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After suing hundreds of alleged downloaders in the United States, the makers of Dallas Buyers Club expanded their legal campaign to Europe late last year.

The first cases were brought in Denmark, with anti-piracy lawfirm Maqs demanding fines of roughly 250 euros per infringement.

After collecting several successful payments the scheme is now getting traction locally, especially following reports that Popcorn Time has become more popular than Netflix.

“You could say that the ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ letters have been a success in the number of inquiries that have come in,” Maqs’ lawyer Jeppe Brogaard Clausen told DR, noting that new letters are still being sent out for Dallas Buyers Club.

One of the filmmakers interested in the “speculative invoicing” scheme is Danish producer Ronnie Fridthjof. Together with other industry players he’s determined to go after Popcorn Time users.

“I had hoped that politicians and the police would take care of such matters, but unfortunately that hasn’t happened. When my business is threatened, I am more or less forced to do something,” Fridthjof tells TV2.

While Popcorn Time is specifically mentioned as a target, the action will affect regular BitTorrent users as well. After all, Popcorn Time streams films by connecting to regular torrent swarms.

The new fines are expected to be sent out this summer. The first ones will be around 1,000 to 2,000 Danish krone ($150 to $300), and will increase if recipients fail to respond. As a last resort the filmmakers are considering whether to take alleged pirates to court.

According to some users streaming films via Popcorn Time is seen as something in a legal gray area. Fridthjof, however, has no doubt that it’s against the law.

“It is absolutely crazy that people believe it is legal. It is in no way! It is comparable buying and selling counterfeit goods right next to an official store,” he says.

Similarly, the filmmaker doesn’t buy the excuse that people use Popcorn Time because the legal services don’t have the latest films. That doesn’t justify grabbing something for free, he says.

“We must be able to choose which business model we want, and it must not be guided by unlawful acts. We will not make a business model that competes with free content,” he says.

Legal threats against Popcorn Time users are not new. In the U.S. lawsuits against BitTorrent pirates are quite common, and in Germany Popcorn Time related ‘fines’ have also been issued.

Responding to these developments, various Popcorn Time variants have warned their users over possible legal repercussions and have started offering anonymizing options. Both popcorntime.io and popcorn-time.se now have built-in VPN support.

For now there are still many people using Popcorn Time without anonymizing services, so there will still be plenty of people to fine.

Update: The same scheme may be coming to Sweden as well.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

Posted by Régis Décamps, Software Engineer

These days, many of us have more than one email address. If you’re a student, you may have one account for school, one for a campus group you lead, and one for your blog. If you’re a parent, you might have one for family and one for your business. However many email addresses you have, today’s improvements to the Gmail app for Android make it easy to manage all your mail from all your accounts (yes, even @yahoo and @outlook) while you’re on the go.
All your inboxes in one place
Starting today you’ll be able to view all your mail at once, regardless of which account it’s from, using the new “All Inboxes” option. This way you can read and respond to all your messages without having to hop between accounts.
Conversation view
You’ve told us threaded conversations are one of your favorite Gmail features because they keep your messages organized and give you all the context you need to reply to those long email threads. Now messages from your Yahoo, Outlook.com and other IMAP/POP accounts will get the same special treatment, appearing neatly stacked as one conversation.
Smarter search
Search is the cornerstone of Google, and of Gmail. The new Gmail app for Android has better auto-complete, so you can find what you need even faster.
And a few other cool things…
Today’s update also includes more responsive animations (like when you open and close a conversation), larger attachment previews to help you see what’s inside, and the ability to save to Drive with a single tap.
We hope these updates make it a little bit easier to manage mail from all your accounts (Gmail or otherwise!). Look for the update on Google Play as it rolls out over the next few days.

Marvel's upcoming Daredevil series is due to premiere on Netflix on April 10th, so naturally there's going to be no shortage of trailers in the lead-up to the debut. Here, however, we really get to see how dangerous Matt Murdock is when he's not in his lawyerly suit and tie. (Those batons are no joke.) We also get out first look at Stick, played by Scott Glenn, the blind man who trains Murdock in martial arts.

Can we now expect to see Elektra and the Hand at some point down the road?

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Today Google has announced a number of changes that make it easier to handle multiple accounts from a single place, and they're biggies. For starters, there's the option to view all accounts in a single inbox. And that's joined by the ability to browse conversations in non-Gmail accounts as you would native ones. Options supported include Yahoo, Outlook.com, and other IMAP/POP accounts.

Viewing multiple accounts under a single inbox.

Conversation view in a non-Gmail account.

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Latest Gmail Update Brings Unified Inbox, Conversation View For Non-Gmail Accounts, Better Search, And More was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

 If you live in London, you may have heard of Laundrapp, one of a plethora of on-demand laundry startups targeting the UK capital city (and other cities in the country). After disclosing a £1.5 million funding round in January, the company has been spending heavily on marketing, not least television, radio and billboard advertising. That’s something that is relatively uncommon, although… Read More

Holy team reunion, Batman!

They might have been off our screens as the dynamic duo since their Batman series ended in 1968, but you can’t keep Adam West and Burt Ward away from the Caped Crusader and his faithful sidekick. They announced at a Batman panel as part of the Mad Monster convention this weekend that they’re back voicing the characters for a new animated film. ZLONK!

The pair, who have voiced characters from the Batman universe and elsewhere sporadically since their show left the air, didn’t offer many details about what the show might entail in terms of tone or story, but they did mention that it’ll run 90 minutes and is intended for release next year as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for the colourful TV series. BIFF!

Having the enthusiastic – who are old hands at entertaining the crowds at conventions and talking warmly about their old jobs  back for more Bat-ventures is surely a good thing, and the only person who could possibly object at this point is Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice director Zack Snyder, who thought he was only going to have to deal with competition from the Marvel movies. POW!

Countercurrent News: "A police officer in Arkansas recently lost his job after he exposed a massive scheme that allowed officers to have sex with prostitutes and then arrest them for servicing the undercover cops."

 If you’re a PlayStation owner who is also a Spotify addict, then there’s good news for you today since Sony and the music streaming service have teamed up to let you listen to your tunes while you game. Read More

11 Facts That Prove Seahorses Are Among The Most Fascinating Fish In The Sea

During the summer of 2013 we voiced our doubts about an initiative from the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).

The group, which has the MPAA and RIAA as key members, had just started piloting a kindergarten through sixth grade curriculum on copyright in California schools.

The curriculum was drafted in collaboration with iKeepSafe and aims to teach kids the basics of copyright. Unfortunately, the lesson materials were rather one-sided and mostly ignored fair use and the more flexible copyright licences Creative Commons provides.

These concerns were picked up by the mainstream press, creating a massive backlash. The CCI and other partners emphasized that the pilot was tested with an early draft and promised that the final curriculum would be more balanced.

In the months that followed the lesson plans indeed got a major overhaul and last summer the “Copyright and Creativity for Ethical Digital Citizens” curriculum was finalized.

As reported previously, the new and improved version was indeed expanded to discuss fair use principles and Creative Commons licenses. However, as far as Hollywood is concerned it now includes too much discussion on fair use.

TorrentFreak received a copy of a leaked email the MPAA’s Howard Gantman sent to various insiders last summer, explaining what happened. It starts off by mentioning the negative response to the leak and states that the MPAA and RIAA will try to keep a low profile in future, probably to prevent another wave of critique.

“After there was serious negative commentary on twitter, blogs and by news columnists who are not strong supporters of copyright last fall when a draft version of the curriculum was leaked accidentally by iKeepSafe – a determination was made to try to release this in a way that would keep a low profile for any MPAA or RIAA involvement,” Gantman writes.

The copyright holder groups and CCI decided to let iKeepSafe and its PR firm handle the media, something which eventually came to pass. Continuing the conversation Gantman explains that the lesson materials were heavily edited to include a broader and more diverse perspective on copyright.

“The curriculum that has been produced also went through numerous rounds of edits and debate involving a wide range of organizations with differing views on copyright,” Gantman writes.

According to the MPAA, the end result is a compromise that includes more fair use than they had wanted, but still good enough to teach kids how to behave ethically on the Internet.

“So the end result contains sections on fair use that are more extensive than we would use if we drafted the curriculum ourselves. But overall, the effort will hopefully lead to an active program within our schools to help get kids to understand what it means to behave ethically on the Internet,” Gantman adds.

By comparing the first pilot materials with the final curriculum it becomes clear that nearly all additions are about fair use.

Grade 4 lesson handout

For example, where children were initially warned against using copyrighted images and music from the Internet in Powerpoint presentations, they are now told that this is totally fine, as long as the material is only shown in class.

Similar changes have been made throughout the entire curriculum, as we documented in our earlier coverage.

The question that remains is whether these extensive changes would have been made if the pilot materials hadn’t leaked in advance. That will probably remain a secret, but at least it’s clear that Hollywood got more fair use than they hoped for.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

 MyCheck, another startup that wants to make it easy to pay your restaurant bill using your mobile phone, has closed a $5 million Series B. However, perhaps more noteworthy is the company’s new backer: the Spanish bank Santander via its recently launched Santander Innoventures Fund. Read More

He just turned three days old, at the San Diego Zoo. (more…)

Let's all be honest: the new James Bond film Spectre is proving to be one of the needier movies in recent memory. That's no small feat considering we live in a world where teaser trailers, and teasers for teaser trailers, and Vine teasers for the teasing of trailers is actually, you know, a thing. But to its credit, Spectre has managed to take the crown, besting all others in its never-ending hunt for attention. (Personally, I think it won with the teaser for the teaser poster — when the teaser poster ended up just being a picture of Daniel Craig. You know, the guy that we've already seen play Bond. In three separate movies.)

Still, here we are, and now it's time for Spectre to unveil the requisite teaser trailer. The funny thing? It's...

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If you're not a big fan of storing your notes on a third-party service like Google Keep or Evernote, Paperwork is similar software that's open-source that also allows you to host it yourself.

Paperwork isn't nearly as complex as something like Evernote, but it does have a lot of the more useful features. You can various notebooks that you can store you notes in, a tagging system, multi-media uploading, and WYSIWYG editing. There aren't any mobile apps or anything, but if you'd prefer to keep your notes in your own hands, it's a pretty solid alternative.

Paperwork | GitHub

What the English of Shakespeare, Beowulf, and King Arthur actually sounded like

Not all tops are made for traditional bras. Sure, you could always wear a strapless bra. You can buy specialty clips that hide your straps, too. But if you don’t have either, or you’re in a pinch, a simpler option is to just use a paper clip.

I heard about this tip from a friend, but this YouTube video shows how its done. Hook one bra strap through the end of a paper clip under your shirt. Grab the other strap and hook it to the other end of the clip.

Easy fix, and your straps stay bundled and concealed under your top. Check out the video to see for yourself.

bra straps and paper clip | Susan Hernandez (YouTube)

 With Twitter’s much more polished live-streaming app Periscope now on the market, Meerkat needs to strengthen its own social graph to keep users from straying to its new competitor. So today Meerkat for iOS was updated with recommendations of people to follow, a way to follow people from inside streams, and ways to discover streams your friends like. It’s also trying to neutralize… Read More

A yearlong investigation by the US Department of Energy has confirmed that a major accident at a nuclear waste storage facility was caused by the wrong type of kitty litter. Last year, a single 55-gallon drum of waste material was found to have burst its seams at the New Mexico Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), dispersing radioactive material throughout the underground facility. The drum had been packed with organic rather than inorganic kitty litter, which led to "a series of ever-increasing heat releasing reactions" that breached the drum.

Although this scenario sounds far-fetched, kitty litter has been used to stabilize certain types of nuclear waste for decades. However, only inorganic litter contains the mineral silicates needed...

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Some of the first major signs that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) had entered the online piracy fight came with the shuttering of streaming site NinjaVideo and the seizing of several piracy-related domains in the summer of 2010. Months later a torrent search engine was also targeted.

By January 2014 a total of 2,713 domains had been taken down on various infringement grounds and as a result the now infamous ICE seizure banner has been viewed in excess of 122 million times.

On the other side of the Atlantic, City of London Police have also forced the suspension of hundreds of domains alleged to be involved in copyright and trademark infringement. In particular the integrated Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has generated plenty of headlines over the past couple of years, many of them relating to file-sharing, video streaming and similar operations.

After dealings dating back 10 years, ICE and City of London Police this week decided to formalize their “special relationship” with the signing of an official Memorandum of Understanding focusing on their shared interest in reducing IP related crime.

Signed by Homeland Security Investigations’ London Attaché Matthew Etre and City of London Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard, the MOU focuses on enhancing collaboration on major investigations between the two law enforcement bodies.

“International cooperation among law enforcement agencies is crucial to effectively combating intellectual property crime,” said Etre.

“This memorandum of understanding between HSI and the City of London Police formalizes a long-standing and mutually beneficial partnership in the fight against these global criminal networks.”

ICE says that with their shared focus on tackling IP crime the launch of PIPCU in September 2013 brought a “new dimension” to the trans-Atlantic partnership. Just over year later the partnership was bearing high-profile fruit.

After a pristine copy of The Expendables 3 appeared online ahead of its release in 2014, an HSI referral led to PIPCU arresting two men last November in connection with the leak.

Collaboration like this will continue, the agencies say, with HSI and PIPCU agents now meeting twice yearly in the Hague, Netherlands, to exchange intelligence on websites distributing content illegally.

“Our partnership with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigation has already directly led to the suspension of hundreds of illegally operating websites and the arrest of several people,” said Police Commissioner Adrian Leppard.

“I look forward to the MOU we have signed taking our partnership to a new level of collaboration which in turn will make life more difficult for intellectual property criminals who continue to offend in our two countries and many others around the world.”

PIPCU’s most recent file-sharing related arrest came last month when the unit raided the world’s most prolific UFC and WWE content uploader. Known online as Sir Paul, the man was arrested at his Leicestershire home after uploading thousands of shows using BitTorrent. No ICE involvement was detailed at the time, but it’s likely that a complaint originating from the United States prompted the move.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

You see that cute critter? I hope you enjoy that photo. Savor it. That's the first image of a lli pika taken in 20 years. It's estimated only 2,900 Ili pika existed last time the species had its picture taken in the early 1990s. Today, that estimate is around 1,000 living lli pika. Now I'm no scientist, but I suspect if we do nothing for my new best friends, the lli pika, their next photo will be snapped in the extinct section of a Natural History Museum.

A rabbit that looks like a really cute dog

The lli pika, endemic to the Tian Shan mountains of northwest China, is also called the "Magic Rabbit," though I prefer to call it the "Rabbit that looks like a really cute dog that needs kisses and a nice home." Of course, the lli pika...

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Facebook's ambitious plan to bring internet to the entire world with a fleet of broadband-beaming unmanned aerial vehicles has taken a step closer to fruition. The company's vice president of engineering, Jay Parikh, told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is planning "a real test flight" of its solar-powered internet drone this summer. A smaller version of the drone, one tenth the size of the planned product, was tested earlier this month.

The scheduled test flight would be the first time the full-sized internet drone — called Aquila — will take to the skies. Facebook says the vehicle will have the wingspan of a commercial passenger jet and the length of "six or seven [Toyota] Priuses," but will only weigh as much as four car tires....

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The FBI used to publish excellent advice about encrypting your devices to keep your data secure when your stuff is lost or stolen; this advice has been silently dropped now that FBI Director James Comey is trying to stop manufacturers from using crypto by default. Read the rest

The exceptionally broad new surveillance bill lets the government do nearly unlimited warrantless mass surveillance, even of lawyer-client privileged communications, and bans warrant canaries, making it an offense to "disclose information about the existence or non-existence" of a warrant to spy on journalists. Read the rest

A new Wikileaks-published leak from the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty reveals a January 2015 draft "Investment Chapter" of the agreement, where the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms are set out. They allow companies to repeal nations' environmental, health and labor laws. Read the rest

 It’s not every day I’m impressed by a smartwatch. Plenty of Android Wear and Pebble devices have come and gone and aside from a brief “Huh” I haven’t really let any of them capture my attention. Olio is different. The brainchild of former Apple and HP product designer Steven Jacobs, he wanted a watch that was rugged, usable, and easy to read. While he was aware of… Read More