A company that worked with sites that linked to copies of Hollywood blockbusters has become the target of a new lawsuit. The legal action filed by Disney and Warner Bros. says that Triton Media was guilty of both contributory and inducement of copyright infringement when it assisted several sites with advertising and referrals.

There have been many innovative anti-piracy strategies over the years, from simple scare tactics to high profile hammer-blow aggression, from ISP pressure to the more recent attempts at domain name seizure. This week, a new tactic has been witnessed in the United States – an attack on those who provide financing for file-sharing venues – the advertisers.

In a complaint dated 23rd August and filed in the U.S. District Court in California, movie giants Disney and Warner Bros revealed their intention to go after Triton Media, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company they claim “owned, operated, provided advertising consulting and referrals for, and/or provided other material assistance” to nine movie-centric sites.

The sites – freetv-video-online.info, supernovatube.corn, donogo.com, watch-movies.net, watchmovies-online.tv, watch-movies-links.net, havenvideo.com and thepiratecity.org – are said to have a primary purpose to provide “their users access to content that has been unlawfully reproduced, distributed, publicly performed, and/or publicly displayed.”

The content listed includes Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for Disney, and The Bucket List, Fool’s Gold and Smallville for Warner Bros.

While the majority of the sites listed above merely offered links to Disney and Warner movies, the lawsuit states that two – supernovatube and donogo – are sites that actually stored the plaintiffs’ movies. Interestingly it states that donogo (currently offline) was actually owned and operated by Triton Media. Readers will recall that thepiratecity.org recently had its domain name seized as part of the FBI-run Operation In Our Sites.

The lawsuit states that Triton Media is guilty of both contributory copyright infringement and induced copyright infringement and as such the plaintiffs “are entitled to the maximum statutory damages as permitted by federal copyright law”.

Although details are scarce at the moment, the part that Triton played in the sites’ operation will prove key in this case. Definitely one to watch in the months to come, as the implications for other US-based advertisers could be huge.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

After years of doing comparatively little to protect copyright, in recent months authorities in Bulgaria came down hard on file-sharing sites. While two of the country's biggest BitTorrent sites continue to function, the previous owner of one - Zamunda.net - will face court this year charged with crimes against copyright. The authorities are hoping for Pirate Bay-style levels of punishment.

Yavor Kolev, the head of Bulgaria’s Computer Crimes Department, has been an unusually busy man during the last few months. After announcing a copyright crackdown against BitTorrent and file-sharing sites in general, authorities were quick to act.

Last month the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs targeted what it described as a “criminal network” of file-hosting services which allegedly generated more than $3 million. The raids were described as the country’s biggest ever action against file-sharing sites.

These one-click hosters had loose links to one of Bulgaria’s biggest torrent sites, ArenaBG. Another giant is the internationally known tracker, Zamunda.net. Both sites have been the target of previous legal action and threats but remain operational today.

For previous high-ranking staff at Zamunda, however, the torrent experience is far from over. This September, ex-owner Martin Pavlov and ex-admin Dimitar Tzankov will appear before the Sofia District Court charged with crimes against copyright and intellectual property.

The investigation against Zamunda began in 2006 following a complaint from multimedia streaming company, Amotera BG. In a letter to GDBOP – the Unit for Combating Organized Crime – Amotera director Adrian Tzenov said that films were uploaded to Zamunda without his company’s consent.

However, shortly after the investigation began, Pavlov allegedly sold Zamunda to an unknown individual in Amsterdam and the site’s domain was transferred to the United States. Rumors suggest that the site is now owned by a Syrian.

“We cannot stop the website, since it isn’t the property of the two defendants any more,” prosecutor Detelina Iotova told Trud.bg.

“It is now evident that all institutions and not only the Ministry of Interior are realizing their role in the battle against piracy and are taking actions against it,” said Computer Crimes Department chief Yavor Kolev. “We hope that there will be sentences for Zamunda and Arenabg as there were in Sweden for ThePirateBay.”

Not all of the targets in the crackdown have been big ones though. At the end of June the Bulgarian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that following complaints from the Bulgarian publishing industry, a raid had been carried out against Chitanka, an online book library which was deemed “damaging to culture”. Despite the upheaval, that site quickly bounced back and remains online.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Mass lawsuits against alleged file-sharers, such as those from the US Copyright Group and lawyers ACS:Law and Gallant MacMillan in the UK, are generally accepted to have been generated from evidence gathered from big public BitTorrent sites. Now it appears that at least one other firm has jumped on the bandwagon, this time targeting a large private tracker.

Mass lawsuits against alleged file-sharers are spreading like a plague of locusts from Europe over to the United States. By now, their action is clear. Gather IP address evidence against as many alleged file-sharers as possible and take legal action in order to discover their names and addresses. Once those details are learned, pressure the recipient by post with threatening financial ruination unless an early settlement of a few hundred dollars up to a couple of thousand is forthcoming.

While lawyers in Germany and the UK (ACS:Law, Davenport Lyons and now Gallant MacMillan) have been doing most of the pioneering work for this business model, it is the US Copyright Group and its pursuit of Hurt Locker file-sharers that has grabbed most of the headlines.

What all these lawyers have in common, is that none of them reveal where their evidence has been gathered from and since no cases have ever gone to court – that’s none, zero, nada – then no one has ever forced them to. From our dealings with specific and verified UK cases and from the scale of the US operation, it is fairly clear that the IP addresses used have been collated from public trackers.

Now it appears that adult movie company Lucas Entertainment have bucked the trend.

“You only have to conduct a quick Google search to see the rampant piracy all over the internet,” says Lucas Entertainment President/CEO Michael Lucas. “I am always surprised that users would deal with torrent sites and all the hassle that requires instead of streaming through LucasEntertainment.com, but I guess there are many people out there who have endless patience. We appreciate our fans wherever they are but business is business and we have to make some money off our content.”

To this end, not only has the company announced the filing of a lawsuit n Texas Northern District Court on July 19 which targets 65 defendants, but they have also uniquely revealed that they tracked the ‘John Does’ on a private BitTorrent tracker.

Although fairly niche when compared to the wide appeal of say, The Pirate Bay, Gay-Torrents.net (GT) is still a very big tracker. In existence since 2001 with more than 235,000 members, its users have now become the latest target in these lucrative ‘pay or else’ schemes. Copyright owners and lawyers want money from file-sharers, no matter where they live or what material they choose to obtain. And Lucas Entertainment are no different, although they are yet to announce exactly how much money they want.

This case should be of unique and special interest to all private tracker users because it raises some very interesting questions. GT, like all private sites, is a members only venue. This means that either Mr Lucas in person (or potentially one of his agents) is an active member of GT and must have actively participated in swarms.

Of course, this is true of public trackers too, but private trackers keep records – lots of them – so discovering the account connected with that can prove a trivial process. If it’s discovered that the account in question has been uploading, the litigation waters could get muddied significantly. In regular cases against file-sharers only anti-piracy groups carry evidence. Evidence on private trackers cuts both ways.

TorrentFreak spoke with an admin at GT who told us that they “would be somewhat displeased with any Member who sought to make a profit or take legal advantage of his torrenting activities via GT.”

That said, we are told that other GT members are indeed connected with the movie industry.

“Some GT Members are heavily involved in the same industry as Mr Lucas and also participate in filesharing because it is recognised that such activities are to their mutual benefit as movie producer, consumer and, in full agreement with GT and with our collaboration, as free advertiser and distributor,” TorrentFreak was told.

“The latter agreement would include a term that we advertise their new title and ban new productions for a specific period of time following release in order to encourage sales. Rather strangely some producers such as Lucas Entertainment appear to prefer a more litigious route rather than one of mutual cooperation,” explained a GT admin.

Nevertheless, more formal agreements aside, GT appears to be a somewhat considerate tracker.

“As a general courtesy to ALL studios (including our producer-Membership and their future uploads), we already impose a blanket ban on ALL pre-release titles regardless of Membership with GT. Our aim is to work in cooperation with the industry, but if the recent stories of further litigation are well-founded it appears some poorly advised studios stubbornly choose to view our Membership as common thieves rather than with respect as potential customers, and as free advertisers and distributors,” the admin concludes.

GT told TorrentFreak that they lay the blame for these lawsuits firmly at the door of outdated copyright laws applied to 21st century life, business and technology.

“Quite simply, governments and businesses worldwide need to catch up but we fear ACTA (the impending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) will apply 20th century principles and shall deter innovation and quash new business models otherwise fit for modern societies.”

In the meantime copyright holders are making the best of it. Show them the money.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

At the end of June this year, nine sites connected to movie streaming were targeted by the U.S. Government. The operator of one of those sites, NinjaVideo, has now issued a plea for funds to fight back against what is undoubtedly a formidable force. "We are looking at six to seven digits and it's going to be pure hell," she explains. "We have nothing. Nothing at all. They took... everything."

By now, you know the background. Last month “Operation In Our Sites” targeted nine domains connected to the offering of first-run movies without consent from the copyright holders.

The authorities moved to seize several domains including TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org and ZML.com. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) also seized assets from 15 bank, PayPal, investment and advertising accounts.

The operators of two other domains were also targeted – NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net. According to authorities the site had been subjected to a months-long operation. This is something TorrentFreak can confirm. Following a tipoff from a very reliable source, we informed NinjaVideo months ago that they were being watched and their hardware was being interfered with. It’s almost certain that they were powerless to do anything about it.

Now, the charismatic and somewhat larger-than-life leader of NinjaVideo, a young woman by the name of Phara, has returned to the spotlight. Never one to understate an issue, Phara is known for her forceful leadership style and colorful, often dramatic writing on various site issues from the small, to the very large.

The seriousness of the situation she currently finds herself, however, is off the scale.

“We need you. Our lives, our very freedom depends on this. We can’t do it alone,” pleads Phara. “We have nothing. Nothing at all. They took… everything.”

“Precedents are being made upon our heads. Never before has a site like ours been targeted in this way. We ask you… if you are vested in this case, this landmark case on the future of Internet Sharing and Internet Rights, that you speak to your friends, your family, your co-workers, your bosses,” she continues.

The gravity of the situation is clear. There can be little doubt that the U.S. Government will seek to make a very large example of NinjaVideo’s operators – a likelihood which doesn’t escape Phara. To this end she is calling for heavyweight help.

“Perhaps you are affiliated with the ACLU, Google, Youtube, MegaUpload, Rapidshare, The Pirate Parties around the world. Perhaps you are financially comfortable and you feel passionately about the issue at hand. We need… NEED… legal sponsorship in addition to legal donation,” she pleads.

“Perhaps the future of your own site is at risk and it is this case that will put it in the crosshairs of the next raid. Perhaps it will be you who will see your home, dear lord, your home, ripped apart by THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY.”

NinjaVideo was a free resource and never took money from its users but due to the unbelievably difficult situation its operators now find themselves in, pleas are now being issued for people to donate to the site’s fighting fund.

“We are up against the Federal Government of the United States. They are petrifying. PETRIFYING,” concludes Phrara. “And they are backed by Hollywood. And they have chosen us to be an example. I think you understand how much money is on the other side.”

Lots. Lots and lots of money. There can be little doubt about that. Phara fears the worst.

“They want to cage us. They most likely will,” she warns ominously.

“Please don’t let them. All it takes is $1 from each of you.”

In return for large donations – four digits or more – Ninja are offering benefactors a prominent position “behind the scenes”, presumably connected with defense. What these positions entail exactly remains to be seen.

“Your prayers, your posts, your words, your art… your support in general is priceless. Unfortunately, in the world we live in, it will be your money that gives us a fighting chance. The former gives us the strength to close our eyes and take it one breath at a time, the latter gives us the opportunity to take that breath outside of a prison cell,” Phara concludes.

“We love you, NinjaVideo. We always will.”

Those who wish to contribute to the NinjaVideo fighting fund can do so via this page.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In early April the UK Government forced through the controversial Digital Economy Bill after its third reading and just two hours debate. Complaints that the legislation was far too important to be passed through during the last minute ‘wash-up’ period were ignored, and the Digital Economy Act was born.

“It’s our belief that this haste meant the Digital Economy Bill, as it then was, became law without being properly scrutinised and without its impact being properly assessed,” writes TalkTalk boss Charles Dunstone today.

TalkTalk, which has been speaking out against both the Bill and Act from the beginning, intends to carry on its opposition by hopefully taking its argument to the High Court with the support of a rival ISP.

“Today, in conjunction with BT, we’ve filed papers with the High Court asking for a judicial review of the Digital Economy Act,” says Dunstone. “We’ve asked the High Court to look at whether the Act was passed into law without going through the correct parliamentary procedures.”

TalkTalk also believes that there could be incompatibilities between provisions in the Act and the E-Commerce Directive which restricts the obligations of ISPs. Other areas concerning subscriber privacy could also be problematic, with Dunstone noting that the measures in the Act designed to prevent file-sharing could undermine “the basic rights and freedoms of citizens.”

“As a result, we’re seeking clarity from the Court before we and other industry players are asked to implement the Act,” says Dunstone. “We want to avoid a situation where we invest tens of millions of pounds in new systems and processes only to find that the Act is unenforceable and the money wasted.”

In recent times, TalkTalk has sought to protect its subscribers from outside interference and is the only mainstream ISP in the UK to stand up to ACS:Law and its campaign against alleged file-sharers. In advance of ACS:Law going to court to obtain the real identities of individuals behind IP addresses it has harvested, the law firm approaches ISPs and asks them if they will contest the court action.

TalkTalk always refuses to comply and is therefore never included in court documents. This means that TalkTalk subscribers are protected from all the wrongful accusations documented dozens of times in recent months. The same, however, can not be said about BT. When approached by ACS:Law, BT indicates in advance that it will cooperate, which means its customers become heavily targeted.

Support TalkTalk on this too, BT, and then your subscribers will really take you seriously.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

The Norwegian movie Max Manus, based on the real-life events of World War II resistance fighter, has been causing quite a stir for both movie fans and privacy advocates. The most expensive and successful Norwegian movie to date, it inevitably leaked out onto the Internet and the hunt for those claimed to be responsible has been going on ever since.

The investigation, controlled by notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel and the Simonsen law firm, yielded a single IP address which allegedly belonged to the leaker. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this IP-address did not belong to the original leaker but almost certainly a mere subsequent sharer, the pursuit of that individual has been relentless.

For those interested in whether private firms (in this case the movie companies) should have access to private data, the case has proven difficult to follow. Virtually the whole process, including various court decisions and appeals, have been kept secret, right up to the recent Supreme Court decision. Now, however, we have the full story, and it’s bad news for file-sharers and those concerned about privacy.

Initially the police showed no interest in the case so Simonsen went to court to force an ISP, now named as Altibox, to reveal who was behind the IP address in question. The result in that case was kept secret. All we knew was that one party lost and lodged an appeal.

We now know that it was Altibox who lost the case in the Stavanger District Court and was ordered to hand over the personal details of one their subscribers to Simonsen. The ISP then appealed to the Gulating Court of Appeal, again something which was kept away from the public. The Court of Appeal decision was also deemed unsuitable for public consumption.

“I can confirm that the case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I can not confirm which of the parties has submitted the appeal, as that may indicate what the results were in the previous hearing,” commented Simonsen lawyer Rune Ljøstad at the time.

We can now report that it was Altibox who lost that decision with the Court of Appeal’s rejection of the case. So, with the ISP refusing to give in, it would be for the Supreme Court to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP address.

The Supreme Court rejected Altibox’s appeal on June 18, so the previous decision stands. They must hand over the alleged file-sharer’s details. Altibox said that it would have to comply with the decision in this case but would stand firm on any further demands for information from the private sector.

“We will continue to adhere to our current practice, and only comply with this requirement if it is made in connection with a police investigation or the existence of an enforceable ruling,” said CEO Eirik Gunde Gjerde.

Already the IFPI in Norway are hailing the Supreme Court decision as a triumph in their battle against music file-sharers and said the result was expected.

“I am not so surprised – the result has been the same in both District Court and Court of Appeal,” commented CEO Marte Thorsby. “Hopefully the fact that we now have the opportunity to pursue civil illegal file sharing cases in Norway will provide the same results here as in Sweden. There the Pirate Bay ruling and the introduction of IPRED Act (ie the Swedish implementation of EU Directive on Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement) meant that music sales in 2009 increased by approximately 10%.”

Thorsby added that Simonsen law firm are in possession of the IP addresses of some Norway’s biggest music uploaders. While noting that they “..do great damage, and should be stopped,” she would not confirm how many there are.

However, Simonsen lawyer Rune Ljøstad rejected the implication that they somehow had a “sort of archive of who did what on the Internet”

“We are required to delete information we have as soon as we do not need it any more in matters of our research,” said Ljostad. “But we follow events, and know who are most active at any time.”

Despite the Supreme Court ruling, the notion that it will open the floodgates for litigation against file-sharers in general seems remote.

“Without this decision copyright holders wouldn’t have the opportunity to pursue copyright violations on the Internet. Now we have that opportunity, so the question is when to use it,” notes Ljøstad.

“Currently it’s the only option we have, but there is no one who wants a lot of litigation. We are therefore working actively for what we call ‘graduated response’ – that is, that we sometimes wish that ISPs contact those who upload and tell them that we know who they are. This can serve as a warning. Going to court will be reserved for only the most serious cases,” he concluded.

Dr. Njål Borch at the Northern Research Institute told TorrentFreak that the Supreme Court decision was far from ideal.

“Just to top off everything, 28% of the film’s budget came from the Norwegian Film Fund, so we tax payers both largely paid for the film, the personal wealth of the film makers AND we lost our fundamental rights, all in one go.”

“A sort of perversely inverted Kinder Egg…”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Following last week’s threats from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at those offering unauthorized movies and music, yesterday saw indications of the first clear action.

Under the banner “Operation In Our Sites”, authorities targeted nine domains that are claimed to have offered first-run movies without consent from the copyright holders, a serious criminal offense under U.S. law.

“Criminal copyright infringement occurs on a massive scale over the Internet, reportedly resulting in billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy,” said Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office handled the warrants authorizing the seizures of seven of the domains.

The seven seized domains are TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org and ZML.com.

In addition to the domain seizures, agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized assets from 15 bank, PayPal, investment and other advertising accounts. Four residential search warrants were also executed.

The other two domains targeted – NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net – belong to the hugely popular streaming service NinjaVideo. According to authorities the site had been subjected to a months-long operation which resulted in the seizure of both their domains and website content.

“This investigation resulted in the execution of federal search warrants for their content and domain name at servers in the United States and the Netherlands. HSI agents also executed four residential search warrants in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Washington,” reads the ICE announcement.

Here at TorrentFreak this announcement didn’t really come as a surprise. Several months ago we were informed that NinjaVideo was being closely watched but we had no idea the U.S. authorities were behind it.

In March we received word that Dutch police had arrived at Ecatel, NinjaVideo’s host in The Netherlands. Our sources said that servers had been removed for examination but had been later returned. TorrentFreak contacted Ecatel who told us that “your sources have given you a lead far removed from the truth.”

We also contacted NinjaVideo and gave them what few details we had but after emails back and forth, it became clear that NinjaVideo either couldn’t or wouldn’t be drawn on the information we had provided. Without any absolute clear information or quotable sources we were sadly forced to abandon our planned article.

Now, three months later NinjaVideo is one of the nine websites that were targeted by the U.S. Government. As is often the case, however, not all of the websites are surrendering without putting up a fight. At least two sites have already adapted.

Movies-Links.TV, is operational under the new domain name of Watch-Movies-tv.info and TVShack.net is now located at TVShack.cc. Both are hosted with former Pirate Bay bandwidth supplier CB3ROB and both are mentioned in a previous MPAA copyright warning.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Black Internet’s relationship with The Pirate Bay has been far from smooth. Last year, the Swedish ISP bravely put its head above the parapet when it became a bandwidth supplier to the site, a move which has had several knock-on effects.

In August 2009, Stockholm’s district court ordered Black Internet to disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet or face fines of 500,000 kronor ($64,527). The ISP quickly complied with the ruling and the site temporarily went dark, but quickly reappeared with a new host.

The very next day following its decision to disconnect The Pirate Bay, Black Internet’s infrastructure was sabotaged with cost implications of “millions of kronor”. Although it was never proven, many believed that the attack and the blacking out of the world’s most famous BitTorrent site were connected.

After initially saying it wouldn’t appeal the district court’s decision, Black Internet changed its mind. “This is the first time in Sweden that an operator has been ordered to stop delivering Internet to someone. We want to know if it’s correct to do so,” said company boss CEO Victor Möller. The appeal was granted.

Last month the Svea Court of Appeals made its decision and for Black Internet the outcome was poor.

The Court ordered Black Internet to “stop providing Internet access to the TPB web site consisting of a web site including search engine and databasefunctions on which torrent files may be stored and a tracker.”

Even though the ISP is no longer servicing The Pirate Bay, the scope of this injunction appears to be broader than first thought. Not only must it never host the site, it must also stop the rest of its regular customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, making it the first ISP in Sweden ordered to block the site.

“We have chosen to block traffic into and out of the IP addresses that are using the Pirate Bay,” said Black Internet’s Victor Möller. “We made a decision on our assessment that this was the only way to live up to the Court of Appeal’s decision.”

Although being precise is difficult, Möller estimates that the block affects many thousands of businesses and individuals, many of which are keen to reestablish links with the site.

“They are looking for more tips and advice on getting past this block,” notes Möller. “There seems to be a great need to reach the Pirate Bay.”

TorrentFreak is awaiting comments from both Black Internet and Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted and will update this article with that information as soon as it arrives.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Last month the U.S. District Court of California issued a permanent injunction against BitTorrent search engine isoHunt.

Gary Fung, the owner of isoHunt, was ordered to start censoring the site’s search engine based on a list of thousands of keywords provided by the MPAA, or cease its operations entirely in the U.S. Thus far little has changed. The Lite version of isoHunt remains accessible and unfiltered to U.S. visitors while isoHunt and the MPAA battle in court against both the legitimacy and usability of the proposed filter.

IsoHunt has decided to appeal the injunction and this week both parties filed their motions with the court. In his support for the motion, Gary Fung argues that the list of generic keywords provided by the MPAA is unworkable and he accuses the movie studios of wanting to obtain control over BitTorrent.

“In my opinion, which I have expressed publicly, plaintiffs, MPAA and the Entertainment Industry are seeking not just to ‘stop copyright infringement’ but to obtain control over BitTorrent technology so that only their partners or those that conform to their demands for limiting access will have practical use of the technology,” Gary Fung told the Court.

Fung backs up his statement with the argument that keywords such as ’10′, ’21′, ‘Birth’, ‘Cars’, ‘Dad’, ‘Dave’, ‘Firefox’ and ‘Soldier’ would result in significant collateral damage with a keyword filter. It might make movie titles unavailable, but also a lot of public domain, GPL and Creative Commons works.

The MPAA has been asked by District Court Judge Wilson to supplement their titles list with more specificity, but apart from adding a few hundred more titles to the modified list, the defendants say it still lacks information which would allow isoHunt to filter effectively. Ideally, they would like to see a list of torrent hashes of alleged infringing material.

IsoHunt’s lawyer Ira Rothken further notes that the court failed to address the freedom of speech issues that are involved in this case. Fung himself likens the filter to the Great Firewall of China, where a similar keyword filter is used to censor the Internet.

“I find it absurd that we are required to keyword filter which ironically all search engines in countries like China are required to do due to political censorship, but isoHunt would be the only search engine serving traffic to US users required to do similar filtering..,” Fung wrote to the court.

These censorship and freedom of speech issues aside, isoHunt’s owner says that keeping the injunction would do serious harm to the site’s traffic and thus his business. IsoHunt has already seen a 50% drop in visitors from the U.S. after it switched to the Lite version.

“Since isoHunt switched to the Lite interface in compliance with concerns raised and publicized in the Summary Judgment, we have seen a 50% drop in US traffic and I am concerned that if a stay is not issued there will be no way to unring the bell on lost traffic,’ Fung wrote.

With both parties having presented their arguments, the District Court of California has now to decide whether the permanent injunction will stay in place or not. This decision will be a crucial one to the future of isoHunt and possibly other BitTorrent sites. Gary Fung has always said that a keyword filter is out of the question and that he would rather shut the site down in the US.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

This week saw unprecedented action against the Hungarian BitTorrent scene. As is always the case with these types of actions, until the smoke clears most details are largely unverified but thanks to information provided to TorrentFreak by Sct of ASVA.info (the country’s biggest P2P blog) and our Hungarian contacts, we can provide an outline.

Following investigations carried out by ASVA.hu (movie industry group) and PROART.HU (Association of Authors Rights) since early 2010, on Wednesday co-ordinated police raids across the country targeted many torrent sites, an ISP and even a technical university.

Ncore, the largest site targeted in the raids with around 900,000 peers, was the most prominent to be taken offline. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the main site may still be intact as the police only found the site’s proxy.

While quite a few sites went down once news of the raids started to spread, it remains difficult to be 100% certain which were actually visited by the police and which went down as a precaution.

1stTorrent appears to be trouble as they are calling out for a lawyer with IT/copyright expertise but have offered users assurances that their details are safe. Bithorló definitely had their servers seized as did GigaTorrent, Evolution, Blue Dragon, Dreamland and Deja Vu.

Insane and Pirate Bay reportedly received warnings of a raid and shut down voluntarily.

It is clear, however, that the raids were significant. According to the police, more than 50 servers were seized containing more than 500tb of data. Sources have confirmed that in addition to searches on an ISP and university, many seedboxes were seized.

Labeling the operations as “a huge milestone in the fight against Internet piracy”, the Association of Authors Rights (PROART) thanked the police for carrying out the raids and praised them for “establishing protection for the rights of creators”.

Under pressure from the United States, Hungarian authorities have carried out at least two sweeps against torrent sites in recent years, notably in 2007 and 2009.

Interestingly, a report on the PROART website from last month celebrates the news that the U.S. government recently removed Hungary from a blacklist due to its previously poor record in dealing with piracy.

In the meantime, the large Bithumen tracker, which was named in official documents as a target for closure, continues to operate from Germany.

Article from: TorrentFreak.