For the past several years, major cybersecurity company Group-IB has been at the forefront of anti-piracy enforcement in Russia.

 

In early 2019, the company was the first to report in detail on so-called ‘pirate CDNs’, specialist content delivery systems that service huge numbers of pirate streaming sites with tens of thousands of movies and TV shows plus supporting artwork and descriptions.

 

Later that year, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), and the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, took legal action against several of the operations listed in Group-IB’s reports. These included Moonwalk, a CDN suspected of supplying up to 80% of known Russian streaming portals.

 

Now, however, Group-IB – which is a partner of both INTERPOL and Europol – has serious legal troubles of its own.

Law Enforcement Search Group-IB’s Offices in Russia

According to a statement issued by Group-IB, on Tuesday afternoon Russian law enforcement officers searched its Moscow office and left the same day. At the time the company said that the reasons for the search were unclear but reassured customers and partners that everything was operating as usual.

 

“The decentralized infrastructure of Group-IB allows us to keep our customer’s data safe, maintain business operations and work without interruption across our offices in Russia and around the world,” the company said.

 

With Group-IB’s top management and lawyers assessing the situation, the company remained quiet. However, in a fresh statement published Wednesday, Group-IB was able to supply additional information.

Founder and CEO of Group-IB Arrested

Group-IB announced that its lawyers were examining information provided by Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court relating to company founder Ilya Sachkov, who was reportedly arrested on Tuesday as part of the raids. A TASS news agency source reveals that the businessman was arrested under suspicion of compromising national security.

 

“The Lefortovo District Court of Moscow ruled on September 28 to choose custody for a term until November 27 as a measure of restraint for Ilya K. Sachkov suspected of committing a crime stipulated under Article 275 of Russia’s Criminal Code (‘High treason’),” the source said.

Sachkov Reportedly Denies Wrongdoing

Sachkov’s case files are reportedly marked as ‘classified’ but according to a security agency source quoted by TASS, the 35-year-old denies wrongdoing.

 

“He does not admit the guilt of high treason, which inflicted reputational and national harm to Russia’s interests, or that he cooperated with intelligence services of foreign states,” the source said.

 

High treason carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison but Group-IB says it is “confident in the innocence” of its CEO and “his business integrity”.

 

TorrentFreak requested additional information from Group-IB but the company declined to comment beyond its earlier statements.

 

Pirate IPTV services are a problem for many entertainment companies since they tend to offer premium products at a knock-down price. For just a few dollars, euros or pounds per month, users are spoiled for choice with movies, TV shows, live TV and more just a click away.

 

One of the key concerns in Europe is the effect these services have on the TV market, especially live sports. To that end, entities such as England’s Premier League and Italy’s Serie A have applied for and won a series of court orders that compel the countries’ leading service providers to implement IP address blocking. The theory is that if pirate IPTV providers are less easy to use, people will migrate to legitimate services.

 

In Italy, Serie A has obtained several orders over the past year alone, In June 2020, for example, the Court of Rome handed down an order that required local Internet service providers to block 56 servers connected to the supply of pirate IPTV services in Italy and overseas.

 

Later that year, Cloudflare was required to block current and future domain names and IP addresses related to a specific pirate service, a ruling that was upheld on appeal.

Serie B Launches Own Blocking Campaign

Serie B (currently known as Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons) is the second-highest division in the Italian football system after Serie A. Its games are available via broadcasters including Sky Sport and DAZN but like its big brother Serie A, is also widely pirated on unlicensed platforms.

 

In an effort to mitigate the threat, Serie B is now pursuing a familiar legal strategy.

 

This morning the league reported success at the Court of Milan after the filing in recent days of a complaint centered on the activities of several as-yet-unnamed pirate IPTV providers. Serie B informed the Court that urgent action was required to prevent the continued unlawful distribution of its content online and to prevent further damage to its licensing deals with broadcasters and its commercial image overall.

 

The football league asked the Court to order the immediate blocking of “16 telematic addresses” relating to the pirate IPTV providers. The specifics of this phrase are yet to be made public but it’s understood that the infrastructures of many providers were targeted within the application. The Court of Milan was happy to oblige.

Yet Another ‘Dynamic’ Injunction

The history of site and IP address blocking has been plagued by the ability of pirate sites and services to quickly adapt to the new environment. When one IP address or domain is blocked by ISPs, switching to others is trivial. Serie B doesn’t want that to be the case here.

 

By obtaining a so-called ‘dynamic’ order from the Court, it now has greater flexibility to respond if the providers change the way they operate. New IP addresses and domains, for example, can be transmitted to ISPs for blocking, without the need for yet more legal action which is both expensive and time-consuming.

 

Serie B president Mauro Balata welcomed the granting of the blocking injunction.

 

“There is great satisfaction because of the serious damage suffered, the necessary protection of the product, and the role of exclusive licensees,” Balata said.

 

“For this I thank the Court of Milan but also our television partners who intervened in support of the application, building real teamwork required for the successful outcome of the appeal.”

 

The injunction will remain in place for the 2021/22 season and requires all major ISPs to implement blocking.

 

Over the past several years, Russia has introduced various anti-piracy laws and regulations.

 

Pirate sites can be blocked through court orders, app stores have to take strict action against ‘pirate’ apps, search engines must swiftly block pirate sites, and even VPN services and proxies can be banned.

 

The measures go far beyond what we see in most other countries but, according to US copyright holders, these still don’t go far enough. Online piracy and camcording in Russian movie theatres remain a significant problem.

Copyright Groups Call Out Russia

IIPA, which counts copyright groups including the MPA, RIAA, and ESA among its members, shared these and other concerns with the US Trade Representative as part of the annual review of Russia’s World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

 

The submission highlights the progress that was made on the legislative front. New laws and procedures have made it harder for Russians to use pirate apps or sites. However, these measures have done little to stop the sites themselves, which often remain accessible abroad.

 

“Unfortunately, American right holders continue to report that these procedures are being directed against the infringing activity of only users within Russia and are not being used against Russian sites and services catering to users outside the country,” IIPA writes.

 

“Even the most effective takedown procedures and processes to disable access to websites can only slow piratical activities and have little lasting deterrent effect without civil, and especially criminal, prosecutions directed at commercial site operators and owners.”

Criminal Prosecution

IIPA calls for significant copyright enforcement improvements to tackle Russian pirate sites and services. In addition to blocking the platforms at the ISP level, the authorities should criminally prosecute their operators.

 

The group provides several examples of sites that allegedly operate from Russia. Several of these also appear on the USTR’s annual list of notorious foreign markets.

 

The movie industry highlights the St. Petersburg-based streaming site seasonvar.ru, which lists over 17,000 TV series on the site. In addition, Russia’s largest social network VK.com is called out as well.

 

The software industry notes that Russia harbors the most game pirates of any country in the world, at least on P2P services. It mentions torrentdownloads.me, dirtywarez.com, and romtohome.com among the worst offenders.

 

Music companies also see significant piracy troubles tracing back to Russia. This includes torrent sites, linking sites and cyberlockers. The Russia-based streamrippers Flvto.biz and 2Conv.com – which were sued in the US – are specifically called out.

 

Finally, the publishing sector calls out Libgen and Sci-Hub as problematic sites. The latter was targeted in two US lawsuits but, despite two injunctions against the site, Sci-Hub remains freely accessible in most countries around the world.

 

“In short, much more effective enforcement is needed against online piracy in Russia, particularly the long-identified pirate sites,” IIPA notes.

Camcording Pirates

In addition to criminal prosecutions against pirate sites and services, IIPA would also like to see tougher action against ‘camcording’ piracy. Every year, dozens of pirated movies are traced back to Russia.

 

“Russia remains the home to some of the world’s most prolific criminal release groups of motion pictures,” IIPA notes, adding that in the past five years 253 films from MPA members were pirated from Russian theatres.

 

These films eventually end up online, often with branding from gambling companies, who appear to see these releases as a great advertising venue.

 

“Many of the release groups are connected to online gambling companies which pay for the recording of films in theatres in exchange for the inclusion of advertising for their services within the infringing copies.”

 

IIPA hopes that the USTR will put these concerns on the diplomatic agenda. That said, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Russia points a finger back at the US, which remains the top traffic source for pirate sites.

 

—

 

A copy of IIPA’s response to USTR’s request for comments concerning Russia’s Implementation of its WTO Commitments 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 three new entries in the list. “Free Guy” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 27 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Free Guy	7.4 / trailer
2	(1)	Candyman	6.2 / trailer
3	(2)	Old	5.9 / trailer
4	(4)	The Suicide Squad	7.6 / trailer
5	(8)	Black Widow	7.0 / trailer
6	(9)	F9: The Fast Saga	5.3 / trailer
7	(…)	Only Murders in the Building	8.3 / trailer
8	(back)	Jungle Cruise	7.0 / trailer
9	(…)	Cry Macho	5.9 / trailer
10	(3)	Malignant	6.3 / trailer

 

 

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

 

Internet provider Cox Communications has been on the sharp end of several piracy lawsuits in recent years.

 

The biggest hit came three years ago when the Internet provider lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels.

$1 Billion Verdict

A Virginia jury held Cox liable for pirating subscribers because it failed to terminate accounts after repeated accusations, ordering the company to pay $1 billion in damages. This landmark ruling is currently under appeal. In addition, Cox plans to challenge the verdict through another route as well.

 

A few days ago Cox’s attorneys asked for permission to intervene in the lawsuit several music companies filed against rival ISP Charter. This case is pretty similar to the Cox lawsuit. In both cases, the ISPs are accused of failing to disconnect subscribers who were repeatedly flagged as copyright infringers.

 

The copyright infringement notices are key evidence in both cases. These notices were sent by MarkMonitor which monitored what pirated files were being shared through BitTorrent. To confirm that these files were indeed pirated, they were downloaded and verified by Audible Magic’s fingerprinting technology.

Recreated Evidence?

The allegedly infringing files were central to prove direct copyright infringement. During the Cox trial, the music companies presented a hard drive that contained the files, suggesting that those were the original songs that were pirated between 2012 and 2014.

 

However, based on information that surfaced in the Charter lawsuit, Cox now believes that this hard drive evidence was recreated at a later date. This information wasn’t disclosed at trial and Cox accuses the music companies of misrepresenting key evidence.

 

“(i)t appears that Plaintiffs failed to produce to Cox certain documents related to a key exhibit underlying Plaintiffs’ showing of direct infringement: A hard drive allegedly containing contemporaneously downloaded files that Plaintiffs claim were infringed by Cox’s subscribers.

 

“Having concealed the nature of this exhibit, Plaintiffs misrepresented it at trial, where they ultimately obtained a $1 billion verdict,” Cox adds.

Filed Downloaded in 2016?

At the trial, Cox already tried to get more information on the origin of the files on the hard drive. The metadata showed that the drive itself was created in 2016, but witnesses suggested that the infringing files were original.

 

However, based on evidence from the Charter case, Cox now believes that the files were not downloaded and verified when the infringement notices were sent, but years later.

 

“[D]iscovery in this action has revealed a strong likelihood that Plaintiffs in Cox concealed materials and information that would have demonstrated that all the files on the hard drive were downloaded in 2016 — and not as contemporaneous verification of alleged infringement before the notices were sent between 2012 and 2014.”

 

Cox is now asking the court for permission to intervene in the Charter lawsuit so it can obtain the required information, which is not publicly available.

Vacate the $1 Billion Verdict

The alleged misrepresentations harmed Cox’s trial defense, the ISP argues. The company plans to address this in a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(3), where it will ask the court to vacate the $1 billion damages award.

 

Rule 60 motions can be used in court to correct clear mistakes and omissions. In this case, Cox believes that the hard drive misrepresentations are sufficient to throw out the entire verdict.

 

—

 

A copy of Cox’s motion to intervene in the Charter cases is available here (pdf)

 

Sometime in 2004, a new site appeared hoping to provide a better service to fans of the growing video emulation scene. Acting as both a source and index for ROM and losslessly compressed CHD files (for the MAME emulator), Pleasuredome made emulation resources more accessible, supported by a growing community.

 

Right off the bat, Pleasuredome was billed as the home of the MameFTPGroup, a reference to the most popular emulator of the time and FTP, the-then favored format for file transfers. Pleasuredome listed plenty of FTP resources on its platform from around the world, from the United States and Canada through to Europe and Australia. The chart below shows how bandwidth-poor these servers were.

 

 

In order to alleviate the pressure on these servers, users of Pleasuredome were initially encouraged to head off into the real world to obtain content on physical media to get started.

 

Full sets – which could take many weeks to download from the site – could be obtained from so-called ‘burners‘, volunteers who were willing to give up their time and electricity to burn their collections of ROM binaries onto CD-ROMs. This service was free of charge for the people that requested them.

 

More than 15 years ago the internet was clearly a different place bandwidth-wise and copyright issues connected to ROMs were almost unheard of too. Nevertheless, even in its early days Pleasuredome warned users that since it didn’t know its users, it was unable to assess any user’s legal rights to use downloaded ROMs. However, the site felt it could reassure people that (unlike today) copyright owners didn’t care about emulation.

 

“[T]he original copyright owners aren’t usually too bothered about the free distribution of these ROMs because they have long since stopped making them any money, burners have supplied ROM sets to software houses and arcade manufacturers in the past,” a May 2004 statement noted.

 

“For privacy reasons we will not disclose these companies, but needless to say, at least two of them are playing a big part in the software industry now, and one of them is an arcade manufacturer.”

BitTorrent Made Itself Useful

In an effort to reduce considerable bandwidth costs that couldn’t be offloaded to the ‘burning’ community, at some point Pleasuredome implemented a BitTorrent tracker, later preferring the Gazelle platform. This meant that content could be shared among site members using their bandwidth, rather than servers with a centralized bill. When considering a full Mameset with all CHDs can weigh in at hundreds of gigabytes, the savings would’ve been massive.

 

Pleasuredome implemented strict sharing rules and anyone not playing ball found themselves excluded from the site. At some point, however, the site itself had to change the way it operated by excluding some content too. The tracker had a policy of only offering ROMs of games that weren’t officially available to buy so when gaming giants including Nintendo began filing lawsuits against ROM portals, Pleasuredome began banning its games from the site.

Pleasuredome Shuts Down

After more than 15 years online (and more a limited period before that under a different domain), Pleasuredome threw in the towel this weekend. Sometime on Sunday the site went dark before displaying a brief “Game Over” shutdown message at Pleasuredome.org.uk, the torrent site’s former domain. No warning was given and no explanation was offered for the closure.

 

However, the site did provide a link to a Reddit post which also contains a chatbox. Someone claiming to be from the site’s moderation team provided a little more information on the site, stating that “all good things must come to an end.”

 

“We decided PD had come to the end, it’s that simple, no drama, no issues. Simply ending the tracker, it was good while it lasted. It’s dead for good,” the poster advised.

 

“Emulation will continue… your hobby will go on. PD has transformed but the scene is still as active and alive as ever.”

 

When a site goes down, talk automatically switches to whether there might be some kind of resurrection. Reading between the lines that isn’t being entirely ruled out but in respect of Pleasuredome at least, the end has been reached.

 

“There is no chance the site will return in its old form. We had a good run and we decided it was the best time to end. To quit while we are ahead,” a statement reads.

 

“There is no meaningful legal way transferring the site can be done. PD was a great site and the time is right for it to come to a meaningful close. Believe me, we will miss the community too, but it was the right time for all good things to come to an end.”

 

But while the site has now slipped away to join thousands of others in the file-sharing graveyard, the team has provided a link to this page, which could prove useful to some.

 

Over the years we have seen dozens of anti-piracy campaigns. Initially, many of these tried to appeal to people’s morals.

 

You wouldn’t steal a car, right?

 

This type of messaging doesn’t work for everyone, so more direct tactics are explored as well. These often focus on the risks that are involved.

 

These risks obviously include legal trouble and settlement letters. However, the perceived chance of running into these is quite small, which generally means that the deterrent effect is as well. A more ‘common’ threat that people face is malware and other types of scams.

Malware and Piracy

In recent years numerous reports have cited the prevalence of malware on pirate sites. These findings are promoted or commissioned by rightsholders and anti-piracy groups, who are apparently very concerned about the digital safety of pirates.

 

While it is certainly true that malicious pirate sites can host or link to malware and other scams, some of the warnings are a bit overblown. It’s almost as if rightsholders are more concerned about scaring people than making sure they are safe.

 

Whatever the case, these warnings are slowly starting to creep into official reports. Just a few days ago, the UK Government’s latest IP crime and enforcement report repeated several such findings, including the statement that ‘half of all illegal streamers get hacked.’

 

While we are willing to believe this conclusion, we don’t see any evidence for it in the report, which is mostly a summary of information provided by copyright holders.

 

This week, we spotted another campaign that focuses on malware and other cybercrime threats. The campaign is run by the UK anti-piracy group FACT and features a conversation between former Premier League footballer Jimmy Bullard and cybersecurity expert Jamie Woodruff.

 

In the campaign video, Bullard is encouraged to check out a pirate sports streaming site, and see what dangers lie ahead. What happened next was terrifying.

 

“Jimmy’s experience with Jamie shines a light on just how risky illegal streaming is, with Jamie explaining how sites are set up to scam, infect devices and deliver terrifying attacks,” FACT commented while announcing the campaign.

Terrifying Attacks

These cyber-attacks are not limited to annoying pop-ups and malware. The people who operate these sites may also go after people’s credit card details, or even personal information to commit identity fraud.

 

“Jamie also demonstrates how easy it is for someone’s identity to be compromised through illegal streaming, whether the sites and apps are free or require payment,” FACT announced.

 

Research commissioned by FACT recently found that these risks are not rare. Their survey found that 33% of the respondents were hacked, exposed to online scams, or experienced fraud as a result of pirate streaming. And nearly a quarter was asked for personal information while streaming.

 

In the advertising campaign, Jimmy learns of these threats. However, the cybersecurity expert also mentions even more concerning facts, some of which are worth highlighting separately.

Nude Pictures of Pirates?

The video explains that, when attackers use trojans or viruses to gain access to people’s devices, people’s entire networks could be at risk.

 

“From there the hacker can start finding any kind of baby cameras, any kind of printers, any kind of connected devices, and then utilize that into potentially stealing secrets,” Woodruff says.

 

“In the past, we’ve had nude pictures taken through a webcam. And then the individual being held ransom,” he adds.

 

The security expert doesn’t give any details about the incidents, or whether they happened through a pirate site, but that’s clearly suggested. That said, one can wonder how many people actually watch pirate sports while naked.

 

The video mentions a wide variety of other risks too. Streaming sites can infect people through custom players, for example. And illegal streaming services for which people have to pay can take your credit card details.

Hacked Bank Account

At that point, Jimmy joins in with a personal anecdote. While it apparently is not related to piracy, the former Premier League player says criminals previously hacked into his bank account, stealing thousands of pounds.

 

The overall impression the video gives is that sports streaming sites are dangerous and should be avoided. There’s definitely truth to that message, as many of these sites are specifically set up to scam people.

 

That said, there are also dedicated pirate streaming sites that actually want people to come back. These are less likely to overload visitors with malware and trojans as they rely on recurring advertising eyeballs.

 

A lesson comes from the name of the anti-piracy campaign itself, which reminds people that “Nothing in Life is Free.” Whether that gentle hint will convince existing and prospective pirates has yet to be seen.

 

For well over a decade, copyright holders have been obtaining injunctions around the world to have copyright-infringing sites blocked by Internet service providers.

 

The belief is that when users are presented with this roadblock, they will be more likely to turn to licensed services instead.

 

At the time of writing, more than 40 countries either have blocking measures in place or are required to implement them. These include members of the European Union plus Argentina, Australia, Iceland, India, Israel, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.

 

The UK is also prime blocking ground for copyright holders and it’s believed that at least hundreds and probably thousands of domains are blocked by ISPs. There is no publicly available centralized list but when new orders are issued, these are often reported by service providers. That was the case again this week when ISP TalkTalk published details of two new blocking orders.

Order Obtained by Elsevier and Springer Nature

In several regions, publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley have been pursuing relentless legal action (1,2,3,4) against academic paper repository Sci-Hub and its founder Alexandra Elbakyan. Thus far efforts to shut the platform down have completely failed so in parallel, the publishers have been taking action against ISPs to have them block the platform’s domains.

 

Back in February, Elsevier and Springer Nature obtained an injunction that required the UK’s leading ISPs to block the domain sci-hub.se. In August, it was reported that the same providers were required to block scihub.unblockit.uno, a domain that helps people to access Sci-Hub when they find its domain blocked. These so-called proxy portals are a pretty big problem for the publishers since they undermine blocking efforts. It now appears they have been working to block even more of them.

 

A list published by TalkTalk this week but dated September 14 reveals that seven domains designed to neutralize blocking will now be blocked by this ISP and most likely others including BT, Virgin Media, Sky, and EE. They read as follows:

scihub.u4m.casa, scihub.unblockit.ch, scihub.nocensor.work, scihub.unbl0ck.cyou, scihub.unbl4you.club, scihub.123unblock.me, scihub.proxybit.me

 

These are just a tiny sample of proxy sites available online today so it’s probable that the publishers selected them due to their popularity. Any blocking is likely to push users to any number of alternatives but in combination with similar blocking efforts carried out by the Publishers Association against platforms including Libgen, the relatively minor hindrance may put some potential pirates off their stride.

Order Obtained by the MPA

Back in July, we reported that the MPA, which represents Netflix and the major Hollywood studios, had obtained a new blocking injunction in the UK targeting several pirate streaming sites including Myflixer.to, Soap2day.to, Lookmovie.io and Moviesjoy.to. The list added 19 domain names to the MPA’s overall blocking efforts and this week yet more domain blocks were revealed.

 

In common with the domains targeted by the publishers, the MPA’s list (as reported by TalkTalk) appears to target proxy-type services which have the stated aim of unblocking streaming and torrent site domains that have previously been listed for blocking action.

 

They include the resurrected Demonoid, EZTV (first blocked in 2013) plus additional sites operating under familiar brands such as Primewire (2013), Solarmovie (2013), and Putlocker (2016). The full list reads as follows:

 

eztv.unbl4you.club, solarmovie.unblockit.ch, eztv.unblocknow.club, icefilms.unblockit.ch, eztv.proxybit.me, scnsrc.unblockit.ch, eztv.mrunblock.casa, rapidmoviez.com, eztv.g3g.monster, losmovies.app, pw.unblockit.ch, demonoid.proxybit.me, primewire.proxybit.me, demonoid.mrunblock.casa, primewire.g3g.monster, demonoid.g3g.monster, primewire.nocensor.work, putlockers.gg, primewire.mrunblock.casa, 123movies.tools, primewire.unbl4you.club, 123moviesprime.com

 

Rapidmoviez.com is one of two ‘direct’ domains to be blocked in the order but it appears that the platform has already migrated to a new domain, Rmz.cr.

 

One of the core pillars of academic research is sharing. By letting other researchers know what you do, ideas are criticized, improved upon, and extended.

 

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy for academics to share their work. Most of the top publications are monetized by major publishers, which means that they are locked behind a paywall.

 

To make their work easier to access, many researchers place copies of their work on their personal profiles, often hosted by their university. There are also more organized ways to share research, by using ResearchGate for example.

ResearchGate

Based in Germany, ResearchGate promotes itself as a professional network for scientists and researchers. The site claims 20 million members, who use the platform to “share, discover, and discuss research.”

 

In addition to simply connecting to other academics, the site also allows members to share ‘their’ publications. While many see this as a great feature, some academic publishers are not pleased with this activity.

 

Researchers often share articles they have written themselves but they don’t necessarily own the rights. This is because most of the top publications ask the authors to sign away all of their copyrights if they want their papers to be published.

Take Down 200,000 Files

This is also true for Elsevier and the American Chemical Society (ACS), which overloaded ResearchGate with takedown requests recently. The site is certainly not a newcomer when it comes to copyright infringement complaints but the scope of the most recent takedown wave is something different.

 

“[T]he demands by Elsevier and ACS resulted in the removal of around 200,000 public files. In the context of a community of over 20 million researchers this is unfortunate, rather than existential, but it has sparked an acute reaction from many of our members who believe in the importance of open science,” ResearchGate writes.

 

The platform’s ultimate mission is to make research “open to all.” Therefore, ResearchGate is disappointed to see all of this knowledge being removed from the site. However, it saw no other option than to comply.

ResearchGate Seeks Cooperation

The publishers will have the law on their site in most cases. However, ResearchGate doesn’t believe that the takedowns are in the best interest of science. It would have preferred to cooperate instead.

 

“The decision by Elsevier and ACS to simply remove content is disappointing to the entire research community, not just because of the loss to science and researchers, but because there is a better way.”

 

ResearchGate has already partnered with other publishers such as Springer Nature and Wiley, who use the site’s network to reach a broader audience. These companies publish their content on the platform as part of a syndication agreement.

 

Many academics and researchers are disappointed that their work has been removed over copyright claims and some are plain angry. However, ResearchGate’s hands are tied.

Questionable Takedowns?

Interestingly, the platform also heard from researchers who had content removed that should have remained online. Because the rights were already bought out, for example, or when files are in the public domain.

 

Some researchers even said that they never transferred their copyrights to the publishers, which would mean that they have no say over the matter. ResearchGate can’t independently verify these claims but the organization sees them as a serious concern.

 

The present legal environment forces ResearchGate to simply take content offline. And enforcement is only expected to get stricter, as the platform is implementing an upload filter system, to prevent researchers from sharing content they don’t own the rights to. This can include their own publications.

 

In closing, ResearchGate urges its users not to upload content without permission or in violation of licensing terms. At the same time, the platform hopes that publishers will recognize the potential of the site and seek collaboration where possible.

 

“To all publishers: the future of academic publishing is open. Let’s work together to unlock its true potential,” ResearchGate writes.

 

This isn’t the first time that ResearchGate has squared off with major publishers. The company was also sued by Elsevier and ACS three years ago and this case remains ongoing. It’s possible that the recent takedown spree is, at least indirectly, linked to that lawsuit.

 

Most pirate IPTV services online today operate by accessing official broadcasts and streams, capturing them with dedicated equipment, and then restreaming video to the public from dedicated servers.

 

However, a US lawsuit filed late July shows that’s not the only way.

DISH Sues ‘SportsBay’ Sites

In an interesting complaint filed in a Texas court, DISH claimed that four sites doing business as SportsBay.org, SportsBay.tv, Live-NBA.stream, and Freefeds.com were offering sports broadcasts including the Olympics, NBA matches, NFL games, cricket and motorsports, we obtaining its content using a different method.

 

According to DISH, the SportsBay site operators are able to circumvent the DRM technologies deployed by subsidiary Sling TV’s streaming system in order to provide their users with Sling programming, directly from Sling’s servers, for free.

 

 

DISH went into some detail on how the operation works while alleging willful violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions for which it deserves compensation.

DISH Requests Subpoenas To Identify Defendants

A few days after the complaint was filed, DISH informed the court that the defendants use many third-party service providers to promote, manage, and operate their SportsBay sites. These include domain registrar Namecheap and WhoisGuard, Tucows, Cloudflare, Digital Ocean, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

 

Since the identities of the SportsBay sites’ operators are unknown to DISH, the company asked permission to subpoena these companies to find out their true identities.

 

“These service providers are expected to have information that identifies the Defendants — those responsible for operating the Sportsbay Websites, circumventing and providing technologies and services that circumvent the security measures employed by Sling and provide DISH’s copyrighted television programming to Sportsbay users without authorization — and are thus the intended recipients of Plaintiffs’ subpoenas,” DISH told the court.

Court Grants Expedited Discovery

In an order handed down earlier this month, Judge Charles Eskridge at the District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted DISH’s request to serve subpoenas on the third-party service providers to obtain the identities of the SportsBay sites’ operators. The order also allowed DISH to serve subpoenas on other providers not listed in its earlier discovery motion.

 

 

According to a status report filed this week, DISH reports that it filed seven subpoenas to the defendants’ service providers in early September, seeking relevant documents that identify the SportsBay operators. At the time of writing, ‘most’ of the third-party companies have yet to respond to the DISH subpoenas.

 

This means that DISH still doesn’t know the defendants’ names, they have necessarily not been served, and none have responded to the lawsuit filed in the summer. At this stage DISH hopes to be able to amend its complaint with real names shortly but will probably need to file a request for an extension of time in order to properly serve the defendants.

 

In the meantime, however, the SportsBay sites have disappeared.

All Four Sites Go Dark, Millions of Users High and Dry

It’s unclear whether the downtime at all four of the ‘SportsBay’ platforms is directly linked to the DISH lawsuit but it’s certainly possible that the serving of the DISH subpoenas has caused some level of concern at the pirate sites.

 

 

There may also be some kind of unexpected technical issue but that seems less likely since other sites that appear to be using the same underlying infrastructure appear to be operating normally.

 

In any event, the sudden disappearance means that huge numbers of SportsBay users are now faced with the prospect of finding an alternative. There’s certainly no shortage of replacements but with around nine million monthly visits, it’s safe to say that some disruption may be felt in live sports streaming, at least for a short while.

 

DISH’s motion for discovery, the court’s order, and DISH’s status report can be found here (1,2,3) pdf

 

Over the past two decades, online piracy has proven a massive challenge for the entertainment industries.

 

Some copyright holders have tried to go after individual pirates in court but, increasingly, third-party intermediaries are targeted as well.

 

There are several lawsuits pending in US Courts, where rightsholders accused Internet providers of not doing enough to stop piracy. One of the main allegations is that ISPs fail to terminate accounts of repeat infringers in ‘appropriate circumstances’, as is required under the DMCA.

 

These lawsuits were pioneered by music companies, which had some success on this front, including a $1 billion verdict against Cox. More recently, however, a group of filmmakers adopted a similar strategy. These companies have already sued several Internet providers, including Wow!.

Filmmakers sue WoW!

Wow! is being sued by a group of smaller movie companies, including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures, which have built up an impressive anti-piracy track record in recent years. They’ve gone after individual pirates and targeted various pirate sites, including torrent index YTS.

 

The filmmakers now accuse the ISP of failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly accused of sharing copyrighted material. As such, they hold Wow! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages.

 

Wow! clearly disagrees with these accusations. In a motion to dismiss submitted this week, the ISP refutes the claim that it’s directly, contributorily, or even vicariously liable for subscribers’ alleged copyright infringements.

Motion to Dismiss

According to Wow! the evidence provided by the movie companies’ anti-piracy partner Maverickeye fails to prove any direct infringements. An IP address is not sufficient to prove that subscribers downloaded any infringing material, the ISP claims, pointing to the ‘Cobbler’ case.

 

In addition, the secondary liability claims fail too, as the filmmakers can’t show that Wow! benefited financially from the pirating activity. Wow! charges flat fees for its internet service, which are the same whether subscribers pirate or not.

 

“[T]he Complaint lacks plausible allegations detailing how WOW profited directly from the alleged infringement, which renders any financial benefit from the alleged infringement attenuated or incidental, and not ‘direct’,” the motion to dismiss reads.

 

Wow! further argues that there’s no evidence showing that its Internet service was particularly appealing to pirates. Finally, the ISP notes that it simply couldn’t control or supervise any of the alleged infringements, which is also required to prove liability.

Wow! Disconnected Hundreds of Subscribers

These and other arguments will be reviewed by the court, which will ultimately decide whether this case can move forward. Many of the defense arguments are in line with what we have seen in previous cases, but there are key differences too.

 

For example, Wow! points out that that it’s not ignoring piracy. In recent years, the company has terminated accounts of hundreds of subscribers for which it received multiple copyright infringement notices.

 

“WOW has a robust program under which it notifies account holders of infringement allegations, suspends their internet access if the allegations continue, and then permanently terminates the account upon receipt of additional complaints.”

 

On top of that, the Internet provider also puts the defendants, its anti-piracy partners, and the evidence in a different light.

Trolls, a Victicious Person, and Strange Logs

Wow!’s motion to dismiss characterizes the filmmakers and their anti-piracy partner Maverickeye as copyright trolls. These entities have previously sued individual file-sharers in various courts to extract easy settlements.

 

“Plaintiffs and Maverickeye are part of a well-known web of copyright trolls. Until now, Plaintiffs’ modus operandi has been to file John Doe lawsuits in the hope of securing quick settlements and to dismiss them at the slightest resistance.”

 

The ISP also points to several lawsuits where Maverickeye was accused of a wide variety of wrongdoings, including the use of expert testimony from a fictitious person.

 

“Additionally, courts and litigants in these cases have persuasively accused Maverickeye of serious wrongdoing, such as submitting fraudulent ‘expert’ declarations from fictitious persons, violating state law by engaging in unlicensed surveillance, and even conspiring with copyright owners to offer copyrighted content over BitTorrent and then sue anyone who tries to download it.”

 

These allegations will have to be tested in court, but it’s clear that Wow! is willing to ask tough questions. This also applies to the ‘testimony’ from YTS owner Senthil Segaran, which the filmmakers used as evidence.

 

The site operator provided information from YTS’s logs and user database as part of an earlier settlement with the filmmakers. However, Wow! is not immediately convinced that this information is credible.

 

All in all, Wow! believes that the complaint should be dismissed in its entirety. Whatever the court decides, this case will be interesting to watch, as the stakes are high.

 

Besides millions of dollars in potential piracy damages, the filmmakers want Wow! to block various pirate sites and disconnect subscribers whose accounts are targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

 

—

 

A copy of Wow!’s motion to dismiss, filed at the US District Court for the District of Colorado, is available here (pdf)

 

At the turn of the century when server bandwidth was at a premium, peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing stepped in to solve the problem. Rather than a small number of individuals having to foot the bill, sharers picked up their own parts of the traffic tab by sharing content with their peers.

 

In the mid-2000s, server bandwidth became much more affordable and as the years progressed, storing media for direct delivery to end-users became a much more viable option. This gap in the market was serviced by early pioneers including Megaupload and Rapidshare but that was just the beginning of a market that was set to explode.

 

By the early 2010s there were dozens of large file-hosting platforms where movies, TV shows, games, apps, and other content could be stored for direct download. However, since most of these sites had no public indexing feature, the key problem was finding a way to direct users to the content. This is where DDL (Direct Download or Direct Download Links) sites came in.

 

Platforms like RLSLOG had been operating in this niche for years by reporting on pirate releases and then providing direct download links to content stored on external services. That site threw in the towel just this week, a fate that is now shared by Snahp.it, a relative newcomer to the market but one that made its presence felt nonetheless.

Snahp.it Aimed To Provide Better a DDL Experience

While there is no shortage of similar DDL sites, Snahp.it said that its aim was to provide a better DDL experience. The main aim of many piracy-focused file-hosting services (often referred to as ‘cyberlockers’) is to make life so difficult for downloaders that they cave in and buy premium subscriptions.

 

By claiming to link to less exploitative file-hosting services, Snahp.it hoped it could set itself apart from the crowd with a more user-friendly experience.

 

 

After being founded in 2016, Snahp.it developed a sizeable and loyal userbase but this week, just like RLSLOG, it too has thrown in the towel.

 

“Today, on the fifth anniversary of Snahp, with a heavy heart we announce the end for the blog effective immediately,” a notice on the site reads.

 

“Snahp was originally launched in 2016 to replace DDLs riddled with the worst possible filehosts. However, the top priority for us has always been the safety and security of each and every member on this blog, which has been an increasing concern as of late.”

 

 

When it comes to piracy-focused file-sharing platforms, the terms ‘safety and security’ are most often associated with legal trouble. The site doesn’t mention any specific threat but considering SimilarWeb reports that the site still has around four million monthly visitors, throwing that away will not have been a decision reached lightly.

Snahp.it is Regularly Targeted By Members of ACE

While no direct threat is mentioned by Snahp.it, the site regularly receives attention from major copyright holders, including those that are members of the global anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

 

According to Google data, in the past month alone the site has been targeted with takedown requests filed by some of the biggest names in film and TV including Disney, NBC Universal, Studio Canal, Sony Pictures, Fox and Columbia Pictures.

 

The DMCA takedown numbers aren’t huge when compared to Snahp.it’s overall traffic but there is a clear interest from major copyright holders and if threats haven’t already been received, ACE’s considerable activity levels suggest that probably wouldn’t remain the case forever.

 

As revealed in the Snahp.it shut down message, the site has packaged up its posts if anyone wants to download for posterity.

 

 

Prominent DDL Piracy Site Snahp.it Shuts Down Citing Security Concerns

 

A few years ago piracy-related lawsuits were pretty straightforward. Copyright holders would either sue alleged file-sharers or the operators of pirate sites.

 

In recent months, we have seen a new breed of lawsuits filed on behalf of the makers of movies such as “Hunter Killer,” “Automata,” “Survivor,” and “I Feel Pretty.”

 

These lawsuits target VPN providers, which are generally seen as third-party intermediaries. This includes LiquidVPN. The company was taken to court in March, shortly after the former owner was sued in a separate lawsuit.

 

The current owner, Puerto Rico company 1701 Management, is allegedly linked to U.S. resident Mr. Muszynski, who continued operating the service. While running a VPN is not copyright infringing, the movie companies accuse the service of encouraging and facilitating piracy.

VPN-related Copyright Infringement

The complaint mentions a variety of other examples where the defendants directly or indirectly referenced copyright infringing activity. This includes a screenshot of Popcorn Time which shows the Millennium film Survivor. The movie companies argue that, through various public statements, LiquidVPN ‘encouraged’ users to use its service to pirate movies.

 

“The LiquidVPN Defendants describe their VPN service as a tool to ‘Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software’ and promote it as a tool that can be used to pirate copyright protected content ‘without the risk of getting caught by your ISP or anyone else’,” they wrote.

Default Judgment

Despite the serious allegations, 1701 Management and its alleged owner failed to respond in court. As such, the film companies are now requesting a default judgment in their favor.

 

The movie companies claim that Mr. Muszynski, a Florida resident, is the driving force behind the shelf company 1701 Management, which bought LiquidVPN from its former operator two years ago. According to the legal paperwork, there are still claims on outstanding payments for this deal, which the movie companies have taken over from the former owner.

 

The main allegations relate to copyright infringement, however. According to the plaintiffs, it is clear that LiquidVPN crossed a line and should be held liable for direct and contributory copyright infringement, among other things.

No Safe Harbor

The motion for default judgment argues that LiquidVPN isn’t entitled to a safe harbor defense because it failed to implement a repeat infringer policy. In addition, the company didn’t have a registered DMCA agent.

 

“The LiquidVPN Defendants have no safe harbor from liability because they fail to implement a policy for terminating repeat infringers and have not even registered a DMCA agent with the Copyright Office,” the movie companies write.

 

The repeat infringer angle is noteworthy because many other VPN services don’t take action against repeat infringers either. VPNs generally don’t log IP-address allocations, which makes it pretty much impossible to track repeat offenders.

No Logs, No Excuse

The movie companies argue that this isn’t a valid excuse, as LiquidVPN willingly chose not to keep logs.

 

“[T]he LiquidVPN Defendants cannot use their policy of not logging their subscribers’ access to provide anonymous IP addresses as an excuse for not terminating repeat infringers. A defendant who disables itself from doing anything to prevent infringement does not reasonably implement a repeat infringer policy.”

 

These and other claims are novel issues and there is little VPN-related jurisprudence. However, without a defense in court from LiquidVPN, these arguments won’t be actively contested in court.

Millions in Damages

All in all, the movie companies demand compensation on various grounds. This includes the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 66 works included in the complaint. This amounts to $9,900,000. In addition, the movie companies request $1,650,000 for DMCA violations.

 

The case comes with a trademark twist as well. The Hawaiian company 42 Ventures, which is operated by anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper, owns the “Popcorn Time” trademark and requests $100,000 for unauthorized use by LiquidVPN.

 

In addition to the damages, the movie companies also request an injunction that requires LiquidVPN to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. In addition, the service should block access to the pirate sites YTS.MX, Piratebay.org, rarbg.to, 1337x.tw, and popcorn-time.tw.

 

Interestingly, the mentioned Pirate Bay domain doesn’t point to the official site, but a Pirate Bay proxy. That said, it’s unsure whether any blocking action is actually needed at this point.

 

At the time of writing, the LiquidVPN website appears to have disappeared, as it’s currently returning a Cloudflare connection error. The client area of the website is still online.

 

—

 

A copy of the motion for a default judgment, filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of California, is available here (pdf)

 

A little under two years ago, the federal government shut down Gears-branded IPTV services operated by Bill Omar Carrasquillo (aka 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, alleged to have been purchased with revenues from Carrasquillo’s TV services.

 

As the government works to take possession of those assets in a civil process, the long-awaited criminal indictment has now landed. Unsealed last evening, it attempts to drive a coach and horses through Carrasquillo’s claim that his services operated in a legal gray area.

Grand Jury Indictment – Copyright Infringement

The indictment begins by naming Carrasquillo (‘Omar,’ ‘Omi,’ ‘Target,’ and ‘Target1080p’) of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Jesse Gonzales (aka ‘Wulfy’) of California, and Michael Barone of New York as defendants. It also references a currently anonymous ‘Person 1’ as a co-conspirator.

 

It’s alleged that for more than three years, the named defendants and others ran a ‘video content delivery service’ variously branded as Reboot, Gears TV, Reloaded and Gears Reloaded. They also operated a content library called Streams R Us (SRU) containing movies and other content.

 

“The Infringing Service delivered Video Content, including television shows and movies, to subscribers to the Infringing Service, in exchange for payment,” it reads.

 

It’s claimed that the defendants conspired to fraudulently obtain content from major video content providers including Comcast’s Xfinity, Verizon, Charter’s Spectrum, DirecTV and Frontier Communications. This was achieved by subscribing to their residential cable television services in a variety of locations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, California and New York.

Criminal Violations of the DMCA

In order to capture the providers’ content, the defendants allegedly imported devices from China designed to strip High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) including at least seven 16-port encoders. The content was then transmitted over the Internet and copied to computer servers controlled by the defendants, some of it for subscribers’ time-shifted consumption.

 

“[The defendants and Person 1] did willfully, and for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain, circumvent and attempt to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to one or more works protected under Title 17 of the United States Code, namely, audiovisual television and movie programming offered by the Video Content Providers, and others,” the indictment states, citing criminal violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions.

 

“[The defendants] and other conspirators did not at any point seek or obtain authorization from the copyright holders or licensees to transmit, copy, or stream the Video Content [and at no point did they] disclose to the Video Content Providers that, in signing up for residential services at multiple locations’ they intended to copy, transmit, and stream the Video Content to thousands of their own subscribers.”

 

A sample of the works allegedly copied include Steve Jobs, Man of Steel, Game of Thrones, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Shameless and The Walking Dead. The copying of these works and more constitute criminal violations of copyright law under 17 U.S. Code § 506 and 18 U.S. Code § 2319, which can carry a sentence of up to 10 years imprisonment.

Pirate Services Generated $30 Million in Subscriber Fees

In order to market the pirate services to the masses, it’s alleged that the defendants utilized a YouTube channel called ‘TARGETIN1080p’ while administrative interactions between the defendants and their subscribers took place on social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Discord and Google Hangouts.

 

The indictment claims that in total, the defendants received more than $30m in subscriber fees through merchant processing accounts at Stripe, BOAMS, EMS, Nuvei and Worldpay, among others. These accounts were allegedly obtained by making false declarations to the processors and in some cases their banking partners in respect of the nature of the IPTV services and the identities of their owners.

Fraudulent Documents, Fraudulent Tax Returns

It has been known for some time that tax issues form a major part of the case against Carrasquillo and the indictment makes that clear with its claims against the YouTuber. It states that Carrasquillo, Gonzales and others submitted fraudulent documents, including false tax returns.

 

Gonzales also filed a fraudulent ‘Business Portfolio Purchase Agreement’ that claimed to show that he provided Carrasquillo with an “online customer base with web hosting capabilities” in exchange for $3 million and 24 monthly payments of $50,000.

 

According to the US government, the defendants “misrepresented, concealed, and hid, caused to be misrepresented’ concealed and hidden’ and attempted to misrepresent, conceal and hide the actions done in furtherance of the conspiracy.”

Indictment Demands Asset Forfeiture

The charges against the defendants reads as follows:

 

Conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S. Code § 371), circumvention of copyright protection systems (17 U.S. Code § 1201), reproduction of a protected work (17 U.S. Code § 106 and 18 U.S. Code § 2319), public performance of a protected work (17 U.S. Code § 106 and 18 U.S. Code § 2319), access device fraud (18 U.S. Code § 1029), wire fraud, false statements to a bank, engaging in monetary transactions from unlawful activity, false statements, removal of property to prevent seizure and tax evasion.

 

The indictment asks the court to order forfeiture of any and all property resulting from the offenses listed above including (but not limited to) the sum of $34,826,402.00.

 

The amount includes items seized by the government thus far, including a fleet of luxury cars and various sums seized from banking and similar accounts. The indictment also demands forfeiture of 52 items of real estate in the Philadelphia area.

 

The grand jury indictment can be found here, Carrasquillo’s conditions of release order here (pdf)

 

Update: A video of Carrasquillo being arrested by FBI agents a few hours ago has now appeared on YouTube.

 

 

Update2: The Department of Justice has just announced that if convicted, Carrasquillo faces a maximum possible sentence of 514 years in prison, Gonzales 244 years in prison, and Barone 130 years in prison.

 

“You can’t just go and monetize someone else’s copyrighted content with impunity,” says Bradley S. Benavides, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “That’s the whole point of securing a copyright. Theft is theft, and if you’re going to willfully steal another party’s intellectual property, the FBI stands ready to step in and shut you down.”

 

Founded in 2006, RLSLOG.net was one of the pioneers of the ‘release blog’ format. When it first launched, visitors were able to read about the latest pirate releases, who had placed them online and, importantly, what the files were called.

 

Unlike so-called ‘pre databases’ that displayed only raw information, new releases on RLSLOG were presented in an article format with comments on the quality, source (such as DVDSCR or the now largely defunct Telecine), runtime, IMDB rating and format (Xvid, for example). Music was also broadly covered along with apps, games and other pirated content.

 

These articles also linked to Scene ‘NFO’ files but where the site broke relatively new ground was the addition of links where the files could be found on torrent sites including the long-dead Mininova. This information was welcomed by millions of pirates and in one stand-out moment, was even appreciated by a prominent filmmaker.

 

In November 2007, Eric Wilkinson, the producer of the independent film ‘The Man from Earth’, wrote an email to RLSlog in which he thanked them for the free promotion the site gave him. “In the future, I will not complain about file sharing,” he wrote, “When I make my next picture, I just may upload the movie on the net myself!”

 

More than 10 years later, however, Wilkinson was describing pirates as an “existential threat” to all creators. That position was also held by the broader entertainment industries a decade earlier so, with growing numbers of visitors to RLSLOG, the site received plenty of attention from copyright holders.

RLSLOG Reported to the USTR

While a particularly unwelcome status, any site reported to the United States Trade Representative by copyright holders can consider itself well and truly on the map. In 2010, RLSLOG was reported to the USTR by the RIAA, labeled a ‘notorious market’ worthy of enforcement action. At the time, RLSLOG had grown into the world’s most popular release news site, a position not lost on the music industry.

 

“www.rlslog.net has thousands of pre-release or recently released music titles available on the site. For each title there are multiple one-click download links known as ‘mirrors’,” the RIAA told the USTR.

 

“Due to the speed of which content and mirror links are added, this site enables users to download pre-release titles quickly but also request new links if older links have been removed.”

Copyright Pressures Mount

During the same year as the RIAA filed its complaint with the USTR, RLSLOG was pulled offline by its German hosting company following a takedown request from Universal Music. A couple of months later it was down again, this time kicked out by its new Netherlands-based host. Even greater pressure lay ahead.

 

Late 2012, RLSLOG received threats from the prominent law firm Wiggin LLC acting on behalf of the Hollywood studios. They claimed that around 94% of all content listed by RLSLOG was material to which they owned the copyrights. RLSLOG’s owner contested that but nevertheless considered action in response, including the removal of third-party download links.

 

In the following February, RLSLOG confirmed that all direct links to movies and TV shows would be removed. However, these were replaced with pre-filled Google searches, enabling the search engine to direct people to content instead.

The Beginning of the End

For many of the years that followed, RLSLOG continued to serve its userbase while mostly staying out of the headlines but with millions of users turning to legal services such as Netflix, the site’s position in the overall market changed.

 

The site still enjoys considerable traffic even today but this morning RLSLOG founder Martin revealed that the site had shut down for good.

 

 

Martin informs TorrentFreak that the time was right to step away.

 

“There is no big reason behind the announcement, we simply decided to focus on other projects and move on, to close this amazing chapter,” he explains.

 

“We have been and we will always remain the very first and also the most visited filesharing blog in the world with hundreds of thousands of loyal readers. For 15 years in a row we provided the fastest and most comprehensive information about the scene and non-scene releases.”

 

Martin also cites the changes in the supply of content as a factor, noting that today’s emphasis on streaming played a part in his decision to shut RLSLOG down.

 

“The filesharing environment has changed a lot in recent years with more and more users paying for content through Netflix, Amazon Prime and other services, or switching to online streaming, which also played a role in our decision. Anyway, beautiful memories and strong friendships will prevail after this amazing chapter and RLSLOG will always be a part of the filesharing history.”

 

According to a post on RLSLOG, the site is currently for sale. Whether any prospective buyer will attempt to pick up where RLSLOG left off is unknown but they will have big boots to fill and a long history that in today’s environment will be all but impossible to replicate.

 

Movie studio Voltage Pictures has gone after alleged movie pirates for many years now.

 

The company and its subsidiaries have filed numerous lawsuits against alleged pirates in the United States, Australia, and Europe, which likely brought in substantial revenues.

 

Last week, we reported that Voltage just launched a new legal campaign in the UK. At the same time, there is news coming from Canada as well, where Voltage hopes to hold alleged pirates responsible through a novel strategy.

Reverse Class-action Against BitTorrent Pirates

In Canada, Voltage is attempting to obtain the personal details of a large group of copyright infringers through a reverse class-action lawsuit, which is relatively rare. The movie company argued that this is a cheaper way to target large numbers of infringers at once.

 

The lawsuit in question was initially filed in 2016 and has dragged on for years. The case revolves around a representative defendant, Robert Salna, who provides WiFi services to tenants. Through Salna, Voltage hoped to catch a larger group of infringers.

 

As the case progressed it garnered the interest of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC). The group, which is connected to the University of Ottawa, eventually intervened in the Federal Court proceeding to represent anonymous defendants.

Case Dismissed

This intervention helped to get the case dismissed in 2019. At the time, the Federal Court concluded that the case deals with multiple infringers which will all have different circumstances. Reverse class-action lawsuits are less suited to this scenario.

 

“A class proceeding is not a preferable procedure for the just and efficient resolution of any common issues which may exist. The proposed proceeding would require multiple individual fact-findings for each class member on almost every issue,” Judge Boswell wrote at the time.

 

This was good news for the large group of anonymous defendants, who had yet to be named. However, Voltage was not planning to let the matter go. The movie company appealed, and not without success, as the Federal Court of Appeals has just reversed the lower court’s judgment.

Court of Appeals Revives Class-Action

Justice Rennie set aside the 2019 Federal Court ruling and pointed out several reversible errors. For example, the argument that the reverse class-action is a novel approach should not be a reason to dismiss the matter. Voltage should get the chance to test its arguments in court.

 

The Court further notes that the criteria to join two or more defendants in a class action has a low standard, and it sees no reason to prevent the case from moving forward on that ground.

 

In the order, Justice Rennie writes that there is not enough evidence to determine whether a class action is the preferable procedure and whether Mr. Salna is a representative defendant, so this question was sent back to the lower court.

 

The ruling further clarified that copyright holders can use the “notice-and-notice” regime to send litigation updates to accused subscribers. These notices will be forwarded by ISPs, a practice that was barred by the lower court.

Minimizing Costs

The ruling once again puts thousands of alleged movie pirates at risk. If Voltage wins the lawsuit it can go after a large group of defendants while minimizing its legal costs.

 

Interestingly, Justice Rennie notes that the reverse class-action approach can be beneficial for accused pirates as well. They will be able to pool their resources to fight the matter.

 

While the ruling is a clear victory for Voltage, the Federal Court has to review the matter once again, so it’s far from clear that the movie company will eventually get the green light to go after thousands of alleged pirates.

 

If Voltage fails, the company still has other options. As we have previously reported, more traditional copyright lawsuits have also been effective against hundreds of alleged pirates. They may be a bit more expensive but, as long as they’re profitable, they will probably not go away.

 

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 four new entries in the list. “Candyman” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 20 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Candyman	6.2 / trailer
2	(…)	Old	5.9 / trailer
3	(3)	Malignant	6.3 / trailer
4	(2)	The Suicide Squad	7.6 / trailer
5	(…)	Prisoners of The Ghostland	4.4 / trailer
6	(…)	Nightbooks	5.8 / trailer
7	(1)	Escape Room: Tournament of Champions	5.9 / trailer
8	(6)	Black Widow	7.0 / trailer
9	(8)	F9: The Fast Saga	5.3 / trailer
10	(3)	Don’t Breathe 2	6.2 / trailer

 

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

 

Last week TorrentFreak broke the news that Voltage Holdings LLC, a company well known for tracking down pirates worldwide, has obtained a High Court order compelling Virgin Media to hand over subscriber data.

 

As a result, some of the ISP’s subscribers have begun receiving letters accusing them of pirating the movie ‘Ava’ with the advice that if the matter goes to court, they could be found liable for copyright infringement. Of course, this is something Voltage and its partners would prefer to avoid and to that end, are offering recipients the option to admit liability and pay a settlement fee.

 

In line with earlier High Court guidance, initial letters to subscribers don’t provide any idea of what that settlement amount might be. In the past the sums requested have tended to drift around the several hundred pounds mark but early indications suggest that Voltage and its partners are now aiming much, much higher.

Multiple Thousands of Pounds Requested

According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with TorrentFreak on condition of anonymity, attempting to settle a case with Voltage’s law firm Lewis Silkin LLP will not be cheap. Early indications suggest that the amounts requested run to several thousand pounds and are likely to vary in scale depending on the specific defendant.

 

At this stage it’s too early to definitively say what factors are being considered when assessing the settlement amount. However, if earlier methodology is deployed it’s possible that Voltage’s anti-piracy monitoring company (believed to be MaverickEye) will take the BitTorrent swarm size (the number of people sharing the movie at the same time) and multiply that by the price of the Ava movie.

 

As previously reported, this system has serious flaws. However, for people who simply want to settle and move on, paying Voltage a few thousand pounds should make the whole thing go away – at least in respect of this particular accusation. But what about those who wish to contest the claims being made?

Options For Accused Subscribers

At the core of the letters is the assumption that the person who pays the Virgin Media bill is the person who downloaded and shared the movie ‘Ava’ without permission. ‘Assumption’ is key here since Voltage acknowledges that may not be the case and someone else in a household could be liable.

 

If the bill payer did not carry out the infringement and did not authorize/allow someone else to do so, under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act they are not liable. This means that they can issue a direct denial to Voltage but that would not prevent the company from filing a claim if it believes it has a case.

 

At this point it’s important to note that any claim by Voltage would be actioned in a civil court where cases are decided on the balance of probabilities – 51% confidence of infringement could tip a case in the company’s favor, resulting in a damages award. That’s in addition to the associated legal costs of a failed defense.

 

Given that Voltage is setting the bar so high with demands for multi-thousand-pound settlements, it seems likely that defendants who can afford to mount a defense will do so. Michael Coyle of Lawdit Solicitors is currently taking on defendants’ cases for £300 (plus VAT) but for those with fewer resources, it’s difficult to know where they can turn other than Citizens Advice.

 

However, there are some other interesting facts buried in the High Court order that could render some cases dead in the water before they begin.

Safeguarding Measures Are Built Into the High Court Order

While the letter from Lewis Silkin LLP ticks all the boxes and conforms to the standards laid down by the High Court, there are some interesting details in the actual order that the law firm’s letter does not directly address.

 

For example, the High Court states that Voltage may not initiate legal proceedings against a minor, which means anyone under the age of 18 in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. This means that if a parent pays the bill and a 17-year-old illegally downloaded and shared the movie, Voltage cannot bring a case against them.

 

Furthermore, the High Court says that Voltage cannot pursue cases against an infringer who is a pensioner. The retirement age in the UK is currently 66 and according to the High Court’s instructions, “anyone over the age of 65” can not have proceedings brought against them. In addition, anyone who is considered ‘vulnerable‘ will not have to face proceedings either.

General Observations and Opinion

In many respects, this new anti-piracy program is the same as those that have come and gone in the past. The allegations are the same and the aims are the same – to have people pay large sums of money to avoid having to fight a copyright infringement lawsuit in court. That being said, this campaign has clearly learned many of the lessons that have dogged similar efforts in the past and is therefore much less likely to run off the rails due to incompetence and inexperience.

 

While arguably still objectionable given the ratio between the cost of the movie and what appear to be extortionate settlement demands, the project appears to have been planned in fine detail and has some major players on board. Also, given the history of Voltage and its partners, the claimants may yet have some surprise sources of additional evidence up their collective sleeves, rather than just IP addresses alone.

 

Where possible, all letter recipients should proceed with caution, preferably backed up by a legal professional. Voltage can’t sue everyone but it should be assumed that hand-picking one or two defendants to be made an example of is probably part of the plan.

 

The American copyright industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenue and is generally seen as one of the primary export products.

 

Whether it’s movies, music, software or other goods, US companies are among the market leaders.

 

US companies also have a clear presence in China which, with more than a billion potential consumers, is a massive market. This offers enormous potential, but there are threats as well, including various forms of piracy.

 

A few days ago several of these threats were highlighted by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which counts copyright groups including the MPA, RIAA, and ESA among its members. The IIPA shared its concerns with the US Trade Representative as part of the annual review of China’s World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

 

The IIPA notes that China has made some progress recently, such as copyright law amendments introducing broadcasting and public performance rights for producers of sound recordings. In addition, the maximum punitive damages for copyright infringers in China was increased ten-fold.

Criminal Action Against Pirate Sites

However, the US copyright groups see a lot more room for improvement. Online piracy, for example, remains a major concern. They hope that the Chinese government will step up its efforts on this front too.

 

“The Chinese government should be encouraged to expand enforcement resources and capability, commensurate with the scale of the evolving online piracy problem,” IIPA writes.

 

The US copyright holders note that civil lawsuits are insufficient to address major piracy problems. Therefore, they call for enhanced and effective criminal enforcement actions against pirate sites and services.

 

The online piracy problems in China are broad according to IIPA. They range from traditional torrent and hosting services, through a hybrid of both, to more advanced streaming operations.

 

“Piracy websites remain a serious concern, including illegal download sites; P2P piracy sites; deep linking sites; ‘hybrid’ sites […] which offer both hosting and torrenting services; cyberlockers; BitTorrent indexes, trackers, or clients; forums; streaming sites; social media websites; and online marketplace/auction sites selling pirated goods.”

Baidu

The piracy problem isn’t just limited to dedicated pirate sites. Legitimate platforms present problems too. The IIPA specifically highlights Baidu, which is China’s equivalent of Google, which offers a search engine but also various other services, including cloud hosting.

 

The rightsholders would like to cooperate with Baidu but, instead, they were forced to take legal action. Despite numerous complaints, the situation apparently hasn’t improved much recently.

 

“Unfortunately, Baidu’s services continue to be used for piracy, and their notice and takedown system has been ineffective,” IIPA notes.

 

To spur Baidu into action, the IIPA would like the Chinese government to get involved. In addition to implementing rigorous filtering technology, the tech giant should also take action against repeat infringers.

 

“China’s government should encourage Baidu to do more, including improving implementation of its takedown tools, applying rigorous filtering technology to identify infringing content, and taking more effective action to suspend or terminate repeat infringers to ensure infringing content and links are removed expeditiously.”

Piracy Apps and Devices

Piracy apps are a growing concern as well. This includes tools that aggregate copyright-infringing content stored on third-party servers. Going after these apps can currently be quite complicated under Chinese law.

 

Rightsholders also see China as a major hub for the manufacturing and distribution of piracy-enabling devices. IIPA specifically mentions Ubox which offers access to pirated video-on-demand and has more than 500 agents and distributors worldwide.

 

“China is a leading manufacturer of media hardware and accessories that can be modified to support the installation of third-party infringing apps, often, pre-loaded onto the device, allowing users to access pirated content. A prominent example is the ‘Ubox,’ which is manufactured and distributed by Unblock Tech.”

Gaming Piracy

The above is just a selection of the piracy landscape, which also covers other industries such as academic publishers and the gaming industry.

 

For example, game companies often have their work ‘cloned’ or ‘plagiarized’. This is a rampant problem in China, IIPA warns, encouraging the country to use its enforcement framework to effectively address the issue.

 

The same applies to manufacturers and distributors of circumvention devices such as mod-chips. These allow pirates to play copies of games on their consoles. According to the IIPA, criminal action is needed on this front as well.

 

“More targeted and transparent enforcement actions, and deterrent-level criminal sanctions and penalties against the manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters of circumvention devices and software components are necessary to meaningfully stem the downloading of infringing video games,” IIPA writes.

 

All in all the US copyright holders have quite a long list of wishes and demands. These are not sent to China directly, but IIPA hopes that, through the US Trade Representative, they will get a spot on the political agenda.

 

—

 

A copy of IIPA’s submission to the US Trade Representative, which also covers a wide range of other IP-issues, is available here (pdf)

 

The purpose of search engines is to help people find what they are looking for. Today’s web would be pretty much unusable without them.

 

This urge to search also comes with a downside, as not everything on the web is posted with permission. Pirate sites are a prime example.

Removing Pirate Sites from Search

A few years ago this led to rather bizarre situations where some content on pirate sites ended up higher in search results than the legal alternatives. This problem has been dealt with through takedown notices and downranking algorithms and is not much of an issue anymore.

 

That doesn’t mean that pirated content evaporated. With the right keywords, it’s still relatively easy to find. This is why search engines such as Google still process dozens of millions of DMCA notices every month.

 

The goal of these notices is to make pirated content disappear from search results. However, in some cases, copyright holders accidentally flag legal alternatives, which is rather counterproductive.

Collateral Damage

These errors are not as rare as it may first seem. For example, we often see Wikipedia entries being flagged, and legitimate review sites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes have been reported many times over the years.

 

More direct attacks are an option too. Some takedown notices confuse Netflix with a pirate site, and the same has happened repeatedly to Disney+ and Hulu.

 

Flagged Netlfix URLs

 

Needless to say, these takedown efforts are not helping people to find legal content. Quite the opposite. Luckily for copyright holders, Google catches most of these errors but that’s not always the case.

Making it Harder to Find Legal Content

Every now and then one of these errors slips by Google. Ironically, this also affects sites that are specifically designed to make it easier for people to find legal movies and TV series.

 

For example, the search engine Reelgood had 185 URLs flagged, of which 29 were removed by Google. For Reelgood’s competitor JustWatch, the numbers are even higher.

 

Over the past few years, 51,613 Justwatch.com URLs were reported in takedown notices. The vast majority were reported by a Netflix imposter but reputable copyright holders sent in complaints as well.

 

Luckily most of these takedown notices were ignored but when we browsed through the recent requests, we noticed that some Justwatch.com URLs were removed as well.

 

For example, a notice sent on behalf of “Binary Star Picture” removed a JustWatch page for the film “The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater” from Google’s search results. We don’t see anything remotely infringing on the page in question, which informs people that the film is available on Amazon Prime.

 

Pirate JustWatch page?

 

Google confirms the removal at the bottom of the search results where we read the following note:

 

“In response to a complaint that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page,” Google notes instead.

 

Removal notice

 

Takedown requests by other rightsholders (or imposters of rightsholders) removed other JustWatch links, including the Russian page for “Boruto: Naruto Next Generations,” the Mexican drama series “As The Saying Goes, and the Indian series “Navarasa“.

 

The examples above are all from this month, and we didn’t even have to dive very deep to find them. That begs the question, how much other content is removed from Google without getting noticed?

 

When we take the massive volume of takedown notices into account it’s not surprising that some mistakes are made. That said, every incorrect removal is one too many, so there’s certainly still room for improvement.

—

 

Update: The Google takedown system is heavily abused by imposters. Google hasn’t flagged any of the notices above, as far as we know, but it’s possible that some of the notices highlighted in this article are sent by malicious third parties.

 

Twenty, thirty, even forty years ago, piracy of movies was something done relatively quietly between trusted suppliers, friends and family.

 

With the rise of the Internet, however, discussion of how to obtain movies without paying for them was opened up to the masses.

 

Sometime around 2010, the massive success of YouTube and social media tore away any remaining mystique, with a new and seemingly oblivious generation openly flaunting their piracy tools and activities.

 

On the one hand, this undoubtedly opened up piracy to a much wider audience, increasing uptake and fueling the rise of countless Kodi addons plus a swathe of piracy-focused apps and IPTV services. On the other, this presented a massive challenge to entertainment industry groups, one that was bound to elicit a strong response.

 

Having followed the illicit content market for decades, six years ago we predicted that massive mainstream access to piracy would have consequences but the seemingly unstoppable train continued nonetheless.

 

This included large numbers of YouTubers who used the platform to openly promote and sell their pirate IPTV services and, as the lawsuits against YouTubers now show, that didn’t go particularly well. But those aren’t the only issues with YouTube and piracy.

YouTube Attempts to Distant Itself From Piracy Promotion

More than three years ago we envisioned that YouTube would eventually run out of patience with users attempting to build channels based around piracy tutorials and the promotion of pirate apps and services. Indeed, not long after, the platform began banning people operating in this niche.

 

More recently, YouTube made its position clear, indicating that it would no longer tolerate videos that show users “how to use apps, websites, or other information technology to gain unauthorized free access to audio content, audiovisual content, full video games, software, or streaming services that normally require payment.”

 

For anyone who wants to abide by YouTube’s rules, the parameters are pretty clear – don’t do the above and you’ll stay out of trouble. However, there are many channels that have effectively made a business out of promoting piracy tools and as a result, are attempting to find workarounds to carry on doing what they were doing before, without suffering the consequences.

Expecting YouTube to Be Flexible is Simply Naive

A current case in point involves videos posted to various YouTube channels relating to the Android apps Unlinked, FileSynced and Applinked. These are new tools that stepped in to fill the vacuum left by Filelinked, which was shut down by the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment for facilitating access to piracy apps.

 

After posting videos about these tools, several YouTubers reported falling foul of YouTube’s community rules as detailed above. Some argue that these tools are generic downloaders that can be used to install any software on an Android device, not specifically piracy tools. As a result, YouTube is being unreasonable by demonetizing or removing such videos, they argue.

 

Unfortunately, some of the YouTubers’ own videos tell a different story. To make apps easier to find, the above tools operate a code system, with specific codes relating to specific repositories. The most popular ones contain lots of piracy tools and YouTubers promote these codes in their videos as hot property.

 

In some cases these codes are promoted somewhat generically but it is extremely telling that, in order to show what the repositories contain, massive redaction has to take place to hide the huge lists of piracy apps so YouTube doesn’t delete or demonetize the videos.

 

Whether one agrees with YouTube’s policies or not (and plenty don’t) it’s naive to think that YouTube doesn’t notice these attempts at circumventing its community standards. And that brings us to the key point here. This isn’t a case of what is legal or not – this is simply a case of what kind of content YouTube will put up with and what it will not.

YouTube’s Platform, YouTube’s Rules

While there will be no shortage of people ranting at YouTube for its ‘censorship’ of free speech, this is not that type of issue. At least as far as we’re aware, people who publish piracy tutorials and information on pirate apps to their own sites are able to do so, even without anti-piracy companies getting involved. Given the environment on YouTube right now, that seems the only option.

 

The issue is only made more acute when people publish ‘forbidden content’ to YouTube and then expect YouTube to pay them to do so. Right now, at least one YouTuber is encouraging people to pressure YouTube on Twitter in the event that videos YouTube doesn’t like are removed from the platform.

 

Quite apart from the fact that this action is unlikely to yield any results in the majority of cases, people need to understand that YouTube doesn’t have to justify itself in any way. In short, YouTube can do whatever the hell it likes and when YouTuber’s operate in questionable niches, they will have a considerable job trying to explain their way out of the problem.

 

In short, if people want to promote or instruct people in piracy, YouTube is not a long-term proposition and trying to get the platform to bend to their interpretation of the rules is futile. Make a video about Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime and the video will stay up. Promote tools that help people get free access to otherwise premium content and the video is likely to encounter problems.

 

It’s important to acknowledge that YouTube is not any user’s website and it never has been. The rules can be changed on a whim but this specific set of rules are not difficult to understand – unless people go out of their way to misunderstand them.

 

In 2020, the RIAA attempted to have YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl removed from Github and in the wake of that, YouTube-ripping service Yout filed a preemptive lawsuit against the RIAA.

 

Yout said that the RIAA’s earlier efforts to have its homepage delisted by Google, on the basis that Yout circumvented YouTube’s ‘rolling cipher’ technology, were wrongful and damaging to its business.

 

Yout asked the court to declare its service legal on the basis that, contrary to the RIAA’s allegations, its software platform is not designed to “descramble, decrypt, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair” YouTube’s so-called ‘rolling cipher technology’.

 

Over time the case became increasingly complex, with the RIAA seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, Yout fighting back, and the RIAA countering.

 

As a result, last month the presiding judge took the decision to dismiss the case without prejudice after both Yout and the RIAA brought up additional facts about how YouTube works. This gave Yout the opportunity to go back to the drawing board to file its second amended complaint. it has now done just that.

Second Amended Complaint

Yout’s new filing still seeks declaratory relief relating to 17 U.S.C. § 1201 – the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. It also claims that the RIAA made misrepresentations that Yout is infringing under U.S.C. § 512(f) resulting in business disparagement and defamation.

 

In many other respects the claims against the RIAA remain unchanged but, what stands out in particular, is the characterization of the Yout service, the explanation of how it operates, and the nature of YouTube’s ‘rolling cipher’.

 

“This lawsuit involves Internet content that can be accessed using a web browser (‘Web Content’) using a unique hyperlink, uniform resource locator (commonly referred to as ‘url’), or ‘web address’ that directs computing devices to such content, respectively, on the Internet,” the second amended complaint (SAC) reads.

 

“Some Web Content exists behind a pay-wall such that a person can only access the content after paying for the specific content or a broader subscription (eg iTunes). This lawsuit does not involve Web Content behind a pay-wall. Rather, this lawsuit involves content publicly accessible to anyone with a web browser and Internet connection.”

 

The SAC attempts to draw a line in the sand between services that are designed to grant access to content protected and/or encrypted to prevent unauthorized access and those that simply enable access to content that is already available to anyone.

 

“[T]his lawsuit does not involve any Web Content that has been hidden from view by use of a cipher or other means of concealing content or meaning. Again, quite simply, this lawsuit involves Web Content publicly accessible by anyone with an Internet connection and a web browser,” it notes.

 

In keeping with the original complaint, Yout characterizes itself as a time-shifting service, in that it allows users to access content from YouTube, make a copy of that content on their local machines, and then access that content at a time and place of their choosing, without needing an Internet connection. Content owned by Yout’s law firm is used as an example.

 

 

Yout then moves on to the heart of the complaint – the RIAA’s allegations that Yout decrypts, descrambles or otherwise circumvents protections put in place by YouTube.

“YouTube Does Not Implement DRM Mechanisms”

According to the SAC, YouTube does not implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) mechanisms used on protected media such as DVDs, for example. Instead, YouTube content plays on any HTTP user agent with a JavaScript interpreter, not simply on players that are specifically authorized to access the platform.

 

Yout says that when YouTube plays content, it merely checks that the accessing browser has a JavaScript interpreter, such as those deployed by Yout, youtube-dl, and other tools that have no relationship with YouTube or the record labels.

 

“By way of comparison, a DVD player has a secret key embedded in it that must be obtained from the rightsholders pursuant to a license, but a browser does not. YouTube doesn’t license browsers to play YouTube. Therefore, even if the YouTube player source code is ‘a process or a treatment,’ it doesn’t require ‘the authority of the copyright owner’ as required by the statute because it’s already been provided to everyone in the world,” the SAC notes.

 

From here, Yout explains in detail how anyone with a web browser such as Chrome can download audio files from YouTube. In summary, Yout says that all it does is automate these steps, making life easier for the regular user who may want to download and store content for time-shifted consumption.

YouTube’s ‘Rolling Cipher’

Referencing the DMCA anti-circumvention notices sent by the RIAA in order to have Yout delisted from Google search, the ripping service says that if protection measures are put in place, it cannot help users download that content.

 

“Contrary to [RIAA’s] allegations, Yout’s software platform is not designed to descramble, decrypt, avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair any technical protection measure or any technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected by the Copyright Act. In fact, any digital mechanism in place designed as anti-circumvention technology stops Yout users from recording and saving that protected work, thereby demonstrating Yout’s compliance with any anti-circumvention protections in place,” Yout notes.

 

“Yout does not violate Section 1201 of the DMCA because it does not circumvent any technological measure on YouTube videos. Similarly, the ‘rolling cipher’ mechanism that the RIAA argues is employed by YouTube does not prevent copying of videos or other digital media. The term ‘rolling cipher’ is a misnomer and a term likely coined and relied upon by Defendants to argue that services like Yout are somehow breaching a protection that doesn’t exist.”

 

Yout also suggests that in respect of YouTube, ‘rolling cipher’ is a term being promoted by the RIAA but in practice, it’s not a DRM or technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected by the Copyright Act.

Alleged Damage to Yout’s Reputation

Yout says that prior to the RIAA’s campaign to have YouTube-ripping platforms delisted from Google using the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, public perception was that these services were legal. Thanks to the RIAA, however, third parties now believe that Yout is an illegal platform.

 

The ripping service raises the analogy of a VHS tape that can be used to record MTV or an educational broadcast from PBS, noting that the technology used by Yout does not in itself constitute a violation of the DMCA.

 

In summary, Yout wants its platform declared legal by the court, specifically under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Yout also wants the court to hold the RIAA liable for knowingly misrepresenting infringement in its DMCA notices to Google and seeks compensation for the RIAA’s allegedly false statements relating to the Yout platform and the nature of its business.

 

Yout’s second amended complaint can be found here (pdf)

 

Under US copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

 

In the past such drastic action was rare but, backed by several court orders, ISPs are increasingly being held to this standard.

Music Companies sued RCN

Internet provider RCN is also under legal pressure. Two years ago, the company was sued by several major music industry companies including Arista Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Warner Records.

 

The music companies alleged that RCN wasn’t doing enough to stop subscribers from pirating on its network. Instead of terminating accounts of persistent pirates, the Internet provider looked away, they argued.

 

The stakes of these liability lawsuits are high. Internet providers face hundreds of millions of dollars in damages claims, while tens of thousands of Internet subscribers are at risk of having their accounts terminated.

“False and Fraudulent Notices”

To avoid trouble, several ISPs have launched counterattacks in court. This includes RCN, which accused the RIAA and its anti-piracy partner of sending ‘false and fraudulent’ DMCA notices. These notices shouldn’t serve as evidence for disconnections.

 

This countersuit initially failed. A New Jersey federal concluded that RCN failed to show that it was financially hurt as a direct result of any incorrect notices. However, the court left the door open for more detailed allegations.

Amended Countersuit

A month later, the ISP filed updated complaints against the RIAA and Rightscorp. As requested, these included more details on how the alleged false and fraudulent notices required the company to make additional costs.

 

For example, RCN mentioned that it has to hire outside attorneys to analyze Rightscorp’s complaints. This includes Rightscorp’s refusal to add a digital signature to its DMCA notices.

 

In addition, the ISP argued that it had to spend extra resources on modifying and maintaining its DMCA takedown system, so it could handle Rightscorp’s “non-compliant” piracy notices.

 

To state a proper claim under the California Unfair Competition Law (UCL), there has to be some form of injury that can be directly linked to the alleged fraud. While the updated allegations are indeed more detailed, both the RIAA and Rightscorp believe that they’re still lacking.

RIAA Denies Involvement

In a new filing to the court, RIAA stresses that the new claims still fail to show any direct and substantial injury. In addition, the organization notes that, even if that was the case, it’s not responsible.

 

The contested notices were sent by Rightscorp who acted on behalf of record labels, not the RIAA.

 

‘(i)t is beyond dispute that Rightscorp never sent infringement notices on behalf of Movants. Indeed, RCN concedes that Movants have never hired Rightscorp to monitor BitTorrent or send notices on their behalf.

 

“Thus, Movants did not personally participate in Rightscorp’s practices and plainly lacked unbridled control over them as a matter of law,” the RIAA adds.

Rightscorp Says RCN is Responsible for Extra Costs

Rightscorp can’t possibly deny its involvement but the anti-piracy group also asks the court to dismiss the allegations. Among other things, the company argues that RCN fails to show that it made extra costs that are directly related to the contested notices.

 

While RCN may have hired an attorney to review Rightscorp’s notices, that wouldn’t be any different than analyzing copyright infringement complaints from other parties, Rightscorp argues.

 

Also, any extra costs that were made in relation to Rightscorp’s refusal to digitally sign its piracy notices are RCN’s own responsibility, since the ISP itself came up with this requirement.

 

“[T]his purported injury is the result of RCN’s decision to impose its own formatting requirement, which is not required or even suggested by the DMCA,” Rightscorp writes.

No Private Investigator’s License

RCN also alleged that Rightscorp doesn’t have a private investigator’s license, even though it acts like one. Tracking alleged pirates without a license violates California and New Jersey law, the Internet provider said.

 

In its motion to dismiss Rightscorp admits that it operates without a license. However, the company doesn’t believe it needs one and it characterizes RCN’s claim as a “pretextual jab.”

 

Even if a license would be required, Rightscorp fails to see how this caused financial damage to RCN.

 

“Assuming for the sake of argument that Rightscorp needed a private investigator license, RCN’s amended countercomplaint has failed to allege an economic injury caused by Rightscorp’s declination to obtain one,” Rightscorp counter.

 

The above is just a small selection of the arguments and claims made by all parties.

 

After all sides were heard, it is now up to the court to determine whether RCN’s amended complaint can move forward or will be dismissed.

 

—

 

A copy of RIAA’s motion to dismiss, filed at the New Jersey federal court, is available here (pdf) and Rightscorp’s motion can be found here (pdf)

 

Historically, pirated copies of movie screeners often start to leak on pirate sites around Christmas.

 

This year Christmas has come early for pirates. A few days ago, two screener copies of the Netflix movies “The Power of the Dog” and “The Guilty” leaked online, ahead of their planned premieres.

EVO

The releases are linked to the piracy group EVO, which also leaked the first screeners early last year. The copies were ripped from so-called “webscreeners” that, according to EVO, were sourced from a film festival.

 

The name of the festival wasn’t mentioned but the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was a potential candidate, as it screened both movies. TIFF didn’t reply to our request for comment but soon after the leaks appeared, TIFF started to send DMCA notices targeting the leaks.

 

While there is no confirmation that the leaks trace back to TIFF screeners, a new leak shows that – even if that was the case – EVO has more sources as well.

“The Card Counter” Screener

A few hours ago EVO released a screener copy of the Paul Schrader film “The Card Counter“. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month and it’s currently playing in theaters.

 

The Card Counter.2021.WEBSCREENER.XviD-EVO

 

As shown in the screencap above, the video is clearly marked as a screener and notes that the film is “Property of Focus Features,” which is the official distributor. The release notes don’t include any specific information about the origins of this screener but EVO thanks “Visionary” as the source.

New Twist

It is not clear if this most recent screener is also linked to a festival. However, TIFF doesn’t have the movie on its roster, so we can rule that option out.

 

It’s not a habit of ours to cover all screener leaks in detail. However, since the earlier coverage was heavily focused on one possible source, “The Card Counter” leak adds a newsworthy twist.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Focus Features but the company didn’t immediately reply to our request for comment. If any new information comes in we will update this article accordingly.

 

With pirate IPTV services providing access to thousands of TV channels at a cheap price, the Federation Against Copyright Theft is continuing its quest to disrupt piracy in the UK.

 

FACT acts on behalf of broadcasting partners including Sky and for years has been cracking down on pirate suppliers of live sporting content. Today the anti-piracy company has announced what appears to be a particularly significant operation carried out in partnership with police in the UK.

‘Top UK Content Provider’ Targeted By Police Raids

In common with many operations of this type, neither police nor FACT are providing the name of the IPTV provider/supplier targeted. However, the details released thus far indicate a player of some importance.

 

According to a joint statement, West Midlands Police targeted what is being described as a “top UK content provider” that facilitated access to more than 100 separate pirate TV services. The operation was months in the planning and resulted in the arrest of three people.

 

“Two men aged 53 and 35 and a 40-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of copyright infringement, fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. Our joint investigation is ongoing,” says Detective Sergeant Allan McDonald from the West Midlands Police Economic Crime Unit.

“Hundreds of Thousands of Customers”

Police say they were able to dismantle the illegal streaming network which they believe served hundreds of thousands of customers.

 

“The streaming services in question illegally made available a large catalog of live TV and video content from around the world, including sports, for use on smart TVs, smartphones, tablets and illicit streaming devices,” the statement reads.

 

“The operation, which was months in the planning, shut down the network, disabled the illegal streams and delivered an on-screen message to those who received the streams warning them that their access to the content was unlawful.”

 

At the time of writing, TF has not received news from other sources concerning a shutdown or the displaying of any messages on devices configured for this service. We have asked FACT if it can supply a screenshot of the police warning message but if any readers have a copy or information on the operation, we’d certainly appreciate a tip.

 

Update: FACT-supplied screenshot below

 

 

In the meantime, it’s worth going over the joint statement in a little more detail to consider what this is about.

Lack of Clarity on the Type of Service Shutdown

It is not uncommon for so-called IPTV ‘resellers’ to be targeted by the authorities since they often sell access to one or more pirate IPTV providers. In this case, however, police say the targeted operation “provided illegal access to content to more than 100 separate pirate TV services.”

 

That is a very high number of services for a reseller to be selling subscriptions to, almost unmanageable in fact. That leaves us with the possibility that this service may have aggregated content from 100 higher-level pirate TV providers and sold access to that package. That would perhaps make more sense since police say they were able to display a warning message on customer devices.

 

What the police and FACT statement doesn’t claim is that 100 pirate providers have been shut down, merely that the service in question utilized 100 pirate services in its offering. The fate of those 100 services isn’t clear but we have asked FACT for comment and will update this article accordingly.

 

In the meantime, Kieron Sharp, CEO of FACT offers the following comment:

 

“We’re pleased to support West Midlands Police in their work to dismantle such a major network. This should be a serious warning to anyone motivated by the financial gains from engaging with piracy – it is a crime which will be taken seriously by Police.”

 

Update: FACT has confirmed that the operation “targeted a major content source supplying reseller networks.”