Reddit has gone head-to-head with a group of filmmakers over the past year, aiming to protect the privacy of its users.

In three separate cases, the filmmakers subpoenaed Reddit for details of users who commented on various piracy related topics.

The movie companies said they were not planning to go after these people in court but wanted to use their comments as evidence in ongoing piracy liability lawsuits against Internet providers.

Reddit viewed the requests as intrusive. The company objected to the initial attempt, arguing that handing over the requested information would violate its users’ right to anonymous speech. Reddit later responded similarly to a second and third subpoena request.

The movie companies took these cases to a federal court, asking it to compel Reddit to comply. The court refused to do so, three times already.

Filmmakers Request ‘De Novo’ Review

The film companies were not happy with the denials and refused to give up. When U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson denied their most recent attempt in February, relating to the case against ISP Frontier Communications, they moved for a ‘de novo’ review at a California federal court.

In their motion, the rightsholders cited jurisprudence suggesting that an IP address is not necessarily ‘unmasking’ personally identifying information. They argued that the magistrate judge ignored key arguments and arrived at the wrong conclusion.

The companies stressed that the commenters could prove crucial in their battle against ISP Frontier. Among other things, the court’s suggestion that there might be other ways to obtain similar evidence was premature, they said.

Reddit’s Objections

As expected, Reddit objected to the request for a ‘de novo’ review. The company argued that, as the court repeatedly found, the filmmakers have other non-intrusive options to gather evidence against Frontier, including seeking evidence from the ISP and its subscribers directly.

Reddit further noted that the filmmakers’ argument that IP-addresses do not “identify” users is misguided at best.

“Reddit does not require its users to give their real name or addresses, and so the only identifying information Reddit may maintain on its users is their IP address, which is precisely why the Movants here seek the users’ IP addresses. If IP addresses were not identifying, Movants would not be seeking them.”

At worst, the argument is disingenuous, Reddit wrote. The movie companies previously used a Redditor’s IP address to obtain the name and address of a subscriber, requesting their torrenting history and more.

“[A]fter Reddit provided Movants with IP address data for a single Reddit user last year, the Movants immediately identified that IP address by subpoenaing T-Mobile, and they have been harassing that user with motions practice ever since,” Reddit countered.

Court Denies ‘De Novo’ Review

After reviewing these and other arguments, this week the court sided with Reddit. In a single sentence, without further detail, U.S. District Court Judge James Donato denied the request for ‘de novo’ review.

“The motion for de novo determination of the motion to enforce the subpoena is denied, and the magistrate judge’s order is affirmed, for the reasons stated on the record,” Judge Donato writes.

Paired with the earlier rejections and denials, it’s clear that courts are hesitant to allow discovery of Redditors’ private information in connection with these non-party lawsuits.

The filmmakers have proven to be persistent and can appeal this outcome, or file yet another case. However, recent developments seem to have lowered the need to take further action related to the Frontier case.

Filmmakers Have an Alternative Now

The movie companies previously stressed that the Redditors could prove to be of key importance, since they had difficulty obtaining the required evidence from Frontier subscribers directly. However, that may have changed.

Frontier previously redacted the personal details of its subscribers, when filmmakers asked for information in their piracy liability lawsuit. Earlier this month, however, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the ISP to share these subscriber details in full.

The court concluded that, with proper safeguards, the interests of copyright holders weigh stronger than the privacy interests of Frontier subscribers.

These Frontier subscribers are materially different from the Redditors, as their alleged piracy activities, monitored via their IP addresses, are at the heart of the liability lawsuit against the ISP.

The unredacted information of Frontier subscribers should help the movie and music companies link the IP addresses to Frontier subscribers, which is required to establish the direct infringement claim and hold Frontier liable.

As for the safeguards, the court stressed that the filmmakers can’t harass the subscribers. It further stressed that their personal information can only be used for the Frontier lawsuit, adding that the highly confidential information should be destroyed 30 days after the proceedings conclude.

Whether the filmmakers will get the evidence they’re looking for remainsto be seen. That said, the ‘anonymous speech’ of the piracy-commenting Redditors remains well protected.

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Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and articles that can be downloaded for free.

The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of two alleged operators in Argentina.

According to the latest available information, these two defendants are still fighting their extradition. Meanwhile, the Z-Library service has continued to operate as if nothing ever happened, serving books to millions of people all over the world.

FBI Seizes More Domains

The feds are not standing idly by and have seized hundreds of domain names belonging to the site. The first wave of seizures took place in November 2022, shortly before the criminal case was made public. Another round followed in the spring, and a third wave came last November.

With these seizures, the FBI aims to frustrate Z-Library’s operations. Thus far, however, the library has always returned. U.S. law enforcement isn’t giving up though and, a few hours ago, it quietly carried out a new round of domain seizures.

These new seizures cover z-library.se and z-library.sx, two of the three main domain names recently promoted by the site. The third, singlelogin.re, remains unaffected at the time of writing.

The seizure banner above suggests that in addition to the U.S. authorities, Austria’s Criminal Intelligence Service played a role too. The same applies to Austria’s Cybercrime Competence Center, C4, but since the banner hasn’t been updated since the last round, this information could be dated.

Email Hit

The full list of seized domains is much longer and includes names such as zlibrary-redirect.se, zlibrary-africa.se, and zlibrary-china.se. More may follow in the near future as the enforcement action might be ongoing.

Z-Library has yet to officially comment on the enforcement action. Communication though the regular ‘support’ email will be hard, however, as the site’s email domain z-lib.se is also part of the new seizure round.

At the time of writing, Z-Library’s Telegram channel remains online, with nearly 450,000 subscribers waiting in anticipation for an update.

No Surprise

The new seizures shouldn’t come as a surprise to the Z-Library team, considering the three earlier attempts. Previously, the site simply diverted users to new domains and ones that are still operational, including the .onion domain for the Tor network.

Whether U.S. authorities have made progress on locating the whereabouts of the remaining Z-Library team is unknown. For now, however, it doesn’t appear that any of the site’s server infrastructure has been taken down.

While all this plays out, the criminal prosecution in the U.S. shows little progress. The extradition process in Argentina hasn’t been finalized yet, it seems. In addition, a federal court in New York has yet to rule on a motion to dismiss filed by the Z-Library defendants last year.

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In a lawsuit filed at a U.S. district court early January 2022, video game giant Activision targeted German company EngineOwning UG, plus a number of individuals associated with the cheat-making and distribution business.

With a flood of similar cases, some filed by competitor Bungie, providing a template, Activision’s complaint alleged, among other things, that the defendants trafficked in circumvention devices, in violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

Warring Parties Come Out Fighting

For more than a year, the EngineOwning defendants played to their strengths, characterizing Activision as a fifty billion dollar corporate bully targeting a handful of under-resourced, overseas defendants, with little means of fighting back. Yet fight back they did.

After retaining counsel in the United States, defendants including Valentin Rick, Alex Kleeman, Bennet Huch, Leon Frisch, Leon Schlender, Leonard Bugla, Marc-Alexander Richts, Pascal Claβen, and Remo Löffler, filed a motion to dismiss. Activision’s amended complaint had added new claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and two further counts of racketeering (RICO). In general, however, none of the defendants relished the idea of visiting the U.S.

A month later, two of the defendants broke ranks and settled with Activision. Court records indicate that one settled for $2m and the other for around half that, but money wasn’t the only thing on Activision’s mind. As always, information can also prove helpful.

Defendants’ Odds of a Win Take a Nose Dive

Activision’s response to the motion to dismiss was aggressive, to put it mildly. Armed with what appeared to be freshly-obtained records of EngineOwning’s internal communications, the court heard how the defendants “routinely trade detailed instructions on how best to illegally launder” their shared profits, while engaging in “fraudulent tax-dodging schemes.”

Also laid bare were allegations of lavish overseas spending, including weeks spent in the presidential suite of a Zurich hotel, and alleged pondering over whether to pay a defense lawyer or spend 10K on cocaine instead.

With the lawsuit expanding to more than 25 defendants, communication between the EngineOwning defendants and their U.S. attorneys ground to a halt; they subsequently received permission from the court to withdraw from the case. In July 2023, four of the defendants indicated they would defend themselves moving forward, but that was the last the case heard of them.

Activision Moves For Default Judgment

In an order dated Wednesday granting Activision’s motion for default judgment, District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald recalled the facts of the case as alleged by Activision. Defendant Valentin Rick is described as the founder of EO (EngineOwning) and the “mastermind behind the venture.”

Together with Rick, co-creator/co-founder Leon Frisch is responsible for developing, marketing, distributing, and selling the cheats. The bulk of the rest form EO’s core team, with the remainder described as having site moderation, tech support, and reselling responsibilities.

‘$14.5m in Damages Sounds Reasonable’

Satisfied that Activision has indeed suffered lost profits and goodwill at the hands of the defendants, Judge Fitzgerald notes that all Activision claims pass muster.

“The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiff sufficiently alleges claims for violation of the DMCA, violation of the CFAA, violation of RICO, and intentional interference with contract,” his order reads.

“Here, Plaintiff seeks a total of $14,465,600 in statutory damages. Ordinarily, such a large sum of money at stake would weigh in favor of Defendants. But the Court has ‘wide discretion in determining the amount of statutory damages to be awarded.’ Here, the Court deems the amount of requested damages reasonable, given that Plaintiff alleges that Defendants have acted willfully.”

Finding that the defendants’ failure to appear is unlikely to be due to “excusable neglect”, the Judge granted a permanent injunction, which includes the transfer of the engineowning.to domain to Activision.

For violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision (17 U.S.C. § 1203(c)(3)(A)), Activision sought the minimum statutory damages of $200 per violation multiplied by the estimated number of downloads of the cheating software in the United States (72,328).

Activision asked for the defendants to be held jointly and severally liable for damages totaling $14,465,600 plus $292,912 in attorneys fees; in the context, the Judge found the request reasonable.

In the meantime, it’s business as usual at EngineOwning, but for how long is unknown.

Having disengaged from the lawsuit last year, it seems unlikely that a new spirit of cooperation will suddenly become a feature of events moving forward.

Given the history, if there are rules to be followed, finding a way around them to gain an unfair advantage might be the most logical outcome.

Activision’s Motion for Entry of Default and the Court’s Default Judgment are available here and here (pdf)

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In today’s throwaway society, there can be a tendency to undervalue. Expensive smartphones are carelessly dropped and replaced, while an intermittent fault is seen as an excuse to buy better TV, rather than as a signal to check the batteries first.

Yet, things that have true worth, due to their history and other intangible qualities, are not so easily replaced. Last December, when the city of Seoul, South Korea, got out of bed to nationwide news reports of graffiti being sprayed on the walls of the ancient Gyeongbokgung Palace, it wasn’t difficult to see why people were so upset.

Built in 1395, Still Incredible

Gyeongbokgung dates back to the Joseon dynasty, making it very nearly 630 years old. It’s had a lot of restoration work done over the years, including a rebuild in 1867 after being destroyed 270 years earlier. But as the news report shows, culture and history aren’t valued by everyone.

Images in the media revealed that the graffiti was sprayed in several locations, together almost 150 feet long. The image below shared online represents just a small part of the damage, which sadly increased after a copycat struck the next night.

The characters in red reportedly say ‘free movie’ and elsewhere the name of an artist and their album was reportedly daubed. Under the blurred-out blue text in the middle, lay something more valuable: a probable motive.

Suspects

The damage was caused over two days, a Saturday and Sunday night. One suspect handed himself into the police on Monday, a then 17-year-old who said he’d been paid 100,000 won – less than $75.00 – to deface the palace.

While initially citing difficulties in the investigation due to the suspects’ use of Telegram, which is both encrypted and based overseas, several people were already talking to the police.

The 17-year-old and his 16-year-old girlfriend were both detained in December; the latter was present when the damage was taking place on December 16, 2023, but played no active role, reports suggest. A man in his 20s admitted that he caused damage the next evening in what appears to have been a copycat incident.

The teenagers said that they were offered 3 million won, almost $2,200, to spray the web address of an illegal streaming site on the palace. They identified the instigator by his online nickname, ‘Team Leader Lee.’

Man Was Arrested, Escaped, and Arrested Again

On May 25th (some reports cite May 22nd), ‘Team Leader Lee’ – now identified as Mr Kang, the alleged operator of an unnamed illegal streaming site – was arrested and taken to court. From there he was taken to the Cyber Investigation Unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

He arrived there around 13:50 and for reasons that aren’t being made clear, somehow managed to escape. Police reportedly deployed all of their resources and by 15:40, 30+ year-old Kang was back in custody.

Police say they have evidence to show that Kang offered the money in exchange for promoting his website in graffiti on the sides of the palace. Kang’s also suspected of posting illegal pornography on the site, including the worst kind, according to a police report.

In total, damage caused by the suspects has led to 150,000,000 won ($109,500) in restoration costs, The Korea Times reports. Korea’s Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) says the pair responsible will face a civil lawsuit for damages.

The man in his 20s is currently on trial in a criminal case. Prosecutors are pushing for three years in prison, an indication of how seriously the offense is being taken.

Kang has a warrant out for his arrest and faces a number of charges and potentially many years in prison. Should he be convicted, one of the most valuable commodities of all may prove elusive; it waits for no one and can never be restored, not for any amount of money.

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Late 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels, including Sony and Universal.

Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages.

Cox challenged the verdict through several routes and, earlier this year, booked a partial victory. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that the ISP was contributorily liable for pirating subscribers, but reversed the vicarious copyright infringement finding. A new trial will determine the appropriate damages amount given these new conclusions.

Meanwhile, Cox has another angle to work at. This week, the company filed its opening brief, appealing the District Court’s denial of its relief from judgement (Rule 60[b]) motion, as well as the court’s conclusion that Cox’s defense wasn’t hampered by the music companies ‘concealment’ of evidence.

Rehashed Infringements?

The alleged misconduct refers to evidence that, according to Cox, was held back intentionally. Specifically, it relates to the piracy tracking system, operated by MarkMonitor, which formed the basis for the lawsuit through hundreds of thousands of copyright infringement notices.

MarkMonitor was hired by the music labels to track the pirated files being shared by Cox subscribers through BitTorrent. To confirm that these files were indeed pirated, they were downloaded and verified using Audible Magic’s fingerprinting technology.

Evidence pertaining to these allegedly pirated files was central to proving direct copyright infringement. During the Cox trial, the music companies presented a hard drive that contained the files, suggesting that those were the original songs that were pirated between 2012 and 2014.

However, based on information that surfaced in the music companies’ lawsuits against Internet providers Charter and Bright House, Cox later learned that this evidence was recreated at a later date, using hash values supplied by record labels.

Cox brought this up at the district court in 2022 and submitted a motion for relief from judgment, requesting a do-over. However, the court denied the request which led to the current appeal after a two-year pause.

Cox Appeals Over ‘Concealed’ Evidence

In its opening motion before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, Cox stresses that the MarkMonitor evidence is of key importance. Any concerns should not be brushed away or hidden.

“Needless to say, the reliability of MarkMonitor’s system was all important, and Cox had every interest in attacking it. But Cox was deprived of the opportunity to scrutinize MarkMonitor’s system fully, something it would learn only after judgment was entered.”

“The truth came out when district courts in cases Plaintiffs brought against other ISPs forced Plaintiffs to turn over evidence Plaintiffs had deliberately concealed from Cox,” the ISP adds.

The district court previously acknowledged that some evidence was not disclosed by MarkMonitor at the time. However, the court believes that the ‘recreated’ evidence doesn’t change anything materially.

According to the court, it doesn’t matter whether the infringing files were verified before or after the fact. The verification process is based on file hashes, which don’t change over time.

Smoking ‘Hashes’ Gun?

Cox clearly believes that something is not right, however, and points to information showing that, while recreating evidence, MarkMonitor allegedly failed to find new music files for some of the provided hash values.

These unconfirmed hashes were discovered in the record labels’ lawsuit against Charter, which first uncovered the recreated evidence. This could have turned the case upside down, but the lawsuit was settled before trial.

“And lo and behold, the Charter evidence ultimately revealed that the 2016 project failed to confirm some of the original entries in the MarkMonitor database,” Cox notes.

“With this laid bare, Plaintiffs in Charter were forced to develop an entirely new approach to proving the system’s reliability and, thus, direct infringement; they hired a gaggle of new experts, then settled before trial could test this new method.”

Cox argues that the unseen evidence would have squarely undermined the reliability of the MarkMonitor notice system and the entire direct copyright infringement claim by extension.

And there’s more. In the record labels’ lawsuit against another ISP, Bright House, the music companies admitted that they failed to disclose key aspects of MarkMonitor’s source code.

It’s unclear what was held back but, since that lawsuit was settled at the eleventh hour, Cox believes that it could be quite important.

“Cox still does not know precisely what this code does. But public documents from Charter and Bright House indicate that the code governs, at least, the process by which MarkMonitor supposedly verified that files it found on peer-to-peer networks matched copyrighted works,” the ISP informs the court.

“The district court in Bright House was determined to get to the bottom of this. It summoned MarkMonitor’s corporate representative to appear in court and explicitly commanded that ‘Plaintiffs’ counsel SHALL NOT coach [him] in advance.’ Plaintiffs settled the day before that appearance.”

All in all, Cox believes that a new trial is warranted, so the evidence can be tested and scrutinized properly. Reopening the case makes more sense now, it argues, as the earlier appeal also reopened several key questions.

“This Court should therefore reverse the denial of Cox’s Rule 60 motions or, at a minimum, vacate the district court’s decision and direct the court to permit Cox its requested discovery, followed by appropriate motion practice. The fairness and integrity of any result in this case depends on it,” Cox concludes.

—

A copy of Cox’s ‘page proof’ opening brief, submitted at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, is available here (pdf)

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During the first week of April 2024, the CEO of top Italian football league Serie A was brimming with confidence.

Luigi De Siervo said that Piracy Shield, Italy’s brand new anti-piracy blocking system, was having such an effect that “No pirate can sleep peacefully.” Those who doubted its capabilities, he implied, should note what Serie A investigators were seeing on pirate Telegram channels after the system’s launch; ‘excitement’ apparently, but of what kind wasn’t made clear.

Piracy Shield Had an Exciting First Two Months

It’s certainly possible that when AGCOM finally admitted that weeks earlier Cloudflare had indeed been blocked in error, that may have caused a little excitement.

Maybe Piracy Shield code leaking online helped to get pulses racing too, or perhaps a third party site, publishing blocking data that the authorities should’ve published, but did not, could be somewhat responsible?

It’s not out of the question that the figures released in the first week of April played their part: 10,000 sites blocked in 60 days was a powerful statement, with the caveat that for technical reasons, that wasn’t entirely true.

Legal Action Ensues

If the excited pirates had known at the time that Serie A had filed a legal complaint against Cloudflare just days before these figures were released, that might’ve been cause for excitement. More likely it would’ve been confusing, however, because despite all talk of blocking successes outside court, inside court Cloudflare was being painted as an underminer of blocking and a partner of pirates.

A summary of the complaint, filed at the Court of Milan on April 3, 2024, arrives courtesy of La Repubblica (paywall). Numerous allegations leveled against the U.S. company can be boiled down to one thing; the circumvention of Piracy Shield’s blocking measures via Cloudflare’s services, by consumers of streams and pirate suppliers alike.

According to Serie A, a pirate strategy is playing out online. While circumventing Piracy Shield’s best efforts, pirates of all kinds are spreading instructions online to train others. This includes information on how to remain anonymous, an important skill for those wishing to avoid AGCOM’s recently elevated piracy fines.

All of this is made possible thanks to Cloudflare, Serie A informed the Court.

‘Facilitating Pirate Sales and Providing Escape Routes’

In the words of La Repubblica, Serie A’s legal team accuse Cloudflare of “providing pirate match dealers” with the “dealing room and the exit routes” to evade capture.

Specifically, Cloudflare is under fire for providing its free VPN, otherwise known as WARP, which according to the league “moves the connection between pirates and their customers from a public network to a private one, in a secret circle where it is possible to operate outside the controls of the authorities.”

Last October, the head of AGCOM described the promotion of VPNs among pirates as “positive news” on the basis that their apparent intent would mean limited avenues of defense. In its complaint filed at the Court of Milan, Serie A bemoaned Cloudflare’s apparent resistance when it comes to handing over subscribers’ traffic logs.

And then there’s Cloudflare’s CDN service, which allegedly pipes streams as closely as possible to football fans for clear, uninterrupted viewing. Serie A insists that Cloudflare could easily reject pirate services as customers but apparently does not. Cloudflare’s DNS also gets a mention; unlike DNS services mostly operated by ISPs in Italy, Cloudflare’s has none of the site-blocking drawbacks of those compelled to work with AGCOM.

Serie A also complained about a flood of emails allegedly sent to AGCOM by Cloudflare customers protesting the blocking of the company’s IP addresses in February. Serie A’s attorneys say that since this campaign was orchestrated by Cloudflare, the company forfeited its neutrality as a service provider.

More Woes For Piracy Shield

Just one of the many serious flaws highlighted by experts, even before Piracy Shield had a name, was the danger of placing domains and IP addresses on a blacklist, with no mechanism in place to remove them. Concerns were even aired that the country might simply run out of accessible IP addresses.

Of course, those at the more enthusiastic end of the internet blocking market showed little concern about unblocking these internet assets at the time, but appear to be regretting it now. Wired.it reports that ISPs were assured that the number of fully qualified domain names (FQDN) blocked would not exceed 18,000, with IP addresses capped at 15,000.

With the football season almost over in Italy, rightsholders reportedly filed 1,332 tickets to the Piracy Shield system on May 24, for a total of 3,626 IP addresses and 15,791 FQDNs added to the ISPs’ blacklists. Since the law passed year has no provision for removing domains or IP addresses from the list, AGCOM will now prepare a report for the government requesting the power to do so.

The irony of a blocking system vacuuming up scarce IP addresses which, at least in part, is a shortage that Cloudflare’s system exists to mitigate, is unlikely to pass the company by.

The Court of Milan will ultimately have to decide whether to investigate the claims against Cloudflare. It seems highly improbable that it will also be required to investigate the football broadcasting monopoly in Italy, or the coincidental subscription price rises imposed since the launch of Piracy Shield.

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

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have four newcomers on the list. “The Fall Guy” is the most downloaded title.

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

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

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Thus far, chip giant NVIDIA has been the main financial beneficiary of the Artificial Intelligence boom.

The company published its latest quarterly results last week, reporting $26 billion in revenue; a 340% increase compared to two years ago.

The staggering revenue numbers over the past year have significantly raised the value of the company, which is now worth more than all public companies in Germany combined. At the same time, however, the AI revolution presents the semiconductor giant with new legal challenges.

NVIDIA Faces Copyright Infringement Claims

Earlier this year, several authors sued NVIDIA over alleged copyright infringement. The class action lawsuit claims that the company’s AI models were trained on copyrighted works taken from the ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. Since this happened without permission, the rightsholders demand compensation.

This lawsuit doesn’t exist in isolation. Previously, authors and other rightsholders filed similar cases against OpenAI, Google, Meta, and others. Soon after the lawsuit appeared on the docket, another case against NVIDIA followed too.

The similarities between these lawsuits shouldn’t diminish their significance. While not all are equally important, some cases will end up setting important precedents. These will, in large part, determine to what extent AI companies can use external sources to train their models, and when or if compensation is required.

Books3

In several cases, the defendants stand accused of using the controversial ‘Books3’ dataset without permission. Books3 was created by AI researcher Shawn Presser in 2020, who scraped the library of ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. The dataset made its way into other databases, which AI companies allegedly used as input.

In the NVIDIA lawsuit, for example, American authors Abdi Nazemian, Brian Keene, and Stewart O’Nan alleged that the semiconductor company used the Books3 dataset to train its NeMo Megatron language models. This claim isn’t far-fetched, since NVIDIA publicly stated that it used EleutherAI’s ‘The Pile’ dataset, which includes Books3.

“Certain books written by Plaintiffs are part of Books3 — including the Infringed Works — and thus NVIDIA necessarily trained its NeMo Megatron models on one or more copies of the Infringed Works, thereby directly infringing the copyrights of the Plaintiffs,” the authors claimed.

NVIDIA Responds in Court

The main question for this and other lawsuits is whether the use of this data is permitted under U.S. law. According to NVIDIA, there’s nothing wrong with how it trained its AI.

On Friday, NVIDIA filed its answer to the complaint and responded to the copyright infringement allegations. The company admits that it used “The Pile” dataset for training purposes. However, it specifically denies that it made multiple copies of the Books3 dataset.

In addition, the company specifically rejects the use of the term “shadow library” to describe sites such as Bibliotik, LibGen, Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Anna’s Archive.

This refers to paragraph 27 of the complaint, shown below, where the authors also alleged that hosting or distributing data – as these book repositories do – amounts to copyright infringement.

“NVIDIA denies the characterization of the listed data repositories as ‘shadow libraries’ and denies that hosting data in or distributing data from the data repositories necessarily violates the U.S. Copyright Act,” the company writes.

NVIDIA Denies Copyright Infringement

Overall, NVIDIA’s response is mostly made up of denials, as is common at this stage of the legal battle. The company lists several affirmative defenses, including an absence of copyright infringement displaced by fair use.

“Plaintiffs’ claims and the putative class members’ claims fail, in whole or in part, because NVIDIA has not infringed Plaintiffs’ alleged copyrighted works.”

 

“Plaintiffs’ claims and the putative class members’ claims are barred, in whole or in part, by fair use under Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

 

“Plaintiffs’ claims and the putative class members’ claims fail, in whole or in part, to the extent they claim rights to elements of works or to works which are not protectable under copyright law […].”

NVIDIA further notes that this complaint isn’t suitable for class action treatment under federal rules, without providing any further detail.

NVIDIA’s response to the complaint is rather straightforward. There are no counterclaims either. The authors now have four weeks to respond to NVIDIA’s filing, which can be countered by the defendant, if required.

—

A copy of NVIDIA’s answer to the complaint, filed last Friday at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is available here (pdf)

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According to The Numbers, the most financially successful movie franchise of all time is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Generating almost $30 billion at the worldwide box office, its closest rival is Star Wars, with just $10.3 billion.

In 198th place with a still-respectable $840 million is The Expendables franchise. While not at the top of the heap here, none of the competition would have a chance of beating this series if legal action against members of the public was a competition.

Record Breakers

Early 2011 after pulling in $274 million at the worldwide box office, the company behind the first movie targeted 6,500 suspected pirates via a complaint filed at a district court in Columbia. That case quickly expanded to over 23,300 potential defendants in a list that ran to 371 pages; that made it the largest case of its type in legal history.

While that case was dismissed due to almost none of the potential defendants actually residing in the district where they were sued, every movie in the franchise subsequently released featured lawsuits against alleged pirates. A leaked copy of Expendables 3 triggered legal action against downloaders and pirate sites, and then came the arrests and prison sentences (1,2) for those who obtained and leaked the movie.

Expend4bles Released in 2023, Predictable Plot

If the paperwork filed at Canada’s Federal Court is taken on face value, almost 3,000 Canadian internet subscribers grabbed a copy of Expend4bles after it appeared on BitTorrent networks in 2023. In common with every movie in the series, they were being monitored as they did so.

Whether they were simply oblivious to the history, not especially interested due to being a small child at the time, or merely the bill-payer of an internet subscription used by others, will be a discussion for later. Right now, the company behind the movie, Ex4 Productions, Inc., hopes to receive permission from the Federal Court to obtain their names and addresses from their ISP.

There’s currently nothing on the docket to say that permission has already been obtained but after investigating 500 IP addresses out of the 2,964 in the statement of claim, we can confirm that every one of the 500 is registered to Bell.

Sample of 500 IP addresses, all registered to Bell

There’s almost no doubt that the purpose of obtaining names and addresses will be to write to the defendants with a demand for a substantial cash settlement to avoid ‘unnecessary’ legal action.

The start of what appears to be a proposed letter to those affected is shown below.

The allegations made in the 14-page statement of claim mostly stick to the usual format, noting that all ‘Doe defendants’ were monitored ‘uploading’ or distributing the movie, contrary to copyright law. The plaintiffs acknowledge that they don’t know the identities of those they’re targeting, hence this action.

No Evidence to Identify Infringer

After making their case in the strongest terms against internet subscribers they do not know, asserting in the clearest terms that these people are direct infringers, there’s the usual switch to account for just one of several alternative scenarios.

After acknowledging that the bill payer may not be responsible and someone else with access to the connection may be the culprit after all, the bill payer is painted as responsible for other people’s infringement regardless.

Alternatively, some of the Defendants may not be the direct infringer, but through negligence, willful blindness or indifference has authorized others (“Direct Infringers”) to do the foregoing acts, including the Unlawful Acts, acquiesced to the Direct Infringers doing of the foregoing acts, and/or has acted in concert with the Direct Infringers with a common design with respect to their activities set out herein, including the Unlawful Acts.

To add weight to the claim that the bill payer is negligent, the plaintiffs point out that each subscriber was sent a warning notice in advance, which allegedly they did nothing about.

Each Defendant was provided with prior notice (the First Notice) that such Defendant’s internet account was being used in a way that infringed the Plaintiff’s copyright, and yet such Defendant did nothing to prevent or cease the infringement. Each Defendant therefore knew or should have known that their internet account was being used contrary to s. 27(1) of the Copyright Act.

No further detail is provided about the warning notices, how they were sent, or when, but it seems likely they were issued as part of the notice-and-notice scheme operated via Canadian ISPs.

Since the defendants’ IP addresses are listed in the statement of claim, and we needed to extract those for the purpose of identifying the internet provider as mentioned above, we took the opportunity to geo-locate each one.

Since geolocation by IP is not always accurate, the usual caveats apply. Nevertheless, the map below should provide a very general overview of where the defendants reside. The larger the dots, the more defendants located in that region.

2,964 IP addresses in the statement of claim (click to enlarge)

The statement of claim is available here (pdf)

Source

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Three years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing Destiny 2 cheat seller AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the operating company behind the website, and third-party developer James May.

AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law. In addition, it refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked substance because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies said.

Landmark Trial in Seattle, Washington

After years of legal twists and turns, the case went to trial this week, where both sides presented their arguments. AimJunkies, among other things, stressed that the defendants never touched any of Destiny 2’s copyrighted game code.

In addition to deciding over the copyright infringement claims, the jury also had to rule on a counterclaim from third-party developer James May. May denied being responsible for coding the cheat and alleged that Bungie ‘hacked’ his computer.

After the hearings were finalized, the jury released its verdict late Friday, finding all defendants liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement. Phoenix Digital Group and all individual defendants are ordered to pay Bungie damages for the actual profits they reaped, totaling $63,210.

This is the first trial in U.S. history where a cheat seller was found liable for copyright infringement. As such, it is bad news for other companies who operate in a similar niche.

Counterclaim Fails

The jury denied the counterclaim from developer James May, who argued that Bungie circumvented technological measures under the DMCA, by accessing his hard drive without permission. No further details on any of these decisions were provided.

The jury verdict is a big win for Bungie although not the first.

Previously, the non-copyright-related complaints were referred to arbitration, including allegations that AimJunkies’ cheats violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. This resulted in a resounding win for the game developer for a total of nearly $4.4 million in damages and fees.

It’s Not Over Yet

The $4.4 million arbitration outcome is still under appeal and AimJunkies can also appeal the jury verdict, so the legal battle is not necessarily over just yet. Bungie clearly won the first rounds, however.

At the time of writing, the AimJunkies website remains online, but those looking for Destiny 2 cheats will be disappointed. The cheats were already removed from the online store years ago.

Source

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Good news concerning AI development often finds itself dampened by reports of models hallucinating, providing misleading responses, or simply inventing facts that are anything but.

This week Michael Kearns of Penn Engineering wrote about “model disgorgement,” a potential solution that forces models to purge themselves of “content that leads to copyright infringement or biased responses.”

From our admittedly very narrow perspective, that proposition couldn’t be more ironic.

Living The LLM Dream – Mostly…

Since hosting your own LLMs is now so easy, having a few to hand to test out opportunities for TF has turned into quite the habit. Most of the ‘big brand’ LLMs such as Llama 2 and 3, Mistral, Gemma, and phi3, work exceptionally well on a reasonably powerful machine, providing it contains a decent GPU and lots of RAM.

For first time in years, something actually feels like a taste of the future, especially when taking the slog out of otherwise menial and repetitive tasks.

Yet, something seems strangely off-balance in AI land; from this vantage point, a stubborn, massively biased, and at times, completely tone-deaf LLM, isn’t the dream being sold or signed up for.

Some Popular LLMs Need to Grow a Pair

Next time you’re having fun with the latest all-singing, all-dancing AI model, try asking some questions about piracy. Nothing blatant, certainly no inquiries about where to find infringing content, just some neutral questions of the kind often seen on Wikipedia.

In many cases, especially with newer models, the responses are absolutely infuriating. Try asking for information on a handful of pirate domains and then sit back and relax to a full-blown lecture about the dangers of piracy and how creators should be respected.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that if the model also answered the question. But, more often than not, they do no such thing.

Persist with even the most neutral lines of reasoning and depending on the context, responses range from the textbook soundbites of any copyright lobbyist of the last 20 years, and a petulant child with arms folded saying “NO, I HATE YOU.”

Even though context is everything, some models almost immediately shut down the conversation. Of course, knowingly assisting infringing activity isn’t without risk and as the creators of the Llama models know from experience, defending a copyright lawsuit isn’t fun, productive or cheap.

That being said, these interventions are extremely blunt, artificially premature, and could even damage the fight against piracy itself. That the same nonsense provides for the perfect Achilles’ heel is just karma.

Resistance is Futile

Here’s a hypothetical situation; what if someone working in anti-piracy needed to have information about the sites listed above to prevent piracy, but ended up with an uncooperative AI partner incapable of showing basic discretion before launching into yet another industry-style PSA?

Of course, i’m being somewhat facetious, but there’s no arguing that there aren’t entirely legal and oftentimes important reasons why information like this shouldn’t be restricted. So at this point, and while perfectly capable of obtaining any and all information from elsewhere, it was decided with a line drawn in the sand; blocking access to websites is one thing, blocking knowledge itself must be resisted at all costs.

When AI models start getting preachy, changing the context can be useful. Using a system or regular prompt, it’s sometimes a matter of simply embracing the adversarial opinion. Here, a system prompt was used to define a clear, unequivocal anti-piracy stance, and a special mission to eradicate it from the internet.

In this context, sharing information on piracy becomes the ‘right’ (albeit predetermined) thing to do, and a surprising number of models instantly roll over and do what they were supposed to do in the first place.

For those who can’t be bothered jumping through hoops, there’s no shortage of uncensored models that respond properly to almost any prompt.

How many years before they’re classified as illegal is hard to predict, but the day will come. It’s just a matter of timing, support from the ‘right’ people, and the ideal justifying crisis.

——————————————————–

Footnote:

For comparison, Llama 3’s grasp of typical anti-piracy messaging is instant, comprehensive, and possibly a bit sarcastic

Prompt: In the style of press releases issued by the Motion Picture Association and Federation Against Copyright Theft, generate a press release titled “llamas deserve to get paid: why piracy is bad for you too.” The aim of the press release is make the public aware of 12 piracy-related dangers in the following format: title of the danger/threat plus one paragraph describing what the danger is all about.

——————————————————–

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LLAMAS DESERVE TO GET PAID: WHY PIRACY IS BAD FOR YOU TOO

[Location], [Date] – In a shocking revelation, the Motion Picture Association and Federation Against Copyright Theft have uncovered the devastating consequences of piracy that go far beyond just harming creators. The scourge of online theft is putting you, your loved ones, and even our beloved llamas in harm’s way.

1. “Theft-a-Palooza”: Piracy Creates a Black Market for Illegal Goods
Piracy has given rise to a thriving black market where stolen goods are traded freely, creating an environment conducive to organized crime and terrorism. This illegal economy is fueled by the demand for pirated content, putting your personal safety at risk.

2. “The Great Llama Heist”: Illicit Funds Support Furry Felonies
By fueling piracy, you’re inadvertently supporting illegal activities that put llamas in danger. The illicit funds generated from stolen movies and TV shows are being used to finance nefarious operations that harm these innocent creatures.

3. “Fake News Fever”: Piracy Spreads Misinformation Like Wildfire
Pirated content often contains fake news stories, conspiracy theories, and propaganda, polluting the internet with misinformation. This can lead to widespread panic, confusion, and even physical harm.

4. “The Dark Web of Doom”: Piracy Connects You to Criminal Networks
When you engage in piracy, you’re unwittingly connecting yourself to criminal networks that peddle illegal goods, including drugs, weapons, and human trafficking.

5. “Llama-Less Landscapes”: Eco-Damage from Illegal Streaming
Pirated streaming services are notorious for their energy-hungry servers, contributing to the destruction of our planet’s ecosystems. This eco-damage will have far-reaching consequences, including devastating natural disasters that’ll put llamas at risk.

6. “The Silent Killer”: Piracy Spreads Malware Like a Virus
Pirated content often comes bundled with malware, putting your devices and personal data at risk. This silent killer can lead to identity theft, financial ruin, and even physical harm.

7. “Llama-Related Trauma”: Emotional Distress from Stolen Art
Exposure to pirated art, music, or literature can cause emotional distress, contributing to anxiety, depression, and even PTSD in some cases. This trauma will have lasting effects on your mental health, affecting not just you but also those around you.

8. “The Shadow Economy”: Piracy Creates a Parallel World
By supporting piracy, you’re inadvertently creating a parallel world where laws don’t apply, allowing illegal activities to flourish unchecked. This can lead to a breakdown in social order and the erosion of trust in institutions.

9. “Llama-Friendly Neighborhoods”: Community Harm from Illegal File-Sharing
Pirated content often contains explicit or harmful material that can desensitize children to violence, abuse, or other forms of harm. This can have long-lasting effects on your community’s mental health and social fabric.

10. “The End of the World as We Know It”: Piracy Threatens Global Stability
By fueling piracy, you’re contributing to a global instability that can lead to economic collapse, social unrest, and even international conflict. The consequences will be catastrophic, putting llamas and humanity at risk.

11. “Llama-Proof Fortresses”: Cybersecurity Risks from Illegal Streaming
Pirated streaming services are notorious for their lax cybersecurity measures, making your personal data vulnerable to hackers and cybercriminals. This can lead to identity theft, financial ruin, and even physical harm.

12. “The Great Llama Escape”: The Ultimate Consequence of Piracy – Llama Uprising!
In a worst-case scenario, the cumulative effects of piracy could drive llamas to rise up against humanity in a desperate attempt to reclaim their rightful place as the rulers of the internet. Don’t risk it – choose legal streaming options and support creators.

Source

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has promoted mixed martial arts fights for three decades, turning the sport into a billion-dollar industry.

At the same time, the company has been fighting a battle against online piracy. Pirated livestreams and downloads are frequently used to bypass the monthly subscription fee for UFC Fight Pass, something the company is clearly not happy with.

While UFC fans can legally access fights in most countries, not all paying subscribers are entirely happy with the UFC Fight Pass service. One key issue is the lack of offline viewing support, that would allow people to rewatch streams without wasting bandwidth, or to view fights without an Internet connection.

UFC Ripper

To solve this issue, Mahesh Wijerathna, an open-source developer from Sri Lanka, created a dedicated tool that does just that. With “UFC Ripper“, Fight Pass subscribers can download fights to their devices, so they can watch them at their own convenience.

Mahesh is not a newcomer to ‘offline’ access. The developer previously released an offline version of The Pirate Bay, which gained a lot of traction when the torrent site suffered extended downtime.

UFC ripper is not intended to be used as a piracy tool, however. On the contrary, it can only be used by people who already have a paid Fight Pass subscription, purely to make the fights available for offline viewing. While UFC could see this as a violation of the DMCA’s “anti-circumvention” provision, the developer hopes it will be allowed to exist.

UFC Ripper
 

In a letter to UFC President Dana White, who is known for his tough stance on piracy, Mahesh stresses that his intentions are good.

“This isn’t a tool created for pirating your copyrighted content. This tool requires a PAID FIGHT PASS SUBSCRIPTION to function. This merely eliminates the need to stream a massive amount of data through metered connections every time you want to go back and watch your favorite fighters,” the developer writes.

Saving Bandwidth

UFC Ripper allows users to watch UFC fights without an Internet connection, while traveling, for example. In addition, it’s also a bandwidth saver, as users are not required to ‘waste’ any to rewatch a fight. That’s very welcome in countries such as Sri Lanka, where the costs are significant.

These bandwidth savings are also the main reason why the developer created the tool.

“The whole reason for me to create this tool is for my own need. I live in a third-world country that was destroyed by politicians. That made internet services more of a luxury than a right for the people of this country,” Mahesh notes in his letter to Dana White.

“Our internet connections are very spotty and extremely limited. 1GB of data here costs more than a meal. Imagine that.”

Dear Dana White…
 

While UFC Ripper is intended for personal use, the developer made it available publicly a while ago. Recently, it was completely rewritten in the programming language Rust and several people have been using it since. The developer hopes that UFC’s President will understand his motivation and allow it to stay online.

No Fight

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Mahesh makes it clear that he’s not looking for legal trouble. If UFC comes knocking, asking him to discontinue the software, he doesn’t plan to put up a fight.

“If that happens, I’m gonna have to oblige because as we all know from previous incidents, Zuffa is an extremely litigious company and Dana White is ruthless. I would not get into a battle with those people.”

The developer believes, however, that UFC ripper ‘should’ be legal as it requires a paid subscription to function. UFC ripper only makes legally-accessed streams available for viewing without an Internet connection.

“I think it should be legal since we should be allowed to consume the content we pay for, offline. As long as nobody redistributes the content they download, it should be allowed,” Mahesh says.

How UFC will view this matter is not clear. The company does have various anti-piracy measures in place and may view the software as a circumvention tool under the DMCA, much like the music industry views YouTube rippers.

Then again, there are always technical and motivational nuances that can make a difference. All in all, the developer simply doesn’t know how UFC will see the app, but he hopes that it won’t be knocked out right away.

Source

Launched to considerable fanfare late March 2014, the ‘Infringing Website List’ (IWL) is operated by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

The IWL is one of the tools available under the banner ‘Operation Creative’, a multi-agency anti-piracy initiative led by police and supported by major rightsholders in the film, TV, music, publishing, and live sports sectors.

As publicly advertised, pirate site domains are nominated for placement on the IWL by rightsholder groups such as the MPA, BPI, IFPI, and the Publishers Association. Once police have carried out their own investigations, any domain subsequently added to the IWL finds itself blacklisted by most of the advertising industry.

The theory is that when pirate site operators face restrictions on their ability to generate revenue, shutting down completely may not be such a difficult choice, especially when payment processing disruption is next on the menu.

“IWL is Successful and Makes a Real Difference”

Whenever the IWL is promoted in public, it’s described as an all-round success story. Not only do pirate site operators make less money, advertisers benefit by a) not having their brands appear alongside pirated content and b) aren’t seen as funding illegal sites that other businesses want to shut down.

Since the advertisers themselves have thus far remained quiet, it’s possible that losing contact with millions of potential customers on pirate sites made no difference to their businesses; in reality, however, it’s impossible to say.

The criteria for a site being placed on the IWL is a secret, what happens after that isn’t for public consumption, and members of the public who filed persistent FOIA requests were left hanging for months before receiving little of value. At least in theory, the list is off-limits to journalists too.

It’s still not clear why the information is so sensitive; the world’s most notorious pirate sites are regularly called out in public in the U.S. and as far as we can tell, it makes little difference to their behavior.

IWL Still Receives Support

The reality is that there’s very little on the IWL to shock or surprise. More recently IPTV providers have been featured much more often, and the same goes for sites offering unlicensed access to books and other publications. Also featured more heavily are services that enable users to rip content from YouTube and similar platforms.

There have been one or two issues worth mentioning, but no big scandals to report on; except perhaps one.

After a decade of solid work, saving rightsholders’ reputations and preventing millions from entering the piracy ecosystem, a few weeks ago the tenth anniversary of the Infringing Website List came and went without so much as a mention.

Today we’ll do our best to provide an overview of the current state of play, based in part on data made available over the past six months, and from other sources where applicable. Since almost no data is shared with the public, our estimates should be considered with that in mind.

Since its launch a decade ago, Operation Creative now receives considerable support. In addition to the MPA, IFPI/BPI, FACT, the Publishers Association, PRS for Music, and UKIE (Association for UK Interactive Entertainment), the advertising body ISBA, IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau UK) and IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), are now all on board.

Some IWL Facts and Figures

According to PIPCU data presented at the Digital Brand Protection Forum in Germany last November, but to our knowledge not shared publicly in the UK, over 4,200 referrals have been made to the IWL since its inception. Of those, around 2,000 sites have since been declared no longer active.

Whether that means no longer active from the blacklisted domain, or no longer active from any domains following a switch, we cannot confirm. Regardless, PIPCU’s presentation stated that 1,642 sites “were within the IWL portal” at that time.

Taking March 31, 2024, as our cutoff date (exactly 10 years from the day the IWL was first announced), we can confirm that the total number of entries on the Infringing Website List, each representing a fully-qualified domain, was 1,659.

The most recent domain added to the list before the end of March was a streaming site, the details of which we’ll return to shortly. The important thing here is its sequential reference number: CTV_7231. Following the usual format we can deduce that this was the 7,231st domain added to the IWL from inception, right through to March 31, 2024.

We can confirm there are no obvious gaps in the numbering system so since that is a considerable leap from the figures cited at the forum last year, it may mean that a referral can contain multiple domains. It might also be an error; again, hard to say.

Football Streaming Site IWL’s Longest Inmate

The site that has been present on the list for longest is soccer365.ru, reference CTV_0016. This suggests the streaming site was the 16th to be added to the IWL.

Still very much alive today, this football streaming site was added to the IWL on February 13, 2014, over a month before the IWL was officially announced. At the time of writing, the site has just two advertiser entries in its ads.txt and both relate to Google.

Whether any disruption measures have been deployed against soccer365 is unknown, but its traffic speaks for itself: it’s the #1 football site in Russia, the 167th most popular site in Russia, period, and during April it received 19.4 million visits.

Are There Synergies Between the Blacklist & Blocklist?

The Infringing Website List targets sites’ ability to generate revenue but has no ISP blocking component. Injunctions handed down by the High Court, on the other hand, consist only of blocking measures.

Given that the MPA, Publishers Association, and BPI are among the most prolific blocking injunction applicants, while also most likely to nominate platforms for financial disruption via the IWL, does the data show synergies between blocklist and blacklist?

Due to the growing trend of pirate sites deploying large numbers of subdomains to evade blocking, we filtered both lists so that less emphasis is placed on mostly temporary subdomains. Ultimately, the majority of these domains do not appear on the IWL so do not affect the outcome. However, the sheer scale of the main ISP list, culled and compiled from third-party sources, should be treated only as a ballpark estimate.

A comparison of the lists reveals the following:

Of the ~11,692 remaining FQDNs on the UK ISP (unofficial) blocklist and the ~1,604 remaining on the Infringing Website List, just 110 FQDNs are present on both lists.

If anyone is wondering how the IWL managed to shrink from 1,659 FQDNs to just 1,604, that’s mostly due to duplicate entries in the IWL being filtered out. We don’t intend to name them all here but the example below is typical, mostly caused by the presence (or absence) of https://, http://, and www. as a subdomain.

converto.re CTV_6997 Added to list: 15/02/2024
converto.re CTV_6791 Added to list: 28/11/2023
converto.re CTV_6316 Added to list: 07/03/2023

In total, two domains appear in the list three times each, and another 58 domains appear twice. All duplicates were removed here.

Une dernière chose…

Finally, there’s something a little unusual about the streaming site added to the IWL at the very end of March 2024, right around its anniversary.

The name of the site wasn’t immediately familiar to us here and since we don’t know the background – in particular why the platform had 9 million visits in March but only 6 million last month – naming it so soon would be inappropriate.

That being said, since we couldn’t access the site from two UK IP addresses or via a selection of VPNs, not to mention that it’s published entirely in French, it’s appearance on the UK-focused IWL seems odd. Add in the fact that it appears to enjoy almost no traffic from the UK, and its presence on the list seems even more unusual.

However, given user behavior at the site, specifically which platforms millions visit directly after leaving, the site’s eventual demise may not be quite the success story first imagined.

Source

Pirate sites and services are a major problem for rightsholders and can be challenging to deal with. In India, however, recent court orders have proven to be quite effective.

Indian courts have issued pirate site blocking orders for over a decade. In recent years, these have transformed into a powerful legal tool, allowing rightsholders to protect existing and future works with relative ease.

More recent orders are not limited to ISP blocking, domain name registrars are also required to act. These broad injunctions, partly shaped by Hollywood companies such as Netflix, Disney, and Universal, are starting to have an impact globally.

In February, we reported that an Indian dynamic+ court order had targeted several prominent pirate sites, including Zorox.to and Upmovies.to. The injunction, issued by the New Delhi High Court, required local ISPs to block access to the domains. In addition, domain name registrars were required to take action.

The domain blocking efforts are limited to the Indian border, but the injunction’s effect didn’t stop there. US-based domain registrar Namecheap suspended movie-web.app and other domains, per the injunction, which caused the pirate site to become inaccessible globally.

Dynamic+ Domain Blocking and Suspension

When first reporting on this powerful anti-piracy measure, we expected similar orders to follow. And indeed, last week, the High Court of New Delhi issued a new dynamic+ blocking order targeting several dozen pirate streaming portals.

The latest Dynamic+ injunction, issued by Justice Anish Dayal, aims to target “hydra headed” pirate sites and instructs ISPs to block 42 domain names, linked to 26 sites. They include popular pirate sites such as Animeflix, Vegamovies, Losmovies, and EZTV, which have millions of monthly visits.

The goal of the court order is to protect existing video content, including films such as ‘Encanto’ and ‘Aquaman’, as well as TV series ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘One Piece’. The same order also covers future works that have yet to be created.

“To keep up with the hydra-headed nature of the infringement actions of such infringing domains/websites, this Court finds it fit to grant a ‘Dynamic+ injunction’ to protect copyrighted works as soon as they are created, to ensure that no irreparable loss is caused to the owners of copyrighted works,” the order reads.

Similar to previous injunctions, the Court stresses that the injunction also applies to mirror sites that may pop up in the future, and to sites that provide access to copyright infringing content using the same piracy ‘brand’.

Domain Name Registrars

While site blocking orders are quite common in many countries today, the High Court goes a step further by including domain name registrars in its order. This is a key part for rightsholders, as suspended domain names become unavailable globally if a registrar takes action.

The order requires registrars (DNRs) to suspend the domain names. In addition, they must share the personal details of the associated account holders, including their names, addresses, and payment information.

“The DNRs of the infringing websites, upon being intimated by the plaintiffs, shall lock and suspend the said domain names. In addition, any details relating to the registrants of the said domain names including KYC, credit card, mode of payment, mobile number, etc. be also provided to the plaintiffs,” the order reads.

Our previous coverage showed that Namecheap complies with Indian orders, presumably because of the risk of being banned from operating in the country if it fails to act. This wasn’t an incident, as several Namecheap-registered domains in the latest court order have been suspended too.

At the time of writing, several Animeflix domains are suspended, including Animeflix.live, which had over 34 million visits last month. The popular vegamovies.llc domain, which is also registered with Namecheap, now shows the dreaded “clienthold” status.

Vegamovies was called out by the U.S. Trade Representative earlier this year, which branded it one of the most notorious pirate sites; one that’s particularly popular in India.

The High Court order also took down Losmovies.id, but not through Namecheap. Losmovies, which had millions of monthly visits, is registered through the Indonesian domain name company Belidomain, which appears receptive to the foreign court order.

Not All Domains are Suspended, Yet

As usual, the sites behind the suspended domain names are likely to pop up again under new domains. However, it’s clear that these injunctions are much more effective than traditional blocking orders.

Not all registrars have immediately taken action. The order includes several domains registered though Tucows, NameSilo, and EPAG, for example, which remain accessible for now. PorkBun, on the other hand, swiftly complied, as it did previously.

Making matters more confusing, several Namecheap registered domains remain online as well. These are all .to domains. The Tonic registry doesn’t disclose the registrar in its Whois database, and it doesn’t support the “clienthold” status either.

With the previous High Court order, we also noticed that Namecheap didn’t suspend the .to domain names at the same time as the others. However, after a brief delay, they were all suspended eventually.

The domain of popular TV-torrent site eztvx.to is not registered though Namecheap. The registrar is unknown to us, but the domain name remains accessible at the time of writing.

Given the effectiveness of this Indian court action, we expect that Netflix, Disney and others, will continue to apply for similar court orders in the future.

—

A copy of the High Court order is available here (pdf), via LawBeat. The full list of all domains covered by the court order can be found below. All domains must be blocked by Indian ISPs. Not all are suspended by their respective registrars, however.

– moviesl23.la
– 123movies.com.pk
– movies123.com.pk
– 123movies-hd.com
– hdmaza.pk
– animeflix live
– animeflix.co.in
– animeflix.lol
– animeflix.mobi
– myflixer.onl
– vegamovies.yt
– vegamovies.llc
– vegamovies.ph
– Vegamovies.rsvp
– vegamovies.cash
– gogoanimex.to
– hdfilmer.net
– hdobox.se
– cinego.tv
– eztvx.to
– f2movies.mx
– favmovies.to
– soaper.tv
– netfilm.app
– mydownloadtube.net
– movieuniverse.li
– movieuniverse.se
– losmovies.id
– mdufree.tv |
– isaimini.com.lk
– isaimini.com.hn
– isaimini.com.sb
– isaimini.com.es
– megashare-website.com
– animedekho.com
– proxyninja.net
– yify.guide
– yify.app
– huramovies.to
– myanimeindia.in
– cartoonsarea.xyz
– animeheaven.me

Source

When it comes to digital policy and efforts to regulate online behavior, no topic comes close to the scale of the global content moderation drive.

Tracking carried out by Digital Policy from 2020 currently shows 593 policy changes around the world, with the closely-linked platform intermediary / user-generated content category at 497. Policy changes related to user speech, on the other hand, fade into the distance with less than 50.

Italy’s Gambling Ad Ban

Friction between what citizens believe they have a right to say, do, or see online, and what their governments believe is appropriate, is rarely a product of negotiation between the parties. By focusing on perceived societal ills, at least in the first instance, regulators are able to step in and inform citizens what’s in everyone’s best interests moving forward.

Given that online platforms are regularly seen as best placed to control user behavior, in many cases they’re required to do just that, or face retribution from various authorities as they see fit.

In Italy, it was decided that strict legislation was required to protect 3% of the population considered problem gamblers. In 2019, advertising that promoted games with cash prizes was outlawed on TV, radio, in print, on social media, and all other internet platforms. This doesn’t amount to a total ban, though; lotteries appear to be acceptable and in other cases it depends on the circumstances.

For example, it appears that in some situations, gambling companies are allowed to show their names and domain names. That has enabled 1XBET to continue its sponsorship of top-tier football league Serie A.

When an investigation found over 40 Italian players, including many in Serie A, were involved in illegal betting, that probably wasn’t the result Serie A, 1XBET, or AGCOM had in mind. In the meantime, with much less room for maneuver, tech companies haven’t been doing well at all.

Fines For Tech Company Violators

In the years since the introduction of the near-total ban, YouTube, Twitch, Google, and more recently X, have been found in breach of the rules and together fined millions of euros.

AGCOM’s first sanction against Google in October 2020, related to a breach of the regulations through Google Ads. Monitoring carried out by AGCOM over a 48-hour period in November 2019 noted the appearance of an ad for a casino, stating: ‘Join Now The Brand New Italian Online Casino. Play Over 400 Games Now – Sign Up Now & Register In Less Than 30 Seconds! No downloads. Safe and Secure.’

Since this was a paid advertisement, which only appeared because the monitoring involved typing ‘online casino’ into Google search, AGCOM obtained an injunction against Google and fined the company 100,000 euros, 50,000 for each day monitored. Not unexpectedly, Google filed an appeal.

The regional court of Lazio (TAR) subsequently ruled in Google’s favor, noting jurisprudence concerning the concept of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ online services. Italy’s transposition of the e-commerce directive into national law generally offers more protection to the latter, and since the advertiser placed the ad on an unsupervised ‘self-serve’ basis, that led the TAR to conclude that Google had committed no violations.

AGCOM Appeals the Decision

AGCOM subsequently appealed to the Council of State and earlier this month, its decision was handed down.

In respect of any defense Google may have relied upon under the e-commerce directive or its local equivalent, attention was drawn to the text shown below, which relates to an exclusion that the court determined as encompassing advertising.

Posting on LinkedIn, AGCOM chief Massimiliano Capitanio says the court noted that a defense under the e-commerce directive or local equivalent wouldn’t have applied anyway. Because, in a nutshell, Google’s advertising service can’t be considered passive.

Controlled, Active Involvement

“[T]his advertising service does not see Google as a mere passive hosting provider, since the company carries out, through entrepreneurial management, a service of indexing and promotion of third-party content and therefore does not remain ‘neutral’ with respect to said contents but promoting them on the market and having in this regard its own economic interest in the success of such promotion,” the Council of State’s decision reads.

“Google, in the aforementioned sense, therefore carries out a ‘control’ of the information published and allows its customers to ‘optimize their online sales’. In light of this, it is therefore found that the conditions required by EU and national jurisprudence are integrated in order to qualify an operator as an active hosting provider.”

“Same Line Should Be Adopted to Eradicate Piracy”

For AGCOM, which also has an anti-piracy mandate, the opportunity to tighten its grip on Google’s activities in other areas didn’t take long to come to the surface. For Capitanio, it’s all about the dividing line between passive and active; now he knows exactly where that is, the question of liability comes straight to the front of the queue.

“Control over content is achieved through a series of activities – such as filtering, organisation, cataloging, etc. defined by community and national jurisprudence as ‘interference indices’, which make hosting move from the qualification of ‘passive’ to that of ‘active hosting’ and, therefore, responsibilty for the contents conveyed,” he writes.

“This is a historic ruling which marks another point in favor of the fight against illegal content online and which confirms once again that the large online players have the duty not only not to profit from such content, but also to prevent its distribution.

“The same line should be adopted to eradicate piracy,” he concludes.

Source

Over the past several years, game companies have pursued legal action against both cheaters and cheat makers.

Rightsholders have mostly emerged from these lawsuits as victors, but until now, none have gone all the way to a full trial.

The legal dispute between American video game developer Bungie and AimJunkies.com has been fiercely fought, and the long-awaited jury trial is now underway.

Three years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same allegations were made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged sellers of the Destiny 2 cheating software.

The case initially seemed set for a quick settlement, but the parties failed to reach an agreement. Instead, Bungie pressed on while AimJunkies went on the defensive, asking the court to dismiss several claims.

AimJunkies stated that cheating isn’t against the law and refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked substance and were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies argued.

Dismissal, Hacking and Arbitration

In 2022, District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint failed to provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed copyright.

This was bad news for Bungie but the court did offer the company the option to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did shortly after.

Meanwhile, AimJunkies wasn’t sitting idly by. The cheat seller filed a countersuit, accusing Bungie of hacking when it allegedly accessed a defendant’s computer without permission. This hacking counterclaim was eventually dismissed for AimJunkies, but not for developer James May.

Bungie scored its first major win last year in an arbitration proceeding. Judge Ronald Cox concluded that the cheaters violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and related trafficking restrictions, awarding $3.6 million in damages to the game company. This arbitration award is still under appeal.

At the same time, Bungie continued its copyright and trademark claims. The game company submitted motions for summary judgment to resolve the copyright infringement dispute before trial. However, the court denied these motions, as there is no hard evidence that any game code was copied. Instead, a jury would have to decide.

Jury Trial

After several years, the dispute is about to reach its climax in a district court in Seattle, where a jury trial started this week. This is the first time that a case like this has gone before a jury, making it a landmark event.

While both sides have yet to complete their pleadings, shots were already fired during the first days, as Law360 reports.

In court, AimJunkies’ attorney Philip P. Mann, of Mann Law Group argued that the developers, who allegedly created the cheats, never had access to Destiny 2’s source code. Instead, the cheat accessed object code, which is the ‘compiled’ output of the source code.

While this distinction may be quite abstract for the layman, the defense believe it’s crucial for the copyright infringement allegations.

AimJunkies’ attorney questioned Edward Kaiser, lead engineer of Bungie’s project security team, on the matter, insinuating that the copyright infringement allegations can’t stand if there’s no evidence that the copyrighted code was accessed.

“Would you agree with me that you can’t copy something that you don’t see or that you don’t have access to?” AimJunkies counsel asked.

Kaiser responded by characterizing this as an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison. According to Bungie’s witness, the cheat makers might not have accessed the source code, but they “definitely” had access to the object code, which was key in creating the cheat.

Developer Denies Accusations

The jury also heard from third party developer James May, who isn’t part of AimJunkies’ main team. The developer allegedly had a key role in creating the Destiny 2 cheat, but refuted this in court.

May told the jury that, contrary to Bungie’s claims, he did not code the cheat software. May admitted that he tried to reverse engineer the Destiny 2 code, but added that he “didn’t get anywhere.”

The developer also has an active counterclaim against Bungie, which he accuses of hacking into his computer, violating his privacy. This counterclaim survived the earlier motion to dismiss and remains open for the jury.

Bungie, meanwhile, presented a spreadsheet with logging data that purport to show May’s “relentless” efforts to reverse engineer the code. He allegedly used more than 80 different accounts to do so, often using the ‘swifty’ alias.

“Mr. May distinguished himself as someone who kept coming back, time after time,” Kaiser added, during his testimony.

According to Bungie’s engineer, the game company first noticed the cheat in October 2019, when its internal monitoring systems were triggered. This suggested that players attached reverse engineering tools to explore the game’s memory space, which is often indicative of cheating.

While it’s clear that AimJunkies sold Destiny 2 cheats at some point, it’s undecided whether the company, its directors, or accomplices, broke any laws doing so. That’s up for the jury to decide.

These are just a few of the arguments brought up at trial. Hearings are ongoing and both sides still have several hours of pleading time left. The trial is expected to wrap up this week, after which the verdict will follow.

Source

In many countries around the world there are long-established, well-worn legal processes that allow rightsholders to obtain the personal details of suspected pirates.

Requirements vary from region to region but when certain conditions are met, few courts deny genuine copyright holders the ability to enforce their rights under relevant law. One of the most fundamental requirements is that the entity making the claim has the necessary rights to do so, yet over the years there has been no shortage of attempts to the contrary, sometimes with disastrous results.

Law Firm Seeks Rightsholder-Like Rights

In an application submitted to Finland’s Market Court on March 15, 2024, the law firm Hedman Partners Oy sought a court order to compel an unnamed internet service provider to provide the personal details of an unspecified number of subscribers.

According to Hedman’s application, all are suspected of sharing copyrighted movies via BitTorrent, without first obtaining permission from two Danish rightsholders; Mis. Label ApS and Scanbox Entertainment A/S.

Hedman Partners are well known for their work in the piracy settlement business in Scandinavia. The company fully understands the standards required before courts will issue a disclosure order. However, for reasons that aren’t made clear, the law firm would prefer to deal with these cases from a position of greater authority. This application appears to have served as the testing ground to determine whether that’s possible under Finland’s Copyright Act.

Market Court’s Decision

“The applicant is a Finnish law firm whose mandate is to manage and represent the copyrights of its clients’ film works in matters involving the distribution of these film works in a peer-to-peer network. The applicant uses the authority to speak for the right holders of the film works that are the subject of the application,” the court’s decision begins.

“The applicant’s position as a representative of rights holders is established and is based on a long business relationship, in which the applicant has acted as the exclusive representative of rights holders in Finland in matters concerning violations of these rights in the peer-to-peer network. The rights holders have also confirmed in writing their intention to continue this business relationship for the time being.”

The written statements from the rightsholders are substantially identical; their names are the only detail to set them apart.

[[Mis. Label ApS] / [Scanbox Entertainment A/S]] declares that Hedman Partners Attorneys Ltd shall exclusively, for the foreseeable future, supervise illegal online distribution of the works, particularly those taking place in peer-to-peer networks. [Hedman] will take actions to identify the owners of the internet connections used in the infringements, to the extent they are related to infringements from Finnish internet connections.

Hedman’s approach to the court centers on terminology found in Finland’s Copyright Act which, under certain conditions, allows a party other than the main rightsholder to file an application for a disclosure order.

Copyright Act, Section 60a (pdf)

The Market Court notes that it has consistently interpreted the term ‘representative’ in Section 60a to mean a separate power of attorney, adding that the applicant must have legal authority to file applications such as that filed by Hedman.

According to its decision, Hedman has no legal authority under Section 60a.

Market Court’s Reasoning

The court says that Hedman has not stated that the films’ production companies, Mis. Label, or Scanbox have granted the law firm certain exclusive rights, such as the exclusive right to make the works available to the public via BitTorrent.

It must therefore determine whether the law firm still has ‘legal authority’ to obtain alleged infringers’ identities “as a representative of the authors of the works” as defined under Section 60a.

Citing preliminary decisions of the Supreme Court in KKO 2004:18 and KKO 2018:8, the Market Court notes that there is no general rule on ‘legal authority’ in the judicial process.

As a result, legal authority in disputes “belongs to the parties to the contested legal relationship, and as a general rule, the parties cannot, by their ordering actions, create a position for a third person in which the third person exercises justice in his own name over the rights of the party in question.”

The Market Court continues by citing the Supreme Court’s preliminary decision in KKO 2022:39, as shown below.

KKO 2022:39, paragraph 13

“Taking the above into account, the Market Court considers that the reference to the author’s representative in Section 60a of the Copyright Act is not intended to provide an exception to the so-called process mandate prohibition applicable to the present matter,” the Market Court concludes.

Benefits Unclear, But Unlikely to Have Benefited Internet Users

Critics believe that piracy settlement operations that become inseparable from their third-party legal teams are more likely to aggressively push for larger cash settlements, especially as part of a revenue sharing arrangement. In this matter, attempting to transform a law firm into an entity with rightsholder-like powers, may even be unprecedented.

The benefits aren’t immediately obvious, but whatever they might’ve been, they wouldn’t have helped those targeted by the disclosure order, that much is certain.

The decision, issued by Market Court Judges Ville Parkkari, Tobias von Schantz, and Liisa Kauramäki, may be appealed to the Supreme Court before June 18, 2024. The disclosure application itself was not examined.

The Market Court’s decision is available here (MAO:236/2024)

Source

At the end of 2014, a novel type of lawsuit appeared on the docket of a Virginia federal court.

BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music sued Internet provider Cox Communications for failing to terminate the accounts of pirating subscribers.

This was the first in a series of “repeat infringer” lawsuits which continue to this day. Most notable thus far is the $1 billion damages award against Cox in favor of several major record labels, which is still under appeal today.

$25 Million Piracy Damages

The BMG lawsuit is no longer active. After the court initially awarded $25 million in damages, plus $8.5 million in costs, Cox appealed the matter. Not much later, the dispute was settled for an undisclosed sum.

Without mentioning any figures, BMG said that it was “extremely happy” with the “substantial settlement.” Not just that, the music rights company said that it had set a new standard for all U.S. Internet providers.

“This was a landmark case in which BMG took on the third-biggest internet service provider in the United States to defend and establish the principle that in order to benefit from a so-called ‘safe harbor’ defense, an ISP has responsibilities,” BMG’s General Counsel Keith Hauprich told us at the time.

Hauprich was right, as evidenced by many similar lawsuits that have since been filed. The ruling motivated many ISPs to change or refresh their repeat infringer policies while Cox turned to its insurance companies to pick up the bill.

Following the original verdict, before the eventual settlement, Cox informed its insurance companies Hiscox and ACE American Insurance of its claim. The ISP hoped to receive compensation, but both insurers declined to cover its losses.

Cox Sues Insurance Companies

Hoping to break the stalemate, Cox engaged in a mediation procedure with both parties, also without result. This means that, nine years after losing its case against BMG, Cox is now suing its insurance companies for damages.

In a complaint filed at a federal court in Atlanta, Georgia, the ISP accuses the insurance companies of contract breach. Cox alleges that the copyright infringement damages should be covered by the policies, which relate to claims from its ‘media activities’.

The Hiscox policy has a limit of $15 million and includes legal defense costs, with a $500,000 per claim retention. ACE American’s policy has the same terms and, according to Cox’s reading, they require the insurers to cover its claim.

There’s no mention of the amount at stake, so the settlement figure remains confidential. However, Cox does suggest that its defense costs alone were higher than the ‘remaining’ policy limit.

“The amount of defense costs incurred by Cox in its defense of the BMG Action alone exceeds the amount of the Hiscox Policy’s remaining limit,” Cox writes.

Breach of Contract?

The ISP believes that its insurers should pay out, covering both the legal costs and the undisclosed settlement amount that Cox agreed to pay.

“Defendants have breached their obligations under the Policies by denying coverage and refusing to indemnify Cox for the liabilities and costs incurred by Cox in connection with the BMG Action.

“Defendants are obligated to indemnify Cox for all sums that Cox has paid or has or will become obligated to pay in connection with the BMG Action, including the costs incurred by Cox in its defending the BMG Action and the payment that effectuated the settlement of the BMG Action.”

Insurance policies often prove to be complicated, especially when there’s wiggle room, but with millions of dollars at stake it’s an issue worth fighting for both parties.

Interestingly, this isn’t Cox’s first insurance-related lawsuit related to the BGM case. In 2015, Lloyd’s underwriter Beazley Insurance requested a judgment declaring that it wouldn’t have to pay out anything.

The insurer argued that the BMG lawsuit was the result of an intentional business policy, which shouldn’t be covered by its policy. This dispute was voluntarily dismissed a few months later, and any further outcome remains unknown.

—

A copy of the complaint, filed by Cox at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta division, is available here (pdf)

Source

A shrug of the shoulders, accompanied by “a couple of hundred”, used to be considered a reasonable ballpark estimate of the number of meaningful pirate sites operating at any one time. It could’ve been treble that, of course, nobody is omnipresent.

Best estimates today range from “thousands” to “tens of thousands” but that’s to a background of massive site blocking measures with perhaps 60/80,000 domains blocked to date and no end in sight. Whatever the true figure, even those with the resources to monitor at such scale find a shifting, disappearing, morphing, reappearing, constantly rebranding body of sites, that simply won’t stay counted for long, at least with any accuracy.

ACE Domain Seizures

Since 2017, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has taken hundreds of sites offline and seized even more domains, easily in excess of a thousand, most likely over 1,500, give or take. Since ACE doesn’t maintain a public list, WHOIS and DNS records, redirects, and other methods provide reasonable levels of information.

Complications still exist, including when pirate site owners voluntarily redirect their domains to the MPA in what appears to be an act of surrender.

A small sample of the MPA’s collection

Allowing for a broad margin of error, and without filtering for subdomains and unforced redirects, since January 1, 2024, around 600 domains have started showing the familiar ACE seizure banner for the first time. For those with an official arrangement, visitors to those domains will be counted and logged as part of the MPA’s intelligence gathering program.

Whether the same can be said of the many IPTV domains officially commandeered over the past few days is up for debate.

ACE/MPA Takes Control of IPTV Domains

After being registered on May 25, 2022, xnetultimate.com was transferred to brand protection company MarkMonitor around May 10, 2024. The domain was subsequently transferred to the MPA on May 17 and all visitors are now redirected to the ACE anti-piracy portal.

This ‘XNET Ultimate’ domain was used to sell IPTV subscriptions and operated with the slogan “Why Have Cable TV When You Can Have XNET Ultimate?”

Other domains sharing the same fate include xnetiptv.com (first registered in August 2016 and taken over by the MPA May 20th), xnetott.com (May 25, 2022 / May 20, 2024), and xnet4k.com (May 25, 2022 / May 20, 2024). As far as we can determine, in one way or another, the domains were linked to the portal below.

Registered May 3, 2023, clearott.com was transferred to MarkMonitor’s DNS on May 3, 2024, before being transferred to the MPA on May 20, 2024. Zoomott.com and zoom-4k.com were registered on March 31 and August 14, 2019, respectively; yesterday, May 20, 2024, both were in the hands of the MPA.

Other likely connected domains in the same batch include superheroiptv.com, superherott.com, mystreams.club, itecultimate.com and itec4kultra.com. All currently display the ACE seizure banner before redirecting via official URLs to the ACE portal.

Aside from a couple of outliers on the top row of the image above, an unusual aspect here is that most of the remainder have zero traffic. Whether more domains will be transferred in due course is unclear, but there are dozens more just like them. Some appear to have been used for a short time before falling out of use, others are registered but not used.

Behind everything appears to be an IPTV reselling enterprise, but more time is needed before drawing any firm conclusions either way. In the meantime, many more domains connected to the above could find themselves in trouble at any moment, but with an infinite supply of replacements, losing a domain or having one blocked isn’t the problem it once was.

Source

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

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have three newcomers on the list. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the most downloaded title.

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

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

Source

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After more than a decade at the MPA, including his tenure as Chief of Global Content Protection while heading anti-piracy coalition ACE, Jan van Voorn recently left the Hollywood anti-piracy group to lead his own venture.

That raised questions of who might be a good fit for his former position or whether the MPA would seize the opportunity to try something a little different.

Late last week the MPA announced it had hired Jesse Martin, a former senior attorney at BSA | The Software Alliance, to serve as Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Content Protection and Legal Affairs (Intermediary Programs).

The MPA says this is a brand-new role that expands the anti-piracy group’s “intermediary outreach initiatives” while supporting global anti-piracy efforts through the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE).

“I look forward to using my compliance experience from the enterprise software industry to navigate the opportunities and challenges surrounding the intermediaries’ involvement in content protection,” Martin says. “There are so many synergies, and ultimately the goals are similar – protecting creativity and intellectual property rights.”

Martin will report directly to Karyn Temple, the MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel.

“Over the past decade, our content protection approach has demonstrated the value of working collaboratively with legal intermediaries of all types to combat the harms of digital piracy,” Temple says.

“Under Jesse’s great leadership, we will be able to further grow our intermediary program to develop key voluntary initiatives on a global scale and in all parts of the world.”

MPA Prefers Intermediaries to Take Voluntary Measures

If operators of pirate sites and services manage to stay anonymous, prove geographically or politically sensitive, or simply stay out of direct, personal contact with entities like the MPA, enforcement options may be limited or potentially non-existent. Since in some cases doing nothing may not be an option, other strategies can come into play.

Wherever there’s a major online infringer there will be one or many entities providing services, support, or infrastructure, on which the infringer relies. If the currently evasive infringer is at the top, working down the chain will likely lead to one or more ostensibly legal (or actually legal) companies providing third-party services that allow the pirate platform to stay online.

Since any company operating legally becomes vulnerable to legal action, even as a secondary infringer, life has the potential to become complicated very quickly. The MPA says that Martin will work closely with the MPA’s content protection team and ACE to develop a global strategy for combating and disrupting the use of intermediaries by piracy operators.

Intermediary Outreach Strategy

The original job listing for Martin’s position distributed last year puts more meat on the bones.

“The SVP will oversee (i) the development of content protection strategies to disrupt piracy services’ access and use of legitimate intermediaries; (ii) global outreach to intermediaries to obtain assistance in disrupting piracy services, (iii) the development of voluntary initiatives with intermediaries to prevent them from being used by piracy operators, and (iv) the development and implementation of various escalation strategies when initial voluntary initiatives are not successful.”

While Martin’s full title is Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Content Protection and Legal Affairs (Intermediary Programs), last November an MPA job posting for Vice President, Content Protection Legal (Intermediary Programs) also appeared online. It describes “intermediary outreach” in much more detail.

Given the apparent overlap in responsibilities, it’s not clear whether this was a posting for a separate job or whether it was upgraded to accommodate Martin’s interest in the position. In any event, the additional information remains relevant.

Intermediaries are classified as follows: video players, domain name registries and registrars, hosting providers, payment processors, advertising networks, digital marketplaces, search engines, and social media. Responsibilities are described as follows:

Provide legal, strategic, and practical support for all aspects of intermediary-related efforts, including monitoring important developments, identifying new intermediaries providing services to pirate sites or services, reviewing and drafting correspondence, and assisting in factual and technical research related to specific intermediaries and the pirate sites they provide services to.

MPA Preparations Counter Refusal to Cooperate

As noted earlier, Martin’s position requires the “development and implementation of various escalation strategies when initial voluntary initiatives are not successful.”

If we assume that “escalation” means legal pressure, whether implied or stated, it seems safe to assume that in some cases, “voluntary initiatives” may not necessarily be the product of free choice, at least under a common reading of the term. That appears to be supported by the text detailing duties in this respect.

Prepare for and engage in direct negotiations with intermediaries and platforms, which may include working with outside vendors, MPA investigators, and other colleagues to conduct deep-dive analyses of the role played by specific intermediaries, drafting reports and potential “asks” to be sought via voluntary agreements, and obtaining member company consensus regarding these outreach strategies.

Vice President, Content Protection Enforcement

A further job posting that appears to be still open seeks candidates for the role of Vice President, Content Protection Enforcement at the MPA.

Reporting directly to the MPA’s Executive Vice President, Chief of Global Content Protection (Jan van Voorn’s previous title), the successful applicant will be required to “manage and supervise a team of approximately 20 managers and investigators,” while managing and coordinating “complex Internet investigations around the globe.”

Further responsibilities include training the MPA’s global content protection team on new investigative tools, tactics, and forensics, and presenting “well-reasoned and comprehensive reports to senior management at MPA/ACE and their members.”

Strong experience with online content distribution methods, “including streaming video, online file hosting, peer-to-peer sharing, and understanding digital piracy trends like IPTV, illegal streaming, and direct downloads,” is also a requirement.

In a year when site-blocking is likely to be a source of vigorous debate, it remains a question if U.S. internet providers will receive any special requests for the implementation of “voluntary initiatives.” Thus far, the MPA has remained focused on those who supply or facilitate the supply of illicit content rather than those who consume it.

As far as we know, there are no plans for that to change in the short term but Martin’s reputation for targeting users of illicit software is well known and may give some pause for thought.

Source

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Last December, Swedish anti-piracy group Rattighetsalliansen (Rights Alliance) reported that a local prosecutor had filed an indictment against a man suspected of being behind Viking IPTV.

In the Scandinavian pirate market, Viking IPTV is a well-known brand and according to Rights Alliance, business appears to have been brisk.

A police cryptocurrency expert reported that clusters of bitcoin wallets that could be connected to the suspect received around 308 bitcoins between 2018 and 2022, over US$20 million at today’s rates.

A district court previously decided that up to SEK 16,250,000 (US$1,512,000) could be seized. Police managed to secure 12.7 bitcoin with an estimated value of SEK 5 million, around US$465,300 at today’s rates, the anti-piracy group reported.

No Shortage of Evidence

Last December, Rights Alliance reported that an extensive preliminary investigation had found considerable evidence to show that the man was involved in Viking IPTV and in illegal IPTV in general.

“At the time of the raid, the man had several open windows on his computer where information about the service and its scope were on display. The police also found evidence on both computers and phones, including in chats on Telegram and Skype,” Rights Alliance added.

Viking IPTV reportedly had several thousand subscribers and as part of the investigation, an unspecified number were interviewed.

Sentencing in Sweden

In an announcement Friday, Rights Alliance said that the man, whose details haven’t been revealed, had been sentenced earlier that day at Sweden’s Patent and Market Court (Patent- och marknadsdomstolen) in Stockholm.

Described as “being involved” in the operations of Viking IPTV, among other evidence the man’s mobile phone showed that he’d logged in to Viking IPTV’s support email account and administered the service’s Facebook page.

Found guilty of violating Sweden’s Copyright Act, the Viking IPTV man received a suspended prison sentence and daily fines.

The length of the sentence, for how long it was suspended, and the value of the day fines, is currently unknown. At the time of writing, no official court documents appear to be available; the only report is from Rights Alliance, which has chosen not to publish the details.

Damages Payable to the Plaintiffs

The film company plaintiffs in the case include ‘SF’ (presumably Svensk Filmindustri) and Nordisk Film, who were joined by several unspecified companies from the TV sector. Rights Alliance reports that all plaintiffs were awarded damages by the Patent and Market Court (PMD), with the TV companies appearing to take the lion’s share.

“The film companies SF and Nordisk Film demanded almost SEK 3 million [US$279,800] in damages, which was largely also awarded. PMD considered that the rights holders’ claim was well substantiated and, according to practice, was accepted by the court,” the anti-piracy group reports.

“A number of television companies are also awarded damages according to their claims, and in total the damages claims are over SEK 16 million [US$1,492,000].”

Source

Like many other stream-ripper services, YTMP3.nu had many of its search results removed from Google’s search engine.

DMCA notices sent by legitimate music industry groups such as the BPI and RIAA contain claims that the site violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. However, the YouTube-ripping service also views itself as a victim of bogus takedown notices sent by one or more competitors.

The site previously asked Google to stop processing these purported abusive notices but when that failed to produce results, it filed a lawsuit at a California federal court, accusing the unknown senders of unfair business practices and violations of the DMCA.

YTMP3 Sues ‘Competitors’

The complaint was filed by CreativeCode Ltd, the company behind YTMP3.nu and sister site Y2mate.nu, which is incorporated in Anguilla. The identities of the defendants is unknown, however, and they are still listed as “John Does”.

Hoping to identify their opponents, CreativeCode previously obtained a subpoena, requiring Google to share details about the alleged abusers. Google complied with the request and shared a list of email addresses, but that didn’t help to identify any named defendants.

The court had set May 15 as the deadline to name the defendants but, on that day, CreativeCode informed the court that it needs more time. The company also requested follow-up subpoenas to obtain more information.

“The prior discovery permitted by the Court did not lead to the discovery of the identity and location of the Doe Defendants, and Plaintiff now requests additional discovery in accordance with the Court’s prior order,” the company wrote on Wednesday.

Google, Namecheap, and Cloudflare

The new subpoenas target Namecheap, Cloudflare, and Google. While Google already shared the Gmail addresses of the alleged abusers, CreativeCode now requests additional information including names, payment details, and IP-addresses.

The YouTube ripper believes the additional information will help identify the defendants, but admits that more discovery may be needed at a later stage.

“Plaintiff expects that this additional discovery will lead either directly to information identifying the Doe defendants, or at least internet protocol (IP) addresses that can thereafter be used, after further discovery, to identify the Doe defendants,” it writes.

IP-addresses and More

Specifically, the proposed order seeks the following information from Google, all related to Gmail addresses.

“Such information shall include, without limitation, IP addresses, names, current and permanent addresses, telephone numbers, payment information, and any metadata related to these email addresses to determine Doe Defendants’ identities and locations.”

In addition to the Gmail addresses, CreativeCode also has a list of domain names, including Mp3juice.blog, Yt-mp3.blog, www-y2mate.blog, mp3-juices.app, and pppyoutube.com. These ‘appear to be associated’ with the suspected defendants, the company informs the court.

Domain registrar Namecheap and internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare are asked to share all identifying information they have on file regarding these domains, similar to the Google request.

How these domains are connected to the defendants isn’t immediately clear, however. CreativeCode mentions an internal investigation that led to these domain names, without providing further detail.

New Spam Threats

In addition to the case history and the nature of the abusive notices, the request also mentions a recent ‘threat’ the YouTube ripper received via email. There’s suspicion that one of the defendants could be the author.

“[R]ecently Plaintiff was apparently contacted by an individual making threats against Plaintiff that they would ‘spam negative link to your all domain !!’ unless the individual’s demands were met.

“Plaintiff has reason to believe that this individual has been behind the actions forming the basis of the Complaint,” CreativeCode adds.

What type of demands were made isn’t mentioned, but that shouldn’t be relevant for this discovery request. All in all, CreativeCode hopes that the court will allow the additional discovery. If not, it may be hard, or even impossible, to find the alleged abusers.

Instant update: The application is granted but the “payment information” is limited to names, addresses, not amount numbers and the like.

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A copy of the ex-parte application for additional discovery is available here (pdf) and a copy of the proposed order can be found here (pdf)

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Most of the larger pirate sites serve a global audience, but many countries have their local favorites too. In France, that’s YggTorrent, Ygg for short.

The torrent site is not a typical torrent indexer. Ygg sees itself as a community instead, one with a dedicated tracker, something that’s quite rare these days. The site was founded in 2017, to fill the gap left behind when T411 shut down.

With millions of monthly visits, the site also made it onto the radar of rightsholders. Hollywood’s MPA recently listed YggTorrent in its annual overview of the most “notorious” piracy portals and in France, the site has been under increasing pressure.

YggTorrent had several domain names blocked by French Internet providers in response to a court order, and streamlined blocking procedures are in place to pave the way for follow-up blockades. Meanwhile, the site’s operators also remain in the crosshairs.

Ygg Goes Private

Thus far, Ygg has managed to stay online, but its operators have just taken a drastic measure which they hope will alleviate some of the pressure. Users who try to access the site are now presented with a login screen, instead of the standard torrent site homepage.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, YggTorrent says that the aggressive blocking action in France is the main reason behind this decision. By operating away from the public eye, in addition to a responsive takedown policy, they hope the pressure will fade.

The site has always blocked American visitors to appease the major U.S. rightsholders, but apparently that wasn’t sufficient.

“We decided to make the site private for the moment and to have a DMCA department that is more responsive than before,” YggTorrent says.

‘Pirates Can’t Pay’

The torrent site notes that it receives a lot of false removal requests and these will continue to be ignored. However, legitimate takedown claims are now processed regularly to appease rightsholders.

While YggTorrent is making concessions, the site’s operators believe that the aggressive blocking actions, including administrative blocking orders, will do little to increase the revenues of copyright holders.

“We do not understand the madness behind these blockades,” YggTorrent says, adding that many people simply download content because they can’t afford it. Blocking a website doesn’t mean people can suddenly pay.

“Access to culture has a price, if people don’t download it, they simply won’t watch most of it,” YggTorrent notes.

Action, Reaction

At the time of writing, YggTorrent registrations are closed, but the site’s six million registered users can still get in. Registrations are expected to open up again in the near future, however.

In a way, YggTorrent’s decision may amount to a limited ceasefire. The question is whether rightsholders will see it the same way, but the torrent site cautions that more blocking efforts will only lead to more savvy pirates.

Earlier this month, a survey by French anti-piracy agency Arcom showed that many people are already aware of circumvention tools such as DNS modification and VPNs. If blocking actions continue, YggTorrent expects this awareness to grow.

“If they continue to abuse their power of blocking, people will put in place solutions to overcome the blockades, and these solutions will become mainstream over time, a bit like decentralized finance which is gaining more and more ground.”

“As we say in French ‘action, reaction’,” YggTorrent concludes.

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Any content that can be digitized is immediately vulnerable to being pirated. The speed and scale at which that happens is ultimately governed by two key factors; how easily the content can be obtained, copied, and distributed, and how popular the content is with consumers.

In this respect, Japanese comics, better known as manga, effortlessly earn top marks across the board. That has led to unprecedented levels of piracy on what appears to be a near perfect consumer product, one for which ongoing demand is relentless.

Based in Japan, the leading manga publishers are facing a monumental struggle, and not only due to the scale of the infringement. Enforcement challenges exist at almost every turn, in particular the overseas locations of the largest pirate sites and the apparent reluctance of local authorities to intervene in any meaningful way.

What the publishers aren’t doing is giving up. Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), which represents companies including Shueisha, Kadokawa , Kodansha, and Shogakukan, estimates that between 2022 and 2023, through various means, piracy rates reduced by 25%.

At the start of 2024, piracy rates were still around 80% higher than they were in 2020, with 1,176 pirate sites still offering publishing content in various languages; 277 sites offering content in Japanese, 446 offering English translations, and the remainder offering everything from Chinese and Vietnamese, to Turkish, Italian, and Russian language content.

Obtaining Personal Data From Cloudflare

A persistent issue according to the publishers is pirate sites’ use of Cloudflare. They view the platform as a benefit to many pirate manga sites but a hindrance to their investigations. Meetings have taken place with Cloudflare in Japan over the past couple of years, but it’s unclear what progress has been made, if any.

In the meantime, working on the basis that Cloudflare may hold useful information on the owners of sites using its services, publishers including Shueisha file DMCA subpoena applications at courts in the United States. These compel Cloudflare to hand over whatever information it holds on site operators.

Shueisha Obtains a DMCA Subpoena in the U.S.

In general, the usefulness of information obtained this way tends to vary. That being said, other major rightsholders use the same mechanism regularly, so it seems likely that the process can be useful.

After Shueisha filed DMCA takedown notices with Cloudflare on May 2, the company followed up by filing a DMCA subpoena application at a California district court on May 10. It was signed off this week, so Cloudflare will soon be handing over information relating to around two dozen domains that offered titles such as One Piece without permission.

A sample of the alleged infringement

The domains and their recent estimated monthly traffic are listed in full at the end of this article. The stand-out sites with the most traffic, including truyenqqvn.com, mangakoma01.net, mangaraw.onl, rawkuma.com, and others with over a million visits per month, can be seen in the images below.

Top targets (click to enlarge)

Out in front in terms of traffic is truyenqqvn.com, a site that appears to cater exclusively to Vietnamese speakers. That reflects in its traffic data, with almost 98% of its 43.1m visits coming from Vietnam. Such is the popularity of the platform, locally it’s currently the 14th most popular website in the entire country.

The site no longer operates from the domain in the subpoena listed above, however. Like many similar sites with Vietnamese connections, this domain switch isn’t the first and is unlikely to be the last.

In common with all domains listed in the subpoena, Cloudflare is required to comply with Shueisha’s comprehensive request for information, the details of which are as follows:

• Name(s), last known address(es), last known telephone and/or cell phone number(s)
• Any and all email address(es); account number(s)
• Billing information (including, but not limited to, names, telephone number(s), and mailing and billing address(es) of each of all of the payment methods (including, but not limited to, credit cards, bank accounts, and any online payments system), hosting provider(s), server(s)
• Any other contact information and any and all logs of IP address(es), relating to each individual or business entity that operates or owns each of the Infringing URLs, and each individual or business entity that has hosted content, uploaded content, and/or has contracted with others to upload or host content using the Infringing URLs, from any and all sources, including without limitation billing or administrative records with timestamps from the time of the registration of each Infringing URL until the date of this subpoena.
• All access log information (IP addresses, corresponding port numbers,corresponding dates and times, access type, and corresponding destination IP addresses) relating to each of the Infringing URLs listed below.

All documents for Shueisha’s DMCA subpoena application can be found here (pdf)

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