Largest BitTorrent Tracker Demonii Will Shut Down Soon

A few hours ago the MPAA took credit for shutting down one of the biggest piracy icons in recent history.

The YIFY release group and the YTS website shut down facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit, which the New Zealand-based operator couldn’t fight.

The downfall is a loss to many YIFY fans. However, the BitTorrent ecosystem at large will also be severely affected as it also signals the end for Demonii, the largest standalone BitTorrent tracker.

What only a few people know is that in recent years Demonii was run by YIFY’s operator. As a result of the legal troubles with the movie studios, Demonii will soon go offline as well, bringing down another key player.

With over 40 million people connected at any given time during the day, Demonii is currently the largest torrent tracker.

At the time of writing Demonii still serves torrents to 41,622,554 peers, which translates to well over a billion connections per day. Impressive numbers that will soon become history.

Demonii’s current stats

Even without Demonii most torrents will still work fine, thanks to DHT and PEX, but the initial connections will take more time. This can slow down download times for many people.

Trackers are also essential for those who use proxies, as they often have DHT and PEX disabled to prevent their real IP-addresses from leaking out.

With Demonii, YTS and YIFY gone there’s no doubt that the torrent ecosystem has lost several big players. However, history has also shown that these are never mourned for long.

It may be hard for other tracker to pick up Demonii’s load without increasing their capacity. But there are plenty of alternatives still around to fill the gap and more are expected to rise because of it.

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

XE Market Analysis: Europe - Nov 04, 2015

The euro has been heavy, with EUR-USD ebbing to the lower 1.09s in the wake of dovish remarks from ECB boss Draghi after the European close yesterday, who said that the central bank will use all instruments, if warranted. While nothing new, his comments bring into relief the contrast with the Fed's bias. Upcoming Fed speakers are likely to leave the door open for a possible tightening in December. EUR-USD's Oct-28 low at 1.0897 is the next target ahead of the Jul-20 low at 1.0808.

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MPAA: We Shut Down YTS/YIFY and Popcorn Time

The BitTorrent piracy ecosystem lost several key players in recent weeks.

The main Popcorn Time fork operating from the PopcornTime.io domain name closed its doors on October 23, citing internal issues.

Part of the trouble was started by rumors of legal pressure, which the MPAA confirmed today.

The major movie studios have sued three Popcorn Time developers in Canada, the group announced in an official statement. The MPAA obtained an injunction on October 16 ordering the shutdown of the Popcorntime.io site.

The legal action in Canada was not an isolated incident, however. Around the same time, movie industry representatives targeted the operator of YTS/YIFY who’s a New Zealand resident.

TF learned that employees of New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) contacted the operator of YTS last month. Both NCSC and the movie industry representatives had a warrant. The latter reportedly threatened a multi-million dollar lawsuit, urging the operator to cooperate.

YTS went dark two weeks ago as a result of the legal trouble and is not coming back.

The status of the lawsuits in Canada and New Zealand is currently unclear, but sources told us last week that several of the accused are working on an agreement to minimize their harm, possibly in exchange for information.

The MPAA, meanwhile, is ready to declare the outcome as a clear victory.

“This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft,” MPAA boss Chris Dodd says.

“Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them,” he adds.

—

Breaking story, more info may follow later.

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

Dallas Buyers Club Can’t Interrogate ‘Pirates,’ Judge Rules

The makers of Dallas Buyers Club have sued thousands of BitTorrent users over the past two years.

Many of these cases end up being settled for an undisclosed amount. This usually happens after the filmmakers obtain the identity of the Internet account holder believed to have pirated the movie.

Not all alleged downloaders are eager to pay up though. In fact, many don’t respond to the settlement letters they receive or claim that someone else must have downloaded the film using their connection.

This presents a problem for the filmmakers, who need to gather additional evidence to prove guilt. In several recent cases they even went through social media profiles of defendants and Google map images of their neighborhoods, for example.

In addition to this info Dallas Buyers Club want to speak to the accused directly so have asked the court to grant dozens of depositions. This would help to determine who the true pirates are, they argue.

The request covers five active cases with 61 IP-addresses which have yet to respond or settle.

The court carefully reviewed the request and in an order late last week U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones denied the depositions.

In his order (pdf) the Judge writes that depositions are meant to “discover relevant information” but he doubts that Dallas Buyers Club intends to take any of these cases to trial.

When the filmmakers were allowed to depose people in a previous case it didn’t result in the naming of any defendants.

“All this implies that Plaintiff is not actually interested in bringing these cases to conclusion on their merits and is instead trying to use these proceedings to leverage settlements out of unidentified Doe defendants through the threat of Court order.”

Instead, the depositions may be used as a pressure tool, which would be a clear sign of abuse.

“Numerous other courts have considered the possibility of abusive litigation tactics in addressing similar motions. And this Court is increasingly tired of the slow progress of these cases and increasingly apprehensive of the possibility of abuse,” Judge Jones adds.

The Judge admits that depositions may often be helpful, but notes that Dallas Buyers Club wouldn’t be in any better position if the defendant denies being the primary infringer during the deposition.

The filmmakers already have the name and address of the account holders, and should make their case based on this information, the order concludes.

While there’s no direct accusation the mention of possible abuse and the growing impatience with the many Doe lawsuits is a clear blow for the movie studio.

For their part the accused pirates can chalk up a win as they have been saved from having to go through an ‘interrogation’, a potentially threatening and intimidating process.

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

XE Market Analysis: Asia - Nov 03, 2015

The dollar was mixed in N.Y. trade on Tuesday, rallying against the euro and yen, while stumbling some versus the pound and CAD. EUR-USD sold off to 1.0937 lows from near 1.0980 ahead of ECB Draghi's speech, where clarification on the policy outlook was awaited, following weekend comments, where he downplayed the need for further QE in December.

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Man Freed Early From Record Music Piracy Sentence

Following an investigation carried out by the BPI and IFPI, with assistance from the US Department of Homeland Security, in 2011 file-sharing links forum Dancing Jesus was taken offline.

Two men, one the owner of the site and the other one of the forum’s top uploaders, were arrested by City of London Police. Homeland Security seized a Dancing Jesus server hosted in the United States.

After years of quiet, last October it became evident that the BPI was pursuing a private prosecution against the pair. In January 2014, site owner Kane Robinson of South Shields pleaded guilty to illegally distributing music. Key uploader Richard Graham of Leicestershire entered a guilty plea at a later date.

On November 10, 2014, Robinson and Graham were sentenced and received the harshest punishments ever handed down to UK-based file-sharers. For his part in offering a reported 22,500 links to 250,000 titles, Robinson was sentenced to 32 months. Graham received 21 months.

At the time the sentences were criticized as being both harsh and disproportionate but within months positive signs began to emerge.

In August a posting to a Facebook campaign page titled ‘Justice for Kane Robinson’ carried an optimistic message.

“We saw Kane at the weekend he is doing well and it is hopeful he could be out soon..thanks for all your continued support guys!” it read.

Then last Thursday, after receiving the toughest sentence of its kind and serving time in three separate prisons, Robinson was freed ‘just’ 11 months into his sentence.

His Facebook campaign carried two simple hashtags: #‎Justice4Kane‬ ‪and #‎Missioncomplete‬

It’s unclear why Robinson has been released so early. Chronicle Live said it had approached the Ministry of Justice but the office declined to comment on individual cases. Robinson himself has also remained silent.

TorrentFreak caught up with David Cook, a specialist cyber crime solicitor who was previously instructed to provide expert opinion to the defense in the case. He told TF that he no longer represents Robinson or Graham but confirmed both had previously filed appeals.

“However, this probably has a more simple explanation,” Cook explained.

“A 34 month sentence would equate to 17 months in custody and 17 months ‘on license’ in the community. If a person behaves and is deemed suitable then they may be released earlier.”

Both men will now be looking to rebuild their lives, probably far away from the file-sharing arena.

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

XE Market Analysis: North America - Nov 03, 2015

EUR-USD edged lower ahead of Draghi speech. The pairing fell below 1.0975 as Bund yields fell. The ECB president tried to dampen expectations of additional easing at a speech made over the weekend, with markets hoping for some clarification of the policy stance. A holiday in Japan resulted in a quiet overnight session for the yen, though USD-JPY did manage a 120.86 peak. Talk of a Japan supplementary stimulus budget in Japan, along with general beliefs the BoJ will eventually up its QE program, have been supportive.

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