Monday, April 30, 2018

US Calls Out Dozens of Countries on Yearly ‘Piracy Watchlist’

ustrEvery year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes its Special 301 Report highlighting countries that aren’t doing enough to protect US intellectual property rights.

The format remains the same as in previous years and lists roughly two dozen countries that, for different reasons, threaten the intellectual property rights of US companies.

The latest report deals with a wide range of issues including several problems linked to online piracy. One of the things which stand out, is that the USTR does a fair bit of copying itself, albeit with permission.

Entire sections of the report, including the recommendations and country overviews, are identical to last year. In some cases, the US Government didn’t even bother to update the year.

“The 2017 Notorious Markets List includes examples of online marketplaces reportedly engaging in commercial-scale online piracy, including sites hosted in or operated by parties located in Canada, China, Cyprus, India, the Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and elsewhere,” USTR writes, for example.

Most of the concrete piracy related problems mentioned in the report are in line with the talking points the entertainment industries have addressed in recent years. This includes stream-ripping, illicit streaming devices, and general pirate sites.

The USTR also mentions the increase in camcording piracy in Russia, which the MPAA reported a few months ago. In addition to a “lack of enforcement against intellectual property crimes” this one of the reasons why Russia remains on the Priority Watch List in 2018.

For Canada, there is bad news as well. While the country has been on USTR’s radar for many years, it has had been moved to the Priority Watch List in 2018, making it the only G7 country among the worst offenders.

“Canada remains the only G7 country identified in the Special 301 Report and the downgrade to the Priority Watch List this year reflects a failure to resolve key longstanding deficiencies in protection and enforcement of IP,” USTR writes.

Among other things, the US sees Canada’s copyright exception for educational purposes as a grave concern.

“The United States also remains deeply troubled by the ambiguous education-related exception to copyright that has significantly damaged the market for educational publishers and authors,” USTR writes.

Whether this is a major concern for the Canadian authorities remains to be seen. Canada previously said that it doesn’t trust the validity of the Special 301 Report and that the country will follow its own path, a sentiment that it shared elsewhere too.

“Canada does not recognize the validity of the Special 301 and considers the process and the Report to be flawed,” Canada’s Government wrote in a memo, responding to an earlier 301 report.

Switzerland also remains on notice with a feature on the Watch List. Just a few months ago, the European country urged the USTR to keep it off the list, as its new copyright law addresses the major concerns the US highlighted in the previous year.

However, since the proposed law has yet to be signed into law, Switzerland will keep its spot for now. The USTR also adds that the country may want to consider consumer awareness campaigns, public education, and voluntary stakeholder initiatives to further deter piracy.

The USTR’s full 301 Watch List and Priority Watch List are listed below and the associated report is available here (pdf).

Priority Watch List
– China
– Indonesia
– India
– Algeria
– Kuwait
– Russia
– Ukraine
– Argentina
– Canada
– Chile
– Colombia
– Venezuela

Watch List
– Thailand
– Vietnam
– Pakistan
– Tajikistan
– Turkmenistan
– Uzbekistan
– Egypt
– Lebanon
– Saudi Arabia
– UAE
– Greece
– Romania
– Switzerland
– Turkey
– Mexico
– Costa Rica

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Reddit Repeat Infringer Policy Shuts Down Megalinks Piracy Sub

Without doubt, Reddit is one of the most popular sites on the entire Internet. At the time of writing it’s the fourth most visited site in the US with 330 million users per month generating 14 billion screenviews.

The core of the site’s success is its communities. Known as ‘sub-Reddits’ or just ‘subs’, there are currently 138,000 of them dedicated to every single subject you can think of and tens of thousands you’d never considered.

Even though they’re technically forbidden, a small but significant number are dedicated to piracy, offering links to copyright-infringing content hosted elsewhere. One of the most popular is /r/megalinks, which is dedicated to listing infringing content (mainly movies and TV shows) uploaded to file-hosting site Mega.

Considering its activities, Megalinks has managed to stay online longer than most people imagined but following an intervention from Reddit, the content indexing sub has stopped accepting new submissions, which will effectively shut it down.

In an announcement Sunday, the sub’s moderators explained that following a direct warning from Reddit’s administrators, the decision had been taken to move on.

“As most of you know by now, we’ve had to deal with a lot of DMCA takedowns over the last 6 months. Everyone knew this day would come, eventually, and its finally here,” they wrote.

“We received a formal warning from Reddit’s administration 2 days ago, and have decided to restrict new submissions for the safety of the subreddit.”

The message from Reddit’s operators makes it absolutely clear that Reddit isn’t the platform to host what amounts to a piracy links forum.

“This is an official warning from Reddit that we are receiving too many copyright infringement notices about material posted to your community. We will be required to ban this community if you can’t adequately address the problem,” the warning reads.

Noting that Redditors aren’t allowed to post content that infringes copyrights, the administrators say they are required by law to handle DMCA notices and that in cases where infringement happens on multiple occasions, that needs to be handled in a more aggressive manner.

“The law also requires us to issue bans in cases of repeat infringement. Sometimes a repeat infringement problem is limited to just one user and we ban just that person. Other times the problem pervades a whole community and we ban the community,” the admins continue.

“This is our formal warning about repeat infringement in this community. Over the past three months we’ve had to remove material from the community in response to copyright notices 60 times. That’s an unusually high number taking into account the community’s size.

The warning suggests ways to keep infringing content down but in a sub dedicated to piracy, they’re all completely irrelevant. It also suggests removing old posts to ensure that Reddit doesn’t keep getting notices, but that would mean deleting pretty much everything. Backups exist but a simple file is a poor substitute for a community.

So, with Reddit warning that without change the sub will be banned, the moderators of /r/megalinks have decided to move on to a new home. Reportedly hosted ‘offshore’, their new forum already has more than 9,800 members and is likely to grow quickly as the word spreads.

A month ago, the /r/megaporn sub-Reddit suffered a similar fate following a warning from Reddit’s admins. It successfully launched a new external forum which is why the Megalinks crew decided on the same model.

“[A]fter seeing how /r/megaporn approached the same situation, we had started working on an offshore forum a week ago in anticipation of the ban. This allows us to work however we want, without having to deal with Reddit’s policies and administration,” the team explain.

Ever since the BMG v Cox case went bad ways for the ISP in 2015, repeat infringer policies have become a very hot topic in the US. That Reddit is now drawing a line in the sand over a relatively small number of complaints (at least compared to other similar platforms) is clear notice that Reddit and blatant piracy won’t be allowed to walk hand in hand.

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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 04/30/18

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Avengers: Infinity War 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 (…) Avengers: Infinity War (HDCam) 9.1 / trailer
2 (2) 12 Strong 6.8 / trailer
3 (1) Pacific Rim: Uprising (Subbed HDrip) 5.9 / trailer
4 (4) Maze Runner: The Death Cure 6.8 / trailer
5 (3) Den of Thieves 7.0 / trailer
6 (6) Black Panther (HDTS) 7.9 / trailer
7 (…) Fifty Shades Freed 4.4 / trailer
8 (5) Red Sparrow (Subbed HDrip) 6.7 / trailer
9 (8) The Greatest Showman 7.9 / trailer
10 (…) What Happened to monday 6.9 / trailer

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Sunday, April 29, 2018

The Pirate Bay’s Rebellious History… in Doodles

Later this year, The Pirate Bay will celebrate its 15th anniversary.

That’s quite an achievement for any website, but for a pirate site in particular, considering the mounting legal pressures.

The Pirate Bay is not an ordinary torrent site though. It has a long and rich history that, unfortunately, appears to be fading.

Up until a few years ago TPB frequently replaced its iconic pirate ship logo to send a message. These ‘doodles’ were pieces of art in their own right and have long been documented on a dedicated page.

However, when we checked this page a few days ago we noticed that the doodles only go back to 2014. This means that dozens of earlier pieces are missing, which is a crying shame. So, for the sake of history, we tracked down whatever we could and have published our findings here.

Below is our overview of TPB’s doodles in chronological order. Many of the titles are the ones TPB used. The list doesn’t include ‘ads’ or artist promos, which sometimes were just videos, but otherwise, it should be relatively complete.

The Grand Theft Bay – 24 October, 2004

The first doodle we’re aware of, celebrating the pirated release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

The Pear Bay – 20 August, 2005

The Pirate Bay renamed itself to The Pear Bay when Apple x86 OS leaked. The logo linked to a search which led visitors directly to it.

Merry Christmas! – 24 December, 2005

The Pirate Bay wished all its visitors a Merry Christmas. As far as we know, this doodle hasn’t been reused in recent years.

Nice game got released – 24 October, 2005

Another pirate game release, Quake 4 this time. It’s clear what some of the TPB people were up to in their spare time.

The Pirat eBay – 21 January, 2006

The Pirate Bay crew auctioned a night of partying to the highest bidder on eBay. “Since we have a lot of bandwidth usage and low salaries for working on our site, we’ve decided to go prostitutes on you and sell ourselves for money,” they wrote.

The Police Bay – 3 June, 2006

Three days after The Pirate Bay was raided for the first time, the site returned with their cannons aimed at Hollywood.

The Phoenix Bay – 18 June, 2006


With The Pirate Bay raid still dominating the news and political agenda, the site’s operator added another message. “Like the phoenix bird, The Pirate Bay will always rise again.”

Ladonia Invasion – 25 July, 2006

The Piratebay openly supported the ‘war’ against Ladonia, a micronation located in the south of Sweden. Yet another political statement.

Steal This Film – 21 August, 2006

Pirate Bay promoting the release of the documentary Steal This Film featuring its co-founders Brokep and Anakata, directed by Jamie King.

Party Aftermath – 8 October, 2006

The Pirate Bay crew had a party but didn’t bother to clean up. Instead, they put a photo of the aftermath on the frontpage.

Pirate Bay + WESC = <3 - 11 October, 2006

A pirate site teaming up with the street fashion company “WeSC”? While brands shun these links nowadays, it was all possible ten years ago.

Talk Like a Pirate Day – 19 September, 2006

Good pirates talk like pirates. The Pirate Bay honored the yearly Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Pirates of Sealand – 12 January, 2007

Perhaps one of the most ambitious plans. The Pirate Bay raised money to buy Sealand and form their own state. That never happened, the money was reportedly spent on trees instead.

OscarTorrents – 12 February, 2007

TPB promoting the OscarTorrents.com website where archivists were collecting pirated links to the latest Oscar-nominated movies.

North Korea – 01 April, 2007

Pirate Bay moves to North Korea on April 1st, causing a lot of confusion as well as some outrage.

Eurovisiontorrents.com – 08 May, 2007

Following the success of Oscartorrents, the Swedes from The Pirate Bay now promote a similar initiative for the Eurovision song contest.

Kopimi Klothing – 25 May, 2007

Every self-respecting website has its own merchandise store. The Pirate Bay had Kopimi clothing..

Pirates of the internets – 27 May, 2007


When the Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End leaked online, TPB made a fitting doodle linking to pirated copies.

The Torrent of Fire – 19 July, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows leaked online, and Pirate Bay’s logo leaked as well.

The Evergreen Terrace Bay – 27 July, 2007

The Pirate Bay celebrates the release of the first illegal CAM version of “The Simpsons Movie” with a new logo and t-shirt design.

Walk the plank – 21 September, 2007

The internal emails of anti-piracy outfit MediaDefender went public, revealing that they were indeed behind the video site MiiVi, and more…

The Global Icon Bay – 20 November, 2007

TPB praising its own achievement of becoming a global icon. “We won the ‘global icon’ award from the copy lobby!”

We need help! – 17 January, 2008

The Pirate Bay posted its version of a job application.

We wouldn’t steal – 19 January, 2008

When the European Parliament coalition Greens EFA launched a pro-filesharing campaign named “I Wouldn’t Steal,” Pirate Bay showed their support.

Jubilee – 31 January, 2008


“10 million peers. 1 million torrents. 2.5 million registered users. 100 blog entries. Jubilee!”

Valentines day – 14 February, 2008

The Pirate Bay shows off its romantic side.

Manifesta7 – 22 February, 2008

The Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy start their journey throughout Europe, that will reach its climax at the art festival Manifesta.

Sinai – 01 April, 2008

The Pirate Bay keeps its arch-nemesis IFPI updated on the site’s whereabouts.

All your cops – 18 April, 2008

Hollywood buys police officers, according to The Pirate Bay, which is embroiled in a legal battle in Sweden.

Liberty Bay – 25 April, 2008

The Pirate Bay celebrates the release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Tiamo Dirty Thirty – 27 April, 2008

Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij turned thirty. “All your NES are belong to him…”

Pirate Independence Day – 31 May, 2008

Two years after the Pirate Bay raid, the notorious torrent site declares May 31 “Pirate Independence Day.” “Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!”

The Pirate Bat – 25 July, 2008

The Pirate Bay renamed the site into “The Pirate Bat“ and put up a new logo that links to a search for “The Dark Knight”.

The Beijing Bay – 17 August, 2008


The International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked the Swedish Minister of Justice for “assistance” to remove Olympic torrents from TPB. The site was not impressed.

The Beatrice Bay – 20 August, 2008

A few days later TPB asks its users to send their love to Beatrice Ask, the Swedish Minister of Justice at the time.

International Anti Piracy Day – 21 October, 2008

When Microsoft announced Global Anti-Piracy Day, The Pirate Bay blamed Bill Gates.

25 Million Peers – 15 November, 2008


Pirate Bay’s tracker served 25 million concurrent peers, which is more than the entire populations of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark combined.

Our fifth birthday! – 25 November, 2008


While the TPB-crew wasn’t certain that it was the right date (the tenth anniversary was in August), they celebrated anyway.

Happy new 1984! – 31 December, 2008


Ending 2008 with a call to action. “2009 turns out to be the year of surveillance. We need to fight that!”

Wasted can’t be wrong – 09 January, 2009

Leading up to the TPB-trial, the site reminds people that MPAA lawyer Monique Wadsted previously represented the Church of Scientology in a copyright case.

King Kong downloads – 18 February, 2009


The legendary King Kong defense.

Warner Brothers buys The Pirate Bay – 01 April, 2009

Pirate Bay announced that they settled their differences with Warner Bros. The largest BitTorrent tracker sold out to Hollywood, on April 1st.

Embassy of Piracy – 07 May, 2009

An important art institution is born, according to TPB. The Embassy of Piracy.

We are all The Pirate Bay – 15 May, 2009

Swedish artist Montt MardiƩ thought that The Pirate Bay and its following could use an anthem, so he decided to write one.

EU Election – 27 May, 2009


TPB reminded its visitors to vote in the EU election.

The Persian Bay – 17 June, 2009


TPB transformed into The Persian Bay and asked users to help out Iran. “Get your tunnelz goin!”

Hack the system – 07 December, 2010

Inspired by the French football legend Cantona, TPB calls in its users to ban Paypal after it kicked out Wikileaks.



Pirate Bay’s sysop decided to put his Christmas wishlist on the frontpage. “Freedom for all information!”

Blackout 4 hungary – 05 January, 2011


At a time where several new laws were being drafted to restrict people’s freedoms, TPB joined the Blackout for Hungary.

Protest time – 13 January, 2011

More protest.

TPB wins auction site – 01 April, 2011

The Pirate Bay reuses an old doodle on April first. “TPB will use the tools from eBay to make a better rating system for torrents. Then TPB will divide eBay up into smaller companies and sell to the highest bidders. We see no use for an auction site since most stuff is available for free.”

The Research Bay – 18 April, 2011

The Pirate Bay launched a new survey in collaboration with the Cybernorms research group at Sweden’s Lund University. As part of a sociology study, they hoped to find out more about people’s motivations to share.

You do not recieve freedom, you take it. – 09 May, 2011

In a slightly edited version of Winston Churchill’s “this was their finest hour” speech, replacing Nazi-Germany with MAFIAA, The Pirate Bay team declares war on Internet censorship advocates.

Happy birthday! – 15 September, 2011


The Pirate Bay turns eight years old. This time it’s in September. “One world one love!””

Belgian Beer, Belgian Blue, Belgian Block Belgian Bay – 04 October, 2011

The Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation succeeds in their quest to force two ISPs to block the famous torrent site. The next day TPB adds a new domain to bypass the blockade.

A new tool to avoid censorship! – 05 December, 2011

The Pirate Bay promotes Mafiaafire, an unblocking too that helps users to access blocked sites.

The Promo Bay! – 15 January, 2012


TPB launched The Promo Bay, an initiative to help artists expose their work to the world through the site’s frontpage. We won’t publish all promo’s here, just the first one below.

The Promo Bay proudly presents Paulo Coelho – 28 January, 2012

The first promo is none other than best selling author Paulo Coelho, who’s a file-sharing enthusiast and a supporter of The Pirate Bay.

Fight! – 01 February, 2012

Sweden’s Supreme Court announced that it would not grant an appeal in the Pirate Bay case. This means that the prison sentences and millions of dollars in fines previously handed out to the four defendants remained in place.

The Magnet Bay! – 28 February, 2012

TPB removed all popular torrent files and made the switch to magnet links. This was needed to make the site future proof, the team announced.

Suprbay! – 06 March, 2012

The Pirate Bay runs a promo for its own forum, Suprbay.

Greece sells airspace to TPB – 01 April, 2012

TPB memo on April 1st: “Political power in Athens, Greece, today signed an agreement with representatives for The Pirate Bay (TPB) about exclusive usage of the Greek airspace at 8000-9000ft.”

The Pirate Bay proudly promotes Dan Bull! – 23 April, 2012

With the track “Sharing is Caring”, Dan Bull tried to break into the UK and international singles charts with the help of a free Internet and BitTorrent. Not without success.

ACT NOW! – 03 May, 2012

The censorship button doodle was reused when The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK.

The Hydra Bay! – 07 May, 2012


The Pirate Bay renamed itself The Hydra Bay today, linking it to PirateReverse.info, an information site that was dedicated to helping ‘blocked people’ to access TPB. The operator of this site was later arrested.

Act against Acta! – 07 June, 2012

TPB joins the widespread demonstrations against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA IS DEAD – 04 July, 2012


In a 478 to 39 vote, the European Parliament decided to reject ACTA.

Sign for Peter! – 14 July, 2012

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde submitted an emotional pardon plea to the Swedish authorities, hoping to avoid his prison sentence.

The Olympic Bay – 27 July, 2012


The TPB crew created another doodle for their friends at the International Olympic Committee, promoting their bi-annual gathering.

9th birthday – 14 September, 2012

Time flies. But at least it’s September again.

The Pirate Bay Party! – 09 October, 2012


The Pirate Bay is already looking forward to its tenth anniversary, which they will celebrate in August…

The Pirate Bay moves to the cloud – 17 October, 2012


From this day, The Pirate Bay will serve its users from several cloud hosting providers scattered around the world.

Support Richard from being extradited to the US! – 25 October, 2012

TPB backs efforts to prevent UK student Richard O’Dwyer from being extradited to the United States. Whether it helped or not, the extradition was stopped.

Merry a’rr a’rr! – 24 December, 2012

TPB encouraged its users to sent cards, letters, and gifts to co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm, who was in prison at the time.

TPB AFK – 08 February, 2013


TPB-AFK, the documentary about The Pirate Bay and its founders, was released. The film follows the lives of the three Pirate Bay founders during their trials in Sweden.

The Hydra Bay – 25 February, 2013

New Provider For TPB – 04 March, 2013

The Pirate Bay moves the site to North Korea. For real. Or?

Fuck yeah! – 01 April, 2013


After its failed experiment in North Korea, The Pirate Bay has set course to the land of the free, the United States of America.

Take a look at what these guys are doing! – 08 July, 2013

The Pirate Bay promotes a charity project.

PARTY PARTY PARTY! – 18 July, 2013


The 10 year anniversary is coming, and TPB is hosting a massive party!

Happy birthday! – 10 August, 2013


The Pirate Bay celebrates its 10th anniversary, in August.

ThePirateBay.PE – 13 December, 2013


Facing legal uncertainty, The Pirate Bay moves to a .PE domain name, the fifth domain is 2013.

Let him at least read some books for fucks sake! – 07 January, 2014

No books? More than 100,000 signatures on a petition to improve the prison circumstances of Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm, appear to have had an effect.

Free the pirates! – 10 July, 2014

TPB encouraged its users to write to the site’s imprisoned co-founders. This doodle reappeared several times.

The Pirate Bay rises again – 29 January, 2015


The Pirate Bay reappears after more than a month of downtime, following a raid on the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof datacenter built into a mountain complex.

New domain names – 19 May, 2015

The Pirate Bay adds several new domain names. A new and improved hydra was born, although it didn’t last very long.

Raid? – 21 September, 2015

Raid? What raid? The Pirate Bay denies that they were critically hit by the police raid a few months earlier.

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