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      TorrentFreak’s Most-Read News Articles of 2022

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 31 December, 2022 - 14:02 · 5 minutes

    2022 Every year we write hundreds of articles here at TorrentFreak, with some are more popular than others.

    On the brink of the new year, we look back at 2022 by reviewing the thirteen most-read news items of the last 12 months.

    All in all, it was quite a controversial year once again. The Z-Library crackdown and aftermath was a massive story. And with a criminal investigation into two of the site’s alleged operators, that will likely continue in the coming year.

    Various leaks, domain troubles, and court orders made top headlines as well. The most popular articles are listed below, grouped into the twelve biggest stories of the year.

    1. Z-library Shutdown and Aftermath

    Z-Library shows up in several of the most-read articles this year. The site first appeared in the news during October when we revealed that TikTok had banned the Zlibrary hashtag following complaints from authors. That was just the start, however.

    In November, the U.S. Government seized Z-Library’s main domain names . Soon after, the authorities revealed that two alleged Russian operators had been arrested in Argentina as part of a criminal investigation.

    seized

    While the indicted duo await potential extradition to the United States, Z-Library remains operational on the dark web . In addition, Telegram bots and archive sites try to satisfy the demand for pirated books.

    2. Pirate Sites Disappear from DuckDuckGo

    In April, we noticed that several high-profile “pirate” sites were unfindable in DuckDuckGo’s search results. It wasn’t clear why these domains disappeared but The Pirate Bay, Fmovies, YTMP3.cc, and many others were no longer showing up.

    After some back and forth, Bing was identified as the culprit. DuckDuckGo said it would work hard to mitigate the problem . The missing sites eventually returned to DuckDuckGo and Bing search results.

    3. US Court Orders Every ISP in the United States to Block Illegal Streaming Sites

    In May, a coalition of Israel-based media companies obtained a broad injunction at a New York court that required every ISP in the United States to block three pirate streaming sites.

    This requirement was met with massive opposition from prominent companies such as Google and Cloudflare, after which the parties eventually agreed to seek a less explosive compromise .

    4. Adblocking Does Not Constitute Copyright Infringement

    In January, Axel Springer lost its copyright infringement lawsuit against Eyeo GmbH, the company behind Adblock Plus. The German publishing house, which owns the Bild and Die Welt brands, among others, claimed that adblockers interfere with the presentation of websites in browsers, thus breaching copyright.

    The Hamburg District Court disagreed and decided to dismiss the case. According to the court, ad blocking doesn’t involve any unauthorized duplication and/or reworking of copyrighted computer programs, as defined in Germany’s copyright law.

    5. “House of the Dragon” Fills GOT’s Shoes

    The long-awaited premiere of “House of the Dragon” finally arrived in August. The Game of Thrones prequel immediately proved a hit on pirate sites , where the first episode was widely available nearly a day before the official release. As a result, hundreds of thousands of pirates watched the show before paying customers.

    House of the Dragon made piracy headlines once more when the season finale leaked early . The circle was completed this week when – in true Game of Thrones spirit – House of the Dragon became the most pirated TV show of 2022.

    6. Genshin Impact Leaker Ubatcha

    A few weeks ago, prolific Genshin Impact leaker ‘Ubatcha’ was targeted in a DMCA subpoena application filed by publisher Cognosphere. The legal uncertainty left its mark, much to the disappointment of Ubatcha’s close followers.

    The question now is whether Cognosphere will leave things as they stand or push forward with a full-blown lawsuit to send a deterrent but potentially fan-alienating message.

    7. Netflix Password Sharing is a Crime?

    Earlier this month, the UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office published new piracy guidance. To the surprise of many, it warned that sharing passwords for streaming services such as Netflix is illegal, and may even incur criminal liability for fraud.

    Soon after we uncovered this unusual advice, the Office quietly updated its tough warnings, removing all references to password sharing.

    8. Spider-Man: No Way Home Leaked Early

    In March, a high-quality Blu-ray copy of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ leaked online , weeks before the official physical release.

    The pirate copy was released by EVO, the same group that previously leaked many other prominent titles before disappearing later in the year . While the Blu-ray source is unknown, an unauthorized eBay seller coincidentally offered the disc for sale around the same time.

    9. 1337x Became Unreachable

    1337x.to, one of the world’s most-visited torrent sites, became unreachable in April. The site’s DNS records had been wiped, which made it impossible for browsers to resolve the domain.

    1337x expired

    As it turned out, someone forgot to renew the 1337x.to domain name before it expired. This oversight was eventually spotted and the team managed to extend the registration before it was gone for good.

    10. Why the “You Wouldn’t Steal” Campaign Didn’t Work

    You wouldn’t steal a car, right? So why are you pirating? With this 2004 message, the movie industry hoped to turn illegal downloaders into paying customers.

    While the campaign is arguably the most widely known ani-piracy PSA, a new research paper identified several behavioral insights that explain why these and other initiatives often fail to reach the desired outcome.

    11. MindGeek’s Anti-Piracy Efforts

    In April, adult entertainment conglomerate MindGeek won a major court battle against Daftsex.com. In addition to $32 million in damages , the court issued an injunction allowing the rightsholder to take over this and other domains.

    Interestingly, ‘someone’ tried to hijack the domain takeover process by posing as MindGeek in an email to domain registry Verisign.

    12. Iconic Cracking Group Codex Quits

    In February, Scene cracking group CODEX officially threw in the towel . The iconic tag had taken the cracking world by storm during the prior eight years. The group was able to crack even the toughest copy protections, instilling fear among game publishers and garnering respect among its peers.

    codex notes

    CODEX represented competition for RELOADED, the dominant PC games cracking group at the time. When the competitive element disappeared, the group felt it had reached its goal.

    “So now, years after reaching our initial goal, we feel that it is time to move on. We thank everyone who accompanied and supported us on our journey,” the group wrote.

    13. How Bungie Used Digital Trails to Track Down an Imposter

    In response to persons unknown sending large numbers of fake DMCA notices to YouTube while impersonating its anti-piracy partner, Bungie filed a lawsuit in the U.S. seeking millions in damages.

    At the time the name of the ‘Doe’ defendant was unknown. We unveiled how a Bungie investigation followed digital breadcrumbs to track down and identify that person by name and physical address.

    Best wishes for 2023!

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      ‘House of the Dragon’ Is The Most Pirated TV-Show of 2022

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Friday, 30 December, 2022 - 10:08 · 1 minute

    hotd At the end of every year, we take a look at the most-downloaded TV episodes among torrenting pirates.

    For several years in a row the list was headed by Game of Thrones but that reign came to an end in 2019 after the series ended.

    This changing of the guard made room for two Disney+ exclusives to step in. In 2020, ‘The Mandalorian’ was the most pirated show, followed by ‘Wandavision’ in 2021.

    With neither of these shows releasing new episodes, we can crown another winner this year.

    As suggested in our previous coverage, ‘Game of Thrones’ prequel ‘House of the Dragon’ is the most pirated TV show of 2022. The HBO show beat fellow newcomer ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ which sits in second place.

    What stands out most about the Top 10 is that it’s entirely made up of newcomers. This also means that ‘Rick and Morty’, a regular on the list for several years, has dropped off.

    With the current streaming landscape being so fragmented, it is no surprise that streaming exclusives dominate the list today. Apparently, many people see piracy as an alternative to taking out yet another subscription.

    It’s worth noting that BitTorrent traffic only makes up a small portion of the piracy landscape. Most people use streaming sites and services nowadays, which generally do not report viewing stats.

    Below we have compiled a list of the most torrented TV shows worldwide and released in 2022 (per episode). The ranking is estimated based on sample data from several sources, including I Know and statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.

    Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2022
    rank last year show network
    torrentfreak.com
    1 (…) House of the Dragon HBO
    2 (…) The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Amazon Prime
    3 (…) The Boys Amazon Prime
    4 (…) Moon Knight Disney+
    5 (…) Halo Paramount+
    6 (…) Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+
    7 (…) The Book of Boba Fett Disney+
    8 (…) Stranger Things Netflix
    9 (…) She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Disney+
    10 (…) Andor Disney+

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Steam Replay : Valve vous dit si vous avez trop joué en 2022 EYES

      news.movim.eu / JournalDuGeek · Wednesday, 28 December, 2022 - 16:30

    copie-de-ajouter-un-titre-2022-12-28t120011-641-158x105.jpg

    Valve se lance enfin dans la mode des rétrospectives annuelles pour en apprendre plus sur vos habitudes de gamer au cours de l'année passée.

    Steam Replay : Valve vous dit si vous avez trop joué en 2022 👀

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      “Please slow down”—The 7 biggest AI stories of 2022

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 26 December, 2022 - 13:00

    Advances in AI image synthesis in 2022 have made images like this one possible.

    Enlarge / AI image synthesis advances in 2022 have made images like this one possible, which was created using Stable Diffusion, enhanced with GFPGAN, expanded with DALL-E, and then manually composited together. (credit: Benj Edwards / Ars Technica)

    More than once this year, AI experts have repeated a familiar refrain: "Please slow down." AI news in 2022 has been rapid-fire and relentless; the moment you knew where things currently stood in AI, a new paper or discovery would make that understanding obsolete.

    In 2022, we arguably hit the knee of the curve when it came to generative AI that can produce creative works made up of text, images, audio, and video. This year, deep-learning AI emerged from a decade of research and began making its way into commercial applications, allowing millions of people to try out the tech for the first time. AI creations inspired wonder, created controversies, prompted existential crises, and turned heads.

    Here's a look back at the seven biggest AI news stories of the year. It was hard to choose only seven, but if we didn't cut it off somewhere, we'd still be writing about this year's events well into 2023 and beyond.

    Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Pourquoi la réforme des retraites est-elle nécessaire?

      Institut économique Molinari · tests.marevalo.net / Institut economique Molinari · Tuesday, 20 December, 2022 - 15:11

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      Bye Bye 2022

      news.movim.eu / Korben · Tuesday, 20 December, 2022 - 09:19 · 1 minute

    Salut tout le monde,

    J’espère que vous êtes en forme en cette fin d’année, sans rhume, gastro, et covid évidemment ! L’année arrive à sa fin et comme vous avez peut-être remarqué si vous me suivez sur Twitch , j’ai commencé un petit break qui va durer jusqu’au début janvier. Ne vous inquiétez pas, comme d’habitude, j’ai plein d’articles programmés pour les jours qui viennent, donc ce sera totalement transparent pour vous 🙂

    Alors je ne sais pas comment s’est passé l’année 2022 pour vous, mais pour moi, ça s’est plutôt bien déroulé. Voici d’ailleurs quelques « achievements » dont je suis plutôt fier. Tout d’abord, j’ai réussi à remettre ma coquille de noix (korben.info) sur pied malgré les difficultés économiques de l’année dernière. Le trafic sur mon site a même plutôt augmenté, donc c’est super cool et je retrouve beaucoup de plaisir à écrire, surtout en cette période de fêtes. C’est donc une affaire qui roule 🙂

    Mon compte TikTok a également explosé, ce qui m’offre également de nouvelles opportunités. J’aime bien tourner ces petites vidéos et les gens ont l’air de les apprécier, donc c’est cool, je vais continuer. Ensuite, sur un plan personnel, j’ai bien avancé dans les travaux à la maison. C’est de plus en plus habitable même s’il fait encore bien froid à l’intérieur… Mais là, à part dépenser une fortune pour une isolation par l’extérieur, je ne vois pas ce qui pourrait me sauver. J’ai également obtenu mon permis tronçonneuse et j’en suis extrêmement fier. Et enfin, je me suis enfin marié après avoir dû décaler la cérémonie de 2 ans à cause du Covid. Woohoo !

    Voilà pour 2022. C’était cool et pour cette année 2023 qui arrive, je n’ai pas spécialement d’ambitions autres que de continuer sur ma lancée, c’est-à-dire de faire plaisir aux Patreons et de continuer à partager avec vous toutes mes découvertes tech au fil de l’eau.

    Et vous, comment ça s’est passé ?

    A très bientôt ! Et passez de bonnes fêtes de fin d’année 🍾 !

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      Retraites : François Bayrou rédige enfin une note utile

      Institut économique Molinari · tests.marevalo.net / Institut economique Molinari · Tuesday, 13 December, 2022 - 17:25

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      Comment les impôts et les normes amputent le pouvoir d’achat des Français

      Institut économique Molinari · tests.marevalo.net / Institut economique Molinari · Tuesday, 13 December, 2022 - 17:23

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      Capitaliser est indispensable pour compenser le déficit démographique

      Institut économique Molinari · tests.marevalo.net / Institut economique Molinari · Monday, 5 December, 2022 - 18:02

    BFM Business, Les experts, 05/12/2022

    Denis Payre trouve dommage qu’il n’y ait pas une petite dose de capitalisation dans la future réforme des retraites. La capitalisation collective fonctionne très bien au service des fonctionnaires, comme l’illustre le succès de l’ERAFP. Par ailleurs, capitaliser permettrait de mieux défendre nos entreprises, avec un actionnariat stable. Cela permettrait de limiter l’ampleur des rachats des sociétés matures ou de favoriser le développement des jeunes pousses. Il s’appuie sur notre étude avec CroissancePlus, Pour une réforme des retraites qui réponde aux enjeux français – Compétitivité, emploi, innovation avec la capitalisation pour tous (88 pages) .

    L’article Capitaliser est indispensable pour compenser le déficit démographique est apparu en premier sur Institut économique Molinari .