Since launching a decade ago in 2011, Sci-Hub has occupied a unique space in the pirate site ecosystem.

 

While its unlicensed counterparts in movie, TV show and music distribution are vilified for undermining creators, Sci-Hub has received broad praise for helping to spread knowledge for the furtherment of science and education, particularly to those who can least afford it.

 

But that praise is not universal.

 

Companies in the publishing sector, whose papers are most likely to appear on Sci-Hub, describe the platform using the same terms as those lobbed at regular ‘pirate’ sites, claiming that “theft is theft”, regardless of the Robin Hood-style romance that has flourished alongside the scientific library.

 

But despite many lawsuits and blocking efforts around the world financed by massive corporations, Sci-Hub defies the odds by staying afloat. And at the same time as authorities warn people away from the platform, it continues to prove its relevance, even in papers published by those who would like to see it shuttered for good.

 

Sci-Hub cannot avoid the realities of the financial system, however, and has now launched a donation drive to stay afloat and enhance development in the months and years to come.

Sci-Hub Calls For Help to Ensure Free Knowledge For All

According to the latest stats made available by founder Alexandra Elbakyan, Sci-Hub has a database of more than 85 million research papers that is used by 500,000 people every day including scientists and students, medical practitioners and journalists.

 

However, Sci-Hub cannot exist on fresh air and as a result, relies on donations to operate. A new campaign launched by Elbakyan on Saturday hopes to encourage people to contribute to the site’s future, promising “dramatic improvements” over the next few years in return.

 

In addition to offering enhanced search features and a mobile app, Sci-Hub is pledging developments that include the open sourcing of the project. Also of interest is the pledge to introduce an artificial intelligence component that should make better use of the masses of knowledge hosted by Sci-Hub.

 

“Sci-Hub engine will [be] powered by artificial intelligence. Neural Networks will read scientific texts, extract ideas and make inferences and discover new hypotheses,” Elbakyan reveals.

 

The overall goal of the next few years is to boost content availability too, expanding from hosting “the majority of research articles” available today to include “any scientific document ever published.”

Addressing the Major Challenge – Legality

While Sci-Hub has made dramatic progress over the past decade, there are entities out there that want to restrict both its growth and success.

 

Back in February, for example, publishers Elsevier and Springer Nature obtained a new ISP blocking order in the UK, aiming to make it more difficult for users to access the platform. Indeed, a day before the Sci-Hub donation drive began, ISP TalkTalk began reporting that a new court order had gone into effect targeting the scihub.unblockit.uno domain, which facilitates access to Sci-Hub when direct access isn’t possible.

 

Quite how Sci-Hub plans to resist legal challenges is not clear but according to Elbakyan, any donations to the project will help her to combat mechanisms put in place to prevent the free sharing of information.

 

“Access to information and knowledge is a basic human right. Sci-Hub will fight those laws that make free exchange of information impossible. The project will eventually be recognized as legal,” she predicts.

Only Crypto Donations Allowed

Given the nature of the project, Sci-Hub is only accepting donations in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. This is due to Elbakyan’s negative experiences with PayPal. In the past, thousands of dollars were received in donations but following complaints from publishers, PayPal shuttered that account and others.

 

“It turned out that Elsevier had complained to PayPal about Sci-Hub so they froze the account. Later I tried registering another PayPal account, and use it carefully, but after some time it also got frozen. I have several frozen PayPal accounts by now,” Elbakyan says.

 

“The most important feature of cryptocurrencies is that unlike PayPal, or bank accounts they cannot be frozen by a third party because your project is illegal or because Elsevier complained about it. They are safe currency. That’s why today Sci-Hub collects donations primarily in crypto.”

 

As things stand, Sci-Hub seems to favor Bitcoin (BTC) but can accept donations in Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripple, Monero and Ethereum, among others.

 

The project’s donation page containing all of the details can be found here

 

When The Pirate Bay first came online during the summer of 2003, its main point of access was thepiratebay.org.

 

Since then the site has burnt through more than a dozen domains, trying to evade seizures or other legal threats.

 

The torrent site eventually returned to the .org domain which remains the official home today. While there are hundreds of Pirate Bay proxies online, none of these are operated by the TPB-team.

Pirate Bay’s .Onion

The only official backup address for The Pirate Bay is its .onion domain. This is accessible over the Tor network, which is often referred to as the ‘dark web’. The Pirate Bay has had an onion domain for years but in recent weeks, many visitors have started to receive warnings.

 

The Pirate Bay has been using an old v2 .onion domain which is less secure. The latest version of the Tor browser started warning visitors to these domains last month and later this year they will stop resolving in the stable release of the official Tor client.

 

The switchover to the more secure v3 .onion domains has been in the works since 2015. The Pirate Bay is relatively late to the party, but it eventually made the change a few days ago.

 

“With the tor project V2 Onion Services Deprecation many visitors are getting warnings visiting the Pirate Bay v2 onion address,” TPB admin Moe notes, encouraging visitors to update their bookmarks for the new v3 address.

Bookmark Required

A bookmark will come in handy indeed, as v3 onion addresses are expanded to 56 characters which makes them pretty hard to memorize. The first nine letters of TPB’s new onion domain are not really a challenge, but what follows is pretty random.

piratebayo3klnzokct3wt5yyxb2vpebbuyjl7m623iaxmqhsd52coid.onion

 

Accessibility is Key

Some people may find it odd that The Pirate Bay didn’t support the more secure v3 earlier. However, there wasn’t much urgency for the torrent site, which doesn’t really use the .onion domain for its cryptographic advantages.

 

The main advantage for The Pirate Bay is that a .onion domain can’t be seized or blocked by outsiders unless the site’s infrastructure is compromised. This makes it possible to easily circumvent site blocking measures.

 

There is not really much of a privacy advantage for people who use Pirate Bay’s .onion domain to download torrents. While ISPs may not be able to see what pages they visit, their residential IP address is still publicly broadcasted when files are downloading through a torrent client.

 

While search engines are extremely helpful for the average Internet user, copyright holders also see a massive downside.

 

The fact that “infringing sites” show up in search results has become a source of frustration. As a result, Google and other search engines are facing a steady stream of DMCA takedown notices.

 

Google alone has processed more than five billion takedown requests and millions of new URLs are reported every week. While the majority of these correctly point to problematic links, there are plenty of mistakes too.

 

Some copyright holders flag perfectly legitimate websites as piracy havens, which others shoot themselves in the foot by targeting their own websites. The latter happened to the webtoon subscription service Toomics just recently.

Please Take 127.0.0.1 Offline

This week we saw yet another problematic DMCA notice, which is perhaps even worse. TV channel TRK Ukraine asked Google to remove content hosted on the IP-address 127.0.0.1, which is the localhost of a device or server.

 

 

The request was sent by TKR’s anti-piracy partner Vindex, which essentially flagged a file on its own machine. The ‘infringing’ link is 127.0.0.1:6878/ace/manifest.m3u. This points to a playlist file, possibly for the P2P streaming platform Ace Stream that’s often used to pirate content.

‘Illegal Content’

According to the takedown notice, all reported links “illegally provide external links with which users can access and/or download unauthorized copyrighted contents of Football.” That would then include the file on Vindex’s computer.

 

Since 127.0.0.1 refers to the host computer, Google is technically asked to remove a file from its servers. A file that doesn’t exist. Needless to say, Google hasn’t taken any action in response.

 

The above suggests that Vindex may want to take a good look at its takedown bots. The company doesn’t have a stellar reputation when it comes to DMCA notices. Of all the links that were reported to Google, little more than 10% were removed by the search engine.

 

Top level football is massive business in the UK, generating money from turnstiles, merchandising and lucrative broadcasting rights.

 

Those who want to watch matches legally can subscribe to packages offered by Sky, BT Sport, and Amazon, which together hold the rights to air games in the UK. Of course, some people prefer to pay little or even nothing by watching pirated streams instead but there is a third option – the local pub.

 

Depending on venue, landlords can benefit from increased footfall and increased revenue when airing matches but for some, commercial licenses offered by broadcasters can be too expensive to be economically viable.

 

To counter this, some use cheaper domestic subscriptions instead while others go flat-out with a pirate set-top box. Needless to say, this doesn’t sit well with companies such as Sky.

Sky Has a Team of Pub Snoopers and Needs More

To counter this threat to its business model, Sky utilizes a team of pub snoopers, or in industry parlance, ‘Pub Testers’. These people are given a list of pubs to visit at certain times with the advance knowledge that the premises don’t already have a proper subscription to show matches. Once there they gather evidence, quietly leave, and report back to Sky.

 

Late last week, a job listing appeared on the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions “find-a-job” website seeking people to carry out this type of work.

 

“This work is really quick and easy and involves going into a set list of pubs during certain football games and testing what they are showing on their TV’s [sic]. We offer our work in a flexible capacity, so you can choose when you want to work, making it compatible with other commitments such as other work or family,” the listing begins.

 

“We pay per audit, so the more you work, the more you earn!” it continues.

 

“You can expect to be paid ~£35+ a game (2 hours max; multiple audits – note, this is not £35 per pub!), but this may be more depending on the number of audits, the urgency of the work and the distance traveled. With no need to spend anything, it’s a perfect way to making quick money in a short period of time.”

 

The job listing was placed by a company called Serve Legal, which carries out checks on businesses for a variety of reasons. These include ensuring that age-restricted items such as alcohol and cigarettes aren’t sold to minors, customer service checks, mystery shopper services and, of course, sports broadcasting compliance.

The Goal is To Turn Evasive Landlords into Customers

While there is no shortage of cases where Sky has taken landlords to court following visits from ‘Pub Testers’, documents reviewed by TorrentFreak suggest that is not what the company wants.

 

During the last months of 2019, TF was made aware of a legal letter sent to a landlord that referenced Sky UK Limited and Sky Subscriber Services. It noted (correctly) that a certain game had been shown in the pub the day before without a proper subscription, evidence of which had been obtained during a clandestine visit to the premises.

 

In reality, the letter wasn’t a surprise. Staff noticed a man walk into the bar and watched him look around for a while – particularly at the TV. They asked him if he needed any help but he made some vague excuses and left. Nevertheless, the damage had been done.

 

“You were doing this without a commercial viewing agreement with our client. Viewing Sky programming with a commercial viewing agreement from our client is the only legal way you could have shown this in your commercial premises,” the letter warned.

 

The letter noted that continued showing of Sky programming to the public could result in all sorts of terrible outcomes, including criminal action under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, criminal action under the Fraud Act, plus civil action for copyright infringement. However, our source indicated that what Sky really wanted was for the landlord to become a customer.

Landlord Signed Up to Sky, Problem Over

Faced with these threats from the Russell Cooke law firm, the landlord (who was using an IPTV device) eventually signed up with Sky but not before at least one follow-up visit from another ‘Pub Tester’ was carried out. In local pubs, outsiders tend to get spotted more easily but on this occasion, there was nothing for him to report.

 

This business model of using testers and legal threats is referenced on the Serve Legal website. A testimonial from a “leading UK sports broadcaster” (possibly Sky) reveals how these visits can result in additional business.

 

“We have worked with Serve Legal since 2014 and they have significantly helped us to combat illegal broadcasting in the UK and Ireland,” it reads.

 

“Their knowledge, expertise and robust auditing in conjunction with the prompt supply of infringement data has generated over 8,000 leads; which has led to valuable leads for our sales force and investigation team to defend our investment in exclusive sports content.”

 

The Pub Tester job listing can be found here

 

YouTube rippers are seen as the largest piracy threat to the music industry, and record labels are doing their best to shut them down.

 

In 2017, YouTube-MP3, the world’s largest ripping site at the time, shut down after being sued, and several others followed voluntarily.

 

A group of music companies hoped to achieve the same with FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com. The sites’ Russian owner Tofig Kurbanov was taken to court in the United States in 2018, accused of facilitating mass copyright infringement.

 

Kurbanov is convinced that the sites operate legally and he had no intention of backing down. He fought back in court. However, after several setbacks, including an order that required the YouTube rippers to log user data, the Russian operator decided to back out of the US court process.

 

The decision to stop his legal defense almost certainly means that the record labels will win the case. This can also result in a multi-million damages claim and, perhaps even more worryingly, might open the door to a blocking injunction.

 

It looks like Kurbanov is not awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit. A few hours ago, FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com closed their doors to U.S. traffic. People who try to access the service will get a notice that it’s permanently unavailable. A similar message appears for visitors from the United Kingdom.

 

 

TorrentFreak has tried to access FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com from various locations and the shutdown appears to be limited to the US and UK. In other countries, including Canada, Australia, Germany, and India, there are no restrictions.

 

There is no official announcement explaining why the sites are unavailable in the US and UK, but it’s likely that it is directly related to the legal issues.

 

Shortly before the blocking measures were put in place, the record labels requested a motion for default judgment in a Virginia federal court. The music companies stress that Mr. Kurbanov willfully disobeyed several court orders and failed to show up at his deposition.

 

“Defendant’s conduct amounts to a failure to defend and has effectively shut down the continued prosecution of this lawsuit. His contumacious and continuing discovery abuses are precisely the kind of conduct for which the default judgment sanction […] exists,” the labels write.

 

If the court grants the motion they will win the lawsuit. At that point, the only remaining issues are the scale of the damages award, attorneys’ fees, and a permanent injunction with further restrictive measures.

 

FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com are not the first stream-rippers to block US and UK traffic this week. A few days ago, Y2Mate did exactly the same. While Y2Mate has no connections to Mr. Kurbanov that we’re aware of, the site likely took this step in response to legal pressure.

 

People who post copyrighted videos to sites like YouTube need to ensure they have the necessary rights to do so.

 

This can include uploads with appropriate licensing or content posted within the guidelines of ‘fair use’, including criticism or parody, for example. However, posting content within these parameters is no guarantee against legal action, as a case in Australia now shows.

Case Before the Federal Court in Australia

According to a judgment published by the Federal Court of Australia this week, the International Wushu Federation (IWUF) – the world governing body for kung fu – is attempting to identify the person who posted allegedly copyright-infringing videos to YouTube.

 

Citing the infamous Dallas Buyers Club v iiNet case of 2015, among others, the IWUF asked the Court to compel YouTube owner Google to hand over all the information it holds that would enable the martial arts organization to identify the operator of the YouTube channel ‘Wushuleaks’.

 

The judgment notes that IWUF “is considering commencing proceedings” against the Wushuleaks operator but at present is unable to identify them. On June 4, 2021, Justice Beach made orders that granted IWUF permission to serve the application on Google in the United States. Google has chosen not to appear in the proceeding but says it will comply with the Court’s orders on a voluntary basis.

Background to the Application

Affidavits include those submitted to the Court by Walter Patrick Missingham, the current Vice President of IWUF and Paul Francis Horvath, IWUF’s solicitor. According to the latter, IWUF is the “ultimate copyright holder” of all material related to IWUF competitions and demonstrations, which includes footage of competitions.

 

Missingham told the Court that in late 2019 he became aware of around 24 videos posted to the Wushuleaks channel that he identified as IWUF copyright works. These videos were not only unlicensed but allegedly contained defamatory statements about IWUF.

 

“Mr Missingham sets out transcripts of material from the videos posted on the Wushuleaks Channel,” Justice Rofe’s judgment reads.

 

“IWUF contends that the videos contain commentary that carries imputations that IWUF is a corrupt organization, that it manipulated competition results and that it corruptly accepts payments for favors and is involved in match fixing. Each of these are submitted to be imputations which would tend to lower the IWUF’s reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of the community.”

Why the Videos Are Of Interest to IWUF

The transcripts of the videos were not published by the Court this week but the fact that commentary exists in the videos suggests that at least some steps towards fair use/fair dealing took place before they were published.

 

However, whether any use is considered ‘fair’ is a matter to be decided in court and even success in that respect wouldn’t necessarily carry weight in avoiding a claim for defamation. This brings us to the content of those videos and why IWUF is prepared to go to court to find out who is behind Wushuleaks.

 

Aside from the summary comments from the Judge based on Missingham’s transcripts, there are also some clues in the YouTube video URLs published in the judgment. All have been taken down by YouTube, either displaying a message that they were removed due to a copyright claim or due to the account being terminated.

 

 

However, at least one of the URLs is directly cited in a news report that was published by Turkish daily news outlet Birgun.net late January 2021.

 

According to this report and others (1,2) published in Turkish media, Wushuleaks’ videos reportedly analyzed IWUF competition and came to the conclusion that one of the competitors also acted as a referee in the same competition.

 

Additional articles published on other local platforms report the type of allegations cited in IWUF’s affidavit filed with the Federal Court, i.e the manipulation of competition results and the acceptance of payment for favors. No concrete evidence is provided in the publications to back up these statements but it seems possible, given the Judge’s summary of the allegations in the Australian matter, that similar claims were made on the Wushuleaks channel.

Federal Court Happy For the Action to Go Continue

“IWUF contends that it may have a right to obtain relief against a prospective respondent for infringement of copyright in certain copyright works of which IWUF is the copyright owner, and for defamation,” Justice Rofe’s judgment reads.

 

“IWUF submits that the proceedings contemplated by it against the operator of the Wushuleaks Channel for breach of copyright and defamation have prospects of success and are not merely speculative.

 

“IWUF does not need to establish the existence of a prima facie case against a prospective respondent. It is enough if IWUF can show that it may have a right to obtain relief. This threshold has been described as ‘not onerous’,” the Judge adds.

 

Why this matter is being pursued in the Australian courts is unclear. However, the Judge writes that since it is reasonable to infer that the videos could have been viewed or downloaded by people in Australian territories, the action can go ahead at this stage. If a full lawsuit for infringement and/or defamation does go ahead, the Court would need to see evidence to show that was the case. However, with words like “contemplating” and “considering” being used to indicate whether a lawsuit will be filed, questions remain.

 

In any event, Google is now required to hand over the personal details of the Wushuleaks channel operator, including their name, email address and date of birth. Quite what IWUF intends to do with that information moving forward is unclear.

 

The Federal Court’s judgment can be found here

 

Few if any developed countries in the world can say they have conquered the pirate streaming problem. Unlicensed sites and piracy-configured set-top boxes are available almost everywhere, providing access to every movie, TV show and increasingly live TV channels too.

 

Taiwan is no outlier. In 2020, a report from the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) revealed that 28% of consumers use devices that can stream pirated content. with those branded QBox, Ubox and EVPad proving the most popular.

 

The authorities want to reduce this trend but in recent days, those efforts have been undermined.

Pirating the Olympics

Ever since the Tokyo Olympics 2020 began, fans have been expressing frustration at not being able to watch events as they had done in the past.

 

In the UK, for example, the BBC had wall-to-wall coverage of London 2012 and Rio 2016 but this time around, licensing restrictions imposed by the International Olympic Committee mean that coverage has been drastically reduced and additional subscriptions are required.

 

Of course, these types of restrictions aren’t an issue for those with a pirate device to hand in any part of the world. In Taiwan, however, it’s not just regular citizens that have been viewing the games via unlicensed streaming services.

Sports League Boss Caught Using a Pirate Box

This week, Chen Chien-chou – the CEO of P.League+, Taiwan’s first professional basketball league – sparked controversy when he posted a picture of judoka Yang Yung-wei. According to Tarpei Times, the photograph was of content being streamed illegally via a UBox, one of the devices listed in the Coalition Against Piracy’s report.

 

 

In the first instance, Chen reportedly tried to say that a friend had taken the photo but images posted by his wife from their home also showed content being displayed on a Ubox device. On Sunday, Chen apologized but the damage had been done.

 

Chen is the person who negotiates P.League+ broadcasting rights with sports networks. Not only that, he has previously urged basketball fans to support his league by not using pirate devices. Pirate device use is not illegal according to Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Office but campaigns to get people to do the right thing certainly aren’t helped by this kind of news.

Former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu Allegedly Used Pirate Box

Also causing controversy are allegations that former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu used a pirate device to view the Olympics. His office denied that was the case, noting that he pays for content with a monthly subscription to Kbro network using a ‘sanitized’ Ubox, but that didn’t stop him from being criticized by officials yesterday.

 

According to Tarpei Times, Eric Chu and other public figures were condemned by lawmakers during a media briefing Wednesday for viewing Olympics content on pirate devices.

 

“It is tough to invest in and operate businesses related to the sports industry in Taiwan. People watch pirated programs by downloading them illegally and affect the revenues of companies that were willing to pay for authorized licensing and legal content,” DPP Legislator Chuang Ruei-hsiung said.

 

Another lawmaker disputed Chu’s claim that his box is legal.

 

“It looks bad for Chu, trying to deceive the public about his use of a Ubox,” Chen Po-wei said. “This is a man who has recently declared that he plans to run for KMT chairman, but he installs a Chinese-made device to watch pirated content, and other Chinese-produced programming.”

Olympic Copyright Issues on Instagram

Earlier this week, Jamaican Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah reported that her Instagram account had been suspended because she had shared video clips of her wins in the 100 and 200 meters.

 

Instagram said the suspension was due to copyright claims filed by the International Olympic Committee but later said the account had been reinstated and confirmed the suspension had been a mistake.

 

In March of 2019, several major music companies sued Charter Communications, one of the largest Internet providers in the US with 22 million subscribers.

 

Helped by the RIAA, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, and others accused Charter of deliberately turning a blind eye to its pirating subscribers.

 

Among other things, they argued that the ISP failed to terminate or otherwise take meaningful action against the accounts of repeat infringers, even though it was well aware of them. As such, the music companies said Charter is liable for both contributory infringement and vicarious liability.

 

Charter disagreed and filed a motion to dismiss the case. In addition, it countersued the record labels for sending false DMCA takedown notices. Both of these defensive moves failed and the matter is now scheduled to go to trial.

Charter is Sued Again

With hundreds of millions of dollars in potential damages, the stakes are high. And they’re about to get even higher, as the music companies have just filed another copyright infringement lawsuit against Charter.

 

According to the music companies, which include Capitol Records, EMI, Sony Music and Universal Music, the lawsuit hasn’t resulted in the desired policy change with regard to pirating subscribers. As such, they have filed yet another lawsuit at a federal court in Colorado.

 

“Charter has insisted on doing nothing—despite receiving thousands of notices that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers, despite its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works on its Internet services, and despite being sued previously by Plaintiffs for similar conduct,” the complaint reads.

Lawsuit Covers Recent Claims

The lawsuit essentially accuses Charter of the same wrongdoing. While that seems pointless at first, there is an important distinction. The initial case only covered copyright infringements up to 2016, while the new complaint covers repeat infringements from 2018 onwards.

 

The music companies explain that they formally warned Charter about the first batch of infringement claims in March and April 2016. Their goal was to motivate the ISP to take action against pirating subscribers, but not much changed.

 

Even after the first lawsuit was filed, pirating subscribers were allegedly able to continue their infringing activity.

 

“Plaintiffs believed—or at least hoped—that in response to these notices, Charter would alter its conduct and take meaningful steps to address ongoing infringement by its subscribers. Unfortunately, that did not happen,” the music companies write.

 

“Instead, Charter persisted in contributing to and profiting from its subscribers’ infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights through Charter’s network, even after receiving Plaintiffs’ March and April 2016 notices of claims and, remarkably, even after Plaintiffs filed the 2019 Lawsuit.”

‘Safe Haven for Pirates’

The music companies say they sent more than 150,000 additional infringement notices to Charter during the latest claim period, without the desired result.

 

The ISP says it takes action against repeat infringers, but the music companies don’t believe much has changed. This alleged failure to take meaningful anti-piracy action made Charter a safe haven for copyright infringers, according to the plaintiffs, which say that the ISP prioritizes profits over its legal responsibility.

 

“Charter’s motivation for refusing to terminate or suspend the accounts of blatant infringing subscribers is simple: it valued corporate profits over its legal responsibilities. Charter did not want to lose subscriber revenue by terminating accounts of infringing subscribers.”

 

Similar to the earlier lawsuit, which is still pending, the copyright holders ask to be compensated for the damages they suffered. With thousands of works at stake, these damages could be as high as hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

It’s not entirely clear why the music companies want to pursue two similar but separate lawsuits. It is possible, however, that this is a tactical move and that the cases will be merged in the future.

 

—

 

A copy of the new complaint against Charter Communications, filed at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, is available here (pdf)

 

With millions of visitors every month, 4anime was a force to be reckoned with in the pirated anime streaming market.

 

As a result it attracted the negative attentions of rightsholders, some of whom moved to have the platform blocked by Australian ISPs. However, last month the show was abruptly over after 4anime took the decision to close itself down.

 

TorrentFreak was able to determine that a few days previously, 4anime was targeted in a DMCA subpoena request filed at a federal court in Michigan by a company called ‘Legacy Rights Group’. The request was signed by Corey D. Silverstein, an attorney at law firm Silverstein Legal. He is now taking the credit for 4anime’s abrupt demise.

 

“Violation of my client’s intellectual property is not tolerated under any circumstances,” Silverstein writes. “Rest assured that you can run but you cannot hide from being held accountable from blatant violations of the law.”

 

Noting that 4anime’s attempt to hide behind Cloudflare’s services did not deter him, Silverstein says that the CDN company usually complies with these kinds of requests. This could be bad news for several other platforms now being targeted by the attorney.

Four More Subpoenas Target Massive Streaming Operations

TorrentFreak has learned that back in July, on the same day that the subpoena application targeting 4anime was filed, Silverstein filed applications targeting four additional pirate anime sites. When their traffic estimates are combined, the numbers are substantial by any standard.

 

Citing infringements of content owned by TheReflection-Anime.net, the first subpoena application again targets Cloudflare, demanding that it hands over any and all information that will enable Silverstein to identify the operators of GoGoAnime.ai.

 

 

As SimilarWeb data estimates suggest, this is a site with a massive presence. From what appears to be a standing start in February 2021, the domain was receiving 230 million monthly visits in April, dropping to around 166 million at last count in June.

 

 

At the time of writing, the .ai domain diverts to a .pe variant for which traffic stats haven’t yet settled. But the subpoenas don’t stop there.

Animepahe and Animedao Also in the Crosshairs

Three additional subpoena applications were also filed by Silverstein last month targeting Animepahe.com, Animedao.to and KissAnime.rs. The latter doesn’t appear to have any significant recent traffic but the same cannot be said about the other pair.

 

According to SimilarWeb estimates, Animepahe.com has been attracting in excess of 20 million visits per month for some time now, receiving most eyeballs from the United States. The site also operates from other domains including Animepahe.org and Animepahe.ru but they aren’t listed in the DMCA subpoena application.

 

Animedao.to is another significant player with traffic estimated at between 17 million and 20 million visits per month over the past few months. Again, this platform is very popular in the US from where it enjoys around a third of its traffic. Like Animepahe, its top five most popular regions include the Philippines and United Kingdom.

 

At the time of writing all three operations (KissAnime.rs excluded) appear to be live and operating normally. Whether that will continue to be the case is unclear. Cloudflare does cooperate with DMCA subpoena requests but whether it holds any useful information on site operators is always an open question.

 

The DMCA subpoena applications can be found here 1,2,3,4 (pdf)

 

The music industry is convinced. Downloading music from public streaming services, YouTube in particular, is the greatest piracy threat to the industry.

 

The RIAA and several key music labels are doing everything in their power to counter this menace. They’ve sued several YouTube download sites, removed streamripper URLs from search engines, and most recently they targeted the open-source tool youtube-dl as well.

 

The last move was a step too far for many. It triggered outrage among developers, the public at large, and GitHub which later reversed its decision. While the youtube-dl saga was unfolding another developer had already started his own legal battle against the RIAA.

Yout.com vs. RIAA

In a defensive legal move, Yout.com operator Johnathan Nader sued the RIAA. Yout is a stream-ripper that doesn’t store any files on its servers. Through the lawsuit, its operator asked a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

 

“Such a judicial determination and declaration is necessary to protect Yout from the Defendants’ DMCA Notices, which are causing Yout injury by, among other things, damaging its goodwill and disrupting its business,” Yout’s legal team wrote.

 

The RIAA clearly disagreed and asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. This request is still pending and the court scheduled a hearing on the matter which is set to take place later this week.

 

The outcome of the RIAA lawsuit will be important for Yout’s future, but it’s not the only music industry challenge the site faces.

Mysterious Spanish Blockade

Yout’s operator told TorrentFreak that his site was recently blocked in Spain as well. Nader is no stranger to blocking orders. He successfully contested one in Brazil earlier this year. However, the Spanish blockade is somewhat of a mystery.

 

It wasn’t easy to find a public record of the blockade. The RIAA mentioned it in its motion to dismiss but, despite going through three lawyers in Spain, Yout’s operator failed to track down the ruling.

 

The U.S. lawyers of Yout eventually decided to reach out to the RIAA, which shared the ‘mysterious’ court order. The blockade, which also targets several other stream-rippers, was ordered by a court in Barcelona following a complaint from the anti-piracy group AGEDI.

 

 

Nader says he forwarded the legal paperwork to his lawyer in Spain, hoping that the ISP blockade can be contested. The same applies to a site-blocking order in Peru that came without prior warning.

Criminal Prosecution in Brazil

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting in Brazil as well. The Public Prosecutor’s Office previously requested an ISP blockade following a complaint from the Brazilian music group APDIF. This request was initially granted by the court.

 

When Yout’s operator found out he hired a legal team that managed to get the blocking order lifted, as it wasn’t properly backed by a criminal indictment. However, this might change again.

 

Late last month the authorities scheduled a new hearing as part of a criminal investigation into Yout.com’s activities. As part of this proceeding, the prosecution office in São Paulo would like to interrogate Nader, who remains a suspect.

 

“Having never been to Brazil, I just got summoned by the Brazilian government’s public prosecutor office,” Nader comments on Twitter.

 

“They are running a criminal investigation against me. And now I understand why Wikipedia says there are 120+ definitions for life, since life is a process, not a substance.”

 

Needless to say, Yout’s operator is in a tough position. With this many legal issues at play, it’s an understatement to say that Yout’s future is uncertain.

 

Under US law, online service providers need to respond to takedown notices. In addition, they have to implement a meaningful policy to terminate accounts of repeat infringers.

 

Many of the large social media platforms stick to these rules. Twitter, for example, ‘removes’ over a million tweets each year that are flagged as problematic.

‘Twitter’s Refusal to Tackle Piracy’

While Twitter appears to operate within the boundaries of U.S. law, not all lawmakers are pleased with the service. Yesterday, a group of bipartisan House Representatives, led by Republican Congressmen Kelly Armstrong and Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, scolded the platform in a public letter.

 

“We write to you regarding the ongoing problem of copyright infringement on Twitter and the platform’s apparent refusal to address it,” the representatives inform Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

 

To help identify pirated content, Twitter goes beyond legal requirements by offering copyright holders access to an API. That sounds positive, but the representatives find it offensive that creators have to pay for access to this tool.

 

“Twitter has taken the unprecedented step of charging creators for a fully functional search API that can identify instances infringement at scale,” the letter reads, adding, “Twitter offers a more sophisticated API to academic researchers for free.”

 

This complaint echoes comments made by the music industry group RIAA, which brought up the same issue during a Senate hearing a few months ago. According to RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier, Twitter could stop the piracy problem overnight if it had the will and the right incentive.

 

The lawmakers don’t mention any incentives or repercussions in the letter but do stress that it would be best if Twitter enters into licensing agreements with copyright holders. This issue is high on the music industry’s wishlist too.

A Piracy Business Model

While Twitter is not accused of doing anything illegal, the House Representatives write that the company’s actions make it seem as if piracy is part of the social media platform’s business model.

 

“Between refusing to pay creators for their works and obstructing their discovery of infringing works, it appears that unauthorized use of copyrighted works is an unacknowledged part of Twitter’s business model,” they write.

 

Instead of demanding concrete action, the lawmakers ask Twitter to answer several questions to explain what it will do to help copyright holders address the piracy problem going forward.

1. What will Twitter do to enable content owners to meaningfully search for and identify infringement of their works at a scale commensurate with the amount of infringing tweets occurring on the platform at no additional cost to them?

2. Tweets can be uploaded in a fraction of a second, and hundreds of millions are posted to Twitter every day. What is Twitter doing to ensure that takedown notices are addressed in a manner that corresponds with that speed and volume?

3. Will Twitter add robust content protection technology across all of its platforms and implement it effectively to decrease the posting and reposting of infringing content?

Music Lobby

The letter is music to the ears of the RIAA. The group has spent over five million dollars in lobbying efforts at the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives over the past 12 months, with platform accountability being one of the key topics.

 

This isn’t the first time that Twitter has come under fire at The Hill. Late last year the social media platform infuriated U.S. Senator Thom Tillis by refusing to testify at a piracy-related hearing organized by the Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property.

 

“The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from your actions is that Twitter simply does not take copyright piracy seriously,” Senator Tillis wrote in a letter to Jack Dorsey at the time.

 

—

 

A copy of the letter sent by the U.S. House Representatives yesterday, urging Twitter to respond before the end of the month, is available here (pdf)

The status of YouTube as the most popular resource to stream free (or at least ad supported) music is a well-established fact.

 

However, there are millions of users online today who would prefer to download music for keeps and that has resulted in a buoyant market for so-called YouTube-to-MP3 ripping services. Possibly the most popular platform in this sector is Y2Mate.com but developments this week have raised questions over the site’s future.

Millions of Users See a Shut Down Message

According to SimilarWeb stats, more people visit Y2Mate from the United States than any other territory. Indeed, around 12 million of its 128 million users do so every month. But, at the time of writing, many (if not all) of those visitors are being informed that as of August 1, the Y2Mate service has been discontinued.

 

 

With so many of Y2Mate’s users seeing this message, one could be forgiven for thinking that the show really is over. Add into the mix that visitors from the UK are also seeing the same notice, then the writing really does seem to be on the wall. However, upon closer inspection, the announcement is much less global and final than it first appears.

Y2Mate Has Not Shut Down – It Appears to Be Geo-Blocking

Geo-blocking is something closely associated with legal streaming services that have obtained content but do not have the appropriate licensing to show it in a particular region. That isn’t something that usually bothers stream-ripping platforms but in this case, Y2Mate does appear to be discriminating based on location.

 

In our extended tests, countries such as Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic and Denmark do not see the shutdown message. The same applies to Italy, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Visitors from Mexico – the second most popular region to access Y2Mate – are also free to use the site, as are users from Spain, India, and Japan.

 

Indeed, as far as our tests go, Y2Mate is only blocking visitors from the United States and United Kingdom. Visitors from Australia do receive a ‘site blocked’ message but only because of an earlier ISP blocking injunction obtained by Hollywood.

 

This raises the question of why the site’s operators appear to have taken targeted action against visitors from the US and UK.

Geo-Blocking Can Point To Legal Issues

Traffic from the United States to Y2Mate has been on the increase lately so it makes no direct commercial sense to block those visitors. However, there are clear precedents in the ripping sector that show that geo-blocking can be directly linked to legal action.

 

In 2017, the world’s leading YouTube ripping site, YouTube-MP3, shut down following legal action initiated by the RIAA. A year before that, the service took the decision to block visitors from the UK after reaching an agreement with the BPI.

 

Just weeks after YouTube-MP3’s shutdown, more YouTube-ripping services took the same action by blocking UK traffic in an effort to avoid legal action. When such services choose to remain open for business in the UK, they can face enforced blocking, such as that recently experienced by Flvto and 2Conv.

Common Denominators are Usually the RIAA and BPI

With geo-blocking or enforced blocking often linked to action taken by the BPI, TorrentFreak has requested comment from the music industry group, which may be able to shine some light on why Y2Mate is blocking the UK. In the meantime, the RIAA’s war against stream-ripping sites in general offers the most plausible reason for Y2Mate blocking visitors from the United States.

 

According to Google’s Transparency Report, the RIAA has sent DMCA notices to have more than 9,300 Y2Mate URLs delisted from Google’s search results. That effort appeared to come to a halt last summer but the RIAA certainly isn’t finished with Y2Mate.

 

More than a year before that, the RIAA obtained DMCA subpoenas from a court in the United States aimed at uncovering the personal details of the people behind Y2Mate, which at the time was receiving around 64 million visits per month globally.

 

It’s not clear whether that effort bore fruit but in October 2020 the RIAA obtained another set of DMCA subpoenas against Cloudflare and Namecheap, again seeking information on Y2Mate’s operators.

RIAA Heavily Targeted Y2Mate With Anti-Circumvention Notices

Back in 2019, DMCA notices citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA were relatively rare but the RIAA has been using this method of attack against Y2Mate and similar sites ever since.

 

With the targeted platforms continuously updating their URLs, that descended into a game of whack-a-mole, which failed to have the desired result. Indeed, despite being one of the main targets, Y2Mate managed to increase its traffic massively.

Effects of Blocking US/UK Visitors

Presuming the current decision to block US and UK traffic doesn’t expand to other regions, Y2Mate could in theory lose 15+ million visitors per month. However, the fact that the site hasn’t actually shut down means that anyone with the means to circumvent a geo-block (via the use of VPNs or proxies, for example) can still access the site.

 

Whether this will be enough to fend off any legal action or satisfy the terms of a potential settlement agreement is currently unclear. The BPI and RIAA are yet to make any statement that might shine light on the situation but when we hear back, we’ll update this article.

 

More than a year after Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider filed a class action lawsuit against YouTube, claiming massive infringement on the platform and serious deficiencies in copyright enforcement measures, the parties are still bumping heads in court.

 

Schneider’s grievances are wide-ranging and include allegations that YouTube restricts access to its takedown tools, profits from piracy, and fails to disconnect repeat infringers due to them receiving ‘protection’ under YouTube’s Content ID system.

 

As previously reported, shadowy business entity ‘Pirate Monitor’ claimed to be a victim of YouTube’s policies but following a YouTube investigation, was found to have secretly uploaded its own content before sending bogus takedown notices. It later exited the lawsuit but YouTube wasn’t letting that go.

 

Despite this apparent canary in the coalmine, the action has continued, with Schneider asking the court to compel YouTube to hand over information on every user that had received a takedown notice filed against their account since 2015, to determine whether YouTube’s repeat infringer policies come up to scratch.

 

Back in March, Schneider indicated that she wanted to add dozens more copyright works to the three originally listed in the case but denied that she needed to identify each infringement of the works on YouTube. Without access to Content ID – an argument that circles back to the core of her complaint – that would be laborious, she argued.

Motion For Leave to File Amended Complaint

Early July, Schneider filed a motion with the court for leave to file her first amended complaint. Schneider indicated she wanted to add two companies – Uniglobe Entertainment, LLC and AST Publishing. YouTube and Google were not impressed.

 

“The proposed amendments, most notably to add two new parties as putative class representatives, come only after discovery confirmed glaring deficiencies in Schneider’s claims, and after Pirate Monitor dismissed its claims with prejudice under a cloud of fraudulent behavior,” the companies told the court.

 

“The request for leave continues Schneider’s shifting sands approach to the litigation. Her original complaint identified only three copyrighted works over which she was suing, and did not identify a single alleged infringement of those works on YouTube. Schneider now proposes amending to add seventy-five new copyrighted works to the case, still without identifying corresponding alleged infringements.”

 

YouTube/Google said the proposed “dramatic expansion” of Schneider’s claims sit alongside her refusal to accept a deadline for “closing the universe” of works in suit. The proposed new plaintiffs only make matters worse, since they too have not provided a list of copyrighted works or alleged infringements.

 

Overall, YouTube believes it has spent more than enough time (“many hundreds of hours”) on discovery when dealing with the claims of Schneider and Pirate Monitor, who – according to YouTube – “turned out to be a fraudster”. Going over everything again would create a huge burden when considering the new claims of US-based Uniglobe (which reportedly has rights over three motion pictures) and AST, a Russian publishing house, which asserts rights over at least nine print and audiobooks.

 

In summary, YouTube told the court that a year into the case, Schneider’s proposed amendments are not only too late but also raise new works and new legal issues, which would unfairly prejudice YouTube. For these reasons and more, YouTube asked the court to deny Schnieder’s motion for leave to amend.

Schneider’s Reply – Court Should Allow Amended Complaint

In her response filed late last week, Schneider argues that she is completely within her rights to amend her complaint and places the blame for delays firmly on YouTube and Google.

 

Schneider says that “delay alone” is not sufficient to deny leave to amend and repeats that she is under no obligation to identify the 78 works now being proposed. In addition, YouTube/Google’s claims that the addition of AST and Uniglobe was unduly delayed “fares no better”, since negotiations had been underway with these companies since late 2020.

Initial investigations apparently took several months and additional time was spent in a “weeks-long meet-and-confer” with YouTube/Google to determine whether they would consent to the filing of the amendments.

 

Schneider then provides a laundry list of events that she claims resulted in YouTube itself introducing delays, including YouTube asking for time to consider the amended complaint before consent was provided, asking for more time to review it, and then not objecting to the holding of meet-and-confer discussions concerning the amendments.

New Plaintiffs Aren’t Meant to Make Up For Case ‘Weaknesses’

Interestingly, Schneider also asks the court not to credit YouTube/Google’s argument that the inclusion of AST and Uniglobe is a measure to make up for supposed weaknesses in her case. That appears to relate to a licensing agreement with Schneider’s publisher that meant that some of her works were included in the Content ID program that Schenider insists she has been denied access to.

 

“Defendants appear to refer to a licensing agreement with Schneider’s publisher. But that agreement licenses only the works that Schneider’s publisher controlled and had the right to license,” Schneider’s counsel writes.

 

“But Schneider’s agreement with her publisher did not grant the publisher control over her works and did not provide her publisher the right to license those works without her written consent, which was never given, which means YouTube’s licensing agreement does not extend to Schneider’s works. Moreover, even if some of her works were inappropriately part of Content ID for some period of time, not all works were.

 

“Regardless, even if Schneider’s claim was somehow deficient, that is not a valid reason to deny leave to amend, particularly at this stage of the proceeding,” the filing continues.

 

“Defendants claim that amendment would ‘moot’ the work it has already undertaken..[..]..but because Schneider is not withdrawing her claim, whatever work Defendants have already undertaken remains relevant.”

 

The court is yet to rule on the motion to file Schneider’s amended complaint but whatever the outcome, this case is clearly being fought and challenged at every turn. That tends to suggest that the year spent on it thus far could be just the beginning in what is already a controversial and extremely expensive piece of litigation.

 

The supporting documents can be found here 1,2,3 (pdf)

 

Two years ago Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels.

 

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.

 

The ISP disagreed with the verdict and filed an appeal. In its opening brief, filed at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last May, Cox argued that it’s incorrectly being held liable for pirating subscribers. Not only that, but the company also warned against the harm that a loss of Internet access could cause to businesses and individuals.

Waging War on The Internet?

Cox’s lawyers said that the music industry is waging war on the internet. After targeting individual file-sharers and applications such as Napster, the music companies were now coming after the internet itself by suing the Internet providers.

 

The ISP contested that it willingly closed its eyes to piracy. The company was actually one of the first US ISPs to implement its own ‘graduated response’ system to address copyright infringers.

 

A few days ago the music companies, including Warner Bros and Sony Music, responded to Cox’s opening brief at the . Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The plaintiffs paint a different picture and stress that the ISP is far from innocent.

 

“The story Cox tells in its brief — a beleaguered internet service provider, doing its best to police infringement on its system, targeted by copyright holders ‘waging war on the internet,’ — is divorced from both the record and reality.”

‘Not Innocent’

The music companies point out that the district court knew that specific subscribers were persistent copyright infringers. Nonetheless, the ISP failed to take appropriate measures in response.

 

During the time period covered by the lawsuit, Cox had terminated 600,000 subscribers for not paying their bills. At the same time, only 32 repeat copyright infringers lost their Internet access, which is a fraction of the total.

 

In its appeal brief, Cox argued that it’s dangerous to disconnect entire households based on potentially inaccurate piracy allegations from copyright holders. However, the music companies point out another motive.

‘Prioritizing Profits’

According to the music companies, Cox created a safe haven for repeat infringers by turning a blind eye to them, some of whom paid hundreds of dollars in subscription fees per month.

 

“Cox prioritized profits over limiting infringement. Time and again, Cox prioritized collecting subscription fees from infringers over addressing its pervasive infringement problem.”

 

Cox’s abuse team demonstrated this in email after email: “This customer will likely fail again, but let’s give him one more change [sic]. he pays 317.63 a month’,” the music companies write.

 

In addition to ‘forgiving’ infringements, Cox also blocked copyright infringement notices from being processed at all. According to the music companies, the ISP rejected millions of notices that contained settlement demands.

‘CAP THESE SUCKERS!’

At the same time, Cox allegedly ignored all first warnings while putting a cap on the rest of the warnings that came in.

 

“But it couldn’t ignore them all. Instead Cox imposed a daily cap on the number of notices it would accept from any one copyright holder and ignored all notices over the cap. As one Cox employee put it, Cox’s approach was ‘TO CAP THESE SUCKERS!’,” the labels add.

 

All in all, the music companies believe that the district court correctly held that Cox is liable for both contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. On top of that, they see no grounds to lower the $1 billion damages award.

 

The plaintiff’s case is supported by two separate amicus curiae briefs from the Copyright Alliance (pdf) and the National Music Publishers’ Association (pdf), which were submitted last week.

 

—

 

A copy of the music companies’ response, submitted at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, is available here (pdf)

 

Two years ago, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison.

 

Hansmeier was a key player in the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent.

 

This practice by itself is not illegal, but Hansmeier and his associate John Steele entered criminal territory when they lied to the courts, committed identity theft, and created a honeypot by uploading self-produced porn torrents to The Pirate Bay as bait.

 

The allegations eventually resulted in prison sentences for the two key players. Today, Hansmeier and his former colleague John Steele are both in prison. While the latter received a reduced sentence for his cooperative stance, Hansmeier continues to use all possible means get his sentence reduced.

COVID Sentence Reduction

Last month, the disbarred lawyer asked a Minnesota federal court to reduce his 14-year prison sentence. A shorter sentence would be appropriate to compensate for the extraordinarily difficult living conditions in prison due to the COVID restrictions, he argued.

 

“However well intentioned these measures may have been, these measures subjected Defendant to conditions that were orders of degrees harsher than what this Court could have reasonably anticipated,” Hansmeier wrote.

 

Before the court rules on this motion it heard an opinion from the US Attorneys Office, which vehemently disagrees with this request. In a response submitted this week, the Government fails to see any “extraordinary and compelling” reason for a sentence reduction.

U.S. Sees No Grounds for a Reduction

The U.S. acknowledges the restrictions that were put in place, but it stresses those applied to all inmates. If Mr. Hansmeier’s argument was to be accepted, pretty much all inmates should get a sentence reduction.

 

“The toll exacted from Mr. Hansmeier by Sandstone’s modified operations regime was not different or more severe than the toll exacted from every healthy inmate at Sandstone,” U.S. Attorney Anders Folk informs the court.

 

The U.S. Attorneys’ office further notes that the lawyer hasn’t stopped his controversial activity. He continues to sue alleged pirates from prison.

 

“Specifically, Mr. Hansmeier has continued, while incarcerated, to sue individuals for copyright infringement for downloading pornographic content that Mr. Hansmeier seeds on websites to attract downloaders,” the U.S. Attorney writes.

Honeypot Continues from Prison

We covered this new honeypot scheme a few months ago and according to the U.S. Attorney, there are now approximately 20 lawsuits that are “causing new victims stress and aggravation.”

 

For the U.S. Attorney, these cases are rather personal as well. They’re more than the typical ‘trolling’ lawsuits as U.S. Attorney Anders Folk and other federal employees are listed as defendants as well.

 

Mr. Hansmeier’s goal is to get a declaratory judgment to declare his porn-trolling scheme legal, providing yet another angle to fight his sentence.

 

The U.S. Attorney clearly disagrees with this tactic. Based on the lacking legal arguments and the fact that Hansmeier continues his legal campaign against alleged pirates, the court should reject the request to reduce the 14-year prison sentence, the US argues.

 

Whatever the court decides, we expect that Mr. Hansmeier will continue to use any legal means he has to fight his stay in prison.

 

In the United States, broadcaster DISH Network has filed dozens of lawsuits targeting the operators of numerous streaming platforms, usually based on relatively straightforward violations of either the Copyright Act or the Federal Communications Act.

 

A new lawsuit filed this month based on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA addresses the same problem from an interesting angle.

Lawsuit Targets Four ‘SportsBay’ Sites

Filed in a Texas court, the lawsuit lists DISH Network and subsidiary Sling TV as plaintiffs. It targets four Doe defendants doing business as SportsBay.org, SportsBay.tv, Live-NBA.stream, and Freefeds.com. The SportsBay domains currently link to the same web platform, which features artwork culled from the infamous Pirate Bay, although there appears to be no link to that site, branding aside.

 

 

All of the domains (collectively the ‘SportsBay’ sites) appear to be in the business of offering sports broadcasts including the Olympics, NBA matches, NFL games, cricket and motorsports. SportsBay.org appears to be the most popular with an estimated 9.35m visitors per month.

 

“Defendants operate an illicit streaming service through the Sportsbay Websites, whereby Defendants offer Sportsbay users free access to Sling’s internet transmissions of television programming by providing the means to decrypt and acquire it without authorization,” the complaint reads.

DRM Technologies Protect Sling’s Platform

According to the lawsuit, Sling’s programming is protected by various types of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies including Widevine, Fairplay, and PlayReady.

 

“Each DRM has a key-based encryption and decryption process used to make Sling Programming accessible to only authorized Sling subscribers that purchased access to that Sling Programming and restricts unauthorized access to, copying, and retransmission of Sling Programming,” the companies note.

 

However, it’s alleged that the operators of the SportsBay sites are able to circumvent the DRM technologies deployed by Sling in order to provide their users with Sling programming, from the company’s servers, for free. The offer includes the channels listed below.

 

 

The complaint alleges that when a channel is selected on either of the SportsBay domains, the sites connect to the Feedfeds.com site and embed content from there in an iFrame. That iFrame then accesses programming from an official Sling server located at Movetv.com and delivers it to the iFrame.

 

“The Freefeds.com iframe then connects to Defendants’ Live-nba.stream computer server in order to obtain the DRM keys necessary to decrypt the Sling Programming so that it is displayed on the Sportsbay.org and Sportsbay.tv websites,” the companies add.

Anti-Circumvention Provisions of the DMCA

DISH and Sling say that the SportsBay sites obtain the DRM keys necessary to decrypt Sling programming without permission. As a result they commit offenses under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA.

 

“Defendants willfully violated 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A) for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain. Defendants knew or should have known that their actions are illegal and prohibited,” the complaint notes.

 

In addition, DISH and Sling allege that the defendants have “manufactured, imported, offered to the public, provided, and otherwise trafficked in technologies and services” in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2).

 

This section relates to technologies that are primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure controlling access to a copyrighted work and have only limited commercially significant purpose other than to circumvent a technological measure.

Demands For Relief

DISH and Sling are asking the court for a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from circumventing any DRM technology protecting Sling programming and offering the same to the public.

 

They also want the court to issue an order that enables the takeover of the SportsBay domains plus statutory damages of up to $2,500 for each violation of 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(1)(A) and 1201(a)(2).

 

Given that the plaintiffs say that the defendants are liable for these violations for each user of their sites, damages could easily hit tens of millions of dollars, even if just one month of traffic is considered.

 

The DISH and Sling lawsuit can be found here (pdf)

 

Attracting billions of eyeballs from all over the world, the Summer Olympics is the most watched sporting event.

 

While sports achievements are the main focus, the opening ceremony attracts one of the biggest audiences. This was no different last Friday when the Tokyo 2020 officially opened.

 

In the past, we also noticed a massive interest in the Olympics on various pirate sites. In 2008, the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing was downloaded millions of times through torrent sites, for example.

 

Four years later, The Pirate Bay joined in when the site renamed itself the “Olympic Bay,” providing users with a direct link to newly uploaded torrents for the London 2012 games.

 

For the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, we haven’t noticed much activity on torrent sites. The opening ceremony and the sporting events are pirated on streaming sites, however, especially when cheap legal alternatives are lacking.

 

Despite the lacking Olympic torrents buzz, there’s still a major milestone to report. A few days after the Olympics got started, an 8K HLG rip of the opening ceremony with 22.2 surround sound started circulating on a private torrent site.

 

To our knowledge, this is the first time that a mainstream broadcast has been ripped in this quality. The release comes from the group TrollUHD, which is known for its high-resolution releases. The full ceremony is 135 Gigabytes in size, which means that it will take a while to download.

 

 

The source of the file is not mentioned, but the HLG format and the 22.2 audio matches up with the broadcast specs from Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. Other countries have 8K broadcasts as well, but without the 22.2 audio.

 

It’s only fitting that NHK’s broadcast is the first 8K mainstream release to get pirated. The Japanese company was the first to start working on 8K video in 1995, which was codenamed ‘Super Hi-Vision’ at the time. NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories also developed 22.2 surround sound.

 

While the first pirated 8K release is a milestone, the intended audience is rather small. Downloading the file – which requires access to a private community – is only the first hurdle. Most people simply don’t have the hardware to support playback of these types of video and audio.

 

This challenge is also reflected in the comments from downloaders, where many people indicated that they struggled to get it to work.

 

Over the past few days, the International Olympic Committee worked hard to take down and block pirated content. This is in line with earlier comments, where the organization said that it’s extremely concerned with piracy. But given the small audience, we don’t think that 8K worries them too much now.

 

—

 

A copy of the NFO file for the “Summer Olympics Tokyo 2020 S01E01 Opening Ceremony 4320p HLG UHDTV AAC22 2 HEVC-TrollUHD” release can be found here

 

Ever since the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren fight was streamed illegally online, Triller has been filing copyright infringement lawsuits against the alleged culprits.

 

The campaign began with a $100m complaint against multiple “business entities” but a judge dismissed all but one of the parties from the action, warning that by joining all of them as cooperating parties, the illegal conduct of one defendant could be wrongly attributed to another independent defendant.

 

In response, Triller began filing separate actions against each entity. One of those suits targeted YouTuber ‘ItsLilBrandon’, later identified as Brandon T. Williams.

Allegations Against Williams

Triller’s complaint alleged that Williams is the operator of the ‘ItsLilBrandon’ YouTube channel, which seemed a reasonable conclusion to draw, adding that Williams publicly displayed the Jake Paul fight and asked followers to “help out” by donating to mobile payment processing service Cash App.

 

However, without any supporting evidence, the company also went on to claim that Williams owns and operates a number of torrent and streaming websites and accused Williams of utilizing the ‘ItsLilBrandon’ branding as a shell to avoid liability to Triller.

 

Following up on these somewhat grand allegations, Triller accused Williams of copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, violations of the Federal Communications Act, conversion, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Williams Was Served, Triller Seeks Default Judgment

The case docket reveals that 19-year-old Williams was served with the summons and complaint during the morning of June 7. Triller’s representative couldn’t locate the defendant at the expected address but Williams later accepted service at an address in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

 

On July 1, Triller applied for entry of a clerk’s default against Williams, stating that Williams had failed to answer or otherwise respond to the complaint within 21 days of being served. A day later, the clerk entered default against Brandon Williams and ItsLilBrandon, ordering Triller to file a motion for default judgment no later than July 20, 2021.

 

United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin informed Triller on July 6 that its motion should include detailed information, such as the damages and injunctive relief sought, and any claim for attorney’s fees. One of the basic requirements was that any claim for damages must be “supported by detailed, clear, and thorough calculations” that cite the “underlying admissible evidence, such as contracts, spreadsheets, and declarations.”

 

The Judge warned that failing to file for a motion for default containing the information detailed in his order could result in the motion being denied. It could even see the case against the defendant being dismissed for failure to prosecute and/or failing to comply with a court order.

Triller Fails To Comply With The Judge’s Instructions

In minutes dated July 26, Judge Olguin notes that Triller had been ordered to serve a motion for default judgment no later than July 20 and had been warned that failure could result in the action against Brandon Williams and ItsLilBrandon being dismissed.

 

Triller failed to comply with that order.

 

Noting that dismissal is a severe penalty and an extreme remedy, the Judge adds that relevant factors have to be weighed before dismissal including the public’s interest in expeditious resolution of litigation, the court’s need to manage its docket, and the risk of prejudice to defendants and respondents.

 

“Plaintiff’s failure to file the motion for default judgment hinders the court’s ability to move this case toward disposition and indicates that plaintiff does not intend to litigate this action,” Judge Olguin writes.

 

“Thus, having considered the Pagtalunan factors, the court is persuaded that the instant action should be dismissed for failure to comply with a court order and failure to prosecute.”

 

The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning that a new complaint can be filed at a later date. However, in light of the Judge’s demands that a detailed damages claim is required (no evidence supporting such a claim has been presented to the court), it’s open to question whether Triller is genuinely interested in pursuing this matter any further.

 

The supporting court documents can be found here (1,2,3 – pdf)

 

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

 

The group, which receives support from Hollywood and other content industries, has shuttered hundreds of smaller sites and services in recent history. It was also responsible for taking down Mininova, once one of the largest torrent sites online.

 

Despite the COVID pandemic, BREIN continued these enforcement actions in 2020. The group has just published a detailed overview of last year’s accomplishments, which provides a clear insight into the group’s anti-piracy priorities.

BREIN Dealt With 466 Pirate Sites and Services

Looking at the numbers we see that the anti-piracy group has closed the books on a rather productive year. In total, it completed 479 investigations which resulted in the shutdown of 466 illegal sites and services.

 

These targets include torrent and streaming sites but also open directories, Facebook groups, and sellers of illegal IPTV subscriptions. In addition, over a million links to pirate sites were removed from third-party search engines such as Google.

 

 

BREIN often starts its investigations based on referrals from copyright holders. Interestingly, some referrals point to scam sites. These are fake pirate sites that try to trick people into handing over credit card details or other info.

 

In 2020, BREIN received 154 of these tips from copyright holders. The sites don’t offer pirated content so BREIN doesn’t have to take action. However, the group was kind enough to report them to ScamAdviser.com, so people can avoid these traps in the future.

Dynamic Pirate Bay Blockade

One of the most prominent achievements is the Pirate Bay blockade. After a legal battle of more than ten years, the court ruled that Dutch ISPs have to block access to the torrent site and all proxies that pop up.

 

This ‘dynamic’ blocking order allows BREIN to add any new IP-addresses and domain names that may appear online. It doesn’t just apply to the main Pirate Bay site. In total, 180 proxies and mirrors were added to the blocklist.

 

According to BREIN, this measure resulted in a significant decrease in Dutch Pirate Bay visitors. The group hopes to extend its reach in the near future, by requesting more blocking orders from the court.

 

“The blocking of access to the illegal bittorrent site The Pirate Bay has led to a drop of more than 95% in Dutch visitors. Now that it has finally been granted by the Dutch courts in 2020, BREIN is focusing on obtaining blocking of other popular illegal sites as well,” BREIN notes.

 

In addition to these measures, the anti-piracy group also took direct action against the operator of the proxy site provider Piratebay-proxylist.net, which had millions of monthly visitors. BREIN took over the domain and the operator agreed to pay 280,000 euros in compensation.

Settlements, Warnings, and Potential Prosecutions

As every year, BREIN also goes after uploaders and other people who make pirated content available. Just last week, it announced a settlement with a large-scale uploader of Dutch comic books, who was tracked down through open-source intelligence.

 

In 2020, the group signed a total of 42 settlements with copyright infringers, and efforts to tackle other major uploaders will continue.

 

BREIN also started to warn large-scale torrent uploaders. The group is not interested in casual pirates, but tracks down the big fish and asks Internet providers to forward a warning to these subscribers.

 

This warning campaign is still at an early stage but BREIN hopes that it will have a significant impact in the long run.

 

Finally, BREIN is also hinting at possible criminal prosecutions. Generally speaking, copyright infringement isn’t a priority for Dutch law enforcement. However, that may change when there’s an annual turnover of 100,000 euros, or when there’s an organizational layer involved.

 

The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) is currently processing a case referred to it by BREIN, and more referrals are in the pipeline.

 

The “repeat infringer” issue remains a hot topic in US courts after rightsholders filed lawsuits against several ISPs.

 

These Internet providers are accused of not doing enough to stop copyright infringers on their networks, even after receiving multiple ‘copyright infringement’ notifications.

 

The copyright infringement allegations can have real consequences. In 2019, a Virginia jury ordered Internet provider Cox to pay a billion dollars in damages to a group of major record labels. This case is being appealed but at the same time, other ISPs have been dragged to court over similar issues.

Filmmaker Sue WOW!

Most of the early ‘repeat infringer’ cases were filed by music companies backed by the industry group RIAA. However, in recent weeks some independent movie companies have filed similar lawsuits featuring even more far-reaching demands. This includes a copyright infringement lawsuit against Internet provider Wide Open West, better known as WOW!.

 

In a complaint filed at a federal court in Colorado, the makers of movies including “After We Collided,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Rambo V: Last Blood,” and “London Had Fallen” accuse WOW! of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. The ISP allegedly turned a blind eye to pirating subscribers.

 

“Defendant failed to terminate the accounts and/or take any meaningful actions against its subscribers in response to the Notices consistent with a reasonably implemented policy for termination of subscribers […] who are repeat infringers,” the complaint reads.

No Meaningful Action

The movie companies, represented by attorney Kerry Culpepper, list several examples of account holders for whom WOW! was sent dozens of copyright infringement notices. Despite these alerts, the accounts remained active and continued their piracy activities.

 

For one IP address, the rightsholders sent over 100 infringement notices, without any meaningful response. That account was eventually terminated earlier this year after the attorney alerted WOW! through a separate letter.

 

The fact that WOW! advertised high-speed Internet access, combined with the inaction against online piracy, attracts potential copyright infringers to the ISP, the complaint alleges. As such, WOW! should be held liable for the pirating activities on its network.

 

“Defendant’s subscribers are motivated to become subscribers from the knowledge of Defendant’s practice of ignoring notices of infringements or failing to take any meaningful action,” the movie companies write.

YTS Evidence

There are a few key differences between the music companies’ repeat infringers lawsuits and the present one. Most notably, the movie companies cite specific cases where WOW! subscribers used the popular torrent site YTS to download content.

 

That claim is backed up by an affidavit from the operator of YTS, who signed settlements with several of the movie companies in the past. As part of this deal, the operator agreed to hand over data from the site’s user database.

 

With this lawsuit, the movie companies hope to recoup millions of dollars in piracy damages. However, that’s just the beginning.

Site Blocking, Three-Strikes, and Identifying Pirates

What stands out most are the far-reaching and concrete demands for injunctive relief. The complaint specifically requests an order requiring WOW! to terminate subscribers whose accounts were targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

 

In addition to this mandatory three-strikes policy, WOW! should also block all alleged pirate sites that are listed in the USTR’s annual overview of notorious markets. This includes the likes of The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and YTS.

 

Finally, the movie companies request an order which requires the ISP to disclose the identities of account holders whose accounts are flagged for copyright infringement. This would allow the companies to target the alleged pirates directly.

– order Defendant to adopt a policy that provides for the prompt termination of subscribers for which Defendant receives more than three unique notices of infringements of copyright protected Works within 72 hours

– order Defendant to block subscribers from accessing notorious piracy websites of foreign origin that are listed in the annual trade report of Notorious Foreign Markets published by the United States Government on all networks under its control to prevent further pirating of Plaintiffs’ Works via the BitTorrent protocol

– order the Defendant to disclose to Plaintiffs the identifications of the subscribers who used and use Defendant’s service to infringe Plaintiffs’ Works on an ongoing basis after said subscribers are provided notice as required by 47 U.S.C. § 551

Needless to say, these demands go further than those in the repeat infringer cases we’ve seen thus far. Court-ordered site blocking and Internet disconnections are a novelty in US courts, which will be fiercely contested.

 

At the time of writing WOW! has yet to respond to the complaint. When it does, we will report on it accordingly.

 

The present lawsuit is similar to the allegations that many of the same movie outfits lodged against Internet provider Frontier Communications in a bankruptcy proceeding. That case could eventually be referred to a District Court as well, but that decision has yet to be made.

 

—

 

A copy of the movie companies’ complaint against WOW!, filed at the US District Court for Colorado, is available here (pdf).

 

In the past, those operating unlicensed torrent sites or streaming services in the UK needed to be aware of breaching civil copyright law, action that could result in a damages award but not a custodial sentence. Times have changed.

 

These days civil copyright actions have almost completely disappeared and it’s now exponentially more likely that offenders will be pursued in criminal cases, ones that have the potential to put them behind bars. That’s also the case following a new arrest carried out by police in the UK.

West Mercia Police Make New Arrest

In an announcement Wednesday, West Mercia Police said they had arrested a 56-year-old man in the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury for offenses connected to the operation of an illegal streaming service offering premium TV channels and other copyrighted content.

 

The action was taken following an investigation carried out in partnership with the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). The anti-piracy company informs TorrentFreak that since there is a live investigation, the name of the service cannot be named. However, West Mercia Police has provided additional details which put a little more meat on the bones.

Streams Disabled, Message Displayed to Users

It’s not clear when the warrant was executed but police say they were able to access and then disrupt the streaming service and disable the illegal streams. They also placed on an on-screen message viewable by users of the service stating that the content they were watching is suspected to be unlawful.

 

This tactic of warning users directly has been deployed before, including when Norfolk and Suffolk police targeted the Global / Global Entertainment (GE Hosting) IPTV service last summer.

 

“This operation is the unit’s first arrest in relation to online streaming and sends out a strong message that we are homing in on those who knowingly commit or facilitate online copyright infringement,” says Sergeant Ian Osborne from West Mercia’s Cyber Crime Unit.

 

“Not only is there an enormous loss to the entertainment industry with this particular operation but it is also unfair that millions of people work hard to afford their subscription-only TV services while others cheat the system.”

 

Items Seized During the Raid (Image: West Mercia Police)

Suspect Arrested For Multiple Offenses

While copyright infringement offenses appear to underpin the alleged crimes of the suspect, West Mercia Police say the man was arrested for Money Laundering (s327 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002) and encouraging or assisting in the commission of the offense of obtaining services dishonestly (s44 Serious Crime Act 2007 and s11 Fraud act 2006).

 

Breaking this down, section 11 of the Fraud Act makes it an offense for any person to obtain services for which payment is required, with the intent to avoid payment. The person must know that the services are made available on the basis that they are chargeable, which is certainly the case in respect of official TV broadcasts or streams.

 

Section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 relates to those intentionally encouraging or assisting an offense. As pointed out by FACT CEO Kieron Sharp, customers of pirate streaming services also commit an offense. This was also stated in letters previously sent to the customers of GE Hosting who were told by Norfolk and Suffolk Police they were committing an offense under the Fraud Act.

 

The allegations against the recently arrested suspect indicate that he could be held responsible for assisting his customers to commit a crime.

 

The money laundering aspect is a natural consequence of generating gain from crime and then possessing, concealing, or otherwise dealing with assets including, but not limited to, cash and other forms of money.

 

Current information indicates that the suspect hasn’t yet been formally charged.

 

Rather than test their skills on a level playing field, some gamers prefer to deploy third-party cheating software to gain a competitive advantage.

 

This is particularly prevalent in multiplayer games where being able to shoot through walls, automatically aim, run at advantageous speeds and retain ammo supplies naturally provides a competitive advantage.

 

While this may be good fun for those who dislike rules and don’t mind hollow victories, these hacks create frustration for other players which diminishes the gaming experience.

 

As a result, video game developers are taking action against cheat makers and those who distribute cheats, with the aim of restoring fair play and enjoyment for their customers. A new lawsuit filed by Ubisoft and Bungie continues this trend by targeting individuals believed to be involved in the development and distribution of cheats for Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Seige.

Lawsuit Targets Individuals Allegedly Behind Ring-1

Filed in a California district court, the lawsuit targets Andrew Thorpe (aka ‘Krypto’), Jonathan Aguedo (aka ‘Overpowered’), Wesam Mohammed (aka ‘Grizzly’), Ahmad Mohammed, plus John Does 1-50. According to the plaintiffs, these people operate, oversee or participate in Ring-1, an operation that develops, distributes and markets a range of cheats for Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Seige, among others.

 

Ring-1 is said to largely operate from Ring-1.io but is also active on hundreds of forums, websites and social media accounts selling cheats that enable Ubisoft and Bungie customers to automatically aim their weapons, reveal the locations of opponents, and see information that would otherwise be obscured.

 

“Defendants’ conduct has caused, and is continuing to cause, massive and irreparable harm to Plaintiffs and their business interests. The success of Plaintiffs’ games depends on their being enjoyable and fair for all players,” the lawsuit reads.

 

“Cheaters ruin the experience of playing the Games. Not only do cheaters impair the enjoyment of gameplay by non-cheaters with whom they interact in-game, but cheaters also illegitimately obtain and thereby devalue the in-game rewards that non-cheaters obtain legitimately.”

 

Ubisoft and Bungie say that the defendants’ conduct is both unlawful and malicious since they deliberately set out to do harm to the companies and player communities.

Who Are The Ring-1 Defendants?

The lawsuit alleges that Andrew Thorpe (aka ‘Krypto’) is a person residing in North Humberside in the UK. It’s claimed he is a Ring-1 staff member and moderator who assists the plaintiffs’ customers to use the cheat software, serves as a liaison to the cheat developers, and may also be a developer himself.

 

Jonathan Aguedo (aka ‘Overpowered’) is said to reside in Windermere, Florida. Alongside similar allegations to those leveled against Thorpe, it’s alleged that Aguedo also acts as a reseller of Ring-1 cheats.

 

Wesam Mohammed (aka ‘Grizzly’) allegedly resides in Munster, Indiana. He stands accused of being a long-time member of Ring-1 and a “prolific” reseller of the cheating software, with some sales being conducted under the moniker “Gaming Mods.” Ahmad Mohammed is also claimed to be a resident of Munster and a reseller of the Ring-1 cheats.

 

The complaint goes on to list a number of individuals only by their online handles. These include Berserker, Cypher, Admin, Cale, Overseer, Tralepo, Frost, Dove and Pingu, who are all accused of being involved in various aspects of the Ring-1 operation. At this stage their identities are unknown but Ubisoft and Bungie say they will seek to amend their complaint once this information is obtained.

Defendants’ Business Model

According to the lawsuit, the cheats developed and distributed by Ring-1 are not cheap. Access to Destiny 2 cheats via the Ring-1 website costs 30 euros per week or 60 euros per month while those for Rainbox Six Seige cost 25 euros and 50 euros respectively, netting the defendants up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

 

The plaintiffs believe that Ring-1 or those acting in concert with them fraudulently obtained access to the games’ software clients before disassembling, decompiling and/or creating derivative works from them. These tools were then tested on Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Seige servers under false pretenses by using “throwaway accounts” and false identities.

Copyright Infringement Offenses

Since the cheating software developed and distributed by Ring-1 is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures that control access to their games, the plaintiffs state that the defendants are trafficking in circumvention devices in violation of the DMCA (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2)).

 

In addition, it’s alleged that the defendants unlawfully reproduced and displayed the plaintiffs’ artwork on the Ring-1 website, adapted the performance of the games, and reproduced game client files without a license during reverse engineering and similar processes.

 

In the alternative, Ubisoft and Bungie suggest that the defendants can be held liable for inducing and contributing to the copyright-infringing acts of their customers when they deploy cheats that effectively create unauthorized derivative works.

 

“As a direct and proximate result, Plaintiffs are entitled to damages and to Defendants’ profits in amounts to be proven at trial, which are not currently ascertainable. Alternatively, Plaintiffs are entitled to maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each copyrighted work infringed, or in such other amount as may be proper under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c),” the complaint adds.

Other Claims Against The Ring-1 Defendants

In addition to the alleged copyright infringement offenses, Bungie and Ubisoft say the defendants are liable for trademark infringement due to the use of various marks on the Ring-1 website and elsewhere. They are also accused of ‘false designation of origin’ due to false or misleading descriptions that suggest a connection with the companies, and intentional interference with contractual relations by encouraging Destiny 2 and Rainbow Six Seige players to breach their licensing conditions.

 

The gaming companies conclude with claims that the Ring-1 defendants’ business represents unfair competition that relies on violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act due to the accessing of official gaming servers without authorization.

 

As a result, Bungie and Ubisoft demand injunctions to restrain this behavior going forward. They want the Ring-1 website (and any copies) to be shut down, along with the cheating software itself.

 

They also demand actual or maximum statutory damages on the copyright counts, plus damages for trademark infringement and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. All proceeds obtained by the defendants through the sale of the cheating software should be placed in a trust, the companies say.

 

The Bungie and Ubisoft complaint can be found here (pdf)

 

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

 

In December 2015, a Virginia federal jury held Cox Communications responsible for pirating subscribers, ordering the company to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages.

 

This damages figure was reduced in a settlement agreement but, soon after, the Internet provider was hit with a $1 billion jury verdict in a similar case, which is still under appeal.

Cox Updated Its DMCA Policy

These lawsuits were a wake-up call for Cox. To cope with the constant stream of DMCA notices, the company spent millions to improve its takedown systems and processes. In 2017, DMCA notices were separated from other abuse complaints. After that, rightsholders were directed to use a new email address which is also listed a registered agent at the Copyright Office.

 

Most copyright holders began sending their takedown notices to the new email address, but there was one outlier. Despite repeated alerts and warnings, BMG and its anti-piracy partner Rightscorp continued to use the old abuse@cox.net address.

 

This presented a problem for the ISP, which didn’t want to risk ignoring these notices. That’s understandable, as doing so could potentially open the door to millions of dollars in new damages claims. In fact, Cox suspected that this was BMG and Rightscorp’s plan all along.

Cox Sues BMG and Rightscorp

In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, the Internet provider described Rightscorp’s business plan as “corrupt” as it basically attempts to “extort” Internet subscribers into paying settlements. In a similar vein, the ‘refusal’ to use the new email address was seen as an attempt to get Cox in trouble again.

 

“It is obvious that Defendants’ tactic is a thinly veiled attempt to exploit the procedures set forth by the [DMCA], with the goal of leveraging their improper notices to attempt to extract windfall judgments for BMG and Rightscorp’s other prospective clients. Their approach is improper and unlawful, and should be stopped,” Cox wrote.

 

A few months have passed without an official response in court from either BMG or Rightscorp. Behind the scenes, however, the legal teams of all parties were working hard to resolve the issue without much bloodshed.

Resolving Matters Out of Court

Two weeks ago, the three companies submitted a joint motion asking to extend the reply deadline. According to this filing, Cox, BMG, and Rightscorp were engaged in “active discussions” to resolve the matter outside court.

 

These discussions were fruitful as Cox decided to drop the lawsuit in its entirety this week.

 

 

The motion to dismiss doesn’t explain how the matter was resolved but we can assume that Rightscorp will use the correct email address going forward. Whether Cox was also compensated for the damages it claimed is not clear.

 

For Cox, it was probably most important to prevent any future copyright infringement claims from BMG. And with the appeal against the $1 billion verdict in another lawsuit still pending, the company has other priorities as well.

 

Three years ago a group of prominent music companies took two of the largest YouTube rippers to court.

 

The labels, including Universal, Warner Bros, and Sony, accused FLVTO.biz, 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov of facilitating copyright infringement.

 

While many foreign site operators choose not to fight back, Kurbanov did. With help from a seasoned legal team, he filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that US courts don’t have jurisdiction over a Russian site operator who conducts his business from another continent.

 

Initially, the district court agreed with this defense, dismissing the case. However, the record labels successfully appealed and, after Kurbanov’s petition at the Supreme Court was denied, the case was sent back to the Virginia district court to proceed on the merits.

Collecting Evidence

Over the past weeks, both sides had the chance to conduct discovery and collect further evidence to back up their claims. The record labels, for example, asked the stream-rippers to share what files users rip and download, which source sites they use, and where these users are located.

 

The Russian operator wasn’t able to share this data though. He set up his sites with privacy in mind and none of the requested data were logged. As such, there was nothing to hand over.

 

The record labels didn’t take no for an answer and asked the court to compel Mr. Kurbanov to start logging this data. This request was approved by the magistrate judge and, despite fierce protest from the site owner, District Court Judge Claude Hilton affirmed the order last week.

Kurbanov Drops Out

This ruling was another setback for the operator of the stream-rippers who still believes that he shouldn’t be sued in the US. According to a new filing from his legal team, the data logging order appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

A few days after the court affirmed the data logging order, Mr. Kurbanov’s lawyers submitted a motion to withdraw as counsel. They inform the court that, despite the formal order, their (former) client doesn’t plan to provide all data the record labels asked for.

 

As it turns out, Mr. Kurbanov no longer intends to participate in the lawsuit at all, which means that his lawyers can no longer represent him.

 

“Despite the efforts of Counsel for Defendant, Mr. Kurbanov has made clear that he does not intend to cooperate further with the present litigation or counsel’s attempts to mount an effective defense on his behalf.

 

“Mr. Kurbanov has indicated that he will not provide Counsel for Defendant with any additional discovery and will not sit for his previously-noticed deposition,” the lawyers add.

Lawyers Still Had Faith

Having lost faith in the process, the site operator has simply decided to drop out and move on, ignoring the lawsuit and moving ahead. This decision comes as a surprise after a legal battle that has lasted three years already.

 

Evan Fray-Witzer, one of the defense team lawyers, tells TorrentFreak that they are disappointed that their work ends here. They were confident that their client had a strong case and believe that YouTube-ripping tools have legitimate uses.

 

“We’re obviously disappointed that this is how things are ending: we’ve always believed that the case was a strong one on the merits and that websites like Mr. Kurbanov’s simply provide a legitimate tool with numerous non-infringing uses.

 

“We also continue to believe – as many do – that the youtube-dl software does not circumvent technological measures in any meaningful way,” Fray-Witzer adds.

 

While the data logging order may have been the final straw, the jurisdiction issue is still a sore spot as well. The site operator doesn’t believe a U.S. court can order him to do anything and his legal team reiterates that this issue should have been taken on by the Supreme Court.

 

“At the end of the day, though, Mr. Kurbanov is an individual who lives in Russia, who has operated the websites exclusively from Russia, and who has had almost no contact with the United States whatsoever. The whole issue of personal jurisdiction in such a context continues to cry out for guidance from the Supreme Court,” Fray-Witzer tells us.

Going Forward

With Mr. Kurbanov giving up his defense, it is very likely that the record labels will end up winning the lawsuit through a default judgment. This could result in millions of dollars in piracy damages.

 

It seems unlikely that the site operator will pay anything if it goes that far. However, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the labels also went after his assets indirectly, including the .com and .biz domain names, which are tied to US-based registries.

 

—

 

A copy of the memorandum in support of the motion to withdraw as counsel, submitted by attorneys Val Gurvits, Matthew Shayefar, Evan FrayWitzer, and Jeffrey Geiger, is available here (pdf)

 

Back in 2016, the European Commission announced plans to amend EU copyright law to better meet emerging challenges on the Internet.

 

One of the most controversial elements of the new Copyright Directive was Article 13 (now Article 17). This would require many online services such as YouTube to either legally license content from copyright holders or put filtering mechanisms in place to ensure disputed content is taken down not re-uploaded by users.

 

The new Copyright Directive passed in March 2019, meaning that EU Member States are required to write the amendments into national law. The EU Commission launched a consultation last summer but it now appears that EU countries are struggling to meet their obligations.

23 Member States Failed To Meet June 2021 Deadline

Considering its standing and commitment to the bloc, it was no surprise to see Germany adopt new legislation including Article 17 in advance of the June 7 deadline set by the EU Commission.

 

Germany’s implementation was cautiously praised due to measures designed to prevent automatic blocking of minor uses of copyrighted works, including when copyright works are used in combination with other content. However, almost two dozen other countries are now facing criticism from the European Commission.

 

In an announcement yesterday, the Commission said it had launched an official infringement process against 23 countries for missing the June deadline to comply with EU rules on copyright.

 

“The Commission has requested Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia to communicate information about how the rules included in the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (Directive 2019/790/EU) are being enacted into their national law,” the Commission’s statement reads.

 

“As the Member States above have not communicated national transposition measures or have done it only partially, the Commission decided today to open infringement procedures by sending letters of formal notice.”

Infringement Procedures Could Lead to Legal Action

The EU’s infringement procedures are clearly laid out and include measures to deal with EU countries that fail to communicate measure that fully transpose the provisions of directives. The process works as follows:

 

Since the 23 countries have already missed the deadline, the Commission has now taken the first step of sending formal notices requesting information on why that happened. Member States have two months to respond but if the responses received by the Commission are considered unsatisfactory, the Commission may send something called a ‘reasoned opinion’.

 

While gentle in tone, this is a formal statement that the country is in breach of EU law and needs to comply within a specified period, usually two months. If the country fails to comply within this period, the Commission has the option to take the matter to the EU Court of Justice, where it could request the imposition of penalties.

 

In any event, EU countries will be required to comply with any decision of the EU’s highest court or risk being referred back by the Commission for further action.

 

Earlier this month a legal challenge by Poland against Article 17 was met with an opinion from EU Advocate General Henrik Saugmandsgaard Øe, who declared that its provisions are compatible with freedom of expression under certain conditions, including when exemptions such as quotation, criticism, review and parody are respected.