In 2020, Amazon teamed up with publisher Penguin Random House and authors including John Grisham, Scott Turow and Lee Child to sue several pirate ‘Kiss Library’ eBook sites operating out of Ukraine.

 

Curious as to how such a lawsuit might progress, we monitored every filing in the case. Over time it became extremely clear that the plaintiffs were going to have to work extraordinarily hard to get the matter to trial, let alone recover anything from the elusive defendants.

 

Late December, however, the plaintiffs, which included members of the Authors Guild, prevailed after winning a $7.8m default judgment. But that win, the authors say, only serves to highlight the problems caused by foreign-based pirate sites.

Authors Celebrate Hard Fought Win

In a new opinion piece published at The Hill, Grisham and Turow summarize some of the undoubted difficulties the lawsuit encountered, likening the battle to those faced by scientific publishers in respect of Z-Library and LibGen which “continue to operate openly and brazenly.”

 

“Every day, countless numbers of books, including ours, are stolen and sold or given away illegally over the internet. As a result, authors and the publishing industry as a whole hemorrhage large amounts of revenue each year,” they write.

 

“Book authors earn their incomes from legitimate sales of their books, as a percentage of each sale. When sales are replaced by pirated copies, authors earn a lot less. Piracy steals from us, not only the value of our labor, but the years we spent honing our craft and the personal sacrifices we make along the way.”

 

In respect of the judgment, the authors welcome the maximum $150,000 per work damages awarded by the court but quite rightfully question whether they will ever see a penny of that. What they want now is more action from the likes of Google, who they accuse of facilitating access to infringing works. They also want Congress to step up funding for criminal enforcement in copyright cases.

Congress and Google Must Do More

With around 90% of the search market, Google is regularly criticized by rightsholders for allowing infringing content to appear in its search results. No that the company doesn’t take action, however. It has removed billions of reported infringing links and since 2012 has been downranking pirate sites, something that hit torrent portals particularly hard.

 

Grisham and Turow don’t directly reference any of these efforts. Instead they cite lobbying efforts by the Authors Guild to seek action from Congress to change copyright law in a way that compels services such as Google to completely delist “notorious foreign-based piracy sites”, rather than simply reducing their visibility.

 

“Such measures would spare authors and other creators the enormous costs of suing bad guys like Kiss Library overseas,” they write.

What do the Authors Guild Want?

The Authors Guild’s position is largely in line with those of the MPA and RIAA, who believe that the DMCA is no longer fit for purpose. The whack-a-mole game of taking down URLs only for them to reappear under another URL is one aspect they believe can be addressed by narrowing safe harbors for service providers.

 

However, that type of action wouldn’t necessarily help to tackle dedicated ‘pirate’ platforms that often ignore DMCA takedown notices completely. In these cases the Authors Guild says that pressure needs to be applied to search engines including market leader Google.

 

“The Authors Guild strongly supports the use of website blocking by search engines (also called ‘delinking’ in the search engine context) after a certain number of takedown notices have been issued against a particular site and it is clear that the site is devoted to piracy,” they write (pdf).

 

The Authors Guild also wants Congress to require online service providers of a certain scale (over $10m in annual revenue, for example) to implement “filtering, fingerprinting, and other prophylactic technical measures”, a request that’s broadly in line with the measures currently under scrutiny in the EU.

 

Broadly speaking, the Authors Guild believes that existing copyright law is completely inadequate against modern threats but the background to the Kiss Library lawsuit paints a slightly different picture.

Plaintiffs Lawsuit Was Almost Immediately Effective

In their opinion piece Grisham and Turow note that the “most important thing is that the Kiss Library network of dozens of sites is now down” but that has long been the case. In July 2020, around the time that the original complaint was filed, all of the domains in the ‘Kiss’ operation were taken down, presumably in response to the legal action.

 

Just a day after the complaint was filed, a Washington court issued a temporary restraining order designed to cripple Kiss Library. Without the defendants being heard, domain registries and registrars, including Tucows Domains Inc., Whois Privacy Corp., and NameCheap, Inc., were ordered to take action against all of the defendants’ domains under their control, rendering them “inactive and non-transferable” pending further instruction from the Court.

 

A similar order was granted requiring email services, social media services, search engines and other online providers to disable service to all of the defendants’ websites. In August 2020, the injunctions, which also covered banks, payment processors, credit card companies, advertisers and search engines, were made permanent.

 

The plaintiffs were also granted permission to take down any ‘mirror’ sites that may have surfaced to take up where Kiss Library left off.

 

While there can be little doubt that the proposals to tighten the DMCA to bring greater liability for service providers would be welcomed by most copyright holders, the Kiss Library lawsuit actually shows what can be achieved when action is taken under existing law.

 

The final money judgment is of course noteworthy, but the crucial matter of infringing content being made available illegally was dealt with in short order and more importantly at the actual source.

 

And, with no illegal ‘Kiss’ sites remaining online, there was nothing further for Google to index.

 

Website blocking is without a doubt one of the favorite anti-piracy tools of the entertainment industries.

 

The UK has been a leader on this front. Since 2011, the High Court has ordered ISPs to block access to many popular pirate sites.

 

While official numbers are lacking, it’s believed that thousands of URLs are currently blocked, targeting sites such as The Pirate Bay, Sci-Hub, Fmovies, NewAlbumReleases, and Team-Xecuter.

 

This month, two new domains were added to this list. Following a petition from the MPA and Sky, acting on behalf of Netflix, Disney and other Hollywood giants, the High Court ordered six UK ISPs to block Mixdrop.me and Mixdrop.co.

First Cyberlocker Block For MPA

While both domains share the same base name, it’s not clear whether they are run by the same people. Mixdrop.me appears to be a pirate streaming site while Mixdrop.co is a file-hosting service, also known as a cyberlocker.

 

In respect of cyberlocker blocking, the ruling is not without precedent. One year ago the High Court ordered the same ISPs to block file-hosting platform Nitroflare for hosting unlicensed music. The order handed down by the Honourable Mr. Justice Mellor marks the first time that a cyberlocker site has been blocked for hosting movies and TV shows.

 

The novelty of this injunction is also highlighted by the MPA, which sees it as an important victory for the entire industry.

 

“We welcome this decision from the High Court which represents a first for the film and TV industry. Cyberlocker and stream-ripping sites make available vast amounts of copyright protected film and television content for streaming and/or downloading, making millions in the process,” an MPA spokesperson comments.

Unclear Grounds

The High Court order doesn’t elaborate on what grounds Mixdrop.co will be blocked and unfortunately the original petition is not publicly available either. This means that the exact motivation remains unknown to the public at large, which could result in some uncertainty among other file-hosting services.

 

There are cyberlockers that can be deemed infringing. For example, those who encourage users to share infringing material or ignore takedown notices. At first sight, however, Mixdrop doesn’t immediately fall into that category.

 

For example, the site has a detailed copyright policy and accepts DMCA takedown notices. In addition, it also stresses repeatedly that copyright infringement is not tolerated.

 

“We may in our sole discretion remove any Content we have reason to believe violates any of the intellectual property rights of others and may terminate your use of the Website if you submit any such Content,” it reads.

 

In addition, Mixdrop says that it uses automated fingerprinting tools to detect and remove pirated content that was previously flagged.

 

“Mixdrop utilizes advanced fingerprinting technology to automatically and in-realtime identify and remove files that were previously taken down due to DMCA complaint even when re-uploaded by different users,” the site writes.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to both Mixdrop and the MPA for further details and information but, at the time of publishing, we are yet to receive responses.

‘Notorious Market’

What we do know is that the MPA has had Mixdrop on its radar for a while now. The group has previously tried to identify the site’s operators and it also classified Mixdrop.co as a “notorious” piracy market in its most recent submission to the US Trade Representative.

 

Among other things, the Hollywood group pointed out that Mixdrop has an affiliate program that people can use to earn up to $1,000 USD a week, depending on the number of views they generate.

 

This affiliate program is no longer promoted on the site as far as we can see, but it does show up in older archived copies of Mixdrop.

 

Whatever the motivation for the blocking request, the High Court order means that BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media will have to add the two domain names to their blocklists, plus any new domains or URLs the sites may use moving forward.

 

Interestingly, Sky has two roles in this case, both as an ISP and as a representative of the rightsholders. In the latter capacity, it applauded the injunction.

 

“[The order] confirms that these types of sites are acting illegally, blocks access to one of the most prolific providers of stolen Sky content and ultimately helps keep consumers safe from the very real risks of accessing content in this way,” Sky commented.

 

—

 

A copy of the High Court order, issued by Honourable Mr. Justice Mellor, is available here (pdf).

 

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “The King’s Man” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 14 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	The King’s Man	6.5 / trailer
2	(1)	House of Gucci	6.8 / trailer
3	(3)	Eternals	6.6 / trailer
4	(2)	Nightmare Alley	6.2 / trailer
5	(4)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	9.0 / trailer
6	(…)	Marry Me	7.2 / trailer
7	(8)	Dune	8.3 / trailer
8	(6)	Ghostbusters: Afterlife	7.6 / trailer
9	(5)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer
10	(10)	No Time to Die	7.5 / trailer

 

 

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

 

As illegal IPTV subscriptions maintain their popularity among those looking for a cheap live TV fix, rightsholders from all over the world are trying hard to counter the threat.

 

Broadcasters and sports leagues are applying significant pressure but with VOD services now a part of many pirate IPTV packages, Hollywood studios such as Disney and distributor platforms including Netflix and Apple are playing a leading role.

 

Yesterday we reported new activity by anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) which included seizures of IPTV domains. Today we can report new action, not only by ACE but others in the sports and broadcasting ecosystem utilizing a range of anti-piracy tools.

ACE Takes Down and Seizes Seko IPTV

In a 2020 submission to the United States Trade Representative, Spanish football league La Liga reported several illegal TV services for infringing its rights. Among them was Seko IPTV, a service that now, thanks to ACE, is no longer operational.

 

Seko IPTV first made an appearance more than five years ago in May of 2016. At the time it offered around 3,200 channels according to its own data, plus a VOD (video-on-demand) service offering movies and TV shows.

 

Promoted for Mag boxes, Smart TV, Enigma, VLC, Kodi, smartphone, tablets and other devices, more recently the service boasted more than 9,000 live channels and 20,000 videos in its VOD library. However, it now appears to have reached the end of the road after ACE and the MPA took control of its domains.

 

Sekoiptv.com, sekoiptv.ml, sekoiptv.live and sekoip.tv are now under the administration of the MPA in the United States, which tends to suggest that their operator/s may have reached some kind of shutdown settlement with ACE/MPA. All domains now redirect to the ACE anti-piracy portal so former customers of the service will be getting an unwelcome surprise.

 

Other IPTV-related domains seized by ACE/MPA in the last few days (in addition to the ones published at the weekend) include srvtekn.com, vpnuser.ws and smarteriptvmanchester.com.

Police Arrest Two For IPTV Piracy

Late Friday, Spanish authorities reported that following complaints made by professional football league La Liga, a Policía Nacional investigation was launched into the supply of set-top devices and subscriptions to an illegal IPTV service.

 

The region of Navarre was reported as a place of interest and the police investigation subsequently identified two suspects in the Merindad de Estella. Two operations codenamed ‘Lígalo’ and ‘Tyche’ were assigned to the Technological Crime Group of the Provincial Judicial Police Brigade (Grupo de Delincuencia Tecnológica de la Brigada Provincial de Policía Judicial).

 

After an Estella court authorized warrants, two people were arrested and detained under suspicion of supplying illegal subscription access to otherwise premium TV channels.

 

In common with other cases involving such services, the name of the platform has not yet been made available but according to local reports, the Policía Nacional has asked a court to issue an order that will compel local ISPs to block its domains to prevent further infringement.

Police Arrest Six, Seize 24,400 Pirate Boxes

This morning, Spain’s national police and the country’s tax agency further announced the arrest of six people and the seizure of 24,430 TV devices in Madrid. According to the authorities, the group sold the devices on various web platforms and via their own forum, from where technical support was provided to customers.

 

 

“The analysis of the bank accounts of those investigated has revealed income derived from the illicit activity of 1.2 million euros between 2017 and 2021,” a police statement reads.

Nagravision Takes Down Popular IPTV Repo

In a late January DMCA notice filed at Github, conditional access systems developer Nagravision requested the takedown of IPTV-org, a very popular location for people looking for free IPTV playlists.

 

Nagra claimed that some of the channels found in a particular playlist infringed the rights of various Discovery channels and as a result, the repo was completely disabled.

 

Quite what happened in the following days is unclear but potentially after the infringements were addressed, the repo is now back online, providing access to almost 30,000 channels via its own search engine.

 

In a DMCA notice filed with Github early February, anti-piracy outfit Group-IB demanded the removal of a script that enable users to watch movies for free using the IDs allocated to movies and TV shows via Russia’s official Kinopoisk video database.

 

“This script provides access to illegal content – a database of pirated players, which can be accessed using this script for any title with the id of Kinopoisk, which is a serious violation of the rights of copyright holders,” the complaint reads.

ISPs Set to Block Pirate IPTV in Malta

Finally, it appears that pirate IPTV subscribers in Malta may soon find access to their services disrupted after a judge ordered local ISPs to block hundreds of IP addresses used by infringing platforms.

 

Local reports say that a decision was handed down February 2 by the First Hall of the Civil Court in order to protect the rights of Spanish first and second division football league matches.

 

Last October, the RIAA secured a major victory in its piracy lawsuit against YouTube-rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov.

 

A Virginia federal court issued a default judgment in favor of several prominent music companies after the defendant walked away from the lawsuit.

 

According to the order, there is a clear need to deter the behavior of Kurbanov who failed to hand over evidence including server logs. “A less drastic sanction is unlikely to salvage this case,” the judge wrote.

RIAA Seeks Millions in Damages

Following this win, the RIAA asked for an injunction to stop the sites’ worldwide stream-ripping activities. In addition, the music group demanded nearly $83 million in damages. Both of these requests were taken up in a report and recommendation issued by Magistrate Judge Buchanan last December.

 

“Defendant’s Websites caused the Plaintiffs to lose profits and streaming revenue because of the enormous internet traffic to and use of the Websites’ stream-ripping functions,” Judge Buchanan wrote.

 

Mr. Kurbanov’s legal team opposed this recommendation, arguing that the music companies failed to provide evidence that any infringing activity actually took place in the United States. Also, if the court believes that damages are appropriate, they should be substantially lower.

 

The RIAA predictably disagreed and asked the court to stay the course and take over the recommendation. After weighing the positions from both sides, that’s exactly what happened.

$83 Million is Justified

In an order released late last week, Virginia District Court Judge Claude Hilton concludes that the recommendations are in line with the law. As such, the recommended damages amount is justified.

 

“Based on a de novo review of the evidence in this case, the Report and Recommendation, and Defendant Kurbanov’s objections, it appears to the Court that the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation is neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law.”

 

This means that Mr. Kurbanov is required to pay the full damages award the RIAA requested for 1,618 copyright infringements and violations of the DMCA.

 

“Plaintiffs are awarded statutory damages for violations of the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the amount of $82,922,500,” Judge Hilton ordered while adding that Kurbanov also has to compensate the music companies’ legal costs and fees.

What’s Next?

In addition to the financial part of the judgment, FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com are also required to cease circumventing any and all technological measures. This effectively means that they are not allowed to operate in their current form.

 

Needless to say, this outcome spells trouble for other stream-ripping sites that offer similar functionality in the United States.

 

The order doesn’t specifically mention that its scope is limited to the US alone. Mr. Kurbanov’s lawyers previously suggested that an order of this magnitude would equate to a global shutdown demand. However, that may be up for debate.

 

Both FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com already closed their doors to U.S. visitors last year. However, at the time of writing, they remain accessible in most other parts of the world.

 

Finally, it’s worth noting that Mr. Kurbanov can still appeal the judgment. If that happens, the case will continue at a higher court.

 

—

 

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton’s order is available here (pdf)

 

Piracy is a global phenomenon but some countries have better enforcement options than others when it comes to dealing with the problem.

 

In Iraq, tackling copyright infringement appears to have very little priority.

 

This isn’t a new phenomenon. When U.S. troops were still stationed in Iraq, rightsholders found out that American soldiers were picking up the local habit. As a result, “copyright notices” were sent to US bases and even United States Central Command was put on high alert.

 

Last December, the U.S. combat mission in Iraq officially ended so that’s no longer an issue. Iraq still faces plenty of internal issues, of course, but fighting piracy is nowhere on the agenda. That’s a concern for copyright holders.

Rightsholders Sound the Alarm Bell

Recently, several rightsholders mentioned Iraq in their submission to the US Trade Representative (USTR). The USTR uses these and other public comments to create its Special 301 Report, an annual list of countries that deserve extra attention due to various shortcomings that may hurt U.S. businesses.

 

Miramax and beIN Media Group are by far the most elaborate. The two companies sent a joint submission with over a dozen pages dedicated to Iraq. According to the rightsholders, the country faces massive piracy issues internally, but it doesn’t stop there.

 

According to beIN, Iraqi pirates are also exporting pirated broadcasts worldwide, including to the United States.

 

“More than one third of all internet piracy of beIN channels originates from companies based in Northern Iraq. After being copied by these companies, beIN’s channels are then re-streamed on pirate IPTV services generally, as well as from pirate websites accessible all over the MENA region, and the rest of the world.

 

“Some Iraqi operators are even distributing pirated content in the United States, through both physical goods channels and the internet. Again, none of these pirates has faced any enforcement actions by the Iraqi authorities, despite operating in clear view of those authorities,” the companies write.

Corporate ‘Pirates’ Profit from Lacking Copyright Protection

This widespread piracy is hard to tackle since Iraq doesn’t have any effective copyright laws to protect foreign content. The country isn’t part of the WTO and didn’t sign crucial copyright-related deals such as the TRIPS Agreement, Berne Convention, Brussels Convention, or the WIPO treaty.

 

The lack of enforcement has led to an environment where major companies in the country are seemingly profiting from piracy. This includes the largest Iraqi Internet provider Earthlink, which has a broad entertainment offering. Perhaps too broad.

 

Earthlink operates data centers, offers residential internet, and provides services to businesses local governments across Iraq. At the same time, however, it’s also offering a controversial IPTV service called Shabakaty.

 

“Shabakaty provides illegal access to beIN channels, as well as channels and content owned by major US, European, and international right holders, to an estimated 5 million of its customers,” the rightsholders write.

Widespread Problem, Hard to Stop

This isn’t limited to beIN and Miramax channels, but also pirated broadcasts and on-demand content from Netflix, Discovery, Disney, FOX, HBO, MTV, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.

 

The rightsholders provide several examples including screenshots of live programming and recent movies such as “Don’t Look Up” and “The Matrix Resurrections” that are on offer. According to the submission, these are made available without permission.

 

In many other countries, these services would be taken to court, especially if they operate in the open. However, that’s not realistic in Iraq and Miramax and beIN have little faith that this will change in the near future. It seems that, after sending several cease and desist letters, they’ve given up already.

 

“beIN has sent cease and desist letters to Earthlink with no results. Given the systematic deficiencies in law enforcement in Iraq, there appears to be little, if any, prospect for meaningful enforcement action. beIN and Miramax consider that pursuing these operators in a civil action would be fruitless.”

 

To make matters worse, Earthlink is just one of the many companies that offer this type of content. The same also applies to Chaloos and iStar Media, which have a large user base as well. And locally, there are other “piracy” players as well, such as Al Nawars, Ahlina, Duhok, Saamira, Al Qush, Wadaq, Ahwar, Al Mulk, and Al Iraq Baghdad.

Failed Fatwas and Corruption

This issue isn’t new and beIN has tried to get the Iraqi Government on its side. However, that hasn’t resulted in any meaningful action.

 

Local beIN distributers even went as far as teaming up with religious leaders to release Fatwas and condemn illegal subscriptions, but that didn’t help either. There is reportedly too much “corruption” going on.

 

“[G]iven systematic problems with corruption in Iraq, the deficiencies in Iraq’s copyright regime, and our awareness of unsuccessful actions taken against pirates in that country, there does not appear to be a realistic prospect for meaningful IP enforcement in Iraq,” beIn and Miramax write.

 

The companies don’t mention any concrete examples, but they do highlight that the major piracy players in Iraq have close connections to the authorities.

 

“beIN understands that the owners and operators of Earthlink, Chaloos, and iStar (three of the major Iraqi pirates described above) have significant influence among Iraqi government officials, both at the federal and regional levels.

 

“This further supports the conclusion that there is little hope that the widespread piracy by these entities could be reduced or eliminated through the use of either civil or criminal judicial procedures in Iraq.”

Piracy Watchlist

Needless to say, these are big accusations. BeIN and Miramax ask the US Government to place Iraq on the piracy watchlist, hoping that this will help to change things.

 

Thus far, Iraq has never been featured on the Special 301 Watchlist. The companies submitted a similar request last year but that didn’t result in a listing. Instead, USTR highlighted other countries such as China, Russia, and Canada.

 

As previously reported, beIN and Miramax are not the only rightsholders that have mentioned Iraq in their submissions. The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy, which includes the BBC and Dish Network as members, also highlighted the country as problematic.

 

—

 

A copy of the beIN/Miramax submission to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is available here (pdf)

 

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and their partners in the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) are on a mission to slash the online availability of pirated movies and TV shows.

 

The activities of the groups are rarely made public until services are actually taken down, following legal action in US courts, for example. However, OSINT sources can be utilized to find out which sites are already on the anti-piracy groups’ radar, including some that may have already fallen but yet to be announced. Today we can report a selection of both.

MPA & ACE Seize ‘Pirate’ IPTV Domains

One of the main priorities of ACE, of which the MPA is a key member, is to tackle illegal streaming. The groups tackle traditional web-based platforms such as video-hosting services and indexing sites (like PrimeWire) but also IPTV suppliers, distributors and resellers.

 

Actions against these types of players are often announced by ACE when they come to a successful conclusion, which can include site operators handing over domains and signing agreements. Sometimes, however, the signs are already in public view.

 

During the past few days a number of pirate IPTV-related domains began redirecting to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment website, a pretty clear indication that for the people behind them, all is not well.

 

The first seized domain – techstudiony.com – used to be the website for Brooklyn-based electronics store TechStudio Electronics. Quite why the domain has been seized by ACE/MPA isn’t immediately clear but the company’s phone number is also used to sell various set-top boxes to the public. If any of those also came with an IPTV subscription, that could’ve proven problematic.

 

Other domains that began redirecting to the ACE anti-piracy portal recently include a number with similar formatting. Israelitvcompany.com, for example, appears to have sold IPTV subscriptions relevant to Israeli customers.

 

“Israeli TV is the innovative TV service from the Israeli TV Company, a pioneer in digital television. For the first time we present to you over 30 of the most popular Israeli channels in digital quality anywhere around the world on your TV!” the site used to read.

 

Similar domains that also began redirecting to ACE in the past few days include the following: turkishtvcompany.com, polishtvcompany.com, russiantvcompany.com, germantvcompany.com, frenchtvcompany.com and ukraniantvcompany.com. Given their formatting and former site layouts, they appear to be connected.

ACE/MPA Investigate Dozens More Domains

Late December 2021 it became evident that the anti-piracy groups were investigating dozens more domains linked to web-based illegal streaming operations and pirate IPTV services. In the new year, they aren’t letting up.

 

Three DMCA subpoena applications filed in US courts this month show that with the help of Cloudflare and domain registry Tonic, MPA and ACE are hoping to identify the operators of at least two dozen additional sites operating in the web-streaming, IPTV and torrent sectors.

 

Vumoo.to, for example, is a very popular streaming portal offering movies and TV shows. With help from Cloudflare (which provides services to the site) and Tonic (which operates its domain), the anti-piracy groups are hoping to identify Vumoo’s owners, presumably with the intention of shutting the site down and depriving around 11 million visitors per month of their piracy fix.

 

1337x.to, which is a giant in the BitTorrent space, is also of interest to ACE/MPA. The indexing platform, which offers access to torrents covering many content categories, currently has around 75 million visitors per month but whether the request to Cloudflare will prove helpful is open to question.

 

Over the past couple of years ACE, MPA and even the RIAA (1,2,3) have demanded identifying information from Cloudflare and/or Tonic on 1337x yet the site continues nonetheless.

 

The 10 million visitors per month YTS.rs domain is also on the MPA/ACE radar. The site, which offers magnets and torrent streaming, uses the YTS branding but like the more popular YTS.mx, it isn’t the official YTS site since that was shut down more than six years ago.

 

The full list of sites, for which ACE/MPA are demanding the full personal details of their operators, reads as follows:

 

1337x.to, 9jarocks.com, 9jarocks.net, assistirfilmesonline.pro, baixartorrents.org, dizibox.pro, filmeseries.top, hdfilmcehennemi.tv, la123movies.com, loveflix.online, maxseries.top, my9jarocks.net, my9jarocks.org, pobre.tv, pobreflix.org, putlockernew.site, rfilmesonline.com, Series9.me, Strumyk.tv, superflix.mobi, tudohd.top (redirect to tudohd.cc), uwatchfree.ph (redirects to uwatchfree.fo), Vumoo.to, yabancidizi.pro, yts.rs

 

The big question, of course, is whether any of these customers of Cloudflare have provided their real information to the CDN company.

 

A lawsuit filed in Japan against Cloudflare by manga publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan, and Kadokawa this month alleges that the US company fails to conduct due diligence, meaning that it’s possible for site operators to access Cloudflare’s free service without “sufficient verification of identity”.

 

Details of the DMCA subpoenas can be found here (1,2,3 pdf)

 

The Oscars are the most anticipated movie awards show of the year, closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans around the world.

 

It’s also a special event for movie pirates. Traditionally, the Oscar winners see a surge in unauthorized downloads. And in anticipation of the big day, pirated copies of award-screeners would often leak early.

From 100% to 9%

In the early 2000s, it was pretty common to see screeners of all Oscar contenders leak online before the winners were announced. This has changed dramatically over the years. In the past decade roughly half of all nominated movies leaked as a screener and, last year, this percentage dropped below 10% for the first time.

 

New data released by Oscar piracy watcher Andy Baio suggests that the downward trend continues. For all Oscar-nominated films of this year, only three screeners leaked, which is on par with last year’s all-time low.

 

Granted, there are still a few weeks to go before the awards ceremony. However, typically all screeners have come out already in February, so it is safe to say that the downward trend is intact.

 

The same graph also includes another key statistic. The number of “high-quality” leaks remains very high. These are ripped HD streams or Blu-Rays that are not screeners. Last year, a high-quality copy of all Oscar contenders was available before the awards, and this year 88% leaked already.

Screeners are Rate, Leaks Aren’t

This means that, while screeners rarely leak nowadays, leaks are still quite common. This can in part be explained by a drastically changing movie industry and the rise of streaming services.

 

Of all films that were nominated for the 94th Academy Awards, more than half premiered on a streaming service. Netflix has a dominant position, but HBO Max and Disney+ contributed to this change as well.

 

When a film premieres on a streaming service it’s generally available on pirate sites on the same day. These non-existing release windows are different from the months people have to wait for some theatrical-only releases.

 

As a result, pirates can get their hands on unauthorized copies of the movies much quicker. This effect is nicely illustrated by the median number of days between a movie’s official release and a pirated leak. That number tanked after 2020.

 

This doesn’t mean that screeners no longer exist in the streaming era. Depending on the release date, voters still need early access to a Netflix or Disney+ film if it’s not on the platform yet.

‘The Power of the Dog’ Screener

This was also the case for “The Power of the Dog,” which leads the Oscars field this year with 12 nominations. The film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst, was released on December 1st but a screener copy already leaked last September.

 

Several other Netflix titles also leaked early but none of them were nominated. These leaks are not necessarily awards screeners. Information we received from the leaker suggests that they are linked to film festival screeners.

 

The other Oscar-nominated films that had leaked screeners are “Cyrano” and “Drive My Car.” These are not streaming releases but the latter has an interesting angle, as it was leaked by a group that used the “OSCAR” tag. This was prophetic, as the Japanese film received four Oscar nominations.

 

We expect that the screener heydays will never return. Pirates will still publish them if there’s no high-quality copy online yet but with shorter or non-existing release windows, there are simply fewer opportunities.

 

When it comes to anti-piracy investigations and prosecutions, Sweden is perhaps best well known for its work against The Pirate Bay but over the past few years a new threat has emerged.

 

With torrent sites remaining fairly popular, Swedish authorities have also been attempting to disrupt the pirate IPTV subscription market, services that allow users to access premium live TV channels (plus movies and TV shows) at a fraction of the official market rate.

 

Last month a 58-year-old man was ordered to pay four Swedish TV companies more than $164,000 in damages after being found guilty of selling illegal IPTV service subscriptions.

 

Sweden can now add another conviction to the list, one with even greater damages attached.

MacIPTV Reported to the Police in 2019

Working on behalf of production companies SF Studios and Nordisk Film, in September 2019 anti-piracy group Rights Alliance reported one of many entities involved in the supply of pirate IPTV subscriptions to the police.

 

According to the anti-piracy group, in addition to other content the service made available around 24 of the Swedish companies’ films without authorization, including ‘Borg v McEnroe’ and Becoming Astrid (aka ‘Young Astrid’).

 

A police investigation found that two of the films had been removed from the service but with 22 still remaining live, it was determined that a prosecution was warranted.

Arrested in 2021

Rights Alliance, which has been behind many similar prosecutions in the past, reports that the 21-year-old man was arrested at his home in early 2021.

 

The investigation concluded that the service provided IPTV accounts to around 3,000 users over a 13-month period, for which payments of SEK 2.8 million (US$306,000) were received via PayPal and bitcoin.

 

During the search the police found a bitcoin wallet containing 18 bitcoins, worth US$766,584 at today’s exchange rates. Around the same time as the suspect’s final interrogation, however, it was discovered that the wallet had been emptied.

Man Convicted in Sweden

The defendant’s case was heard at Sweden’s Patent and Market Court, a special division of the Stockholm District Court that handles intellectual property matters.

 

The man admitted to carrying out some work and maintenance on MacIPTV for which he received payment. However, he insisted he did not play a key role at the service and believed that his work was legal.

 

He denied copyright infringement and accounting-related offenses while pointing to a person he met on Telegram as the operator of the IPTV service.

 

The Court decided that the man was guilty of copyright infringement and also convicted him for aggravated bookkeeping offenses. He was sentenced to 140 hours of community service and was ordered to pay damages and compensation of SEK 2.1 million (around US$231,000) to the rightsholders.

 

According to Rights Alliance, MacIPTV attracted customers by pretending its business was legal. The verdict can be appealed until February 18, 2022.

 

There’s a market for pretty much anything digital today and ‘collectables’ in particular sell like hot cakes.

 

The non-fungible token (NFT) rage shows that people are willing to pay vast amounts of money for a digital gimmick, that may or may not retain its value.

 

These digital entries, stored on a blockchain, allow the buyers to prove that they are legitimate ‘owners’ to some underlying asset. While it’s different from a copyright, NFTs owners are rightsholders in a sense, although the specifics may vary from project to project.

‘NFT Piracy’

Over the past year, there has been a boom in NFT projects. Not seldomly these have raised precarious copyright issues. There are NFT projects ‘copying’ other NFTs, for example, and in some cases, people simply issue NFTs based on existing copyrighted works owned by others.

 

These ‘conterfeit’ or ‘pirate’ NFTs use digital versions of art, photos, music, logos, without the permission of rightsholders. They are then sold for serious money. Needless to say, this is an open invitation for legal trouble.

 

A few days ago, the RIAA stepped in to stop one of these unauthorized projects. The anti-piracy group, which is known to go after traditional pirate sites and services, sent a cease and desist letter to the music NFT platform HitPiece.

 

The site used artists’ names and album art, suggesting that the NTFs could give fans access to their idols. This included several top stars such as Taylor Swift.

 

Most of the musicians were not involved. The site was quick to shut down when pressure mounted, but the RIAA is not letting the operators off the hook yet, demanding a complete overview of the revenue that was made.

 

The HitPiece drama is just the tip of the iceberg, however. Behind the scenes, major rightsholders are growing increasingly concerned about NFTs, and various other digital projects.

Decidated NFT Anti-Piracy Solution

To curb this trend, Italian anti-piracy outfit Digital Content Protection (DcP), which works for clients such as Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music, has launched a new takedown service specifically targeted at NTFs and Web 3.0-type projects.

 

TorrentFreak spoke to DcP CEO Luca Vespignani, who tells us that new technologies are developing rapidly and that there are large financial interests at stake. The company’s new anti-piracy service helps to protect copyright and trademark interests when it comes to NFTs, Web 3.0, and the metaverse.

 

One of the solutions offered is a monitoring and takedown service that detects potentially infringing content and requests online services and platforms to take it offline.

 

While DcP can’t change blockchain entries, it can target listings on popular NFT markets such as OpenSea and Rarible.

 

“Basically, we crawl web 3.0 resources such as NFT markets, virtual reality platforms, and in-game platforms looking for unauthorized NFTs, bad actors and rug-pulls,” Vespignani tells us.

Supporting Lawsuits

When infringing content is found, the anti-piracy outfit can send a takedown notice to have it removed. Another option is to document the infringing activity and build an evidence log so rightsholders can take legal action.

 

“After the monitoring, we either sent a notice and takedown request or we compile a forensic archive of copyright infringement evidence, to support potential legal action,” Vespignani says.

 

The new anti-piracy service was officially announced at the Sanremo Music Festival a few days ago. Interestingly, that also provided one of the first takedown opportunities as several clips from the festival were offered for sale as NFTs at Opensea.

 

These unauthorized NFTs were detected by DcP’s monitoring service and were removed from Opensea following a takedown notice.

Roblox Takedown

The anti-piracy group also shared some information on its first takedown, which was a Roblox case. While this is not NFT-related, it could be considered a precursor to the metaverse concept, as it targeted someone who sold tickets to a digital Warner Music venue on Roblox, without permission.

 

“The first action we carried out was on Roblox. A virtual space called Warner Music Venue was created there and the idea was to host music events. Users were allowed to participate after the purchase of virtual tickets with the platform’s Robux coin.”

 

Access to this exclusive VIP club cost 60 Robux, which is roughly $0.75. While that’s not really expensive, it’s easy to see how these things can get out of hand. Soon after DCP informed Roblox about the unauthorized activity, the listing was taken down.

 

As far as we know, DCP is the first anti-piracy outfit to launch a takedown service specifically tailored to NFTs, Web 3.0, and the metaverse. That said, many others are keeping an eye on it as well.

 

Aside from RIAA’s action against HitPiece, several copyright-related NFT disputes are being fought out in court. At the same time, platforms such as Opensea are regularly targeted in traditional DMCA takedown notices.

 

Hacking group Team-Xecuter has long been a thorn in the side of major gaming companies.

 

The group offered hardware and software solutions that allowed people to install and play games – including pirated copies – on various consoles such as the popular Nintendo Switch.

 

Nintendo had been trying to shut down the group for years but without much result. However, in 2020 the matter escalated when the US Government launched a criminal prosecution of three Team-Xecuter members, accusing them of facilitating copyright infringement.

Bowser Pleaded Guilty

Thus far only one of the three, a 52-year-old Canadian man named Gary Bowser, has appeared at a U.S. federal court. Bowser was arrested in the Dominican Republic, where he lived, and was later deported to the United States where he pleaded guilty.

 

According to the prosecution, Bowser was the “salesperson” of Team-Xecuter, where he dealt with resellers of the products. He was also known as “GaryOPA”, the operator of the website “MaxConsole”, which regularly reviewed Team-Xecuter hardware and other hacking tools.

 

As part of the guilty plea, Bowser accepted the possibility of a five-year prison sentence for conspiring to circumvent technological measures and trafficking in circumvention devices.

 

Last week, the U.S. Government stressed that a five-year prison term was indeed justified. Among other things, this would serve as a warning to others who are tempted to continue the work of Team-Xecuter.

 

Bowser’s attorneys disagreed and asked the court to limit the sentence to 19 months, of which 16 have already been served. They stressed that Bowser was not the mastermind behind the operation but was used by the people who earned the big bucks.

40 month Prison

Today, District Court Judge Robert S. Lasnik chose the middle ground and sentenced Bowser to 40 months in prison. This comes on top of the $4.5 million in restitution he previously agreed to pay Nintendo.

 

“These are serious criminal offenses with real victims and harm to the community,” Judge Lasnik said.

 

In a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice describes Bowser as a prominent leader of the criminal enterprise. U.S. Attorney Nick Brown notes that during its lifespan the group caused an estimated $65 million in losses to gaming companies.

 

Today’s sentencing is seen as a key victory in the fight against gaming piracy. However, it doesn’t close the books on the criminal prosecution just yet, as the other two defendants have yet to be brought to justice.

 

This includes Max Louarn, a 49-year-old French national. He was reportedly placed in custody when the investigation was launched, but we haven’t heard any updates since. The third defendant, a Chinese man named Yuanning Chen, 36, is presumably still at large.

 

In 2012, Japan passed legislation that made it illegal to download unlicensed movies and music from the Internet.

 

Eight years later, Japan’s parliament passed new copyright amendments that banned the unlicensed downloading of manga, magazines and academic texts from the Internet, in line with the previously outlawed media categories.

 

At the same time, it introduced provisions for dealing with so-called ‘leech’ sites, platforms that index or link to copyrighted content hosted elsewhere.

 

Operating such a site without appropriate licensing is now an arrestable offense.

Notable Criminal Cases Since the Changes

In November 2020, the Kyoto Prefectural Police arrested two men for copyright infringement by operating a linking site and providing access to three adult videos.

 

Last month, the Metropolitan Police Department Ayase Station filed charges against a man who operated a linking site that provided links to a pirate site that offered around 30,000 pieces of unauthorized content, including adult animations. The self-employed 37-year-old is said to have earned the equivalent of around US$4,000 in a recent two-month period.

 

“I thought that Japanese animation and CG are popular overseas, so I could make money by accessing them. I wanted to make some pocket money,” he reportedly confessed.

New Criminal Action in Japan

According to a report from local anti-piracy group CODA, the Cyber Crime Division of the Gunma Prefectural Police Headquarters and the Maebashi Police Station have arrested a man on suspicion that he too operated a leech/linking site that provided access to infringing content.

 

The platform, which has not been named, reportedly offered links to around 6,000 movies and dramas, including around 2,500 Japanese movies and 3,500 foreign titles. The linked infringing content was uploaded to an overseas online storage site and was available for streaming. Multiple links to illegal uploads were placed for each work so that if one link was removed, another would still work.

 

For the purposes of the case, two specific works are highlighted as being infringed by the defendant. From local production company Toei, the 2020 movie “Inunakimura” (English: “Howling Village”) is cited and from Toho, the 2019 movie “Tenki no Ko” (English: “Weathering with You”).

Severe Sentences Available

In common with the 37-year-old linking site suspect, it’s said that the man in this matter earned money from his platform, specifically via advertising revenue. Under local law, the generation of revenue is not a requirement for criminal prosecution but may be considered an aggravating factor. Either way, the punishments are potentially severe.

 

Linking site offenses carry a sentence of up to five years in prison, a maximum fine of five million yen (US$43,600), or in some cases, both. In addition, Toei and Toho can pursue a damages claim through a civil lawsuit.

 

Earlier this year the formation of the International Anti-Piracy Organisation (IAPO) was announced by CODA. The aim of the new coalition is to tackle the illegal online distribution of anime, manga and similar copyrighted content around the world. Along with dozens of other companies, Toei is expected to be part of the coalition.

Gears-branded IPTV services operated by Bill Omar Carrasquillo, better known by his social media handle Omi in a Hellcat.

 

IRS and FBI agents seized “at least” $5.2m from his bank accounts along with a laundry list of supercars and other vehicles, all alleged to have been purchased with revenues from Carrasquillo’s pirate TV services.

 

A criminal indictment unsealed last year revealed that Carrasquillo of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Jesse Gonzales of California, and Michael Barone of New York had all been charged with serious offenses relating to the illegal capture and redistribution of Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum, DirecTV and Frontier Communications broadcasts.

 

With Carrasquillo facing a sentence of 514 years and the forfeiture of dozens of supercars (not to mention dozens of pieces of real estate), the YouTuber has always maintained his innocence, insisting that the legal advice he received while operating his services was solid.

 

Whatever that advice was, anyone with even a basic understanding of copyright law in the United States could see otherwise. The consequences of not paying taxes are even more obvious so now, via a message to his fans, Carrasquillo says he will plead guilty.

 

Even more than that, Carrasquillo says he IS guilty and will have to face the music.

Omi: I Did Wrong, I F***** Up, I’m Guilty

“It’s a super-unfortunate situation. I’m not a threat to society by any means but you know, what did what I did was kind f***** up. Created an app that basically had live TV and recorded shows in a DVR catch-up type of thing. I’m letting you guys know that I’m pleading guilty,” he says in a YouTube video

 

“Long talks with my attorney, it’s the best option you know. Everyone [presumably co-defendants] already pleaded out, already pleaded guilty on my case, [which] makes no sense, plus it’s an acceptance of responsibility for me.”

 

Precisely what deal Carrasquillo has reached with prosecutors isn’t made clear. There is no mention of time in prison yet but there is a clear financial component with many, many millions at stake.

 

“It just sucks, it sucks, it sucks. It sucks to lose my house, to lose properties, money, all my cars, my jewelry. It’s an embarrassment.”

Omi to fans: Don’t Do What I Did

Omi previously painted his predicament as one of a ‘hustler’ who exploited a ‘gray area’ in order to give poorer people access to content for which cable companies were charging too much. His comments now appear to have switched almost entirely towards cautionary advice – anti-piracy advocacy even.

 

“You know what, this is to kind of let you know man that you don’t want to take easy routes in life. I’ve always been good at hustling you know and in a good sense. I’m not talking about selling drugs I’m talking about hustling you know, grabbing an item selling it for more. I did this through Craigslist, I did this through Facebook,” he says.

 

“You obtain everything quick but at the end of the day it’s not worth it man so I’m letting you guys know you if you’re f****** and streaming and shit like that man…’STOP IT’.”

There Was No Gray Area

One of the interesting aspects of the case against Carrasquillo is that at the time of his offenses, rightsholders were pushing extremely hard to plug a perceived loophole in copyright law. By treating streaming as a felony, not a mere misdemeanor, the ‘Protecting Lawful Streaming Act 2020‘ would help rightsholders tackle IPTV operations similar to Carrasquillo’s.

 

Given that the new law passed in 2020 and Carrasquillo’s offenses pre-dated that by years, it’s pretty obvious that existing legislation was already enough in a case like his. Nevertheless, Carrasquillo believes that others who are considering emulating people like him should now be extra cautious, since the new legislation allows for lengthy jail sentences.

 

“It’s 10 years in prison now if you stream,” Omi warns, leaning towards the camera. The truth is a little more nuanced, however.

 

In rough terms, people who provide a service that is primarily designed for distributing copyright works for the purposes of “commercial advantage or private financial gain”, can be fined and imprisoned for up to three years. If the service carries pre-release content, the sentence jumps to five years. The 10-year maximum only comes into play for repeat offenders (pdf).

Omi’s Crimes Are ‘A Little Bit Different’

Omi concedes his case became more complex because he didn’t pay his taxes but he’s stressing that the important thing now is for him is to just accept that he was wrong and what he did was illegal.

 

“Ignorance is no excuse like I’ve always said and to me it’s about accepting responsibility and just stop feeding myself some bullshit. To me it’s narcissistic behavior, the shit that I do. I’m always the victim, America is against me – No. I wouldn’t have had this issue if I hadn’t created this service [and paid my taxes] – that’s a fact.

Disney+ Gets Credited For Omi’s Change of Heart

While Disney and its products have brought joy to countless millions over decades, the company is also well-known for being one of the most bullish pro-copyright corporations ever to exist, one that executes aggressive anti-piracy strategies on a daily basis.

 

It’s therefore more than a little interesting to see Omi crediting the company for what appears to be his road to Damascus-style recovery.

 

“I feel guilty. I was watching Disney+, watching Pixar – it’s like ‘meet the creators’ – and I saw this massive building and if you watch ‘meet the creators’ you get to watch the animators and some of the people that work on some of these movies.

 

“Pixar has Thousands of employees and you see them all walking into the building at the same time, everybody’s just moving. The kitchen is rolling, the auditorium in that place is humongous. It takes them five years – FIVE YEARS – to make one movie,” he exclaims.

 

“So think about all the money you’re investing, and investing in all the people running back and forth. At the end of the day, do they still get paid? Yes, Omi says, but that made him think about a situation he faced too, when people copied his own products.

Omi Says He’s a Victim of Piracy Too

For some time now, Omi has been selling clothing and other products featuring his ‘Reloaded’ branding, named after one of his services of the same name. He says that when he discovered that someone had copied his products and knock-offs were being sold, it didn’t feel great.

 

“When I found out that someone was selling Reloaded merchandise t-shirts that shit bothered me. So imagine what a copyright holder has to go through. You’re skipping off money off the top. Towards the beginning I felt like what I did wasn’t illegal and the more I sit back and dwell on it, I was feeding myself bullshit.

 

“When you’re redistributing copyright material, it’s illegal – no if, and, or buts. But do I deserve all that time in prison? No man, that’s just ludicrous but I do have to make some wrongs into rights.

Omi Says Nobody is Pulling His Strings

Considering the significant public effect of a high-profile YouTuber denouncing piracy like Omi now has, one might rightly muse over whether this is genuine remorse or spoon-fed industry propaganda that could have the potential to lighten his ultimate punishment.

 

While expressions of guilt and remorse can indeed have that effect, Omi insists that what he is saying is entirely voluntary and he wasn’t coerced in any way.

 

 

A few weeks ago we noticed that Google had removed several popular pirate sites from its search results.

 

It started with The Pirate Bay in the Netherlands. The controversial torrent site and many of its mirrors and proxies were deindexed by Google after a notice sent by local anti-piracy group BREIN.

 

BREIN informed the search engine that local Internet providers had been ordered to block the domains and asked Google to follow suit. While the search engine previously dismissed the notion of full domain removals, it chose to comply.

 

We have tried to get a comment from Google on the matter but the company hasn’t responded. BREIN, however, told us that the search engine’s cooperative stance makes sense as it would likely lose a legal battle over the matter, given the existing ISP precedent in court.

 

After we published our findings we noticed that Google had received similar removal requests from other countries, including France, Brazil, and Norway. Again, the flagged pirate site domains were quietly removed from search results in those countries.

Google Removes Pirate Domains in the UK

At the time, we also spotted a request from the UK law firm Wiggin LLP, which works for several Hollywood studios. This notice included copies of over a dozen ISP blocking orders. These were not processed at the time but, when we checked again this week, the domains were indeed gone.

 

The court orders – some of which are over a decade old – target well over a hundred sites. However, the notice in question only lists a few dozen, such as YTS.mx, YourBitTorrent, Yesmovies, TorrentDay, EZTV, 123Movies, and RARBG.to.

 

People who try to search for these domains won’t see them in search results. Instead, Google displays the following notice at the bottom of the page, right above the standard DMCA removal notification.

 

“In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed xx result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at LumenDatabase.org.”

 

When we investigated further we spotted two other requests from Wiggin LLP, targeting other domains that UK ISPs were ordered to block in the past. These include Levidia.ch, Yify-movies.net, and AZM.to.

 

Although Google is not specifically mentioned in the old court orders, the company presumable chose to comply voluntarily. That news was undoubtedly welcomed with open arms by rightsholders.

 

Interestingly, however, the UK law firm didn’t report all blocked domains to Google. The Pirate Bay, arguably the best-known pirate site in the world, remains indexed. That’s probably an oversight.

 

In closing, it’s worth mentioning that there are strange results at other search engines as well. Bing, for example, still indexes most sites that are listed in UK blocking orders, such as thepiratebay.org and YTS.mx. However, RARBG has gone missing.

 

We’re not sure why RARBG’s results were removed and Bing provides no further detail. However, some RARBG-related searches on Google suggest that there might be another court order, one that the public can’t see.

 

“Google received a request to remove content from our services based on a court order. Due to the nature of the court’s order, Google has not provided a copy to Lumen,” Google explains.

 

Perhaps we’ll find out more about this mysterious order in the future. In the meantime, we expect that more blocking orders will be forwarded to the search engine.

 

Way back in 2005, the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) teamed up with the then MPAA to take down EliteTorrents, one of the most popular private BitTorrent trackers on the internet.

 

The involvement of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agency in a copyright infringement case certainly raised eyebrows but over time this type of public/private cooperation became nothing out of the ordinary.

 

As recently as last year, a man was sentenced to 12 months in prison following an investigation into an illegal streaming operation carried out by Homeland Security Investigations, the MPAA, and the IRS. There have been other cases too, and the signs suggest that more will follow.

MPA, ACE and Homeland Security Team Up

In September 2020, the MPA, anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, and Homeland Security’s National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on content protection efforts, including a public awareness campaign.

 

This Monday, following the news that George Bridi, a leader of the Scene piracy group SPARKS, had been sentenced to 22 months in prison, the groups celebrated the sentencing as a success story for their public/private partnership.

 

“The Bridi sentencing is a significant milestone for the MPA, ACE and the IPR Center, as it marks a successful outcome stemming from ‘Operation Intangibles,’ launched in 2019 by the IPR Center to target pirated materials across the digital ecosystem,” the MPA’s statement reads.

 

“The IPR Center, in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), leveraged their vast authorities and international law enforcement partnerships to intercept and dismantle this criminal organization’s cyber piracy network and arrest those allegedly responsible.”

MPA and ACE Will Now Embed Their Staff at the IPR Center

As part of the above statement the MPA also revealed a significant expansion of the partnership agreement signed in 2020. To enhance their ability to fight movie and TV show piracy, MPA and ACE will now embed their own personnel in the team at the IPR Center in Washington D.C.

 

According to the MPA, this embedding will assist the government and law enforcement authorities in their investigations into large-scale copyright infringement operations. However, given that such investigations are usually initiated by the MPA and ACE themselves, it seems more likely that government and law enforcement agency powers will be used to assist copyright holders, not necessarily the other way around.

 

In any event, the MPA says that by embedding its anti-piracy specialists at the IPR Center, HSI field agents will have a “direct line” to their skills and expertise while receiving technical on-the-job training.

Expansion Welcomed By HSI and MPA

Commenting on the announcement, Steve Francis, Acting Executive Associate Director for HSI, describes digital piracy as a significant threat to the economic security of the United States and as such needs to be taken seriously.

 

“With every investigation, arrest, and subsequent criminal conviction, we are one step closer to creating a safer environment for content creators. These additional resources will enable the IPR Center to crack down on illegal activity around the world involving the unauthorized distribution of pirated digital content,” Francis says.

 

Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the MPA, says that the expanded partnership will enable rightsholders to tackle even the most elusive piracy groups and entities.

 

“Through our partnership with the IPR Center, we have dismantled criminal online enterprises that operate as though they are untouchable,” van Voorn says.

 

“With the additional resources and the broader scope of the relationship, we’re confident law enforcement efforts will continue to yield tangible results that support and protect the creative economy.”

 

Tackling sites that mass distribute links to infringing content is a time-consuming activity for rightsholders. Many feel there should be greater cooperation from the tech sector to lighten the load and in Russia, that certainly appears to be happening.

 

Signed in 2018, a memorandum of cooperation signed by major rightsholders and internet companies including Yandex changed the way infringing content is handled.

 

Following the creation of a centralized database of pirated content, the Internet companies agreed to query it every few minutes in order to remove corresponding content from their platforms within six hours. Over a period of three years, more than 40 million infringing links have now been removed from search results.

 

Since its introduction, the memorandum has been renewed several times alongside calls for the system to be opened up to a wider range of rightsholders, such as those operating in the publishing sector. While that is yet to happen, a new memorandum has just been signed by the original signatories containing an even more powerful anti-piracy tool.

Search Engines Agree to Deindex Entire Domains

Under the current agreement (which is set to expire early September 2022), rightsholders must submit specific URLs to infringing content to the centralized database controlled by the Media Communications Union (ISS). These specific URLs are then delisted by search engines but rightsholders complain that the same content can reappear under a new URL, meaning that the process must be repeated.

 

To deal with this type of ‘pirate’ countermeasure, the new memorandum requires search companies to take more stringent action. Any domain that has 100 or more ‘pirate’ links reported to the database will be deindexed entirely by search engines, meaning that they essentially become invisible to anyone using a search engine. This must be carried out quickly too, within 24 hours according to ISS.

 

Given the number of links to infringing content posted to non-pirate sites, safeguards will also be introduced to protect legitimate resources from deindexing. These include media sites, government projects, search engines themselves, social networks, and official content providers.

 

“Removing the domains of malicious pirate sites from search results will be a major breakthrough in the fight against digital piracy, which will significantly optimize the costs of copyright holders to protect their rights and will contribute to the growth of legal video consumption,” says Mikhail Demin, President of the Media Communications Union.

Rightsholders Want New Memorandum Written Into Law

Alongside the development of the memorandum a new law is being drafted, with the aim of enshrining its voluntary terms into local law. That should allow other rightsholders that aren’t current signatories to obtain similar benefits. At the time of writing, however, progress on the legal front is taking its time and might still take a few more months.

 

“The validity of the current version of the Memorandum has been extended until September 1, 2022, and we very much hope that by that time a law will be adopted to consolidate the provisions of the Memorandum,” Demin says.

 

“The application of the updated version of the agreement will begin immediately after the adoption and entry into force of the law based on the provisions of the Memorandum. We are sure that due to the constructive dialogue that has developed on the ISS site, the industrial community will be able to offer many more effective anti-piracy initiatives.”

 

The current memorandum participants are as follows:

 

JSC “Channel One”
FSUE “VGTRK”
STS Media
JSC Gazprom-Media Holding
JSC National Media Group
Association of Film and Television Producers
Association “Internet Video”
Yandex LLC
Mail.ru Group
Rambler Group
LLC GPM Partner
LLC “Roform”
LLC “Kinopoisk”
Animated Film Association

 

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

 

These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “House of Gucci” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 07 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	House of Gucci	6.8 / trailer
2	(…)	Nightmare Alley	7.2 / trailer
3	(2)	Eternals	6.6 / trailer
4	(4)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	9.0 / trailer
5	(6)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer
6	(5)	Ghostbusters: Afterlife	7.6 / trailer
7	(1)	The 355	4.9 / trailer
8	(9)	Dune	8.3 / trailer
9	(3)	The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild	4.2 / trailer
10	(9)	No Time to Die	7.5 / trailer

 

 

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

 

For several decades, The Scene has been the main source of all pirated content made available on the Internet.

 

Technically, release groups operate in a closed ecosystem, but the reality is different. The vast majority of the files published on private Scene servers eventually find their way to public pirate sites.

The SPARKS Bust

The secretive nature of the Scene has been a major challenge for law enforcement but last summer the US Department of Justice had a major breakthrough. Following a thorough investigation, three men connected to the illustrious SPARKS group were indicted.

 

One of the defendants, a British man named George Bridi, was arrested in Cyprus on an Interpol Red Notice. After an extradition process that took nearly a year, he was eventually extradited to the United States where he pleaded guilty.

 

After more than 17 months in custody, Bridi was sentenced today. The U.S. Attorney had requested a significant prison term of between 27 and 33 months, which is also what the guidelines prescribe. According to the prosecution, a significant sentence would help to deter other pirates.

 

The defense disagreed and asked for a sentence reduction. Bridi’s attorney Louis Freeman argued that a lower sentence was warranted due to various personal and health issues. In addition, the likelihood that his client will make the same mistake again is very low.

22 months in Prison

After reviewing the positions of the prosecution and defense, US District Court Judge Richard M. Berman took the middle ground. Earlier today, Judge Berman sentenced the former Scene member to 22 months in prison.

 

“Infringement of U.S. copyrights is a big problem in our economy,” Judge Richard Berman said, quoted by Reuters. “It’s doubly troubling that it can be conducted […] from outside the U.S.”

 

At the same hearing, Mr. Bridi showed remorse and apologized for the damage he had caused to the movie studios and their employees.

 

The SPARKS group was the driving force behind hundreds of movie and TV show releases, which also came out under related tags such as “DRONES,” “ROVERS,” “GECKOS,” and “SPRINTER.”

 

Among other things, Mr. Bridi served as a manager and supervisor in the SPARKS Group. He purchased the discs from the distributors, coordinated shipments to lower lever members of the group, and urged at least one other individual to upload discs as soon as possible.

 

Similar to other Scene members, Mr. Bridi stressed that there was no profit motive. Instead, the group’s goal was to win ‘races’ from other groups, by releasing TV shows and movies first.

Shockwaves

After the criminal prosecution was announced in 2020, it soon became apparent that the feds had spooked many other Scene groups as well.

 

Following the raids, several topsites went offline. Some of these had their infrastructure caught up in the enforcement, but many others decided to lay low as a precaution. Meanwhile, the rumor mill was in full swing, with some fearing that the action was just the start.

 

With so many uncertainties the number of Scene releases dropped to a historic low. After a few months, however, things more or less returned to normal.

 

Today’s sentencing is the second conviction in the SPARKS case. Previously, Kansas resident Jonatan Correa was sentenced to time served and 27 months of supervised release.

 

The third defendant, Norway resident Umar Ahmad a.k.a. “Artist”, has yet to be located and remains at large.

 

Over the past year and a half, Danish law enforcement authorities did their best to shut down the local torrent tracker scene.

 

It started in September and October 2020 when DanishBits and NordicBits went offline after their operators were caught.

New Targets

As is often the case, it didn’t take long before other sites stepped up. Rival trackers such as “Asgaard” and “ShareUniversity” opened their doors to new members, resulting in an explosive growth of these sites.

 

This bonanza only lasted for a few weeks. The Danish Government’s IP-Task Force kept the pressure on, with help from local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance. A few weeks later, these sites shut down as well, with an added message that the operators and users risked prosecution.

 

These threatening words are often sent as a warning. However, in this case, it indeed resulted in several criminal prosecutions.

Three Months Prison

Last week, the Kolding court sentenced a 43-year-old man to a conditional prison sentence of three months. The man confessed his involvement with the Asgaard tracker, for which he managed the servers and did coding work.

 

In addition to the conditional prison term, the tracker admin was to complete 60 hours of community service. The man is also required to return $422 (2,750 kroner) in profits and pay $5,390 (35,000 kroner) in damages.

 

The tracker admin was held accountable for helping to share thousands of films, TV series, music tracks, comics, and books. At its height, Asgaard had 23,000 users who had access to roughly 15,000 files via the private tracker.

Gratifying

Christian Raaholt Hahn, Assistant Prosecutor at the National Unit for Special Crime (NSK), is pleased with the sentence that was announced last week.

 

“It is gratifying that with today’s verdict we are holding another culprit responsible for his actions – this time the IT-savvy coder of the file-sharing service,” Raaholt Hahn said on Friday.

 

This is the second Asgaard case to be concluded. Last summer, the Odense court already sentenced a 50-year-old operator of the site to a four-month prison sentence, of which three were conditional.

 

According to the authorities, an additional five Asgaard defendants are expected to be sentenced later this year. Their roles at the site are yet to be made clear.

 

The torrent tracker investigations were started after a referral from the local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance. The group’s director, Maria Fredenslund, is happy with the results thus far and she’s looking forward to seeing more people being held accountable.

 

“We are very pleased that the perpetrators involved are being held accountable for their crime, and we look forward to following up on future cases,” Fredenslund said, commenting on the news.

 

In addition to the Asgaard prosecutions, there have been several convictions related to other Danish trackers over the past year. The operator of Danishbits received a one-year prison sentence while a user of the site was sentenced to 60 days probation.

 

After we published an article about the prolonged downtime at the ETTV torrent site, the operator has confirmed what many users already feared.

 

Another piracy icon bites the dust.

 

“The website is shut down indefinitely. I couldn’t afford to run it anymore. I will not renew the domains,” ETTV informs TorrentFreak.

ETTV Shuts Down

These comments come from ‘sidekickbob,’ an admin who took over the helm when the original ETTV operator disappeared two years ago. With his financial support, the site and the upload bots remained operational for a while but this was never meant to be permanent.

 

Initially, sidekickbob had hoped to sell the site to a reputable third party who could keep it intact. This is still an option but since nothing material happened, the road ends here for now.

 

“It was a hard decision to make. The site had around 250 thousand loyal visitors a day, and many uploaders were uploading daily since the beginning of it all,” sidekickbob says.

 

ETTV certainly wasn’t the most popular torrent site online but it had a dedicated team of uploaders and loyal visitors. ETTV’s upload bots also built quite a track record. Torrents with the ETTV and EtHD tags were also shared on dedicated accounts at third-party sites such as 1337x and The Pirate Bay.

 

This has come to an end as well.

ETTV History

The ETTV group became active in 2011 at the now-defunct ExtraTorrent site. It started as an alternative to the original EZTV group, which was dominant at the time, and the goal was to get TV-show releases out much quicker.

 

ETTV wasn’t meant as competition. They had a lot of respect for the original EZTV group. However, they simply wanted to improve ‘pirate’ release windows.

 

“At the time the real EZTV was still active. They released stuff hours after it was released from The Scene, leaving sites to wait very long for shows to arrive in public,” ETTV told us previously.

 

While ETTV is commonly referred to as a “group,” it was initially a one-person operation. This person configured the script which automatically grabbed Scene releases, put them on a seedbox, and posted the related torrents on torrent sites.

Expand and Collapse

It didn’t take long before pirates got wind of the new distribution ‘group’ and demand for the torrents quickly exploded. This meant that a single seedbox was no longer sufficient to keep everything running smoothly.

 

Luckily for ETTV, several people offered to help out and the ExtraTorrent owners chipped in with financial support to keep the operation going.

 

When ExtraTorrent voluntarily shut its doors in 2017, the ETTV and EtHD groups became homeless. They continued to upload to other torrent sites, however, and a few months later they launched their own website.

 

Things seemed to go well until the operator of the site disappeared. This is when sidekickbob stepped up. He kept the site and bots functional for nearly two years, despite the ever-present legal pressure.

 

However, it was clear from the start that it would be hard to keep ETTV online without financial resources. These funds eventually dried up now and, after more than a decade, the group’s road ends here.

 

“So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish,” sidekickbob says.

 

In 2021, court documents revealed the work of anti-piracy group BREIN against pirate IPTV seller GoFastIPTV.eu, a platform that offered movies, TV shows and live streams of pay TV channels, plus more than 85,000 on-demand titles.

 

BREIN believes that this platform was the largest seller of IPTV subscriptions in the Netherlands and as a result went to great lengths in an effort to identify its operators. These included test purchases that led to PayPal and an account at Rabobank in the Netherlands. Summons letters were also sent to various email accounts and to companies hosting the IPTV service’s website.

 

Continued investigations led BREIN to make inquiries in the UK and Brazil, with the anti-piracy group reaching a dead end when a related domain was traced to a hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. Demands placed on Rabobank to provide customer details also proved problematic, until BREIN won a court ruling that compelled the bank to hand over the necessary information.

Bank Hands Over Data, BREIN Makes Progress

According to new information from BREIN, the bank eventually handed over the name, address and residence details of the person behind the account, making it possible to identify and locate them. BREIN followed up by serving an ex parte court order at the address of a man in Brazil.

 

This failed to provide the required result and instead of shutting down, the man continued to trade. As a result, however, he forfeited 420,000 euros in penalty payments. BREIN says that the man also transferred the site’s domain name to an ‘unidentifiable person’, which was a mistake the anti-piracy group pounced upon.

BREIN Seeks to Seize Domains, Enforce Penalty Payments

When domain authorities can’t identify an owner, domains can be suspended and when BREIN made a request in respect of the pirate IPTV domains, that’s exactly what happened. This means IPTV subscription sales can no longer take place via those domains but according to BREIN, sales are now taking place on yet another new domain, albeit with much less traffic.

 

“BREIN has therefore initiated proceedings on the merits with regard to the penalty payments and the transfer of domain names. The taking of domain names as a means of enforcement is also known from the US, among other places,” BREIN explains.

 

“The court’s final civil judgment will be enforced in Brazil in respect of assets there. BREIN will also report the man to the authorities because of his persistence in large-scale infringement.”

BREIN Doesn’t Shy Away From Asset Seizures

In mid-2018, BREIN approached a seller of illegal copies of ebooks on local online service Marktplaats and Facebook. She agreed to cease her activities but with that came a penalty clause, should those sales resume. BREIN later found that sales were indeed taking place and in 2019, the anti-piracy group demanded a payment of 4,000 euros.

 

When that payment wasn’t made due to available assets being attributed to her mother, BREIN seized the woman’s house. Following negotiations a schedule was agreed but after 2,500 euros were paid in 100 euros per month installments, payments stalled.

 

BREIN now reveals that at the end of last year, it responded by seizing the woman’s car which it intended to sell to help cover her liabilities.

 

“After this, settlement was achieved by means of payment of another 2,500 euros at once. In total 5,000 euros was collected,” BREIN reports.

 

Hacking group Team-Xecuter was a thorn in the side of major gaming companies for many years.

 

The group offered hardware and software solutions that allowed people to install and play unofficial games and pirated copies on various consoles, including the popular Nintendo Switch.

Team-Xecuter Prosecution

For many years Nintendo attempted to stop the group but failed to do so. This eventually prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to step in and following a thorough investigation, three members of the group were indicted in 2020.

 

The criminal prosecution effectively shut down the group but only one member, Gary Bowser, was detained. The Canadian was arrested in the Dominican Republic and deported to the US soon after.

 

Bowser is perhaps best known through his nickname GaryOPA, the operator and a frequent writer on the website “MaxConsole,” which regularly reviewed Team-Xecuter hardware and other hacking tools.

 

According to the indictment, Bowser was more than just a writer. The Government views him as part of the Team-Xecuter conspiracy. Among other things, he allegedly advertised and trafficked circumvention devices, while maintaining regular contact with resellers throughout the world.

 

Bowser initially denied any wrongdoing but, after a few months, he pleaded guilty and signed a plea agreement with the U.S. Government. In addition, he also admitted guilt in a civil lawsuit filed by Nintendo, where he agreed to pay $10 million in restitution.

 

After the guilty plea, the scale of the sentence is the only question remaining in the criminal case. This week, both the prosecution and defense submitted their sentencing recommendations to the Washington federal court.

U.S. Seeks Five-Year Prison Sentence

According to U.S. Attorney Nicholas Brown, a five-year prison sentence is warranted in this case. This severe punishment is justified for various reasons, including the scope of the damages attributed to Team-Xecutor in the gaming industry.

 

“Team Xecuter’s products targeted several companies over the course of almost a decade, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of loss. Defendant Gary Bowser played a critical role in the marketing, sale, and distribution of the products that caused that loss,” the U.S. Attorney writes.

 

The U.S. also believes that Mr. Bowser is a potential recidivist and that a significant sentence is needed to make sure that he doesn’t pick up his old line of work when he’s released.

Sending a Message

At the same time, the five-year sentence should serve as a warning to others who are tempted to continue the work of Team-Xecuter. This includes those who have thus far remained out of sight.

 

“A five-year sentence will put potential recruits on notice that engaging in this type of criminal conduct will subject them to significant prison sentences.” the U.S. Attorney writes.

Interestingly, the U.S. Attorney points to several news articles that covered this case. This is to illustrate that the industry is watching the case closely, and perhaps prospective criminals are too.

 

“There can be no question that any sentence imposed in this case will be widely disseminated within the video gaming community, as this case is being watched closely
by the industry.”

 

The overall message in the sentencing recommendation is that Mr. Bowser should serve as an example. While he might not have been the leader of the group, he was a crucial part of it and should be punished accordingly.

Defense Asks for a 19-Month Sentence

Mr. Bowser’s lawyers see things in a different light and are asking the federal court to limit the sentence to 19 months of which 16 have already been served.

 

The defense admits that Team-Xecutor was a criminal operation that caused a lot of damage. However, they argue that Mr. Bowser was used by other members of the group who reaped most of the benefits.

 

“Mr. Bowser was used by Max Louarn. Unlike his co-defendants, Mr. Bowser used his real identity on the website. He took all the risk, and reaped the smallest profit,” the defense writes.

 

To illustrate this point the defense argues that the Team-Xecuter group reportedly generated tens of millions of dollars in revenue, while Mr. Bowser was paid ‘only’ $500 to $1000 a month.

 

Based on these and other arguments, Mr. Bowser’s lawyers hope that the court will agree to a 19-month sentence instead. Given the circumstances, that’s already quite a significant sentence, they argue.

 

The court will now review the sentencing recommendations from both sides. It is expected to reach a final decision in the near future.

 

Last month the European Parliament voted on the final text of the Digital Services Act and it was approved by a broad majority.

 

An amendment that would’ve effectively banned ‘dumb’ upload filters didn’t pass, neither did an amendment that could’ve put an end to court orders that require ISPs to block websites, including pirate sites.

 

The DSA text adopted by the European Parliament is not final yet and could be further amended in trilogue negotiations with the European Council and European Commission. As far as major European football leagues are concerned, there is at least one aspect of the text that requires urgent attention, one that could help them more effectively deal with live streaming piracy.

Live Streaming Piracy is a Threat

While existing EU law already requires online service providers to remove infringing content in response to a valid takedown request, football leagues and other live sports companies insist that they require extra special treatment. Matches and games are at their most valuable when they are taking place and when enforcement takes too long, live streams can stay up, rendering takedown notices almost futile.

 

This issue was addressed last year in a draft approved by the European Parliament, which contained provisions that would’ve required illegal content to be removed immediately and no later than 30 minutes after the event had started.

Football Leagues Unhappy With Current DSA Provisions

The Association of European Professional Football Leagues, which represents the interests of 28 member leagues including Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, and Serie A, said this week that it “strongly regrets” that the European Parliament plenary vote on the DSA did not respond to calls to protect live content producers from piracy.

 

While commending parliament on adopting a position just one year after the European Commission’s proposals, the football leagues say that parliament’s position fails to properly deliver when it comes to removing illegal live content during live broadcasts.

 

“The failure to clarify the concept of ‘expeditious removal or disabling access’ to illegal live content, proposed as part of amendments to recital 22, is a missed opportunity to make enforcement of our rights meaningful and real,” says Alberto Colombo, Deputy General Secretary of the European Leagues.

“Article 14.3a Must Be Rejected”

The football leagues are also unhappy with a specific “last-minute” amendment. Article 14.3a states that when a takedown notice is sent to a hosting provider demanding the removal of infringing content, the content must stay online while an assessment of the content’s legality is pending.

 

3a. Information that has been the subject of a notice shall remain accessible while the assessment of its legality is still pending, without prejudice to the right of providers of hosting services to apply their terms and conditions. Providers of hosting services shall not be held liable for failure to remove notified information, while the assessment of legality is still pending.

 

While that may sound reasonable, especially given the need to ensure that bogus or erroneous takedown notices don’t remove legal content, the football leagues insist this will be damaging to them. Live matches necessarily take place in real-time and every second that illegal streams of matches remain up, pirates are able to view them without paying.

 

“This [assessment period] is really hurting the live content of our Member Leagues, where every second counts and no interpretation or assessment is needed as content is fingerprinted and/or watermarked. To put it bluntly, this new article would unfortunately and literally help piracy of live content spread even more across the European Union,” Colombo adds.

 

In conclusion, the football leagues call for the rejection of Article 14.3a “to make the DSA fit for live content” since without “clear and meaningful action” at the European level, mass infringement of sporting events will continue.

 

Last December, movie and TV giants Universal, Disney, Paramount, Warner and Columbia joined Netflix, Amazon, Apple and several other studios in a lawsuit against Texas resident Dwayne Anthony Johnson.

 

According to the plaintiffs, Johnson (and Does 1-20) are the brains behind pirate IPTV providers AllAccessTV (AATV) and Quality Restreams.

 

In common with several similar suits, the complaint claims that the services supply infringing movies and TV shows via their IPTV and VOD platforms, with AATV attempting to disguise its service behind the branding of a supposed VPN company, VPN Safe Vault LLC, which Johnson is said to manage.

 

The studios allege direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement, and inducement of copyright infringement, demanding the standard $150,000 in statutory damages for each willfully infringed work plus an urgent injunction.

 

In response, Johnson’s legal team seems keen to put up a fight.

Defendant: No Injunction is Necessary

In a late January filing, Johnson’s legal team cites the plaintiffs’ claim that Johnson’s alleged customers access infringing content via web-based applications but say that there is no evidence to prove this is the case.

 

“Plaintiffs’ only evidence of this alleged access are screenshots that do not show any URLs whatsoever, i.e., no actual evidence that the websites accused contain the alleged content,” they write in their opposition to the motion for injunction, noting that since key domains listed in the complaint are already down, an injunction is not necessary.

 

Moving on to the content allegedly infringed, the original complaint states that Johnson’s platforms make available 600 movie titles and 600 TV series. However, the defense says that since no evidence has been provided, “these are simply bald assertions” by the plaintiffs including the Motion Picture Association.

“Secondary Infringement Claims Will Fail”

In order to prove contributory and inducement of infringement, there must be an underlying direct infringement to base these claims upon. According to Johnson’s lawyers, the studios’ lawsuit is a “moving target” in this respect, shifting between allegations against viewers of streams, claims that the “unknown source of a restream” of IPTV is the direct infringer, or a combination of both.

 

“Plaintiffs do not provide evidence to show direct infringement by either the end users or the unknown source of a restream…[and]… Plaintiffs provide no evidence for the Court or Defendant to assess regarding any direct infringement by the unknown source of a restream of IPTV,” the response reads.

Proposed Injunction Deficient

The studios’ complaint demanded preliminary and permanent injunctions against not only Johnson but also the doe defendants, resellers, and anyone acting in concert with them including “any officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys..” According to Johnson’s lawyer, since there is no proof that his client does business as AllAccessTV or Quality Restreams, there are no officers, agents, servants or employees to target.

 

The fact that the studios also asked for an injunction against Johnson’s attorneys hasn’t gone down well either.

 

“[A]n injunction against Dwayne Johnson’s ‘attorneys’ is completely unsupported and borders on the absurd. Undersigned counsel, for example, has not been and cannot be accused of infringing any of Plaintiffs’ copyrights. There is no legitimate argument or assertion in this regard and Plaintiffs’ requested injunction as to Dwayne Johnson’s ‘attorneys’ must not be granted,” the response adds.

VPN Safe Vault LLC and Evidence Objections

While VPN Safe Vault was mentioned in the complaint, the entity was not named as a defendant in the case. According to the response, this is because the plaintiffs have no evidence to show copyright infringement. Any injunction that targets that business, including its domains, would be “an unlawful restraint on trade”, the response states, since it sells “VPN access that is not even arguably copyright infringement.”

 

Jan van Voorn is the Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association and in common with other MPA and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment lawsuits, his testimony supports the allegations against Johnson. However, the defense considers this improper, describing his statements as “inaccurate” and supported by “biased opinions”.

 

“The declarant, Van Voorn, however, cannot be an expert as he is not an independent third-party. He is an investigator with the Motion Picture Association who is not a party to this case but who is admittedly interested in this litigation,” the response notes, adding that speculation by the plaintiffs and Van Voorn that Johnson is the owner of several IPTV-related domains isn’t supported by evidence.

 

The response also criticizes a declaration submitted by Steve Kang, Vice President of Creative Content Protection at NBCUniversal Media, for either making claims that are “outside his realm of knowledge” or failing to provide sources for those claims.

 

Needless to say, the plaintiffs frame things quite differently.

Plaintiffs Say They Are Prepared to Settle

According to the studios, Johnson has twice asked for a hearing date to be pushed back but in the meantime they remain willing to “engage in meaningful discussions” to explore options for resolving the matter entirely. However, they say there is a threat that Johnson will continue to infringe their rights if not restrained.

 

The studios reveal that Johnson’s counsel approached them with a proposal for a stipulated preliminary injunction and negotiations took place in good faith. However, one of the conditions of the proposal was that only Johnson’s personal conduct would be enjoined from operating or doing business as AllAccessTV and Quality Restreams.

 

The studios felt that would be insufficient to prevent further infringement and they say that concern was well-founded.

 

“Days after Plaintiffs filed their Complaint, the public registry information for one domain that is subject to this lawsuit, allaccessiptv.com, was changed so that it no longer lists Defendant as the registrant, but instead makes all registrant information private,” the studios write.

 

“[P]laintiffs could suffer very real harm in the absence of injunctive relief that applies not just to Defendant, but to those individuals or entities, who, along with him, own or operate AllAccessTV and Quality Restreams or were or are acting in active concert or participation with Defendant and those business entities..”

 

The studios conclude by repeating their offer to resolve the case with Johnson but insist that a preliminary injunction is warranted to protect their rights.

 

The related court filings can be found here (1,2, pdf)

 

When it comes to civil anti-piracy enforcement, BREIN is without a doubt one of the best-known players in the industry.

 

The group, which receives support from Hollywood and other content industries, has shuttered hundreds of sites and services in recent history.

 

BREIN has also targeted several prolific BitTorrent uploaders over the years, with success. However, tracking down and going after individual file-sharers is quite resource-intensive and the anti-piracy group aims to cast its net wider.

Sending Warning Letters Pirates

To expand its reach, the group previously obtained permission from the Dutch Data Protection Authority to track and store the personal data of alleged BitTorrent pirates. This request was granted and roughly a year ago BREIN announced the start of its mass warning campaign.

 

Unlike other copyright enforcement groups, BREIN is not interested in casual pirates. Instead, it focuses on the bigger fish and asks Internet providers to forward a warning to these subscribers.

 

This sounds like a balanced approach which would be relatively easy to pull off in the United States and other countries where forwarding piracy notices is standard procedure. In the Netherlands, however, this isn’t straightforward at all.

Ziggo Refuses to Forward

When BREIN sent its warnings to the country’s largest ISP Ziggo, the company refused to forward the warnings to its subscribers. According to Ziggo, linking IP addresses to specific subscribers raises serious privacy concerns, even if the personal information isn’t shared with BREIN.

 

BREIN was disappointed with this response and it took the matter to court. The group hoped to get the green light, but the Utrecht court decided otherwise.

 

After hearing the arguments from both sides, the court sees no reason to conclude that BREIN’s warning program is too broad as Ziggo argued. However, the privacy concerns are legitimate.

 

Dutch privacy law is based on the European GDPR which has strict rules covering how and when personal information can be processed. In this case, that information is tied to potential illegal activity, which means that even stricter guidelines apply.

Court: Ziggo Needs a License

This isn’t a problem for BREIN, which already has a license to process the information. However, the court concludes that if Ziggo matches IP addresses to subscriber accounts in order to forward the warnings, it also needs a license.

 

At the moment, Ziggo doesn’t have permission from the Dutch Data Protection Authority to process these data so the ISP is not required to forward BREIN’s warnings.

 

“BREIN and Ziggo are both responsible for processing the data and therefore they must both comply with all the rules of the GDPR. BREIN complies but Ziggo doesn’t,” the court explains in a press release.

 

“Ziggo can only link the IP addresses to the name and address details and forward the warning letters from BREIN if it has that permit.”

Appeal

The ruling is a setback for BREIN which has worked on the warning system for many years. However, the anti-piracy group is not giving up and states that Ziggo is acting unlawfully if it does not apply for a license.

 

BREIN adds that, even without a license, it should be possible for ISPs to forward notices. The anti-piracy group plans to make this case during its appeal, which it announced immediately.

 

“We believe that the GDPR does provide room for forwarding copyright infringement warnings without having to apply for a license,” BREIN director Tim Kuik says.