Cloudflare is now blocking numerous pirate sites for UK web users
Piracy remains a serious problem for the music and movie industries as well as for software developers, authors, and more. In a radical new attempt to crack down on pirated material, Cloudflare has started to block access to pirate sites in the UK.
This is a significant expansion of anti-piracy measures. ISPs in the UK – as in many other countries – block access to known pirate sites, often because they are legally required to do so. But these blocks can be evaded in various ways, including through the use of VPNs. This is something Cloudflare’s new pirate blocks aim to stop.
Meta may have torrented over 80 terabytes of pirated books to train its AI models
Just how AI models should be trained has been a subject of debate for some time now, with there being a lot of focus in whether publicly posted social media content is ripe for the picking or not. Now a new lawsuit suggests that Meta has been using pirated ebooks as a data source.
Emails that are serving as evidence in a copyright case against Meta appear to show that the Facebook owner has torrented scores of terabytes of data from a number of online resources. Among the places mentioned in newly released unredacted emails are Anna’s Archive, Z-Library and LibGen.
While piracy remains rife, leaked movie screeners are all but dead
This time of year is significant for various reasons, not least of which is that it is the start of a new year for those who follow the Gregorian calendar. In the world of technology, we're moving towards CES, but December/January has also been the period during which movie piracy has tended to peak.
In previous years, because of screeners being sent out for viewing by critics and judges ahead of the Oscars in a few months, this is when there has traditionally been a glut of big-name movies leaking before their official released dates. This year, there have been none.
Plex Desktop for Linux comes to Snap Store with flatpak version on the way
If you are a fan of pirating TV shows and movies, you have undoubtedly used Plex over the years. If you aren't familiar, the service uses a server/client concept, where you store your media on one machine and then stream it to another device. While Plex technically can be used for legally-obtained media, I predict that many (if not most) of its users are watching pirated content. Look, I'm not judging... I'm just trying to be honest.
And now, the Plex Desktop app and new Plex HTPC client app are both available for Linux -- but only from the Snap Store. Don't like Canonical's snaps? Don't worry, according to a blog post, the Plex developers are planning to roll out flatpak versions eventually too. Before anyone starts arguing about snap vs flatpak, let's just celebrate another big win for the Linux community overall. Okay?
DuckDuckGo says it hasn't removed pirate sites from its index
On Friday, we reported how it appeared that privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo had begun following in Google’s footsteps and removing copyright infringing links from its search results. As noted by TorrentFreak, sites affected included The Pirate Bay, 1337x.to, and popular YouTube downloader youtube-dl.
However, DuckDuckGo says the firm hasn’t removed the sites from its index, and goes on to explain the reason for the issue.
DuckDuckGo quietly begins removing pirate sites from its search results [Updated]
For years now, Google has been down-ranking -- or even removing entirely -- pirate sites from its search results. Privacy-focused search alternative DuckDuckGo has resisted taking similar action, making it a good choice for anyone seeking out such services.
Back in 2018, in a bid to avoid potential copyright liability, it did remove access to around 2,000 'bangs' -- shortcuts that let you run a search directly on a particular website -- for copyright infringing sites like The Pirate Bay and 1337x, but this didn’t affect the results in the search engine itself. It seems that has now changed.
TVAddons concedes defeat and says that massive piracy lawsuit brings closure
Last week Kodi addons repository TVAddons threw in the towel following a long running piracy lawsuit, with founder Adam Lackman agreeing to pay damages of $19.5 million.
In an email sent out to users and subscribers this weekend, TVAddons concedes defeat. It says mournfully that the lawsuits "didn't result in the outcome we'd hoped for" but adds that it brings closure and will "allow us to begin the process of moving on with our lives". It also calls for donations to help pay the colossal bill.
RIP Popcorn Time -- 'Netflix of piracy' is no more
There are many names associated with piracy, some old -- think of Kazaa and Limewire -- others more current -- such as the Pirate Bay and endless sites of its ilk. One of the most recent phenomena in the world of piracy has been sites that offer movies and TV shows to stream.
One of the biggest sites of this type is Popcorn Time… or at least it was. The site dubbed the "Netflix of piracy" has passed on, it has ceased to be, it has expired and gone to meet its maker. Popcorn Time is an ex-site. It is dead.
Pirate filesharing blog RLSLOG shuts down
Releaselog -- also known simply as RLSLOG -- was for many years the place people went to find out about the latest pirated movies, music, games and software.
It launched in 2006 and took a 'release blog' format that told visitors everything that could wish to know about the latest pirated content, including who released it, the quality, and more. It also provided handy links so that people could download the releases.
Fake pirated software hides dropper-as-a-service
Researchers at SophosLabs have uncovered malware being distributed by a network of websites acting as a 'dropper as a service', serving up a variety of other nasty packages.
These droppers for hire are delivering bundles of malicious and unwanted content to targets looking for cracked versions of popular business and consumer applications.
Pirated data risks: Remote teams need to become a first line of defense
The increasing number of news headlines that mention data piracy, theft and database hacking makes it clear that businesses need to treat data as a valuable asset. This is especially true of businesses with teams that work remotely, as these set-ups usually have fewer security protocols.
Most remote workers are working from their homes, and unless those team members are conscious of cybersecurity, they’re not likely to have intrusion detection systems and firewalls on their personal networks.
Kodi is knocked off Google following DMCA takedown request
If you've been searching for Kodi using Google, you will have noticed that the media playing software has vanished from search results.
The banishment comes after a DMCA takedown request from the Turkish pay-TV service Digiturk. Owned by the beIN Media Group, the DMCA takedown request related not only to the content of a pirated stream, but to the use of a copyrighted logo on suc ha sstream.
Pirates rush to download Onward, The Invisible Man and The Hunt as coronavirus shuts cinemas
In addition to death, illness and panic, there have been plenty of other effects of the spread of coronavirus -- some expected, others not. With people self-isolating and seeking entertainment, streaming video services like Netflix and YouTube have seen an uptick in usage, despite a reduction in quality.
The COVID-19 pandemic means that many businesses are shut, including cinemas. To ensure that movie-lovers are still able to see the latest releases, some movie studios have decided to make newly released titles available for rental streaming much earlier than normal -- and this has in turn led to an increase in piracy, with major movie being available to all far earlier than normal. Titles such as The Hunt, Onward, The Invisible Man and Emma, as well as Pixar's Onward, are all available to download from torrent sites.
Golden Globe winner '1917' leaks onto the internet
Every year around this time, a number of high profile movies -- Oscar contenders in particular -- leak onto the internet in the form of DVD screeners.
Some years only a small amount of these pirate screeners appear, but this year is proving to be a bumper one, with lots of major movies leaking, such as Frozen 2, Knives Out, Little Women and JoJo Rabbit, all of which are still in cinemas. Today, Golden Globe winner 1917 joins the list.
/r/Piracy is going on a massive deletion spree to avoid a Reddit ban
Reddit has never been much of a stranger to controversy, and the site has faced mounting pressure from copyright-holders to do something about piracy.
Moderators have been fighting a losing battle to keep illegal content in check, but with complaints still flooding in, the /r/piracy subreddit is taking drastic action. Having spoken to the community about initiating "The Nuclear Option", the decision was taken to delete nearly a decade's worth of content.
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