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Vodly.to, PrimeWire.ag, LetMeWatchThis, 1Channel is a Streaming Fiasco

While BitTorrent sites have gone from strength to strength in recent years, so-called streaming portals have really gained traction.

These sites, which in appearance are not dissimilar to YouTube, provide links to all the latest movies and TV shows. This content, usually held on 3rd party file-hosting services, is then displayed in a window, accessible at the touch of the button. No need to download the whole thing before viewing and no wait times.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, some of the leading sites in this field – which at times have been among the most popular sites on the Internet – have been involved in activity that has undermined confidence in their services and damaged their rankings.

The problem appears to be that they have rivals, enemies who are prepared to hack their domain names, hijack their sites and pass themselves off as the real thing.

The biggest disaster by far involves the famous 1Channel.ch. This site, which grew out of the LetMeWatchThis this domain, was apparently hacked back in May. 1Channel then pointed to a fake site which looked almost identical, which left the original site owner to revert back to the original LetMeWatchThis domain.

Then in June, LetMeWatchThis went down without explanation, only to reappear a few days later with a new domain – PrimeWire.ag. If you’re keeping up by this point you’re doing well – hold tight.

Now, just two months later, PrimeWire.ag is redirecting to a brand new domain – Vodly.to. There’s a notice on the front page as follows:

But there’s a problem. If 1Channel.ch was hijacked earlier this year and became a fake site, why would the owners of Vodly.to associate themselves with it? Why would they say that 1Channel.ch, PrimeWire.ag and now Vodly.to are one and the same? Why is there no mention of LetMeWatchThis.ch, a hugely popular domain that preceded 1Channel in its first incarnation, PrimeWire.ag in its second and it still online at this very moment?

Perhaps the most important question is this: are these all the same sites? The short answer to that is ‘No’.

Earlier this year the admin of LetMeWatchThis showed TorrentFreak a detail present on his site which enabled us to confirm he was the admin after 1Channel.ch was hijacked. That feature was also present on PrimeWire.ag which led us to feel moderately comfortable (entire server/backup takeover excepted) that PrimeWire was in fact the new name for LetMeWatchThis.

But now, if one goes to PrimeWire.ag (which diverts to the new name of Vodly.to) that feature is not present, which suggests that Vodly.to is probably a whole new site and nothing to do with the sites it claims to succeed. In the meantime the Twitter account for PrimeWire is advising people to use LetMeWatchThis.ch again.

So in summary…..no, let’s not even go there. This entire episode is a disaster from start to finish which has caused more uncertainty and doubt than any anti-piracy campaign could hope to achieve. There are countless users online wondering whether these sites are some sort of trap or have been set up for malicious purposes. Very few people know the answer to that question and those that do are not responding to their mails…..

Source: Vodly.to, PrimeWire.ag, LetMeWatchThis, 1Channel is a Streaming Fiasco

TorrentFreak

Steps Towards Uncovering the UK’s Piracy Site Blackout

http://torrentfreak.com/images/stop-blocked.jpg

There was a time that UK citizens could presume that all but the most evil of websites would be accessible via their Internet connections, but times are changing.

Following requests to the High Court by the music and movie industries, BitTorrent, Usenet and streaming indexes are now being blocked, rendered entirely inaccessible by the nation’s six largest service providers.

Although controversial, the reasons why sites such as The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Movie2K are being blocked are now clear. Once ISPs have “actual knowledge” that their services are being used by their subscribers to infringe copyright, they are put on notice by the High Court to block the sites in question.

However, it has become somewhat tiresome to learn that when injunctions are handed down by the High Court to ISPs, they appear to fall into some kind of informational black hole – fitting perhaps for a document authorizing censorship.

To try and find out what these injunctions contain TorrentFreak previously spoke with one of the leading ISPs who assured us that the documents aren’t actually secret. However, when we requested a copy we were told that they couldn’t send us one and we would have to go to the Court instead. No luck there – and the BPI weren’t exactly forthcoming either.

Now the Open Rights Group is reporting that it too has been trying to get to the bottom of the website injunction blackout. ORG’s Jim Killock says everyone could benefit from their publication.

“Accountability, fewer errors and less confusion about what is happening should be the result,” he says.

Killock reveals that ORG has also asked ISPs to cooperate but they too have been met with reluctance.

“Possibly [the ISPs] feel that copyright owners asking for the orders may find publication by an ISP provocative. This means we are obliged to ask the courts for the documents, in order that we can publish and analyse their contents,” he explains.

But ORG found that the courts didn’t want to help either, turning down the group’s requests to view the injunctions.

“They have done this because, they say, ‘judgement has not been entered’ or ‘service has not been acknowledged’. At present the rules governing access to court documents only permit access to these orders as of right once the litigation has finished,” Killock explains.

“The courts seem to be treating blocking injunctions as if they were like temporary injunctions made while proceedings are still going on. In fact the injunctions are the end of the section 97A process. Nothing more is intended to happen.”

With this in mind, ORG have applied to have a procedural judge review the group’s requests in order to gain access, at least in the first instance, to the injunctions issued to the ISPs against Fenopy, H33t and KickassTorrents.

“We hope to persuade the Master that a section 97A blocking injunction should be treated like any final judgment in court and be available to the public as of right. If we cannot do that, we will ask the Master’s permission to have access to the orders,” Killock concludes.

ORG is also maintaining 451unavailable.org, a site dedicated to tracking UK blocking requests. It’s currently a little out of date in respect of all injunctions issued so far, but it’s hoped that ORG will soon be able to publish information obtained from the courts to this resource.

Source: Steps Towards Uncovering the UK’s Piracy Site Blackout

Vía TorrentFreak http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/z74JgVRBnGo/