For a long time, pirate site blocking was considered a topic most U.S. politicians would rather avoid.

 

This stance was a remnant of the SOPA defeat, which drove copyright holders to focus on blocking efforts in other countries instead, and not without success.

 

Those challenging times are now more than a decade old, and momentum is shifting. After more than forty countries around the world instituted site-blocking measures, including in Canada, U.S. lawmakers may be more receptive to revisiting this topic.

House Committee Hearing on Piracy

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held a hearing on Digital Copyright Piracy. Specifically, lawmakers were interested to learn about the scope of the problem and the solutions available today.

 

The representatives heard testimony from four witnesses. Rightsholders were represented by MPA’s Karyn Temple, UFC’s Riché McKnight, and award-winning producer Richard Gladstein. On the other side, CCIA’s Matthew Schruers defended the interests of Internet services.

 

From the start, it was clear that lawmakers see piracy as a serious problem that requires solutions. U.S. Representative and committee chairman, Darrell Issa, started the hearing by presenting an overview of today’s challenges, from a global perspective.

Pirates are ‘Hosted’ on Russian Military Bases

The committee chairman notes that piracy has evolved from back-alley sales of DVDs to international criminal operations. He specifically mentioned the Vietnamese-operated streaming site Fmovies, while Russian military bases also play a role.

 

“Many of these pirate websites like Fmovies are hosted on servers that exist outside the United States, currently outside our ability to take them down. This creates unique judicial challenges for enforcement against widespread piracy on such websites.

 

“In some cases, these websites are even hosted within foreign governments, like the Russian government on military bases, and other enemies of the United States,” Rep. Issa adds.

 

The Russian reference is interesting as the country has some of the most strict anti-piracy laws in the world today. Throughout the hearing, there was no further mention of the Russian military bases, but the comment may refer to optical disc piracy that took place nearly 30 years ago.

 

Fmovies, on the other hand, remained front and center at the House hearing.

Lawmakers get Fmovies Walkthrough

With over 160 million monthly visits, Fmovies is one of the most notorious pirate streaming sites. The portal recently rebranded to Fmoviesz but the modus operandi remains the same; people can watch whatever they want, whenever they like, without paying a dime.

 

MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, Karyn Temple, illustrated the problem by giving a live demonstration of the website at the hearing.

 

“Anyone can simply type the Fmovies URL into their favorite browser today and an extremely professional and legitimate-looking site pops up. You can literally scroll through thousands of movies and television shows including this year’s Blockbusters and even movies that have not yet hit theaters.

 

“You’ll see all of our top-rated Blockbusters and popular films. Here you see coming up Wonka, which won’t be out in the United States theaters until this Friday,” Temple said while browsing through the site.

 

Fmoviesz Demonstration

 

Temple points out that most of the site’s visitors come from the United States. The MPA tried to take action against the site and encouraged the U.S. Department of Justice to help out but, since Fmovies’ operators are in Vietnam and its servers are in Bulgaria, options are limited.

‘U.S. Needs Pirate Site Blocking’

Several MPA representatives visited Vietnam earlier this year but that hasn’t resulted in concrete enforcement actions either. This means that blocking the site through ISPs, as many other countries do, is one of the only viable options at the moment.

 

“If we had site blocking in the United States, as we do in the 16 other countries where versions of this site have been blocked already, then this piracy site’s U.S. traffic would have plummeted, protecting us consumers and the US creative sector, while removing the financial incentives for piracy,” Temple said.

 

“It’s beyond time for Congress to revisit no-fault injunctive relief to combat blatant forms of piracy.”

Why Are ISPs Not Blocking Fmovies Today?

The call for site blocking is supported by other creative industry witnesses, who all describe it as an effective anti-piracy tool. CCIA President Matthew Schruers, whose organization represents several Internet services, was the hearing’s sole dissenting voice in respect of blocking.

 

“The blunt instrument of architectural regulation is particularly inappropriate for policing subject matter like copyright,” Schruers informed the committee.

 

“There exists a long history of site-blocking injunctions leading to overreach. This includes examples of overblocking restricting access to thousands of websites, without evidence or process. It is simply not possible to craft a uniquely American, speech-protecting site-blocking regime.”

 

Schruers stressed that the availability of legal content remains the key option to deter piracy, while noting the availability of less-invasive enforcement avenues that can be explored.

 

These concerns didn’t immediately convince all lawmakers and U.S. Representative Ted Lieu was particularly vocal. After browsing the Fmovies site on his phone during the hearing, he asked CCIA’s President why ISPs don’t block the site right now.

 

“I just went on my phone and went on Fmovies and it’s still up. And I can watch Willy Wonka for free without paying for it. Why don’t the online service providers block it right now, like today?” Lieu asked.

 

“This is such an unreasonable case it is so clearly online piracy copyright infringement and you don’t want your organization and your members to be defending something so blatantly unlawful and unreasonable. So I just ask your members to block that site today.”

 

Mr. Schruers highlighted that the broadband access providers who can block the site aren’t here today and again stressed that legal availability is important and that less-invasive anti-piracy options are available. That didn’t convince Rep. Lieu, however, who requested the ISPs to be present at a future hearing.

 

“I ask the Chair of this Committee to call in a hearing with the witness that represents the members that could block this site and block it now,” Lieu said.

SOPA Scars and Instant Takedowns

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa agreed to invite the ISPs directly for a future hearing, so they can explain their position. Meanwhile, it also became clear that the tensions of the SOPA debates more than ten years ago, have left permanent scars.

 

“I hope we don’t get into another tumultuous, dysfunctional technical fight as we did twelve years ago,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren noted.

 

The copyright representatives made repeated callbacks to the previous attempt to establish an American site-blocking regime. At the time, there were massive public protests and a broad revolt by Internet companies who feared overblocking and other negative consequences.

 

These concerns were real at the time but now that site blocking has been rolled out in dozens of countries around the world, they should be reconsidered.

 

“None of the hyperbolic predictions about the effects of site blocking have come true. Examples of overblocking of non-infringing content, stifling free expression, or deprivation of due process have been rare to the point of non-existence,” MPA’s Temple said.

 

Mr. Schruers countered by pointing out that there have been overblocking incidents, reminding lawmakers that Spotify was inadvertently blocked in the House of Representatives ten years ago.

 

All in all, however, the Committee made it clear that something must be done.

 

Chairman Darrell Issa ended the hearing by mentioning that the import of copyrighted and trademarked goods can be easily stopped by U.S. customs, suggesting that the same should apply to the ‘import’ of pirated goods online through sites such as Fmovies.

 

“For what’s possible in the tangible world, we want to find a solution in the Internet world. We will not quit under this committee until we do so,” Issa concluded.

 

After years of relative calm, punctuated by intermittent action against larger operations, law enforcement actions against pirate IPTV services in Europe are on the rise.

 

The UK’s Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU), a regional force with responsibility for disrupting organized crime and counter terrorism policing, has revealed details of raids executed on Tuesday targeting a pirate IPTV operation.

Warrants Executed in England and Scotland

ERSOU reports that simultaneous warrants were executed at residential addresses in Harlow and Chigwell in Essex, Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, and Lanarkshire in Scotland. Two men, aged 33 and 35, were arrested on suspicion of fraud, money laundering, and intellectual property offenses.

 

The investigation, led by ERSOU but most likely supported by Sky investigators, relates to a channel on Telegram where pirate subscription packages, granting illegal access to Sky TV channels, were sold to the public. Police say the packages were sold to thousands of end users, earning those behind the scheme over £800,000 (US$1.01m).

Police Seize Cash, ‘Custom’ Streaming Devices, Firearms

Police report that specialist financial investigators were able to seize around £17,000 (US$21,800) in cash, unnamed digital devices, and an unspecified number of ‘custom’ streaming devices. Supplied images featuring some of the seized cash, and clear evidence bags containing immediately recognizable orange boxes, suggests modified Amazon Firesticks were probably part of the haul.

 

Images from the raids (credit: ERSOU)

 

ERSOU reports that the men were taken into police custody where they were questioned and subsequently bailed. After two shotguns were seized by police, a man at the address in Harlow was also arrested for firearms license breaches, ERSOU reports.

Large-Scale Criminal Operation

ERSOU Detective Inspector Steve Payne says the arrests were part of an investigation into a “sophisticated large-scale criminal operation” that has generated significant revenue from the sale of illicit IPTV subscription packages. The money generated comes from buyers of the packages, most likely ordinary people looking for a cheaper way to access subscription TV.

 

DI Payne says that after police obtained subscriber lists, further action shouldn’t be ruled out.

 

“We have also gained access to the details of those purchasing the streams, and I would remind anyone doing so that they will be breaking the law and could ultimately be subject to criminal proceedings,” DI Payne notes.

 

The arrests were also welcomed by Matt Hibbert, Sky’s Director of Anti-Piracy.

 

“We’re grateful to ERSOU and to the forces involved for taking this action, which will have a significant impact on the illicit sale of Sky TV. We’ll continue to support efforts to shut down the organised networks involved in the large-scale theft of our content, and to protect consumers from the risks involved in accessing content in this way,” Hibbert says.

 

For more than a decade, the French government has produced a report detailing the digital content consumption habits of French internet users.

 

Currently produced by telecoms regulator Arcom, the content consumption barometer report quantifies consumption of major content categories including movies, TV shows, live sports broadcasts, music, video games, software, and audiobooks, among others. It aims to profile consumers of content, map changes in consumption habits and sources, and gauge public perception of legal content availability. Arcom published the report’s 2023 edition yesterday.

Overall Exposure to Cultural Content

In terms of overall exposure to digital cultural and sporting content, the report estimates that 87% of internet users aged 15 and over, around 45 million people, were consumers in 2023. That’s up from 86% in 2022.

 

Of the dozen content categories covered in the report, movies were consumed by 55%, music by 50%, and TV series by 49%, meaning no change in the most popular content categories consumed in 2023 versus last year.

Paying (And Not Paying) For Content

For 2023, Arcom reports that 61% of consumers or 27.5 million people, paid to consume digital content online. This year the average monthly spend was €38.00 ($41.00) per month, a significant increase from the €32.00 ($34.50) reported in 2022. The report notes that this is the biggest increase in average spending in recent years, with Arcom describing the uplift as “remarkable” in the context of price inflation.

 

One of Arcom’s key responsibilities is to reduce piracy rates. In 2021, around 27% of internet users consumed at least one piece of pirated content, a figure that reduced to 24% in 2022.

 

Arcom introduces 2023’s overall piracy rate as follows: “The fall observed in 2022 in the proportion of illegal consumption of digital cultural and sporting content has continued this year,” while later adding, “..this continues the decline seen in 2022.”

 

While this year’s figures are provided, the “fall observed in 2022” was actually the difference between an overall rate of 27% in 2021 and 24% in 2022, in other words a three percentage point reduction in the overall piracy rate, aka success. Perhaps a less ambiguous statement would’ve been more helpful to describe the state of play this year.

 

In 2023 there was zero reduction in the overall piracy rate, i.e. the rate is static year-on-year. In common with 2022, in 2023 around 24% of internet users still consumed at least one piece of pirated content. The report describes this as illegal content consumption “leveling off.”

Appetite For Piracy Wanes With Age

In common with most other studies conducted in Europe, piracy rates are higher among younger people in France and lower among the older generations.

 

“The 15-24 and 25-39 age groups are the biggest consumers of illegal digital cultural and sporting content (46% and 36% respectively). Conversely, only 16% of 40–59-year-olds and 7% of 60+ year-olds are involved,” the report notes.

 

When drilling down into content categories, the report says that a drop in illegal consumption was observed in a quarter.

 

“This is particularly the case for films and music, two of the three content categories with the highest levels of illegal consumption by internet users in 2022 (-1 point each, to 12% and 6% of internet users respectively),” Arcom reports.

 

“While illegal consumption of TV series, the second most pirated content in 2022, remains stable in 2023 within the internet user population (9% illegal consumption), there has been a slight fall among those who consume it (18%, -1 point).”

Consumption of Illegal Streams & Downloads Fall

The two most popular methods of obtaining infringing content in France are streaming and direct downloading, often referred to as DDL. However, this year’s report from Arcom finds that both methods experienced declining popularity in 2023.

 

While remaining the most frequently used method among consumers overall (49% and 38% respectively), streaming fell two percentage points and downloading four percentage points versus rates in 2022.

Arcom says that these declines in two key categories demonstrate “the positive effects of the anti-piracy measures implemented in 2022 and 2023.” While that may well be the case, if overall piracy rates remained static this year, something else must’ve taken up the slack.

 

As the Arcom graph shows, remarkable gains are on display in two categories. In 2022, services in the ‘Usenet and newsgroups’ category were used by 11% of French internet users but in 2023, that figure has increased to 16%. The other category climbing quickly, Cloud services, reached a peak of 21% in 2020 and then fell to 19% and 16% in 2021 and 2022 respectively.

 

In 2023, improved privacy versus other illicit content access methods may have contributed to Cloud services’ 2020-equalling usage rate of 21%.

Illegal Access Rates Overall

Arcom reports a “stabilization” in illicit consumption of live sports broadcasts for 2023. This year’s rate of 4% is identical to that reported in 2022, but still an improvement over 2021 where 6% of internet users consumed liver sports from illegal sources.

 

In summary, illegal streaming was used by 49% of internet users in 2023, direct downloading (DDL) by 38%, social networks by 32%, with peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent hanging on to around 26% of users.

 

The surprise package of Usenet (16%) and Cloud services (21%) returning to rates not seen since 2020 might be the trend to watch since Arcom has much less control over these methods. Deterring the use of streaming and downloading services may be considered a success, but that could be tempered if more complex issues are encountered further down the road.

 

Arcom’s 2023 Barometer report is available here (pdf, French)

 

 

The launch of the BeStreamWise online anti-piracy campaign early October was preceded by action in the ‘real’ world.

 

After being offered free lifetime subscriptions to a new streaming service from a pop-up stand in London’s Paddington Station, commuters were encouraged to sign up to ‘MalStreams’ using their real personal details.

 

Shortly after, a ‘scam’ was revealed; MalStreams didn’t exist but participants had been given a valuable lesson in security. Handing over personal and credit card details to strangers can be more dangerous than people think. Handing over financial details for a lifetime of free service suggests that some people don’t even think at all.

 

 

Run by Sky, Premier League, FACT, ITV, CrimeStoppers, and the UK Intellectual Property Office, among others, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the potential risks of using illegal streaming services.

 

Handing over personal and financial information to strangers can have unexpected consequences, as the ‘customers’ of MalStreams quickly discovered. The same applies when people install streaming apps offering premium content for free. Football matches and movies for nothing may sound attractive, the campaign explains, but exposing devices to the risk of malware infection is something few people want.

 

Further details on malware risks are available on the BeStreamWise website, at least for those able to access it right now.

BeStreamWise.com Blocked For Security Reasons

After being informed that BeStreamWise.com was ‘down’ last evening for no obvious reason, some quick tests revealed a curious situation. The site could be accessed as normal using a VPN but without one it simply wouldn’t load.

 

Hoping to find out who, if anyone, was blocking the site, a few network tests revealed that requests were being blocked before even escaping the LAN. The culprit was found in one of the routers where for the first time in over a year, a site had triggered blocking measures on non-VPN outbound traffic.

According to the AI protection service supplied by Trend Micro, the domain had been blocked for phishing. A subsequent test on the Trend Micro global portal returned the same result, with the following detail: Fraudulent sites that mimic legitimate sites to gather sensitive information, such as user names and passwords.

 

Since so-called ‘false positives’ are not unusual, checking with other security vendors can help to shine a light on situations like these. Unfortunately, that failed to clear things up as expected, at least not initially.

Multiple Security Vendors Report Malicious Behavior

Subsequent tests revealed that Avira had also flagged BeStreamWise.com for phishing, CDRF and CyRadar had settled on malicious, while AlphaMountain simply reported suspicious activity.

 

Thanks to its bold layout, however, URLScan.io quickly provided information that may explain why BeStreamWise was flagged for suspected phishing, which entity it was believed to be masquerading as, and who vendors may have been trying to protect.

Whatever the specific reasons behind the alerts, the above indicates that the BeStreamWise domain faces allegations of impersonating Sky. The broadcaster actually runs the campaign site on its own infrastructure, making foul play unlikely, but whether this largely unadvertised direct connection played a part in these alerts is unknown.

 

For its part, the BeStreamWise campaign believes there’s little to be concerned about.

 

“BeStreamWise.com raises awareness of the risks involved in illegal streaming. Given the nature of the topic, we are extremely vigilant over the security of the site. It is functioning normally and we have not detected any issues, but we will continue to investigate,” a spokesperson informs TorrentFreak.

 

While the campaign doesn’t believe there’s much to worry about, these warnings aren’t new and may even precede the campaign’s official launch.

Domain Flagged Since Before Official Launch

The results of at least five full scans are available on URLScan and potentially more if any scans were designated as private. The oldest scan was carried out on September 28, followed by others on October 7, October 17, and October 19.

 

All of these scans signaled ‘malicious behavior’ which raises the question of how many people tried to visit BeStreamWise over the past couple of months to learn about malware, only to be blocked from accessing it due to a possible risk of malware.

Bad Labeling, Bad Outcomes

Another potential issue lies with Comodo’s Xcitium Verdict Cloud, which has categorized BeStreamWise.com as a ‘media sharing’ site. This type of mislabeling can have serious knock-on effects, as we’re only too aware.

 

TorrentFreak has been wrongfully categorized as a media-sharing platform on more than one occasion, which led to readers being prevented from accessing the site via public WiFi services on more than one occasion.

 

In 2018, Comcast erroneously blocked TorrentFreak for being ‘suspicious’ and in 2013, customers of Sky were unable to access the site after an exploit placed us on the UK’s pirate site blocking list.

 

So to summarize, watch out for malware but remember that not all reports of malware are accurate. Also be aware that when pirate apps receive a clean bill of health following a malware scan, in a worrying number of more recent cases that can mean absolutely nothing. Not exactly a comfort, but reality nonetheless.

 

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) presents itself as the voice of the global recording industry.

 

The group represents roughly 8,000 members globally, ranging from smaller independent labels to the largest labels on the planet.

 

Part of its mandate is to keep an eye on how the music industry evolves. This includes legal consumption as well as unauthorized offerings, more commonly known as music piracy.

 

Music piracy exists in various forms but in recent years stream-ripping has emerged as the most significant. Several years ago IFPI reported that the phenomenon had become a bigger threat than any other form of music piracy.

 

According to IFPI’s Engaging with Music 2023 report released this week, online piracy remains a problem worldwide, stream-ripping and illegal music apps in particular.

 

“Music piracy is still very much an issue, with stream ripping and the use of illegal mobile apps among the leading causes for concern,” IFPI’s Chief Executive Frances Moore says.

 

“This illegal activity has a severe and direct impact on royalties which should be returning to those investing in and creating music. We will continue to work with governments and the wider music industry to ensure the most secure digital environment possible for music creators and fans alike.”

One in Three Are Music Pirates

The report shares the results of an extensive survey, which polled over 43,000 Internet users worldwide. The overall conclusion is that legal consumption is flourishing, but the survey also found that plenty of people are still using stream-rippers and piracy tools.

 

In the countries that formed the basis for these reports historically, almost one in ten people (29%) admit to using illegal means to listen to or download music. With 26%, stream-ripping remains dominant, with unlicensed apps not far behind (20%).

 

 

Piracy is most prevalent among the younger demographic (16-24), where 43% of respondents are self-confessed pirates. When asked about their reasons for pirating, more than half of all respondents (55%) said that they do it to avoid paying for licensed music streaming subscriptions.

 

Piracy rates have stabilized somewhat over the years but the problem persists. That said, it’s not the complete picture. The polled countries for these ‘global’ statistics exclude India, China, Nigeria, and other emerging countries where piracy is rampant.

Piracy is Rampant in Developing Countries

IFPI reports the numbers for these countries separately, making it possible to compare global data over time. If they were included, however, global piracy rates would be much higher.

 

In India, for example, 74% of respondents admit to using illegal methods to listen to music. In other emerging countries such as China (75%), Indonesia (66%) and Nigeria (76%), we see similarly high piracy rates.

 

 

This is an entirely different picture than mostly developed Western countries, which have been part of IFPI’s long-term polling sample. A complete overview of the polled countries in the global dataset is available below.

 

Finally, it is worth highlighting a somewhat unusual statistic. While piracy is rampant in countries such as China and India, legal consumption is very high in these countries too.

 

In China, 96% of the respondents say they use licensed audio streaming platforms and in India, 94% do the same. This is much higher than the global average of 73% and suggests that music consumers in emerging countries use a combination of legal and illegal sources to fulfill their music demands.

 

TorrentFreak asked IFPI to explain this combined use of legal and illegal music streaming, zooming in on India. IFPI’s Director of Insight & Analysis, David Price, notes that the legal music consumption largely relies on free tiers there.

 

“India has a range of domestic and international audio streaming services, and most of the engagement with these is through the free tier. Take-up of premium streaming is hampered by the continued use of piracy services,” Price says.

 

All in all the report offers a valuable snapshot of how the use of various piracy tools and services changes over time. It will be interesting to see how these trends develop in the future.

 

—

 

This article was updated with a comment from Dr. David Price, IFPI’s Director of Insight & Analysis, which came in shortly after publication.

 

– The global sample includes respondents from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA.

 

– Details on consumers from China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and UAE are reported separately.

 

Over the past several years we’ve covered dozens of copyright troll cases against tens of thousands of alleged copyright infringers.

 

Our coverage mostly focuses on piracy-related cases, but there are other variants too. Outfits that target blogs and other websites for using photos without permission, for example.

 

The definition of the term ‘copyright troll’ is fluid. In the file-sharing space it typically refers to parties that accuse large numbers of people of copyright infringement, who are then threatened with legal action and the potential for large damages awards. Targets are encouraged to pay settlements to ensure these legal problems go away.

 

The phenomenon has been ongoing for well over a decade and while the most severe examples have disappeared, the business model remains active today. According to an amicus curiae brief filed at the Supreme Court last week, the problem could get worse.

Copyright Troll Warning

These cautionary words come from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Authors Alliance, the American Library Association, and the Association of Research Libraries. They intervened in the Warner Chappell Music v. Nealy lawsuit, a music copyright case that in itself is unrelated to copyright trolling.

 

The case in question deals with the period during which rightsholders can recover damages for copyright infringement, known as the ‘discovery accrual rule’.

 

According to U.S. copyright law, there is a three-year statute of limitations to file complaints. This period starts after a rightsholder ‘discovers’ the infringement. Courts have been split on whether this three-year limitation also applies to the damages that can be claimed, or if ‘damages accrual’ can go further back.

 

Don’t Feed the Trolls

According to the amicus curiae brief, an extended damages accrual period could give more ammunition to copyright trolls. It would allow them to claim that they only just discovered infringements that took place many years ago, allowing them to claim damages beyond three years.

 

“The discovery accrual rule as interpreted by the Eleventh Circuit in this case […] encourages copyright trolling. The ability to recover damages for infringements that occurred an arbitrarily long time ago, as long as litigation is begun within three years of discovery, expands the opportunities to seek nuisance-value settlements against numerous internet users.

 

“The problem of copyright trolling illustrates why the Court should hold that infringement claims accrue when the infringement occurs, with the three-year statute of limitations running from that date,” the groups add.

Torrents, Photos, and More

The filing provides a detailed overview of the copyright trolling landscape. This includes the many lawsuits filed against BitTorrent users, who are targeted for sharing pirated movies. These lawsuits are typically settled or dismissed and rarely go to trial.

 

While this practice is still common today, courts have limited their scope; in some jurisdictions, trolls are no longer welcome.

 

“Many courts have thrown out these suits on procedural grounds (such as improper joinder and lack of personal jurisdiction), and courts have recognized the impropriety of using the judicial process solely to extract quick settlements,” the brief notes.

 

In BitTorrent cases, rightsholders have to actively monitor for copyright infringements, so lawsuits are not typically filed after many years have passed. For image-related trolling, the position differs.

 

Reverse image search tools allow photographers and their attorneys to spot content posted a long time ago. They can then go after alleged infringers years later, claiming damages.

 

“These demands frequently concern images posted well over three years earlier. Such postings cause little or no monetary harm to rightsholders, no significant gain for website authors, and would not otherwise be the subject of litigation,” the brief reads.

Time Limited Damages

The amici are concerned that if rightsholders can claim damages for much longer periods, this would only make the trolling problem worse. In a recent blog post, EFF explains its concerns in detail, asking the Supreme Court to mind the trolls.

 

Copyright disputes come in many forms, but EFF stresses that courts should ensure judicial safeguards are in place to prevent abuse. They note that limiting the damage period is key to prevent excessive trolling.

 

“EFF filed its brief in this case to ask the Supreme Court to extend these judicial safeguards, by holding that copyright infringement damages can only be recovered for acts occurring three years before the filing of the complaint.

 

“An indefinite statute of limitations would throw gasoline on the copyright troll fire and risk encouraging new trolls to come out from under the figurative bridge,” EFF concludes.

 

—

 

A copy of the full amicus curiae brief, submitted by EFF, the Authors Alliance, the American Library Association, and the Association of Research Libraries, is available here (pdf)

 

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. “Killers of the Flower Moon” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on December 11 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Killers of the Flower Moon	7.9 / trailer
2	(1)	Oppenheimer	8.5 / trailer
3	(3)	The Creator	6.6 / trailer
4	(…)	The Marvels	5.9 / trailer
5	(4)	Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One	7.9 / trailer
6	(…)	Leave The World Behind	6.7 / trailer
7	(2)	Freelance	5.4 / trailer
8	(8)	Barbie	7.3 / trailer
9	(9)	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny	6.7 / trailer
10	(7)	The Equalizer 3	7.0 / trailer

 

 

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

 

Italy’s Piracy Shield anti-piracy system reportedly launched last week, albeit in limited fashion.

 

Whether the platform had any impact on pirate IPTV providers offering the big game last Friday is unclear but plans supporting a full-on assault are pressing ahead.

Technical and Operational Requirements

A new document released by AGCOM describes Piracy Shield as a “single technology platform with automated operation” and elsewhere as a piece of “machine-to-machine platform management software.”

 

The document goes into some detail on its operational and technical requirements including its stated purpose: Automated handling of reports from rightsholders for the purpose of ensuring timely and effective protection of rights and, specifically, intervention within thirty minutes of the report in accordance with the manner and procedure regulated therein.

 

Various pieces of information reported last week by local news outlet DDAY.it are confirmed with extra detail. In addition to a roundtable meeting on September 7, 2023, attended by the National Cybersecurity Agency, the Guardia di Finanza, the Postal Police, and representatives of the Ministry of Enterprise, discussions were initiated with search engine providers and, more generally, “information society service providers involved in any capacity in website accessibility of illegal services other than ISPs.”

IPv4 Scarcity and Other Technical Issues

ISP-side user manuals for Piracy Shield were emailed on October 11 and on November 13, AGCOM’s position on various technical issues raised by anti-piracy groups, rightsholders including Serie A and DAZN, and ISPs, were finally clarified.

 

One item mentioned in more detail concerns IPv4 IP addresses. They are often reported as running out and it appears AGCOM intends to block as many as it needs to.

 

With reference to two specific issues, pertaining to the alleged and gradual depletion, following the implementation of the blocks, of IPv4 addresses, which constitute a scarce resource, and to the requested refreshments for the costs incurred for the implementations necessary for the operation of the platform, it was clarified that the law does not give the Authority powers in this regard, but that it reserves the right to make a report to the Government in the face of the evidence provided.

Another issue appears to refer to service provider concerns over the volume of domains and/or IP addresses they could be expected to block during the transitional phase leading up to the “full deployment of the platform’s functionalities.”

 

“In this sense, the indications regarding the maximum number of IPs and FQDNs [fully qualified domains] to be blocked in the thirty minutes and the distinction between theoretical SLA [service-level agreement] and actual SLA aimed at taking into account, at this stage, the limitations represented by some ISPs in terms of the maximum number of tickets to be handled in the thirty minutes should be understood,” the document adds.

All Entities Involved in Accessibility of Pirate Services Must Block

When lawmakers gave Italy’s new blocking regime the green light during the summer, the text made it clear that blocking instructions would not be limited to regular ISPs. The relevant section (Paragraph 5 Art. 2) for reference below;

The document issued by AGCOM acts as a clear reminder of the above and specifically highlights that VPN and DNS providers are no exception.

 

“[A]ll parties in any capacity involved in the accessibility of illegally disseminated content – and therefore also, by way of example and not limitation – VPN and open DNS service providers, will have to execute the blocks requested by the Authority [AGCOM] including through accreditation to the Piracy Shield platform or otherwise implementing measures that prevent the user from reaching that content,” the notice reads.

 

Whether the DNS provider requirement will be affected by Cloudflare’s recent win over Sony in Germany is unclear. The decision was grounded in EU law and Cloudflare has already signaled that it will push back against any future blocking demands.

 

How VPN providers will respond is currently unknown. Demands to block access to certain platforms have been handled differently depending on circumstances and geography.

 

Some providers previously agreed to limited blocking in the United States as part of settlements in civil actions. When asked to block services in Russia, others simply pulled out. Whether that would prevent their IP addresses from being blocked in Italy seems unlikely.

Search Engines Included Too, Google Appears to Be Playing Ball

The relevant section of the new law is in some ways even more broad when it comes to search engines such as Google. Whether they are directly involved in accessibility or not, they’re still required to take action.

AGCOM suggests that Google understands its obligations and is also prepared to take things further. The company says it will deindex offending platforms from search and also remove their ability to advertise.

 

“Since this is a dynamic blocking, the search engine therefore undertakes to perform de-indexing of all websites/telematic addresses that are the subject of subsequent reports that can also be communicated by rights holders accredited to the platform,” AGCOM writes.

 

“Google has shared a procedural mode for the communication of the blocking list, and the Company has also committed to the timely removal of all advertisements that do not comply with the company’s policies, having particular regard to those that invest the promotion of pirate sites referring to protected sporting events.”

 

A few years ago, Epic Games filed copyright infringement lawsuits against several Fortnite players who allegedly used cheats to gain an unfair advantage.

 

The legal campaign sent a clear signal to the gaming public that people who try to scam the system can get caught.

 

Today, these lawsuits have disappeared from the radar and it’s unknown whether the intended goal was achieved. What we do know, however, is that Epic Games is currently dealing with a new ‘scammer’ problem; one that has a copyright angle as well.

Epic Piracy Scam

Over the past several weeks, the developer community at the Epic Games website was overwhelmed with piracy-related scams. The spammers use the forum’s profiles to link to what appear to be pirated movies.

 

 

There are thousands of these profiles, promoting the latest blockbusters and music. The example below leverages the movie Napoleon but there are many more besides. Most promote recent titles that are in high demand.

 

 

People who click on the links are often disappointed though. They typically point to a page where people can supposedly stream content instantly but after a generic intro, there is a mandatory requirement to sign-up for a “free account” and supply credit card details for ‘validation’ purposes.

 

Needless to say, sharing credit card details with dodgy sites isn’t a good idea. Aside from the obvious copyright issues, these services rarely offer what they promise. After all, many of the pirated films they advertise are not yet available in high-quality formats.

Need Music? Download This .ZIP File…

The scams aren’t limited to movies either. There are also dodgy profiles that promote music, such as this one which claims to offer access to Jay-Z’s The Black Album.

 

Following the link brings us to a page that looks somewhat promising. However, the .zip file that people are encouraged to download likely leads to all sorts of trouble.

 

 

The goal of these SEO hack strategies is to have these links show up high in search results. A site like Epic Games has a good reputation in search engines, and as a result, the articles promoting these scams are more visible in search results than the average pirate site.

 

This appears to be an effective strategy, especially since Google began pushing down results from known pirate platforms.

Old Trick, New Target

This practice is not new either. Many other reputable sites, including Facebook, Google Maps, Change.org, Steam, Universities, and even the European Union, have been abused similarly in the past.

 

Before publishing we alerted Epic Games to the issue and the company is currently investigating the matter and it will respond where needed.

 

“We are investigating this issue and will take action on accounts that violate the rules of the Epic Developer Community, as well those outlined in our Terms of Service which include requirements for User Contributions,” the company informs us.

 

These types of scams aren’t a major problem for copyright holders, as they will mostly result in disappointed and frustrated pirates. However, prospective pirates who fall for them may run into malware or get charged for something they didn’t want.

 

For Epic Games, this scam practice could lead to unexpected problems in the future. Google received several DMCA takedown notices for epicgames.com URLs over the past several weeks which, in theory, makes it a candidate for a downranking penalty.

 

On December 14, 2022, a group of music rightsholders including BMG, UMG, and Capitol filed a complaint at a Texas district court, accusing Altice, the parent company of ISP Optimum, of facilitating massive copyright infringement.

 

Just days ahead of that lawsuit’s one-year anniversary, Altice now finds itself fighting a second and substantially similar lawsuit, filed by 49 member labels of the RIAA at the same Texas court.

Different Plaintiffs, Same Underlying Allegations

Filed at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the complaint has Warner Records, Sony Music, plus another 47 recording labels, alleging contributory and vicarious copyright infringement against Altice, owner of ISP Optimum.

 

The ISP “knowingly contributed to, and reaped substantial profits from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its subscribers” the labels claim.

 

By now the base allegations are very familiar. The labels claim that many of the ISP’s 200,000 Texas-based subscribers used Altice’s network to “directly and repeatedly infringe” the plaintiffs’ copyrights by sharing their musical works on BitTorrent networks. After failing to suspend or terminate the accounts of these customers, even after receiving multiple notices of their infringing activity, the plaintiffs say that Altice must now be held to account.

 

“Specifically, Plaintiffs seek relief for claims that accrued between December 2020 – December 2023…for infringement of works by Altice subscribers after those particular subscribers were identified to Altice in multiple infringement notices,” the complaint notes.

Egregious Repeat Infringers

To highlight the extent of infringing conduct by Altice customers, the complaint provides information on three “egregious repeat infringers” believed to be located in Tyler, Athens, and Jacksonville respectively.

 

Identified only by an IP address, the first subscriber was reportedly caught distributing (uploading) copyrighted works owned by the plaintiffs over 75 times between January 2023 and March 2023. A second subscriber was observed uploading the labels’ copyrighted works over 70 times between August 2021 and April 2023, while a third was caught over 100 times between December 2021 and June 2022.

 

The plaintiffs say that in all three cases and for each instance of observed infringement, notifications were sent to Altice advising the ISP that infringement was ongoing. According to the labels, no action was taken to either suspend or terminate the accounts of these and other repeat infringers, despite the ISP having the right and ability to do so.

Infringement Contrary to Altice Policies, and the Law

The labels claim they were forced to file a lawsuit against Altice because the ISP “has gone out of its way not to take action against subscribers engaging in repeated copyright infringement, at the expense of copyright owners.”

 

The complaint alleges that Altice’s failure to take action stands contrary to its own policies.

 

The company’s ‘Copyright Infringement Policy’ states that subscribers must not “store, distribute or otherwise disseminate” content in a manner that infringes third-party intellectual property rights. The labels claim that Altice failed to follow its own rules which state that its response to infringement may include account suspensions or terminations “in appropriate circumstances.”

 

“[A]ltice knew that its subscribers routinely used its networks for illegally downloading and uploading copyrighted works, especially music,” the complaint continues.

 

“Plaintiffs repeatedly notified Altice that thousands of its subscribers were actively utilizing its service to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Those notices gave Altice the specific identities of its subscribers engaged in copyright infringement, referred to by their unique Internet Protocol or ‘IP’ addresses. Altice also received millions of notices from other copyright owners, some of which undoubtedly addressed the same subscribers as Plaintiffs’ notices.”

No Safe Harbor Under DMCA

According to the complaint, between February 2020 through November 2023, the plaintiffs sent 70,000 DMCA-compliant copyright infringement notices which detailed specific infringements carried out by specific Altice subscribers using P2P protocols including BitTorrent.

 

Previously, evidence was supplied by anti-piracy company Rightscorp but in this case monitoring was carried out by OpSec LLC, previously known as MarkMonitor.

 

Using proprietary technology, OpSec’s system connected with Altice subscribers using P2P software and confirmed, in each instance, (1) that the subscriber was online, (2) that the subscriber was running a file sharing program, (3) that the subscriber told OpSec that it possessed a confirmed infringing file, identified by a unique “hash” value, and (4) that the subscriber in fact began to distribute the confirmed infringing file, identified by unique “hash” value. OpSec also verified the file hashes to confirm that Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works were being distributed. Once OpSec had collected this evidence of infringement, OpSec generated and sent a notice of infringement to Altice.

“Put another way,” the complaint continues, “while Plaintiffs undertook the burden and responsibility of monitoring Altice’s network for infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, only Altice could take action against its subscribers for violating Altice’s own Copyright Infringement Policy and Terms of Service by infringing Plaintiffs’ works.”

 

Instead, the labels add, Altice turned a blind eye to massive infringement, despite knowing which subscribers were engaged in repeat infringement while having the right and ability to end it, including by suspending or terminating their accounts.

Contributory and Vicarious Copyright Infringement

The complaint describes Altice as a willful, intentional, and purposeful contributory infringer, and therefore liable for the direct infringements carried out by its subscribers. The labels seek up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each infringement or an amount to be determined at trial.

 

The labels say that Altice is also liable as a vicarious infringer after deriving “an obvious and direct financial benefit from its customers’ infringement” including through the collection of “illicit revenue” from subscribers who should’ve been suspended but were not. Again, the labels seek up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each infringement or an amount to be determined at trial.

 

The complaint is available here (pdf)

 

Full list of plaintiffs as follows:

 

Warner Records Inc.
Atlantic Recording Corporation
Atlantic Records Group LLC
Bad Boy Records LLC
Big Beat Records Inc.
Elektra Entertainment Group Inc.
Fueled by Ramen LLC
Lava Records LLC
Maverick Recording Company
Nonesuch Records Inc.
Rhino Entertainment Company
Rhino Entertainment LLC
Roadrunner Records, Inc.
Rykodisc, Inc.
Warner Music Inc.
Warner Music International Services Limited
Warner Music Nashville LLC
Warner Records/QRI Venture, Inc.
Sony Music Entertainment
Arista Music
Arista Records, LLC
LaFace Records, LLC
Sony Music Entertainment US Latin LLC
Ultra Records, LLC
Volcano Entertainment III, LLC
Zomba Recording LLC
Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Cotillion Music, Inc.
Gene Autry’s Western Music Publishing Co.
Golden West Melodies, Inc.
Intersong U.S.A., Inc.
Unichappell Music Inc.
W Chappell Music Corp.
W.C.M. Music Corp.
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
Sony Music Publishing (US) LLC
Colgems-EMI Music Inc.
EMI April Music Inc.
EMI Blackwood Music Inc.
EMI Consortium Music Publishing, Inc.
EMI Consortium Songs, Inc.
EMI Entertainment World Inc.
EMI Gold Horizon Music Corp.
EMI Miller Catalog Inc.
EMI Mills Music Inc.
EMI Robbins Catalog Inc.
EMI U Catalog Inc.
EMI Unart Catalog Inc.
Famous Music LLC
Jobete Music Co., Inc.
Screen Gems-EMI Music Inc.
Stone Agate Music
Stone Diamond Music Corp.

 

When Italian lawmakers finally passed new law in the summer designed to crack down on pirate IPTV providers once and for all, powerful Serie A football clubs, broadcasters, and influential business associates, breathed a joint sigh of relief.

 

The tools needed to avert the imminent destruction of Italian football had finally been enshrined in law following a massive lobbying and media campaign.

 

Four years earlier, a similar ‘Piracy Kills Football‘ campaign launched to dire warnings that the destruction of Italian football was imminent then. Yet somehow, against all odds, football somehow managed to survive before coming face to face with another crisis.

 

That’s one of the interesting things about anti-piracy campaigns and subsequent lobbying; fortunes can suddenly pivot in unexpected ways, despite whatever was claimed earlier.

 

Massive IPTV Takedowns Boost Illegal Consumption?

For example, as Italian football faced imminent demise between 2019 and 2021, authorities announced unprecedented success after raids reportedly “blacked out” an estimated 80 percent of the illegal IPTV flow into Italy. Just six months later in early 2022, authorities reportedly “dismantled” an IPTV operation servicing 500,000 subscribers and then followed up by shutting down another with 900,000 subscribers a few months later.

 

Running parallel to these huge successes, reported consumption of pirate IPTV services in Italy apparently increased year-on-year according to studies commissioned by rightsholders. Italian football was again facing a worst-case scenario if piracy couldn’t be brought under control.

Only Massive IPTV Blocking Can Save Football

When rightsholders want new powers that most governments don’t award themselves, Armageddon can suddenly find itself more imminent than ever before with implications for entire countries. On the plus side, solutions are usually available to end the nightmare, if only the law permitted their use.

 

This summer a long process to convince anyone who mattered that technologically advanced internet blocking, carried out on an unprecedented scale, needed to be authorized by law, came to an end. New legislation was signed, and quickly approved by telecoms regulator AGCOM.

 

All rightsholders had to do was roll out their anti-piracy system to show it could do all the things people claimed it could do, and get ready to take out the pirates.

 

For reasons that still haven’t been made clear, the full system was nowhere near ready. It still wasn’t ready at the start of the new football season on August 8 despite monitoring capability having been fully operational for years.

 

At the end of August, an insider acknowledged the delay and then added that the system was “insane” and would “solve digital piracy” when it launched in September or October. A technical roundtable did go ahead in early September, but there was no launch in September and no launch in October either.

 

Now dubbed ‘Piracy Shield‘ the system had to launch no later than yesterday, December 7, 2023.

Definitely No Laws Broken, Piracy Shield is Now Active

As reported by DDAY.it, telecoms regulator AGCOM informed Italy’s ISPs that Piracy Shield would go live on December 7, as required by law. And it did – albeit with a couple of tiny caveats.

 

“According to our information, Agcom has sent notification to all providers that the platform is finally online and at the same time has activated on its website, via SPID, the authentication procedure for users who will have to use the platform,” DDAY.it reports.

 

“However, active does not mean fully operational and automated, because the feeling is that ISPs may still need some time to integrate the mechanisms that avoid human intervention.”

 

Only during the last few days have Piracy Shield operation manuals been sent out to those authorized to file copyright complaints and those tasked with executing the blocks, Italy’s ISPs.

 

“For security reasons, it is likely that providers will still take a few weeks to carry out all the implementations at a technical level, although the timing obviously changes from provider to provider: the larger ones are certainly better equipped and could be ready in a very short time,” DDAY.it concludes.

Just in Time For Tonight’s Big Game

Tonight’s big game between Juventus and Napoli, a classic north/south rivalry in Serie A, is what the beautiful game is all about. All games in Serie A are important, but matches like this elevate heart rates and as passions soar, Serie A needs fans to go legal and support the sport, despite cheaper yet illegal offers already on the table.

 

Before Piracy Shield even existed as a market-ready product, big claims about what this type of system could achieve were regular parts of the discussion. There’s no question that those tasked with ensuring its competence in a live environment have relevant experience and will do whatever is reasonably possible. Unfortunately, some lofty claims made over the past 12 months have set an unreasonably high bar that in practical terms will be hard to achieve.

 

That IP address lists pertinent to tonight’s game may end up being circulated via text files and then blocked manually by ISPs, is a far cry from the glittering promises made during the past year. But these are still early days and the fight against IPTV piracy is a marathon event, not a sprint.

 

That being said, the coming months will be pivotal. Piracy Shield simply has to deliver but how that will be measured is far from clear. Reporting how many streams it blocks seems a likely candidate, but the real test lies in TV subscriber numbers, which are directly linked to fans’ willingness to pay, not necessarily the availability of pirate streams.

 

In 2021 , Sony Music obtained an injunction that ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site.

 

The injunction, issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block access to a site that links to pirated music.

 

The name of the targeted site initially remained a mystery, but we deduced that Canna.to was the target. That site was, not coincidentally, also targeted by a voluntary blocking agreement previously signed by rightsholders and ISPs.

 

The music groups presumably targeted the site to prevent people from circumventing the ISP blockades. However, the non-profit Quad9 Foundation was not happy with this far-reaching measure and fiercely opposed the injunction.

 

The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

 

This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction. However, the case continued at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden where Quad9 managed to turn the case around.

Quad9 Books Key Victory in Court

The Higher Regional Court ultimately concludes that DNS resolvers can’t be held liable under German and European law. These services are neutral intermediaries and don’t play a “central role” in the copyright-infringing activities of pirate sites.

 

The court stresses that the DNS resolver doesn’t host any pirated content and its users don’t make copyright-infringing content available either. DNS resolvers simply translate a domain name request to an IP-address.

 

“[Quad9] does not initiate this transmission, nor does it select the addressee and the content of the information. It plays a less central role than those who have committed the infringement themselves (site operator) or have contributed to it by providing services (hosting provider),” the court writes (translated).

 

“The users of [Quad9] do not make infringing content publicly available but at best request it. The defendant does not store this content. It doesn’t transmit such content, but only the domain request of a user and the IP address of the server on which this content may be stored.”

 

Since Quad9 doesn’t play a “central role” in the copyright infringing activities it can’t be held liable. As a result, it can’t be ordered by an injunction to block access to the pirate site.

 

 

The public DNS resolver is pleased with the outcome and immediately removed all blocking measures on its system. This means that all domains of CannaPower, also dubbed the “Queen of Music Warez”, are available globally once again.

 

“Today marks a bright moment in the efforts to keep the internet a neutral and trusted resource for everyone,” Quad9 writes while thanking all supporters of its legal efforts.

 

Summary of the outcome (by Quad9’s law firm Rickert.law)

 

This is the second order of this kind in Germany this fall. Previously, the Higher Regional Court of Cologne concluded that Cloudflare doesn’t have to take any measures on its public DNS resolver in response to copyright complaints, as the service operates in a purely passive, automatic, and neutral manner.

Trouble Ahead in Italy

The Dresden court stressed that its decision is final, which means the case cannot go to a higher court. This limits Sony’s options to appeal the verdict. However, the trouble for Quad9 isn’t over yet.

 

Over in Italy, Sony Music Italy, Universal Music Italy, Warner Music Italy, and the Italian Music Industry Federation, have recently requested similar DNS blocking measures from Quad9.

 

The music companies haven’t filed a lawsuit yet but want the DNS provider to ban the domain names of three torrent sites: LimeTorrents, KickassTorrents, and Ilcorsaronero. These three targets were not chosen at random. An Italian court previously ordered Cloudflare’s DNS resolver to block the same domain names.

 

Quad9 is determined to fight this blocking request in Italy, but it first wants to make sure that the German case is final. In the meantime, the DNS resolver has complied with the Italian request by blocking the aforementioned torrent sites globally.

 

—

 

A copy of the order from the Higher Regional Court in Dresden is available here (German, pdf) and a machine-translated English copy can be found here (pdf)

Back in August we reported how Google had received requests to remove one billion allegedly-infringing links from its search results. A billion is a big number, especially when it refers to takedown demands received over a period of just nine months.

 

A few days before we published that report, Google had just processed its seven billionth removal request, having reached six billion less than a year earlier. At the time of writing, just four months after reaching seven billion, Google has already processed another 572,000,000 takedown demands.

 

And that’s only Google search. Content ID claims alone reached 1.5 billion on YouTube in 2021 and that doesn’t account for all the removals carried out by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, Snapchat and any other platform that springs to mind.

The Situation is Bad and Getting Worse By the Day

Under the Digital Services Act, large online platforms are required to keep the European Commission updated via so-called ‘statements of reasons’ which detail the circumstances behind the removal of every piece of content from their platforms. These reports are added to an EC database which is made available in the form of a continuously updated transparency report.

 

For demonstration purposes we extracted all the reasons for removal cited by YouTube in one 24-hour period during the last week and found several related to copyright, including those detailed below.

 

⦿ Your video has been removed from YouTube for a Terms of Service violation because it is a copy of another video that was previously removed from YouTube due to a copyright removal request that we received.

 

⦿ Content that shows viewers how to gain unauthorized free access to audio content, audiovisual content, full video games, software, or streaming services that normally require payment is not allowed.

 

⦿ Due to multiple copyright strikes associated with the videos below, your YouTube channel has now been terminated. Copyright owners can choose to issue legal complaints that require YouTube to take down videos that contain their content. When you have 3 or more copyright strikes, your channel can be terminated.

 

Other reasons for content deletion unrelated to copyright, and in some cases seemingly more complicated to determine via automated means, were in abundant supply. Those listed below represent just a small sample.

 

 

Social media platform Facebook also reports huge numbers of takedowns to the EC. On the handful of days we extracted the company’s reports, data protection and privacy violations were very common, along with ‘scams and fraud’, ‘illegal or harmful speech’, and ‘pornography or sexualized content’, the latter often labeled ‘synthetic media’.

 

Reasons For Removal Vary But All Platforms Are Staggeringly Busy

Depending on the nature of the platform, the reasons for removing content can vary considerably. On the days we took samples, which may not necessarily be representative in a broader analysis, Amazon removed huge numbers of listings for copyright and trademark infringement, violations of electrical/packaging standards, fakes and scams, and general advertising policy violations. Overall, few if any violations were of a personal nature, however.

 

TikTok, on the other hand, appears to spend a worrying amount of time removing content categorized as ‘Violent Behaviors and Criminal Activities’, ‘Harassment and Bullying’, ‘Hate Speech and Hateful Behaviors’, ‘Sexually Suggestive Content’, ‘Sexual Exploitation and Gender-Based Violence’, ‘Suicide and Self-Harm’ and well, you get the idea. What motivates users to act in this manner is best left to mental health specialists, but it seems that without TikTok’s constant moderation, the platform might be completely uninhabitable.

 

That brings us back to the almost inevitable conclusion that at some point, few if any major platforms will have the resources to deal with abusive takedowns on an individual, human-powered basis, on any meaningful scale. The EU’s DSA ‘Statements of Reasons’ database shows why individual attention is likely to become even more scarce as major platforms deal with a seemingly endless tsunami of takedowns based on a growing list of alleged violations.

 

Statements	YouTube	Facebook	TikTok	Play Store	App Store	Amazon
2023-12-05	266,075	1,266,522	1,711,077	13,559	718	198,848
2023-12-04	8,429	1,026,290	1,006,839	22,356	616	349,356
2023-12-03	8,539	1,163,831	702,848	20,540	771	271,043
2023-12-02	112,225	1,168,637	678,374	23,512	714	331,126
2023-12-01	207,936	1,230,830	975,141	22,178	698	554,975
2023-11-30	131,499	1,272,435	1,063,963	22,871	734	2,948,318
2023-11-29	172,570	1,305,828	1,050,463	22,184	815	4,511,317
7 Days	907,273	8,434,373	7,188,705	147,200	5,066	9,164,983

 

When combined, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Google Play, Apple’s App Store and Amazon reported 25,847,600 takedowns for just one week, each with a statement explaining why the content was removed. But that’s only the beginning.

 

To provide the full picture we would need to add AliExpress, Booking.com, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Snapchat, X/Twitter, and Zalando to the above.

 

The numbers are big: 11,679,101 statements of reasons were added to the system on December 5 and another 15,519,304 on December 6. During the last week the smallest number of statements filed in a single day was 9,828,619. The image below shows the overall position as of this morning.

Those curious to see for themselves can grab daily .csv files weighing in at 5GB/6GB each and containing nothing but text.

 

After attempting to review just one of these files, it’s clear why YouTube struggles with disputes that can’t be handled by automation. AI will at some point provide something close to acceptable but until our artificial overlords can provide a credible fair use assessment or recognize when anti-piracy outfits are using crude word-based filters, copyright frustrations will continue as normal.

 

 

This includes text but images, videos, and music are regularly posted as well. In some cases, content is uploaded without first obtaining permission from rightsholders.

 

Over the years, various parties have called out Twitter/X over alleged copyright infringement. Research published by the EU Intellectual Property Office found that the service is rife with piracy-related discussions. U.S. lawmakers also suggested that piracy is part of the company’s business model.

 

Music companies have repeatedly complained about X too. Their main gripe is that unlike many other online services, X refuses to license the content shared by its users. As a result, creators are not properly compensated.

 

Swiss music collective management outfit SUISA Digital is one of these complainants. The organization tried to raise the issue with X’s parent company Twitter International for several months, but the service failed to respond.

SUISA Sues X Seeking Damages

This inaction was a major source of frustration for the music rights group which, as a last resort, decided to take the matter to court. That way, the social media platform would have to respond.

 

In a complaint filed at the District Court of Munich, Germany, SUISA now accuses X of widespread copyright infringement.

 

“A considerable number of works in SUISA Digital’s repertoire is available on the X platform and is used by users without Twitter International having acquired a licence from SUISA Digital,” the company explains.

 

To compensate for the alleged wrongdoing, the music rights group demands monetary compensation. The scale of the damages is unknown at this point as it depends on the infringing uses on X and the related revenue, which SUISA hopes to establish in court.

 

“Through its lawsuit, SUISA Digital seeks to ensure the authors and publishers it represents are adequately compensated for the ongoing, illegal use of their creative work,” the music group writes.

 

“That is why, among other things, SUISA Digital demands that Twitter International fully disclose its figures relating to its uses and to the turnover realized with its music offers on the platform X.”

U.S. Mass Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

The German lawsuit isn’t the first music lawsuit faced by X. In the United States, Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI, and others filed a complaint against the company a few months ago, accusing it of “breeding” mass copyright infringement.

 

According to the American music labels, X fails to properly respond to takedown notices and lacks a proper termination policy for repeat infringers. As a result, the platform is rife with music piracy.

 

With hundreds of millions of dollars in damages at stake, X is fiercely defending itself. In the U.S. case, it previously asked the court to dismiss all copyright infringement allegations. The court has yet to rule on this request.

 

These lawsuits make clear that the music industry has lost patience with X. Through they courts, they hope to motivate the company to change but whether it will, largely depends on the outcome of these legal battles.

 

With few signs that public appetite for cheap but illegal streaming services will subside anytime soon, law enforcement agencies all over Europe are working to disrupt suppliers wherever they can.

 

The Directorate for the Prosecution of Electronic Crime in Athens, Greece, is reporting an apparently successful operation against an organization that until recently serviced customers in five regions of the country. A series of raids last Friday are said to have “dismantled” the group, details of which are now emerging.

Nine ‘Key members’ Arrested

The Directorate for the Prosecution of Electronic Crime says a coordinated operation carried out last Friday targeted a “criminal operation” whose members were “systematically active in the illegal retransmission of subscription television services.” In the areas of Attica, Ilia, Thessaloniki, Kozani and Crete, nine alleged key members of the group were arrested, with another three key members reportedly still on file.

 

Together they face charges relating to the formation, management, and membership of a criminal organization, violations of intellectual property law, offenses relating to subscription services, and weapons offenses after pepper spray and a knife were confiscated by police.

 

Other items seized during the raids include 52,915 euros in cash, 41 ‘online receivers’ (nature unspecified), 24 mobile phones, 46 bank cards, 22 hard disks, 11 computers, 6 SIM cards, 5 tablet devices, 3 USB flash drives, customer lists, and a wireless router.

The Organization’s Structure

Information provided by the Directorate indicates that two key members of the group were responsible for maintaining the network infrastructure from where illicit TV streams were retransmitted to subscribers of the service.

 

Other core members of the group acted as resellers to their own sets of customers, who purchased pre-configured set-top boxes using various mechanisms including cash, bank transfers, online money transfers, and cryptocurrency transactions.

 

Police say the resellers were able to check the status of each customer to determine if they had “fulfilled their financial obligations, if their subscription period had expired, as well as activate or deactivate the connection of each user.”

 

)

An example IPTV panel (no connection to current case

 

Known in IPTV circles as a ‘reseller panel’ this a type of software that allows resellers to manage their own customers via an online interface. In return for effectively becoming an IPTV provider’s sales and customer support agent, the business is structured so that resellers are able to make a profit on each ‘credit’ (usually a month’s subscription) bought and sold. In this case, police say the resellers received a 40% cut.

How Much Was Made?

When the authorities announce seizures of drugs or counterfeit goods, early value estimates are often calculated using methods more likely to have a bigger impact in the media.

 

Drug hauls, for example, aren’t valued using the ‘wholesale’ price available for 100kgs, but at the rate they would’ve been sold at for the smallest possible quantity at ‘retail’, commonly known as street value. Counterfeit watches purchased for a few dollars each at ‘retail’ and worth much less in bulk, are reported at the price a jeweler charges for an original timepiece.

 

With the above in mind, trying to decipher figures provided by the authorities following IPTV busts is rarely straightforward. In this case, however, Greek police take a different approach.

Financial Benefit to Subscribers

By taking the estimated number of subscribers to the service (2,000 minimum) and calculating the ‘financial benefit’ they obtained (presumably by buying a pirate subscription over an official package), the police arrive at a financial benefit for subscribers valued at 420,000 euros.

This suggests that each customer avoided paying/financially benefited to the tune of 210 euros each. The loss to the subscription TV companies, meanwhile, is measured at 2,240,000 euros, over five times the amount saved by the subscribers and equivalent to 1,120 euros in losses for every single one.

 

Taking that at face value, the difference is significant and may be important for more than 40 people reported by the police for watching illegal streams.

 

“The case file also includes 43 customers of the organization, for illegal viewing of subscription services,” police report.

 

 

Consumers who want to watch movies or TV-shows online are limited to the content that they are permitted to see in their home country.

 

This means that the Netflix or Amazon library in one country can be entirely different to those made available in a neighboring nation.

 

This is a direct result of the territorial licensing deals the entertainment industry is built on. However, now that people are more connected online, these restrictions are an increasing source of frustration. That frustration can, in turn, fuel piracy.

 

Many PlayStation users were reminded of these licensing complications a few days ago when they were informed that several purchased movie titles will disappear from their libraries. While that’s a unique situation, it’s quite common to see movie and TV show titles removed from subscription platforms.

 

No law can force these platforms to offer content indefinitely but according to European lawmakers, it is possible to level the playing field and remove unnecessary barriers.

EU’s Geo-Blocking Restrictions

To counter consumer-unfriendly limitations, the European Commission previously banned certain types of geo-blocking as part of the Digital Single Market reforms. This legislation has been in place for a few years and works well, although video content is currently exempt.

 

There are ongoing discussions in the EU that could upend this. Current plans don’t call for an end to regional licenses or the adoption of a general EU-wide license, but they do stress that catalog and heritage content should be available in “unsold” territories. Specifically, citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against based on where they live.

 

The European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) recently put out a report (pdf) in which it sets out several suggestions and recommendations. They include a lifting of the geo-blocking ban exemption for the audiovisual sector.

Expanding to Video Platforms?

The report recommends the EU Commission to launch a comprehensive review of the current geo-blocking regulation and have that completed by 2025. It also carries several suggestions for improvement and expansion of the current rules.

 

“The data presented in the report suggest that the effects of such an [geo-blocking] extension would vary by type of content, depending on the level of consumer demand and on the availability of content across the EU,” the report’s summary reads.

 

“As regards an extension to audio-visual content, it highlights potential benefits for consumers, notably in the availability of a wider choice of content across borders. The report also identifies the potential impact that such an extension of the scope would have on the overall dynamics of the audio-visual sector, but concludes that it needs to be further assessed.”

 

The proposals don’t include the abolishment of all territorial licenses in the EU, and they’re mindful of the potential impact on the industry. Nevertheless, some industry insiders are spooked; the Creativity Works! coalition (CW), for example, which counts the MPA, ACT, and the Premier League among its members.

‘Geo-Blocking Restrictions Threaten Video Industry’

According to CW, geo-blocking technology is crucial to the creative and cultural industries in Europe.

 

“Geo-blocking is one of the foundations for Europe’s creative and cultural sectors, providing Europeans with the means to create, produce, showcase, publish, distribute and finance diverse, high-quality and affordable content,” they write.

 

 

Banning geo-blocking altogether would be a disaster that puts millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of euros in revenue at risk, CW warns. At the same time, it may result in more expensive subscriptions for many consumers.

 

“Ending geo-blocking’s exclusive territorial licensing would threaten 10,000 European cinemas, access to over 8,500 European VOD films and up to half of European film budgets,” CW writes.

 

“What’s more, over 100 million European fans could pay more to view the same sports coverage, while major digital streaming platforms might be forced to introduce sharp hikes for consumers in many European countries.”

Upsetting The Status Quo

Understandably, the movie industry is concerned about legislation that upsets the status quo. However, the IMCO report doesn’t recommend a wholesale ban on territorial licenses but aims to ensure that content is available in regions where it currently isn’t.

 

At this stage, nothing is set in stone, so proposals could change. However, the present recommendations appear to seek a balance between the interests of the entertainment industry and the public at large.

 

Digital rights organization Communia supports the proposals, which it in part helped to shape. The group is concerned about CW’s suggestion that restricting access to content is the “foundation for Europe’s creative and cultural sectors” and hopes that lawmakers will carefully weigh all arguments.

 

Communia says the report makes it clear that the entertainment industries can do more to serve customers across all regions. This is a conclusion rightsholders are not happy with, the group notes.

 

“[O]ne of the core insights of the IMCO report, that as a consequence, the adaptation of existing business models to the changing environment is needed both for consumers and businesses is once again at the risk of being ignored.

 

“Rightholders are seeking to get this conclusion removed from the report because the stakeholders on the supply side of the AV sector have again decided that rather than adapting to and working with consumer expectations, they can rely on their considerable lobby power to preserve the status quo that they have gotten comfortable with.”

 

Communia believes, however, that there are plenty of options to improve the situation for the general public, without destroying the entertainment industries.

 

“If done well, ending geo-blocking would provide all Europeans with more legal access to a more diverse offering of AV content and a thriving cultural sector that can finally stop claiming that denying people access to culture is in anyone’s interest,” the group concludes.

 

While no digital content is ever entirely immune from being copied and distributed illegally, photographs and other images are especially vulnerable.

 

Tools enabling users to download, copy, share, and then ultimately mass distribute images exist in, or are accessible from, most phones, tablets, and computers.

 

Photographers aside, no businesses are more aware of these vulnerabilities than publishers of Japanese comics, commonly known as manga. While manga’s cartoon cousin ‘anime’ at least has larger filesizes in its favor, manga is compact, easily copied, and simplicity itself to distribute. It’s a fact not lost on some of the world’s leading pirate sites, some fueled entirely by pirated manga.

 

To that background, it’s hard not to sympathize with the plight of major Japanese publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan. They’re leaving no stone unturned to limit piracy of their easily copied products, but when countermeasures begin to negatively affect subscribers in the legal market, that raises questions of how far companies should go.

User of Shueisha’s YanJan! App Accused of Fraud

Launched by publisher Shueisha in 2018, YanJan! (ヤンジャン!) is among a growing number of legal manga apps fighting for market share in an extremely popular market sector. Boasting well over a million downloads on Google Play alone, YanJan! can also be downloaded from Apple’s App Store, something that led to unforeseen events according to one user.

 

“While I was reading 100 Kano on Yanjan, my smartphone started vibrating. I took a screenshot [of a message] saying that my account was suspended, which made me angry,” X/Twitter user DeeyaUNO4dollar explains.

 

 

“We have suspended your use of this service because we have confirmed that it has been used fraudulently and violated our terms of service,” the message above reads. “This app prohibits screenshots, video recording, and screen mirroring while viewing works.”

Second Chances

The in-app message included an invitation for DeeyaUNO4dollar to contact YanJan! for a discussion. The message received back from YanJan! is shown below in Japanese, followed by an English summary.

 

 

“We have detected that you have taken screenshots (screen captures) and video recordings (this also applies to screen mirroring, etc.) within Manga Viewer more than a certain number of times on your account, so we have taken measures to suspend your use of the service,” the message notes.

 

The overall tone is that since these activities are banned, suspensions are indeed warranted. In this case, however, DeeyaUNO4dollar received a second chance along with warnings not to repeat the same conduct, which is expressly forbidden by a section in the app’s terms of service agreement, the company said.

 

Unfazed by a sprawling mass of legal text that realistically almost nobody is likely to read, we can confirm that screenshots are indeed outlawed (translated version below).

 

Accidental Screenshots, DeeyaUNO4dollar Claims

In many cases, screenshots can be entirely harmless but for content like manga, a series of screenshots can amount to a perfect copy of an entire publication, with the potential for onward sharing via any number of easily accessible tools. There’s no suggestion that DeeyaUNO4dollar distributed anything but according to the manga fan’s explanation, they had no intention of taking any screenshots at all.

 

The usual method to take a screenshot on an iPhone is to press the power button on the right edge of the device at the same time as pressing the volume up button on the left. However, by entering the settings menu, there’s an option in the device’s accessibility menu to take a screenshot by tapping the back of the phone instead. DeeyaUNO4dollar believes that this led to their iPhone taking screenshots ‘accidentally’ when viewing manga on the app.

 

While that may indeed be the case, a Tweet posted by the same user in October mentioning the ‘tap’ function reveals that the app handed out warnings back then, for exactly the same thing.

 

“There is a function on the iPhone that allows you to take screenshots by tapping on the back, but while I was reading a manga on a manga app, for some reason the function reacted and took a screenshot regardless of my intention, and I was told, ‘Don’t take screenshots. Don’t be silly, I’ll ban you if you do that again’.”

 

“The message has been displayed twice this week alone,” the tweet adds.

 

Copyright holders have made serious work of website blocking in recent years, expanding the practice to over forty countries worldwide.

 

In Germany, for example, the largest Internet providers agreed to voluntarily block pirate sites as part of a deal they struck with rightsholders.

 

These blockades, which are put in place following a thorough vetting process, are generally implemented at DNS level. This is a relatively easy option, as all ISPs have their own DNS resolvers.

 

The downside of this simple measure is that it’s easy to bypass. Instead of using the ISPs’ DNS resolvers, subscribers can switch to public alternatives offered by Cloudflare, Google, OpenDNS, or Quad9. This relatively simple change usually renders blocking efforts useless.

Pirate Site DNS Blocking

Copyright holders are aware of this weakness. In an attempt to broaden the impact of their anti-piracy efforts, they sued Quad9, which was required to implement a global pirate site blockade. Meanwhile, Cloudflare also found itself in the crosshairs.

 

The German branch of Universal Music previously sued Cloudflare for offering its services to pirate site DDL-Music. The Internet infrastructure company lost this legal battle in the first instance, before the case moved to the Higher Regional Court of Cologne.

 

The appeal wasn’t just about Cloudflare terminating services to DDL-Music as a customer but also the implementation of an expanded DNS blockade. Universal demanded that Cloudflare should block the pirate site for all users of its publicly available 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver.

 

Last month, the Higher Court concluded that Cloudflare doesn’t have to take any measures on its public DNS resolver in response to copyright complaints, as the service operates in a purely passive, automatic, and neutral manner. As a pass-through service, it is not liable for third-party actions under German and EU law.

 

In a blog post, Cloudflare’s Senior Associate General Counsel, Patrick Nemeroff, applauds the verdict. The American company has always argued that public DNS resolvers are neutral services.

 

Nemeroff notes that DNS servers are not a good place to try to moderate content on the Internet. This isn’t just disproportionate but also ineffective.

 

“That’s a position we’ve long advocated, because blocking through public resolvers is ineffective and disproportionate, and it does not allow for much-needed transparency as to what is blocked and why,” he writes.

Ineffective

Cloudflare equates its DNS resolver to a phone book that people historically used to look up someone’s number. In a similar vein, DNS servers link a domain name to an IP-address, allowing people to access a website without having to memorize a string of numbers.

 

Blocking a domain by tampering with a DNS resolver doesn’t take down the website. People can still use alternative DNS providers, build their own DNS solution, or simply enter the site’s IP-address manually.

 

“(i)t’s not even effective. Traditionally, website operators or hosting providers are ordered to remove infringing or illegal content, which is an effective way to make sure that information is no longer available.

 

“A DNS block works only as long as the individual continues to use the resolver, and the content remains available and will become accessible again as soon as they switch to another resolver, or build their own,” Nemeroff adds.

Disproportionate

Copyright holders are aware of this, of course, and would counter that doing something is better than nothing at all. At the moment, many ISPs also rely on DNS blockades and that tends to stop at least part of the traffic to pirate sites.

 

Cloudflare stresses that public DNS resolvers shouldn’t be compared to ISPs’ DNS servers. The main difference lies in the audience, which is global in Cloudflare’s case. This means that basic DNS blockades would apply globally too.

 

“[P]ublic DNS resolvers aren’t the same as DNS resolvers operated by a local ISP. Public DNS resolvers typically operate the same way around the globe. That means that if a public resolver applied the block the way an ISP does, it would apply everywhere.”

 

There are technical solutions to apply blockades more locally over DNS, but that would require more data gathering, which limits the privacy of the public at large.

 

“Blocking orders directed at public resolvers would require the collection of information about where the requests are coming from in order to limit these negative impacts while demonstrating compliance. That would be bad for personal privacy and bad for the Internet.”

The Fight Continues

The verdict of the Higher Regional Court is not entirely positive for Cloudflare, as it further clarified that the company can be held liable for pirate sites that use its CDN services. The case at hand revolves around DDL-Music, which is already defunct, but in future could expand to other Cloudflare customers such as The Pirate Bay.

 

In addition, the DNS battle isn’t over either. There are similar legal battles ongoing against other providers such as Quad9 while Cloudflare itself has been targeted in Italy as well.

 

“While the Higher Regional Court’s decision represents important progress on the DNS issue, the fight over how best to address online infringement continues,” Cloudflare notes.

 

Cloudflare says that it will continue to protest such orders going forward and hopes that the Higher Regional Court’s reasoning on the DNS issue, which is partly grounded in EU law, will help to that end.

 

“This decision marks further progress in Cloudflare’s fight to ensure that efforts to address online infringement are compatible with the technical nature of various Internet services, and with important legal and human rights principles around due process, transparency, and proportionality.”

 

“We will continue that battle both through public advocacy and, as necessary, through litigation, as one more part of helping build a better Internet,” Nemeroff concludes.

 

Late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. and Sony Music prevailed in their lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications.

 

The record labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers.

 

The trial lasted more than two weeks and ended in a resounding victory for the labels. A Texas federal jury found Grande guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement, and the ISP was ordered to pay $47 million in damages to the record labels.

$47 Million Appeal

This September, Grande filed its opening brief in which it again argued that the lower court reached the wrong conclusion. Internet providers shouldn’t be held liable for pirating customers based on third-party allegations, the company noted.

 

“This appeal presents important questions of first impression in this Circuit about whether, and in what circumstances, an internet service provider may be held secondarily liable for the conduct of users of its service,” the ISP wrote.

 

Among other things, the ISP believes that it shouldn’t have to terminate Internet access so easily. This view was supported by several telecom industry groups, who all object to disconnecting subscribers’ internet access based on copyright claims.

Record Labels Counter

In a recent 89-page response brief, the record labels counter Grande’s appeal. According to the music companies, the jury reached a sound verdict that should be upheld on appeal; the alternative would make it almost impossible to tackle the online piracy problem.

 

The labels explain that ISPs play a central role in BitTorrent-based piracy, as they are the only ones who can link an IP-address to a subscriber. This means that when rightsholders or their anti-piracy partners sent infringement notifications to Grande, the ISP was the only party that could address this conduct.

 

Before 2010, Grande did indeed take action against subscribers but when the private equity firm ABRY Partners purchased the ISP, it stopped terminating pirating subscribers. This went against the requirements under U.S. law, the music companies say.

 

“At trial, Plaintiffs demonstrated that Grande understood these legal obligations, but consciously ignored them,” the labels write.

 

“Instead, Grande decided in 2010 to maximize its revenues by continuing to collect subscription fees from subscribers it knew were repeat copyright infringers and providing them with the tools necessary to continue infringing, namely Grande’s high-speed internet services.”

Piracy v.s Profits

Grande could have avoided liability if it had adopted and reasonably implemented policies to terminate repeat infringing subscribers. However, the music companies argue that the ISP chose to increase the company’s profits instead.

 

The rightsholders believe that Grande’s decision was financially motivated. The company reportedly terminated the accounts of many subscribers who failed to pay their bills but took no action against repeat infringers.

 

“For nearly seven years, Grande enabled and facilitated massive copyright infringements by subscribers of its internet services as a result of its conscious decision to provide subscribers it knew were using those services to infringe with the very tools they needed to continue doing so.”

 

Grande now hopes to overturn the massive damages award, but the record labels claim its arguments fail to hold water.

Evidence?

The lawsuit relies on data collected by anti-piracy company Rightscorp which, according to Grande, is insufficient. The rightsholders disagree with that characterization and point out that plenty of support for the evidence was presented at trial.

 

“The trial record is replete with evidence about how Rightscorp reliably detected infringement by Grande’s subscribers, sent Grande more than one million notices of infringement, and downloaded copies of infringing files directly from Grande’s subscribers.”

Pirates and Terrorists

The second point of contention is whether Internet providers should be held responsible for the actions of individual users. This lies at the heart of the contributory copyright infringement concept, which ultimately resulted in the $47 million damages ruling.

 

To support its appeal, Grande draws heavily on the recent Twitter vs. Taamneh ruling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the social media platforms aren’t liable for ISIS terrorists who used their services to recruit and raise funds.

 

The Supreme Court rejected the claim that Twitter and others aided and abetted terrorist activity because it didn’t “consciously and culpably” participate in the illegal activity. According to Grande, Internet providers are even further distanced from any wrongdoing.

 

The record labels believe that this ruling shouldn’t be directly translated into a copyright context. If the court applied the ruling here, it would essentially change the concept of contributory copyright infringement based on a case that has nothing to do with copyright.

 

“To rule otherwise would require this Court to conclude that the Supreme Court changed fundamental principles of copyright liability without saying so in a case that was not about copyrights,” the labels note.

 

In addition, they point out that both cases are fundamentally different. In the Twitter case, terrorists didn’t commit their terror attacks on Twitter. However, the contested copyright infringements did take place through Grande’s network.

 

“Unlike in Twitter — where ISIS did not use the social media companies’ services to complete its terrorist attack — this case involves tortfeasors that directly relied on and used Grande’s services to carry out their torts,” the response brief reads.

 

As is often the case in these disputes, the parties have opposing viewpoints that zoom in on aspects that favor their position. It is now up to the U.S. Court of Appeals to decide which party makes the most sense.

 

—

 

A copy of the music companies’ response, countering Grande’s appeal, is available here (pdf).

 

If the court decides to vacate the existing judgment, the music companies also want to raise a counter-appeal, asking the court to clarify that taking affirmative steps to make a copyrighted work available for others to download online violates the exclusive right of distribution.

 

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. “Oppenheimer” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on December 04 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Oppenheimer	8.5 / trailer
2	(…)	Freelance	5.4 / trailer
3	(2)	The Creator	6.6 / trailer
4	(4)	Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One	7.9 / trailer
5	(…)	The Holdovers	8.1 / trailer
6	(3)	Leo	7.0 / trailer
7	(5)	The Equalizer 3	7.0 / trailer
8	(9)	Barbie	7.3 / trailer
9	(10)	Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny	6.7 / trailer
10	(…)	May December	7.2 / trailer

 

 

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

While opinions, definitions, and scope vary, it seems fairly clear that lawsuits targeting BitTorrent pirates do little to prevent mass piracy. A steady stream of suspected pirates continuously line up to become the next individuals to face potential legal action, regardless of how many that has happened to previously.

 

For companies whose movies are downloaded and shared illegally, solutions have been developed that allow them to monitor suspected pirates and track them back to their ISPs, before obtaining their identities and making a settlement offer to end the risk of a full-blown lawsuit. For many movie companies, this business model provides a stream of revenue from those perceived as unprepared to pay for their product.

 

Internet users targeted by lawyers working for those companies often view settlement demands of up to thousands of dollars as disproportionate to any actual damage suffered. Nevertheless, huge numbers of people have paid up over the years, with their cash often being handed to a law firm in the first instance. From there, payments typically wind their way back to the movie companies, with intermediaries also involved taking their cuts in what has become a global, industrial-scale settlement factory.

Movie Companies Sue Lawyer In Dispute Over Settlement Cash

Millennium Funding, Bodyguard Productions, and LHF Productions are behind famous movies including The Expendables, Olympus Has Fallen, and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. They’ve also built a reputation for demanding cash settlements from alleged pirates and more recently, filing lawsuits against internet service providers alleged to have knowingly harbored them.

 

In a lawsuit filed at an Illinois district court last week, the companies target attorney Michael Hierl of Illinois, and Hughes Sokol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd, a Chicago law firm of which Hierl is a shareholder.

 

According to his profile, Hierl has practiced exclusively in the area of intellectual property law since 1980; the lawsuit claims that Hierl and his law firm carried out work for the plaintiffs, including “filing infringement actions against and collecting monetary settlement payments from third-party infringers.”

 

In a nutshell, the plaintiffs allege that the defendants have refused to provide a “complete and accurate accounting identifying all costs, fees, and receipts for each infringement action” and failed to forward settlement amounts received in those actions.

 

The movie companies allege a breach of contract but note that due to the defendants’ alleged accounting deficiencies, they are unable to put an exact figure on the amount Hierl and his law firm failed to pay. For their part, the defendants view the situation quite differently.

Fighting Pirates, Help From Agents

The lawsuit describes Millennium’s entry into this particular piracy-fighting arena as follows:

To help combat infringing copies of Millennium’s Films being sold and distributed through the Internet, in 2012, Millennium and its predecessors in interest, through their prior agent, engaged Defendants to prepare and file infringement actions against the third-party infringers in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Illinois.

The name/s of Millennium’s “predecessors in interest” go unnamed at this point, with the same applying to Millennium’s “prior agent”. The complaint simply notes that the agent would supply Hierl and his law firm with the IP addresses of suspected infringers and they would file ‘John Doe’ complaints and “propound subpoenas to non-party internet service providers” to determine the identity of the suspected infringers based on their IP addresses.

 

Once suspected infringers were identified, the defendants reportedly amended the complaints to name the suspected infringers. In the event the named defendants agreed to settle, Hierl and his law firm were authorized to take a percentage of the settlement amount as their contingency fee and then send the balance to Millennium’s agent.

 

“Since Millennium engaged Defendants in 2012, Defendants have filed hundreds of cases on behalf of Millennium and parties that have since merged with Plaintiff Millennium Media, Inc., in the Northern District of Illinois against third-parties infringing Millennium’s Intellectual Property,” the complaint adds.

New Agent Replaces Prior Agent

Millennium says that in 2019 (date unspecified), it appointed a new agent “to communicate with Defendants on Millennium’s behalf to coordinate Defendants’ enforcement of Millennium’s Intellectual Property, thereby replacing Millennium’s prior agent.” This change was communicated to the defendants on December 7, 2020, the complaint notes, adding that all future payments should’ve been made to the new agent.

 

In common with the prior agent, the new agent’s name isn’t identified at this point. However, Millennium says that the defendants should’ve sent the new agent “monthly reports providing details of the Infringement Actions including, but not limited to, any number of actions filed, the number of settlement agreements reach, and collections made as a result of any such settlement agreements.”

 

On unspecified dates in 2021, the movie companies said they “detected discrepancies” between the information available from the dockets of the infringement actions brought on their behalf and the “information and accountings” the defendants had provided to the movie companies, including “what appeared to be settlement payments Defendants collected but failed to report and pay to Plaintiffs.”

 

The complaint alleges that since then, and despite numerous requests for Hierl and his law firm to provide files “and a complete and accurate accounting” for the infringement actions carried out, none have been forthcoming.

‘Prior Agent’ Was Part of Infamous Guardaley Settlement Operation

The complaint refers to a letter dated November 23, 2021, in which Hierl responds to a proposed complaint by Millennium which outlines the movie company’s differences with Hierl and his law firm. It contains the following paragraphs:

Some clarifications are in order before moving on.

CMS and PML

CMS (the ‘prior agent’) is a reference to Copyright Management Services Ltd, a company that has appeared in many lawsuits targeting alleged BitTorrent pirates in a number of jurisdictions on behalf of many copyright holders. The company was founded by Patrick Achache, a leading figure at anti-piracy tracking firm Maverickeye, which in turn works with German/UK company Guardaley; Achache previously described himself as Guardaley’s data director.

 

As previously reported, Achache stopped being a director of CMS on November 19, 2019, and the same day, Lubesly Tellidua – a beauty queen from the Philippines with links to Achache and Guardaley – became the controlling party. In July 2022, Tellidua filed an application for CMS to be struck off the register of companies and on October 25, 2022, official records in the UK reported that the company had been dissolved.

 

PML (the ‘current agent’) is a reference to PML Process Management Ltd, a Cyprus-based company that began life under a different name before switching to its current name in the first half of 2020.

By 2021, many lawsuits in Sweden alone suggested a link between CMS and PML, if only due to the latter picking up where the former had left off while continuing to use data provided by Maverickeye as the basis of copyright actions.

 

As reported in 2022, copyright notices sent to US ISP CenturyLink in support of a DMCA subpoena application by Millennium and several other companies, referenced infringements between January 2020 and January 2021; the notices were issued by a known Guardaley partner in the UK, some marked as sent by CMS, others PML.

 

Since Cypriot public business records tend to obfuscate company ownership, claims that PML was simply CMS with a new coat of paint, and/or under new ownership, remained speculative.

Hierl and Hughes Sokol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd: CMS is Our Client

From the statements in the complaint, the position of Hierl and Hughes Sokol Piers Resnick & Dym seems clear: their business relationship is with CMS, nobody else. In February 2021, the law firm wired $19,100.39 to Millennium, reportedly at the direction of CMS, PML and Millennium itself.

 

“A balance of $69,765.78 was wired to CMS based on our understanding that CMS and Millennium had agreed,” the letter continues. “Our firm has no relationship with PML (attorney-client or otherwise). Further, we were not aware of any unresolved fees allegedly due PML. Our information was that PML was not entitled to any portion of the settlement recoveries.”

Familiar Names, Familiar Companies

At this point, Hierl’s letter references what appears to be a change in the business arrangement, one that he nor his company acknowledge having agreed to. Relevant as that might be, the end of the paragraph is more interesting.

 

“There was no agreement to change the distribution from ‘gross collections’ to ‘net collections.’ But PML already knows that because CMS and PML apparently use the same accountant, Thomas Nowak, who was a recipient of that email.”

 

Thomas Nowak is the director of German-based UK-registered company Guardaley and German-based tracking company Maverickeye, whose evidence netted Millennium and other filmmakers big wins, including some against VPN providers.

Spare All Parties From “Senseless Litigation”

In his November 2021 letter, Hierl calls on the movie companies to find some common ground to avoid “time and expense of senseless litigation.” The lawsuit filed last week suggests consensus was elusive. A November 2022 letter sent to Hierl by the plaintiffs notes that while CMS may be Hierl’s client in some capacity, the attorney reportedly filed several cases on Millennium’s behalf, meaning that Millennium is also a client.

 

“In addition, Millennium requests that you cease all communication with Patrick Achache, CMS, and/or any company associated with Mr. Achache or CMS related to any matter involving Millennium. Moving forward, please report all information and developments in any case you are handling for Millennium to us,” the letter concludes.

 

Overall, Millennium believes that there is an enforceable contract and it’s owed $130,000 in collected settlements. The movie companies are suing for breach of contract and request an order requiring the defendants to provide a full, current and complete accounting of the infringement actions. They’re also seeking monetary relief in an amount to be decided at trial.

 

PML says that it has “ten years of experience in this field” and provides a “seamless service delivery” on behalf of its clients.

 

“We offer returns of 30% of net revenue (the rest is distributed to the partners working on the project, e.g. law firms and data supplier) in exchange for providing this service,” a statement on its website reads.

 

How all of this dovetails with a March 1, 2019, claim that Guardaley had handed over its United States operations to an entity called American Films isn’t clear.

 

In this lawsuit, American Films receives zero mentions but according to a recent press release, ISPs can take advantage of an offer to prevent themselves being sued for their customers’ piracy activities. This arrangement involves another company using an American Films subsidiary’s tracking abilities.

 

The complaint can be found here (pdf)

 

Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

 

Game companies have emerged as relatively swift victors in cases that never went to trial, but that’s not a given.

 

The legal dispute between American video game developer Bungie and AimJunkies.com has been fiercely fought and next week heads to a jury trial.

 

Two 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 creators 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 argued that cheating isn’t against the law and refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked any 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

Last year, U.S. 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 soon 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.

 

Bungie scored its first major win earlier this 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.

 

The arbitration ruling is still under appeal and with the battle being fought on multiple fronts, attention shifted back to the federal lawsuit once more, where Bungie continued its copyright and trademark claims this summer.

 

In July, 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 is expected to start next week. This is the first time that a case like this will go before a jury, making it a landmark event.

 

At the core of the dispute is whether AimJunkies engaged in direct, vicarious, or contributory copyright infringement. If that’s found to be the case, the next question is whether Bungie is entitled to an award for damages.

 

For AimJunkies, the upcoming trial also raises some concerns. Specifically, the defendant is worried about the negative connotation of the term “cheating”. This may signal to the jury that the activity is legally improper, contrary to the defendant’s legal position.

 

To prevent confusion, the cheat maker asked the court to ban any mentions of the word “cheat” or “cheat software”, but the request was denied.

Defenses & Counterclaim

At trial, AimJunkies hopes to convince the jury that the cheating software it sold wasn’t infringing any copyrights. In fact, the defendants will claim that they merely sold the software; it was created by an unnamed third party.

 

“The software at issue here was created by parties other than Defendants. Defendants did not have access to the software Bungie accuses them of copying,” defendants note in a pretrial statement.

 

“No software created, developed, marketed, advertised, sold or otherwise distributed by Defendants infringes any copyright of Bungie,” AimJunkies’ attorney adds.

 

The cheat sellers are not the only party on the defensive. Third-party developer James May filed a counterclaim accusing Bungie of circumventing the DMCA by accessing personal files on his computer. Bungie, however, argues that it did nothing wrong.

 

Bungie might have accessed the developer’s computer, but the company states that none of the files that were allegedly accessed are copyrighted.

 

“None of the works allegedly accessed by Bungie are works protected by copyright […]. Bungie did not circumvent any of May’s technological measures that protect any files on his computer,” the game company writes in its pretrial statement.

 

Overall, the arguments from both sides are a guarantee for an intriguing trial. And although AimJunkies is a relatively small player in the broader ‘cheating’ ecosystem, the jury verdict will likely resonate in many gaming communities.

 

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A copy of the pretrial order cited in this article, which includes additional argument from both sides, is available here (pdf)

 

In recent years, rightsholders in Sweden have reported significantly increased consumption of pirate IPTV services, and law enforcement’s inability to tackle the problem due to a lack of funding.

 

Complaints like these are nothing new for rightsholders or indeed anyone else in Europe; when resources are already stretched, it’s inevitable that some crimes will be considered less of a priority than others.

 

But while there’s insufficient funding for police to tackle pirate IPTV suppliers in Sweden, resources are available to investigate those committing the greatest crime of all; generating money by criminal means but failing to surrender the government’s share of the spoils.

Skatteverket Investigates

The Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) is responsible for collecting personal income tax from citizens, and from companies via corporate tax, VAT, and excise tax. Collecting taxes is critical to the functioning of any country since without revenue, public services like policing may find themselves without appropriate funding, leaving it up to the tax agency to weed out tax evaders, pirate IPTV sellers included.

 

“During 2021 to 2023, the Swedish Tax Agency has conducted investigations against those who sell illegal IPTV to consumers,” a Skatteverket report on pirate IPTV services reveals.

 

“To identify sellers, the Swedish Tax Agency has made test purchases and also searched for sellers on the internet. The result was about 200 identified retailers, of which 97 were selected for in-depth investigation.”

Tax Evading Resellers Pursued By Government

The Swedish Tax Agency says that to learn more about the IPTV ecosystem, it collaborated with anti-piracy groups Nordic Content Protection and Rights Alliance, which represent the rights of broadcasters and film and TV companies respectively.

 

Since distributing content is illegal without first obtaining the rights, most popular unlicensed IPTV services are illegal by default. Skatteverket says that it’s therefore unlikely that distributors and resellers of pirate services register or declare their business activities.

 

In this investigation, the tax agency focused on resellers, most of whom have shifted away from services such as PayPal in recent years in favor of cryptocurrencies, predominantly bitcoin.

 

“The Swedish Tax Agency notes that the consumer only needs to swipe money to a crypto exchange, which then ensures that the seller receives their bitcoin. For the consumer, who thus does not need to familiarize themselves with how cryptocurrency works, this makes it extremely easy,” the agency reports.

Tax Agency Has Crypto Experience

“An important success factor for the investigation is that the Swedish Tax Agency developed expertise in tracing cryptocurrencies at an early stage. Several sellers have been identified thanks to the Swedish Tax Agency’s work with cryptocurrencies,” Skatteverket notes in the report.

 

The agency says that in order for IPTV sellers to be able to use their profits in everyday life, cryptocurrencies need to be turned into regular currency, such as Swedish kronor, euros or dollars. This often requires sellers to have at least one foreign bank account but today, opening an overseas account is easy.

 

“When the Swedish Tax Agency discovers that payments for illegal IPTV go to foreign bank accounts, a so-called executive order is required. This means that the Swedish Tax Agency can request the information via other countries’ tax authorities. Such warrants have been a common feature of the investigations. They allow the tax authorities to determine the income of the dealer.”

Unrecorded revenue and unrecorded VAT

The Tax Agency reports that the vast majority of its investigations show that IPTV sellers fail to declare their income, and they don’t account for output VAT on IPTV sales either, currently set at 25% in Sweden.

 

By October 2023, Skatteverket says it had completed 80 in-depth IPTV seller investigations. In 73 of those investigations the agency found unrecorded income and unrecorded output VAT. As a result, the individuals involved had their tax obligations adjusted accordingly.

 

“In total, the amount to be paid in tax is over SEK 37,000,000 [$3.53 million]. 17 investigations are still ongoing – the amount is highly likely to increase by several million kronor,” Skatteverket notes.

Bigger Money Being Made Higher Up The Chain

The Swedish Tax Agency says that at the bottom level, each reseller generates between SEK 5,000 [$4,770] and SEK 1,000,000 [$95,500] but above them significantly higher revenues have been observed.

 

“In the largest investigation to date, illegal IPTV was sold for over SEK 30 million [$2.86 million],” the agency notes, adding that other crypto wallets linked to illegal IPTV sales show several hundred million kronor.

 

For perspective, one hundred million kronor is currently worth around $9.55m.

 

The full report is available here

 

Two years ago, Google started delisting the URLs of several popular pirate sites from its search results.

 

This decision didn’t impact all users. Instead, Google voluntarily decided to remove URLs in countries where the sites are blocked by local Internet providers, typically following a court order.

 

In the Netherlands, for example, The Pirate Bay and many of its mirrors and proxies were delisted by Google in response to a notice sent by local anti-piracy group BREIN. Google took similar action in the UK, France, and other countries, once it was notified by rightsholders.

Knowledge Panels

These interventions don’t stop at simply removing the domains from the search index. Initially, we noticed that the so-called “knowledge panels” for the blocked pirate sites were gone too. Apparently, these were also considered problematic.

 

The image below shows the panel currently shown in countries where The Pirate Bay isn’t blocked. Aside from some basic details, this includes a direct and uncensored link to The Pirate Bay’s homepage.

 

US Google Search Results
 

Showing this knowledge panel in blocked regions wouldn’t make much sense after Google carefully stripped all thepiratebay.org URLs from its search results. In this context, removing the panel entirely seems a logical decision.

URL Disappears

However, when doing some recent searches, we noticed The Pirate Bay’s knowledge panel reappearing in blocked regions such as the UK and the Netherlands. As can be seen below, the official site doesn’t appear anywhere in search results, which has been the case for some time.

 

Here, the link to thepiratebay.org has now been stripped from the knowledge panel, something we hadn’t seen before.

 

Dutch Google Search Results

 

Whether these interventions will do much to stop people from finding The Pirate Bay is doubtful. Wikipedia remains one of the top search results and the online encyclopedia continues to list the site’s official URL, at least for now.

Bard Refuses to Provide The Pirate Bay’s URL

To check how consistent Google is across its services, we also tried Bard, the company’s AI chatbot. That didn’t get us very far, however, with the AI pointing out that The Pirate Bay facilitates ‘illegal’ activity.

 

“Please note that The Pirate Bay is a website that facilitates the sharing of copyrighted material, which is illegal in many jurisdictions. As such, I cannot provide you with direct links to the website or instructions on how to find it.

 

“I would encourage you to seek out legal and ethical ways to acquire the content you are looking for,” Bard notes.

 

When we phrased the question differently, asking Bard how one can access The Pirate Bay, it offered more concrete suggestions on how to find blocked websites (even though we didn’t mention ‘blocking’). One piece of advice was to use a search engine; this works indeed, unless it’s Google.

 

“One way to find blocked websites is to use a search engine. There are many different search engines available, so you will need to do some research to find one that is right for you. It is important to choose a search engine that is reputable and has a good track record of privacy and security.

 

“Another way to find blocked websites is to use a social media site. Many social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have groups and forums that are dedicated to sharing blocked websites,” Bard added.

 

Bard has Options
 

Bungie’s interest in individuals linked to Destiny 2 cheat maker and distributor, Ring-1, became public in 2021.

 

A lawsuit filed at a California court named four defendants as suspected operators with an additional 50 ‘Doe’ defendants to be unmasked as the case progressed.

 

Six causes of action including copyright infringement, trafficking in circumvention devices contrary to the DMCA, trademark violations, and unfair competition, encouraged three defendants to settle with Bungie. However, with Ring-1 still in business, more work lay ahead.

New Lawsuit, New Determination

Filed at a Washington court early August 2023, a new complaint alleging copyright infringement, breaches of the DMCA, and civil RICO violations, among others, targeted up to 50 developers, marketers, customer support staff, and sellers of Destiny 2 cheating software offered by Ring-1.

 

According to the complaint, Bungie’s investigative work had already identified several defendants by name, while others were known only by their online handles. During September and October, identified defendants were served in West Virginia, Delaware, and Ontario, Canada, but in order to identify and serve more, on October 27, Bungie requested assistance from the court.

 

“Like the cheat itself, the Enterprise is sophisticated and its members go to great lengths to conceal their identities,” Bungie’s motion for expedited discovery explained.

 

“Many Defendants do not provide any contact information such as a physical address, email address, or phone number, and conduct their transactions entirely pseudonymously. Defendants also use privacy protection services to hide their names and contact information from the public domain name WHOIS database.”

Third Parties Likely to Hold Identifying Information

While those personal details had proven evasive up to that point, Bungie informed the court that it had been able to identify several third parties with past, current, or ongoing relationships with those it hoped to identify. Those parties, Bungie said, were likely to have records “uniquely attributable” to the unidentified defendants, and these would either directly or indirectly allow Bungie to identify and then serve its targets.

 

In respect of the Ring-1 website, Bungie named Nice IT Services Company (host), Digital Ocean (payment-related subdomains), and Telegram (support) as service providers that allow it to operate.

 

In connection with six alleged operators of Ring-1 (“Hastings,” “Khaleesi,” “Cypher,” “god,” “C52YOU,” and “Lelabowers74”), Bungie identified a further seven third party service providers upon which the Ring-1 operators reportedly rely; Twitch and YouTube (advertising), Streamlabs (enhance revenue, broaden reach) and Steam, where the defendants allegedly play Destiny 2.

 

Other providers include Yahoo and Live (where Hastings has email accounts), Google (where Khaleesi has a Gmail address), and Discord; according to Bungie, the alleged Ring-1 operators used to chat there before deleting their server in July 2021.

 

Bungie’s investigations reportedly identified accounts at ISPs connected to Hastings and Khaleesi; the former at Verizon and Comcast in the United States and the latter at Virgin Media and Sky Broadband in the UK. Five Ring-1 resellers identified by Bungie operated various services including Discord servers, websites, plus Twitter and YouTube accounts.

 

As a result, these third parties plus domain registrars Squarespace and GoDaddy, and e-commerce platform Sellix, are likely to hold identifying information, Bungie informed the court (sample of proposed order below).

 

Order Granted in Part, Denied in Part

Having considered Bungie’s rather broad motion, United States Magistrate Judge Michelle L. Peterson handed down her order this Wednesday.

 

While most of Bungie’s requests were found to be “narrowly tailored” to seek identifying information, requests to serve third-party subpoenas to Cloudflare, Storely, Selly, and “any other third-party Plaintiff identifies to be providing services of any kind to any one or more of the Defendants” were described as unsupported or overbroad.

 

Even with these denials and especially considering the number of services involved, Bungie’s narrowly tailored request could prove pivotal for the entire case. As such, unless extreme caution was exercised at all times, it will only be a matter of time before Bungie begins serving additional defendants.