Over the past months we’ve discovered ‘pirates’ in the most unusual places, from the FBI, through major record labels and the U.S. Government to the Vatican.

Inspired by these revelations the Canadian Pirate Party decided to take a look at the downloading habits of their local Government and police, against a backdrop of vigorous recent debate surrounding online piracy in Canada, and the copyright troll phenomenon in particular.

With help from the pirating anti-piracy group Canipre several movie studios are gearing up to sue thousands of Internet subscribers. Interestingly, the Pirate Party’s findings suggest that even the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Government’s Industry Canada could become potential targets.

“This discovery shows that copyrighted materials have, in fact, been downloaded via the RCMP and Industry Canada networks,” states Pirate Party leader Travis McCrea.

McCrea notes, however, that like most copyright trolls, their evidence is far from rock solid and can’t be linked to individual downloaders.

“However, we cannot be sure who is responsible for downloading the material, or even if it was downloaded by employees, contractors, or a person who was using an open wireless connection. This is why this type of intellectual property enforcement doesn’t work – there is no method of reliably telling who actually engaged in the infringement of copyrighted materials.”

Below are a few “hits” that were found with data provided by BitTorrent tracking outfit Scaneye, starting with the police IP-addresses. The pirated titles are not unusual and the list mostly includes popular TV-shows and movies.

Industry Canada IP-addresses have also been caught pirating movies TV-shows and games, including episodes of The Voice, Duck Dynasty and The Ultimate Fighter.

The IP-addresses that were found are pulled from peer lists which increases the possibility of false positives, which is exactly how many copyright trolls are believed to gather evidence.

In the months to come thousands of Internet subscribers may be dragged to court, with movie studios demanding thousands of dollars in compensation. The Pirate Party Canada speaks out fiercely against these trolling actions.

They point out that despite the crackdowns on individual citizens, the police and the Government can seemingly continue to pirate without repercussions.

The fact that the makers of Game of Thrones and other frequently pirated titles don’t seem to mind, makes it all the more confusing according to the Pirate Party.

“Between the difficulty of targeting individual pirates, the double standard of targeting individuals more harshly than organizations, and the fact that many content creators don’t see piracy as detrimental to their business, it’s clear that something is wrong with the way intellectual property rights are currently enforced,” the Party comments.

“If the goal of copyright enforcers – and the creators they represent – is to increase profits and protect creator rights, shouldn’t there be a better way to accomplish this than by harassing individuals who may or may not bear any responsibility for copyright infringement happening on their IP address?”

For the many future troll victims in Canada, we hope that the judges handling these cases will ask the same questions.

Source: Canadian Police and Government Caught Pirating Movies and TV-Shows

Tuesday morning, TorrentFreak received an email from a UK music industry source which clearly indicated that the labels. led by the BPI, still view website censorship as the way forward in the continuing piracy battle.

In the past sites such as The Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents (KAT), H33T and Fenopy have been blocked by court action, but the list this time is particularly ambitious.

A total of 25 sites are listed including some of the world’s largest torrents sites – 1337x, Bitsnoop, ExtraTorrent, isoHunt, Monova, TorrentCrazy, TorrentDownloads, TorrentHound, TorrentReactor and Torrentz. In fact, if the current action comes to fruition, only one of the current top 10 torrent sites will remain unblocked in the UK.

However, in the torrent scene news travels very quickly indeed and if there is one thing users hate more than a badly-seeded torrent, it’s censorship, and the signs are that the proposed blocks will be met head on with potent circumvention tools.

PirateProxy.net is the world’s largest Pirate Bay proxy site whose growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. From a standing start in the second quarter of 2012 the site has achieved amazing things. According to Alexa, PirateProxy is the UK’s 137th most popular site, just ahead of its Netherlands ranking of 145th. To give an idea of scale, PirateProxy’s traffic can be compared with that currently achieved by Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz.

“Once I read that TF article, I started configuring and testing new proxies sites for Torrentz, Isohunt and Extratorrent,” the admin of PirateProxy told TorrentFreak.

“I have already created proxy sites for other blocked torrent sites such as KAT, Fenopy and H33T. Katproxy.com has become really popular in the UK recently too and i’m hoping to add these proxy sites to a new section on proxybay.info.”

As noted in our previous article, the world’s second most popular Pirate Bay proxy is PirateReverse.info. An admin there say they’re also well prepared.

“At the moment we’re looking to proxy all the torrent sites that were mentioned and we’ve already acquired such domains,” TorrentFreak was informed. “We’re always willing to invest in the proxies we provide to make them as fast and accessible as possible, and we’re planning some hardware upgrades shortly.”

However, in addition to the torrent sites the BPI list also contains other domains related to file-hosting searches (FilesTube, Filecrop) and MP3 sites (Grooveshark, MP3Skull, BeeMP3 etc). Early signs suggest that these aren’t the main priority of proxy providers since they are more difficult to set up.

“It would be particularly difficult to proxy the file sharing sites however, because of all the protection they use to stop people hot-linking the downloads, same goes for Grooveshark and the MP3 services,” PirateReverse explain.

“We will be looking into it, but for the moment the torrent sites are our priority. They will all be listed on torrentproxies.com when available, which we’re working to make the number one hub for torrent site proxies.”

PirateProxy’s admin says that any non-torrent site proxies will be driven by demand.

“I set up Proxybay.info a while back to collect good working proxies for The Pirate Bay. I am planning on doing a re-design that will allow proxies of other sites to be included as well. Currently, I am only planning on unblocking popular torrent sites, however, I may move onto other types of sites if there is enough demand.”

While both sets of proxy admins work separately, they share the belief that censorship is not only ineffective but also counterproductive.

“The current censorship regime in the UK just shows how technology is always a few steps ahead of government. They will catch up eventually, but by that time, we will find other ways to circumvent these blocks,” says PirateProxy’s admin.

“We think the way to combat piracy is to offer simple to access and good value alternatives. At the moment it is genuinely easier to torrent a movie or album than to buy it DRM free and keep forever online. Censorship will never work in this case,” says PirateReverse.

“However, our concerns lie that in the future we, the proxy operators, may be targeted. It is easier for us to move around into different IP spaces but it will be a tiresome and expensive game of whack-a-mole. In the long-term though, we think it will prove that censorship doesn’t work. Perhaps we will see the ISPs put up more of a fight – it costs them money to implement the blocks.”

PirateProxy’s admin says that there is a message to be sent – and hopefully plenty of determination to send it.

“Looking at the bigger picture, I hope these proxy sites can send a message that censorship on the Internet is pointless and counter-productive. I will continue to run these proxy sites until these sites are unblocked and accessible everywhere,” he concludes.

Source: Fighting Censorship, Proxies Gear Up to Unblock More Torrent Sites

Tuesday morning, TorrentFreak received an email from a UK music industry source which clearly indicated that the labels. led by the BPI, still view website censorship as the way forward in the continuing piracy battle.

In the past sites such as The Pirate Bay, KickAssTorrents (KAT), H33T and Fenopy have been blocked by court action, but the list this time is particularly ambitious.

A total of 25 sites are listed including some of the world’s largest torrents sites – 1337x, Bitsnoop, ExtraTorrent, isoHunt, Monova, TorrentCrazy, TorrentDownloads, TorrentHound, TorrentReactor and Torrentz. In fact, if the current action comes to fruition, only one of the current top 10 torrent sites will remain unblocked in the UK.

However, in the torrent scene news travels very quickly indeed and if there is one thing users hate more than a badly-seeded torrent, it’s censorship, and the signs are that the proposed blocks will be met head on with potent circumvention tools.

PirateProxy.net is the world’s largest Pirate Bay proxy site whose growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. From a standing start in the second quarter of 2012 the site has achieved amazing things. According to Alexa, PirateProxy is the UK’s 137th most popular site, just ahead of its Netherlands ranking of 145th. To give an idea of scale, PirateProxy’s traffic can be compared with that currently achieved by Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz.

“Once I read that TF article, I started configuring and testing new proxies sites for Torrentz, Isohunt and Extratorrent,” the admin of PirateProxy told TorrentFreak.

“I have already created proxy sites for other blocked torrent sites such as KAT, Fenopy and H33T. Katproxy.com has become really popular in the UK recently too and i’m hoping to add these proxy sites to a new section on proxybay.info.”

As noted in our previous article, the world’s second most popular Pirate Bay proxy is PirateReverse.info. An admin there say they’re also well prepared.

“At the moment we’re looking to proxy all the torrent sites that were mentioned and we’ve already acquired such domains,” TorrentFreak was informed. “We’re always willing to invest in the proxies we provide to make them as fast and accessible as possible, and we’re planning some hardware upgrades shortly.”

However, in addition to the torrent sites the BPI list also contains other domains related to file-hosting searches (FilesTube, Filecrop) and MP3 sites (Grooveshark, MP3Skull, BeeMP3 etc). Early signs suggest that these aren’t the main priority of proxy providers since they are more difficult to set up.

“It would be particularly difficult to proxy the file sharing sites however, because of all the protection they use to stop people hot-linking the downloads, same goes for Grooveshark and the MP3 services,” PirateReverse explain.

“We will be looking into it, but for the moment the torrent sites are our priority. They will all be listed on torrentproxies.com when available, which we’re working to make the number one hub for torrent site proxies.”

PirateProxy’s admin says that any non-torrent site proxies will be driven by demand.

“I set up Proxybay.info a while back to collect good working proxies for The Pirate Bay. I am planning on doing a re-design that will allow proxies of other sites to be included as well. Currently, I am only planning on unblocking popular torrent sites, however, I may move onto other types of sites if there is enough demand.”

While both sets of proxy admins work separately, they share the belief that censorship is not only ineffective but also counterproductive.

“The current censorship regime in the UK just shows how technology is always a few steps ahead of government. They will catch up eventually, but by that time, we will find other ways to circumvent these blocks,” says PirateProxy’s admin.

“We think the way to combat piracy is to offer simple to access and good value alternatives. At the moment it is genuinely easier to torrent a movie or album than to buy it DRM free and keep forever online. Censorship will never work in this case,” says PirateReverse.

“However, our concerns lie that in the future we, the proxy operators, may be targeted. It is easier for us to move around into different IP spaces but it will be a tiresome and expensive game of whack-a-mole. In the long-term though, we think it will prove that censorship doesn’t work. Perhaps we will see the ISPs put up more of a fight – it costs them money to implement the blocks.”

PirateProxy’s admin says that there is a message to be sent – and hopefully plenty of determination to send it.

“Looking at the bigger picture, I hope these proxy sites can send a message that censorship on the Internet is pointless and counter-productive. I will continue to run these proxy sites until these sites are unblocked and accessible everywhere,” he concludes.

Source: Fighting Censorship, Proxies Gear Up to Unblock More Torrent Sites

Over the years we have been following various reports on changes in Internet traffic, specifically in relation to BitTorrent.

One of the patterns that emerged with the rise of video streaming services is that BitTorrent is losing its share of total Internet traffic.

This downward spiral is confirmed by the latest Sandvine report which reveals that BitTorrent traffic is now responsible for 9.2% of all U.S. Internet traffic in North America during peak hours, compared to 11.3% last year.

However, if we look at the actual volumes of data being transferred through file-sharing networks we see that usage is still growing. Median Internet traffic increased by more than 50% since last year on fixed networks, so in terms of actual traffic BitTorrent usage is going up.

BitTorrent’s presence is most visible in upstream traffic, with 34.8% of all data transferred during peak hours going through the protocol. HTTP traffic comes in second with 7.5% and Dropbox gets a notable mention with 1.2% of all upstream traffic during peak hours.

BitTorrent usage remains high in other regions as well, and highest of all in Asia-Pacific where it’s credited for 21.6% of total Internet traffic during peak hours. In Europe and Latin America this percentage is 17.4% and 10.2% respectively.

Another trend we noticed is that SSL traffic, used for some VPN services, has increased significantly over the past months. In North America upstream traffic over SSL more than doubled its share in a year, from 2.5% to 5.4%. Again, in terms of actual traffic this increase has been even greater and similar patterns are observed in other regions.

In part this boom in SSL traffic may be explained by the increase in VPN usage among BitTorrent users. A significant percentage of users hide their IP-address behind a VPN or proxy and the numbers are expected to go up even further in the future.

This increase in VPN use also means that the actual percentage of BitTorrent traffic is even higher, since the Sandvine report puts the traffic generated by these users in the SSL category.

It will be interesting to see how the “six-strikes” crackdown in the United States and similar measures around the world will accelerate this upward trend for encrypted traffic, and whether BitTorrent traffic continues to grow in the years to come.

Source: BitTorrent Accounts for 35% of All Upload Traffic, VPNs are Booming

In November 2011, Universal Music Group, the world’s largest recording label, sued music streaming service Grooveshark.

The label claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and accused the company of massive copyright infringement. The accusations included claims that bosses and other workers at the company, from the CEO down, personally uploaded many thousands of infringing tracks to the service.

Universal was later joined by Sony, Warner and several other labels who all called for the shutdown of the streaming service and fines against the named employees. In recent months activity in the case slowed down, but behind the scenes the discussions continued.

This has now resulted in a voluntary agreement between the labels and five Grooveshark employees. Nikola Arabadjiev is the only one who still works at the company. Grooveshark founder Sam Tarantino and co-founder Josh Greenberg have not signed an agreement.

The “consent judgments” obtained by TorrentFreak suggest trouble for Grooveshark, which up until now streamed millions of songs without explicit authorization from copyright holders.

Under the agreement the named Grooveshark employees are prohibited from infringing copyrights of musical works owned by the major labels. In addition, they must never again work with a business that systematically infringes upon label copyrights.

“The Defendant and all those acting in concert with the Defendant shall be immediately and permanently enjoined from infringing in any manner any copyright in any and all sound recordings, whether now in existence or later created, in which any of the Plaintiffs own or control any exclusive rights under Section 106 of the United States Copyright Act (the “Copyrighted Works”),” the agreement reads.

“This shall include, but is not limited to, copying, uploading, reproducing, distributing, transmitting or publicly performing any of the Copyrighted Works in violation of the United States Copyright Act, via the Grooveshark service or any other online streaming service, website, application, or peer-to-peer or file-trading system that operates without authority or license from the appropriate Plaintiff or any of its licensees,” it adds.

TorrentFreak approached Grooveshark and the record labels for comment on the recent developments. Grooveshark’s attorneys preferred not to comment on the developments and we have yet to hear back from the labels.

The current lawsuit is just one of many Grooveshark has been dragged into over recent years. January last year EMI sued the music service over a contractual dispute, and Grooveshark has been blocked following court orders in Germany and Denmark. This week, record labels in the UK indicated that they are preparing an ISP blockade of the site.

Over the years Grooveshark has always fiercely defended its business, arguing that it operates within the boundaries of the law and removes unauthorized content when it receives a DMCA takedown notice. At the same time, they negotiated licensing deals with the major labels.

“Laws come from Congress. Licenses come from businesses, Grooveshark is completely legal because we comply with the laws passed by Congress, but we are not licensed by every label (yet),” Grooveshark’s Paul Geller said previously.

However, it seems that the major labels probably want to quash the site entirely instead of legitimizing it through licensing deals.

At the time of writing the music service is still up and running and no settlement with Grooveshark has been entered. However, now that key defendants in the case have struck a deal it would be no surprise if parent company Escape Media follows suit.

Source: Grooveshark’s Future in Doubt After Settlements With Big Music