Hot on the heels of recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel directed at sites offering unauthorized movies and music, last month U.S. authorities targeted several sites they claimed were connected to the streaming of infringing video material.

‘Operation In Our Sites‘ targeted several sites including TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org, ZML.com, NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net. In almost unprecedented action, the domain names of 7 sites were seized and indications are that others – The Pirate Bay and MegaUpload – narrowly avoided the same fate.

Fears remain, however, that this action is only the beginning, and that more sites will be targeted as the months roll on. Indeed, TorrentFreak has already received information that other sites, so far unnamed in the media, are being monitored by the authorities on copyright grounds.

Now, according to the owner of a free WordPress platform which hosts more than 73,000 blogs, his network of sites has been completely shut down on the orders of the authorities.

Blogetery.com has been with host BurstNet for 7 months but on Friday July 9th the site disappeared. The following Monday the owner received an email from BurstNet:

Due to the history of abuse and on going abuse on this ‘bn.***********’ server.

We have opted to terminate this server, effective immediately. This termination applies to: bn.affiliateplex.com

Abuse Department
BurstNET Technologies, Inc

Further correspondence received the following response:

Bn.xx*********** was terminated by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server.

We are limited as to the details we can provide to you, but note that this was a critical matter and the only available option to us was to immediately deactivate the server.

…and a later clarification:

Please note that this was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.

“We notified him [the Blogetery owner] when we terminated it [the server], and we refunded him his money to his account, because he has other servers with us If he wants the refund to his card, we can easily do that. However, it should be the least of his concerns,” A BurstNet representative later confirmed.

“Simply put: We cannot give him his data nor can we provide any other details. By stating this, most would recognize that something serious is afoot.”

Due to the fact that the authorities aren’t sharing information and BurstNet are sworn to secrecy, it is proving almost impossible to confirm the exact reason why Blogetery has been completely taken down. The owner does, however, admit to handling many copyright-related cease and desists in the past, albeit in a timely manner as the DMCA requires.

Nevertheless, a couple of quick Google searches which are likely to turn up blogs which link to copyright material appear to do just that – here, here and here. That said, on any network this large this type of activity is bound to happen. Many thousands of blogs on the same platform would have been perfectly legal.

“All of the users are without service just like when the Pirate Bay raids happened and all the people who were on the host sites were also taken down,” pointed out an annoyed Blogetery user who contacted TorrentFreak. “I have lost my personal site also and I don’t have any way to contact the owner since his contact info was on the blogetery.com site & that was the only way to contact him.”

Indeed, 73,000 blogs is a significant number to take down in one swoop, regardless of what some users of the site may or may not have been doing. Time will tell if it was indeed a copyright complaint that took down the service but the signs are certainly there. Not so long ago the conclusion that this type of action could be taken on copyright grounds would have been dismissed out of hand, but the current atmosphere seems to be changing.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In a paper titled “Moving Digital Britain Forward Without Leaving Creative Britain Behind”, Will Page suggests various models through which ISPs could compensate the losses allegedly caused by customers that share music without consent from copyright holders.

The proposal piggybacks onto the UK’s Digital Economy Act, which requires that the level of illicit file-sharing should be measured. The PRS believes this is a unique opportunity to use these statistics to charge ISPs accordingly, by putting a price tag on the traffic volume generated by illicit downloaders.

Not all parties are equally excited about the idea. UK ISP Talktalk has responded negatively to the proposal from PRS. “It would require monitoring of traffic and this has huge implications in respect of directives on privacy and data retention,” TalkTalk told Sky News.

“It’s profoundly unfair – it is like making a bus company responsible for shoplifters who use their buses to get to the shops,” TalkTalk said. “It is futile since people will switch to undetectable methods e.g. encrypted services, streaming.” TalkTalk further emphasizes that the music industry should focus on building sustainable business models though innovation and by listening to consumers instead.

Indeed, the PRS proposal is overly simplistic since measuring illicit traffic is extremely complex. With the increased adoption of anonymizing services it might even prove impossible to get an accurate estimate.

Despite the technical issues, the economic aspects are more complex than the PRS believes them to be. Foremost, there is still a debate as to whether piracy results in losses, and if so, to what extent. Even if this number would be known, one can question whether it’s fair that non-pirating customers will eventually have to deal with price increases caused by the suggested “pirate levy”.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Claiming that the site was a major source of pre-release cammed movies with links to piracy groups outside the country, on May 26th 2009 the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs carried out a raid on the the Russian BitTorrent tracker, Interfilm.ru.

The action followed complaints from anti-piracy group RAPO, a founding member of the MPA which represents the interests of Universal, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox in Russia.

At Interfilm’s Moscow base the police arrested several staff and also the main targets, husband and wife team Ivan and Irina Podorozhnikovymi.

Just over a year later the Interior Ministry Investigation Committee has now filed criminal charges against the pair, known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’. The scope of the accusations are quite incredible. Domestic and foreign film companies claim that the tracker caused 38.7 billion rubles in damages – a mind-blowing $1.253 billion.

Although it has not been revealed how this astronomical figure was reached, if convicted the founders – who the authorities say moved house and took technical measures to keep the site up during the investigation – could be facing up to six years in jail under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.

In addition to action against the site’s founders, there is an ongoing investigation into some of the top users of the site. However, in order to prove that regular users committed any crimes, under Russian law it would be necessary to prove they profited from their actions on a large scale.

There are claims that some individuals downloaded fresh movie releases from Interfilm and then uploaded them to their own sites. Police are considering whether to launch criminal investigations in these cases.

Although Interfilm went down after the initial raid, it reappeared at LeaseWeb in The Netherlands. The site remains operational today with a Malaysian host but is perhaps preparing for trouble. In addition to using the Interfilm.ru domain, the site is also in operation from BitHouse.org. Russia’s biggest torrent site, Torrents.ru, recently had to change its name to RUTracker.org after its domain was seized by Russian authorities.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

Faced with a huge BitTorrent site that simply refuses to comply, give in, or die, anti-piracy groups have been trying other methods to take The Pirate Bay offline.

With 2009′s “guilty” verdict in hand, a common theme in recent times has been to put pressure on ISPs to block the site, but most are refusing to comply.

Similar negotiations have been going on in Belgium between two ISPs, Belgacom and Telenet, and the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) for some time now, but reached deadlock.

“There should be an efficient and quick procedure to be able to act fast against illegal foreign sites. We’ve tried negotiating with the internet providers for over a year, but to no avail,” said BAF’s Christophe Van Mechelen. “A list of illegal foreign sites was also sent to the public prosecutor’s office, but was classified without result.”

Inevitably the negotiations with the ISPs transformed into legal action and this week a court was left with a decision – should it officially order the service providers to block the world’s most resilient BitTorrent site?

For the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) the outcome was bad news.

Yesterday the Antwerp Commercial Court refused to order ISPs Belgacom and Telenet to make the The Pirate Bay inaccessible to their subscribers and labeled such a blocking requirement as “disproportionate”.

BAF reacted angrily against the ISPs, stating that by taking the side of The Pirate Bay they had effectively given protection to “an illegal site”. The ISPs, however, said that the decision to block websites is not theirs to make.

“It is not the role of Telenet to decide which sites should be available or not to our users,” said a spokeswoman for the ISP. “As a service provider, this is not within our competence.”

Belgacom also defended its stance in a comment. “The judge considered that immediate action to block this site was not necessary and that BAF’s application was disproportionate to the offense, especially since the site has existed for several years and that the request comes only now.”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In December 2009, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Lorenzo Fertitta testified at a hearing of the US House Judiciary Committee that his business was losing millions to piracy. His organization later announced that it would start taking legal action against infringers.

Lawrence Epstein, general legal counsel for the UFC, said the mixed-martial arts outfit might even subpoena sites in order to gain the IP-addresses of people who were illegally downloading and sharing UFC events.

“When people start going to jail,” said UFC President Dana White, “people will stop doing it.”

But of course, it wouldn’t be easy, something acknowledged by White.

“It’s going to be a battle, man,” he said. “It’s going to be a battle, but I’m ready to (expletive) fight,” he said. “We’re gonna go after them, we’re gonna go after them hard, and we’re gonna hurt em.”

Aside from illegal streams, plenty of infringers can also be found on BitTorrent. Last Saturday’s big event, UFC 116, where UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar faced off with interim champion Shane Carwin was a huge success, pulling in more than 250,000 views on BitTorrent alone.

Now, in a new announcement from the UFC, the company says that as part of its ongoing effort to combat piracy, it has reached “confidential settlements with over 500 businesses and individuals” in connection with unauthorized “broadcasts and views” of UFC events.

While it seems reasonable to expect that the UFC has managed to shut down some streams of its live events (it hit Rage-Streams.net earlier this year), the suggestion that it would go after end users seems unlikely. Due to their private nature the settlements – which were reached over the last 2 years – are impossible to investigate, but the subtle implication with its chosen wording that somehow the UFC is being successful against those merely viewing illicit streams doesn’t hold much water.

“We are committed to standing toe-to-toe with anyone trying to illegally broadcast or stream UFC events,” announced White yesterday. “Today’s announcement further drives home the fact that we are fully prepared to pursue any business or individual that steals our programming.”

The UFC’s attack on piracy, which thus far hasn’t received the support of commentator Joe Rogan who said that it “kind of stifles innovation”, is costing the UFC more money than the piracy itself.

“(Piracy) hasn’t cost us anything compared to what it’s going to cost us to go after these guys,” said White earlier.

Nevertheless, when the UFC gets tough, it really does ask for big money. Earlier this year a lawsuit filed in the District Court in Boston revealed that the UFC was suing a bar owner for showing one of their events without an appropriate license. A license costs between $500 and $1,500 depending on the size of the location showing it but apparently the bar didn’t have one. The UFC demanded $640,000 plus legal costs.

The UFC has also been spending not insignificant money lobbying the US Government. In 2008, the first year it filed lobbying reports, the UFC spent $280,000 – an amount reportedly more than double the industry average for that year. In 2009 it spent $320,000 and to end April 2010, another $80,000.

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.

In the final days of last month, US authorities targeted several sites they claimed were connected to the streaming of movies and TV shows. ‘Operation In Our Sites‘ culminated in the apparent shutting down of 9 sites – TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org, ZML.com, NinjaVideo.net and NinjaThis.net – although not in the conventional manner.

Rather than rounding the operators up physically or threatening them with ruinous legal action, the US Government seized at least 7 of the domains instead, and pointed them to their own server which carried an ominous warning.

The action came following recent threats from Vice President Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel which were directed at those offering unauthorized movies and music. Nevertheless, the domain seizure route came as quite a surprise.

That said, domain seizures are nothing new. In 2008 the Governor of Kentucky grabbed around 140 domains connected with online gambling but we have to go back seven years to find a comparable copyright related case.

In February 2003, the US DOJ obtained the domain of release news site IsoNews.com after its owner pleaded guilty to selling Xbox ‘Enigmah’ mod chips, a violation of the DMCA. However, the site’s domain wasn’t taken ‘just like that’, it was handed over by its owner in a plea deal. So, how did the authorities manage to take control of the streaming-connected sites so easily? The answer lies with ICANN.

Amongst other things, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the body responsible for managing the web’s DNS system to ensure that users of the Internet can find websites by using domain names. Coincidentally, last month Internet policy and security research group KnujOn published a report which suggested that many dozens of Internet domain registrars (who sell domains to the public) could be violating their agreements with ICANN, including but not limited to the blocking of Whois information.

The report, which concerned domains through which unlicensed pharmaceuticals are sold online, was later cited by John Horton, the head of a LegitScript, a company which aims to ensure the legitimacy of online pharmacies. He noted the importance of pointing out to domain name registrars that “there is no reason to knowingly facilitate criminal activity including activity that violates intellectual property. Those are the choke points of the Internet.”

Of course, one such choke point is located a small but significant step above the registrars with ICANN itself and it seems the organization has been working both closely and freely with the authorities in respect of these recent domain seizures.

A source that has proved 100% reliable in the past told TorrentFreak that ICANN transferred the movie and TV related domains to the US authorities because it was agreed that they were violating their terms and conditions. We were also informed that, as mentioned in the KnujOn report, some registrars also violate ICANN’s terms and conditions by anonymizing the ownership of domains. This, we were told, could make other domains in a similar state targets to be seized by the authorities in the future.

So the basic formula appears to be this – the US Government felt the sites in question were illegal and since they were accessible from the US, they should do something about them. On its part, ICANN has no problem cooperating with the Government and is happy to act on terms of use violations either by domain owners or domain registrars.

Clearly this development comes as somewhat of a surprise, so naturally we were keen to find out where this policy could end. How, for example, would it affect some of the biggest sites? Naturally The Pirate Bay came to mind.

Shockingly, TorrentFreak was informed that wheels were also set in motion to seize The Pirate Bay domain. But for reasons that remain unclear that didn’t come to pass. Our source believes that the US authorities would’ve had to contact the Swedish authorities on the matter first, but that since there is already an unfinished criminal process against the site, the time was not considered right. There is an implication, however, that patience won’t last forever and may run out after the founders’ upcoming court appeal.

Another site in the cross hairs appears to be MegaUpload. Although a domain seizure was suggested, it now seems that another route has been taken, at least for now. We have also been informed by other sources that further sites are being watched although it proved impossible to discover their names.

We asked ICANN for a reaction on this development, but got no reply.

“Hollywood lawyers have discovered the soft underbelly of piracy,” was the reaction of Professor Pouwelse from Delft University of Technology. Prof. Pouwelse is no stranger to legal proceedings, he has appeared as an expert witness on P2P matters in numerous civil and criminal court proceedings.

“This is very effective erosion of Internet rights, if it grows from an obscure practice into standard procedure for taking down entire websites”. The Kentucky example is dragging on for years already, so there is still hope.

Clearly the seizure of domains on terms and conditions violations is a worrying development but one that could remain unresolved for sometime. Are the operators of the above-mentioned streaming sites likely to turn up in a US court to argue for their safe return? Hardly….

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.

A leaked ACTA document published by citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net revealed the intention to introduce criminal sanctions into the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for file-sharing offenses.

The ACTA Chapter 2 Criminal Provisions document (.pdf) stated that “each party shall provide for effective proportionate and dissuasive penalties” to include “imprisonment and monetary fines”.

“The ACTA agreement, by its opacity and undemocratic nature, allows criminal sanctions to be simply negotiated,” commented Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net. “The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for ‘inciting and aiding’, a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.”

As noted by Zimmermann, the ACTA text includes proposals to apply criminal sanctions to “infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain”. There are suggestions that “financial gain” could simply be obtaining anything without paying.

However, it seems that at least one country is showing a reluctance to go along with suggestions that file-sharers should feel the full weight of a criminal court. The UK Government has now said that it feels that criminal sanctions are an inappropriate way to deal with this type of copyright infringement.

“Acta should not introduce new intellectual property laws or offences. Instead, it should provide a framework to better enforce existing laws,” a UK Intellectual Property Office representative told ComputerActive.

Currently, personal-use file-sharing on a non-commercial scale is almost always considered a civil offense in the UK. However, there have been exceptions. In the case of the OiNK uploaders (who actually uploaded very little indeed), their cases were heard in a criminal court and they ultimately received fines and community service orders. This proves that when powerful enough people get involved, it’s trivial to escalate an offense way above its standing.

That said, it would be ridiculous to have small infringements dealt with by the criminal courts as a matter of course, so hopefully the UK Government stands strong. Jim Killock, Chief Executive at the Open Rights Group said the Government now needs to make its opposition to these proposals both public and clear to the US and EU.

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.