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Week in and week out, the Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor orders Google to remove hundreds of URLs. The requests, which are sent under the country's VPN law, target sites and services that allow access to pirated content. Over the past two years, more than half a million links were targeted through these requests. google russiaOver the past several years, Russia has introduced various anti-piracy laws and regulations that focus on the role of online intermediaries. App stores are required to take strict action against ‘pirate’ apps, search engines must swiftly block pirate sites, and even VPN services and proxies can be banned. Russia started cracking down on VPNs and anonymizers in 2017, banning services that allow users to access pirate sites. A year later the legislation was updated by requiring search engines to block the URLs of services that don’t comply. In recent years there hasn’t been much news on how often search engines are urged to take action under this “VPN law.” However, searches of the Lumen Database show that – at Google alone – dozens of requests come in every month, with some targeting thousands of URLs. Unfortunately, the transparency stops there. Russian law doesn’t allow Google to share what URLs are blocked. Instead of sharing what is removed, Google simply reports the number of URLs that are targeted. “Google received a request from the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) to remove over 340 URLs from Web Search in Russia,” one of the many recent requests reads. “This request came under Russian federal law 276-FZ ‘On Amendments to the Federal Law ‘On Information, Information Technologies and Data Security’, commonly referred to as the ‘VPN law’. We are unable to publish the full list of URLs due to Russian law,” Google adds. russia takedown While details are scarce, we can expect pirate sites and proxies to be on the list of banned sites, as well as VPNs and anonymizers that are not on Russia’s whitelist. Just recently, Roskomnadzor added Opera VPN and VyprVPN to the list of threats. That would make them likely candidates to be removed from search results, at least in Russia. When it comes to the takedown volume, there’s another data source we can look at. Google separately reports takedown requests made by Governments and it has a dedicated page for Russia. Just a few years ago, Russia asked Google to remove ‘only’ a few dozen links per month. However, after the “VPN law” was adopted, this number skyrocketed to tens of thousands of removed links per month. During the latest reporting period – the six months ending December last year – nearly 200,000 items were removed. The removal reasons include “national security” and “defamation,” but the largest category by far (162,000) is “other.” russia takedown Based on the volume these “other” requests are sent by Roskomnadzor, which also covers the ‘VPN law’ takedowns. In an average week, these target thousands of links, so that fits the picture as well. The question remains what URLs are blocked under this VPN law. When we used the Russian version of Google from a Russian IP-address, we had no trouble finding Pirate Bay proxies. The recently banned Opera VPN and VyprVPN still showed up in search results as well. So while we can conclude that Russia’s law required Google to remove hundreds of thousands of URLs to protect copyright holders, we wonder how effective it really is. Content source: TorrentFreak.

UEFA, the governing body of football in Europe, has obtained an extension to a High Court injunction that requires major ISPs to block consumer access to pirated streams in Ireland. The plan is to continue blocking measures so that pirating customers of Eir, Sky, Virgin Media, and Vodafone can less easily watch UEFA Champions League and Europa Conference League matches. Red CardWhen football fans choose to watch matches via pirated streams, top-tier football gets nervous. As a result, entities such as the Premier League have expended considerable resources attempting to shut down or otherwise undermine pirate streaming operations. The key weapon of choice is server and IP address blocking. This aims to sever the link between pirate infrastructure and consumers but for that, football entities require cooperation from ISPs. That cooperation is facilitated by High Court injunctions issued in both Great Britain and Ireland that require ISPs to block access to pirate resources. UEFA Follows The Premier League Model After successes in the UK, the Premier League took similar action in Ireland. In 2019, the Commerical Court gave the Premier League the green light to block pirate servers until June 30, 2020. Then last year, just before that permission ran out, the Premier League obtained an extension for the 2020/21 season. It recently obtained a further extension to cover the 2021/22 season. Following the model of the Premier League, UEFA has also sought permission from the courts to implement a blocking program. In 2017, UEFA obtained its first injunction in the UK, and in 2020 achieved similar success in Ireland. The injunction, which covered Eir (Eircom), Sky Ireland Ltd, Sky Subscribers Services Ltd, Virgin Media Ireland Ltd and Vodafone Ireland Ltd, required the ISPs to block subscriber access to various IP addresses identified as being part of pirate IPTV infrastructure. However, that injunction only covered the 2020-21 season, meaning that UEFA needed to return to court for an extension. UEFA Obtains Extension to High Court Injunction The documents supporting the latest injunction are yet to be made public but if previous injunctions are any indicator, the High Court will not publish anything that details how the scheme works in practice. There are some basic details being distributed, however. According to the Irish Times, the extended injunction targets the same set of ISPs as those contained in the original order. None of the ISPs contested the order, with Eir, Virgin and Vodafone presenting a neutral stance and Sky coming out in support. The plan itself remains unchanged, in that it plans to give those using computers and piracy-configured set-top boxes a harder time when it comes to receiving illegal streams, by blocking them before and during live matches. These measures can be easily circumvented with the use of a VPN but UEFA clearly believes that blocking is worth both the time and effort. Terms of Previous Injunction Remain Largely Unchanged When the Premier League obtained its most recent injunction in Ireland, it was reported that it had been given permission to use enhanced measures to disrupt pirated streams. The nature of those measures is not for public consumption but it was expected that UEFA would seek to follow suit with improvements to its application. However, according to UEFA lawyer Jonathan Newman SC, there is no substantive difference between this order and the previous orders, other than the injunction being sought for two seasons rather than one. Justice David Barniville, who has handled these types of injunctions in the past, was happy with the evidence presented to the court and agreed it would be appropriate to extend the orders until the end of the 2022/23 season. When the injunction is published by the court it will appear here. Content source: TorrentFreak.

Eid comes with joy and happiness. All BWTians are like family, sharing and caring. On BWT we all share this joy and happiness. So on this occassion we have opened signups so that those who want to be a part of this sharing caring family can join and enjoy with us. As site is already freeleech so this makes it perfect time to join BWT make a good ratio. AND AND there is one other good news. All users will receive 3 invites so that IF they miss informing their friends about signups then they can later make them join BWT by sending invites. Enjoy your Eid with BWT. BWT staff

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Premium changes and further improvements - Post in the forum! Dear Users! We have recently made improvements to the Premium system. As part of this, we redesigned the look of the Premium menu , among other things, in order to make it clearer and easier to use. With this, in addition to the Download and Invitation page, this became the third menu item where you can meet the new Beta interface. In addition to the redesign of the user interface, we also took into account your feedback and suggestions regarding the new invitation system. In addition to the classic Premium packages, it is now possible to purchase points, which you can use for any purpose (issue a request, vote on request, send an invitation). In addition, we have reduced the price of the invitation for our Premium membership users by 5,000 points. You will also contribute to the running costs of the site if you purchase a premium subscription and points. Thank you for your past and future support! NCore Staff

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New Feature added! 'Hide torrents based on tags you do not like'.

Eid-ul-Adha ‘2021 Upload Contest CrazyHD.com is Proud To Announce the Eid-ul-Adha ‘2021 Upload Contest Everyone Can Participate In This Competition Including Staff Members Time Starts From 15-07-2021 to 15-08-2021 Torrents Must be Uploaded With Proper Description [Poster, Min 3 Screenshots, Media-info Details, IMDb Link] ::: REWARDS For Users (Member/MemberPro/Elite/VIP/Uploader/Super Uploader Ranks) ::: 1st Q.C (Quality Control Staff) OR VIP OR 500000 Seed Points 2nd QC (Quality Control Staff) OR Elite (24 months ) OR 400000 Seed Points 3rd QC(Quality Control Staff) OR Elite Rank(12 months) OR 200000 Seed Points 4th Super Uploader(12 months) OR 100000 Seed Points 5th Uploader(12 months) OR 80000 Seed Points 6th-7th MemberPro (12 months) OR 30000 Seed Points ::: REWARDS (For Staffs Only) ::: 1st 500000 Seed Points 2nd 400000 Seed Points 3rd 200000 Seed Points ::: Note For All ::: 1. You will be eligible for the rewards only if you successfully upload at least 50 torrents (file size needs to be greater than 150 MB) 2. Users who're already in higher ranks will receive the equivalent bonus points (mentioned as reward) for winning the contest. 3. No seed = no prize, because - there is no value of that upload without active seed 4. Torrents should be downloaded at least for 5 times, otherwise that upload will not be counted 5. Music/audio & adult/unrated contents are not allowed in this contest . Specially don't upload any unrated content. If you upload unrated content, it will be deleted immediately. ***Good Luck***

Paul Hansmeier, one of the lead attorneys behind the controversial Prenda Law firm, has asked the court for a reduction of his 14-year prison sentence. The disbarred lawyer says that he faced extraordinarily difficult living conditions in prison due to the COVID pandemic. While the measures were well-intended, they didn't prevent the lawyer from getting infected. prisonIn 2019, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release. Hansmeier was a key player at the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent. While suing alleged pirates is not illegal, Prenda Law went much further. Over the years the firm faced negative court rulings over identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception. The Pirate Honeypot Most controversial were the shocking revelations that Prenda itself produced adult videos and uploaded its own torrents to The Pirate Bay. In doing so, the company created a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirate downloads. The allegations were serious enough to appear on the radar of US law enforcement agencies which launched a criminal investigation, culminating in prison sentences for the two key players. Today, Paul Hansmeier and his former colleague John Steele are both in prison. While the latter received a reduced sentence for his cooperative stance, Hansmeier was sentenced to 14 years in prison, a verdict he appealed. To make a point, the lawyer even restarted his honeypot scheme from prison. Lawyer Continues Fight Earlier this year the Court of Appeal upheld the original ruling after Hansmeier’s motion to dismiss the claims was denied. In addition, the Court also confirmed that the lawyer must pay victims more than $1.5 million in restitution. This was a clear setback for Hansmeier, but it’s not the end of his legal battle. Over the past year and a half, he filed multiple lawsuits involving several (former) law enforcement officials and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. This has reached the point where these federal defendants are clearly fed up with Hansmeier’s activities. A few weeks ago, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Anders Folk asked the court to restrict Hansmeier’s pro se filings, fearing that even more lawsuits could come in. Hansmeier Wants Sentence Reduction Most recently, the convicted lawyer added a new approach to his arsenal. In another pro se motion, Hansmeier asks a Minnesota federal court to reduce his sentence, due to the hardships he endures as a result of restrictive COVID-prevention measures. April last year, President Trump declared a national emergency and, as a result, federal prisons including the one in Sandstone where Hansmeier resides, took various restrictive measures. Among other things, prisoners had no access to fresh air, sunlight, or exercise. They were required to stay confined 24/7 while family visits and education programs were canceled as well. According to Hansmeier, these circumstances were much harder than the court intended. At the same time, they did very little to limit COVID infections. “However well intentioned these measures may have been, these measures subjected Defendant to conditions that were orders of degrees harsher than what this Court could have reasonably anticipated when it weighed the 18 U.S:C. 3553 factors and sentenced Defendant to a term of imprisonment,” he writes. “Moreover, these harsh conditions–which, again, were aimed at safeguarding prisoners—were, in fact, entirely ineffective in safeguarding Defendant against infection.” The lawyer says that nearly all inmates eventually contracted COVID, he himself included. Meanwhile, the stringent preventative measures remained active for many months. In the request, Hansmeier mentions an inmate who served 38 years in the Bureau of Prisons across the US, who said that the COVD restrictions resulted in the very worst living conditions he had ever experienced. Through this motion, Hansmeier hopes that the court will reduce his sentence. While he doesn’t object to an immediate release, a minimum reduction of 14 months should be fair. “Though Defendant would accept the Court’s granting of immediate release if it were to be ordered, at a minimum Defendant is requesting a 14 month reduction in sentence to account for the 14 months of extraordinarily difficult living conditions that Defendant has been subjected to during the COVID-19 pandemic.” This isn’t the first time that the lawyer has used COVID as an argument to be released from prison. When the Coronavirus outbreak started last year he requested a temporary release, fearing that the risk of infection was higher inside the prison. That request was eventually denied. — A copy of Hansmeier’s pro se motion to reduce the term of imprisonment is available here (pdf). Content source: TorrentFreak.

Global anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shut down and seized the domains of an entity offering pirate IPTV and card-sharing services. The Serbia-based operation reportedly offered access to more than 6,000 TV channels, 3,000 movies and 16,500 TV shows for a low monthly subscription. IPTVThe Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a global anti-piracy group that counts the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and dozens more giants among its members, is continuing its drive against pirate services of all kinds. Following the news last week that ACE and partners the MPA had been to court in the United States in an effort to identify the operators of many pirate streaming sites, just days later it appears that ACE is broadening its list of targets. Pirate IPTV and Card-Sharing Service Shut Down Earlier this week, TorrentFreak learned that ACE and the MPA had taken control of a number of domains that appeared to be related to both pirate IPTV platforms and so-called card-sharing services. The latter enable users of satellite services to receive premium channels over the air and then use the credentials from legitimate cards to unscramble programming. In an announcement a few hours ago, ACE confirmed that it has taken fresh action against ‘Premiumcccam’, a card-sharing and pirate IPTV operation that operated in violation of ACE members’ rights. According to ACE, Premiumcccam provided access to more than 6,000 TV channels and content from various satellite platforms, including Sky, Viacom Media, and Canal+. In addition, the service offered Video on demand (VOD) content from all ACE members, including 3,000 movies and 16,500 TV show episodes, at rates ranging from 7 euros per month up to 50 euros per year. Promotional material distributed by Premiumcccam in 2020 indicated that it classed itself as “Europe’s top card-sharing provider” but that show now appears to be over. “ACE executed a cease and desist operation near Belgrade, Serbia, followed by immediate cooperation from the operator. Currently, all domains have been transferred to ACE and are redirecting to the Watch Legally section on the ACE website,” ACE says. Jan Van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association, welcomes the closure of the Premiumcccam service and warns that ACE can strike anywhere on the planet. “This action marks another success and precedent in ACE’s ongoing fight against piracy across the world. Actions such as this reinforce ACE’s reach and impact and that there is no place in the world out of reach. We will continue to enforce in new territories as necessary,” he says. Many New Domain Seizures In addition to the Premiumcccam.net domain reported by ACE, this week the anti-piracy coalition appears to have taken control of many more – some of which are obviously related to this operation and others that are less clearly linked. They include the following: Best-cccam-server.com, oscamserver.net, cccam-server-extra.com, premium-cccam.net, cccam-server.org, cccam-server-in-europe.com, universalcccamserver.com, cccam-reseller.com, cccamservers.net, cccamtest.net, premiumcccam.net, oscam.best and cccamline.org. In addition, galactovision.com and loginto.tv appear to be connected to pirate IPTV operations, as does b-radtv.com, which previously advertised the availability of 3,000 channels of live tv, cable network channels, sports networks, PPV events, plus a selection of so-called 24/7 channels. The precise use of jktv3.xyz isn’t immediately clear, although the domain did previously share a server with many pirate IPTV platforms hosted by a company in Ukraine. All domains listed above now divert to an ACE seizure banner which in recent weeks underwent a makeover. More than 160 former pirate domains are now operated by ACE following dozens of actions against site operators. new ace seize banner The current list of ACE members reads as follows: Amazon, AMC Networks, Apple TV+, BBC Worldwide, Bell Canada and Bell Media, Canal+ Group, Channel 5, Charter Communications, Comcast, Constantin Film, Discovery, Fox, Foxtel, Grupo Globo, HBO, Hulu, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, SF Studios, Sky, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Star India, Studio Babelsberg, STX Entertainment, Telefe, Telemundo, Televisa, Univision Communications Inc., ViacomCBS, Village Roadshow, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Warner Bros. Content source: TorrentFreak.

EU Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe has published his advice on Poland's request to annul Article 17 of the Copyright Directive. The AG argues that the 'upload filter' doesn't significantly harm freedom of expression, but notes that safeguards are needed to prevent over-blocking. eu flagIn 2019 the European Parliament adopted the new Copyright Directive that aims to modernize how copyright is protected in the online environment. After the directive passed, individual EU member states began working on implementing the text into local law. This includes the controversial Article 17, which requires online services to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, these companies should ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services. Many opponents fear that this language will effectively lead to broad ‘upload filters’ that will take down more content than needed. This worry has been reiterated by several experts over the years. Polish Opposition After massive protests failed to stop the legislation, Poland was the last beacon of hope for the opposition. The country petitioned the EU Court of Justice to annul Article 17, as it would violate the freedom of expression of European citizens. Yesterday, this hope was quashed. In a lengthy opinion, Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe dismissed the action brought by the Republic of Poland. According to the AG, the European Commission already made it clear that Article 17 should only be used to target manifestly infringing material. “Article 17 of Directive 2019/790 contains sufficient safeguards to delimit the scope of the limitation on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression resulting from the contested provisions,” the AG writes. Ambigious Uploads Shouldn’t be Blocked The text of Article 17 clarifies that online services can only block content that’s “identical” and “equivalent” to files that have been flagged by copyright holders. This doesn’t include media that only uses a short piece of copyrighted content in a broader context. Saugmandsgaard Øe stresses that in these “ambiguous” situations where fair use and other copyright exceptions could apply, online services shouldn’t block content preventively. “In all ambiguous situations – short extracts from works included in longer content, ‘transformative’ works, and so forth – in which, in particular, the application of exceptions and limitations to copyright is reasonably conceivable, the content concerned cannot be the subject of a preventive blocking measure,” he writes. False Positives a Bigger Problem than False Negatives The EU Parliament, the Council, and the Commission stressed that for online services it’s more important to prevent legitimate content from being blocked than to stop potential copyright infringements at any cost. This should properly protect people’s freedom of expression. “In other words, the legislature considered that ‘false positives’, consisting of blocking legal content, were more serious than ‘false negatives’, which would mean letting some illegal content through,” Saugmandsgaard Øe writes. While this sounds clear, there are still several open questions. There is no clear definition of when something is clearly infringing, and when it’s not. The AG acknowledges this in his opinion but doesn’t provide any clear answers. What is clear, however, is that individual member states must ensure that their Article 17 implementations include sufficient safeguards to prevent over-blocking. Early Responses Patrick Breyer, MEP for the Pirate Party, is a fierce opponent of Article 17. In response to the opinion, he notes that upload filters may still result in a lot of errors. “While the Advocate General calls out the Member States’ responsibility to only target illegal content, the software won’t able to recognize which content is manifestly infringing and which is not, as it is undoubtedly error-prone,” Breyer argues. In addition, several countries have already implemented Article 17 without all the mentioned safeguards, so these could still violate freedom of speech. “Moreover, countries which implemented the copyright directive according to the Commission’s guidelines would now be, based on the Advocate General’s opinion, violating freedom of expression online,” Breyer writes. That last point is shared by Communia which, in an initial response, notes that several EU member states will have to go back to the drawing board. “Most (if not all) national implementations that we have seen so far clearly fail to meet this standard and if the CJEU follows the AG they will need to go back to the drawing board (or face legal challenges,” Communia wrote. This commentary suggests that the Article 17 uncertainties are expected to last for a while, and the finer details may have to be fleshed out by the EU Court of Justice. The Advocate General’s advice is not binding. However, in most cases, the recommendations are followed by the EU Court of Justice, which will likely issue its final verdict later this year. Content source: TorrentFreak.

Excellent transaction! A delightful seller with super instantaneous service. I would happily do business with them again. 10/10 rating!

New Stuff Ahoi FunSharers We have some new stuff you probably noticed already. The first one are username colors everywhere. As requested by quite some members, usernames now have colors based on the userclass. That goes for the classic site only because NG had it from the beginning. Keep in mind that although the colors are based on the userclasses, they're not precise. Multiple classes can share the same color. This is on purpose to allow things like hidden classes as well as anonymous uploaders. The second new thingy is also limited to the classic site at first. Simply because more members are using that. So the second new feature are @ names. They work in the forum just like it works mostly on social media. Simply put an @ directly in front of a username to highlight that user. The highlighted user will then get a notice. We deliberately did not use the regular pm system for that because it could get quite spammy If it works well and most of you like it, it will of course also be added to NG. And last but not least worth a note that last month we had the most downloads this year. Even more than in april and march which have been pretty good already. So don't hold back and grab whatever you like So long and have some nice sunny weeks

Very informative and pleasant demeanour. Response time was impressive. Certainly lives up to his legacy as well hassle-free transaction all around.

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