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

 

Next month, the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where millions of movie fans will see the crowning of this year’s “Best Picture”.

 

There are currently ten contenders in the race for the prestigious award. The nominees range from blockbuster titles such as “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick, to lesser-known gems such as “Tár” and “Triangle of Sadness”.

Oscar Pirates

An Oscar nomination is a big deal for the latter category. The press attention opens the door to a new audience, which ultimately translates into additional revenue. However, there’s also a darker side to this phenomenon in the form of online piracy.

 

Pirates come in all shapes and sizes but their consumption habits show a lot of overlap with the rest of the population. This means that if a movie is generating positive headlines, more people will be interested in downloading or streaming a pirated copy.

 

To demonstrate this phenomenon, we looked at the estimated number of downloads through torrent sites for all best picture nominees, excluding “Women Talking,” which hadn’t been pirated yet.

The Nomination Boost

These data, collected with help from Iknow, reveal a clear Oscar boost for the nominated titles. On the first full day after the announcement, the downloads for nearly all films increased compared to a week earlier. This Oscar-boost effect ranges from 10% to 90%, as shown in the overview below.

 

Movie	Increase (18/25 January)
All Quiet on the Western Front	61%
Avatar: The Way of Water	-9%
Elvis	43%
Everything Everywhere All at Once	60%
Tár	89%
The Banshees of Inisherin	63%
The Fabelmans	58%
Top Gun: Maverick	15%
Triangle of Sadness	68%

 

There are two main outliers in this list; “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick”. These are the biggest blockbusters, already seen by millions, and the extra exposure didn’t do all that much.

 

The effect is markedly different for “Tár” and “Triangle of Sadness”, with interest almost doubling for both following the Oscar nominations. The other titles ended up somewhere in the middle, still with significant increases.

 

The chart above shows daily download estimates for the Oscar nominees, excluding the two blockbusters. This clearly shows the spike starting on the 24th of January, which lasted for a few days. After that, pirate interest in these titles went back to normal.

More Awards?

When we first looked at the data we couldn’t immediately explain why there was a separate increase in downloads on January 11th for “The Fablemans”, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, and “The Banshees of Inisherin”. That was two weeks before the nominations. Could there be something wrong with the data?

 

While we can never completely rule out errors, the more likely explanation is another awards show. On January 11th “The Fablemans”, “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won multiple Golden Globes, beating all other films.

 

These data show that awards shows are still a big deal, also for pirates. However, the effect is the most pronounced for smaller releases that gain most from additional media exposure. If one of these scoops up the best picture award next month, another major piracy boost is likely.

 

Over the past few years, millions of people in dozens of countries have continuously gorged on rumors, speculation, misinformation, disinformation and, on rare occasions, actual information pertaining to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

 

Safe in the knowledge that 24/7/365 wall-to-wall multi-media coverage would never be enough, Penguin Random House (PRH) reportedly paid a $20 million advance for Prince Harry to end all speculation, once and for all, in a brand new book.

 

Released on January 10, ‘Spare’ was an immediate smash-hit sensation, with PRH reporting record-breaking global sales of more than 3.2 million units across print, digital, and audio formats – in its first week on sale.

Sales Could’ve Been Better

Despite becoming a number one best-seller in multiple countries, not every country has access to ‘Spare’. In common with many Western entertainment companies, publisher Penguin Random House pulled out of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine last year. As previously reported, that has caused huge issues for the cinema industry and beyond.

 

With most Western content either unlicensed or unavailable legally in Russia, multiple plans to pirate that content, enforce compulsory licensing (piracy, effectively), or say good riddance because Russia never needed it anyway, are all on the table. And then off the table, depending on the mood.

 

In the meantime, a major publishing house has come up with a different solution.

Plea to Foreign Publishers, Fears Over Piracy

Controlling around 30% of the Russian market, Eksmo-AST is Russia’s largest publisher. A month after Russia invaded Ukraine, the company urged foreign companies to reconsider their boycott of Russian publishers.

 

“I would like to invite you to think of our mission: publishers’ mission, authors’ mission and the mission of literature in general. Is it just a business matter for you or is it above all to strive to make the written word a leading tool to achieve understanding, to help human ideas make it to the top of the world’s agenda?” the letter reads.

 

“In the last 15 years together we have almost eliminated piracy – it hardly exists in print and no more than 3% of all e-books are pirated now – quite the opposite of the awful situation we had seen in the past.”

 

As part of its efforts to ensure authors’ rights are respected globally, Eksmo-AST Group company AST Publishing LTD joined a copyright-based class action lawsuit in the United States. It accuses YouTube/Google of not doing enough to prevent piracy, which undermines authors’ rights in their literary and artistic works.

 

With that case nowhere near a conclusion and Western publishers like Penguin Random House still unwilling to license their books in Russia, Eksmo-AST will ensure that the content of Prince Harry’s book will still be published in the local market. The company says the method used is completely legal, and not at all controversial or problematic.

A Copy? Plagiarism? No, It’s a ‘Retelling’

Whether Eksmmo-AST is yet to spot the four illegal copies of ‘Spare’ on the first page of Yandex search results is unclear, but the publisher still wants Prince Harry’s story to be heard in Russia.

 

News outlet Kommersant reports that several Russian publishers are preparing to circumvent the ban on the release of bestsellers in Russia by publishing new books in a ‘саммари’ format. Roughly translated as ‘summary’, these are not direct copies of original books and no direct quotes are used from the original, the publisher insists.

 

“The summary will reflect the key ideas of the book without using excerpts from it: the author of the summary read the book in English and retold it in her own language,” Eksmo CEO Yevgeny Kapiev told Kommersant.

 

Ebook and audiobook service LitRes is already offering an ‘abridged’ version of ‘Spare’ for 139.5 rubles ($1.86) due to an introductory discount of 50%.

 

Both companies appear to be relying on a law that allows non-fiction books to be “retold” and published without breaking copyright law. Eksmo told TASS that permission from copyright holders is not required for retelling.

 

“A professional team worked on the summary, the retelling contains the main ideas of the book, without using excerpts. The volume of the retelling is one author’s sheet, no more than 15% of the original,” the spokesperson said.

 

“However, as before, as always, our publishing group is ready for dialogue and cooperation in case [the authors] appeal.”

 

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

 

Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years.

 

Internet provider RCN is among the targeted providers. In 2021, the company was sued by several film companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.

 

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

 

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

Reddit Users as Evidence

RCN denied most of the allegations and asked the New Jersey federal court to dismiss the case. That effort failed last October and the matter is now proceeding, with both parties gathering evidence.

 

The filmmakers have previously shown that they don’t shy away from relying on evidence from unrelated third parties. This includes Redditors who have semi-anonymously shared their thoughts on piracy warnings and repeat infringer policies from Internet providers.

 

In the RCN case, this is no different. Attorney Kerry Culpepper discovered several Reddit discussions with potentially relevant comments. Some Reddit users specifically mention RCN. Others refer to ISPs in more general terms but could refer to RCN or other brands of the Astound conglomerate.

 

To gather more details, the filmmakers would like to know who these commenters are. To obtain their identities, they obtained a subpoena compelling Reddit to share basic account information, including IP-address logs for ‘ben125125’, ‘SquattingCroat’, “Griffdog21′, ‘aromaticbotanist’, ‘ChikaraFan’, ‘compypaq’, ‘dotsamantha’, ‘ilikepie96mng’ and ‘matt3324’.”

Reddit Objects

Reddit is not pleased with the request. On January 17, the company informed the filmmakers that it would alert the subscribers, allowing them to contest the subpoena. In addition, Reddit suggested that handing over personal details could violate users’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

 

Roughly two weeks later, none of the affected users had filed an objection in court. However, Reddit decided to share information about “ben125125”, while protecting the other users.

 

As shown above, “ben125125” responded to a thread about piracy warnings and specifically mentioned RCN. That wasn’t as obvious in the other comments and Reddit feels that disclosing their identities goes too far.

 

“Reddit maintains its objections to the subpoena’s remaining requests for identifying information associated with the eight additional accounts listed in the subpoena,” Reddit’s attorneys informed the filmmakers in an email.

 

“Reddit has reviewed the examples provided by plaintiffs and continues to believe the requests for identifying information associated with the additional eight accounts are more in the nature of a fishing expedition and are neither relevant nor permissible under the First Amendment.”

 

Among other things, Reddit stresses that some of the comments are well beyond the three-year statute of limitations. In fact, one comment was posted 13 years ago. In addition, the comments don’t all reference RCN, the provider at the heart of the dispute.

Filmmakers Ask Court to Step In

The rightsholders see things differently. This week they asked a California court to compel Reddit to hand over the requested details and IP-address logs, as these are highly relevant. Disclosing the information is proportional to the needs of the case, they argue.

 

The comments can provide evidence that RCN can control the conduct of subscribers and didn’t have a proper repeat infringer policy, with the latter acting as a draw to potential subscribers.

 

This includes a comment from the user ChikaraFan about RCN’s alleged “lax” policy for dealing with repeat infringers, which the filmmakers plan to use as evidence.

 

“Plaintiffs wish to use ChikaraFan’s statement as evidence of and that this ‘fairly lax’ policy was a draw for becoming a customer.

 

“Even though the statement was made eight years ago, Plaintiffs can use the information requested in the subpoena to contact ChikaraFan and authenticate her/his post to obtain evidence to support their claims.”

Relevant and Proportional

Other posts are also relevant and proportional, the rightsholders argue. These include several comments suggesting that ISPs don’t have very strict repeat infringer policies, without mentioning the names of the providers.

 

The filmmakers believe that these can be very useful if they are about RCN or one of the other Internet provider brands operated under parent company Astound.

 

The motion to compel also counters Reddit’s First Amendment right to anonymous speech argument, noting that none of the users filed an official protest after being notified.

 

The Reddit users apparently don’t have to fear repercussions themselves, as the film companies stress that they’re not interested in pursuing legal action or financial claims against them.

 

“Rather, Plaintiffs just wish to discuss the comments the subscribers made and use their comments as evidence that RCN monitors and controls the conduct of its subscribers, RCN has no meaningful policy for terminating repeat infringers and this lax or no policy was a draw for using RCN’s service,” they write.

 

The matter is now with the court, which must decide whether Reddit can be compelled to identify the affected users. The list no longer includes ‘dotsamantha’ who was dropped from the request. Reddit, meanwhile, may have to say more on the matter.

Whatever it Takes

If anything, the above shows that film companies are willing to dig deep to prove a point. This can drag relatively anonymous Reddit users into a lawsuit they probably never even heard about.

 

The issue isn’t limited to Reddit either; rightsholders can pull comments from Twitter and other social media platforms.

 

Whether this unconventional tactic will yield results has yet to be seen. Based on recent history, it is clear that the filmmakers and their lead attorney don’t give up easily.

 

In a separate case last year, they won a $14 million copyright judgment against LiquidVPN. Since then, the companies have pulled out all the stops to get their money.

 

Just last month, the filmmakers obtained a worldwide asset restraining order (pdf) that prohibits the former operators of the defunct VPN provider from disposing or transferring valuable assets. The same case also triggered a battle over a $300,000 yacht that was left abandoned after the verdict.

 

The RCN case and Reddit dispute are more straightforward but the tactics deployed show that the filmmakers are willing to do whatever it takes, using all legal means at their disposal.

 

—

 

A copy of the motion to compel Reddit to comply with the subpoena, as filed at the California court this week, is available here (pdf)

 

For more than 15 years, rightsholders have been obtaining injunctions that require internet service providers to block pirate sites. With no clear roadmap, early blocking applications met one complication after another. Today, most run relatively smoothly.

 

From a cold, legal perspective, a 2020 blocking application filed by publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society should’ve been straightforward. Benefiting from the experiences of the High Court in London and the adoption of U.S-penned terms such as ‘rogue site’, Indian judges had readily embraced blocking injunctions as a reasonable response to rampant infringement.

 

Applications for 10,000+ domains to be blocked within days are now routinely approved by India’s courts. In Sci-Hub’s case, the clock has already been running for more than two years. The reasons for that are both straightforward and complex.

 

On one hand, unauthorized mass copying and distribution of movies, TV shows, and music is widely recognized as copyright infringement. When scientific papers and academic articles enter the equation, the ground suddenly starts to shift. Underpinned by the widespread belief that publishers exploit academic works, to sustain a monopoly that restricts access to information in favor of profit, all bets are suddenly off.

 

Even among those who view other types of piracy as immoral, access to education for those unable to afford it is increasingly considered the new moral standard. Perhaps more than anywhere else, people in India are prepared to stand up and fight for an education.

Alexandra Elbakyan: This Case Should Be Dismissed

Unlike most pirate site operators, Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan has become an accessible public figure. Supported by millions of students, academics and scientists, when Elbakyan takes on the ‘greedy’ publishers, a win for her is seen as a win for all.

 

The general consensus is that copyright law favors the publishers, but in a recent motion to dismiss, Elbakyan had other things on her mind too.

 

As Justice Sanjeev Narula at the High Court of Delhi explains in a recently published order, Elbakyan called for the entire case to be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Based on the assertion that the assignment agreements relied upon by the publishers do not confer ownership of copyrights relating to the allegedly infringed works, Elbakyan declared them void.

 

“Reliance is placed upon Section 16 and 19 of the Copyright Act, 1957, to argue that agreements relating to copyrights must specify royalty or some other form of consideration, failing which, they cannot affect the assignment of copyright,” Justice Narula writes.

 

“Section 25 of the Contract Act is relied upon to contend an agreement without consideration is void.”

Mandatory Economic Component Absent

Mr. Gopal Sankaranarayan, Senior Counsel representing Elbakyan, informed the court that the publishers are required by law to “pay royalty and other consideration” to the authors of scientific articles in exchange for the exclusive right of distribution.

 

Examination of the agreements showed that the authors have not been compensated, Sankaranarayan said. Not only is the mandatory economic component absent from the agreements, they are also irrelevant. The agreements pertain to the publication of books; Elbakyan is accused of distributing articles.

Plaintiffs Own The Copyrights

Before addressing these matters directly, the Judge turns to a statement previously submitted to the Court.

 

“Ms. Elbakyan [defendant no.1], in her written statement, has categorically admitted that Plaintiffs are owners of copyright in subject works,” the Judge notes. “This admission was attempted to be withdrawn by way of an application [..] which was dismissed by this Court by way of a detailed order dated 3rd November, 2022.”

 

The November order also contains a statement by the judge: (edited for clarity)

 

By virtue of agreements between the Plaintiffs and authors of the various literary works published by the Plaintiffs, the Plaintiffs have been assigned and thus are the owners of, inter alia, the exclusive rights to (a) issue copies of the literary works to the public, (b) to reproduce the literary works in any form including the storing of it in any medium by electronic means, and (c) communicate the work to the public. The Plaintiffs are thus the owners of the copyright.

 

Since the application to withdraw Elbakyan’s admissions failed last November, those admissions will remain on record, Justice Narula says. Having asserted copyright ownership via assignment agreements and presented evidence that Elbakyan infringed their copyrights, the plaintiffs demonstrated a cause of action.

 

On that basis, the Judge finds no grounds for dismissing the plaintiffs’ blocking application. The next hearing is scheduled for July 2023. In the meantime, Sci-Hub has received some unexpected news.

 

After suspending Sci-Hub’s .SE domain in January, The Swedish Internet Foundation has now restored it following what appears to have been a successful “ownership verification process.”

 

The February 9, 2023 and November 2022 orders can be found here (1,2, pdf)

 

Cheating in computer games has existed almost as long as gaming itself. The difference today is that single-player games have mostly given way to multiplayer experiences featuring human competition.

 

Poking around in 8-bit gaming code was something enjoyed in isolation. Deploying a commercial cheating product to ensure ‘victory’ in a multi-player environment is something else entirely.

Activision vs. Call of Duty Cheat-Makers

Activision is among several companies leveraging copyright law to send a message to cheat-makers. A lawsuit filed early January 2022 in the U.S. targets German companies EngineOwning UG and CMN Holdings S.A, plus a growing list of both named and yet-to-be-identified defendants.

 

EngineOwning UG and ten named defendants filed a 53-page motion to dismiss last month, characterizing the lawsuit as a battle between a $50 billion dollar company and mostly overseas defendants with limited resources to fight back. Two of those defendants, EngineOwning UG and Valentin Rick, are already being sued by Activision in a similar lawsuit in Germany.

 

In broad terms, appeals to dismiss the U.S. lawsuit center on Activision’s decision to sue foreign defendants, with limited ties to the United States, in a California court. Germany would be a more appropriate and ultimately more practical venue, the motion argues.

 

Germany has competent courts, meaning the defendants wouldn’t have to incur huge costs to defend the same actions thousands of miles away. And since Activision has offices in Germany, a local proceeding shouldn’t be a burden for the plaintiffs either, the defendants insist.

 

A decision in the German case is expected to arrive soon and according to the defendants, it will be resolved “one way or another.”

Two Defendants Decide to Settle

With the prospect of potentially prolonged legal action ahead, two of the named defendants in the United States action have reached agreements with Activision.

 

In two separate filings dated February 14, Activision and defendants Ignacio Gayduchenko and Manuel Santiago request entry of consent judgments to bring their respective matters to an end.

 

In broad terms, both defendants have agreed to permanently cease and desist from knowingly or intentionally performing any of the activities detailed in a comprehensive list. The image below contains a small sample.

 

The agreements are customized based on details specific to each individual, their alleged role and other circumstances, but the overall message is extremely clear: stay away from cheat-related behaviors connected in any way to Activision’s business or face the consequences.

 

Gayduchenko agrees that judgment shall be entered against him “in the amount of two million dollars ($2,000,000), to be due and payable solely pursuant to the terms set forth in the Parties’ Confidential Settlement Agreement and Release.” Manuel Santiago agreed to the same terms but just half of the money – $1,000,000.

 

“The Parties irrevocably and fully waive any and all rights to appeal this Judgment and Permanent Injunction, to have it vacated or set aside, to seek or obtain a new trial thereon or otherwise to attack in any way, directly or collaterally, its validity or enforceability,” both documents continue.

 

“Nothing contained in this Judgment and Permanent Injunction shall limit the right of the Parties to seek relief including, without limitation, damages for any and all infringements of any Intellectual Property rights or for violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA occurring after the date of this
Judgment and Permanent Injunction.”

 

Entry of these judgments and permanent injunctions require the judge’s signature, but for defendant Katerina Disdle, things are more straightforward. On February 10, Activision voluntarily dismissed her from the case. The reasons for that are unknown but since the dismissal is without prejudice, Activision has left the door open for further action, if that’s ever required.

Judge Warns Remaining Defendants

When regular people represent themselves in complex legal battles against rich opposition and then win, people make movies about them. The other cases where most lose? Not so much.

 

A self-representation order placed on file by District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald notes that one or more defendants in this matter intend to appear without an attorney. That’s completely within their rights but since proceeding pro se has significant risks, a few should be pointed out.

 

“Generally speaking, non-attorney litigants are less like to be victorious than those assisted by counsel. The opposing party may have a lawyer, and that lawyer’s duty is to achieve victory for his or her client. He or she will take every step legally permissible to that end,” the Judge warns.

 

“The Court is a neutral adjudicator of the law. The role of the judge is to resolve disputes arising between the parties in accordance with the law. As such, the judge cannot assist you, cannot answer your legal questions, and cannot take sides in the dispute, nor can any members of the judge’s staff.”

 

Simply stated, when you elect to proceed pro se, you are on your own and become personally responsible for litigating your action in accordance with the rules. You must become familiar with these rules. You will be held to the same standards as a lawyer as far as complying with the Court procedures and the rules and regulations of the court system

 

The next few pages in the order cover some of the basics (pdf) but since much more is required, additional defendants may be persuaded to settle.

 

The proposed joint stipulations and voluntary dismissal can be found here (1,2,3, pdf)

 

For most people living in the West, MyCima may not ring a bell. In Arabic-speaking countries, MyCima was the second-largest piracy ring in the region.

 

The site offered downloads and streams of roughly 12,000 pirated copies of movies and 26,000 TV shows. These streams were embedded and utilized third-party hosting services such as Uptostream and Userload.

Free Movies and TV

MyCima was most popular in Egypt where it was among the ten most-visited sites in the country. The site also generated a lot of traffic from neighboring countries, including Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia.

 

The true purpose of the site was obvious and its operators publicly advertised it as the best way to watch entertainment without paying.

 

“Our website is the most prominent free movie site, meaning that it enables you to follow your favorite shows and movies for free without the need to pay in order to subscribe to the site,” MyCima wrote on its website.

 

This free-for-all approach generated serious advertising revenues for the site. Behind the scenes, copyright holders were hard at work trying to bring the platform to its knees.

Egypt Shutters MyCima

The Alliance of Creativity Entertainment (ACE), which includes Netflix, Disney and other prominent players, took on the task and reported the MyCima piracy ring to law enforcement in Egypt.

 

Intelligence has shown that the operation was headquartered in Alexandria. Based on the referral from ACE, Egyptian authorities managed to shut down the operation this week. As a result, myciiima.autos and roughly 70 other domain names have stopped working.

 

It appears that the authorities hit the hosting facility of the piracy ring as most domain names are still active. However, instead of showing the usual links to pirated movies and series, visitors see a Cloudflare error stating that the host is unreachable.

‘You Can’t Hide’

ACE boss Jan van Voorn, who is also the Motion Picture Association’s Global Content Protection Chief, notes that pirate site operators will face the consequences of their actions, regardless of where they operate.

 

“The latest shut-down in the Middle East reinforces the fact that no matter where in the world they are, criminal distributors of pirated content can’t hide,” Van Voorn says.

 

Van Voorn is pleased with the actions Egypt has taken and he explicitly thanks the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Internal Affairs for their help.

 

“We applaud the action taken by the Egyptian authorities and look forward to supporting them in further actions. We would also like to thank the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Internal Affairs for their work in the investigation and protection of intellectual property rights.”

 

ACE has its roots in Hollywood but has been expanding all over the globe in recent years. This includes the Middle East where two of its newest members, OSN and MBC GROUP, proved to be instrumental in the MyCima investigation.

 

To give the successful anti-piracy operation more weight, ACE stresses that MyCima was the second-largest piracy operation in the Middle East region. The number one isn’t mentioned, probably for a good reason.

#1 Survives?

Egybest has traditionally been the top pirate site in the region. This download and streaming platform appeared to shut down in 2019 following an enforcement effort that also involved the Motion Picture Association (MPA). However, that didn’t last.

 

Through various copycat sites and redirects, the brand managed to survive. The original Egy.best domain also made a comeback as a dominant piracy player in Egypt and elsewhere.

 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Trade Representative called out Egybest as one of the oldest movie piracy portals in the region. According to the MPA, the site had well over 130 million monthly visits.

 

Interestingly, the main Egy.best domain became unreachable again last December. The recent disappearence is shrouded in mystery but there are plenty of copies and clones still in operation. Whether ACE still sees it as the leading piracy operation is unknown.

 

When Lionel Messi held up the World Cup Trophy, all of Argentina was watching. Many people tuned in to legal broadcasts but pirate services were buzzing too.

 

With an audience of millions, piracy is quite popular in Argentina. Rightsholders are unhappy with the country’s mediocre enforcement results in the piracy arena and are demanding tougher action.

 

Thus far, private actions have already enjoyed a level of success. A few days before the start of the World Cup, ACE took down a ring of illegal sports streaming sites including futbollibre.net and televisionlibre.net. The sites had millions of monthly visitors and were operated from Argentina.

 

While these domain names were effectively pulled offline, the piracy problem persists. After the shutdowns, new domain names appeared, helping to fuel the perpetual game of cat-and-mouse between rightsholders and pirates.

Premier League Flags Argentina

A few days ago, the Premier League stepped in to make a statement. True to the global nature of the issue, England’s top football league reported Argentina to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) as a prime candidate for its upcoming piracy watchlist.

 

The football organization is headquartered in the UK and broadcasts in the United States through international partners. The league also operates an educational program in hundreds of U.S. elementary schools, teaching roughly 75,000 kids about online safety and other issues.

 

The USTR submission doesn’t deal with these educational goals. Instead, it focuses on copyright enforcement hurdles, including those related to Argentina.

‘Criminal Enforcement Deception’

The Premier League’s submission references a specific case where a criminal referral to the authorities failed to produce the desired results. The matter dates back to 2018, when the football organization reported a number of high-profile sports streaming platforms to the authorities.

 

“At the time the case was filed the streaming platforms operated by the suspects were the largest source of free-to-access infringing live streams of Matches in the world,” the submission reads.

 

After the initial report was filed, progress was slow. The case was passed between multiple courts and, much to the frustration of the Premier League, the unnamed defendants were informed about the ongoing investigation, which provided an opportunity to destroy evidence.

 

The Premier League nonetheless continued to put effort into the case. It appealed jurisdictional challenges, identified new domain names, and introduced evidence to show that a U.S. court had previously found that the suspects operated sports-related piracy sites. Ultimately, that didn’t help.

 

“Despite these efforts, the suspects were recently acquitted,” the Premier League writes.

 

The websites in question are not mentioned, and the related U.S. lawsuit is a mystery too. What we do know is that, at the time the case was first filed, Rojadirecta.me, Livetv.sx and Sport365.Live were among the top sports streaming sites.

‘Argentina Should Up Its Game’

The case is just a single example, but the submission suggests that enforcement problems are common in Argentina. Through the U.S. Government, the football league now hopes to increase the pressure on Argentina by urging the country to take the matter seriously.

 

“It is vital that an effective IP enforcement framework enables legitimate rights owners to bring and conclude deterrent enforcement actions in a timely manner and before pirate technology has evolved, and that courts are willing to give due consideration to evidence and expertise offered by copyright owners.

 

“Unfortunately, in the Premier League’s experience, which we have been advised by local legal counsel is by no means unique, the current framework in Argentina does not offer the support rights owners require to protect their IP rights.”

 

The Premier League’s proposal suggests placing Argentina on the Priority Watch List of the USTR’s forthcoming 2023 Special 301 Report. This would be in line with previous years, where the USTR already highlighted several Argentinian copyright enforcement problems.

 

—

 

A copy of the full report is available here (pdf). In addition to Argentina, the Premier League submission also highlights shortcomings in other countries, including China, Iraq, Thailand, and Vietnam.

 

When Extreme Download (Extreme-Down.com) first appeared on the internet around 15 years ago, it linked to movies hosted on sites like Megaupload. The site was a little basic in the beginning, but people expected a lot less back then.

 

Four years later, Megaupload went down in spectacular fashion, but Extreme-Down and similar sites chose to ride out the storm. With increasing traffic and rising popularity, the eventual appearance of dark clouds was almost inevitable, it was only a matter of when.

Millions of Visits, Against The Odds

Focused on French-language content, Extreme-Down was predictably popular in France. Over three-quarters of Extreme-Down’s visitors hailed from the region in December 2022, with Belgium, Canada and Switzerland accounting for most of the remainder.

 

Extreme-Down received around 15 million visits per month last year, an impressive feat considering the circumstances. In common with other successful sites, Extreme-Down regularly switched to new domains. While the reasons were not always made clear, legal action by rightsholders was rarely far behind.

 

ISP blocking orders in Belgium (pdf) presented some obstacles but when rightsholders joined forces to target Extreme-Down in France, many of the site’s domains were blocked by ISPs in the region that mattered most (pdf).

More Domains, More Confusion, More Copycats

To mitigate blocking, Extreme-Down began deploying new domains, which also helped the platform retain visibility in search engines. ISP blocking in France was supported by court-ordered ‘dereferencing’ instructions, meaning that Google was required to completely deindex Extreme-Down domains.

 

Deindexing was supposed to have a devastating effect on the site but, as some had predicted, it ended up making things worse. Spotting a gap in the market for sites with the same design and a similar name, copycat sites appeared one after another in a race to dominate search results. Some even exploited the confusion to separate people from their money.

 

Meanwhile, Extreme-Down remained determined to stay up, and did so well into December 2022. Then suddenly, without warning or suggestion of renewed blocking, the platform disappeared. From fairly early on, the chances of yet another return seemed less likely than before.

 

Early this Monday, it became clear that Extreme-Down is unlikely to make a return. One by one, domains previously controlled by the site – extreme-down.lol, extreme-down.video, extreme-down.tv, extreme-down.pro, and extreme-down.live – were transferred to a brand new owner.

Alliance For Creativity Shuts Down Extreme-Down

As additional domains were transferred to the Motion Picture Association, including extreme-down.in, extreme-down.io and extreme-down.info, all that remained was for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment to officially announce Extreme-Down’s demise.

 

“The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, today announced it has shut down France’s second most popular illegal streaming site, Extreme-down,” the ACE announcement reads.

 

“Thanks to ACE’s rapidly expanding global network, we are in a better position than ever to act decisively against illegal piracy operators in all markets across the world,” said Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE.

 

“Extreme-down offered a large library of TV series and movies in French and original versions; we counted more than 40,000 movies and TV series episodes affecting ACE members. That library is now closed.”

ACE Traced Operator to Tunisia

The ACE investigation received support from French premium television channel providers, ACE members CANAL+ and France Televisions, and local authorities.

 

Extreme-Down’s operator was traced to Houmt Souk, Tunisia. ACE made an approach and obtained an agreement for the site to shut down. Surrendering domains to the MPA was part of the package.

 

“CANAL+ Group has fought content piracy for years and, as a member of ACE, we are particularly pleased with the takedown of this notorious illegal website,” said Celine Boyer, Global Head of Content Protection at CANAL+ Group.

 

“The elimination of this website is a massive success for the protection of rights holders in French-speaking countries.”

 

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

 

Several game companies including Take-Two Interactive and Epic Games have taken cheaters to court in the United States. More recently, American video game developer Bungie has been rather active as well.

 

Bungie is known for the Halo and Destiny series, which have millions of fans around the world. The popularity of these games also attracts cheaters and cheat sellers, including “Elite Boss Tech” and “AimJunkies.com.”

 

How these sellers have responded to legal pressure varies considerably. Earlier this year Elite Boss Tech accepted a loss by signing a consent judgment, agreeing to pay $13.5 million in copyright damages. AimJunkies, on the other hand, is doing everything in its power to fight back.

Bungie vs. Veterancheats

Bungie’s case against Veterancheats has gone in another direction. After the lawsuit was filed against the cheat seller in 2021, not much has happened. The site’s alleged operator, Romanian resident Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, didn’t answer the complaint in court.

 

A few days ago, this lack of action prompted Bungie to request a default judgment totaling roughly $12 million in damages for copyright infringement and circumventing Bungie’s technological protection measures.

 

According to Bungie, the defendant sold several Destiny 2 cheats, including “Razor”, “HLBOT”, and “Render.” These allowed “unskilled” and “unethical” players to gain an unfair advantage, effectively ruining the fun for everyone else.

 

“Cheat software negatively impacts the gaming experience of Bungie’s community of honest players who enjoy playing and winning fairly using skill and developed through practice,” Bungie writes.

 

It’s a sentiment shared by many affected gamers, and Bungie lists several instances of people publicly complaining about Destiny 2 cheaters.

Serious Money

Veterancheats remains online and is aware of the lawsuit. The cheat seller previously removed the Destiny 2 cheats from its site in the hope that would settle the matter. However, Bungie is pressing on.

 

The game company obtained subpoenas to request financial information from Coinbase, PayPal, and Stripe. The Stripe information was particularly useful as it revealed thousands of cheat sales, including 5,848 separate subscription transactions that could be linked to Destiny 2 cheats.

 

These transactions brought in roughly $146,000 in revenue, which Bungie demands as actual damages for copyright infringement. In addition, the game maker seeks $2,000 for each of the 5,848 sales for circumventing the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision – $11,696,000 in damages overall.

 

Adding attorneys fees to these two figures pushes total compensation above $12 million.

Serious Money

The damages are warranted for a variety of reasons, according to Bungie. The company has spent more than $2,000,000 on cheat mitigation while Veterancheats and Claudiu-Florentin willingly broke the law and then failed to respond to Bungie’s complaint.

 

Interestingly, Claudiu-Florentin did briefly communicate with the game maker’s legal team. When Bungie tried to get the transaction data from Stripe, Veterancheat’s operator offered to stop selling cheats going forward, if Bungie would stop pursuing the case.

 

Claudiu-Florentin instead pointed a finger at competing cheat sellers, who continued to offer similar software. In addition, he drew Bungie’s attention to the developer of the cheat.

 

“The one who should be sued is the developer of the product, not a small seller like me. Why they dont try to identify the developer of the product instead? ring-1,” Veterancheat’s operator wrote.

 

“I request a withdrawal of information request and if you accept, i will stop distributing the destiny 2 software (Skycheats,Battlelog,Privatecheatz has sold Destiny 2 software for more than 1 year and they did not got sued by Destiny 2,” he added.

 

This diversion attempt didn’t help, it appears, as Bungie continued with the case and now demands millions of dollars in compensation.

 

The court has yet to rule on the default judgment and damages request but without an official defense from Veterancheats, little stands in the way of a successful outcome for the game vendor.

 

—

 

A copy of the motion for a default judgment against Veterancheats/Claudiu-Florentin and the associated memorandum is available here (pdf)

 

Last month the European Commission (EC) issued a call for evidence to support an incoming “toolbox” of measures to combat live sports piracy.

 

The announcement followed a huge campaign by rightsholders last October. Organizations and companies, including the MPA, UEFA, Premier League, beIN, LaLiga, Serie A, Sky, and BT Sport, called on the EC to introduce new law that would compel intermediaries to take pirate streams offline within minutes of a complaint.

 

After denying the request, the EC offered an opportunity for rightsholders and other stakeholders to file submissions detailing their problems along with possible solutions actionable under existing law.

 

Most major stakeholders filed submissions close to the deadline late Friday. The majority were filed by sports leagues and organizations, broadcasters, and/or affiliated anti-piracy groups. Cloudflare, CCIA Europe, and an Austrian ISP coalition represented the internet/comms/tech sector.

The Voices of Football

Despite being framed as a process to protect all live sports, it’s clear that the primary focus is to prevent European and UK football matches from appearing on pirate IPTV and similar web-based services. It therefore makes sense to focus on the demands of entities such as the Premier League, affiliated broadcasters, and the anti-piracy groups tasked with protecting their rights.

 

The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) represents football leagues and their broadcasters all over Europe. AAPA members played a key role in the campaign last October, and their current position remains completely unchanged.

 

“As signatories to the Call To Action to End Live Piracy Now, we would like to restate that an EU legislative instrument still remains the most efficient and effective way to tackle piracy of live content within and across Member States,” AAPA begins.

 

In the knowledge that’s not going to happen anytime soon, AAPA notes that since the purpose of the exercise is to “prevent” online piracy, the main focus should be on the immediate removal of infringing content via the notice and takedown mechanism.

What is a ‘Timely’ Takedown?

“The issue we have always had to face is the delayed response, if any, from online intermediaries that have been notified. The recently adopted Digital Services Act (DSA) makes no meaningful change to the concept of ‘expeditious’ removal currently enshrined in EU law,” the AAPA writes.

 

“The latter is open to interpretation from online intermediaries which, in many cases, means they will simply either not respond to notices or do so hours or days after the end of the live event. Many of them will exploit all ambiguities in the law to avoid acting at all – never mind expeditiously – which is why concrete measures need to be taken.”

 

To empower rightsholders in the face of slow or even total non-compliance, the AAPA says that clarification of takedown terms would allow it to build on the concept of “timely” removals introduced in the DSA. Since accurately identifying infringing content is reportedly straightforward, non-compliant intermediaries should be held responsible for any infringement.

 

“As live content is almost always watermarked and/or fingerprinted there is no question about identifying the stolen content which means the removal should be immediate and, in any case, well before the event terminates. In case online intermediaries do not remove access to the content in a timely manner, they should be held responsible for the harm caused to rights holders.”

 

If fingerprints are so easily detected and subscriber/device-level fingerprinting is available from multiple security vendors, that raises the question of why cutting off sources of infringing content isn’t a better option than battling to have streams taken down by uncooperative third parties. Perhaps we’ll hear more on this in due course.

EU-Wide Implementation of Proactive ISP Blocking

In several EU member states and the UK, rightsholders already obtain court injunctions that require ISPs to block pirate sites when they try to evade blocking. These ‘dynamic’ injunctions are useful but ‘live’ injunctions are favored by rightsholders tackling IPTV services since they offer even more flexibility.

 

In broad terms, some European courts authorize live injunctions with particular aims in mind, protecting football matches or PPV boxing events, for example. To thwart the efforts of pirate services seeking to evade specified domain or specified IP-address-based blocking, rightsholders are given the power to identify in advance any online locations that are likely to be used for piracy in the near future.

 

These are relayed to Internet service providers and rendered inaccessible, sometimes before events even begin. As such, live blocking injunctions are popular with rightsholders, but they’re not available in every member state. AAPA says this imbalance should be addressed by harmonizing this type of enforcement across the EU.

 

“The Commission should seek to create a level playing field and therefore replicate across the EU a powerful but carefully used approach to live blocking orders, bearing in mind that such actions shall not exclude rights holders who cannot act on the legal ground of copyright,” the anti-piracy group notes.

Cloudflare: Tackle Infringement at the Source

Cloudflare’s submission begins with an overview of the company’s approach to copyright infringement and examples of how it cooperates with rightsholders seeking to protect their content from piracy.

 

Cloudflare then moves on to the Digital Services Act (a common theme in many submissions) and the mechanisms it offers for dealing with illegal content, in ways that are proportionate to the harm, while offering transparency, due process, and remedy for incorrect actions.

 

“We believe those same standards must apply to any actions in the Commission’s toolkit for combating online piracy of live content,” Cloudflare informs the EC.

 

“The DSA assesses that the best way to address content challenges is at the source. Under the model outlined in the DSA, this is done by alerting hosting providers and owners of websites, who have the ability to remove content at a granular level, and who have an obligation to remove or disable access to it expeditiously under article 6.

 

“Article 9 of the DSA also poses clear conditions on orders to act against illegal content, which includes, amongst others a well-defined legal basis, the identity of the issuing authority and available redress mechanisms. From this, it follows that notice and take down orders should be targeted at the host of the live streamed content.”

Zero Transparency and Inevitable Blunders

Targeting infringing content at the source is not how rightsholder-favored dynamic/live injunctions work, quite the opposite in fact.

 

Instead of targeting sources of infringing content, blocking injunctions work on a regional level by ordering local ISPs to prevent internet users from accessing illegal streams, will leaving the streams intact. Rightsholders say that uncooperative hosting companies leave them with no other choice, and in fairness, that’s often the case when dealing with hosts of pirate services.

 

The problem – which is only getting worse as blocking injunctions develop – is the total lack of transparency which in turn fosters an environment of unaccountability. On one hand, rightsholders insist that if pirates obtain information relating to blocking, blocking becomes easier to counter. Since judges make decisions on the basis that their instructions will be carried out, all parties agree to render the blocking process completely opaque.

 

On the other hand, a complete lack of outside scrutiny means that when mistakes are made, and innocent third parties suffer due to erroneous or abusive blocking, no one is held to account. Certainly, no company, group or organization offers a public apology or compensation for those affected.

 

This isn’t a flaw in the system either – dynamic/live blocking and administrative website blocking programs are secretive by design, with the latter often operated under voluntary agreements. According to Cloudflare, blocking by IP address – which is favored against IPTV services – “often has serious unintended, unavoidable, and largely unreported consequences.”

Thousands of Legal Websites Have Been Blocked

As previously reported, ISPs in Austria were compelled to block Cloudflare itself in 2022, even though they knew that was wrong.

 

Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, input from ISPs was no longer deemed necessary – all they had to do was blindly follow instructions and the letter of the law. It appears that Cloudflare has seen much, much worse.

 

“In another Member State, an ISP with a voluntary arrangement to block allegedly infringing content has, on multiple occasions, blocked thousands of unrelated websites using our services for its users,” Cloudflare’s submission reveals.

 

“Without any court oversight, this overblocking in some cases took days to remedy. Even though the Commission has focused on critical infrastructure reporting on outages in the NIS Directive, efforts to block for reasons of copyright infringement do not result in reporting on its unintended consequences, which look like outages for external parties.

 

“This lack of public awareness means we see few incentives for rightsholders or the ISPs involved to assume accountability for the overblocking, publicly describe what had happened, or represent that they would take steps to prevent overblocking in the future.”

 

In summary, stakeholders in the football sector believe that the Digital Services Act may offer opportunities to take infringing content down more quickly, while an expansion of ISP blocking across the EU may help to block content that doesn’t get taken down.

 

Cloudflare also supports the DSA’s takedown provisions but expects promised levels of transparency too. Infringing content should only be taken down at source though; not only because some deputies are a little bit trigger happy but because blocking does nothing to remove the source of the problem.

 

Image credits: Pixabay (1,2)

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have one newcomer on the list. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 13 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	7.0 / trailer
2	(5)	Plane	6.6 / trailer
3	(2)	Babylon	7.4 / trailer
4	(3)	M3GAN	6.5 / trailer
5	(4)	Puss in Boots: The Last Wish	7.8 / trailer
6	(…)	Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody	6.8 / trailer
7	(7)	Avatar: The Way of Water	8.1 / trailer
8	(9)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.3 / trailer
9	(6)	The Menu	7.3 / trailer
10	(8)	Black Adam	7.1 / trailer

 

 

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

 

By providing free access to millions of books, Z-Library became the go-to site for many readers in recent years.

 

Z-Library’s very existence was put to the test last November when U.S. law enforcement seized over 200 domain names connected to the site. Two alleged Z-Library operators from Russia were arrested in Argentina as part of a criminal investigation.

Down, Not Out

Despite the gravity of the criminal accusations and pending extraditions, Z-Library never went completely offline. The site continued to operate on the dark web, offering millions of pirated books and articles as it did before.

 

Z-Library’s resilience suggested that elements of the team remained operational. And indeed, a blog post published a few days after the crackdown suggested that the site has no intention of throwing in the towel.

 

“We believe the knowledge and cultural heritage of mankind should be accessible to all people around the world, regardless of their wealth, social status, nationality, citizenship, etc. This is the only purpose Z-Library is made for,” the platform announced.

 

The shadow library promised to take authors’ complaints seriously and asked for their forgiveness. Meanwhile, pirated books remained widely available and, behind the scenes, Z-Library was working on a full comeback.

Z-Library Returns in Hydra Mode

Z-Library’s resilience wasn’t just temporary grandstanding. In an unprecedented move, Z-Library announced its return to the publicly accessible web (clearnet) this weekend, with a technical setup that anticipates future enforcement action.

 

Sites can often be seen hardening their operations to mitigate disruption caused by domain name seizures. Many have a list of backup domains that can be deployed when needed; The Pirate Bay infamously launched its hydra setup consisting of five different domain names.

 

Z-Library is taking this hydra-inspired scheme to the next level. A new announcement reveals that the platform is publicly available once again and offering a unique and private domain name to every user.

 

“We have great news for you – Z-Library is back on the Clearnet again! To access it, follow this link singlelogin.me and use your regular login credentials,” the Z-Library team writes.

 

“After logging into your account, you will be redirected to your personal domain. Please keep your personal domain private! Don’t disclose your personal domain and don’t share the link to your domain, as it is protected with your own password and cannot be accessed by other users.”

Personal Domains

While we can’t confirm that all users will get unique domain names, people are indeed redirected to different clearnet domains after logging in. After doing so, a popup message reminds them to keep their personal domain secret.

 

The domain names in question are subdomains of newly registered TLDs that rely on different domain name registries. Every user has two of these ‘personal’ domains listed on their personal profile page.

 

If users can’t access the universal login page, Z-Library says they can log in through TOR or I2P and get their personal clearnet domains there.

Happy Users

Thus far, users of the site have responded positively to the comeback. The blog post announcement already has hundreds of comments, most featuring an outpouring of gratitude.

 

“Thank you so much, Z library has been an invaluable resource. I hail from a small village in India, and I could never afford to read these books had it not been for Z library,” one user writes.

 

“You helped me a lot during my engineering. I was not in [a] condition to buy new books. I have completed my engineering with the help of you. Thank You,” says another.

Future Enforcement

How many new domain names Z-Library has is unclear but that’s exactly the point. The site’s operators want to prevent future domain name seizures and with the U.S. Government on its back, new domains are far from safe.

 

At the same time, rightsholders will do everything in their power to disrupt Z-Library’s clearnet comeback. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN previously informed us that in the event of a comeback, Z-Library domains could face blocking.

 

Whether this elaborate domain name hydra will be effective long-term remains to be seen. The authorities will undoubtedly be aware of some of the new domains already and OSINT tools may help to spot others.

 

However, the recent actions show that Z-Library is determined to keep the project online, for as long as it can.

 

Commissioned by the Australian Attorney-General’s Department, the annual Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement is now available for 2022.

 

The Australian Government has commissioned these surveys since 2015, with the goal of understanding internet users’ consumption habits related to several core content types: music, video games, movies, TV shows and live sports, with the latter appearing more recently in 2019.

 

The 2022 Consumer Copyright Infringement Survey was conducted online from 24 June to 14 July 2022 and sought responses from internet users aged 12+ regarding their consumption habits in the preceding three months. Overall, 72% of respondents said they consumed content from at least one of the categories.

Overall Consumption and Legality

Consumption of content online increased in 2022 over the figures reported the previous year. TV shows were consumed by 57% of respondents in 2021, with 60% reporting doing so in 2022. An identical three-point increase was observed in the consumption of movies (53% in 2021 / 57% in 2022) and music (45% in 2021 / 48% in 2022).

 

Video game consumption leaped from 26% in 2021 to 37% in 2022, with live sports reaching 34% in 2022, up from 26% recorded the previous year.

 

Rather than expecting respondents to determine the legality of their consumption methods, methods were classified as either ‘likely to be lawful’ or ‘likely to be unlawful’ in advance. This allowed respondents to point out the methods used, without discussing legality in depth.

 

 

Roughly three-quarters of the population consuming content exclusively from legal sources is a decent result, but closer inspection reveals a caveat. This figure relates to respondents who consumed content in all categories – music, video games, movies, TV shows, and live sports.

 

Similarly, the remaining 22% to 26% detailed below are respondents who consumed content from all categories, with “at least some” of that content consumed from sources that had a predetermined status of “likely to be unlawful.”

 

 

At its most basic level, the term ‘infringer’ in the report identifies a respondent who “reported consuming any content in a way that was likely to be unlawful.” Couple that with respondents who consume content from fewer categories, and Australia suddenly has a problem to solve.

Significant Infringement Increase

The study identifies a ‘non-infringer’ as a respondent who exclusively consumed content from sources predetermined as ‘likely to be lawful’. A single instance of infringement renders a non-infringer an infringer, but in this case, no amount of consumption from legal sources can redeem an infringer.

 

As result, when the survey balances those who streamed or downloaded any content in the previous three months across any of the content types (music, movies, TV shows, video games, and/or live sports), the picture becomes more gloomy.

 

 

This 39% ‘overall infringement’ rate is up from the 30% reported in 2021 and exceeds the 34% reported in 2020. However, a new type of behavior introduced for the first time contributed to the rise in 2022. Pre-categorized as “likely” to be unlawful, credential sharing pushed up infringer rates by four points.

Credential Sharing

New unlawful methods of consumption are a feature of a continuously developing piracy landscape. In an effort to keep up with these emerging trends, the 2022 survey considered respondents who “pay a small fee to access one or many subscription services through a shared / unknown account (e.g. shared login credentials).”

 

Most people understand the concept of password sharing; a friend or family member shares their Netflix password, for example, so that the other person doesn’t have to pay. It’s the most common type of credential sharing for that very reason – it’s free.

 

By including “pay a small fee”, the category might be targeting people who share accounts with others for a fee, but then that misses the overwhelming majority who don’t. That leaves hacked/stolen accounts or conceivably subscription IPTV services, but as a paid piracy option, IPTV doesn’t appear in a distinct category of its own.

 

Despite the potential for confusion, 11% of all respondents said they had paid a small fee to access one or many subscription services through a shared or unknown account.

 

 

Muddying the waters a little more is the finding that of all respondents who personally pay for a legal subscription service, 33% allow someone outside their household to use it.

Site Blocking Measures

Site blocking doesn’t appear to bother pirates too much in Australia, possibly because the general public has seen it all before. After being denied timely access to legal movies and TV shows for many years, Australians turned to VPNs to ‘unblock’ access to overseas content.

 

According to this year’s study, 17% of consumers encountered a blocked site in the previous three months. Six out of ten “simply gave up” trying to access any content at all, a figure directly in line with last year’s survey.

 

Of the remainder, 16% bypassed the block, 14% sought alternative lawful access, while 6% attempted to obtain the same content for free from other illegal sources.

Pirate Blocking Countermeasures

Those who bypassed website blocks used various tools. With 46% overall, VPNs came out on top but still fell short of the 61% who used them in 2021. Just 6% used a custom DNS but nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) said they were aware of them.

 

Almost a quarter (24%) used some kind of proxy website, versus 21% in 2021. Nearly one-fifth (18%) say they used a search engine to find an alternative site, while 15% used Google Translate as a workaround.

 

 

The full report offers plenty of ammunition for those on all sides of the piracy debate.

 

For the optimistic, roughly three-quarters of the most dedicated consumers of content in all categories never pirate anything. Of the remainder, the majority are buying something, meaning they can be encouraged to buy more.

 

Even the estimates relating to fewer content categories aren’t that bad. When 61% of consumers exclusively use legal content and 39% are reported as having obtained pirated content once or more, that doesn’t mean 39% pirate everything.

 

“Within content types, no more than 12% of all respondents use only unlawful methods to access content and just 3% of all respondents use only unlawful consumption methods across all content types they consume,” the report reveals.

 

Or as the Australian government frames it: “Research conducted for the Attorney-General’s Department has revealed the rate of Australians accessing online content unlawfully remains disturbingly high.”

 

Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement 2022 can be found here

 

Day in and day out, millions of people use pirate sites and services to download or stream movies and TV shows.

 

In recent years, a large percentage of this activity has taken place through apps that run on Android, the dominant operating system for phones and tablets globally.

 

These pirate apps come and go, but over the past year, Pikashow has made quite a name for itself. Word-of-mouth advertising helped the app to break through, and after becoming the official sponsor of the Afghan cricket team during Asia Cup 2022, its profile went mainstream.

PikaShow Crackdown

That sponsorship deal should never have happened and rightsholders have been trying to put the genie back in the bottle ever since. The Motion Picture Association, for example, listed PikaShow as one of the main piracy threats in its advice to the U.S. Trade Representative.

 

“[T]he PikaShow app has been downloaded over 10 million times across various mobile application stores and Telegram,” MPA wrote, adding that the operator is believed to be located in India.

 

In India, meanwhile, police weren’t sitting around either. Last year, Disney Star referred the app to the authorities, alleging various crimes under computer abuse and copyright laws. After an initial criminal complaint failed to produce the desired result, local police eventually arrested a suspect two weeks ago.

 

The man, who was identified as a college student, stands accused of illegally streaming Star India and Disney+ Hotstar content via PikaShow, while monetizing those pirate streams through advertisements.

 

While this sounds like a major breakthrough, it’s unclear whether the suspect is indeed one of the kingpins. What we do know is that PikaShow apps remain widely available. In fact, with all the press attention, the brand may have even become more popular than before.

DMCA Takedown Collateral

This is obviously a major disappointment for rightsholders working around the clock to contain the problem. This includes sending takedown notices to Google, urging the search engine to remove infringing PikaShow-related results.

 

Unfortunately, these DMCA notices are not without issues. Over the past weeks, multiple anti-piracy outfits and rightsholders have tried to remove links to our PikaShow news coverage.

 

The notice above was sent by MarkScan on behalf of Disney. While some of the reported links may lead visitors to the pirate app, our article about the arrested student certainly doesn’t. MarkScan also sent another takedown notice that reports the same news article, asking Google to take it down.

 

The Indian anti-piracy outfit is a familiar name and has reported legal content before, including that of its own clients. In addition, MarkScan employees were previously arrested after they allegedly masqueraded as competing anti-piracy firm to steal clients.

More Mistakes

Unfortunately, MarkScan is not the only company reporting our news coverage as ‘copyright infringing’. The Disney-owned platform Novi Digital Entertainment also flagged the same link directly.

 

On top, a company with the prestigious name ‘Copyright Integrity International’ also targeted our news article, ostensibly on behalf of Cricket Australia. The same governing cricket body also decided to boycot Afghanistan matches recently, but the PikaShow sponsorship isn’t provided as a reason there.

 

Needless to say, we are not pleased with these inaccurate takedowns. Luckily, however, Google is not convinced by them either, as all DMCA removal requests have been rejected.

 

The same is true for a recent takedown request, sent on behalf of Warner Bros, that targets our news coverage on the leaked “House of the Dragon” season finale.

 

In May 2018, a massive copyright infringement lawsuit targeted PrimeStreams, one of the most recognizable pirate IPTV brands ever to hit the market.

 

Filed in a Kentucky court, the complaint saw U.S. broadcaster DISH Network and streaming platform Sling TV target alleged PrimeStreams operators Daniel Scroggins and Steven Daugherty, plus corporate entity Dscroggs Investments LLC.

Two Copyright Infringement Lawsuits

The foundations of the complaint were straightforward. After bypassing or disabling security measures (DRM) deployed by Sling to prevent piracy, the defendants allegedly accessed and then redistributed streams in violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and the Federal Communications Act.

 

The complaint further alleged that resellers, including the well-known ‘Firesticksteve’, helped to ensure a steady flow of customers to PrimeStreams. In October 2022, DISH filed a second lawsuit against IPTV service KTV Streams.

 

The complaint alleged that after PrimeStreams had circumvented Sling’s DRM, KTV resold the resulting streams to its own customers. In common with the main lawsuit, evidence appeared to be piled sky-high.

 

In both cases, damages were set to run into tens of millions of dollars, and DISH was explicit that permanent injunctions were required to prevent further infringement.

KTV Case Quietly Dismissed

On Tuesday this week, seemingly out of nowhere, DISH dismissed its lawsuit against the alleged operator of KTV Streams. Citing a confidential settlement agreement between the parties, the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be refiled.

 

Settling a legal dispute with an agreement can make perfect sense. Costs can build up extremely quickly and may take some defendants by surprise. If defendants happen to have something the plaintiffs want – information, for example – that could encourage a meeting of minds and a mutually beneficial end to hostilities.

 

When the plaintiffs are in the driving seat in piracy cases, settlement agreements are often used as publicity tools. While the specifics are nearly always confidential, a headline-grabbing settlement amount, usually in the millions of dollars, is useful for deterrent messaging: We settled this case, but look how painful it was for the defendants, the underlying tone tends to suggest.

 

This can even be the case when the terms of a private agreement dictate that, effectively, nothing will get paid. What plaintiffs nearly always want, however, is a legal agreement that infringers won’t simply start up again. For that reason, plaintiffs usually request an injunction, because having come this far, why wouldn’t they?

 

In the KTV case there has been no announcement and no formal injunction. There may well have been a private agreement not to infringe in future, but that’s not usually how these cases go. (pdf).

PrimeStreams Lawsuit Also Dismissed

A few hours after a settlement was announced in the KTV case, the lawsuit against PrimeStreams was also dismissed. The circumstances as presented on the docket, are more or less identical. The notice of settlement and dismissal cites a confidential settlement agreement that “fully resolves the pending action” against all defendants.

 

Given the prominent status of PrimeStreams in the market, the scale of the evidence presented by the plaintiffs thus far, the absence of a court-issued injunction, and a dismissal with prejudice (lawsuit cannot be refiled), this stands out as a rather lackluster ending in place of what could’ve been a spectacular finale. When combined, the overall impression suggests that something may have gone wrong.

Both Dockets May Offer Clues

When lawsuits end like this, obtaining definitive proof of the circumstances ranges from difficult to all but impossible. Analyzing information already made available to the public is often all that remains, but that can still offer some interesting angles.

 

On November 11, 2022, Steve Daugherty (aka Firesticksteve) filed a motion to dismiss. In a nutshell, the complaint alleged he was co-owner of PrimeStreams and that he conducted business in Kentucky where the lawsuit was filed.

 

In a sworn affidavit, Daugherty denied both allegations. On December 9, 2022, DISH filed its response indicating that its position had not unchanged. The court should deny the motion, the company said (pdf).

 

A declaration submitted by private investigator Bert Eichhorn, in his capacity as Director of Field Security and Investigations at NagraStar, reveals many intimate details of PrimeStreams’ operations, including two financial transactions of $471,972 and $780,989, and another in excess of $320,000.

 

These are interesting details but unhelpful in determining why the lawsuits were dismissed. If anything, they only serve to deepen the mystery.

Motion to File Amended Complaint

After concluding that it had enough evidence, on December 19, 2022, DISH informed the court that it intended to add new defendants (Brian Poynter and his company Brian P. Ventures LLC) in its upcoming first amended complaint. While that’s certainly notable, something else catches the eye.

 

In the original complaint, DISH claimed that SmoothStreams bypassed or disabled security measures deployed on the Sling streaming service to gain access to copyright-protected content. The defendants illegally accessed streams and redistributed them to the public in violation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

 

These fundamental claims, apparently supported by ample evidence, suddenly became so irrelevant that they should be completely removed from the complaint.

No Longer Pursuing Allegations of Direct Circumvention

“In the proposed amended complaint, Plaintiffs withdraw their circumvention claim brought under 17 U.S.C. 1201 (a)(l) of the DMCA. Evidence received to date supports that claim, including Scroggins having asserted the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when asked to explain how television channels are acquired and transmitted on the PrimeStreams service,” the plaintiffs’ motion reads.

 

“However, litigating this claim would be unnecessary given Plaintiffs’ additional DMCA claim and FCA claims that also prohibit Defendants’ wrongful conduct and provide for comparable, if not greater, relief.”

 

Rather than pursuing its original claim under 17 U.S. Code § 1201 (a)(l), which relates to direct circumvention of Sling’s technological measures, DISH said it would rely on 17 U.S. Code § 1201 (a)(2). This relates to the manufacture or supply of technology primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure.

 

In this case, that means selling pirate IPTV subscriptions. It’s still illegal, of course, but having claimed that the defendants actually circumvented Sling’s content protection systems, including in a declaration filed just days earlier, this late switch seems somewhat unusual.

Events Leading Up to KTV Lawsuit Dismissal

On January 4, 2023, a month before the entire action was dismissed, the defendant in the KTV lawsuit asked the court for more time to answer the DISH complaint. The motion notes that the claims in his case are “closely tied” to the claims in the PrimeStreams case, and then this:

 

“More specifically, the deposition of a key witness in this dispute, Richard Rago, is scheduled to take place in the Kentucky litigation tomorrow, January 5, 2023. Mr. Rago’s testimony likely will have a significant impact on Plaintiffs’ claims and Defendant’s defenses and/or counterclaims, as well as the potential resolution of this matter as a whole.”

 

So who is Richard Rago and more importantly, why was his testimony so important? Publicly available information suggests that Mr. Rago may have previously acted as an advisor/negotiator on issues related to debt in piracy cases. The MPA mentioned their legal team having contact with a person of the same name back in 2019, in a separate lawsuit against another IPTV service, SetTV.

 

SetTV had previously been sued by DISH, with the warring parties eventually entering into an agreement that would see DISH walk away with a $90 million damages award and a permanent injunction.

 

What happened during Mr. Rago’s deposition or why he even became involved in the PrimeStreams cases is unknown. Nothing specific appeared on the docket, and since the lawsuit has been completely dismissed and can’t be filed again, further information seems unlikely to surface in public.

 

All we can say for sure is that for some reason, DISH sought permission to withdraw its lead circumvention claim on December 19, 2022, but never actually amended its complaint. The deposition was scheduled for January 5, 2023, and nothing appeared on the docket until both cases were dismissed on February 7, 2023, (pdf).

 

In today’s climate, lawsuits supported by considerable evidence, against accessible defendants, rarely end in a settlement without a headline dollar amount and a permanent injunction. To be dismissed with prejudice without either simply puts a cherry on top.

 

It’s hard to imagine what type of event could lead to this kind of outcome, but whatever it was, it seems to have solved all problems, in two lawsuits, in one swoop. The fact that the lawsuits can’t be refiled is nothing less than extraordinary.

 

In 2020, YouTube ripper Yout.com sued the RIAA, asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

 

The music group had previously used DMCA takedown notices to remove many of Yout’s appearances in Google’s search results. This had a significant impact on revenues, the site argued, adding that it always believed it wasn’t breaking any laws and hoped the court would agree.

Dismissal and Appeal

Last October, the Connecticut district court concluded that Yout had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. As such, it could be breaking the law.

 

Yout operator Johnathan Nader opted to appeal the decision. Nader’s attorneys filed their opening brief last week at the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking it to reverse the lower court’s decision.

 

The YouTube ripper is not the only party calling for a reversal. Yesterday, Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub submitted an amicus brief that argues for the same. And in a separate filing, the EFF also agrees that the lower court’s decision should be overturned.

GitHub’s Amicus Brief

GitHub’s brief starts by pointing out that the company takes no position on the ultimate resolution of this appeal, nor does it side with all of Yout’s arguments. However, it does believe that the lower court’s interpretation of the DMCA is dangerous.

 

The district court held that stream rippers can violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The court noted that these tools allow people to download video and audio from YouTube, despite the streaming platform’s lack of a download button.

 

According to GitHub, this conclusion is premature, dangerous, and places other software types at risk.

 

“[T]he district court’s expansive interpretation of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision compels GitHub to point out how the court’s rationale needlessly threatens countless other software tools in widespread use,” GitHub writes.

 

The developer platform is not new to this issue. The RIAA previously tried to remove the open-source software youtube-dl – upon which Yout.com relies – from its platform. After initially removing it, GitHub later decided to reinstate the project, arguing that it doesn’t violate the DMCA.

 

In the present lawsuit, GitHub reiterates that stream-ripping tools should not be outlawed. The fact that YouTube doesn’t have a download button doesn’t mean that tools that enable people to download videos circumvent technological access restrictions.

 

“YouTube’s decision not to provide its own ‘download’ button, however, is not a restriction on access to works. It merely affects how users experience them,” GitHub writes.

 

If the court order is allowed to stand, GitHub warns that a broad group of developers could be exposed to criminal liability, effectively chilling technological innovation.

 

“The district court’s expansive interpretation is particularly alarming because, unlike most copyright provisions, the DMCA imposes criminal penalties. At a minimum, those penalties underscore the importance of rejecting a construction that sweeps in a broad range of widely accepted conduct.”

Browser Extensions, Screen Readers, Ad-Blockers and More

YouTube download tools are not the only types of software at risk, according to GitHub. There are many others that affect ‘how users experience’ online websites. These could also be seen as problematic, based on the district court’s expansive interpretation of the DMCA.

 

GitHub lists several examples, including browser extensions such as ‘Dark Reader,’ ‘Google Translate,’ and ‘OpenDyslexic’. The same also applies to screen readers, ad blockers, and media player software such as VLC, which plays YouTube videos outside of a web browser.

 

These widely accepted tools could put their creators at risk if the DMCA is interpreted too strictly, GitHub warns.

 

“On the district court’s erroneous theory, the developers who offer those widely embraced applications could be criminals facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines or years in prison.”

EFF’s Amicus Brief

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also submitted an amicus curiae brief yesterday. The digital rights group takes interest in copyright cases, particularly when they get in the way of people’s ability to freely use technology.

 

In this instance, EFF points out that stream-rippers such as Yout.com provide a neutral technology with plenty of legal uses. They can be used for infringing purposes, but that’s also true for existing technologies – the printing press, for example.

 

“Like every reproduction technology — from the printing press to the smartphone — these programs, colloquially called ‘streamrippers,’ have important lawful uses as well as infringing ones.

 

“Video creators, educators, journalists, and human rights organizations all depend on the ability to make copies of user-uploaded videos,” EFF adds.

 

In common with GitHub, EFF notes that the absence of a download button on YouTube doesn’t imply that download tools automatically violate the DMCA, especially when there are no effective download restrictions on the platform.

‘No Encryption’

The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision is aimed at tools that bypass effective technological access restrictions. That doesn’t apply to YouTube’s Javascript-based code, EFF argues.

 

“The YouTube website code at issue in this case is different: it was not clearly designed to limit access to videos, or the ability to copy them. YouTube videos arrive at a viewer’s device with no encryption or scrambling. No login, password, key, or other secret knowledge is required to gain access.

 

“Tellingly, YouTube does use encryption and a password-controlled login to limit access to subscribers of its separate pay-TV service, YouTube TV,” EFF adds.

 

According to EFF, Yout and similar tools provide the same functions as video cassette recorders once did. They allow people to make copies of videos that are posted publicly by their creators.

 

In addition, these tools are vital for some reporters and useful to creatives who use them for future work.

 

“Journalists and human rights monitoring organizations need to be able to save copies of eyewitness videos documenting notable events, conflicts, and malfeasance. Even copyright holders and their licensees rely on tools like Yout.com to download copies of their own or licensed works.”

 

“This Court should reject the unwarranted expansion of Section 1201 liability, and reverse the dismissal of Yout.com’s claims,” EFF concludes.

 

The RIAA has yet to respond to Yout’s appeal brief. Considering the importance of the case, it seems likely that they will also receive support from other rightsholders or their representatives.

 

—

 

A copy of GitHub’s Amicus Curiae brief calling for the reversal of the lower court’s decision in favor of the RIAA is available here (pdf) and EFF’s brief can be found here (pdf)

 

Late January, Michael Barone filed an important document at a district court in Pennsylvania. With his freedom on the line, the stakes could hardly have been higher.

 

The New York man was among several people arrested following the FBI shutdown of pirate IPTV services owned by Pennsylvania and New Jersey man, Bill Omar Carrasquillo.

 

Better known online as Omi in a Hellcat, Carrasquillo had built an empire of IPTV streaming services that captured Comcast, Verizon, Spectrum, DirecTV, and Frontier Communications broadcasts, and then illegally retransmitted them over the internet at knockdown prices.

 

Barone had worked for Carrasquillo, initially handling customer support tickets at 25 cents a pop. In the beginning, that earned Barone between $250 and $500 per week, but after progressing up the ranks, pay began to increase. According to his sentencing memorandum, Barone’s total earnings when working for Carrasquillo amounted to $122,402.

 

Meanwhile, Carrasquillo was raking in tens of millions, and an increasingly nervous Barone wanted out. After allegedly receiving multiple in-person death threats, Barone left Carrasquillo’s business in 2018, but it was too late.

 

Carrasquillo was arrested in November 2019, and after visits from the FBI in 2020 and 2021, Barone was arrested too. Barone ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. His letter to the court last month was a last-ditch attempt to spend as little time in prison as possible.

Barone Sentenced to 14 Months in Prison

The majority of court filings in the cases against Carrasquillo, Barone, and a third defendant, Jesse Gonzalez, remain under seal. Sentencing documents relating to Barone are also inaccessible, with the exception of a 7-page judgment handed down this week.

 

After pleading guilty to count 1 (conspiracy) in the superseding indictment, Barone was sentenced by Judge Harvey Bartle III in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Barone was ordered to serve 14 months in prison, in a facility as close as possible to upstate New York.

 

In a sentencing memorandum submitted to the Court last month, counsel for Barone explained that the New York man had believed Carrasquillo’s claims that the IPTV business operated in a “gray area.”

 

Barone’s income from a conspiracy said to be worth almost $168 million was relatively small, just $122,402 overall. The judgment orders Barone to pay that exact amount in restitution, with the first monthly payment of $50 becoming due 60 days after his release from custody.

 

Barone must surrender to the institution designated by the Bureau of Prisons on March 20, 2023. Upon release, he will be on supervised release for a term of two years. Barone will have to comply with numerous conditions, including mandatory participation in a drug treatment program and full disclosure of his financial records to the U.S. Probation Office.

 

Barone’s legal team had requested a sentence of between 8 and 14 months, so the judgment meets that expectation. The expectations of Carrasquillo and Jesse Gonzalez are currently unknown.

 

Judge Harvey Bartle III’s judgment can be found here (pdf)

 

The fleeting non-fungible token (NFT) craze showed that some people are willing to pay vast amounts of money for digital assets that are not guaranteed to retain their value.

 

These digital entries are stored on a blockchain and allow buyers to prove that they are legitimate ‘owners’ of some underlying asset or right.

 

While NFTs don’t grant copyrights, NFT owners are ‘rights’ holders in a sense, although the specifics may vary from project to project based on the fine print.

Corporate and Government Interest

In recent months interest in NFTs has waned, with some early adopters finding themselves heavily in the red thanks to their purchases. While some of these NFTs are bound to become irrelevant, the underlying technology has plenty of potential.

 

Many of the largest companies in the world acknowledged the opportunities and embraced NFTs. Major brands such as Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike, and Ubisoft were quick to jump on the bandwagon, for example.

 

Interest is in large part driven by the potential revenues the technology might deliver moving forward. At the same time, however, there are challenges as well; the copyright implications are not always clear and ‘pirated’ NFTs will almost certainly complicate matters.

 

The U.S. Government is taking these issues seriously. Late last year, the Patent and Trademark Office and the Copyright Office launched a joint consultation to take stock of the potential legal and policy questions related to NFTs.

MPA Shares Its NFT Views

Dozens of companies and organizations have responded to the call with detailed opinions. They include the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents Netflix and the major Hollywood studios.

 

In the past, major copyright holders have fiercely resisted novel technologies. When it comes to NFTs, the MPA and its members see an exciting business opportunity.

 

“NFTs represent an exciting business opportunity for MPA’s members to promote their core products —motion pictures and television programs — in new ways, expand their merchandise offerings, and connect with their audiences on a deeper level,” the MPA writes.

 

Potential copyright issues are always a concern but the Hollywood group believes that current laws are capable of handling any NFT-related challenges.

 

“Although NFTs are still in their infancy, and it is difficult to predict future marketplace developments and potential uses of this new technology, the MPA currently believes that existing intellectual property law can address issues if and when they arise.”

 

Blockchain technology is already widely used in the movie industry with official NFT releases for prominent titles including The Matrix, Star Trek, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Stranger Things, and even the Powerpuff Girls.

 

Some of the same brands have also been exploited by third parties who created unauthorized NFTs. While that’s a problem, the MPA believes that U.S. law, including the DMCA’s takedown provision, is well-equipped to handle copyright and trademark issues as they arise.

Authentication and Piracy

The MPA’s submission shows that it has made considerable effort to understand the NFT ecosystem and its potential. In addition to the ‘collectible’ aspect, NFTs can also be used as proof of ownership or access.

 

The MPA says that streaming services could use NFTs as an authentication option, for example, replacing the traditional username and password.

 

“NFTs can serve a limited role in the context of access controls to streaming content. Specifically, if the user’s license were contained in an NFT, the streaming service could implement a system to ensure that the NFT is in the user’s crypto wallet before initiating the stream,” MPA notes.

 

There are also projects that envision the use of NFTs to fight piracy and counterfeiting, including an official EU initiative. However, the MPA doesn’t see blockchain authentication technology as a potential anti-piracy tool.

 

“This system has been utilized to a very limited extent thus far. Beyond that, there is no reason to believe that NFTs can currently solve the overall problem of online piracy,” the MPA writes.

 

The same applies to the content to which an NFT might provide access. Pirates can still copy the content and share it elsewhere, NFTs can’t prevent that.

 

“While the NFT may be perfectly secure on the blockchain, that fact does nothing to enhance the security of copies of the underlying work or prevent unauthorized exercise of any of the §106 rights. The NFT simply creates a chain of alleged ownership of the particular copy.”

 

The MPA seems positive about the potential of NFTs. Hollywood doesn’t believe the technology will stop piracy or revolutionize copyright management but recognizes the commercial potential.

RIAA Sees Opportinities and Threats

This overall sentiment is shared by other rightsholder groups, including the RIAA. In a joint submission alongside A2IM, Screen Actors Guild and SAG-AFTRA, the music industry’s trade organization sees endless commercial opportunities. Piracy remains a concern, however.

 

Coming from the RIAA, that’s hardly a surprise. The recording industry group has already sent DMCA takedowns and cease and desist letters targeting unauthorized music-inspired NFT projects.

 

“While NFTs and online interactive environments present endless and unprecedented opportunities for rightsholders to exploit their works and engage with consumers, they also present new and novel ways in which works, and especially digital music works, can be infringed and pirated,” RIAA notes.

 

Similar to the MPA, RIAA and partners don’t see NFTs as a replacement for current copyright registration or management options. At least, not at this stage.

 

“Further, claims that NFT and metaverse technology will solve digital transparency and accountability problems are overblown and premature, if not outright false,” RIAA writes.

 

“The current technology in the NFT and metaverse space, while innovative and promising, is simply not where it needs to be to ensure that copyright holders can consistently and effectively manage and enforce their copyrights.”

 

Finally, both the MPA and RIAA stress that NFT platforms must properly educate consumers on what they’re actually buying. Right now, it is often uncertain what rights are associated with an NFT and how these rights can be exploited. Falling prices aside, unmet expectations can lead to disappointment for buyers down the road.

 

—

 

A copy of MPA’s submission for the ‘Study on Non-Fungible Tokens and Related Intellectual Property Law’ is available here (pdf) and the filing of RIAA and consorts can be found here (pdf)

 

Advanced TV Network (ATN) was an IPTV service in Sweden that supplied more than a thousand TV channels to customers via the Internet. In 2008, that was an unusual achievement.

 

ATN gave the impression of operating legally. As a registered company it was generating annual sales of around $7 million by 2013 and paid taxes to the state. However, the content ATN supplied to its customers had illegal origins.

 

A police raid in 2016 led to three of its operators being convicted two years later for criminal copyright infringement, among other offenses.

 

All three were handed prison sentences and ordered to pay $24 million in damages to rightsholders, but the service itself lived on after relocating to the United Arab Emirates. Utilizing overseas resellers, ATN continued its business in Europe and North America but ran into more trouble in 2020. An IBCAP investigation led to a DISH lawsuit that targeted the pirate IPTV service’s official distributor in the United States.

DISH Lawsuit Takes a Second Bite

Filed in a Florida district court in October 2020, the complaint alleged that Alfa TV Inc. was operated in the United States by individuals associated with ATN. In the complaint, Florida resident Hisham Manse Ibrahem was named as the company’s president, Haitham Mansi its vice-president. Nezar Saeed Hammo allegedly acted as Alfa’s marketing manager while Mohammed Abu Oun was identified as the company’s general manager.

 

DISH alleged that the men and Alfa TV Inc. did business under the pirate IPTV brand ElafnetTV, which in turn described itself as the “Biggest Arabic IPTV Provider in the World.” After failing to respond to takedown notices, IBCAP/DISH ran out of patience and sought $150,000 in statutory damages for at least 107 registered works – a total of $16,050,000.

 

With the pandemic causing chaos and less than cooperative defendants, progress in the case was slow. Then on May 21, 2021, Alfa TV marketing manager Nezar Saeed Hammo filed for bankruptcy in Florida. Within days DISH moved to hold Alfa TV Inc. and Hisham Ibrahem in contempt of court, and then filed for default judgment against Haitham Mansi, who countered in August 2021 by answering the lawsuit.

 

After almost a year of subsequent filings, in July 2022 the court announced that a jury trial had been scheduled for July 3, 2023. What followed was six months of complete silence and then a sudden flurry of activity last month.

Docket Comes Alive, IBCAP Celebrates Judgments Worth $32m

In an announcement yesterday, the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) celebrated wins for its member, DISH, in both the district court and bankruptcy court in Florida.

 

“[A] federal district court and a federal bankruptcy court, both in Florida, have ordered Hisham Manse Ibrahem and Nezar Saeed Hammo, U.S.-based sellers of the pirate service ATN, to pay $32,100,000 in combined damages for willful copyright infringement,” IBCAP’s announcement reads.

 

“Both individuals were selling the ATN service through a company known as Alfa TV Inc., which was also found liable, along with Haitham Mansi, a Sweden-based owner, and operator of Alfa TV, Inc.”

 

As previously noted, Nezar Saeed Hammo filed for bankruptcy in May 2021. IBCAP says that since the move was an attempt to avoid liability, an adversary complaint was filed to determine the non-dischargeability of the debt against him.

 

“As with similar actions against willful copyright infringers, the bankruptcy court ruled the judgment non-dischargeable, again showing that infringers cannot use the bankruptcy system to avoid liability for willful copyright infringement,” IBCAP notes.

A Win is a Win – Even When Defendants Agree to Lose

While IBCAP’s statement is technically accurate, liability was only established after consent was obtained from the defendants. On January 10, 2023, a stipulation was filed jointly by DISH and defendants Alfa TV Inc., Haitham Mansi, and Hisham Manse Ibrahem. This meant that the judge didn’t have to determine liability on the merits, because an agreement between the plaintiff and defendants established that as fact.

 

“DISH and Defendants request that the Court enter a final judgment and permanent injunction against Defendants. This stipulation has no effect on DISH’s claims against co-defendants Nezar Saeed Hammo and Mohammed Abu Oun,” it reads (pdf).

 

The proposed order and injunction (pdf) was signed by the judge the very next day. A note that each party will bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs may hint at the realities behind the scenes, but cast-iron confidentiality agreements mean the details are unlikely to see the light of day.

And Then There Were Two…

In response to Nezar Saeed Hammo filing for bankruptcy in May 2021, DISH filed a complaint against him in August the same year. That docket runs to 51 entries with the penultimate entry (dated January 12, 2023) revealing another stipulated motion for final judgment and permanent injunction.

 

The agreement between DISH and the apparently penniless Hammo is almost identical to the separate agreement signed by his colleagues. However, by admitting his actions were “willful and malicious,” the $16 million Hammo owes DISH in damages is rendered non-dischargeable.

 

Each party will bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs in this matter too, but the real magic lies elsewhere.

 

The original complaint filed by DISH demanded $150,000 in statutory damages for 107 registered works – a total of $16,050,000. From the same pool of defendants, with exactly the same damages claims, DISH has managed to double the original request for damages to more than $32 million.

IBCAP Says It’s Pleased With The Result

As some may have noticed, a defendant named in the original complaint is absent from these judgments. DISH voluntarily dismissed Mohammed Abu Oun from the lawsuit on January 18, 2023, but without prejudice. In theory, that raises the possibility of another $16 million in agreed damages later on. Whether any of the defendants expect to pay anything is unknown but IBCAP says it’s pleased with the outcome.

 

“Yet again, the federal courts have levied huge financial awards against individuals in the U.S. who were selling pirate services,” says Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP.

 

“This case is another example of why it is not worth the risk for retailers to sell pirate services. It is also important to point out that sellers of pirate services cannot use bankruptcy to shield against their illegal activities.”

 

Meanwhile, the ATN IPTV service is still online, but IBCAP says its members’ content is no longer being made available. In a statement sent to TorrentFreak, IBCAP notes that while DISH puts its name on the lawsuit as the rightsholder, IBCAP itself does most of the work.

 

“IBCAP is the driver behind these lawsuits. As a coalition that represents the interests of more than 170 channels, our lab and analysts, team of lawyers, and other experts are instrumental in identifying pirate sources of content and we have a very high success rate in taking down illegal streams without litigation,” the anti-piracy group notes.

 

“On behalf of our members, IBCAP is responsible for all monitoring, pre-litigation investigations, legal resources and efforts, including takedowns and the identification of non-compliant sources of our members’ content. Once identified, we guide our members to take final legal action to protect content. As the final part of this process, our members have to do the actual filing because they are the rightsholder.

 

“However, it is IBCAP doing the pre-litigation work, takedown efforts, identifying the targets for lawsuits and providing the necessary evidence to achieve a successful outcome,” the group concludes.

 

Documents related to both actions can be found here (1,2,3,4,5,6, all pdf)

 

In 2021, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

 

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the Destiny 2 cheating software at the center of the complaint.

 

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

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

In May 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint lacked sufficient evidence to support a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the Judge concluded.

 

While this was a setback for Bungie, the court gave the company an opportunity to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after.

 

In its amended complaint, the game developer added more copyright infringement details and shared more information on the roles of several key people that are also allegedly involved. They include James May, who Bungie describes as a third-party cheat developer.

Cheaters Countersue Bungie

In response, the AimJunkies defendants went on the offensive. They didn’t deny that the AimJunkies site offered ‘Destiny 2’ cheats in the past but rejected allegations that copyright law had been violated.

 

Instead, James May and the three managing members of Phoenix Digital turned the tables. Their countersuit against Bungie contains several hacking allegations and claims that the game company violated the DMCA by circumventing the cheat’s technological protection measures.

 

These initial counterclaims were dismissed after Bungie pointed out several flaws to the court. However, AimJunkies was allowed to amend its allegations to add missing details. This attempt was more successful.

‘Hacking’ and Theft Claims Can Proceed

Late last week, United States District Judge Thomas S. Zilly ruled that the hacking, theft, and contract breach allegations survive Bungie’s motion to dismiss so can proceed.

 

“May and Phoenix Digital have cured deficiencies the Court previously identified in its earlier Order […] and many of the arguments Bungie raises in its motion to dismiss would be more appropriately presented in a motion for summary judgment or at trial,” Judge Zilly writes.

 

The hacking and theft claims only apply to James May, who’s described as a third-party cheat developer. These allegations are grounded in a spreadsheet obtained during discovery and suggest that Bungie breached his computer without permission.

 

Bungie’s own privacy policy didn’t allow the company to access files on Mr. May’s personal computer surreptitiously, let alone download any of its contents. However, May believes this is what happened.

 

“On several occasions between October 2, 2019 and May 25, 2021 Bungie, Inc […] obtained information from personal files contained on Mr. Mays’ personal computer. Bungie did so by exceeding the authorization provided to it by the Bungie Privacy Policy.

 

“In particular, the reference in Exhibit D to the file path “g:\work files\”, directs to Mr. May’s external drive which contains proprietary technology and trade secrets known only to Mr. May. Mr. May holds copyrights in these materials…,” the counterclaim added.

 

By accessing the drive, the game company allegedly violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which can be seen as hacking. In addition to accessing the files, May also accuses Bungie of downloading them, which is seen as theft.

 

The alleged hacking and theft caused damage to May, as he spent dozens of hours reviewing potentially compromised files. May also had to purchase a new computer.

Points for AimJunkies

There is also positive news for AimJunkies’ parent company Phoenix Digital. Judge Zilly concludes that its contract breach claim can continue. AimJunkies argued that Bungie violated its terms of service by decompiling and reverse-engineering its cheat software.

 

Since these activities are expressly prohibited by AimJunkies’ terms of service, the cheat developers argue that amounts to a breach of contract.

 

AimJunkies previously filed hacking-related claims against Bungie, but since the company didn’t file an amended hacking-related counterclaim, that is no longer an issue.

DMCA Circumvention Counterclaims

Not all counterclaims survived Bungie’s motion to dismiss. Alleged violations of the DMCA due to circumvention of technological protection measures can’t continue.

 

According to Judge Zilly, there is no evidence that AimJunkies’ software had any technical copyright protection measures. As such, there is nothing to circumvent.

 

That said, the circumvention claims of third-party developer James May can continue. He accused Bungie of bypassing password and firewall technology to access his personal files, which means that there was something to circumvent.

 

Everything considered, plotting the future course of the case is difficult. A myriad of claims filed by both sides have rendered the case unpredictable, and with the parties apparently determined to keep fighting, further unexpected twists can’t be ruled out.

 

—

 

The amended counterclaims and Bungie’s motion to dismiss can be found here (pdf) and here (pdf). Judge Zilly’s order granting/dismissing various claims is available here (pdf)

 

The UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office has published a new edition of its Online Copyright Infringement Tracker study.

 

The annual survey aims to understand the piracy habits of citizens aged 12 and above. This is the 12th wave of the report and relates to consumption during 2022. The overarching trend is one of overall piracy rates remaining mostly static for the past six years but the details paint a more interesting bigger picture.

Overall Infringement Rate Up

In common with previous years, the latest study details consumption habits for a wide range of content, including movies, TV shows, music, live sports, video games, software, and ebooks.

 

Overall infringement rates (respondents who accessed any content illegally) increased from 25% to 32% in 2022. However, the government says the figure should be interpreted with caution due to new methods of access being included each year. Nevertheless, overall infringement does appear to be increasing.

 

Movie piracy hit an overall infringement rate of 23%, up 4% from its previous high recorded in wave 11 (2021). TV show piracy increased 1% over the previous high recorded back in 2019, but once again the government urges caution.

 

“The increase in most categories was driven by a greater proportion of individuals using a mix of legal and illegal methods, rather than the purely (i.e. only) illegal group. For most categories the purely illegal group has remained stable and low,” the Intellectual Property Office explains.

 

When it comes to music streaming, ‘low’ is an overstatement. An incredible 97% of music consumers in the UK relied entirely on legal sources last year, with a negligible 2% using legal and illegal sources and 0% relying exclusively on illegal sources.

 

Give or take, that’s been the position for the last four years. Spoiling the party a little are the 9.2 million people estimated to have downloaded at least one track illegally in 2022.

 

Figures for movie streaming reveal that 83% used only legal sources, 15% relied on a mix, and just 3% pirated everything they watched. Overall, these rates represent a couple of percentage points change in favor of piracy over the figures reported last year.

 

For TV show streaming, the rates are 86%, 12%, and 2% respectively, with legal-only down three points, mixed legal/illegal up three, and illegal-only consumption static. The picture in 2022 is broadly in line with data published in 2019.

Overall Rates of Infringement

Overall infringement rates in the report should be viewed in context. Digital magazines, for example, have an infringement rate of 41%, meaning that four out of ten people who consume that type of content did so from an illegal source at least once in the previous three months.

 

With an infringement rate of 38% overall, software piracy is much higher than music (25%), movies (24%), and TV shows (19%), but far more people consume content from the latter three categories. In the case of TV shows, a 19% infringement rate equates to 9% of the entire sample, a total of 6.2 million infringers overall.

 

The figures for those who consume music, movies, and TV shows completely legally, mixed, or entirely illegally, have now returned to pre-COVID levels. The same is true for live sports streamers, albeit with a key difference.

 

While the music and movie industries still oppose piracy, overt anti-piracy messaging from these sectors has been relatively low-key for the past few years. In the live sports sector, campaigns led by the Federation Against Copyright Theft and UK police, on behalf of the Premier League, Sky, and BT Sports, have been relentless.

 

According to government figures, continuous anti-piracy campaigning by the live sports sector has produced figures that are no better than those achieved by the movie and music sectors with minimal messaging.

 

The report suggests that attitudes towards anti-piracy campaigns have changed. Where “authoritative” tones and threats of disconnection were previously seen as effective, many participants now call for an ‘understanding’ tone and for campaigns from the industry to “feel cooperative and working with, not punishing, the consumer.”

Illegal Streaming of Live Sports

In 2020, overall infringement rates among consumers of live sports sat at 37%. In 2021, the overall rate dropped to 29%, with 71% using only legal sources, 18% using a mix, and exclusively illegal content consumers at 12%.

 

In the most recent wave covering 2022, overall infringement of live sports reached 36%, roughly on par with 2020 levels. In 2022, that equates to 3.9 million people streaming at least some sports content illegally.

 

The way people consumed live sports streams is also going in the wrong direction. Those consuming content entirely from legal sources dropped from 71% in 2021 to 64% in 2022. Consumers of a legal/illegal mix increased by three points to 21%. Consumers of strictly illegal content increased to 15% versus the 12% reported a year earlier.

 

Whether these figures will deteriorate further during 2022 remains to be seen, but price rises recently announced by UK subscription broadcasters seem unlikely to help. That’s also the case in respect of other persistent problems in the video sector.

The UK Loves Entertainment But Can’t Always Afford It

Unsurprisingly, the study found that entertainment is valued by the UK, particularly so during the extraordinary circumstances of recent years.

 

“Previous waves during the pandemic had shown how entertainment could serve almost as a companion during times of lockdown where some felt isolated. Now, entertainment was said to help many by distracting them from uncertainty around money and anxiety around going back into a world without social restrictions for some,” the report reads.

 

“However, the rise in the cost of living experienced across the UK meant that while participants wanted to keep consuming all their entertainment at the same rate they had been, some were thinking about canceling some of their subscriptions to save money.”

Cutting Back: Value for Money or Nothing

Despite people feeling the pinch in the UK and beyond, streaming music services seem to have hit the sweet spot on price, quality, and service. For roughly £2.50 per week, almost all music is available in unlimited quantities and for everything else, YouTube will suffice.

 

With piracy rates close to zero, the music industry has shown that it’s possible to compete with free and make a profit at the same time. Movies, TV shows and live sports have other problems to solve but in the meantime, these are the key content areas most likely to face issues.

 

“[W]here content was split across multiple platforms,” the report notes, “some felt they could not justify paying for more than one or two.”

 

UK football fans are well aware that subscribing to three platforms doesn’t get them everything they want to watch, so that doesn’t sound particularly encouraging. Losing fans to other activities sounds like an even worse proposition.

 

Other than canceling Sky subscriptions, alternatives cited by respondents include gardening, watching more content on Netflix and BBC iPlayer, and playing video games. At least one respondent spoke about re-reading old books and the possibility of getting rid of them altogether.

 

“Recovering from the Covid pandemic and all the price rises has been really hard. I definitely don’t buy as many books and am looking for free reads more often. I’ve just got all my novels out of storage to read to save a bit of money and might have to start selling them off,” one participant said.

VPN Use in the UK

With privacy concerns on the increase and site-blocking rampant in the UK, internet users of all kinds are turning to VPNs (Virtual Private Networks). The study found that across all categories, respondents who used a VPN specifically for obtaining entertainment content were more likely to have infringed compared to those who used a VPN for activity other than entertainment content consumption.

 

“For most categories, differences between those who used a VPN for entertainment content and those who did not were large (10%+) for most categories, levels of infringement were similar for those who used a VPN but not for entertainment content and those who did not use a VPN at all,” the report notes.

 

The 12th wave of the UK’s Online Copyright Infringement Tracker can be found here

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have three newcomers on the list. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 6 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Black Panther: Wakanda Forever	7.0 / trailer
2	(…)	Babylon	7.4 / trailer
3	(1)	M3GAN	6.5 / trailer
4	(2)	Puss in Boots: The Last Wish	7.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Plane	6.6 / trailer
6	(3)	The Menu	7.3 / trailer
7	(4)	Avatar: The Way of Water	8.1 / trailer
8	(8)	Black Adam	7.1 / trailer
9	(9)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.3 / trailer
10	(6)	Shotgun Wedding	5.6 / trailer

 

 

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

 

In the fall of 2020, the U.S. Government indicted three members of the infamous ‘Team Xecuter’ group, the masterminds behind various Nintendo hacks.

 

Authorities located Canadian Gary Bowser in the Dominican Republic and arrested him there. Meanwhile, Frenchman Max Louarn was detained in Tanzania.

 

The prosecution characterized 52-year-old Bowser as the “salesperson” of Team-Xecuter due to his work with resellers of the group’s products. He was also known as “GaryOPA” and in his capacity as operator of the website “MaxConsole”, which regularly reviewed Team-Xecuter hardware and other hacking tools.

40 Month Prison Sentence

Following his arrest, Bowser was deported to the United States where he pleaded guilty. Last February, Bowser was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in the criminal enterprise. The sentence is significant but lower than the five-year prison term the Government had requested.

 

During sentencing, Judge Lasnik said that it was important ‘to send a message’ but agreed that a reduction was warranted as Bowser played the smallest role of the three defendants. He also faced medical and other issues.

 

Since last year, Bowser has been incarcerated at Federal Detention Center SeaTac in Seattle. Since he already spent time in prison before the case was heard, the Bureau of Prisoners calculated a release date of July 31, 2023.

Early Release

This means that the 52-year-old will be a free man again in a few months. Ideally, however, Bowser would like to get out long before then. Through his lawyer, he requested a reduction last week, citing time credits earned thus far.

 

“Petitioner is eligible to receive Earned Time Credits (ETCs). If the BOP applied the ETCs that Petitioner has earned, Petitioner would be entitled to at least 105 days and a release date as early as March 18, 2023,” the petition reads.

 

The petition is still under review at the Seattle federal court. Meanwhile, Bowser is already making plans for his future outside of the penitentiary, which will present its own set of challenges.

Call From Prison

Yesterday, Nick Moses of the gaming podcast NickMoses05 published a brief phone call with Bowser, looking ahead to what lies next.

 

One of Bowser’s concerns is that he believes he will be simply dropped off at the Canadian border following his release, with no means at his disposal. The only clothing he has is a paper-thin green jumpsuit provided by the prison.

 

“That’s the problem; being Canadian and because we’re close here to the Canadian border and Seattle, they’ll just basically fingerprint me and get released, then drive me to the Canadian border and kick my ass off the bus and say: walk home.

 

“That’s the problem because walking home, that’s like 3,000 miles to the nearest person that might even be able to look after me in Canada,” Bowser said.

 

In recent years, Bowser has built up his life in the Dominican Republic and his parents are no longer alive. He does have some friends in Toronto taking care of some personal belongings, but that’s thousands of miles away from Seattle.

 

“My real support system is back in the Dominican Republic. Eventually, I gonna have to get back there,” Bowser says.

Recuperating

First, however, Bowser plans to spend a few months in Canada to get all of the paperwork in order. He also wants to use the time to get some treatment for medical issues, including problems with his leg.

 

“I have to get my leg worked on too because of the swelling in my left leg. While I’m in Canada I’m going to try to get that dome because Canada has a good public healthcare system. So that’s going to be one of my major priorities.”

 

Bowser’s means are limited and they will be for a while, as he previously agreed to pay $10 million in damages to Nintendo. The $12 a month he earns for his work in prison doesn’t help much with that.

 

Nonetheless, the work made his stay in prison more tolerable. Nothing beats being a free man, of course, and whether that takes a few weeks or months, his release is getting closer by the day.

 

During the call, Nick Moses kindly offered to help Bowser try and get back on his feet. We will keep an eye on these developments during the weeks to come, including the request for an early release.

 

Finally, it is worth noting that Bowser remains the only person related to Team-Xecuter to be convicted. Max Louarn, one of the group’s masterminds, managed to stay out of the FBI’s hands and reportedly lives in France. The third defendant, a Chinese man named Yuanning Chen, is also still at large.

 

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A copy of the request for an early release based on the earned time credits is available here (pdf)