actually cited an incorrect domain.

This week another domain issue cropped up for the site. After losing its Putlocker.is domain name late last year, the site’s recent Putlockers.ch fallback is now gone as well.

Users who try to access the site will see that it no longer loads. A Whois search reveals that the domain has been taken over by the registrar EuroDNS, who’ve pointed it to a 127.0.0.1 blackhole.

Putlockers.ch now owned by EuroDNS

TorrentFreak reached out to EuroDNS Chief Legal Officer Luc Seufer who informed us that they were required to take this drastic measure following an order from the Tribunal d’arrondissement de Luxembourg.

The court rendered a decision in favor of the Belgian Entertainment Association last week, which required the registrar to suspend the domain. To avoid the Putlocker operator from taking it to another registrar, EuroDNS is now listed as the owner.

“The owner modification was the sole means we had at our disposal to comply with the decision which requires that EuroDNS prevent any ‘reactivation’ of this domain name until its expiration date,” Seufer informs us.

“Our customer has been duly notified and provided with a copy of the decision,” he adds.

The Putlocker team has yet to comment on the issue. The site’s official Facebook page hasn’t been updated since the downtime, despite a barrage of questions from users. The most recent message is from last week, referring to an earlier ‘attack.’

At the time the site also warned not to trust various copycats, which ironically are widely promoted elsewhere on the Facebook page now.

To find out more about the nature of the blocking order and other potential targets we contacted the Belgian Entertainment Association. However, at the time of publication, we have yet to receive a reply.

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



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Monday, February 27, 2017

5 Best Kodi Skins for Fire TV 2017 – Speed, Looks, Performance

Kodi Skins for Amazon Fire TVWe have previously listed some of the best Kodi skins for Fire TV in our 2016 list. Now, it is time to update as Kodi Krypton is out. The number of available Kodi skins out there is growing and most of them are fully compatible with Android and the Amazon Fire TV. With Kodi running […]

5 Best Kodi Skins for Fire TV 2017 – Speed, Looks, Performance is a post from htpcBeginner.



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Megaupload Case Takes Toll on Finn Batato, But He’ll Keep Fighting

Whenever there’s a new headline about the years-long prosecution of Megaupload, it is usually Kim Dotcom’s image adorning publications around the world. In many ways, the German-born entrepreneur is the face of the United States’ case against the defunct storage site, and he appears to like it that way.

Thanks to his continuous presence on Twitter, regular appearances in the media, alongside promotion of new file-sharing platforms, one might be forgiven for thinking Dotcom was fighting the US single-handedly. But quietly and very much in the background, three other men are also battling for their freedom.

Megaupload programmers Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk face a similar fate to Dotcom but have stayed almost completely silent since their arrests in 2012. Former site advertising manager Finn Batato, whose name headlines the entire case (US v. Finn Batato) has been a little more vocal though, and from recent comments we learn that the US prosecution is taking its toll.

Seven years ago before the raid, Batato was riding the crest of a wave as Megaupload’s CMO. According to the FBI he pocketed $630,000 in 2010 and was regularly seen out with Dotcom having fun, racing around the Nürburgring’s Nordschleife track with Formula 1 star Kimi Raikkonen, for example. But things are different now.

Finn with Kimi Raikkonen

While still involved with Mega, the new file-sharing site that Dotcom founded and then left after what appears to be an acrimonious split, Batato is reportedly feeling the pressure. In a new interview with Newshub, the marketing expert says that his marriage is on the rocks, a direct result of the US case against him.

According to Batato, he’s now living in someone else’s house, something he hasn’t done “for 25 years.” It’s a far cry from the waterside luxury being enjoyed by Dotcom.

Batato met wife Anastasia back in 2012, not long after the raid and while he was still under house arrest. The pair married in 2015 and have two children, Leo and Oskar.

“The constant pressure over your head – not knowing what is there to come, is very hard, very tough,” Batato said in an earlier interview with NZHerald.

“Everything that happens in our life happens with that big black cloud over our heads which especially has an impact on me and my mood because I can’t just switch it off. If everything goes down the hill, maybe I will see [my sons] once every month in a prison cell. That breaks my heart. I can’t enjoy it as much as I would want to. It’s highly stressful.”

Since then, Batato has been busy. While working as Mega’s Chief Marketing Officer, the German citizen has been learning about the law. He’s had to. Unlike Dotcom who can retain the best lawyers in the game, Batato says he has few resources.

What savings he had were seized on the orders of the United States in Hong Kong back in 2012, and he previously admitted to having to check his bank account before buying groceries. As a result he’s been conducting his own legal defense for almost two years.

In 2015 he reportedly received praise while doing so, with lawyers appearing for his co-defendants commending him when he stood up to argue a point during a Megaupload hearing. “I was kind of proud about that,” he said.

Like Dotcom (with whom he claims to be on “good terms”), Batato insists that he’s done nothing wrong. He shares his former colleague’s optimism that he won’t be extradited and will take his case to the Supreme Court, should all else fail.

That may be necessary. Last week, the New Zealand High Court determined that Batato and his co-defendants can be extradited to the US, albeit not on copyright grounds. Justice Murray Gilbert agreed with the US Government’s position that their case has fraud at its core, an extraditable offense.

In the short term, the case is expected to move to the Court of Appeal and, depending on the outcome there, potentially to the Supreme Court. Either way, this case still has years to run with plenty more legal appearances for Batato. He won’t be doing it with the legal backup enjoyed by Dotcom but he’ll share his determination.

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



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Pirate Bay Prosecution In Trouble, Time Runs Out For Investigators

pirate bayDecember 2014, The Pirate Bay went dark after police raided the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof datacenter built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

The hosting facility reportedly offered services to The Pirate Bay, EZTV and several other torrent related sites, which were pulled offline as a result.

The authorities later announced that 50 servers were seized during the raid. And not without success, it seemed. The raid resulted in the longest ever period of downtime for The Pirate Bay, nearly two months, and led to chaos and a revolt among the site’s staffers.

However, despite a new criminal investigation into The Pirate Bay, the site has been operating as usual for a while now. As it now transpires, the raid may not result in any future prosecutions.

According to prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson, who took over the case from Fredrik Ingblad last year, time is running out. Some of the alleged crimes date back more than five years, which is outside the statute of limitations.

“Some of the suspected crimes are from 2011, although the seizures are from 2014. And the statute of limitations on them are five years,” prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson told IDG.

While several years have passed, there’s not much progress to report. The police provided the prosecutor with some updates along the way, but it’s not clear when the investigation will be completed.

“I have over time received new information from the police, but I have not received any clear indication of when the investigation will be completed,” the prosecutor said.

Even if the investigation is finalized, there are still a lot of steps to take before any indictments are ready. Meanwhile, the quality of the evidence isn’t getting any better. Based on his comments, the prosecutor isn’t very optimistic in this regard.

“The oral evidence could get worse because people forget. There may be difficulties with other monitoring data that may have changed or disappeared, such as registers and data restorations,” he said.

This isn’t the first setback for the authorities. Previously, they had to drop one of the main suspects from the case as they lacked sufficient resources to analyze the data that were seized during the raid.

On top of that, people from the Pirate Bay team itself said that if they were indeed the target, the police didn’t have much on them.

According to the TPB team, only one of their servers was confiscated in 2014, and this one was hosted at a different location. The server in question was operated by the moderators and used as a communication channel for TPB matters.

The team said that it chose to pull their actual site offline as a precaution but that relocating to a new home proved to be harder than expected, hence the prolonged downtime.

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



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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 02/27/17

This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:
Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1 (…) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 7.6 / trailer
2 (6) Passengers 7.1 / trailer
3 (1) Doctor Strange 8.0 / trailer
4 (5) Assassin’s Creed (Subbed HDRip) 6.3 / trailer
5 (3) Arrival 8.3 / trailer
6 (2) Moana 7.8 / trailer
7 (…) Collateral Beauty 6.6 / trailer
8 (4) Hacksaw Ridge 8.5 / trailer
9 (10) Jack Reacher: Never Go Back 6.3 / trailer
10 (8) La La Land (DVDscr) 8.8 / trailer

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



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Sunday, February 26, 2017

Best HTPC for Kodi with 4K on a Medium Budget 2017 (~$400)

4K HTPC for KodiKodi media center and the streaming world are moving towards 4K resolutions. HD technology is now old news and media players, media files and video encoder software providers are all looking towards 4K. With Kodi leading the way for media center software solutions it is relatively simple to put together a 4K ready HTPC system. […]

Best HTPC for Kodi with 4K on a Medium Budget 2017 (~$400) is a post from htpcBeginner.



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Torrent Legend Mininova Will Shut Down For Good

In December 2004, the demise of the mighty Suprnova left a meteor crater in the fledgling BitTorrent landscape.

This gaping hole was soon filled by the dozens of new sites that emerged to fulfill the public’s increasing demands for torrents. Mininova soon became the most successful of them all.

Mininova was founded by five Dutch students just a month after Suprnova closed its doors. The site initially began as a hobby project, but in the years that followed the site’s founders managed to turn it into a successful business that generated millions of dollars in revenue.

With this success also came legal pressure. Even though the site complied with takedown requests, copyright holders were not amused. In 2009 this eventually resulted in a lawsuit filed by local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which Mininova lost.

As a result, the site had to remove all infringing torrents, a move which ended its reign. The site remained online but instead of allowing everyone to upload content, Mininova permitted only pre-approved publishers to submit files.

Now, more than seven years after “going legal” the site will shut down for good. A notice published on the website urges uploaders to back up their files before April 4th, when the plug will be pulled.

Mininova’s shutting down

The decision doesn’t mean that the legal contribution platform was a total failure. In fact, over 950 million ‘legal’ torrents were downloaded from Mininova in recent years. However, the site’s income couldn’t make up for the costs.

“All goods things come to an end, and after more than 12 years we think it’s a good time to shut down the site which has been running at a loss for some years,” Mininova co-founder Niek tells TorrentFreak.

Looking back, Mininova has many great memories. The site’s users have always been very grateful, for example, and there were also several artists who thanked the site’s operators for offering them a great promotional tool.

“The support from our users was especially amazing to experience, millions of people used the site on a daily basis and we got many emails each day – ranging from a simple ‘thank you’ to some extensive story how a specific upload made their day,” Niek says.

“The feedback from artists was great to see as well, many thanked us for promoting their content, as some of them broke through and signed with labels as a result,” he adds.

The file-sharing and piracy ecosystem has changed quite a bit since Mininova’s dominance. File-hosting services became more popular first, and nowadays streaming sites and tools with slick user interfaces are the new standard.

Torrent sites, on the other hand, show little progress according to Mininova’s founder, who believes that the growth of legal services could make them less relevant in the future.

“We haven’t seen many changes in the last decade – the current torrent sites look very similar to what Mininova did twelve years ago,” Niek says.

“With content-specific distribution platforms such as Spotify and Netflix becoming more and more widespread and bandwidth becoming cheaper, there might be less of a need for torrent sites in the future.”

The original founders of Mininova have moved on as well. They’re no longer students and have parted ways, moving on to different projects and ventures. Now and then, however, they look back at how their lives looked ten years ago, with a smile.

“Overall we’re happy that we have been a part of the history of the Internet,” Niek concludes.

“We want to thank everybody who has been around and supported us through the times! Without our users, there would have been no Mininova. So THANK YOU!”

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



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Russia Drafts Legislation to Remove Pirate Sites From Search Engines

Copyright holders all over the world believe that search engines play a crucial role in the piracy ecosystem. They argue that when seeking out content, people often use sites like Google, which can lead them to infringing material on pirate sites.

Entertainment companies can address the problem by sending takedown notices, but they insist that’s a very inefficient process. Pirate content is way too visible in search results, they argue, particularly when it appears in the first few pages of results.

With most countries continuing to grapple with the issue, it now appears that Russia intends to legislate against it. This week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev submitted a draft bill to parliament that will force search engines to remove specified pirate sites from their results.

Developed by the Ministry of Communications, the bill will compel search companies such as Google and local giant Yandex to deindex sites that have failed to respond to takedown requests on several occasions, perhaps as little as twice.

One such example is huge torrent site RuTracker, which was blocked by local ISPs following an order from the Moscow City Court. RuTracker was effectively told to remove around 320,000 torrents to avoid a ban but chose not to do so after running a poll among its users. Under current legislation, RuTracker is now blocked for life, and if the new law is passed, all of its pages will disappear from search engines.

The draft bill also targets counter-measures employed by sites attempting to circumvent ISP blockades.

Often, when one domain is blocked, sites will buy new domains in an effort to keep going. Others will use proxy sites and even full-scale mirrors to stay one step ahead of the court. The bill refers to all of these options as “derivative sites” and will allow for them to be blocked without further court process.

The bill was approved during a government meeting on February 17 and will now pass through its various parliamentary stages before becoming law.

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



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