Whenever rightsholders and anti-piracy groups need more enforcement options, efforts to strengthen or establish new understanding of copyright law are rarely far behind.

 

In many cases these moves tend to follow a similar pattern – don’t ask for too much all at once, dismiss any idea that the internet or ‘honest’ users could suffer, and then downplay suggestions that new powers represent the thin end of an extremely large wedge.

 

From being presented as a tool of last resort for use in strictly limited circumstances, site-blocking injunctions are just one example. From humble beginnings they’re now available in dozens of countries around the world. A single site in one application was the starting point but today it’s not uncommon today to see ten, fifty, or even a hundred.

 

That shouldn’t surprise anyone, nor should the recent efforts to push injunctions into unchartered territory.

Reliance Entertainment: An Early Site-Blocking Pioneer

India began blocking pirate sites in 2011 but the public had no idea it was coming. In an early case, movie company Reliance Entertainment went to court to protect the movie ‘Singham’ and came away with an order that compelled ISPs to temporarily block sites including Megaupload, Megavideo, Rapidshare, Putlocker, Hotfile and Fileserve.

 

Having obtained one injunction, to the surprise of no one Reliance Entertainment immediately sought and obtained another. From there, the site-blocking train gathered steam and hasn’t looked back.

 

Indeed, site blocking in India has now reached a point where evidence of actual infringement isn’t a priority and in some cases hasn’t even happened yet. Nevertheless, courts are still prepared to issue injunctions that include domain suspension orders to businesses in other countries.

Reliance’s ‘Minority Report’ Blocking

Most site-blocking injunctions worldwide are based on evidence of past infringements but for Reliance Entertainment, looking forward has been a persistent theme. The company attempts to predict where its movies may turn up when they’re inevitably copied after release, then asks the court to authorize preemptive ISP blocking against a few common offenders. Or at least that’s where it started.

 

After obtaining certification for its new movie ‘Vikram Vedha’ last Monday, Reliance Entertainment filed an injunction application the next day. The goal was to protect the movie from online piracy following its premiere last Friday. Given that courts in other countries can take months over a decision, the Madras High Court needed to act quickly.

 

On September 30, the day of the movie’s release, the Court published its orders, noting that substantial sums had been invested in ‘Vikram Vedha’ and the movie was expected to screen in 3,000 cinemas worldwide. With words such as “imminent” and “threat” featured early on, it was already clear which way the judge was leaning.

 

How far he was prepared to go still came as a surprise.

Reliance Successfully Argued ‘Alleged Piracy’ in the Future

After reading through the Reliance application, the judge declared that Reliance had made its case and that an injunction was appropriate.

 

The judge said that if an interim injunction wasn’t immediately granted, it would “result in alleged piracy being completed in all and every aspect of the matter.” That would in turn lead to an “irreversible situation” and “irreparable legal injury incapable of compensation.”

 

Due to the urgency, the respondents in the case – including 40 internet service providers – weren’t notified of the legal action. Nevertheless, the injunction was handed down via two separate orders, which together prohibit anyone from copying, recording, camcording, making available, uploading, downloading, exhibiting or playing the movie without a license.

 

After specifically prohibiting copying to CD, DVD, pen drives, hard drives or tapes, the orders move on to the issue of ISP blocking. It appears that Reliance asked for a lot and the judge gave them everything.

Thousands of Websites Listed For Immediate Blocking

According to one of the orders, the websites put forward for blocking are all “non-compliant” operations, in that they have no reporting and take down mechanisms in place, at least according to Reliance.

 

Interestingly, Reliance also informed the court that all of the websites were infringing its copyrights in respect of the movie ‘Vikram Vedha’, even though it was yet to be released and when the application was filed, no copies were available online. This means that Reliance couldn’t have provided any infringing URLs even if it wanted to. Nevertheless, the judge did consider more limited blocking.

 

“I am also informed that technologically/technically, there is no possibility of blocking that part of the contents of the website which contains alleged pirated version of the suit Movie alone,” his order reads.

 

Ultimately, the judge granted an interim injunction and ordered all of the ISPs (list below) to immediately and proactively block a grand total of 13,445 websites. While the names of the websites were made available to the court, the court did not make the schedule available on the docket.

 

As a result we have no way of confirming which domains are on the list. The ISPs weren’t informed about the injunction application either, so presumably they’re also in the dark. The idea that the judge tested all 13,445 domains seems wishful thinking at best.

 

That leaves Reliance Entertainment as the sole entity with any knowledge of the submitted domains, all of which have been labeled in court as infringing the movie’s copyright, even though no copy was available when the application was made.

Overblocking Seems Unavoidable

To put 13,445 sites into perspective, the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit’s ‘Infringing Website List’ aims to deprive as many pirate sites of revenue as possible after a strict validation process. That list is also a closely guarded secret but at times we know it’s featured around 2,800 sites. We believe there are currently around 1,600 sites on the IWL, give or take.

 

We already know from the injunction application date that none of the domains had the movie (or even a link to it) because a) it hadn’t been released yet and b) no copies appeared online until Friday. But beyond that, there is zero chance that all 13,445 sites intended to host or link to the movie and there is zero chance that all 13,445 are “non-compliant” pirate sites.

 

At least as far as we know, the Department of Communications is yet to publish a formal instruction notice for ISPs to start blocking but that should appear fairly quickly. When it’s published we’ll certainly be having a very close look and won’t be at all surprised to see overreach. The only remaining questions are the scale of the collateral damage and who is affected.

 

The Madras High Court orders can be found here and here (pdf). ISPs affected by the order below as follows:

 

1) BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LIMITED,
2) MAHANAGAR TELEPHONE NIGAM LTD.,
3) BHARTI AIRTEL LIMITED,
4) AIRCEL CELLULAR LIMITED,
5) HATHWAY CABLE AND DATACOM LIMITED,
6) TATA COMMUNICATION LIMITED,
7) VODAFONE INDIA LIMITED,
IDEA CELLULAR LIMITED,
9) RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE LIMITED,
10) TATA TELESERVICES LTD,
11) GTPL HATHWAY LTD,
12) TIKONA DIGITAL NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED,
13) BG BROADBAND INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
14) SIFY TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
15) SITI BROADBAND SERVICES PVT.LTD.,
16) YOU BROADBANK AND CABLE INDIA LTD.,
17) ASIANET SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS,
18) DATA INFOSYS LIMITED,
19) READYLINK INTERNET SERVICES LIMITED,
20) OPTO NETWORK PRIVATE LIMITED,
21) NETTLINX LIMITED,
22) CITY ONLINE SERVICES LIMITED,
23) PIONEER eLABS LIMITED,
24) AT AND T GLOBAL NETWORK SERVICE INDIA PVT.LTD.,
25) NEXTGEN COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED,
26) SOUTHERN ONLINE BIO TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
27) MYNET SERVICES INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
28) RELIANCE JIO INFOCOMM LTD.,
29) LIMRASERONET BROADBAND SERVICES PRIVATE LIMITED,
30) RS BROADBANK SERVICE INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED,
31) SPECTRA ISP NETWORKS PVT.LTD.,
32) PULSE TELESYSTEMS PRIVATE LIMITED,
33) ESSEISHYAM COMMUNICATIONS LTD.,
34) FIVE NETWORK SOLUTION (I) LTD.,
35) ATRIA CONVERGENCE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED,
36) ACTION LANE,
37) JAK COMMUNICATIONS PVT LTD.,
38) C32 CABLE NET PVT.LTD.,
39) THAMIZHAGA CABLE TV COMMUNICATION PVT LTD.,
40) THIRU NEGAR SATELLITE VISION PVT LTD.

 

Downloading audio and video is prohibited by YouTube’s terms of service but there are numerous ‘stream-ripping’ sites available on the web that do just that.

 

These services are a thorn in the side of music industry outfits, who see them as a major piracy threat. The operators of these stream-ripping tools disagree and point at the variety of legal uses instead.

 

At the end of 2020, the operator of one of the largest stream-rippers took matters into his own hands. Instead of hiding in the shadows like some competitors, Yout.com owner Johnathan Nader sued the RIAA, asking the federal court in Connecticut to declare the service as non-infringing.

Does YouTube Have TPMs?

The case has been ongoing for nearly two years and Yout.com has filed two amended complaints that addressed earlier shortcomings and refined the legal arguments. At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether Yout’s service violates a provision in the DMCA that prohibits the circumvention of technological protection measures (TPMs).

 

Yout.com argues that YouTube doesn’t have meaningful technical protection measures; so there is nothing to circumvent. In just a few steps, anyone can download audio and video from the site without additional tools.

 

This argument was reiterated at a court hearing in late August, where the RIAA’s request to dismiss the case was on the agenda. Yout’s attorney Charles Mudd maintained that anyone can manually download video and audio from YouTube, concluding that there are no effective technological protection measures in place.

 

The RIAA saw things quite differently. The music group cited the DMCA, which points out that a technological measure is considered a TPM if it, “in the ordinary course of its operation”, requires a process or a treatment to access copyrighted video or audio. That’s the case with YouTube’s ‘rolling cipher’ technology.

Court Sides with the RIAA

In an order released on Friday, Judge Stefan Underhill sides with the RIAA. The Judge clearly spent a lot of time reaching this decision which is apparent from his 46-page ruling, which goes into great detail on YouTube’s protection measures.

 

To grant Yout a judgment that its service doesn’t violate the DMCA, it needed to show that YouTube’s videos are not protected by a “technological measure” that “effectively controls access” to copyrighted works. Or alternatively, that Yout does not circumvent an effective technological measure.

 

After weighing the evidence, Judge Underhill concludes that YouTube’s relatively basic ‘rolling cipher’ protection is indeed a technological measure. It doesn’t involve any DRM or encryption, as Yout argued, but that’s not required by law.

 

“Although the DMCA reflects Congress’s intent that scrambling and encryption are technological measures per se, scrambling and encryption do not constitute an exhaustive list of technological measures.

 

“[The] allegations that YouTube does not have a DRM regime nor any ‘password, key, or other secret knowledge’ do not compel the conclusion that YouTube lacks a technological measure, just that it lacks the specified technological measures,” Judge Underhill adds.

Automating Circumvention

The court doesn’t dispute that people can use a regular browser to download audio and video files from YouTube. However, that requires them to go into the browser’s developer tools and manually modify a signature value.

 

At the end of this manual process, people can freely access the audio and video files on YouTube. However, Yout goes a step further as it can also combine these two files again.

 

“Yout does not allege that YouTube freely gives videos with their audio. Indeed, Yout clarified at oral argument that Yout creates combined audio/video files using ffmpeg software, which is not alleged to be part of the steps Yout ‘automates’ in the Second Amended Complaint.”

 

Based on these and other arguments, Judge Underhill concludes that Yout failed to show that there “is nothing to bypass” or that YouTube lacks a “technological measure,” as defined under the DMCA.

Effective but Not Perfect

Whether this protection measure is effective is another question. Yout argued that, since people can do what it does using publicly available tools, YouTube has no effective protection in place. However, the court again disagrees.

 

“Importantly, even if the YouTube technological measure can be circumvented, it may still be effective. There is a legal consensus that the fact that a person may deactivate or go around a TPM does not mean that the technology fails to offer ‘effective control’ because so holding would render the DCMA ‘nonsensical,” Judge Underhill writes.

 

All in all the court concludes that the evidence weighs in favor of the RIAA. While YouTube’s protection is relatively easy to circumvent, Yout is designed to make this bypass process even easier.

 

“I agree with the RIAA that Yout’s circumvention entails bypassing YouTube’s technological measures and modifying YouTube’s ‘signature value’ to facilitate unauthorized access to a downloadable digital copy.

 

“Because that bypass and modification constitute a ‘process,’ I conclude that Yout does not plausibly allege that it does not circumvent the YouTube TPM, within the meaning of section 1201(a),” Judge Underhill adds.

Case Dismissed

Based on the above, Judge Underhill dismissed the case without allowing Yout to amend its complaint. This is a clear setback for the YouTube-ripper, but it doesn’t mean that all is lost.

 

Responding to the verdict, Yout’s attorney Charles Mudd says that it doesn’t come as a complete surprise. At the same time, he stresses that the legal battle isn’t over yet as Yout plans to take the matter to the appeal court.

 

“Yout expected this result from the District Court and appreciates Judge Underhill providing this early opportunity to bring the issues before the Second Circuit. We believe the District Court’s ruling erroneous and flawed on a number of grounds, and we look forward to arguing our position on appeal,” Mudd notes.

 

The RIAA didn’t immediately reply to our request for comment. However, it’s clear that this outcome will give the RIAA more confidence to pursue these types of cases going forward.

 

—

 

A copy of Connecticut District Court Judge Stefan Underhill’s order on RIAA’s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf)

 

Given the extreme financial power and political leverage held by the world’s largest entertainment companies, most obstacles can be pushed aside or simply rolled over. But exceptions do exist.

 

In the fight against piracy, not only do the smallest gains require an unusual effort but they’re increasingly dependent on the cooperation of third parties, usually those in the online tech sector. If these companies can’t be convinced to commit business resources to the piracy war voluntarily, lawsuits and mandatory conscription can lie ahead.

 

The message – that internet companies must tackle piracy or be held responsible for taking part in it – is nothing new. Internet service providers, websites, search engines, hosting providers, domain companies, social media services, and advertising companies are all considered part of the problem.

 

From terminating allegedly infringing users and implementing copyright filters, to due diligence, website blocking, and running a search engine, tech companies can find themselves being held responsible when third parties upset the business models of other third parties. This new commercial reality isn’t just spreading, it has global aspirations.

Control The Phone Book, Control Communications

A presentation prepared for the recent Fifteenth Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement begins with a brief explainer of the Domain Name System (DNS) and how it works. The fundamental importance of DNS to the internet is glaringly obvious.

 

So that humans don’t have to remember thousands of IP addresses to access their favorite websites, the DNS system holds all of those numbers in a database and matches them to more easily remembered domain names. When domain names are entered into a browser (Google.com, for example), DNS converts the domain into an IP address and the page appears. If done properly, it’s completely invisible.

 

At the time of writing, a couple of billion websites rely on the ability of the DNS system to carry out these conversions. The problem for rightsholders is that some of those sites facilitate access to their copyrighted works, and with easy-to-remember names such as thepiratebay.org, they are too easy for people to find.

 

Following legal action, ISPs in dozens of countries are now required to prevent their customers from accessing sites like thepiratebay.org. Since ISPs carry their own copy of the DNS ‘phone book’, they look up thepiratebay.org, find the IP address allocated to it, and exchange it for a completely useless one.

 

Rightsholders like this arrangement. Critics say that internet infrastructure shouldn’t tell lies to its users.

So Why Such Drastic Action? FMovies….and a Few Others

If The Pirate Bay’s resistance to shutdown helped to fuel the early days of pirate site blocking, sites like FMovies may end up shouldering the blame for more extreme measures.

 

With close to 87 million visits per month via desktop alone, FMovies is not only massive but quite possibly the most comprehensive pirate VOD-style streaming site available today. It operates many domains in various jurisdictions under multiple brandings, and isn’t confined to the mainstream movie and TV show ‘niches’ either.

 

Hollywood companies have forced ISPs in several countries to tamper with the site’s local DNS entries after obtaining injunctions or voluntary cooperation. The site’s traffic continues to grow because it’s still online – DNS tampering cannot change that, not for FMovies or any other site

 

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the presentation is that it talks about options for action against DNS, yet reveals the countries where FMovies has infrastructure, names the companies allegedly supporting that infrastructure, and puts their locations on a map.

 

So what action could be taken by DNS service providers to take FMovies offline, render it inaccessible, or even make it marginally less successful than it currently is? The presentation has some ideas but before we come to them, it might be worth looking at the slide again.

 

Why would meddling with the DNS system, which has zero ability to remove content, be preferred over actually removing content?

 

OVH and M247, two companies listed as serving FMovies, are very large hosting operations and couldn’t hide even if they wanted to. The fact that they are in the EU renders them legally ‘accessible’ too, in the event that they are indeed playing host to one of the world’s largest stashes of premium infringing content. They probably have no idea that’s the case, of course, and being cash-rich their lawyers would be very happy to explain that, in court if necessary.

 

But the real problem here isn’t who has the ability to fight back, it’s that DNS interference has always been portrayed as a tool of last resort, something to be used when everything else fails. The presentation to the WIPO Enforcement Committee even states that DNS resolvers are completely incapable of removing infringing content.

 

“The legal frameworks and case law lack a clear picture at international and national levels. Case law mainly discusses liability as secondary infringers if DNS providers serve structurally copyright infringing websites. This usually requires intent, which could be established by a notice,” it reads.

 

Sony Music certainly hopes that will be enough.

Quad9 DNS Resolver Dispute

In Germany, Swiss-based DNS resolver Quad9 is now in direct legal conflict with Sony Music after refusing to cooperate in the label’s campaign to have a music piracy site blocked. Sony took the case to court, arguing that Quad9 has a duty of care to block the site – a site that doesn’t carry infringing content itself but links to content hosted on another site (or sites), somewhere else entirely.

 

Perhaps with an eye on the type of intent mentioned above, Sony did indeed give Quad9 clear notice of the infringement. Unfortunately for Quad9, Germany sets the bar for involvement very low indeed, which makes it the perfect venue for this kind of lawsuit.

 

Under the legal concept of Störerhaftung, otherwise known as disturbance or disruptor liability, a disruptor is someone who is involved in any way with the distribution of illicit content. As involvement goes, Quad9’s role is either extremely minimal or absolutely crucial, depending on perspective.

 

Sony currently appears to have the upper hand (1,2) and although it’s not over yet(1), some liability protection has already been stripped away. According to a German regional court, since Quad9 only triggers IP address queries to DNS servers and transmits no information, it does not qualify for ‘mere conduit’ liability exemptions.

Cloudflare Ordered to Block Pirate Sites

If Quad9 loses, any order compelling it to block will be part of the package waved around in other jurisdictions to achieve the same goals: do providers want to cooperate now, or perhaps they prefer legal conscription? In the EU, this type of approach has a tendency to spread, where one ruling leads to another and then becomes the accepted norm as intermediaries concede defeat.

 

And momentum is building.

 

In July, an Italian court ordered Cloudflare to block three torrent sites on its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. Music industry group FIMI said that since the Cloudflare service helps people to access pirate sites, Cloudflare becomes part of the piracy problem. The court agreed and issued a preliminary injunction against Cloudflare.

 

While copyright holders have shown their intent in no uncertain terms, Cloudflare is drawing its own lines in the sand. While it has been compelled to block in both Italy and in Germany, Cloudflare recently said it will fight any ‘global’ blocking requests if they target its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver.

Less Aggressive Options

If DNS entities get tired of the lawsuits, it’s possible they could be tempted by so-called non-fault injunctions, the presentation suggests. Popular in the UK and India, the idea is that intermediaries are named as respondents in blocking applications but copyright holders have no intention to sue them.

 

Everyone involved acknowledges that the intermediaries are in a good position to help out and that everyone’s rights should be respected under the principle of proportionality. This balances copyright holders’ rights, the intermediaries’ rights, and the rights of internet users to access information. The important thing is that there is no conflict and as long as applicants follow procedure, blocking tends to get the court’s seal of approval.

 

Another favored option doesn’t involve the courts at all because direct agreements between copyright holders and intermediaries do all of the heavy lifting. By designating groups such as the MPA as ‘Trusted Notifiers’, DNS entities could follow the lead of two domain registries and decide what should be blocked in private.

 

“Proactive measures by DNS providers to discourage online infringement and other illegal activity should be adopted, such as ensuring accuracy of registrant/WHOIS data. Voluntary reactive measures, such as trusted notifier arrangements, should be encouraged,” the presentation concludes (pdf).

 

WIPO says that the views in the presentation on DNS providers and resolvers are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by WIPO members. The authors are leading Germany copyright attorney Jan Bernd Nordemann and Dean S. Marks, former Deputy General Counsel and Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA.

 

Image Credit: Jimmy Nilsson Masth (Unsplash License)

 

Mindgeek is without doubt one of the largest and most powerful adult entertainment conglomerates in existence today.

 

The company effectively transformed the porn industry in less than a decade, luring people in with a promise of ‘free’ content. Mindgeek owns Pornhub, one of the most visited websites on the Internet, and is also the driving force behind YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8, Xtube, and dozens of other sites.

 

Several of these tube sites became big by offering access to a wide variety of content, including pirated videos that were posted by their users without permission. That doesn’t mean that MindGeek is turning a blind eye to pirates. On the contrary.

 

MindGeek’s current empire includes companies that create video content and own the rights. MG Premium, for example, has many thousands of copyrighted adult videos in its repertoire under popular brands such as Brazzers, Digital Playground, MOFOS, and Reality Kings. These videos are often pirated and shared through external sites, presenting a problem for the company.

MindGeek Sues Daftsex and Artporn

To address this issue, MindGeek’s daughter company regularly goes to court. In a recent case, filed at the federal court in the District of Washington, Vasily Kharchenko, the alleged operator of Daftsex.com and Artporn.com, stands accused of mass copyright infringement.

 

These sites have been a thorn in MindGeek’s side for years but targeting their domains with hundreds of thousands of DMCA takedown notices didn’t produce the desired result. So, in 2020, MindGeek obtained a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare to unmask their operator. This quest eventually led to Kharchenko.

 

MG Premium alleges that the operator personally uploaded 2,143 of its copyrighted works to the sites. Through the court, the company hopes to stop these infringements. In addition, the company demands compensation for the damages suffered.

 

Thus far, the lawsuit has been a one-sided battle, as Kharchenko didn’t respond to the allegations at all. This prompted MG Premium to request a default judgment, asking for $15,000 in damages per infringement, for a total of $32,145,000.

Injuction Targets Verisign, Cloudflare, Namecheap and others

In addition, MG Premium also moved for a broad injunction that would require various third-party online services to cut their ties with the infringing sites and their alleged operator. The adult company believes that would help to shut down the piracy operation.

 

In addition to DaftSex and Artporn, the proposed injunction also includes Biqle.com and Daxab.com. The latter is a CDN for streaming videos, which is used by DaftSex and others. All these sites are allegedly run by Kharchenko.

 

Verisign, the registry responsible for .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names, is one of the third-party services mentioned in the proposed injunction. MindGeek wants Verisign to disable the Daftsex.com, Artsporn.com, Daxab.com, and Biqle.com domains and transfer them to the porn conglomerate.

 

In addition, other domain name companies, hosting, and CDN providers should be compelled to cut their ties with the sites in question. Those companies include Cloudflare, FDC Servers, Namecheap.com, NameSilo and PrivacyGuardian.org.

 

An order of this magnitude would be very effective indeed, but the court had its reservations. Despite the fact that the accused failed to appear in court, United States District Judge Benjamin Settle denied the injunction.

Injuction Denied, For Now

According to the Judge, MG Premium should provide more details about the contacts between the defendant and the third-party services, in order to justify such a “sweeping” order.

 

“The Court is not prepared to issue a sweeping injunction against numerous nonparties based only on the conclusory, unsupported allegation that Vasily Kharchenko is in privity with them, or on the implausible claim that Kharchenko controls these entities,” Judge Settle writes.

 

This means that MG Premium must go back to the drawing board and submit a new motion for a default judgment, supported by additional evidence and analysis.

 

If the company eventually gets its way this could spell trouble for other pirate sites as well. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the case develops and what the potential aftermath might be.

 

For more than a decade the Hadopi agency (High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet) was seen as the solution to BitTorrent-style peer-to-peer piracy in France.

 

Hadopi’s goal was to change the behaviors of the majority of French pirates. Ultimately, a preference among pirates for different technologies ended up taking the credit for that. With pirates drawn towards easy-to-use (but still illegal) streaming sites, Hadopi’s BitTorrent-focused anti-piracy toolkit had little chance of making an impact.

 

On January 1, 2022, France launched the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (ARCOM), which swallowed Hadopi and took on a number of challenges, fighting piracy being just one of them.

Arcom and Rightsholders Waste No Time

With Arcom supporting their every move, various rightsholders stepped up to take advantage of new legislation designed to make pirate site blocking more efficient, to combat mirror sites and proxies, and to further punish sites by restricting appearances in search engines and curtailing advertising opportunities.

 

A particular emphasis has been placed on protecting live sports such as football, with beIN obtaining the first new-style blocking order in January. European football association UEFA and broadcaster Canal+ later helped to maintain the momentum.

Arcom Reports Constant Success

Big things are expected from Arcom so it was no surprise when the agency reported immediate successes, especially on the site-blocking front.

 

In April, Arcom reported that 250 sports piracy sites had been blocked, together serving more than 60% of live sports piracy market in France. That certainly didn’t mean that blocking had wiped out more than 60% of the sports piracy market, it just meant that France had blocked some domains operated by 250 of the biggest sites.

 

In May, another announcement revealed that an additional 150 domains had been targeted, including an unspecified number that attempted to circumvent previously-imposed ISP blocking. The new law was designed with these countermeasures in mind and according to Arcom, things were going as planned.

Blocking Sites is Not Shutting Them Down

There’s no doubt that aggressive site blocking measures are a major inconvenience to pirate site operators. Some may conclude that countermeasures are no longer worth the effort, which in turn could deter others from getting into the piracy game. But there are some harsh realities too.

 

Site blocking is extremely easy to circumvent. By switching to a DNS provider outside the country (Cloudflare or Google, for example), French users can unblock sites in a couple of minutes, completely free of charge. An Arcom report published earlier this year noted that 19% of internet users had changed their DNS settings.

 

That figure from Arcom is worth repeating – 19% of internet users changed their DNS settings, not 19% of pirates changed their settings. That’s on top of an estimated 7% of French internet users who operated VPNs in 2021 and as a result are completely unaffected by site-blocking measures.

 

Perhaps even more importantly, site blocking does not take pirate sites offline. Indeed, site blocking is a direct response to anti-piracy groups being unable to take pirate sites offline, at least in any significant numbers. Nevertheless, Arcom mostly chooses to focus on big numbers and in some cases, incredibly big numbers.

France Achieves More in Six Months Than Any Country, Ever

After a relatively slow start when compared to Italy or the UK, by 2015 France had blocked 18 sites and has steadily added large batches ever since. However, since January 1, 2022, success rates have reportedly gone through the roof.

 

In April, Arcom reported (pdf) that France’s site-blocking efforts meant that the audience for the top 14 blocked sites could now be reported at -100%. In addition, site-blocking measures had caused piracy of Europe’s prestigious Champions League football competition to plummet by 76% in France. But more was to come.

 

In a speech this month to the French Senate’s Committee for Culture, Education and Communication, Arcom president Roch-Olivier Maistre noted that piracy of cultural and sports content costs France a billion euros per year. However, the new and “highly responsive” legal framework has new procedures to combat the threat, including those that accommodate the inherent urgency of blocking live sports piracy streams.

 

As a result, more than 700 sites have been blocked in France since January, with incredible effectiveness. According to Maistre, in the first six months of 2022, piracy of all live sports in France via the internet was slashed by 50% (pdf).

 

To put that into perspective, both the UK and Italy are engaged in some of the most aggressive site-blocking programs ever seen across Europe yet can’t get anywhere near the results reported by France. Live sports piracy is up in the UK and since 2019, consumption of live sports has increased by half in Italy.

 

Three years ago, the RIAA began targeting YouTube ripping sites by sending relatively rare takedown requests to Google.

 

Instead of the usual DMCA copyright notices, the music group asked the search engine to remove various URLs for alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

 

The sites in question are accused of circumventing YouTube’s rolling cipher, a technical protection measure that attempts to protect audio and video from being copied without permission. As such, the RIAA argues that the sites should be removed from Google’s search results.

 

Shortly after the RIAA started this campaign, its British counterpart BPI began sending similar requests. These groups represent the broader music industry, including many of the major labels, and both have in-house anti-piracy teams that handle these takedowns.

Indie Label’s Takedown Spree

These industry groups have no shortage of firepower but this year their activities have been largely overshadowed by a newcomer. After sending its first anti-circumvention takedown notice in February, an independent record label from France is setting the pace.

 

The label in question is Because Music and it has just a few dozen signed artists. That didn’t stop the company from sending more than 2,800 takedown requests asking Google to remove over 10,000 links to YouTube ripping sites.

 

“Tool to bypass YouTube security measures allowing users to illegally download our copyrighted content,” the identical notices inform Google, requesting various stream-ripper URLs to be removed.

 

To put this number into perspective, the RIAA sent just over 100 anti-circumvention notices this year, while the BPI is stuck at roughly 180. This means that the indie label submitted roughly ten times as many takedown requests in the same period.

36% of All Circumvention Notices

The French label is by far the most prolific sender of DMCA anti-circumvention notices. According to Google’s transparency report, it’s responsible for more than one-third (36%) of all notices submitted to the search engine.

 

Because Music’s DMCA’s anti-circumvention notices are also sent on behalf of another indie label, Yonea and Willy, and all list just one track: “Dans ma ruche” from the rapper Guizmo. With over 3 million views on the YouTube video, it’s clear to see why the label is trying to protect it from unauthorized downloads.

 

Google has removed many thousands of stream-ripper URLs in response to these takedown requests. An exact figure is more difficult to establish as the number of URLs varies per notice, but the efforts are definitely having an impact.

 

At the same time, the YouTube rippers themselves aren’t sitting still either. They are actively countering the takedown notices by continuously using new URL structures.

 

For example, Because Music asked Google to remove mp3y.download/en/youtube-converter-v180 from its search results this week. That takedown worked for a while, but the site swiftly moved to mp3y.download/en/youtube-converter-v181 in response.

 

It’s pretty much a perpetual game of cat and mouse.

 

As pirate site blocking programs expand around the world, Denmark already has more than 15 years of experience in this branch of copyright protection.

 

After blocking Russian MP3 site AllofMP3 in 2006, Danish rightsholders haven’t looked back. The big drive now is how to streamline the site-blocking process so that piracy platforms can be hit as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.

 

Part of the problem is that to have pirate domains blocked, rightsholders need to have authorization from the court. This can be obtained by obtaining an injunction against an ISP but when a single ISP is the target, other ISPs are not legally required to do anything.

 

In 2014, rightsholders and ISPs solved these problems by signing a Code of Conduct which ensures that when one ISP is ordered to block, others follow voluntarily. But in the world of site-blocking, there’s always more to be done.

Dynamic Blocking….And Beyond

Since blocking pirate sites is a commitment rather than a one-off effort, Denmark’s site-blocking regime also tackles domain switches and proxy sites. This so-called ‘dynamic blocking’ doesn’t require a new court process. Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has the authority to identify any new domains and forward them to ISPs for blocking, a process that will now be accelerated.

 

The Conduct of Conduct (CoC) that provides the framework for blocking has been revised over the years, to accommodate the changing piracy landscape. Earlier this month it was updated again, hoping to shut down domains more quickly than before.

 

“[T]he illegal market on the Internet is constantly and rapidly developing, which is why it has been necessary to carry out a slight revision of the CoC agreement,” Rights Alliance explains.

 

“This implies greater flexibility and automation of the processes in the agreement, which should make it easier for both the Rights Alliance and the members of the Telecom Industry to block illegal websites.”

 

The plan is for ISPs to block new domains within seven days, using automation to retrieve updated lists before carrying out the usual DNS blocking.

How Will The System Work?

Both Rights Alliance and Teleindustrien (Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark) have published copies of the new Code of Conduct but neither explain how the new system will work. Indeed, the CoC contains a paragraph that explains that a section detailing the individual steps, procedures and criteria, has been withheld “in order to achieve the purpose of the agreement.”

 

Given that Denmark’s blocking program is DNS-based, it’s trivial for ISPs to modify local DNS entries to redirect pirate site visitors to Share With Care (SWC), a portal designed to encourage pirates back on to the legal path of authorized content services.

 

Somewhat intrigued by the apparent need for secrecy, we took a closer look at Teleindustrien and to our surprise, found the complete opposite.

Complete Blocking Transparency

It appears that when ISPs are ordered to block domains for any reason, Teleindustrien goes public with three things: the laws under which the blocking was ordered, who ordered the blocking, and which domains were blocked in response.

 

For example, the telecoms industry group details recent blocks associated with the Ukraine conflict (including RT.com and sputniknews.com) and publishes the domains to an easily downloadable .csv file – perfect for ISPs looking to implement DNS blocking.

 

Another .csv file is published for gambling site domains deemed illegal in Denmark, 183 according to the latest batch

 

The data relating to Denmark’s pirate site blocking program reveals how quickly it has expanded over the years. In 2017, Danish ISPs were blocking around 100 pirate sites, a figure that jumped to 478 in 2020.

 

The latest .csv file containing the list of blocked piracy domains is dated September 27, 2022. It contains 892 URLs – some of them domains in their own right and others representing sub-domains on various sites dedicated to unblocking.

 

It’s unclear how the new streamlining provisions in the revised Code of Conduct can beat pulling a plain text file from a website but Teleindustrian also provides the data in PDF format for the Adobe fans out there.

 

The rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United goes back more than a century. It even has its own Wikipedia entry.

 

The football teams and their fans often go head to head but on neutral territory, the clubs have recently formed an unusual partnership.

Football Rivals Team Up in Court

This week, the clubs filed a complaint at a U.S. federal court in Chicago. Together with a third Premier League team, Tottenham Hotspur, they accuse dozens of online stores of selling trademark-infringing products.

 

These counterfeit items, including jerseys, are openly sold online. Not just through standalone shops but also on some of the largest e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, and Wish.

 

“In recent years, Plaintiffs have identified many fully interactive, e-commerce stores offering counterfeit Plaintiffs’ Products on online marketplace platforms such as Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Alibaba, Wish.com, Walmart, Etsy, and DHgate, including the e-commerce stores operating under the Seller Aliases,” the complaint reads.

 

At this point, we would like to give some examples of these infringing stores. However, the document where they’re listed is currently sealed, most likely to prevent the defendants from relocating before the court rules on the matter.

Counterfeiters Evade Enforcement

The unauthorized stores are well aware of their controversial nature and actively look for ways to avoid getting caught. Behind the scenes, the sellers discuss evasion tactics through chat rooms and dedicated websites.

 

“[Defendants] regularly participate in QQ.com chat rooms and through websites such as sellerdefense.cn, kaidianyo.com and kuajingvs.com regarding tactics for operating multiple accounts, evading detection, pending litigation, and potential new lawsuits,” the football clubs allege.

 

These tactics can be as simple as setting up new aliases and shops. However, store operators also have off-shore bank accounts where they move money, so it remains outside of the jurisdiction of US courts.

 

“Indeed, analysis of financial account transaction logs from previous similar cases indicates that off-shore counterfeiters regularly move funds from U.S.-based financial accounts to off-shore accounts outside the jurisdiction of this Court.”

Previous Lawsuit

As the above suggests, this isn’t the first lawsuit the football clubs have filed. Earlier this year, Liverpool, United and Tottenham filed a similar case against 138 stores. These included jerseygoal.co, soccish.com, and various Amazon, DHGate and Aliexpress vendors.

 

Without a response from any of the store operators, the football clubs requested a default judgment. The clubs asked for $200,000 damages from each unique defendant, which was granted by the federal court in Chicago last month.

 

In this case, the clubs also request compensation for the losses they allegedly suffered. Damages could reach $2 million for each trademark infringement, per defendant.

 

The complaint further asks for an order that effectively prohibits the stores from offering counterfeit products. In addition, the e-commerce platforms used to sell the products should stop advertising the products as well.

 

While it may be hard to shut down all counterfeit operations indefinitely, the lawsuits appear to have some effect. Many of the defendants listed in the earlier lawsuit have ceased operating, at least under their old aliases.

 

In addition, Liverpool, United, and Tottenham settled their dispute with two of the 138 stores. These paid an undisclosed damages amount.

 

The football clubs are not the only ones taking against counterfeiters in US courts. Over the past several months, we’ve seen similar complaints from Nike, Toyota, Ubisoft, Swarovski, PopSockets, Universal Music, Burberry and many others.

 

—

 

A copy of the latest complaint filed at the federal court by Liverpool, United and Tottenham is available here (pdf)

 

After being sued by Bungie in a Washington court during the summer, a teenager accused of cheating in Destiny 2 and being abusive towards Bungie staff decided to fight back.

 

The core of Bungie’s lawsuit is that L.L. repeatedly breached the terms of its Limited Software License Agreement (LSLA) by using third-party cheating software, getting banned by Bungie, and then repeatedly signing back up to breach the LSLA’s terms once again.

 

L.L. is further accused of selling Bungie emblems on third-party platforms and using cheating software that modifies the Destiny 2 game, violates the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, and creates infringing derivative works.

 

In a recent and spirited motion to dismiss, L.L. fought back against the developer but, rather than backing down, Bungie seems to have found new angles of attack. Indeed, the company’s response suggests that L.L.’s defense tactics are so flawed they have actually weakened his position.

Teen Voids LSLA, Bungie Says ‘Gotcha’

L.L.’s motion to dismiss doesn’t hide the fact that he cheated in Destiny 2 and streamed his cheating to the world using Twitch. It doesn’t deny that he publicly mocked Bungie’s inability to stop him as he signed up for new accounts. Instead, it notes that as a minor, L.L. was able to tear up Bungie’s LSLA to free him from its shackles and, as a result, three of Bungie’s causes of action.

 

In its opposition motion filed this week, Bungie agrees that by disaffirming the LSLA, L.L. has indeed rendered the contract void ab initio. Having no legal effect from the outset means there can be no future contractual obligations under the LSLA or any liability for past breaches.

 

As a result, Bungie says the court should go right ahead and dismiss all of its claims for breach of contract. The downside for L.L. is the nature of LSLAs. On the one hand, they prohibit a number of actions – cheating, for example. But on the other, they also grant permission – a license – for other actions too. Notably, simply playing the game.

 

“[T]he LSLA was a license agreement, and its mere existence was the only thing that rendered L.L.’s repeated downloads and plays of the Destiny 2 software and audiovisual work non-infringing,” Bungie’s response reads.

 

“By disaffirming the LSLA and rendering it void ab initio, L.L. has affirmatively
conceded Bungie’s claims that he infringed its copyrights in the Destiny 2 software and
audiovisual work, because he never had a valid license to do anything with them.”

No LSLA? Stronger Copyright Claims Coming Right Up

Bungie says that L.L.’s decision to void the licensing agreement will lead to the developer filing an amended complaint. It will contain additional copyright infringement claims that take all of the Destiny 2 player’s unlicensed activities into consideration.

 

“[B]ungie intends to amend, after the Court’s decision on the remaining branches of the motion, to assert that all of L.L.’s downloads, uses, and streams of Destiny 2 were infringing, including his initial download, uses, and streams prior to his first violation of the LSLA,” Bungie’s response reads.

 

The claims could be significant. Bungie owns the copyrights to Destiny 2 as a software program and as an audiovisual work, meaning that every time L.L. played the game without a license, he created an infringing copy when he loaded it into RAM and infringed again when the game’s story played out on screen. Bungie says that if L.L. hadn’t torn up the LSLA, these activities could’ve been permitted.

Cheat Software and Derivative Works

Whether or not L.L. had the protection of the LSLA, any use of the cheat software would’ve constituted copyright infringement, Bungie says. According to the developer, the software in question adds a graphical overlay to Destiny 2, meaning that the game’s output as an audiovisual work is modified, effectively creating an unlicensed derivative work.

 

This assertion was previously rejected by the defendant by citing a 1992 case involving Nintendo and the Game Genie cheating device. In that matter, the court found that the Game Genie was incapable of producing images and anything that appeared on screen was produced by the NES console. In addition, the device did not manipulate the data stored in Nintendo game cartridges.

 

“Here, as Bungie has plead in its complaint, the cheat software L.L. used not only modifies the contents of Destiny 2 data structures in memory but also ‘creates visual elements.’ These novel visual elements are readily apparent in the video clips L.L. recorded and posted to his Twitter,” the company adds.

DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions

Bungie says that L.L. circumvented five types of technological protection measures (TPM) and in various public comments, including on Twitter, he identified some of them by name including account bans, BattlEye and hardware ID bans.

 

“7 bans in and still going strong @Bungie battleye is shit took me 30 seconds to get around your silly hardware ban,” one declared.

 

Bungie also challenges claims made in L.L.’s motion to dismiss regarding the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions. The defense claimed that since Bungie’s code was resident on L.L.’s PC and not on Bungie’s server, he was “perfectly free to examine and see what files, data, programs, etc.,” because they were on his computer.

 

The developer disagrees, adding that the motion confuses the DMCA with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act so incorrectly focuses on which computer contained the protected data.

 

“But where the data resides is irrelevant to a DMCA anti-circumvention claim. Unlike the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which criminalizes unauthorized access to protected computers, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(1), the DMCA bars users from circumventing TPMs that control access to copyrighted works. That is true regardless of where the work resides,” Bungie adds.

Bungie Didn’t Know L.L. Was a Minor

We now know that L.L. is just 17 but Bungie didn’t know that when it sued since the Destiny 2 player claimed to be in his 20s online. Bungie accepts that the defendant is protected from contractual liabilities but says the law provides minors with no right to defraud licensors, infringe copyrights, or circumvent TPMs.

 

“Moreover, the law does not provide minors with a special haven from civil liability that may arise or be exacerbated when, through and perhaps in reliance on the advice of experienced counsel, they choose to disaffirm any number of license agreements that may otherwise have authorized infringing conduct,” an acerbic concludes.

 

Bungie’s opposition to L.L.’s motion to dismiss can be found here (pdf)

 

In June, the US Copyright Claims Board was launched.

 

Through this venue, hosted at the US Copyright Office, rightsholders can try to recoup alleged damages outside the federal court system.

 

More than one hundred and fifty cases have been filed thus far. Some of these have been dismissed for administrative reasons or opt-outs, but the board has yet to issue its first verdict.

 

A few days ago a new case was added to the growing pile of claims. It features popular reading app AnyStories, which allows independent authors to share their writings in public and earn revenue from them, going up against Cloudflare.

 

Like any type of content that’s published online, AnyStories’ content is easily copied. This is a thorn in the side of the app’s creators, Singapore company READ ASAP LTD, which has taken action in response.

From Google to Cloudflare

The company sent DMCA takedown notices to Google which removed hundreds of infringing links from its search results in response. The pirate sites themselves typically remained online, so further action was needed.

 

Hoping for a breakthrough, AnyStories also sent DMCA notices to Cloudflare, calling out Infobagh.com as a pirate site. While Cloudflare provides CDN services for that site, it’s not the hosting company. This means that Cloudflare generally doesn’t intervene.

 

Instead, Cloudflare shared the name and contact information of the site’s hosting company (24xservice) and asked ‘READ ASAP’ to follow the issue up with them.

 

AnyStories tried, but says that the email address provided for the hosting company didn’t work. The company wasn’t pleased with Cloudflare’s handling of the case and, on several occasions, asked the company to do more.

 

“As a network service provider, you have the obligation to provide us with information to help us defend our rights. You have not provided us with valid information. Our infringement is ongoing and if you do not take any action now, we will take action to protect our rights.”

Copyright Claims Board Threats

The app’s creators asked Cloudflare to contact the host on its behalf to ensure the infringing content was removed.

 

“Pls deal with this matter immediately, pls contact the hosting provider immediately and ask them to remove the infringing web!!!!” READ ASAP wrote.

 

“If you do not deal with this matter now, based on the DMCA, we have informed you several times, but you did not do your duty of care, we will directly file a claim against you at Copyright Claims Board.”

 

Cloudflare has no legal obligation under the DMCA to contact its customers’ hosting companies but it does forward takedown notices. However, that wasn’t enough for AnyStories, which followed up on its threats by filing a complaint at the Copyright Claims Board.

Apology Please

The claim lists one infobagh.com URL where a copy of a story titled “The Silver Hope” by David Travilla Tacadena is made available. However, READ ASAP stresses that infringements are causing a decline in revenues for other authors too.

 

With its complaint the company hopes to stop the piracy. In addition, an apology would be appreciated as well.

 

“We hope that the pirated websites will apologize to us and immediately remove our exclusive works. We tried many ways to leave messages often without contacting the infringing website. Finally, we tried to find the service provider, but they cannot give the invalid message and don’t deal with it,” the claim reads.

 

Interestingly, there is no request for monetary damages. Also, the literary work that’s listed is not yet registered at the U.S. Copyright Office, which is required before the Copyright Claims Board can take on the case.

 

The above means that AnyStories still has some work to do before the case can continue and Cloudflare can still choose to opt out of the proceeding. If that’s the case, the app’s creators will need to hire an attorney and go to federal court to pursue their claim.

 

After beginning life as DigitalRights back in 2009, anti-piracy company Rightscorp became known for its cut-price copyright-trolling operations.

 

Where competitors would attempt to charge hundreds up to multiple thousands of dollars per alleged file-sharing infringement, Rightscorp initially offered to settle cases for around $20. The long game was for every ISP in the United States to forward Rightscorp notices to customers, thereby negating the need for courts, subpoenas, and other legal expenses.

 

While some ISPs did indeed forward Rightscorp’s notices, the anti-piracy company couldn’t balance the books with its settlement model and lost millions of dollars. In a change of direction, Rightscorp data was later utilized by music publisher BMG to sue Cox Communications for failing to disconnect repeat infringers.

 

After BMG came out on top, Rightscorp successfully persuaded the RIAA to sue several other ISPs based on the data in its infringement databases.

Rightscorp Allegedly Entered into Acquisition Talks

For many years, Rightscorp’s very existence presented a conundrum. In 2013 the company went public but its accounts revealed that since at least 2011 it had being losing millions every year. With the situation worsening every year thereafter, Rightscorp changed its company status and removed the need to make future accounts public.

 

Against all the odds, Rightscorp is still alive today, most likely due to perceived value in its repeat infringer database. According to an announcement Monday, Rightscorp’s CEO encouraged a company called American Films, Inc. to acquire Rightscorp but things didn’t go to plan. Through a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed in a Florida court, American Films is hoping to straighten things out.

American Films, Inc. What Does it Do?

In 2019, GuardaLey – the most infamous BitTorrent ‘copyright-trolling’ operation in the world – said it had entered into a joint venture with American Films, Inc. The U.S. company would become the 100% owner of GuardaLey’s U.S. operations, the extent of which were never revealed.

 

More than three years later, it still isn’t clear what American Films actually does, where, or with whom. It has a website now and describes itself as an “innovative global intellectual property protector” but if the company is involved in a GuardaLey-style settlement business, it’s hiding that very well.

 

According to Yahoo Finance, “American Films, Inc. does not have significant operations. The company intends to merge or acquire one or more properties or businesses.” At some point it appears that Rightscorp became an acquisition target but after a warm start, things failed to progress and eventually ended up in court.

 

Filed at the Circuit Court of the 20th Judicial Circuit for Collier, Florida, the American Films lawsuit targets Rightscorp, Inc. and its CEO and chairman, Cecil B. Kyte.

 

“The lawsuit alleges Rightscorp and Kyte lured [American Films] into a transaction to acquire Rightscorp, and then Rightscorp and Kyte used confidential information from the deal to reap a profit,” the company’s announcement reads.

 

From the limited court documents we’ve been able to obtain, the claim amount is officially listed as “over $100,000.00” in the category “contracts and indebtedness”. American Films says the lawsuit seeks to recover in excess of $15 million from Rightscorp but what the amount relates to is unknown.

American Films is a Rightscorp Shareholder

American Films further revealed this week that the company owns shares in Rightscorp, a supposed rival. How many of the anti-piracy outfit’s $0.01 shares are held by American Films (AFI) isn’t clear but the company appears to be flexing its muscles, for the benefit of Rightscorp, it insists.

 

“As a shareholder of Rightscorp, Inc. common stock, AFI is currently reviewing the possibility of initiating a shareholder rights action against Rightscorp, Inc. Any shareholder rights action would be brought for the benefit of all Rightscorp shareholders and the corporation, Rightscorp, Inc., itself,” the American Films statement reads.

 

It seems unlikely that Rightscorp has $15m lying around so whether it will choose to fight or pay a settlement remains to be seen. In the meantime, American Films failed to mention an interesting detail about its lawsuit in its September 26, 2022 announcement.

 

According to Collier County Court documents, the lawsuit against Rightscorp was e-filed on March 22, 2021. Why it’s taken 18 months for the big public reveal isn’t clear but that’s largely in keeping with American Films’ activities in general.

 

American Films may be doing big things in the shadows but right now, we’re unable to highlight anything beyond an 18 month old lawsuit against a company with no money. That being said, Rightscorp does own a massive repeat infringer database, the perfect gift for a company that apparently owns a massive copyright-trolling operation in the United States.

 

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 two newcomers on the list. “Thor: Love and Thunder” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 26 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Thor: Love and Thunder	6.5 / trailer
2	(2)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.6 / trailer
3	(3)	Three Thousand Years of Longing	6.8 / trailer
4	(6)	Nope	7.1 / trailer
5	(…)	Bandit	6.2 / trailer
6	(5)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
7	(4)	Emily The Criminal	6.7 / trailer
8	(7)	The Invitation	5.2 / trailer
9	(8)	Beast	5.7 / trailer
10	(…)	The Munsters	?.? / trailer

 

 

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

 

Rightsholders seeking to crack down on pirate streaming services in the UK can do so under civil and criminal law but the former has mostly been abandoned.

 

Rightsholders such as the Premier League, Sky and BT Sport, with support from the Federation Against Copyright Theft, now tend to conduct their investigations before referring them to the police.

 

When cases are progressed, this usually means police-led raids, arrests, and seizures of key evidence. Then, based on a number of factors, subsequent prosecutions are handled by the state or via private prosecutions. According to sources familiar with the matter, a new criminal case will be heard in court next month, one that could lead to a custodial sentence for the suspect.

Marvel Streams Goes Offline

Early this year, UK-based IPTV service Marvel Streams appeared to be operating much like any other, offering live TV channels plus movies and TV shows as part of a cheap monthly subscription package. By the second week of March, the service’s Twitter account found itself dominated by complaints. The general theme was that the service had disappeared without notice and nobody knew what was happening.

 

“Is your system down or is there another link?” one user wrote. “I’m trying to renew and haven’t been able to, is the website down?” added another.

 

While some IPTV services manage to stay online for extended periods of time, others tend to come and go. While this means that customers lose any money paid in advance, it’s hardly an unexpected event and people move on. With Marvel Streams a fairly distant memory, earlier this month we were surprised to receive a tip offering information on the IPTV service’s demise.

Alleged Marvel Streams Operator Arrested in March

According to the source, Marvel Stream’s downtime in March was due to the service’s operator being raided in the UK. A second source familiar with the matter confirmed that was indeed the case, with one questioning why police hadn’t reported the arrest at the time, as is usually the case. Here’s what we know.

 

As part of an investigation reportedly carried out by the Federation Against Copyright Theft on behalf of Sky and BT Sport, investigators purchased a Marvel Streams subscription and confirmed that the broadcasters’ content was being made available illegally.

 

The case was later referred to NWROCU – the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit – which has been involved in similar cases over the past couple of years, including one that targeted three men in late March.

 

NWROCU officers accompanied by FACT/Sky/BT Sport representatives subsequently targeted a man in Claughton, Merseyside, believing him to be the operator of Marvel Streams. No other arrests were made, our sources say.

Relatively Rare Copyright Charge

Documents seen by TF indicate that a man in his mid-thirties was subsequently charged with two sets of offenses, both covering the period February 2021 to October 2021. It is common for IPTV operators to be charged under the Fraud Act but as far as we can see, that’s not the case here.

 

The first charge alleges offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) 1988, specifically section 296ZB(2)(a).

 

It’s alleged that in the course of a business, the suspect marketed a service (Marvel Streams UK) that enabled or facilitated the circumvention of effective technological measures.

 

For cases normally handled under the easy-to-understand Fraud Act, the use of the CDPA in this matter is somewhat unusual. Charges related to circumvention of content protection measures are rarer still in IPTV cases, although in the United States they have been increasing in recent years.

 

A person guilty of an offense under 296ZB subsection 2 is liable (on summary conviction) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both, according to the CDPA. A conviction on indictment carries the possibility of a fine, a prison sentence not exceeding two years, or both.

Charge Under the Proceeds of Crime Act

The second charge relates to an alleged offense under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, specifically section 329(1).

 

Under Section 329, a person commits an offense if they acquire criminal property, use criminal property, or have possession of criminal property. In this case the alleged operator of Marvel Streams stands accused of possessing around £19,500, which appears to relate to revenue generated by the IPTV service during an eight-month period in 2021.

 

Penalties available under Section 329 vary from a maximum prison sentence of six months, a fine, or both, to a maximum of 14 years imprisonment, a fine, or both.

 

We’re informed that the alleged operator of Marvel Streams will appear in a magistrates’ court (district court) early October and from there the case will be referred to a Crown Court for an appearance no later than November.

 

With the release of HBO’s “House of the Dragon” and Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” two major fantasy series premiered last month.

 

The former was an instant success on pirate sites where, in true Game of Thrones spirit, it was leaked before the official premiere.

 

While both series are hard to compare, the media has pitted them against each other to see which one performs best. Does “The Rings of Power” dwarf “House of the Dragon” or vice versa?

 

In terms of user ratings, the Game of Thrones prequel wins by a landslide but official viewer statistics are harder to come by. According to Variety, the Dragons now average 29 million viewers per episode. Amazon hasn’t released much data on its billion-dollar production but previously said that the Rings premiere drew a 25 million audience.

Dragon Crushes Rings on Pirate Sites

To add our two cents to this battle, we decided to take a look at how both series are doing on pirate sites. With help from IKnow, we looked at a large sample of millions of global BitTorrent transfers over the past two weeks (7-21 September) which resulted in a clear winner.

 

“House of the Dragon” takes the crown with more than 1.4 million estimated downloads on peak days. During the two weeks that we collected sample data, the show amassed over 9 million estimated downloads.

 

The graph above shows that The “Rings of Power” doesn’t even come close with a maximum of roughly 650k estimated downloads. It typically beats the GOT prequel by just a small margin, shortly after a new episode is released. Over the two weeks, this resulted in 5 million downloads.

 

To give an indication of how popular “House of the Dragon” is, on the day of release the show is good for more than 10% of all movie and TV show downloads. That’s a percentage we haven’t seen for a while.

Russia on top

Looking at the countries where “House of the Dragon” is most downloaded, Russia is clearly in the lead. This makes sense as torrent downloads are traditionally popular there. Also, as a result of sanctions due to the Ukraine invasion, there are no legal options to watch the series.

 

Brazil is the second on the list of countries, while the United States takes the third spot. The top ten is completed by India, the UK, South Africa, China, the Philippines, Australia and France.

 

The data shared here cover a large chunk of the estimated public torrent downloads. However, this only represents a small portion of all piracy activity, as ‘views’ on unauthorized streaming sites can’t be measured so easily.

 

That said, we believe that torrent downloads are a good proxy for the overall interest among pirates.

Most Pirated?

The overall conclusion that pirates prefer Dragons over Rings is also corroborated by piracy tracking firm MUSO. The company told Adweek that there is significantly more interest in the Game of Thrones prequel on torrent sites.

 

At this rate, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see “House of The Dragon” pick up where Game of Thrones left off. That is, the TV series is well on its way to becoming the most pirated TV show of 2022.

 

Every year, the US Trade Representative (USTR) issues an updated review of “Notorious Markets” that facilitate copyright infringement.

 

This overview is compiled with help from copyright holders and is used to motivate the targets and foreign authorities to take action.

 

The USTR recently issued a call for comments on the 2022 Review of Notorious Markets. This will undoubtedly trigger responses from the RIAA, MPA, and many other rightsholders, calling out various pirate sites and services.

Piracy & U.S. workers

There has been a lot of overlap between these annual reviews. Some sites and services, such as The Pirate Bay, have made the list for more than a decade, without any significant changes. However, the USTR selects a “focus issue” each year that receives extra attention.

 

In 2022, the focus issue is the impact of online piracy on U.S. workers. In the request for comments, USTR asks stakeholders to provide background information, studies, and other research on how piracy affects U.S. jobs.

 

“USTR also invites written comments for the Notorious Markets List issue focus that highlights an issue related to the facilitation of substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy. The issue focus for the 2022 Notorious Markets List will examine the impact of online piracy on U.S. workers.”

 

Copyright holders typically submit the vast majority of responses. These have already cited evidence on ‘lost jobs’ over the past years but this issue focus allows them to go into more detail.

Half a Million Lost Jobs a Year?

By reviewing previously submitted data, it’s possible to get an idea of the figures that are likely to be presented this time around. Although estimates have changed over time, piracy is often linked to hundreds of thousands of estimated annual job ‘losses’. And that’s just for U.S. jobs in the video industry.

 

The music industry reports lower losses. According to a recent report, music piracy costs the U.S. economy $12.5 billion per year and the loss of 71,060 jobs.

 

These numbers tend not to reflect actual people losing their jobs but are an extrapolation based on estimated revenue losses to piracy, which run to billions of dollars per year. As such, the loss estimates also include jobs that were never created.

Anti-Piracy Industry Jobs

Losses aside, we wonder whether anyone will mention the jobs that are created by piracy. Most big media companies have in-house piracy teams and legal professionals billing thousands of hours. There are also numerous specialized anti-piracy outfits, takedown departments, and copyright enforcement units across the US. Without piracy, these jobs would not exist

 

It will be interesting to see the numbers reported to the USTR and how these compare to previous studies. While most research has shown that piracy does affect sales negatively, the entertainment industry as a whole is doing quite well regardless.

 

Timing-wise, USTR’s focus on American workers is interesting as it coincides with historically low unemployment figures in the United States. That said, these numbers can always be lower of course.

 

When Italy-based torrent site TNTVillage launched in 2004/2005, the BitTorrent file-sharing scene was driven by passionate people with their own unique visions, often centered around specific content niches.

 

In many cases torrent site owners provided services that were just not offered in the legal market. Entire sites dedicated to one genre of music were common, as were downloads of movies and TV shows in specific languages or from long-forgotten eras.

 

For TNTVillage owner Luigi Di Liberto, the aim was to share and preserve Italian content. Like most torrent site owners, Luigi knew his venture could get him into trouble, but that would be nothing new. Born in 1952, Luigi supported the Radical Party and the anti-prohibitionist movement in Italy and, over several decades, regularly rubbed up against the establishment.

TNTVillage’s “Benevolent Dictator”

Luigi described himself as the “benevolent dictator” that held TNTVillage together. The site was a true passion project but in 2006 it suffered a setback when law enforcement authorities seized the site’s server.

 

The site eventually returned only to get hacked three years later, but Luigi refused to give up and later applied political pressure to limit the strength of copyright law. He was unsuccessful and eventually found himself targeted under the same legislation.

 

In 2018 a coalition of media and publishing companies filed a complaint against the platform at the Tribunale di Milano (Court of Milan). Luigi was personally named in the lawsuit and his home was searched.

The Beginning of the End…Almost

After making more than 134,000 copyrighted works available to the public, including movies, TV shows, anime, software, and books, TNTVillage shut itself down in September 2019. Two months later, the Court of Milan ruled on the copyright lawsuit filed the previous year, finding in favor of the plaintiffs.

 

The Court ordered TNTVillage to remove all infringing content from the site, which effectively put an official stamp on the torrent site’s earlier demise. But Luigi wasn’t quite done. His parting shot was to leave a link to a file on the site’s homepage containing a full dump of TNTVillage.

Another Three Years of Legal Action

Anti-piracy group FAPAV, a participant in the lawsuit, warned against anyone attempting to resurrect TNTVillage using the contents of the file. However, the archive also made it possible to access TNTVillage torrents by following instructions uploaded to the Internet Archive and Github. At least three services exploited the dump.

 

The link eventually disappeared from the TNTVillage homepage but in an announcement this week, FAPAV said that the Court of Milan has now officially ordered the removal of all content on TNTVillage.

 

This includes what FAPAV describes as a link providing “open access” to the site’s torrents, which “effectively disabled the removal order” handed down in 2019. In total it had taken four years of legal action to put TNTVillage completely out of action, with three of those years dedicated to removing a single hyperlink.

 

“Through this sentence it is reiterated again how the illegal making available online of creative works represents a serious violation that involves a dangerous limitation to the exploitation of the rights connected to it,” says President of FAPAV, Federico Bagnoli Rossi.

 

“Worrying economic damage is caused not only to the cultural industry but to the country as a whole.”

 

For those who understand Italian, Luigi shares his thoughts on TNTVillage below.

 

 

One can only imagine the crew’s screams of pain when they discovered that a clerical error had robbed ‘Night of the Living Dead’ of its copyright protections.

 

George A. Romero’s masterpiece opened in 1968 to audiences largely unprepared for its genius. If anything, movie distributor Walter Reade Organization was even more unprepared.

 

The company’s failure to file for a new copyright after the movie ditched its original title ‘Night of the Flesh Eaters’ was the reason that Night of the Living Dead (NOLD) was quickly pushed into the public domain.

 

History has since shown us that due to the subsequent effect on the greater good, no suffering was in vain. NOLD inspired a whole genre of horror that has gained momentum with age. And for advocacy groups like the EFF, the story is tailor-made for showing how the public domain brings freedoms that can benefit society as a whole.

 

The EFF’s Q&A is very easy to understand and accurately reflects public domain theory, but nothing beats a generous dose of reality stomping all over the textbooks.

Night of the Copyright Claim

Last month a user of Reddit’s /r/copyright revealed that they’d used some footage from NOLD in a short film titled ‘Trick ‘r Creep (Horror Short Film)’. After uploading the film to YouTube, the Google-owned video platform fired back a message, reporting that a portion of the video had been flagged due to the content being owned by a third party.

 

Since this was an automated Content ID claim, no strikes were involved, but how public domain content (specifically the NOLD soundtrack) was able to trigger the system in this way remained unclear. The YouTuber decided to contest the copyright claim, but YouTube quickly rejected it, leaving nowhere to go.

 

The image above shows that YouTube matched the user’s upload with another YouTube video titled ‘Night of the Living Dead, Pt. 1’, which was apparently uploaded by someone called Jack Meakin.

 

The Content ID notice lists the copyright owner as INgrooves, on behalf of Plastic Records, and the video they reportedly own is embedded below for reference.

 

 

What’s curious here is that Jack Meakin’s YouTube channel has just one subscriber and his NOLD video, which appears to contain 31 minutes of audio from the original movie, has a note underneath stating that the content was directly supplied to YouTube by Ingrooves.

 

There are no content match notices listed on this video, something that cannot be said about fan video Night Of The Chopping Wood, discussion video Night of the Living Dead – Themes and Film Technique, and countless partial or full uploads of NOLD.

 

All appear to have been identified by Content ID as matching the video on the Jack Meakin channel. The video contains audio from the 1968 public domain movie and is used as justification for Jack Meakin/Ingrooves to generate revenue from NOLD content uploaded by other YouTubers.

So Who Are These People and What Do They Want?

Ingrooves is owned by Universal Music and describes itself as a global music distribution company providing marketing and rights management services for independent labels and artists.

 

Given the information provided in the Content ID notice, it seems possible that Ingrooves may represent Jack Meakin, who in turn might have some kind of arrangement with Plastic Records. While plausible, that fails to explain what connections these people have to public domain movie Night of the Living Dead, if any.

 

After we turned our focus to the mysterious Jack Meakin, a confusing situation somehow managed to get even more so. A Twitter search quickly turned up a DJ/electronic musician of the same name, but when we combined the name with the title of the movie, something even more unexpected entered the mix.

Jack Meakin Featuring George Romero

According to the Living Dead wiki, the music score of NOLD was not composed especially for the film but came from the libraries of WRS Studio and Capitol Records. Among the composers of that music was a man called Jack Meakin, who was born in 1906 and left for better things in 1982.

 

So was this the missing piece of the puzzle? Is it possible that the late Jake Meakin held some rights to his music in Night of the Living Dead? Were those rights passed to someone else after he passed away? If so, which of the compositions in the movie are his and why are Plastic Records involved, whoever they are?

 

We don’t have access to Content ID and given that YouTube is rejecting and refusing to discuss NOLD disputes, we decided to get a bit more creative. We found the Jack Meakin account on YouTube, hit play on the Night of the Living Dead video, fired up Shazam, and got a surprise instant hit.

 

According to our digital fingerprinting overlords, the piece is called ‘Chapter 1’ by a recording artist called ‘George Romero’. Wonderful…and thanks for nothing.

 

However, given that there are many links between Jack Meakin, George Romero and Night of the Living Dead on platforms other than YouTube, we turned our attention to Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon and general Google searches. There may be other things at play here but someone may have some explaining to do.

What Was That DJ on Twitter Called Again?

The Jack Meakin we completely disregarded on Twitter (because he’s a young DJ who didn’t even exist in 1968) is also a techno/trance producer. He has tracks including “He Was Taught” and “Bodyskills” available to stream on Apple, Spotify, and other similar platforms. He sometimes collaborates with Seb James, according to his Twitter account, but never mentions zombies publicly – at least far as we know.

 

Interestingly, DJ Jack Meakin is also credited with several other compositions. These include the whole soundtrack to Night of the Living Dead, which is available on dozens of other music platforms around the world, including Apple Music.

 

Conducting a specific search for Jack Meakin on Spotify not only turns up zombies but what appears to be some kind of musical Frankenstein.

 

Born in 1906, authorized to issue copyright claims on the most famous public domain horror movie of all time (years after his death), yet still spinning trance tracks at 116 years old – it’s the one and only (honestly)….Jack Meakin.

 

Anyone in need of additional proof that this incredible hybrid person really exists can check out the panel provided by Google alongside searches for Jack Meakin.

 

With other sites like Discogs identifying the actual NOLD composer by his full name (Jack Brunker Meakin) and describing him as an American musician, orchestra leader, and film composer from Salt Lake City, someone has led Google to believe that Jack Meakin is an actor in two movies and also a composer in the Dance/Electronic genre.

 

TorrentFreak attempted to reach the only Jack Meakin who could possibly respond in person but despite emails sent to him and his record label, we have discovered no signs of life. Appropriate if nothing else.

 

As a result, we still cannot explain why a company owned by Universal is monetizing Night of the Living Dead on behalf of a man who has been dead for 40 years, under the name of a living man who just happens to share his name. But we could have a wild guess.

 

Is it even plausible that someone in the music business simply ticked the wrong box in error and inadvertently merged two artists’ existences to create a single undead-like entity, one with a hunger so great it can only be satisfied by automatically feasting on public domain works? Or did someone accidentally upload and attribute the NOLD soundtrack to DJ Meakin?

 

We honestly have no idea but one thing seems certain. Someone has commissioned YouTube’s Content ID to target regular YouTubers using a public domain work in good faith, and then sent them messages implying or even stating that they had no right to do so. Then, to remedy this supposed infringement of someone’s rights, they’re now taking all the money.

 

Nice scheme? Looks like a no-brainer.

 

There is little doubt that video and music streaming services have taken the Internet by storm over the past decade.

 

An entire “on-demand” generation is growing up, and the streaming business model is generating billions of dollars in revenue.

Competing With Piracy

This change was spurred on by piracy. When Spotify and Netflix started their streaming services, they openly positioned themselves as piracy competitors. And indeed, in the early years, many casual pirates were drawn to these platforms.

 

More recently, this early selling point has started to degrade, especially when it comes to video streaming services, of which there are many. Instead of offering an attractively broad selection of content to subscribers, exclusive releases are now the preferred tools to draw customers in.

 

The video streaming wars have reached a point where many people can no longer afford to pay for everything they want to see. Ironically, this drives them back to pirate sites where they occasionally watch content for free.

More U.S. Households Believe Piracy is Justified

New survey results released by Parks Associates suggest that the attitudes of U.S. consumers towards piracy have started to shift as well. The data are released as a promotion for the Future of Video conference. While there’s not much detail on the methodology, the results are quite clear.

 

Nearly a quarter (23%) of all U.S. households agree that piracy is acceptable because movies and music should be available to everyone for free. This is a considerable increase on the position three years ago, when only 14% strongly agreed with this statement.

 

Similar increases are observed for other piracy justifications, including the argument that movie and music companies make a lot of money, and the belief that no one ever gets into trouble for pirating content.

 

Support for password sharing also appears to have increased, as roughly one in five households are okay with unlicensed media usage, as long as someone else is paying for the service.

 

The survey isn’t exactly an academic study and from the data presented it’s not clear how many households are actively pirating content, versus simply using someone else’s password to access a legal service. However, the strong results suggest that people’s attitudes are changing.

Experts See Room for Improvement

The results of the survey will be discussed at the Future of Video conference, where many participants will emphasize the need or advertise options for stricter enforcement. This includes streaming video provider and protection service Synamedia.

 

“Piracy’s impact has gone from bad to worse, and it’s hitting content owners and service providers where it hurts: in their pockets. The good news is there is technology and intelligence available to keep content secure and stop them in their tracks,” Steve Epstein from Synamedia says.

 

At the same time, there are also companies that recognize the fragmentation problem. This includes video streaming aggregator Reelgood, which tries to bring order to the streaming chaos.

 

“We’ve found that consumers pirate NOT because they want to but because they’re often forced to by an increasingly complex and fragmented streaming landscape that was built for companies, not users,” Tim Cutting of Reelgood notes.

 

Sebastian Kramer, SVP Product Management at NAGRA, also mentions fragmentation as one of the key problems the entertainment industry faces today.

 

“With an increasingly fragmented content landscape as content owners range direct-to-consumer services, piracy is soaring. Ultimately, consumers are looking for content, so we all need to focus on the best, aggregated approaches to allow this to happen,” Kramer says.

 

In large part, these quotes come from people who have a significant stake in the anti-piracy ecosystem. However, it is clear that the media industry isn’t oblivious to the ‘streaming fatigue’ of the broader public. And seeing it discussed openly at a conference, shows that the problem is taken seriously.

 

This July at a Washington district court, Destiny 2 developer Bungie filed the latest in a growing list of lawsuits aimed at curtailing cheating in its online games.

 

Bungie’s complaint alleged that the user behind the Twitter handle ‘@inkcel‘ regularly live streamed himself using third party copyright-violating cheats in Destiny 2 that give cheaters an unfair advantage over regular players.

 

Bungie had plenty of other complaints too.

 

@inkcel had been caught cheating in Destiny 2 and had been banned from the service multiple times. Every time he signed back up he breached Bungie’s Limited Software License Agreement (LSLA), Bungie said. Acts of fraud according to the lawsuit.

 

The Destiny 2 player also stood accused of selling Bungie emblems (a type of digital art) on third-party platforms, including pieces associated with Bungie’s charity work, again in breach of the LSLA. It was also claimed he harassed Bungie staff online, with some communications perceived as a threat to their physical safety.

Court Moves to Shield Defendant’s Identity

On July 25, 2022, ten days after the lawsuit was filed, @inkcel’s attorney advised the court that his client is in fact a minor child. Soon after the teenager’s real name stopped being used in the case, replaced by the initials L.L. instead. In a recent Twitter post, L.L. revealed that he’s just 17 years old but that doesn’t appear to affected Bungie’s position on the lawsuit.

 

L.L. was served in late July and after being granted extra time to respond, this week his attorney filed a motion to dismiss. As these filings go, it’s quite an entertaining read and could complicate Bungie’s plans, in more ways than one.

Defendants Fight Back With Same Lawyer

A separate lawsuit filed by Bungie against cheat seller AimJunkies took an unexpected turn recently when the defendants aggressively countersued the game developer. The attorney coordinating that attack, Philip P. Mann of Mann Law Group PLLC, is also representing L.L. in his case against Bungie. He’s pulling no punches.

 

“This is another in a series of ill-considered, unfounded lawsuits filed by Bungie, Inc., in a well-publicized campaign ‘to put cheaters and those who assist them on notice that Bungie does not and will not tolerate cheating in Destiny 2’,” Mann writes in his motion to dismiss.

 

“Regardless of what Bungie ‘tolerates’ when it comes to the actions of others, formal legal proceedings, such as this case, are governed by the law, not Bungie’s desires.”

 

In short, the defense believes that Bungie’s complaint focused a bit too much on conveying the dramas of potential violence, arson, and other criminal conduct, at the expense of pleading plausible facts sufficient to support its alleged causes of action and entitlement to relief. As a result, the complaint should be dismissed.

Defendant’s Destiny 2 Custom Loadout

Mann begins by describing L.L. as a fan of Destiny 2 and the skills required to advance through the popular game. Some players are more skilled than others, so they progress through the game more quickly. Some even use ancillary software to gain a competitive edge.

 

Bungie calls this ‘cheat software” and according to Mann, the company has been trying to “shoehorn” its use into a recognized cause of action, such as copyright infringement and/or breach of contract. This is because there is no law against cheating and there’s no law against obtaining and using cheat software either, Mann says.

 

“In this action, Bungie vilifies and attacks Defendant L.L. for using one of several available suites of ‘cheat software’ while playing Destiny 2 and making no secret of the fact. Bungie tries to shoehorn the legal actions of Defendant L.L. into inapposite legal theories where they do not fit and do not belong.”

 

In short, Bungie’s complaint is “hysterical” and L.L. did nothing unlawful.

Minor Defendant Behaving Badly

Bungie’s complaint goes into a lot of detail about L.L.’s alleged bad behavior but according to the motion to dismiss – so what? The important thing is that none of the alleged acts violated any of Bungie’s rights under the law.

 

“Bungie’s claims amount to little more than that L.L. has publicly made fun of Bungie and has made fun of Bungie’s apparently ineffective efforts to combat ‘cheating in Destiny 2,’ an ‘offense’ that Congress has not, at present, chosen to make unlawful,” the motion adds.

 

So what about creating Destiny 2 accounts under the names HoeAnnihilator and Hoehitter? Evading bans? Streaming some cheating action on Twitch? Also not illegal, Mann says. Anyway, Bungie closed the new accounts down quickly, so no harm done. Comments about Bungie and arson? An obvious juvenile joke, free speech under the First Amendment, the motion adds.

 

Surely the alleged re-selling of Bungie digital emblems is a problem? According to his attorney, L.L. paid full price for them and while resale could potentially run counter to Bungie’s licensing terms, in this case, Bungie’s paperwork doesn’t mean a whole lot.

 

As a minor, L.L. has the right to disaffirm any contract within a reasonable time of becoming an adult but has already taken the opportunity to declare contracts with Bungie null and void. Since that includes the LSLA, three of Bungie’s causes of action must be dismissed.

Copyright Infringement? No, Defense Insists

Citing a case involving a World of Warcraft cheat called ‘Glider’ decided by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Mann says that the use of ancillary software to achieve an advantage in playing a computer game is not a violation of copyright law.

 

Blizzard Entertainment argued that by distributing Glider, the defendants were liable for “secondary” or “induced” copyright infringement. When players used Glider, Blizzard claimed that they violated the terms of the software license and that amounted to copyright infringement. The Ninth Circuit disagreed and said that any claim would need to be pursued under contract law.

 

That leaves Bungie’s claim that L.L. violated the DMCA by circumventing the technological measures that reportedly protect Bungie’s anti-cheat software. The motion to dismiss says that Bungie doesn’t claim that L.L. avoided, bypassed, removed or impaired a technological measure. Instead it claims to be able to detect suspicious activity using client software, an important fact, the attorney writes.

 

“It means that the data Bungie claims to obfuscate is actually resident on L.L.’s own computer, not on any Bungie server,” Mann writes.

 

“When using ‘cheat’ software, users are simply accessing data that is in their own computers, which they own and which they are perfectly free to examine and see what files, data, programs, etc., are on their own computers.”

 

L.L’s motion to dismiss Bungie’s complaint is available here (pdf)

 

A group of litigious filmmakers, headed by Voltage Pictures, is pulling out all the stops to hold Internet providers liable for pirating customers.

 

The movie companies own the rights to well-known movies such as “Ava”, “I Feel Pretty” and “The Cobbler”, which are publicly shared via BitTorrent. The lawsuits aim to deter this activity.

 

This month, the filmmakers went after AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, accusing the companies of turning a blind eye to piracy. These cases were dismissed ‘without prejudice’ last week for unknown reasons but can be refiled at a later stage.

Earthlink

While these major cases were in the spotlight, a lawsuit against the smaller ISP Earthlink went largely unnoticed. This case was filed in June by many of the same filmmakers who accuse the provider of failing to act against repeat infringers.

 

The legal paperwork includes many of the same allegations. The rightsholders sent numerous piracy notices to the ISP, which allegedly failed to take action against repeat infringers to keep its revenues intact.

 

“Defendant knew that if it terminated or otherwise prevented repeat infringer subscribers from using it service to infringe, or made it less attractive for such use, Defendant would enroll fewer new subscribers, lose existing subscribers, and ultimately lose revenue,” the complaint reads.

2020 Warning Letter

The lawsuit didn’t come totally out of the blue for Earthlink. In 2020, the filmmakers already reached out to the Internet provider, complaining about widespread copyright infringement. They offered a deal to settle the matter out of court instead.

 

The letter in question identified the IP addresses of more than 1,100 alleged infringers, including many repeat infringers. In some cases, more than 100 notices were sent for a single IP address, without any meaningful response from Earthlink.

 

The filmmakers concluded that the ISP is liable for these infringements which could result in millions of dollars in damages. However, they offered Earthlink the option to avoid a lawsuit, as long as it agreed to the following terms.

 

– Immediately terminate accounts that received more than six piracy warnings
– Take appropriate action against repeat infringers in the future.
– Pay a portion of the alleged piracy damages
– Hand over the subscriber details of alleged pirates

Demands Move to Court

Earthlink never responded to this letter which prompted the filmmakers to take the matter to court. In a complaint filed at a federal court in Georgia in June, many of the previous demands reappeared.

 

The complaint requests an order that mandates a three-strikes termination policy for alleged pirates, for example. In addition, Earthlink should block access to known pirate sites and disclose the identities of pirating subscribers.

 

Paired with millions of dollars in potential damages, the stakes are obviously high. This was also apparent to Earthlink, which joined the negotiation table this time around.

Settlement Reached

Last week, both parties informed the court that a “tentative” settlement has been reached.

 

No details on the settlement negotiations have been released and it’s unknown whether there are any damages payments involved. It is clear, however, that the lawsuit will be dismissed if all details are finalized.

 

In closing, it’s worth noting that the developments in the Earthlink case are different from the AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon lawsuit. The latter were dismissed without prejudice, without any mention of a settlement.

 

Whether the filmmakers have any other ISPs in their crosshairs is unknown, but that certainly wouldn’t be a surprise.

 

—

 

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. “Thor: Love and Thunder” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on September 19 are:

 

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Thor: Love and Thunder	6.5 / trailer
2	(2)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.6 / trailer
3	(…)	Three Thousand Years of Longing	6.8 / trailer
4	(…)	Emily The Criminal	6.7 / trailer
5	(7)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
6	(6)	Nope	7.1 / trailer
7	(…)	The Invitation	5.2 / trailer
8	(4)	Beast	5.7 / trailer
9	(5)	Pinocchio	5.2 / trailer
10	(3)	Where the Crawdads Sing	7.1 / trailer

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

 

In November, billions of people from all over the world will tune in to watch the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.

 

Most viewers will do so through authorized services but events like this draw massive pirate audiences as well. In anticipation, several Canadian media companies are taking legal action.

Blocking FIFA World Cup Pirates

A few days ago, media giant Bell Media requested an injunction against two “John Doe” operators of sports streaming services that are expected to broadcast the FIFA World Cup. The operators are only identified by the IP addresses through which they publish these streams.

 

Bell’s TSN4 network has the right to the FIFA broadcasts and with this lawsuit, the company wants to take preemptive action.

 

The services of the John Doe defendants previously streamed Major League Soccer games without permission. And since they rebroadcast the plaintiffs’ stations, it is likely that they will also stream the World Cup to their visitors.

 

“The Defendants are operators of Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing unauthorized access in Canada to Plaintiffs’ Stations that will broadcast FIFA World Cup Live Matches for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,” the plaintiffs write.

Two Sports Streaming Operators

The first defendant makes pirated content available through servers located in the British Virgin Islands, Russia, and the United Kingdom. These are hosted by providers incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and Ukraine.

 

The pirated streams appeared on various public sports piracy sites including bingsport.xyz and papahd.club, and through link aggregator sites such as soccerstreamlinks.com, redditsoccerstream.org, and soccerstream.net.

 

Defendant number two has servers that are physically located in Belize and hosted by a company from the same country. These streams are available through sportsway.me and various linking aggregators, including redditsoccerstreams.org and reddit1.soccerstreams.net.

Injunction Wanted

In addition to Bell Media, the list of plaintiffs includes The Sports Network, CTV Specialty Television, and Réseau des sports. Together, the media companies ask the Federal Court in Montreal for damages and an injunction to stop the infringing activity.

 

Specifically, they want the operators to cease “providing access to Unauthorized Streaming Servers providing or facilitating access to live streams of FIFA World Cup Live Matches in Canada.”

 

Whether this injunction, if granted, will be sufficient to deter pirates is questionable. Then again, if the John Does don’t respond in court, this might very well be the setup for a new site blocking request from rightsholders.

 

Previous blocking injunctions in Canada were also issued as part of lawsuits against operators, which is a similar setup to the one here.

World Cup Pirate Site Blocking?

Canada’s Federal Court approved the country’s first pirate site-blocking order four years ago. Most ISPs didn’t contest the blocking request but TekSavvy fought it tooth and nail, arguing that it threatened the open Internet.

 

TekSavvy’s appeals stranded earlier this year after the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. This was a major setback according to vice-president of regulatory affairs, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, who prophetically said it would lead to more blocking requests from major media companies.

 

“Now armed with GoldTV-style orders, […] what’s to stop Canada’s media giants from having courts force ever more ISPs to block ever more copyrighted content? Nothing; expect it to happen,” Kaplan-Myrth said at the time.

 

Indeed, the first new blocking order was issued shortly after. Following a complaint from several rightsholders, Canada’s Federal Court handed down a ‘dynamic’ blocking order in June. That injunction aims to prevent live NHL games from being viewed via pirate IPTV services.

 

With this recent push to deter FIFA World Cup piracy, another site blocking order is now in the making.

 

—

 

A copy of the statement of claim, filed by Bell, The Sports Network, CTV Specialty Television, and Réseau des sports, is available here (pdf)

 

After more than 15 years of site-blocking processes in dozens of countries, new instructions to block pirate sites have become part of piracy landscape.

 

But despite a growing casual acceptance, legal action targeting educational resources can still prove controversial. Platforms such as Sci-Hub, Libgen and Z-Library are extremely popular among students, academics and scientists, who tend to view the sharing of knowledge in a different light to the sharing of movies and TV shows.

 

Nevertheless, all copyrighted content receives the same protection under the law, so academic and other publishers are keen to protect their interests in the same way as other rightsholders.

Publishing Houses Take Action to Block Z-Library

With more than 11.2 million ebooks and almost 85 million articles available from its archives, Z-Library is a formidable educational resource. However, viewed from the perspective of publishers, Z-Library is not only unfair competition but also highly illegal under copyright law.

 

The National Publishing Union (Le Syndicat national de l’édition or SNE) has around 700 members including publishing houses Actes Sud, Albin Michel, Cairn, Editis, Hachette Livre, Humensis, Lefebvre-Sarrut, LexisNexis, Madrigall, Maison des Langues, Odile Jacob, and Presses de Science Po.

 

SNE’s responsibilities include protecting the publishers from unlicensed distribution and consumption of their publications. Late June, SNE initiated legal action in France under an expedited procedure, demanding that Z-Library should be rendered inaccessible by the country’s ISPs.

Paris Court Orders Z-Library Blocking

In an announcement published this week, SNE reveals that via a judgment dated August 25, 2022, a Paris Court (Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris) agreed that ISPs in France should block Z-Library.

 

The order is comprehensive. SNE reports that the blocking order covers 209 Z-Library-related domain names and includes mirror sites that can attempt to circumvent blocking orders.

 

SNE says that more than ever before, curtailing book piracy is a priority for publishers in France, as it negatively affects the ability of the creative sector to invest in the entire publishing ecosystem.

 

“French publishing is investing massively to allow broad public access to digital books. Book piracy undermines the remuneration of creators: authors and publishers. It poses a threat to the entire book ecosystem, particularly booksellers, and it harms cultural diversity,” SNE says.

 

“SNE and the publishers are pleased that this book piracy enterprise has been sanctioned.”

Z-Library Under Increasing Pressure

As reported in August, Z-Library was also targeted by a recent blocking injunction in India.

 

In that case, publishers complained that 10 books about tax and corporate law were made available by Z-Library without permission from the rightsholders. As a result the whole site must be now be blocked by local ISPs.

 

Three years ago, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. and Sony Music sued Internet Provider Grande Communications.

 

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

 

Since the complaint was filed, both parties have gone back and forth in court with various arguments and accusations. The legal battle will soon go to trial and both parties filed preparatory documents in court this week.

 

As part of the jury selection process, the record labels and the ISP have submitted their statement of claims, which provide a clear and concise overview of the issues at stake.

Grande Denies Liability

Grande Communications believes that it shouldn’t be held liable for the alleged copyright infringements committed by its subscribers. The company portrays itself as a neutral service provider that never encouraged any type of piracy.

 

“Grande disputes the plaintiffs’ claim that Grande is liable for acts of copyright infringement allegedly committed by its subscribers. Grande asserts that it is merely an internet service provider and never induced or encouraged anyone to infringe the plaintiffs’ copyrights.”

 

The ISP calls out the record labels’ piracy monitoring service Rightscorp which, according to Grande, cannot accurately or reliably identify copyright infringements. In addition, the piracy tracking company allegedly destroyed or failed to preserve key evidence.

 

As a result, the copyright infringement notices that Rightcorp sent via email were insufficient to warrant any drastic measures, Grande suggests. Therefore, the company firmly believes that it shouldn’t be held liable.

 

“Rightscorp’s emails to Grande were flawed and unreliable, because of defects in Rightscorp’s system and because the emails lacked any supporting or verifiable evidence,” the ISP notes.

Record Labels Seek Millions

The statement of claim from the record labels argues the polar opposite. According to the music companies, it’s clear that the ISP is liable, alleging that Grande willingly profited from pirating subscribers.

 

With 1,422 sound recordings at stake, the amount of potential statutory damages that the jury can award exceeds $213 million.

 

At trial, the labels plan to show the jury that Grande was aware of this piracy problem since the early 2000s. Initially, it responded by terminating accounts of subscribers, but as time progressed the ISP changed course.

 

“[B]eginning in 2010, in an effort to increase profits, Grande eliminated its termination policy and chose instead to allow its subscribers to infringe copyrights freely with no consequences,” the labels write.

 

After this decision, the music companies sent over a million piracy notices and they allege that Grande failed to terminate even a single account in response.

 

“Yet despite knowing of, or deliberately avoiding learning about, specifically identified repeat infringements by its customers, Grande continued to provide those customers the internet service essential to their continuing their unlawful conduct,” they write.

 

The lack of terminations allegedly allowed the Internet provider to increase its profits while causing significant damage to the labels and their artists.

Do You Read TorrentFreak?

In addition to the statements of claim, both sides will also ask prospective jury members to answer a series of questions. These can help to detect biases and other issues that might make a person unfit to sit on the bench.

 

The labels’ questions are similar to the ones we’ve reported on the past. They want to know how familiar candidates are with file-sharing and whether they ever downloaded something from The Pirate Bay or other torrent sites.

 

There are also questions about the use of stream-ripping services and support for the EFF. In addition, TorrentFreak gets a mention as well, together with Ars Technica, another news site.

 

“Have you ever read or visited Ars Technica or TorrentFreak? If so, for what type of material?” the labels plan to ask potential jury members.

 

These questions could theoretically steer potential jurors in a certain direction. Even those who have never heard of TorrentFreak may be intrigued by the question and start reading it going forward. But that’s probably not the goal here.

 

The music companies are not the only ones asking questions of course. Grande Communications has also prepared a list, hoping to signal bias or other disqualifying factors.

 

The ISP asks, for example, if the candidates are musicians or have ever worked at a record label, and whether they believe it’s an ISP’s responsibility to monitor and police online piracy.

Moving Forward

After the jury members are selected the case will move to trial in a few weeks. Both parties expect to need a total of 10 days to present evidence and argue their case.

 

This isn’t the first case between record labels and an ISP that’s been scheduled to go to trial this year. Charter Communications and Bright House were in the same position but both companies signed a settlement agreement instead.

 

Meanwhile, a group of independent filmmakers recently filed new piracy liability lawsuits against Verizon, AT&T and Comcast so the U.S. federal courts are not done with these repeat infringer lawsuits just yet.

 

—

 

Copies of the record labels’ statement of claim and voir dire questions are available here (1,2) and Grande’s versions can be found here (1,2)

 

In 2019, a Virginia jury ordered Internet provider Cox Communications to pay a billion dollars in damages to record labels including Capitol Records, Warner Bros, and Sony Music.

 

The plaintiffs alleged that by failing to terminate subscribers that had been accused of copyright infringement multiple times, Cox failed to meet its obligations under the DMCA.

 

The decision is being appealed but in the meantime other ISPs face similar allegations, including AT&T and Verizon, who were sued earlier this month.

 

Both of these lawsuits were filed by Voltage Pictures and several movie industry affiliates, together behind movies such as “After We Collided,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Room 203,” and “The Bird Catcher”. This week, the same companies filed yet another lawsuit, this time targeting the largest broadband company in the United States.

Lawsuit Accuses Comcast of Copyright Infringement

In general terms, the new lawsuit filed against Comcast is almost a direct copy of those filed against Verizon and AT&T. It alleges that the ISP can easily take action to prevent piracy carried out by its customers using BitTorrent networks. All it has to do is terminate their subscriptions.

 

“Comcast can stop providing internet services to a customer at any time. It can stop providing internet services to customer accounts that repeatedly use its services for piracy. And Comcast doesn’t have to find these repeat offenders itself — copyright holders like Voltage already do that for Comcast, by sending copyright infringement notices. But Comcast does not take this simple step,” the lawsuit alleges.

 

The filmmakers say that Comcast doesn’t terminate repeat infringers because their business is lucrative. Each customer account returns between $400 and $1,000 in additional profits and when combined, these accounts add tens of millions of dollars to Comcast’s bottom line.

More Than 250,000 DMCA Notices Sent to Comcast

The plaintiffs say that third parties (Comcast subscribers) are responsible for downloading torrents from sites including RARBG, 1337x, The Pirate Bay, YTS, and the less-well-known Russia-focused torrent site seleZen.

 

By joining torrent swarms and sharing their movies, the plaintiffs say that Comcast subscribers reproduced, distributed, publicly displayed, and publicly performed copyright works without permission from the rightsholders.

 

The plaintiffs say that evidence of this infringement was captured by Maverickeye, a company well known for its involvement in ‘copyright-trolling’ cases against single BitTorrent users. Over the past three years, the German-based company logged hundreds of thousands of infringements carried out by Comcast users, the plaintiffs say.

 

The movie companies say they notified Comcast of these infringements in more than 250,000 DMCA notices.

Failure to Terminate Repeat Infringers

Despite receiving more than a quarter of a million copyright notices, Comcast failed to take action against its allegedly infringing customers, the lawsuit claims.

 

“Comcast failed to terminate the accounts associated with these IP addresses or otherwise take any meaningful action in response to these Notices. Comcast often failed to even forward the Notices to its internet service customers or otherwise inform them about the Notice or its content,” the plaintiffs say.

 

“Instead, Comcast continued to provide the internet access and services necessary for users to commit further online piracy. Comcast continued to provide access to the internet from the IP addresses that infringers used to pirate movies.”

 

The complaint highlights several instances of particularly egregious conduct. One particular IP address was reported 782 times for infringement, another 626 times. Two IP addresses had 609 and 532 copyright infringements logged against their respective accounts, with several others having a minimum of 373 complaints filed against theirs.

 

Comcast does have a published repeat infringer policy but the lawsuit claims that the company’s failure to terminate repeat infringers means that it no longer enjoys safe harbor from liability under the DMCA.

 

“Comcast only counted the DMCA notifications regarding a customer account in each month, rather than counting total DMCA notifications. Under this policy, Comcast did not terminate an account that had a very high number of infringements over several months, but not in any one month,” the lawsuit notes.

Several Types of Copyright Infringement

Due to the alleged inaction of Comcast, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants are liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. These claims alone could run to many millions of dollars in damages.

 

Due to the plaintiffs’ Copyright Management Information (CMI) being removed or altered in movie files distributed via BitTorrent by Comcast customers, the ISP is also liable for contributory and vicarious violations under the §1202(a)(b) of the DMCA, the complaint adds.

 

The plaintiffs demand actual or statutory damages and an order that compels Comcast to implement a repeat infringer policy that terminates the accounts of repeat infringers.

 

In common with the plaintiffs’ lawsuits against AT&T and Verizon, the complaint demands an order that compels Comcast to block access to pirate sites listed in the USTR’s Notorious Foreign Markets report. These include YTS, The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and 1337x.

 

The filmmakers’ complaint filed against Comcast at the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is available here (pdf)