MPA’s Piracy Claims are ‘False’ and ‘Misleading’, Streaming Platform Says

Polish streaming service CDA has once again been accused of being a notorious piracy market by the Motion Picture Association (MPA). CDA sent a rebuttal to the US government, dismissing the claims as false and misleading. In addition, the company points out that the MPA was provided with a direct takedown tool but has never used it.

 Every year, the US Trade Representative (USTR) asks interested stakeholders to identify ‘notorious’ foreign piracy markets.

Responses typically list the Pirate Bays of this world, but they also mention websites and services that don’t see themselves as pirate markets.

Polish video-on-demand (VOD) platform CDA.pl falls in the latter category. The video platform has been flagged as a notorious pirate service by the MPA since 2018. While CDA has filed several rebuttals, the movie industry group continues to double down on its claims.

In the most recent recommendation, CDA was highlighted again, with the MPA describing it as “Poland’s most popular piracy website, with traffic levels eclipsing several legitimate video-on-demand services in the country.”

CDA Rebuts MPA’s Piracy Claims

CDA has repeatedly objected to these piracy claims, and it continues to do so. A few days ago, the Polish company sent a new rebuttal to the USTR, repeating much of what it has said before. The main gist is that CDA operates legally and transparently, while minding the interests of rightsholders.

“Cda.pl is not a piracy website, it operates in full accordance with the Polish and European legal regulations,” the rebuttal starts, adding that the company operates in the open and pays taxes, like any other business.

CDA believes that the pirate label is grossly inaccurate. The company is listed on the alternative NewConnect stock exchange, which means that, in addition to tax reporting obligations, it’s also subject to various EU stock exchanges and financial regulations.

Since the company operates a large subscription-based streaming platform, it views itself as a competitor to those offered by the MPA’s members. CDA believes that the piracy comments could therefore be seen as competitive pressure tool.

“MPA’s opinion re. CDA.pl presented to this Office cannot be treated as objective but rather as a means of pressure on competition,” the rebuttal reads.

Copyright Concerns

In addition to operating a VOD platform, CDA also has a section where users can upload content. That can include pirated content, which forms the basis of Hollywood’s complaints.

The company acknowledges that user-uploaded content may include copyright-infringing works but stresses that several anti-piracy mechanisms are in place to minimize abuse.

For example, the rebuttal mentions that the VOD platform has a fully functional notice and takedown system that allows rightsholders to remove infringing content. Some companies, including major Hollywood studios, are even permitted to remove content directly, without CDA getting in the way.

Furthermore, CDA has developed a “fingerprint” system to detect potentially infringing content, which is similar to YouTube’s Content ID system. That should help to further limit abuse.

‘MPA Didn’t Use Takedown Tool’

Interestingly, CDA’s attorney suggests that MPA doesn’t seem eager to remove content. The Hollywood group reportedly reached out in December 2022, mentioning examples of infringing content.

These allegations lacked specificity, but the MPA didn’t provide more concrete information on the alleged infringements when CDA asked for it. The organization didn’t use the direct takedown tool either, after it was granted access.

“(i)n order to meet the needs of MPA, my Client provided this organization with access to the direct takedown tool, creating and configuring an account that allows MPA to freely access content on the platform, search for copyright infringing content and delete it.

“Despite this and despite subsequent reminders, to date MPA has neither provided links to the infringing materials nor exercised the option to remove them on its own.”

False Statements

According to CDA, the MPA has removed some false statements that were included previously. However, it continues to misrepresent the company as a “piracy website” that uses Cloudflare to “mask the IP location” of its domain names.

This is nonsense, the rebuttal notes, as CDA doesn’t use Cloudflare to hide its IP-addresses. Instead, the company stresses that it uses Cloudflare as a cybersecurity provider to protect it against DDoS-attacks, among other things.

In fact, CDA says that the servers where the video files are stored are not behind Cloudflare, suggesting that the MPA could see the IP-addresses where this content is stored.

In conclusion, it’s clear that MPA and CDA have an entirely different opinion on the status of the Polish video streaming service. After years of reports and rebuttals, this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

What ultimately matters is what the USTR thinks of it all. That remains a mystery. What we do know is that MPA’s comments never made it into the Government’s final notorious markets overview, because CDA has never been included thus far.

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A copy of the rebuttal, sent to the USTR by CDA’s law firm Konieczny Wierzbicki, is available here (pdf)

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