( Opinion ) YTS Lawsuits Offer Clearest Sign Yet That Pirates Shouldn’t Trust Anyone

[Matrix]

 

One of the most common recurring questions in respect of downloading, sharing and even streaming, is whether service X or platform Y is 'safe' to use, from a copyright-infringement perspective. Recent developments show that no matter how safe users think they are, security is something that should never be taken for granted.

 

When mainstream piracy was in its infancy two decades ago, the majority of file-sharers had no idea that they were even at risk from snoopers. Thanks to a massive wave of lawsuits from the RIAA in 2003, that perception soon changed.

 

Somewhere around 2004, the MPAA embarked on a parallel campaign to drive the message home to pirates that the Internet is not anonymous.

 

“If you can think you can get away with illegally swapping movies, you’re wrong,” the ‘You Can Click But You Can’t Hide’ posters read. “Illegally trafficking in movies is not just a dirty little secret between you and your computer. You leave a trail.”

 

 

The MPAA also gave unquestionably good advice: the only way to guarantee that users weren’t caught for sharing pirated movies was not to share them at all. Of course, millions didn’t listen and by the time that VPNs really started to take off around 2006/2007, file-sharers were laughing into their keyboards.

 

The biggest threat back then (as it is now) was sharing torrents without protection. Torrents are public and any rightsholder can monitor them before filing a lawsuit for damages. But by 2009 or so, when streaming sites had already embedded themselves as the next big thing, a whole new click-and-play generation had become complacent again, lulled to sleep by the perceived security offered by third-party hosting sources.

 

Today, millions of people are streaming content via apps and so-called Kodi boxes, mostly with zero protection. The idea, if people even consider it, is that ‘pirate’ sites can’t or won’t give up their information. That is a dangerous assumption.

 

As recently documented here on TF, there is a worrying situation playing out on YTS, one of the Internet’s most popular torrent indexes. Taking all the facts at hand and adding in some educated guesses, it seems that after being subjected to massive legal pressure, the owner of that torrent resource may be handing information on some of its users to movie companies.

 

To many file-sharers, that might seem an outrageous proposition but when faced with multiple six-digit claims for damages, no one should expect anything different. Once the identity of the site’s operator became known to the movie company plaintiffs, the pressure seems to have increased to the point that skin-saving might now be the order of the day. That seems to have been the case at Cotomovies as well.

 

The thing is, if a torrent site or app developer can be pressured in this way, so can any other site holding potentially incriminating user data. There can be little doubt that many file-hosting and streaming platforms carry detailed logs and if the proverbial hits the fan, they could be handed over. Even some so-called debrid download sites, that appear to offer enhanced security, state that they carry download logs for up to a year.

 

The bottom line is that if users are expecting pirate sites (or even gray area sites like the now-defunct Openload) not to store their personal information or carry download and upload logs, they are effectively banking on a third-party’s security and their determination not to buckle under the most severe pressure imaginable.

 

In 2020 and after almost two decades of aggressive litigation, it’s perhaps surprising that anyone is taking such things for granted. But people do. They use their regular email addresses to sign up for questionable services, access all kinds of pirate sites without using a VPN, use their personal PayPal accounts for payments and donations, and generally fail to take seriously what could be a very expensive exercise in complacency.

 

As an example, just last week a user on Reddit reported that a copyright troll in the US had tracked him down with evidence that he’d shared 20 movies. To put that into settlement terms (to make a lawsuit go away) that could mean paying out $20,000, $40,000 or even $60,000 – a potentially life-changing or indeed life-ruining sum.

 

A decade-and-a-half ago the MPAA’s “Click But Can’t Hide” campaign declared that the Internet is not anonymous. It was accurate (at least by default) but many people continue to believe that security isn’t important. The truth is, the Internet is getting less anonymous every single year and rightsholders know how to exploit that.

 

Like the apparent YTS fiasco, expect more preventable ‘surprises’ in the months and years to come.

 

Source

[Guest]

The problem with authorities are, they quick to identify, but late to react.

3 years of downloading from Ganool and YTS, not even a single issue happens to myself.

[steven36]

you can't trust no one that's why i retired from uploading   i went years uploading on closed  forums no vpn with very little problems except for leechers stealing  my links and posting them on  open websites  i just deleted and re-uploaded the file if I  got some insane number of downlods. I even used megaupload that was shutdown by the FBI .  I started using Kazza and Imesh in the early 2000s and even before that Metallica sued lots of users on Napster for downloading there songs . People bought Rapidshare , Hotfile Megaupload , Uploaded  with PayPal and they  all was took to court and they never went  after no one but the companies .

 

As far as the ACE taking down Openload  and BitTorrent trolls for shiity movies them getting info from about people joining  YTS is not even the  same thing or same groups everybody knows these Indie Film studios try to sue BitTorrent users because no one will even rent there  movies  much less buy them.  They done this for years  and years. They been  Identifying P2P users using traffic analysis since the days of Napster .  And the Trolls have lost way more than the won in court. If they tracked a user for downloading 200 movies the info didn't come from nothing YTS gave them  they seen him downloading  with traffic analysis on lots of torrents using there real ip .

 

It happens everyday almost  people report on reddit.com they got warnings from there ISP and even back when they sued users before that is nothing new  back before ISP in the USA had warnings  and they sued the ISPs  before 2012 thats all you ever heard of was people being sued but they never came after me .So whats  new is really old  and most  always when they go after downloaders  they from the USA and they was using p2p .

 

In the EU , UK,  AU they all block websites  they sometimes they go after uploaders but not downloaders . But no one  has ever been sued from downloading from filelockers people buy theres with there real info and no  one ever said anything  about being sued  so  Andy posting conspiracy and not facts  there . As far as public websites  you can just use tor browser if you don't have a vpn . Some websites  like reddit.com and DDL  sites if i post in the the comments i use fake email  , tor browser and  vpn. 

 

Even my real emails cant be traced back to  me because i made them with fake info  I always have . But the sky is not falling .   You know how many streaming and DDLsites   used openload to upload on before they  closed down,  almost  all of them did and guess what most all them sites are still there  . Only one site i ever visit went down and i never joined it was MKVCAGE and he didn't get shut down because of filelockers he posted  it was because he was uploading torrents and hellboy  got his info  from one of the sites he uploaded them too. .One of the same ones that sue YTS.   They been uploading to these blogs on cyberlockers every since rapidshare and megaupload existed and that long before anyone ever had a idea  to make openload . Back in the old days  of cyberlockers it you didn't have a premium account no ddl  sites had zippyshare and mediafire  you could only find free links on forums  mostly only software .

 

Before 2012 using cyberlockers was more used than P2P . The only reason BitTorrent had a comeback was megaupload got closed and caused many others to get scarred and close down too and PayPal started banning cyberlockers were they was hard to buy anymore .   And in recent years it had another comeback  with kodi and leechers , Many people on BitTorrent now days are just leeching in the cloud with streaming addons  form some other site they paid for is doing the downloading and uploading in the cloud  for them from p2p and they just downloading  it DDL Link  . You dont have to download or stream from BitTorrent anymore you can just pay  some site to do it for you and you download from them.  So far not one paid leecher  has been shut down yet.