Absorbing knowledge online is essentially free but those who curate that knowledge may have their own plans on where, when, and at what price their work is made available.

 

For millions of website publishers the problem mostly solves itself, but for those who have more restrictive offerings in mind, such as physical book sales or a digital subscription offer, the wider internet can prove to be a disruptive competitor.

 

Millions of scientific papers, novels, textbooks, and magazines are now just a couple of clicks away, making unlicensed sites like Sci-Hub and Libgen both wildly popular and prime candidates for anti-piracy enforcement. The platforms have proven impossible to close down, so publishers regularly obtain court injunctions that require ISPs to implement blocking.

 

Sci-Hub is fighting one such case in India and receiving support from both students and academics. But while everyone focused on Sci-Hub’s landmark standoff, seen by some as pivotal for educational equality in a nation of almost 1.4 billion, another lawsuit targeting a similar site slipped into court unnoticed and walked out with a significant prize.

Z-Library Suddenly Becomes Unavailable

A few days ago, Aroon Deep at Entrackr contacted us with an interesting finding. When attempting to access Z-Library, a Libgen-related platform that offers close to 100 million articles and ebooks, something else appeared instead.

 

“The website has been blocked as per direction/order of Hon’ble Court,” the message read.

 

Deep found that the same text appeared when accessing Z-library from ISPs including ACT Broadband and Reliance Jio, but which court had ordered the ISPs to block the site and on whose behalf was unknown. The ongoing Sci-Hub/Libgen case has been heavily reported around the world, yet it appears that nobody saw this Z-Library case coming, despite obvious relevance to Sci-Hub and the wider access-to-knowledge debate.

Publisher Targeted Z-Library in a West Delhi Court

The Z-Library blocking mystery was solved yesterday when the Department of Telecommunications disclosed the blocking order and Deep published a link on Twitter.

 

The document confirms that a judge sitting at a court in Delhi ordered local ISPs to start blocking Z-Library in response to a complaint filed by publisher Taxmann Publications Pvt Ltd. The background to the case laid out in earlier filings shows that at least 12 parties are named as defendants.

Copyright Infringement Allegations

Defendant #1 is listed as z-lib.org and joined by three additional domains – 1lib.in, booksc.org and booksc.eu. Defendants 2 to 10 are internet service providers, including Vodafone, Reliance Jio, Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel. Defendants 11 and 12 are Indian government departments, the Ministry of Communications and IT and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITY).

 

In April 2022, the court heard that Taxmann Publications Pvt Ltd is a reputable company that has spent a “huge amount of money” developing its business. Taxmann, a publisher of books about tax and corporate law, views Z-Library as a “rogue website” engaging in piracy on a grand scale, including by offering pirated copies of ten books for which it owns the rights.

 

Counsel for the plaintiff said that Z-Library has no physical address where any notice could’ve been served but having reviewed its claim, the court was satisfied that the publisher had a case.

Court Issues Injunction

In an order dated May 12, 2022, District Judge Dinesh Bhatt wrote that since Taxmann owns the rights to the ten books and Z-Library is offering them in electronic format for free, an interim injunction to restrain any future infringments was appropriate.

 

“In view of the above, defendant no. 1 is restrained from offering the plaintiff’s books (ten books as mentioned in the plaint) for downloading in the PDF format or any other mode on its website,” the order reads.

 

Two other orders, dated May 21 and August 1, 2022, are currently unavailable for viewing on the court website but in Indian blocking cases, the pattern is well known. Following an order from the court, the two government ministries named as defendants instruct the named ISPs to implement blocking, to prevent their subscribers from accessing the ‘rogue site’ in question.

 

Compliance with the final blocking order (linked below) will be reviewed in September. Two or three of the ISPs didn’t immediately block the Z-Library domains, which raised warnings from the other ISPs that if they didn’t block together, Z-Library would remain accessible. All ISPs will have to do so now.

 

Given the scope of the injunction and the limited domains listed, Z-Library is likely to remain accessible via other domains at its disposal. A number of these were temporarily suspended last year by a Chinese registrar following copyright complaints from Harvard, but the decision was later reversed.

 

The blocking order (Case Number: CS (COMM)/221/2022) can be found here (pdf)

 

In recent years, publishers of Japanese manga comics have been sending a sustained and clear message that content piracy will not be tolerated, wherever it takes place in the world.

 

The problems faced by companies including Shueisha, Kadowaka, Kodansha, and Shogakukan, are easy to describe but much more difficult to counter.

 

Japan-based pirate site operators serving a domestic audience face experienced local investigators, law enforcement agencies, and a relatively high prospect of criminal sanctions. Those based overseas still have the ability to reach Japanese users but identifying them presents new legal challenges for the publishers. That’s also the case when sites are administered from Japan but utilize international infrastructure.

 

As a result, cross-border investigations and accompanying jurisdiction issues are now common in piracy cases. Thousands of pirate sites use the services of American companies, so whether they have connections to Cloudflare or process payments in the U.S., the risk of the publishers seeking assistance from local courts is now high, as the successful prosecution of MangaBank’s operator showed.

Shueisha Seeks Assistance from U.S. Court

Following the playbook deployed in the MangaBank case, Shueisha has just filed another ex parte application at the same California district court seeking discovery of information for use in a foreign proceeding (28 U.S. Code § 1782).

 

Shueisha is investigating several manga piracy sites, listed in the application as follows:

 

mangagohan.com, mangapro.top, gokumanga.com, doki1001.com, manga1001.in, comick.top

 

The publisher’s legal team says that the sites published infringing copies of Shueisha’s copyrighted works soon after commercial release, adding that this constitutes infringement under both Japanese and Vietnamese laws.

 

The reference to Vietnam is based on information provided by Cloudflare. Shueisha previously obtained a DMCA subpoena requiring the CDN company to hand over the personal details of those being the sites. The disclosed information doesn’t identify individuals but does link them to IP addresses belonging to a pair of telecoms companies – ‘Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group’ and ‘Vietname Telecom National’.

 

Vietnam doesn’t allow third-party companies to obtain internet users’ identifying information based on copyright infringement allegations so Shueisha’s plan is to act on other information provided by Cloudflare. PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Google, Braintree and/or Stripe accounts are linked to the site operators and since the companies are based in the United States, Shueisha wants them to hand over whatever they hold.

 

The endgame is to file lawsuits against the site operators in Japan or Vietnam, presumably on copyright infringement grounds, and Shueisha says that courts in both countries would appreciate assistance from the United States. There’s no explanation of why these sites are of particular interest to the publisher out of the hundreds online, but potential clues in the application open up interesting avenues of research.

Does Investigation Encompass Many More Sites?

Studying the domains reveals that they all target consumers of pirated manga in Japan, with no less than 88% and as many as 94% of their visitors coming from the country. Another interesting aspect is that traffic to the sites is either trending downwards (in some cases off the edge of a cliff) or behaving in unnatural ways.

 

For example, mangagohan.com enjoyed around 1.9m visits in May, the same in June, but less than half that in July. From 1.6m visits in May, visits to mangapro.top suddenly jumped to 3.6m in June before dropping to 2.4m in July. Visits to gokumanga.com in May topped out at around 2m but traffic was less than a quarter of that in July.

 

The other sites show similarly strange patterns, but doki1001.com stands out as a particularly big mover. In May it had around 13.1m visits according to SimilarWeb stats, versus just 1.7m in July, so what lies behind these wild fluctuations?

Redirections and Connections

According to Shueisha, both mangagohan.com and gokumanga.com redirected themselves to mangagohan.me at some point, but that site’s traffic has gone down instead of up in recent months.

 

However, scratch just below the surface looking for other redirects and a whole new world of potential links appears between the domains in the application and many others, some of which Shueisha is already investigating.

 

– Mangagohan.com (down): Outbound redirect: mangagohan.me (down)
– Gokumanga.com (down): Outbound redirect: mangagohan.me (down)

 

– Mangapro.top (down): Inbound redirects: comick.to, mymangaraw.com, mixmanga.com, 3xmanga.com, upmanga.com, picmanga.com, overmanga.com, padmanga.com, loadmanga.com, mangaair.com, mangatweet.com, mangamenu.com, mangano1.com, mangarip.com. Oubound redirect: comick.top

 

– Doki1001.com (down): Inbound redirect: manga-1001.com (existing Shueisha target)
– Manga1001.in (up) – Outbound redirect: manga9.co (zero traffic in May, 6.4m July)

 

– Comick.top – (up) – Inbound redirects: padmanga.com, mangano1.com, mangapro.top, mangamenu.com, mangarank.com, mangaair.com, mangatweet.com, mangarip.com, manga1001.top, loadmanga.com. Outbound redirect: mangapro.top

 

The limited domain information above suggests that if the U.S. companies provide useful, actionable material to Shueisha, a gateway to even bigger things may lie ahead. Most obviously, there may be an opportunity to eliminate many pirate sites, for beyond the handful listed in the application.

 

Shueisha’s application for discovery can be found here (pdf)

 

(see update below the article for the latest info)

 

Reddit is without doubt one of the most popular user-submitted content sites that exists on the Internet.

 

The community-driven platform has “subreddits” dedicated to pretty much every topic you can think of. These generate a constant stream of discussions and links, some more useful than others.

 

Moderators play an essential role in bringing order to this chaos. They delete spam, remove off-topic content, and make sure that ‘unauthorized’ content is swiftly removed. The latter category includes links to copyright infringing material.

 

Despite these moderation efforts, problematic links can remain online longer than rightsholders wish. This can lead to Reddit receiving DMCA takedown notices, which over the course of the last year led to the removal of 665,898 pieces of content from the platform. Subreddits that are repeatedly targeted in takedown notices risk a permanent ban.

/r/PiratedGames Banned

Yesterday, the popular /r/PiratedGames was banned for this very reason, with Reddit stating that the community was targeted by too many copyright removals.

 

The decision may seem logical considering the name of the subreddit but posting infringing links to /r/PiratedGames was strictly forbidden. Instead, users were asked to keep their contributions limited to discussing pirated games and cracks.

 

With more than 300,000 members, it isn’t always easy to spot all problematic content. Keeping an eye on submitted posts isn’t that hard but user comments are the real problem as these are harder to keep up with.

No Advance Warning or Notice?

TorrentFreak spoke to PiratedGames moderator GrowAsguard who said that the team wasn’t warned about the ban in advance. In fact, he says that Reddit never informed them about any of the takedown notices. The ban just appeared out of the blue.

 

“None of us in the moderator team were informed of either the then-upcoming ban or the various pieces of content Reddit had removed from the sub due to copyright Infringement,” GrowAsguard said.

 

The moderators did hear from Reddit when the ban was instated. They received a message in their inboxes that contained, among other things, the following statement from the admins.

 

A subreddit you moderate has been banned for excessive copyright infringement. Note that reconstituting the community under an alternative subreddit will be considered under our ban evasion policy – Reddit

Appeal

GrowAsguard says that the moderators plan to file an appeal. If that’s not successful, they will look for an alternative venue to host the community. There are no plans to start a new subreddit.

 

“Hopefully the decision sides with us and the community. But if it does not, then we might move the subreddit to either Raddle, Saidit or Lemmy. Another sub will not be made as it will just get banned again.

 

“Anonymity is important for us, so our options are limited now in terms of moving the community forward,” GrowAsguard added.

 

PiratedGames is one of the largest communities to find itself banned by Reddit but it’s not the only one. Last year, 2,625 subreddits were taken down permanently under the platform’s “repeat infringer” policy. This included the popular mmastreams subreddit. In addition, 283 users were banned for repeat infringement.

 

Previously /r/Piracy, another popular piracy-related subreddit, did get an advance warning from Reddit that it was on the verge of being banned. The moderators managed to avoid this fate but that required the deletion of more than 10 years of history.

The DMCA Minefield

The PiratedGames ban is not unexpected considering Reddit’s strict policy but the implementation raises questions. If moderators are not informed about DMCA notices, they may not even be aware that there’s a problem.

 

Reddit is required by the DMCA to adopt and reasonably implement a policy that allows for the termination of repeat infringers. But is it ‘reasonable’ to shut down a 300,000-member community without warning?

 

It’s essentially a DMCA minefield that can make it particularly hard for communities to survive, even when they have good intentions.

 

We don’t know what the ban threshold is for subreddits and neither do the moderators we spoke with. We asked Reddit for more information but the company didn’t immediately respond to our request.

 

For the PiratedGames community, these questions and considerations are irrelevant now, as the damage is already done.

 

—

 

Update: A few hours after publication Reddit informed us that /r/PiratedGames was reinstated. We asked for additional details and will apprend this article if we hear more.

 

In August 2021, US broadcaster DISH Network, Sling and NagraStar sued pirate IPTV service Nitro TV.

 

The case focused on Nitro operator Alex Galindo and other members of his family, alleging mass violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions and the Federal Communications Act (FCA). The case went undefended and this June came to a close, with the plaintiffs being awarded over $100m in statutory damages.

 

Since that judgment was handed down the docket has been kept busy with sealed documents. From the available information, it seems that the plaintiffs are attempting to garnish property owned by one or more of the Galindos. While the process won’t be pretty it’s perhaps necessary given that other people are also queuing up to get paid.

ACE Copyright Infringment Lawsuit

A coalition of entertainment companies headed up by Universal, Paramount, Columbia, Disney and Amazon filed their complaint against Nitro in 2020 but for a number of reasons the case is still open after more than two years.

 

In contrast to the DISH lawsuit, Alex Galindo did mount some kind of defense here, and at one point even tried to have the whole thing dismissed. Perhaps the $7m processed through the Galindo’s accounts is a motivating factor but the studios seem determined to prevail against the defendants, who now find themselves without an attorney.

Clock Ticks, Costs Mount, Galindo Must Pay

According to the studios, the defendants have been uncooperative at best, deliberately obstructive at worst. Allegations of evidence destruction and other misconduct led to a motion for sanctions, followed by a recent report from a judge to the district judge recommending a finding that Alex Galindo willfully violated court orders, failed to cooperate in discovery, and should be held liable for infringement.

 

Meanwhile, the studios have continued to run up huge legal and administrative bills. Attorney’s fees and costs associated with their discovery motion alone reached $88,080, while those for the plaintiffs’ sanctions motion topped out at $93,000. United States District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong conducted a review but found nothing to contradict the recently submitted report.

 

“Galindo’s assertions and arguments have been reviewed carefully. The Court, however, concludes that nothing set forth in Galindo’s Response or otherwise in the record for this case affects or alters, or calls into question, the findings and analysis set forth in the Report,” Judge Frimpong’s order reads.

 

With the court accepting the findings and recommendations in the report, Alex Galindo now has just 60 days to pay $88,080 in attorneys’ fees and costs associated with the plaintiffs’ discovery motion, plus $93,000 in fees and costs associated with their sanctions motion, to a total of $181,080.

 

That may seem like a small amount when compared to the $100m already owed to DISH, but the studios are nowhere near finished.

Plaintiffs Seek Default Judgment, Judge Wants to See Evidence

The parties in the case have rarely been in agreement but one point of contention has now been resurrected by the Judge. The defense previously noted that if the studios had clarified the full nature and extent of infringement at Nitro, the case would’ve gone to a default judgment a long time ago. The Judge now says that the court will need to see more information to move on.

 

Judge Frimpong raises the possibility of a default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs but notes that would not automatically entitle the plaintiffs to the damages requested. Noting that the court has “considerable leeway” to determine what information it requires before an entry of default, the Judge says the plaintiffs need to submit evidence in greater detail.

 

“In this case, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have neither provided a complete enumeration of the copyrighted works at issue, a full accounting of the corresponding amount of statutory damages sought pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2), nor evidence to support either of the above. In the absence of these items, the Court declines to enter Judgment at this time,” the Judge notes.

 

Columbia Pictures, Amazon Content Services, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios Productions, Universal Television, and Universal Content Productions, now have 60 days to file a brief identifying every movie and TV show for which they are seeking damages, along with relevant evidence.

 

The studios must also identify the factors the court should consider when calculating statutory damages. The studios previously submitted a list of copyright works to the court (pdf) but that was over two years ago.

 

Judge Frimpong’s order can be found here (pdf)

 

With over 200 million code repositories, shared by more than 80 million users, GitHub is the largest online developer platform of its kind.

 

The vast majority of all content stored on the site is perfectly legitimate, but some repositories are more questionable, as they contain or indirectly link to copyright-infringing content.

Sky Targets CucoTV Again

A few hours ago, UK broadcasting giant Sky flagged a problematic repository tied to the pirate IPTV app “CucoTV“. This isn’t the first time that Sky has targeted this app, as the company sent a similar request earlier this year.

 

At the time, the app was hosted by GitHub user “CucoTV”. After it was removed, the repository redirected to “CucoTV2” and, at the end of May, switched to the “CucoappTV” account. Needless to say, Sky wants this account removed as well.

 

“Following the removal of the [CucoApp] repository, this app was uploaded to a new repository. The CucoTV app, an app that allows you to watch movies and TV series totally for free,” Sky’s takedown notice reads.

 

“The developer of the application is not in possession of any type of license for the transmission of the Sky UK Limited contents, therefore this application is considered illegal. So we ask for the repository to be removed.”

How to Pirate “Riviera”

The code itself is not infringing but Sky explains in detail how the app can be used to access pirated content. The company provides a step-by-step guide showing how the TV-show “Riviera” can be streamed for free.

 

Sky’s request was successful as GitHub swiftly removed the repository. The associated APK, which initially remained online after the previous request, has been taken off the platform as well.

 

Time will tell whether CucoTV will move away from GitHub now or if the developers will simply try their luck with yet another account. If that’s the case, we can expect yet another Sky takedown request in a few weeks.

GitHub Reports DMCA Takedown Increase

Sky is not the only rightsholder that has issues with “infringing” content on GitHub. Every month, thousands of projects are flagged and removed.

 

Yesterday, GitHub published its latest transparency report, covering the first half of 2022. This shows that the number of takedown notices and the targeted repositories continue to increase.

 

Over the past six months, 15,883 projects were taken down, compared to 7,675 a year earlier. A small number of reported projects, 82, were reinstated following counter-notices, reversals, or retractions.

 

GitHub stresses that these takedowns represent only a tiny fraction (0.02%) of all content available on the platform. In addition, it notes that the increase in takedowns is in part due to the fact that GitHub continues to grow.

 

“Based on DMCA data we’ve compiled over the last few years, the number of DMCA notices we received and processed has generally correlated with growth in repositories over the same period of time.”

 

The chart above shows that the number of targeted projects increases by a monthly average of 27. This trend has been fairly consistent with one major outlier in October 2020, when nearly 14,000 projects were flagged in a single month.

The Youtube-dl Effect

That outlier is actually tied to one of the biggest takedown stories in GitHub’s history. At the time, the RIAA asked the platform to remove the youtube-dl repository, which it subsequently did.

 

That takedown sparked outrage among many fellow developers who, en masse, started to upload copies of the repository. This resulted in thousands of additional takedowns, which explains the spike.

 

GitHub eventually reinstated the youtube-dl repository after it concluded that the code doesn’t violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions. In addition, the company placed $1 million into a takedown defense fund to protect the interests of developers.

 

As Europe’s top football leagues launch their 2022/23 season campaigns, pressure to balance the books at the continent’s most prestigious clubs remains a top priority.

 

In the summer transfer window alone, LaLiga club Barcelona spent €153m euros, but that’s peanuts compared to the paychecks it hands to its top players. The club has a weekly payroll of €5.3m, of which more than 10% goes to Dutch player Frenkie de Jong. His weekly pay of €560,962 means that by the time his contract expires in 2026, Barcelona will have paid him €116,680,000.

 

For this reason, and a couple of dozen more just like it, Barcelona needs cash flooding in from fans buying tickets and premium TV subscriptions. According to LaLiga, the survival of the game is dependent on these revenues. When fans turn to pirate IPTV subscriptions to save money, they not only upset club accountants but also fund criminals providing ‘unreliable’ bootleg services.

Movistar and DAZN Deal Heralds New Era

Telefónica-owned Movistar Plus+ and DAZN were awarded LaLiga rights late last year in a five-year deal worth €4.95bn, with Movistar Plus+ later agreeing to pay DAZN €1.4bn to iron out broadcasting clashes. So, to help protect their investment, this month Movistar Plus+ and LaLiga obtained a court order to quickly block pirate IPTV services.

 

With fans’ ears ringing with LaLiga piracy warnings but soothed by the benefits of going legal, the stage was set last weekend for Barcelona vs. Rayo Vallecano and the launch of the Movistar/DAZN partnership.

 

From multiple angles, things went badly. Movistar Plus+ subscribers were told that they could not access DAZN content through their existing app and were told to download an additional app from DAZN.

 

“You will see the DAZN [matches] in their app: if you have DAZN included in your offer, you only have to create your account,” Movistar Plus+ tweeted on Saturday. “It’s very easy.”

 

It should’ve been easy – easier than buying a pirate IPTV service for sure – but it wasn’t.

 

Having already signed up for one service, Movistar Plus+ subscribers found that in order to download the DAZN app, they had to sign up for an account at DAZN as well. However, DAZN’s servers couldn’t cope with the volume of Movistar Plus+ subscribers, which meant that they couldn’t issue accounts or activate access to the services paid for.

 

By the time the problems were solved, Barcelona and Rayo fans had missed half of the first match on the opening weekend of the season, despite paying for a legal subscription. Movistar Plus+ pointed the finger at DAZN, which later admitted to having suffered technical problems.

 

The pair say that measures have been taken to ensure there are no further problems but, if unreliability was a reason for fans to move away from pirate IPTV services, that might be a tough sell in future. For new Movistar Plus+ pirate converts, missing half the match probably ran counter to what they were promised.

 

Sadly, the trials and tribulations of financially supporting the beautiful game didn’t stop there.

Italian Football Fans Experience Worse

Just like LaLiga, Italy’s Serie A finds itself in a perpetual war against pirate IPTV services and set-top boxes locally known as ‘pezzotto’. Serie A is also a fan of ISP blocking, which is regularly backed up by stern messages from its CEO that pirates are killing the sport. This weekend, fingers of blame were being pointed in other directions.

 

Due to ‘technical problems’ suffered by DAZN, Serie A fans couldn’t watch the football matches they’d paid for. Large numbers of subscribers couldn’t log into their accounts and for those that could, being randomly kicked out became a feature of the season’s opening weekend.

 

With fans on Twitter declaring that Serie A and DAZN are those responsible for “killing football”, swathes of pirates with uninterrupted access to the matches gloated as legitimate buyers fumed in frustration.

When Pirates Receive a Better Product, It’s Already Over

From both PR and anti-piracy perspectives, the weekend was a disaster. Serie A recently relaunched its ‘Piracy Kills Football’ campaign which is being promoted in all football stadiums via graphics and a big screen video spot during the first two rounds in the new season.

 

If the only aim was to reach the eyes of pirates, the campaign was a complete success because only pirates had continuous access to the matches. If the goal was to encourage behavioral change among pirates, the damage might last for years. But just when things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did just that.

Here Comes The Government

Six-time Olympic gold medalist and 16-time world champion fencer Valentina Vezzali now spends her time dueling in politics as Italy’s cabinet undersecretary for sports. After seeing the football debacle at the weekend, she’s demanding a meeting between Serie A and the government to find out what went wrong.

 

Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM, which is also responsible for blocking piracy sites, is also invited. Quite what AGCOM can do isn’t clear but a presentation of how blocked piracy sites can deliver a better quality service than multi-billion euro companies could be a potential PPV event in its own right.

 

According to a local report, at some point over the weekend DAZN was forced to create a separate link to a low-resolution broadcast. Viewers reportedly abandoned their TVs for smaller devices since the image quality was so poor. Again, highly amusing to pirates;

 

“Breaking news: #DAZN buys the #pezzotto’s servers to bring their service up to standards. As a gift to all customers, as compensation, also documentaries and hot channels,” one user wrote in response.

 

When approached for an explanation on the chaos, Serie A said it wouldn’t be commenting. Considering that even the “criminals” behind pirate IPTV services tend to offer explanations to upset customers (while also offering an apparently superior content delivery experience), one has to wonder who is in the wrong business and what it will take to put things right.

 

In the meantime, DAZN will be broadcasting the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua in the United States and other markets this coming Saturday. That’s what’s been announced, at least.

 

Vimeo is a New York-based video streaming platform that mostly targets business users.

 

The service has over a quarter billion registered users and monetizes its platform through subscriptions, pay-per-view videos, and advertisements.

 

Like many other online platforms, Vimeo is predominantly used for legitimate purposes. However, on occasion, its users also upload copyright-infringing content and if these videos are not rapidly removed, it can cause serious problems.

€8.5m Damages for Failing to Remove Infringing Videos

In Italy, these “copyright infringing” uploads resulted in a legal battle with local broadcasting giant Mediaset. Three years ago, this resulted in a win for the rightsholder, with the court ordering Vimeo to pay €8.5 million in damages.

 

Vimeo was held liable because it failed to take action against infringing TV content uploaded to the platform, roughly 2,000 copyright-infringing videos in this case.

 

The U.S. streaming platform followed up with a petition to appeal the verdict, but last week a panel chaired by Judge Gianna Maria Zannella confirmed the initial ruling. This means that the damages remain unchanged as well.

Court Rejects Vimeo’s Appeal

According to the Court, Vimeo can’t be seen as a passive intermediary. The platform has an “active role” that’s “comparable to a video on demand service” because “the audiovisual contents are precisely cataloged, indexed and linked with each other,” in order to create value for users.

 

The Court cites jurisprudence from the EU Court of Justice and states that Vimeo can’t always benefit from safe harbor exemptions. The ruling is also in line with an Italian Supreme Court ruling, which concluded that Yahoo can be seen as an “active host” under certain conditions.

 

As a result of the ruling, Vimeo will have to be extra vigilant when it comes to potentially infringing content. The Court previously highlighted that fingerprinting tools and other upload filters might help to prevent further trouble.

Rightsholders Are Pleased

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Enzo Mazza, CEO of the Italian Federation of the Music Industry, welcomes the outcome as it helps to define the active role of video-sharing platforms.

 

“Although there is no obligation to monitor and check in advance the content posted by users, those who ‘actively host’ must remove such content or disable access, whenever they are aware of the illegal content of transmissions,” Mazza says.

 

The recording industry in Italy is also involved in a separate lawsuit against Vimeo and it hopes to secure a similar verdict.

 

“Vimeo has fallen short of its obligation as an online content sharing service to take effective steps to prevent unlicensed music from being made available on its site. Significant amounts of unlicensed music are being uploaded and reuploaded to its service,” Mazza says.

 

All in all, the Court of Appeal ruling will further strengthen the position of copyright holders. It adds to earlier wins, including a recent decision against Cloudflare, which was ordered to make pirate sites unavailable through its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver.

 

For more than a decade, anti-piracy company MarkMonitor has been a trusted partner of the major record labels.

 

Among other things, the company provided evidence and testimony for the piracy lawsuit against Internet provider Bright House that was settled two weeks ago.

 

Shortly after the settlement was announced, MarkMonitor asked the court to make sure that sensitive evidence doesn’t see the light of day. The company notes that, among other things, a recent hearing transcript discusses sensitive details about its anti-piracy detection system.

MarkMonitor Wants to Keep Anti-Piracy Secrets Safe

The documents in question are now shielded and the anti-piracy company would like it to keep it that way, to prevent adversaries from gathering knowledge.

 

“The transcript contains information and reference to MarkMonitor’s source code that is private, proprietary, confidential and commercially sensitive trade secret information regarding its antipiracy detection system,” MarkMonitor writes.

 

“Public disclosure of MarkMonitor’s proprietary verification process to its competitors or others would cause significant injury to MarkMonitor,” the company adds.

 

The company argues that the transcript isn’t relevant to the public at large. It discusses proprietary code and includes evidence of a dispute between businesses. However, that can be valuable information to competitors.

The “Pro-Piracy” Sector?

The term competitors should be used quite broadly here. It doesn’t only refer to rival anti-piracy outfits but also to “others that wish to publicize or exploit MarkMonitor’s highly sensitive technical information in the pro-piracy sector of the general public.”

 

The transcript isn’t the only document MarkMonitor would like to keep away from the public. The filing lists several others that contain sensitive information, including an email about decompiling tools.

 

“Exhibit T is an email discussing decompiling tools that can be used to unpack MarkMonitor’s confidential and proprietary binary files into readable code, which could be harmful in the wrong hands. Accordingly, this exhibit should be destroyed or permanently sealed.”

 

This isn’t the first time that MarkMonitor has shown concern over its anti-piracy details being exposed. A few months ago, the company submitted a similar request that dealt with information and documents that were shared in this lawsuit.

 

At the time, the anti-piracy outfit was particularly concerned that TorrentFreak would publish the information in a news article. This time around we are not mentioned by name, perhaps in part because restricting the public newsflow is not a particularly good argument.

Cox Is Interested in MarkMonitor’s Evidence

Aside from competitors, pirates, and news outlets, there is another group that has an interest in the ‘sensitive’ information. Shortly after MarkMonitor submitted its motion, Internet provider Cox Communications stepped in.

 

Cox is not a party to this lawsuit but it is involved in a similar piracy battle with record labels, where it was ordered to pay a billion dollars in damages. This case, where MarkMonitor also provided evidence, is currently under appeal.

 

The ISP suggests that MarkMonitor may want to get rid of the evidence because it could otherwise be used in that legal battle. This is just a theory, for now, but that’s enough for the ISP to intervene.

 

“Although Cox has not seen the documents that are the subject of MarkMonitor’s motion regarding return or destruction of materials, the context of the Motions strongly suggests that the documents at issue are directly relevant to pending issues in Sony,” Cox’s lawyer writes.

 

“Cox believes that MarkMonitor lacks a proper basis for maintaining these materials under seal or otherwise preventing their appearance in the public record of this litigation,” the company adds.

 

Cox plans to file an official motion to intervene this week. In the meantime, the company also informed the record labels and the RIAA, that it is their duty to preserve all relevant documents.

 

—

 

A copy of MarkMonitor’s request to return or destroy the sealed documents is available here (pdf) and Cox’s response can be found here (pdf)

 

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. “Prey” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on August 15 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(3)	Prey	7.3 / trailer
2	(10)	Elvis	7.7 / trailer
3	(2)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
4	(1)	Minions: The Rise of Gru	6.7 / trailer
5	(…)	Day Shift	6.2 / trailer
6	(7)	Luck	6.4 / trailer
7	(4)	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	7.2 / trailer
8	(6)	Lightyear	5.3 / trailer
9	(back)	Top Gun: Maverick	8.6 / trailer
10	(back)	The Batman	7.9 / trailer

 

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

 

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, life in both countries has changed. While Ukrainians fight for survival, Russian citizens are dealing with the effects of sanctions and other restrictions.

 

Russian authorities are playing down the effect of the West’s efforts, but even humble video gamers know that things aren’t the same as before. The thousands of companies that stopped servicing Russia in March include many focused on video game development and distribution.

 

On Steam, for example, buying some games is at best problematic and at worst quite the headache for Russians, especially when it comes to payment options. Some publishers no longer allow their content to be bought in Russia at all so when new games are released – especially good ones like Spider-Man Remastered – there are hurdles to overcome.

Spider-Man: Remastered

PC gamers have been waiting for Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered for some time and when it was released last Friday there were few disappointments. Published by Sony’s PlayStation Studios, the game apparently lives up to the hype but gaining access to the game on Steam is a game in itself for Russians, but not an impossible one.

 

On the day of release, online store Buka made a post on VK.com announcing that Russians could buy the game directly from them. As the first comment shows, users questioned whether they would need to go on an ‘adventure’ to get the game working but apparently it’s not too difficult.

 

Buka’s claim that they are selling the game needs clarification since what they’re actually selling is activation keys for the game on Steam. Any key buyers will need to download and install the game using Steam itself and then provide their key to get activated by the platform.

 

The process isn’t uncommon. Many Steam users buy keys from third-party platforms for various reasons, including to obtain cheaper prices reserved for other markets. Some key suppliers are entirely legitimate but others have been called out by videogame companies for obtaining keys via dubious means, or for assisting users to access prices unavailable at home.

 

There’s no suggestion that the keys sold by Buka were obtained illegally, but licensing can be extremely complicated. The claim that regions need to be switched suggests that the game isn’t available in Russia by design, most likely linked to sanctions and licensing. In short, the game might play via Steam but whether it’s doing so in a licensed fashion is up for debate.

 

Nevertheless, many Russians aren’t concerned and they’re even prepared to pay much more than the prices they previously enjoyed versus most of the rest of the world.

Russians Happy to Pay to Play

Considering that international Steam users have previously attempted to utilize low Russian pricing to get a bargain, the current situation with Spider-Man Remastered represents a big change. Steam lists prices in Russia as ‘not available’ but Buka’s price for an activation key is 3,999 rubles or $64.29. That’s more than the $59.99 applicable sales in the United States.

 

The origin of the keys isn’t mentioned by the retailer but availability is listed as Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.

 

According to prices listed today on SteamDB, Ukrainians pay just $37.88 to enjoy Spider-Man Remastered directly on Steam and the platform won’t run out of copies no matter how many people order. Buka, on the other hand, has completely sold out, meaning that Russians will now have to wait for new supplies.

 

There are other options, of course.

Spider-Man Remastered Was Pirated on Day One

Despite some unsubstantiated rumors claiming that Spider-Man Remastered would arrive with Denuvo protection, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Reports suggest the game’s minimal protections were removed in minutes, with pirate copies appearing online even before Steam users received notifications it was available to buy.

 

While pirated copies will remain attractive when legal copies are unavailable, reports from Russia suggest that schemes to overcome sanctions are thriving. Some estimates suggest that the activities of gray market entrepreneurs in the video game market could’ve grown by 50% since sanctions were imposed.

 

Faced with problems relating to payment processing and then game publishers refusing to supply Russia, online marketplaces now carry ads for Steam accounts created outside Russia that come preloaded with games. Other services claim they can buy games on Steam that are unavailable in Russia and then transfer those games to customers using Steam’s gifting system.

 

Another popular scheme gathering momentum features intermediaries opening PlayStation Store accounts in Turkey and then using those accounts to buy the cheap games available there. These are then sold in Russia at a premium, netting good profits for the middle men.

 

How long that will continue is unknown but both schemes are vulnerable to closure, if online services have the will to stop them.

 

Piracy tracking firm MUSO aims to help rightsholders convert pirates into paying customers. This is a noble goal and the UK-based company doesn’t shy away from taking a stand.

 

Earlier this week, we highlighted how MUSO linked the increased fragmentation of legal streaming services as one of the reasons why piracy is flourishing.

Traditional DMCA Takedowns

At its core, however, MUSO is still an anti-piracy outfit. This means that the company sends out takedown notices on a regular basis, helping its clients to remove links to copyright-infringing material from the web.

 

Looking at Google’s transparency report, we see that MUSO flagged more than 100 million links over the years. These takedowns are sent on behalf of clients large and small, including several record labels and the Association of Independent Music.

 

While going over the list of clients, one name stood out like a sore thumb. Apparently, Muso is also working with a company named MediaMuv Inc. While this name may not ring a bell with the average person on the street, it sits at the center of one of the most controversial copyright swindling schemes in history.

Criminal Copyright Scam

Last December, the US Department of Justice launched a criminal proceeding against two men suspected of running a massive YouTube Content ID scam. By falsely claiming to own the rights to more than 50,000 songs, the pair generated more than $20 million in revenue.

 

In April one of the defendants confessed to his part in the ‘MediaMuv’ copyright swindle by pleading guilty. Webster Batista Fernandez admitted it was a simple scheme: find Latin American music that wasn’t yet monetized on YouTube and claim the content as their own.

 

To collect these payments, Fernandez and his partner Jose Teran launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YoUTube Content ID member.

 

“In early 2017, Teran and I created an entity called MediaMuv L.L.C., for the purpose of falsely claiming large swaths of music recordings we had no legal rights to whatsoever,” Fernandez wrote in his plea agreement.

 

Fernandez now faces a multi-year prison sentence and MediaMuv was effectively shut down overnight. At least, that’s what we thought until the MUSO takedown notices caught our eye.

MUSO Still Works for MediaMuv?

Publicly available takedown notices show that MUSO continues to send takedown notices on behalf of MediaMuv, with the most recent one sent just a few days ago.

 

According to Google’s transparency report, the first ‘MediaMuv’ takedown notices were sent last September, months before the criminal action was announced. In addition to Google, these notices also targeted other services, such as 4Shared.

 

Both Google and 4Shared took these notices seriously. Several URLs and files were promptly removed, even though the takedown notices were not sent by the legitimate rightsholder.

 

Apparently, MediaMuv was trying to limit piracy, which could have hurt their illicit Content-ID profits. And indeed, these notices do indeed target Latin American music, which is in line with the activities described in the criminal indictment.

 

We should stress that MUSO has nothing to do with the Content-ID claims on YouTube. However, sending notices on behalf of a company that’s in the middle of a criminal scheme isn’t a good look.

 

Based on the information that’s available, it is not clear why the takedown efforts continued after the company got into legal trouble. We reached out to MUSO which informed us that MediaMuv came in through a third-party distributor.

 

MUSO is currently looking into the matter and will take follow-up action if needed.

 

“Our initial investigations show that this came through a music distributor channel. We are currently looking into the issue further and will immediately take any appropriate action,” a spokesperson tells us.

 

In August 2021, game developer Bungie filed a flurry of lawsuits in the United States against entities accused of offering cheats for Destiny 2.

 

One of the complaints filed at a court in Washington targeted Kunsal Bansal (aka Lavi) of Bathinda, India.

 

Bungie identified Bansal as the operator of Lavicheats.com, a site offering cheats and hacks for Destiny 2 and other games including Apex Legends, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, League of Legends, Fortnite, Rust, and Valorant.

 

Bungie says that software sold by Lavicheats, featuring ‘aimbots’ and ammo boosts, give players a competitive advantage. According to the company, offering this type of software also amounts to trafficking in circumvention devices contrary to the DMCA.

 

By inducing the direct infringements of Lavicheat users who “copy, reproduce, adapt, and/or create derivative works” from Bungie’s copyrighted works, Lavicheats is liable for contributory copyright infringement. Because it had the power to stop this behavior but didn’t, Lavicheats should be held vicariously liable too, Bungie said.

Bungie’s Attempts to Track Down Bansal

While the Lavicheats website is easy to find, even today, Bungie’s attempts to locate and then serve Bansal were less straightforward. Bathinda, India, has a population of more than 1.3 million people so Bungie began with the Lavicheats website and managed to find an associated email address.

 

In September 2021, the court gave Bungie permission to serve Bansal using email and by posting a link to the summons and complaint on the Lavicheats forum. The post was submitted but failed to appear in public so when Bungie filed a motion for default judgment a month later, the court found that Bansal had not been properly served.

 

The problem was overcome in December 2021 and default was entered, but Bunsal still failed to appear.

Discovery Process Begins

Early July 2022, Bungie filed a request to seek information from a number of third-party service providers associated with Bunsal and Lavicheats.

 

The court agreed that discovery could go ahead against Namecheap, Cloudflare, Stripe, PayDash and Coinbase Global. Requests relating to Invision Power Services, Discord, and Google, required more supporting information before they could be approved, the court ruled.

 

Just days later, another problem appeared. PayDash allegedly provided payment processing services for Lavicheats so Bungie needs its records to support a damages claim when it requests judgment against Bansal. But PayDash Limited is a UK company, meaning that additional steps need to be completed first.

 

Bungie filed an application with the US court to issue a letter of request for international judicial assistance under the Hague Evidence Convention (pdf). The court has now granted the request but whether it will help to progress Bungie’s case is another question.

Comprehensive Request Against Collapsed Company

Directed towards the Royal Courts of Justice in London (the competent authority), the request seeks all documents related to Bunsal, the identified email address, plus the domains lavicheats.com and lavicheats.org. It further requests names, usernames, all addresses, telephone numbers, IP addresses (with timestamps), MAC addresses, activity logs, plus all sales, transaction and processing data, for all of the accounts identified, dating back to 2019.

 

Whether PayDash is able to provide any information will remain to be seen but problems may lie ahead. These details aren’t mentioned in the case but records show that PayDash Limited was incorporated on February 18, 2021. This means that as far as this legal entity goes, any data held on Bunsal is likely to be limited to the six months preceding the Bungie complaint.

 

Another complication is found in the corporate status of PayDash Limited. Early May 2022, before the company had even filed its first set of accounts, its sole director took the decision to wind up the business. Along with £48,000 in debt, it’s now in the hands of a liquidator.

 

Bungie is also interested in acquiring information obtained by PayDash as part of ‘Know Your Customer’ checks but whether they were a top priority for the company is unclear.

 

While it may have serviced many types of customers, PayDash appears to have been popular with cheat sellers, black hat-style webmasters and people looking to convert cryptocurrencies into cash. By the end, however, good reviews gave way to universal criticism, in some case linked to the alleged disappearance of customers’ cash.

 

Bungie’s request for international assistance can be found here (pdf)

 

WOW! is being sued by a group of movie companies including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures.

 

The filmmakers accuse the ISP of failing to disconnect the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for sharing copyrighted material. They hold WOW! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages.

 

The ISP challenged the claims and filed a motion to dismiss the case. Among other things, the company argued that an IP address is not sufficient to prove that subscribers downloaded or shared any infringing material. The filmmakers opposed this motion, which has yet to be decided on by the Colorado federal court.

Filmmakers Want Subscriber Details

In the meantime, another issue has raised its head. Both sides are gathering evidence to prepare for the case moving forward. As part of that process, the filmmakers have demanded the personal details of roughly 14,000 subscribers whose WOW! accounts were allegedly used to pirate content.

 

WOW! objected to this request, arguing that the names and addresses of its subscribers are irrelevant to the core question of whether it reasonably implemented a repeat infringer policy. The filmmakers disagreed, noting that the information can be cross-checked to determine whether the ISP notified its subscribers and terminated accounts in response to infringement notices.

 

After reviewing the arguments from both sides, the Court eventually came up with a compromise. The filmmakers offered to reduce the targeted IP-addresses to the 375 top pirating unique IP addresses, which the Court saw as a reasonable request, especially considering the damages at stake.

 

“This is a more reasonable and proportional request, particularly since Plaintiffs currently calculate their statutory damages at $13,950,000,” Judge Hegarty wrote.

Subscribers File Objections

Not all WOW! subscribers are pleased with this order, however. Over the past few weeks, more than 30 “John Doe” subscribers objected to having their personal details shared with the filmmakers.

 

The content of these objections is shielded from public view, and it’s not clear how the Court will respond. When Judge Hegarty issued the underlying order he noted that objections would be promptly resolved, but there’s no sign of that in the docket.

 

It’s understandable that the subscribers want to remain anonymous. They are suspected of repeatedly downloading and sharing pirated films, which can potentially lead to tens of thousands of dollars in damages claims. In this case, however, subscribers appear to have little to worry about.

Nothing to Worry About?

WOW! and the filmmakers previously signed a mutually agreed protective order which states that the subscriber information “shall be used solely for the purpose of preparation, trial, and appeal of this litigation and for no other purpose.”

 

The filmmakers said that they want to reach out to the subscribers directly in order to verify that WOW! took measures to address repeat infringers. This reason was also cited by Judge Hegarty when he ruled on the order.

 

“Plaintiffs want to be able to, in essence, cross-check whatever Defendant produces with information from the subscribers themselves.”

 

The filmmakers believe that the Internet provider isn’t being entirely forthright. Their complaint already cited two declarations from pirating WOW! subscribers, who state that the ISP never forwarded any notices to them, despite claims to the contrary.

 

Whether the Court will grant the objections and keep the identities of the objecting subscribers private has yet to be seen. In the grander scheme of things it shouldn’t matter too much, as the filmmakers still have hundreds of others they can “cross-check” things with.

 

Having spent billions on development and marketing over decades, companies like Microsoft dominate important sections of the software market.

 

As a result, in some business and educational environments use of Microsoft software is effectively mandatory, leaving consumers with little room to consider alternatives or negotiate a discount.

 

Pirate sites are always an option but many consumers feel that a genuine product bought at a discounted price is a safer and more honest option. What some don’t know is that through the actions of others, they may be paying to access unlicensed software that is no more legal than a download from The Pirate Bay.

Microsoft Files Copyright Lawsuit

In a complaint filed at a Washington court this week, Microsoft targets Canadian company The Search People Enterprises Ltd (TSPE), assumed director Mehtabjit Singh, and ‘John Doe’ defendants 1-10.

 

The defendants are described as prolific distributors of “black market access devices”, aka activation keys and tokens for Microsoft software. Those who bought keys and tokens may have been under the impression that they were purchasing official software but as Microsoft explains, that is not only misleading but a mischaracterization of the things they were sold.

Background: Keys and Tokens Are Not Licenses

Microsoft says that it develops software and distributes digital downloads using its own site and those of other vendors. Importantly, Microsoft stresses that it does not sell software; it offers licenses that enable people to use its software, under a set of strict terms and conditions.

 

Products including Microsoft Office, Project, Visio, Windows 10, and Windows 11 are all subject to licensing terms that restrict how the products can be used. Microsoft can also provide a product activation key to be entered as part of the installation process, with data about the activation sent to the company’s servers.

 

Like software tokens, which enable downloads and automatic software activation, activation keys are anti-piracy tools, and exchanging money for them is not the same as buying a license. Indeed, Microsoft makes itself very clear – the activation of a piece of software means nothing in the absence of a license.

 

Microsoft’s problem is that product activation keys can be ‘decoupled’ from the software they were meant to authorize and then reused to activate more copies of the software, in some cases more copies than the attached Microsoft license permits. As a result, there is a global black market for activation keys which are sold to often unsuspecting consumers who then download official software from Microsoft, without buying a license.

Device Peddlers Enabled Piracy

According to Microsoft, the defendants engaged in “widespread marketing” that enabled the illegal sale of Microsoft’s activation keys and tokens through the websites softwarekeep.com, softwarekeep.ca, saveonit.com and catsoft.co. Once the keys were purchased, customers were given links to download the software either directly from Microsoft or from sites hosting counterfeit copies.

 

Between September 2020 and January 2022, Microsoft made a number of test purchases including Office Professional Plus, Office Home & Student, and Windows 10 and 11 Professional. These confirmed the sale of activation keys, software tokens, and the supply of instructions to illegally download Microsoft software.

 

“In either instance, copying software from these sites constitutes the infringement of Microsoft’s copyright-protected software which Defendants induced, enabled, facilitated, and proximately caused,” the complaint reads.

 

In other words, since people who bought keys did not buy a license, downloading the software from anywhere and making a local copy amounted to piracy. Microsoft doesn’t appear interested in chasing consumers but the software giant wants to hold the defendants liable for their customers’ unintentional piracy.

Contributory Copyright Infringement

“Defendants’ customers unwittingly have infringed and continue to infringe Microsoft’s copyright-protected software by using unauthorized access devices to download, copy, and activate Microsoft software,” Microsoft continues.

 

“Defendants and the Doe Defendants materially contributed to their customers’ infringement by knowingly and intentionally sourcing and reselling decoupled product keys to be used by their customers to facilitate the downloading, copying, and activation of Microsoft’s copyright-protected software from unauthorized and counterfeit download sites.”

 

Microsoft says it’s entitled to recover its actual damages and profits attributable to the defendants’ infringement. Alternatively, Microsoft is entitled to seek $150,000 in statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c) for each willful infringement.

Additional Causes of Action

Microsoft continues with a claim for trademark infringement due to the defendants using its product logos to advertise and sell keys to activate counterfeit and unlicensed software.

 

“Defendants’ activities are likely to lead others to conclude, incorrectly, that the infringing materials that Defendants are advertising, marketing, installing, offering, and distributing originate with or are authorized by Microsoft, thereby harming Microsoft, its licensees, and the public,” Microsoft adds.

 

The complaint concludes with additional causes of action including false designation of origin, false and misleading representations and descriptions of fact, trade dress infringement, and a request for an injunction.

 

Microsoft’s complaint can be found here (pdf)

 

Few people need to be reminded of the massive success story attached to HBO’s hit TV series, Game of Thrones.

 

Aside from massive viewing numbers, the fantasy drama generated headlines due to various piracy-related controversies, including leaked episodes and the setting of piracy records, with the latter responsible for a global surge in internet traffic.

 

HBO took all of this in its stride early on and at one point an executive even described massive piracy as a ‘compliment‘. Almost a decade later a new controversy has hit HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragons, even before its official release.

 

This time around, HBO seems done with the flattery.

Reddit User Spills The Beans

Reddit’s /r/freefolk subreddit describes itself as a “wide open and minimally moderated subreddit” where Game of Thrones and related leaks can be discussed. Minimal moderation may be the aim but there are limits on what people can post to Reddit and live to tell the tale.

 

Last week a user called ‘hotdleaks’ kicked up a storm with a post titled: ‘Leaked plot summary for every episode of House of the Dragon’. According to various comments, the post delivered on its promises but not everyone was convinced of its credibility.

 

Soon after, however, Reddit suspended the ‘hotdleaks‘ account.

 

An account suspension can be a pretty good sign that a nerve has been touched somewhere. Brand new user ‘hotdleak2’, who posted just after ‘hotdleaks’ was suspended, seemed to agree. “HOTD LEAKS VERIFIED BY COPYRIGHT STRIKE” they declared, before continuing the suspended user’s work.

 

Not long after ‘hotdleak2‘ was suspended too. “My original account just got removed by Reddit’s legal team. How do you address this?” they wrote.

 

Perhaps the bigger question related to who ordered the account suspensions. After scouring court records in the US, we can now confirm that this time around, HBO isn’t taking copyright infringment as a compliment.

HBO Sent Multiple DMCA notices to Reddit

Documents filed at a court in California by Home Box Office, Inc. feature a declaration by Patrick Perkins, Senior Vice President, Chief Intellectual Property Counsel for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Perkins reveals that one of his responsibilities is anti-piracy enforcement for HBO.

 

The filing includes 20 pages of communications with Reddit beginning August 4, 2022, and relate to several DMCA takedown notices sent by Warner. The initial notice targets the original post made by ‘hotdleaks’ alongside a claim that it contained a “Leaked full summary of episode 1 of the upcoming HBO series HOUSE OF THE DRAGON”

 

“Please remove immediately,” the notice added.

 

Subsequent DMCA notices targeting dozens of Reddit posts are less specific, citing “Leaked plot information for the upcoming HBO original series HOUSE OF THE DRAGON” as the reason for takedown. But in this context, that’s not the most important thing about these notices.

 

By first sending notifications to Reddit and then presenting them to the court, HBO can request a DMCA subpoena that requires Reddit to hand over the details of alleged infringers. And that’s exactly what the company is doing.

HBO Wants The Leaker’s Personal Details

Technically speaking HBO could do a sweep of the many users responsible for posting or reposting House of the Dragon leaks on Reddit but instead it appears to have just two users in mind. The accounts probably relate to the same person but if the court grants the DMCA subpoena and Reddit doesn’t fight it, HBO will be in a good position to find out for sure.

 

Citing 17 U.S. Code § 512, HBO says the court must order Reddit to disclose identifying information on the operators of the above usernames, from “any and all sources.” In any event the information should include names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, account numbers, IP addresses and all other contact information.

 

What HBO will do with the information is unknown, but it must only be used to protect its copyrights. For the Reddit user/s targeted, that probably won’t be much of a comfort.

 

The application and proposed DMCA subpoena can be found here (1,2,3, pdf)

 

The U.S. Government regularly goes after copyright-infringing companies and individuals, both domestically and abroad.

 

That doesn’t mean that there are no copyright issues within its own ranks.

 

Six years ago the US Navy was sued for mass copyright infringement by German software vendor Bitmanagement, which requested hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Software Company Sues US Navy

The lawsuit is not a typical piracy case in the sense that Navy officers downloaded software from shady sources, but the end result is the same.

 

It all started in 2011 when the US Navy began testing Bitmanagement’s 3D virtual reality application ‘BS Contact Geo’. After some testing, the Navy installed the software across its network, assuming that it had permission to do so.

 

This turned out to be a crucial misunderstanding. Bitmanagement said it had never authorized this type of use and when it heard that the Navy had installed the software on 558,466 computers, the company took legal action.

Bitmanagement Wins Appeal

At the United States Court of Federal Claims, the German company accused the US Navy of mass copyright infringement. The Court initially dismissed the complaint but Bitmanagement appealed, with success.

 

Last year, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the software company, concluding that the US Government is indeed liable.

 

This meant that the matter was referred back to the Federal Claims court, to determine the appropriate damages amount. This resulted in a legal back and forth and after a trial, held behind closed doors earlier this year, the case is about to reach its conclusion.

600,000 ‘Infringing’ Copies

Unfortunately, most of the legal paperwork is sealed. However, a redacted “post-trial” brief submitted by Bitmanagement a few days ago sheds some light on the main disagreements that remain.

 

According to the software vendor, the court’s task is fairly straightforward. It’s a simple calculation that should lead to a damages award of many millions of dollars. This is based on the installed copies and the price both parties would have reached in a ‘fictitious’ negotiation.

 

“Before the Court is a simple matter of arithmetic. The Court should determine that the Navy made 600,000 infringing copies of BS Contact Geo, and that the parties would have agreed to a price of $259 per copy, for a total of $155,400,000 in damages,” the company writes.

 

This negotiation, which never happened, includes a 30% volume discount. That is a reasonable percentage, Bitmanagement argues, as it’s based on an AutoCAD software deal that actually took place.

 

“The best estimate for this volume discount is 30%, based on a similarly large Department of Defense software purchase contract for AutoCAD, a computeraided design program that enables the creation of two- and three- dimensional drawings.”

579 ‘Infringing’ Copies

The U.S. Government’s official position is not public, but the plaintiff’s filing shows that they are aiming for a substantially lower damages amount. A few weeks ago the court opened the trial record to hear Mr. Kennedy, a Government witness whose testimony was previously excluded.

 

In Mr. Kennedy’s view, the hypothetical negotiation between the Navy and Bitmanagement would have resulted in a price of up to $200 per license for just 579 licenses. These would reflect the “actual uses” of BS Contact Geo instead of the number of installs.

 

This estimate would result in ‘just’ $115,000 in damages, which is a far cry from the $155,400,000 estimated by the German software vendor.

 

Needless to say, Bitmanagement disagrees. The company says that Mr. Kennedy’s testimony shouldn’t be part of the record and characterizes his approach to damages as legally improper and unreliable. However, since it’s on the record now, the Court will take it into consideration.

 

The post-trial brief lists a variety of reasons why the “actual uses” argument is not valid. For one, it is unclear how many copies the U.S. Navy actually used as Mr. Kennedy’s calculation is based on incomplete data.

 

In addition, Bitmanagement notes that the Court has previously made it clear that the royalty base must be linked to the number of copies the Navy made, not how often they were used.

 

Even without reading the Government’s official position, it is clear that the US Court of Federal Claims has quite an important decision to make. For a relatively small company such as Bitmanagement, it will be a history-defining decision.

 

—

 

A copy of Bitmanagement’s post-trial brief is available here (pdf)

 

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

 

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

 

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

Dismissal and Do-Over

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies. The original complaint didn’t provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights.

 

This was a major setback for Bungie but the court did offer the developer the option to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after.

 

As time progresses, it’s becoming clear that both sides intend to fight this case tooth and nail. Through discovery, they hope to obtain additional information to support their respective positions. Bungie, for example, subpoenaed PayPal requesting copies of account information and other documents related to the cheat seller.

 

AimJunkies, meanwhile, is also keeping itself busy. The defendant has prepared several subpoenas, targeting Google, PayPal, and Valve, through which it hopes to gather evidence against Bungie.

Valve Subpoena

Through Valve, AimJunkies want to obtain information from the Steam platform. This includes the monthly number of Destiny 2 players going back to 2017, as well as monthly sales including merchandise.

 

The subpoena doesn’t explain what AimJunkies plan to do with this information but through a press release, the company behind the cheat seller informs TorrentFreak that it could help to disprove Bungie’s argument that cheaters hurt the company.

 

“Bungie claims that we caused grievous harm to their game when in fact some of their most popular months of player counts and sales were during the time Aimjunkies offered their software products. We believe and intend to gather actionable proof of that and disprove another one of their wild assertions,” Phoenix Digital notes

 

In addition to the sales figures, AimJunkies also request all information held by Steam and Valve on Phoenix Digital and several key people involved with the cheat developer.

Decompiling and Overlays

The PayPal and Google subpoenas are harder to interpret at first glance. They request information on a person named “Martin Zeniu,” who has no web presence. The Google subpoena also targets someone with a “jesuslover” username.

 

The same two targets, one of whom appears to be connected to Bungie, also show up in the Valve subpoena. While AimJunkies is yet to reveal its concrete intentions, there’s a suggestion that someone may have violated the terms of service of their cheat software.

 

“Phoenix Digital Group will prosecute individuals or companies who violated our Copyrights and Terms Of Service to the fullest extent of the law and this is the first step down that path,” the company notes.

 

“We believe on information and belief an un-named employee/contractor for a un-named company purchased Aimjunkies software and turned it over to their employer to decompile and analyze. We intend to subpoena documents with actionable information to answer these questions.”

 

The cheat maker further suggests that the in-game “overlays” its software offered are not illegal. Other services, including Steam, offer the same. To show this, the Valve subpoena requests overlay source code used by the Steam platform, including that relating to the file “GameOverlayRenderer.dll”.

 

The above shows that AimJunkies isn’t intimidated by the legal battle. The company believes that Bungie has a rather weak case and seems confident that it will emerge victorious.

 

—

 

The subpoena documents referenced in this article are available here (1, 2, 3)

 

Despite taking significant action to reduce all kinds of online piracy, Brazil remains on the United States Trade Representative’s ‘Watch List‘. Lack of effort doesn’t appear to be the problem, however.

 

The São Paulo Court of Justice ordered major ISPs to block file-hosting platform Mega in 2019, but within days the ruling was overturned. That didn’t matter too much though as much bigger things lay ahead.

 

Last year Brazil filed a criminal complaint against Yout.com, a stream-ripping site currently in a legal spat with the RIAA in the United States. The platform was blocked by ISPs and this June, Yout’s operator was offered a deal that would see him avoid prison but take on additional risks.

 

Brazilian authorities are currently immersed in Operation 404, a campaign to seriously disrupt the IPTV and web streaming piracy landscape. This year alone there have been multiple arrests, domain seizures, and claims that hundreds of apps have been taken down or blocked.

 

But with basics such as removing piracy apps from Google Play apparently still an issue, Brazil says its now ready to commit to a program of ISP blocking to prevent IPTV and other streaming-based piracy. In previous cases the courts were involved and while that might still be required initially, so-called ‘administrative blocking’ could be just around the corner.

Agencies Team Up to Streamline Blocking

The project is the work of ‘Ancine‘ (Agência Nacional do Cinema) and telecoms regulator Anatel (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações). Both are administratively independent agencies, with the former operating under the supervision of Brazil’s Ministry of Culture and the latter operating under powers inherited from the Ministry of Communications.

 

Since 2018, Brazil’s Plano de Ação de Combate à Pirataria (Action Plan to Combat Piracy/PACP) has sought to counter the country’s piracy problems but with support from ABTA, the Brazilian Pay TV/Telecom Association (Associação Brasileira de Televisão por Assinatura), Ancine and Anatel want a rapid and streamlined ISP blocking system.

 

Commenting on the agency’s involvement in Operation 404, last month Anatel’s Superintendent of Inspection, Hermano Tercius, said that site-blocking had been taking place “in a judicial way” but a system without such complications would be better placed to combat piracy. Those sentiments have been around for some time but the pieces are now falling into place.

Blocking Program Formalized

During the Pay-TV Forum event in São Paulo last week, a joint Anatel/Anacine announcement revealed that the proposal had cleared Ancine’s technical department and been approved by its directors. From there it was received by Anatel, with Vice-President Moisés Queiroz confirming that following a consolidation process, things should move quickly.

 

“We are formalizing the technical cooperation agreement, which has already been approved by Ancine’s board, is now in Anatel’s technical area and will go up to the Board of Directors, where it will certainly be approved as well,” Queiroz said.

 

Ancine director Tiago Mafra dos Santos said that a strategy that takes advantage of the tools available to both regulatory agencies will prove most effective.

 

“Ancine cannot walk alone, and neither can Anatel. There are functions of both that compliment each other. There is no content distribution without going through telecommunications,” he said.

 

The details of the blocking program were not revealed but given that executives from Anatal will travel to Europe in September, that provides more than a nod towards the model they hope to emulate.

Portugal – The ‘Gold Standard’ in ISP Blocking

It’s not just the shared language that makes Portugal a destination for Anatel. Portugal’s administrative site-blocking scheme is operated with assistance from the Inspectorate General for Cultural Activities (IGAC) and is designed to deal with copyright complaints quickly and without judicial oversight.

 

Each month, anti-piracy group MAPiNET is able to report up to 100 websites to IGAC, which carries out an evaluation within 48 hours. Once approved for blocking, the list is sent local ISPs to implement a DNS blocking regime within another 48 hours. In 2018, the program was updated to deal with “live blocking”, i.e dealing with IPTV providers offering live sports and similar time-sensitive content.

 

This entirely voluntary system is supported by rightsholders, advertisers and trade associations, plus every major ISP in Portugal. It is viewed by rightsholders as a particularly effective system to reduce infringement and due to standardization, is both predictable and cheap, especially when compared with court processes that can turn out to be neither.

 

Anatel representatives will also travel to Spain where the country’s Sinde Law and voluntary arrangements facilitate administrative blocking. It’s a little early for certainties but it seems likely that rightsholders would prefer Brazil to follow the Portuguese model when blocking is implemented in 2023, as the current plan envisions.

WIPO – Advisory Committee on Enforcement

In the meantime, Brazil is one of four countries set to share its anti-piracy experiences during the fifteenth session of WIPO’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement which begins late August in Geneva.

 

A document made available in advance of the event features contributions from Eduardo Luiz Perfeito Carneiro, Head of Anti-Piracy at Ancine, and Brazil’s National Council for Combating Piracy and Intellectual Property Crimes (CNCP).

 

Summary of key points as follows (all in respect of Ancine activities):

 

• Full access to data held by federal government agencies
• Access to data held by movie and TV show companies on piracy activities
• Already blocked 1,000+ streaming sites (Operation 404)
• Assists police during the execution of search-and-seizure warrants
• 1.5 million illegal streaming devices seized in 2020-2021
• Some ‘illegal devices’ donated to schools, hospitals, police
• Since joining WIPO Alert, 300 pirate sites listed for advertising boycotts
• Brazil’s site blocking plans ‘inspired’ by blocking in the UK and Portugal
• Quick and Effective site blocking may be the only way to contain piracy

 

The WIPO document is available here (pdf)

 

In April 2022, several Hollywood studios and Netflix won an injunction to shut down PrimeWire, a long-standing illegal streaming site and continuous thorn in the side of the MPA.

 

The injunction was granted after the studios filed a massive copyright infringement lawsuit against PrimeWire in 2021. It aimed to close the platform down for a good after close to a decade of disruption activity against the site produced somewhat limited results. This time around the studios have the upper hand but not without some complications.

PrimeWire Inactive But Domains Mostly Intact

After the injunction was handed down the US, PrimeWire initially took no action but eventually modified its operations and pledged to offer a legitimate service.

 

The studios didn’t believe a single word and moved to seize new domain PrimeWire.tf, hoping to add it to a list of other PrimeWire domains already subject to disabling and seizure. On that front, PrimeWire.ag and .vc are non-operational but PrimeWire.li and PrimeWireStatus.org remain in use.

 

At the time of writing the same is true for PrimeWire.tf but last month a new domain entered the mix.

The Rapid Rise and Fall of HydraWire

At the end of May, the MPA’s anti-piracy team became of a new site called HydraWire. Its .tv domain had been registered a day after the MPA won its preliminary injunction in April and as far as the studios were concerned, this was just PrimeWire by another name.

 

Evidence presented in court made that assertion difficult to challenge but with the site gaining traffic, it needed to be stopped as soon as possible. The studios decided that HydraWire.tv should be added to the now permanent injunction but perhaps didn’t anticipate what came next.

 

On July 19 and on behalf of the studios, an attorney at law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP submitted a message via the contact form at HydraWire giving notice of their upcoming motion.

 

In common with the people behind PrimeWire, who haven’t appeared in court but have communicated anonymously with the plaintiffs, the alleged owner of HydraWire also responded anonymously two days later. The message was that the intentions of HydraWire’s operator had been misunderstood by the plaintiffs.

 

“The sender of this email claims to have launched HydraWire. They say they did so because they ‘saw an opportunity to have a website with lot(s) of visitors’ and ‘wanted to continue [PrimeWire’s] legacy’,” the studios informed the court this week.

 

“The emailer then said they had ‘shut down hydrawire for good’ and offered to ‘transfer the domain’ to Plaintiffs.”

HydraWire Throws in the Towel

Swift resolutions haven’t featured prominently in the case thus far so the MPA’s anti-piracy team wasted no time in seizing the opportunity.

 

“In an effort to put a temporary stop to this latest infringement of their rights, Plaintiffs accepted the transfer of the domain and took control of the domain, which is now offline,” the studios reveal.

 

Jan Van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection, reveals the process began quickly and was over in a week.

 

“On or about July 23, 2022, GCP investigators used the authorization code provided in correspondence from [email address] to initiate a transfer of the hydrawire.tv domain to the MPA’s control. On or about August 1, 2022, GCP investigators confirmed that hydrawire.tv has been transferred to the MPA,” his declaration reads.

MPA Still Wants HydraWire.tv Added to Injunction

While this domain takeover was comparatively easy, the studios are still taking time to keep the court informed of every new detail. They’re also building a pretty solid picture of the plaintiffs doing everything by the book and the defendants falling short in every possible way.

 

Aside from PrimeWire’s general failure to appear, the studios strongly suspect that by following the PrimeWire ‘playbook’ of apparent capitulation in the face of an injunction, those behind HydraWire betrayed their connections. The MPA’s anti-piracy team appear unable to prove they’ve been talking to the same people but for now at least, that doesn’t matter.

 

The plaintiffs say that HydraWire was inspired by PrimeWire and was designed to continue its legacy. Text from PrimeWire was duplicated on HydraWire and there was a feature for PrimeWire users to migrate their libraries across. The very appearance of HydraWire showed disrespect for the court injunction and at any minute it could reappear under a new domain to rinse and repeat, they add.

 

“For these reasons, as well as those stated in Plaintiffs’ motion, Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court grant their motion to modify the permanent injunction and extend the time for Defendants to take discovery in support of their damages claims,” the motion concludes.

 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this and earlier motions is the determination of the MPA to punish any move designed to breathe new life into PrimeWire. It’s certainly possible that other ventures under different branding are already making headway but, given the pressure, the original PrimeWire seems unlikely to have a future in any obviously recognizable form.

 

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

 

As the first major legal subscription streaming service on the Internet, Netflix paved the way for a streaming revolution.

 

The company began competing with piracy from the get-go, branding itself as a superior alternative. In the early years, the strategy paid off.

 

Millions of subscribers switched from casually consuming pirated content on unlicensed platforms in favor of a convenient and reasonably-priced legal alternative. Piracy never went away, but downloading Netflix content illegally seemed silly.

Streaming Wars

In the years that followed the legal streaming landscape became more crowded. Inspired by Netflix’s success, new streaming portals such as Amazon, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+, and Peacock started competing for a share of the lucrative streaming market.

 

The media often refers to this competition as the “streaming wars,” but the real threat may not come from legal streaming services but illegal pirate sites.

 

The suggestion that “subscription fatigue” may motivate people to start pirating again isn’t new. We have highlighted this issue in the past and it has been confirmed by research, but it’s now reaching a point where it’s hard for Hollywood to ignore.

 

Piracy tracking firm MUSO recognizes the problem too. In addition to doing anti-piracy work for major copyright holders, the UK company also helps major players such as Amazon, Lionsgate, and Sony, to understand the latest piracy trends.

Piracy is Appealing Once Again

In an op-ed, MUSO CEO Andy Chatterley highlights that increased fragmentation in the streaming ecosystem, paired with higher prices, is starting to make piracy more appealing again. And without an option to pay for everything, people are seeking out alternatives.

 

“[F]aced with an increasingly fractured streaming landscape, the consumer does the math and realizes that having access to all the shows they want to watch is not a justifiable expense when their grocery bill has doubled and they’re cycling or carpooling to work to save money on fuel,” Chatterley says.

 

“And in the absence of a one-stop shop like Spotify is to music lovers, and now that piracy sites have evolved to become sophisticated, easy-to-use experiences, people who have never resorted to piracy before are finding it more appealing than ever. Everything you could ever want to watch, all in one place, only a few clicks away and all for free. What’s not to like?”

Netflix Piracy Thrives

Chatterley notes that copyright holders should be aware of this potential shift in user behavior, which is backed up by data. Earlier this year Netflix reported that its subscriber numbers had dropped for the first time in history and piracy continues to grow.

 

According to MUSO’s data, Netflix content was good for an 11.4% U.S. piracy market share in June. Globally, this number is even higher, with Netflix content making up 16% of the worldwide piracy demand.

 

“Now, imagine if they could convert those pirate consumers into paying customers,” Chatterley comments.

 

MUSO’s messaging is in part out of self-interest as the company offers piracy insights as a commercial service. This is serious business for Muso. Just last week the company announced that it had secured a $3.9M investment from Puma Private Equity.

A One-Stop Streaming Solution?

That said, the fact that a company working with several Hollywood players is prepared to highlight the dangers of too many subscriptions is quite something. Especially when that company started as a fairly traditional anti-piracy outfit roughly a decade ago.

 

Instead of pointing a finger at pirates, Chatterley focuses more on the shortcomings of the TV and movie industry. Piracy can be lowered by offering a one-stop solution for a fair price but somehow that seems to be a pipe dream.

 

“By offering a service that is both comprehensive and good value for money, you render piracy a much less attractive option,” he writes.

 

“But with content providers investing billions in their platforms and determined to keep their shows exclusive to them, this seems fanciful. And so the drop off in subscribers seems set to continue, with piracy sites continuing to welcome them with open arms,” Chatterley concludes.

 

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 four newcomers on the list. “Minions: The Rise of Gru” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on August 08 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Minions: The Rise of Gru	6.7 / trailer
1	(2)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
3	(…)	Prey	7.3 / trailer
4	(3)	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	7.2 / trailer
5	(2)	The Gray Man	6.6 / trailer
6	(7)	Lightyear	5.3 / trailer
7	(…)	Luck	6.4 / trailer
8	(6)	The Black Phone	7.1 / trailer
9	(5)	Thor: Love and Thunder	6.9 / trailer
10	(…)	Elvis	7.7 / trailer

 

 

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

 

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

 

The group, which receives support from Hollywood and other content industries, has a track record of targeting a wide range of piracy threats, both large and small.

 

While most of these anti-piracy actions are the result of in-house investigative work, BREIN certainly doesn’t shy away from court appearances, where setting a favorable precedent is seen as more important than obtaining monetary damages.

 

This week, the group announced its latest annual report, providing insights into the priorities of the organization and the progress being made.

349 Shutdowns

Looking at the numbers we see that the anti-piracy group has closed the books on a rather productive year. In total, it completed 368 investigations which resulted in the shutdown of 349 illegal sites and services.

 

These targets include 179 Pirate Bay proxies, 39 streaming sites, and 38 heavy uploaders, plus open directories, Facebook groups, and sellers of illegal IPTV subscriptions.

 

In addition, over 650,169 links to pirate sites were removed from third-party search engines such as Google.

 

BREIN also kept a close eye on advertisements for pirate services and other illegal offerings. A total of 3,210 advertisements were flagged and reported, while 18 persistent advertisers were identified and stopped.

Pirate Bay Blockade Expands

The above numbers surely make a difference but there is more to report. Following ten years of legal action, in 2020 BREIN finally won the site-blocking battle in the Netherlands and last year this blockade was strengthened.

 

In November, BREIN signed a deal with all large Dutch Internet providers to streamline the blocking process. Through this “Website Blocking Covenant,” the Internet providers promise to block pirate sites when rightsholders obtain a blocking order against one of the other ISPs.

 

While not mentioned in BREIN’s annual report, the group booked another significant blocking victory last year. Following a notice from BREIN, Google voluntarily removed all Pirate Bay URLs from its search results in the Netherlands.

 

The blocking doesn’t stop at The Pirate Bay either. In 2021, BREIN initiated a new legal proceeding to block six additional torrent sites. That effort eventually resulted in a new blocking order against the ISP Delta a few months ago, which was voluntarily adopted by other ISPs.

Camcording, Settlements and Warnings

Aside from the blocking action, BREIN also took a variety of other enforcement actions. The group investigated six illegal cam recordings that appeared to originate from Dutch movie theaters. This investigation, which also involves the MPA, remains pending.

 

The anti-piracy group further reports that 54 settlements were reached with pirates, while 18 received a house visit, often with help from a debt collector. The targets often include site operators or people who make pirated content available.

 

Amidst all the positive achievements, there was also a setback. Several years ago BREIN initiated a campaign to identify heavy BitTorrent uploaders so they could be warned and educated. Thus far, the first warning is yet to go out.

 

The annual report notes that 920 persistent uploaders have been identified by their IP addresses thus far but Internet provider Ziggo is refusing to forward infringement notices. Ziggo has a court decision in its favor but that is under appeal and may eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

 

DISH Network’s campaign against the pirate IPTV ecosystem is large but also unique. Anyone involved, from the biggest fish to the smallest fry, is a potential target.

 

From those who capture or distribute streams to those who sell, resell, or buy them, DISH and partner Nagrastar can easily come up with a tailored cash settlement or a full-blown lawsuit. For any entity facilitating any of the above, the same also holds true.

DISH Targets CDN Company DataCamp

In February, DISH filed a lawsuit at an Illinois district court against UK-based CDN/hosting company DataCamp (d/b/a CDN77 and DataPacket). The broadcaster claimed that IPTV providers Banjo TV, Bollywood IPTV, Comstar TV, Express IPTV, Gennie TV, Gold TV, IPGuys, Istar, Red IPTV, Sky IPTV, and Zumm TV, used DataCamp services that were designed with IPTV/OTT delivery in mind.

 

While that in itself raises no legal issues, DISH claimed that despite sending hundreds of DMCA notices to DataCamp, the company “deliberately refused” to take reasonable steps to prevent IPTV providers’ ongoing infringement using its services. Blocking or the enforcement of a repeat infringer policy were both options, DISH said, but instead DataCamp did nothing, “because it wanted to maintain the revenue that would come from the accounts.”

 

DISH believes that inaction cost DataCamp its ‘safe harbor’ protections so the company should be held liable for contributory infringement. Since money was made from those infringements, the matter of vicarious liability also enters the mix, leading DISH to demand at least $32.5m in damages.

 

It’s no surprise that DataCamp’s response paints a completely different picture.

Targeting DataCamp is a ‘Tactical Leverage’ Strategy

In a memorandum supporting a motion to dismiss filed on August 5, DataCamp describes the DISH lawsuit as a means to “gain tactical leverage” over alleged direct infringers, i.e the people behind the named IPTV providers. DataCamp says that DISH seeks to impose “unprecedented liability” over the alleged infringements of third parties but with no knowledge of such infringement, the CDN company carries no responsibility.

 

“Instead of seeking out the alleged infringers of its works, Plaintiff attempts to assert that DataCamp ‘materially assists’ the alleged Pirate Services’ infringement and, in the process, conflates the two separate businesses named in this action: CDN77 and DataPacket,” DataCamp’s motion reads.

Encryption: No Access, No Knowledge

In respect of the IPTV providers listed in the complaint, DataCamp says that DISH “fails to, and cannot allege” that any are or were customers of CDN77. ‘DataPacket‘ is a server and connectivity provider designed to shift subscriber data across the internet, DataCamp adds, noting that the provider’s only responsibility to customers is to ensure it stays connected to the internet.

 

“DataPacket has no access, let alone involvement, with the software those subscribers install. Nor does DataPacket maintain any access to the material displayed or viewed by end-users of its network, which is completely encrypted,” its motion to dismiss reads.

 

“Because DataPacket is merely a server provider, it has no more involvement in the alleged infringement than a hardware manufacturer providing a direct infringer with computers and routers, a power utility company providing a direct infringer with electricity, or a web-hosting service providing a direct infringer with a web address.”

‘Contributory Copyright Infringement Claim Fails’

Under United States copyright law a defendant is liable for contributory copyright infringement when it has knowledge of infringing activity carried out by a third party and “induces, causes or materially contributes” to the infringing conduct.

 

DataCamp says that a finding of liability requires knowledge of “specific infringing uses” of its technology, evidenced by the “ability to monitor or control” infringing content. Since DISH’s complaint acknowledges that DataCamp’s IPTV provider customers “encrypt their streams so that only [their] subscription paying customers can view them,” that limits DataCamp’s knowledge.

 

“Even if DataCamp could view the data passing through the alleged Pirate Services to those companies’ customers— which it cannot — DataCamp would be wholly unable to discern what content the data includes or where that data is being routed. It is technologically impossible for DataCamp to have actual knowledge that specific infringing material was available using its network,” the company adds.

DMCA Notices: Actual Knowledge of Specific Infringement?

DISH claims that it sent hundreds of DMCA notices to DataCamp relating to the conduct of its pirate IPTV provider customers. Do these notices provide evidence that the IPTV providers infringed “DISH’s exclusive public performance rights” and were engaged in “repeated and willful” copyright infringement? Do they show that DataCamp had actual knowledge of specific infringement? DataCamp doesn’t think so.

 

“Infringement notices sent to service providers like DataCamp do not constitute ‘notice of any specific acts of
infringement,’ regardless of the number of notices sent, but instead ‘gives at most a general knowledge that infringement will likely occur again in the future’,” DataCamp notes, citing a 2020 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

“[Infringement notices] are therefore insufficient to sustain a claim for contributory copyright infringement.”

 

Turning to DISH’s allegations that DataCamp failed to remove or disable content identified in the notices, the CDN company says that contributory copyright infringement cannot be based merely on a “failure to take affirmative steps to prevent infringement” unless there is evidence of intentional infringement.

 

“[A] computer system operator such as DataCamp which merely provides a network of servers for its customers, is not liable for contributory infringement where it takes the ‘simple measure’ of forwarding notices of claimed infringement to the alleged infringer,” the company writes.

 

“DataCamp has satisfied this requirement, and Plaintiff does not dispute it, acknowledging DataCamp’s correspondence that it ‘forwarded the notice(s) to the responsible customer to remove the infringing content’.”

‘Vicarious Copyright Infringement Claim Fails’

In response to DISH’s claim of vicarious copyright infringement, DataCamp says DISH must show that the defendant had the right and ability to supervise the infringing conduct and had a direct financial interest in the infringing activity.

 

DataCamp says it can’t monitor customers if their activities are encrypted and if it had terminated entire customer accounts (which in turn could have customers of their own, wholly engaged in legal activity), that would’ve been an imprecise, overbroad, and unworkable solution. In any event, DISH failed to evidence any direct financial benefit to DataCamp.

 

“It is of course no surprise that Plaintiff has not adequately alleged that DataCamp receives a direct financial benefit from the alleged infringements because it cannot. DataCamp receives payments from its customers to utilize its server network, but such payments have no relation to the content, infringing or not, produced by end-users,” the company adds.

 

In closing, DataCamp reminds the Court that “permitting such bald and faulty allegations to proceed here” would set a precedent affecting many other companies operating similar networked server access, with Amazon, Digital Ocean, Leaseweb and OVH as just a few examples.

 

To avoid that, the complaint should be dismissed, DataCamp concludes.

 

DataCamp’s motion to dismiss and memorandum can be found here (1,2, pdf)

 

In today’s ‘click-and-play’ world, almost anyone can launch their own pirate site.

 

Servers ready to accept self-installing scripts are available in minutes, and for those with no time to source movies and TV shows, there’s no shortage of suppliers ready to sell access to vast libraries in a similar timeframe.

 

At the other end of the market, cutting costs to maximize slender advertising revenues appears to be more important than a glossy user experience.

Court Filing Targets Streaming Sites

In a DMCA subpoena application filed at a California court this week, the MPA (on behalf of anti-piracy group Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) highlighted the piracy problems faced by companies including Paramount, Sony, Universal, Disney, Warner, Amazon and Netflix.

 

Seeking the court-ordered cooperation of Cloudflare, MPA/ACE requested information on a number of pirate streaming sites, including the personal details of their operators. As a normal part of the investigation process, this is nothing new for ACE. However, a couple of details do catch the eye as being somewhat out of the ordinary.

 

Two of the domains listed in the application are TVConnexion.com and TeleBunker.com. When combined the sites offer dozens of live TV channels from companies including Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros. and HBO – a perfect recipe for appearing on the ACE radar.

 

ACE informed the court that the sites offered infringing copies of the movies Suicide Squad and Salt, plus TV shows Gold Rush and Deadliest Catch. The court documents show that the named sites didn’t host any video content since both rely on third-party hosting sites to supply content.

Cut-Price Pirates Like Free Streams

The stream URLs listed in the court documents no longer function but when they did, they linked to video streamed live from Twitch’s servers.

 

Further investigation suggests that the sites named by ACE rely on what appears to be a dedicated pool of Twitch user accounts set up for the purposes of streaming or restreaming live TV channels.

 

The names of the Twitch user accounts involved aren’t especially important for the purposes of this article, but it’s likely that MPA/ACE’s 100-strong investigating team has them all in a list by now with plenty of supporting evidence.

 

And since this is Twitch, evidence isn’t hard to find.

Unlike Many Pirate Servers, Twitch Loves Logging

While pirate streaming servers certainly have the ability to log who does what and when, it’s extremely unlikely that precision logging is high on the list of priorities. But, as the image below shows, Twitch loves to log information and sites like StreamsCharts are more than happy to present it elegantly.

 

The image above shows the stats of just one of the many accounts being used to stream TV shows to the sites listed in the ACE/MPA subpoena. With this one alone having clocked up almost 46,000 hours of viewing time in just 30 days, overall consumption is likely to be pretty high.

 

Quite why ACE/MPA haven’t gone after these Twitch accounts rather than the web pages embedding their streams is unknown, but it’s clear that the studios believe the portals are linked. Indeed, evidence of that is in plentiful supply.

 

In addition to channel sources and analytics accounts, advertising affiliates are shared across multiple domains. Perhaps a bit too early to say but there’s probably more useful information available in the public domain than the fake details Cloudflare probably has in hand.

Other Sites in the Same DMCA Subpoena

Ver-television.online is listed as an infringer of the movies Suicide Squad and Changeling. It’s quite a popular site with around four million visits per month per SimilarWeb stats.

 

The subpoena application seeks information from Cloudflare relating to the domain operator. The site itself appears to be located on the development platform Replit and offers access to a wide range of live TV channels.

 

Three similar domains – Cablegratis.online, Cablegratishd.online and Cablegratistv.online – enjoy around 1.5 million visits per month and also get a mention in the subpoena. They are joined by the unusually comprehensive streaming portal Televisiongratisenvivo.com.

 

One additional domain is mentioned in the subpoena as a backend source for streaming site Teleullenvivo.com but it raises a couple of suspicions so we won’t reproduce it here.

 

The ACE/MPA subpoena to Cloudflare can be found here (pdf)

 

With datacenters in Europe, Asia and the United States, Leaseweb is a big player in the hosting space.

 

The Dutch company has thousands of customers that come in all shapes and sizes. This includes some that are labeled as pirate sites or otherwise find themselves accused of copyright infringement.

 

This hasn’t gone unnoticed. Ten years ago it was revealed that Megaupload hosted hundreds of servers at Leaseweb and, at one point, Hollywood even considered taking the company to court. That plan never was never realized but the complaints didn’t disappear either.

Lawsuit over Hosting Infringing Sites

A few weeks ago, photographer Barry Rosen took action against the unknown operators of the websites idposter.com, nposter.com and celebposter.com. These sites allegedly sell infringing copies of his copyrighted works as posters and other merchandise.

 

The complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, also added Leaseweb into the mix as the only named defendant. According to the photographer, the hosting company failed to take the sites offline despite receiving many DMCA notices.

 

It is not uncommon for hosting companies to simply forward DMCA notices to customers, instead of taking customers’ sites offline. However, Rosen believes that Leaseweb should have taken action and is demanding damages that could exceed $5.5 million.

Leaseweb Responds

A few days ago the hosting company responded to the complaint. Leaseweb describes the photographer as a prolific litigant who has already filed more than 50 copyright infringement lawsuits. The cloud hosting provider notes that it is the latest target in this “litigation strategy.”

 

The fact that a rightsholder has filed numerous lawsuits doesn’t say much about the strength of the claim. However, Leaseweb goes on to argue that it’s merely a passive host that doesn’t control what content its subscribers make available.

 

“Leaseweb Entities do not have control over the content uploaded by their customers, and can only help facilitate removal of infringing content upon reasonable notice from the copyright-holder,” Leaseweb writes.

 

“Leaseweb Entities merely were passive hosts,” they add.

 

The hosting provider doesn’t go into detail on how it responds to DMCA notices but hosting companies generally don’t remove files hosted by their customers. Instead, they forward the notices so the customer can sort out the issue on their own.

Leaseweb Challenges Jurisdiction

Leaseweb’s filing isn’t meant to challenge the merits of the arguments. Instead, it asks the court to dismiss the lawsuit over a lack of personal jurisdiction, as neither the infringing sites nor the hosting company have substantial connections to California.

 

“Leaseweb NL is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and it hosts its customers/end users content on servers physically located in the Netherlands. It has no offices, property, assets, officers, or employees in the United States. It does not own or control any bank accounts in California or the U.S. and does not pay taxes here.

 

“Less than a fraction of one percent of Leaseweb NL’s customers are based in California, and neither the Leaseweb NL customer nor end user at issue in this case is based in California as far as Leaseweb NL is aware,” the company adds.

 

The hosting provider does have a US presence in the form of Leaseweb USA Inc, which is based in Delaware. This company also has two data centers in California but none of the allegedly infringing sites were hosted there, the company says.

 

To establish jurisdiction, the photographer has to show that Leaseweb purposefully directed any activities at California. In addition, it has to be clear that the infringing activities have a connection to California. Neither is the case here, according to Leaseweb.

 

Interestingly, Leaseweb is open to litigating this case in the Netherlands, but whether the photographer is up for that is doubtful. Before that becomes an issue, however, the court should rule on the motion to dismiss.

 

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A copy of Leaseweb’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit for a lack of personal jurisdiction is available here (pdf)