Over the past year, a group of independent movie companies filed a series of lawsuits against VPN providers.

 

The makers of films such as “I Feel Pretty” and “Dallas Buyers Club” accuse these services of turning a blind eye to piracy or actively promoting it.

 

Several of these lawsuits have ended in settlements, where some VPNs services agreed to block notorious pirate sites or BitTorrent traffic on US-based servers. Needless to say, these cases can have a severe impact on the companies involved.

Movie Companies Sue VeePN

In a new complaint filed at a Virginia federal court, several movie companies including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, identify VPN provider VeePN as their next target. According to the filmmakers, VeePN is actively promoting piracy, using it as a PR opportunity.

 

While not all VPN services are bad apples, VeePN is allegedly using pirates’ fear of getting caught as a marketing strategy.

 

“(s)ome unscrupulous VPN providers have taken advantage of this widely known risk by promoting their VPN services as essential tools for piracy. These VPN providers emphasize in advertisements that they delete their end users’ log access records so their identities will never be disclosed to copyright owners or law enforcement.

 

“Emboldened by these promises that their identities will never be disclosed, end users use the VPN services to engage in widespread movie piracy while openly boasting of their piracy and outrageous criminal conduct such as illegal hacking and theft,” the filmmakers add.

 

In addition to filmmakers, the Hawaiian company 42 Ventures is also listed among the plaintiffs. This company is operated by anti-piracy attorney Kerry Culpepper and owns the trademarks for “Popcorn Time”, “YTS” and “RARBG”, which VeePN allegedly misused as well.

‘Popcorn Time VPN’

The complaint sums up a long list of accusations. It also reveals that the company wasn’t targeted by coincidence, it appears to be triggered by another lawsuit; the one against VPN.ht which promoted itself as the Popcorn Time VPN.

 

Last year, VPN.ht distanced itself from the popular piracy app after running into legal issues. Soon after, VeePN started to promote itself in relation to the Popcorn Time brand, the lawsuit alleges.

 

“Barely 3 months after VPN.HT terminated its involvement with Popcorn Time, VeePN begin promoting itself as ‘Popcorn Time VPN’ and operating under a similar profitable scheme to take advantage of prolific pirates’ fear of getting caught.”

 

The complaint lists various examples including a blog post on the VeePN website where it recommends using a VPN in combination with Popcorn Time to stay out of trouble.

 

“Downloading and sharing files via torrent is a violation of copyright law. It means that you may be punished by law. That’s why you need a Popcorn Time VPN. This way, you hide your IP address and decrease the risks of getting into danger.”

‘Advertising on YTS.mx’

The issues don’t stop there, VeePN is also accused of actively advertising its services on YTS.mx, the most popular torrent site on the internet.

 

“VeePN takes it a step further and even promotes its VPN service on the notorious piracy website YTS as an essential tool to download copies of Plaintiffs’ movies without ‘…get[ting] fined by legal action!’,” the plaintiffs write.

 

The complaint notes that VeePN entered into an affiliate agreement with YTS, which promotes the VPN and gets paid for every referral. VeePN benefits from this partnership by getting more users on board.

 

Whether VeePN actively sought out YTS as a partner isn’t immediately clear from the provided evidence. Nonetheless, the plaintiffs are convinced that the company is actively targeting pirates and profiting from them.

 

To curb the pirating activity of VeePN’s users the movie companies sent hundreds or thousands of DMCA notices to its hosting company DataCamp. However, that did little to stop the infringing activity.

Millions in Copyright and Trademark Damages

In addition to the various copyright infringement allegations, VeePN is also accused of DMCA violations and trademark infringement. The latter are lodged by 42 Ventures, which argues that VeePN used its YTS, RARBG, and Popcorn Time trademarks without permission.

 

“VeePN has advertised and offered its goods and services for sale using 42’s trademarks with the intention of misleading, deceiving or confusing consumers as to the origin of its goods and of trading on Plaintiff 42’s reputation and goodwill,” the complaint reads.

 

In addition to stopping the infringing activity, the plaintiffs also demand compensation. In total, the rightsholders request $6 million in trademark damages and $3.9 million in copyright damages, bringing the total to nearly $10 million.

 

—

 

A copy of the complaint, filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, is available here (pdf)

 

Tackling online piracy is a complicated endeavor that can easily backfire. This is also true for takedown notices.

 

Week in and week out, rightsholders send millions of DMCA takedown notices to help take infringing content offline. However, there can be serious collateral damage as well.

 

In the past, there have been many examples of takedown abuse. DMCA notices have been used to silence critics, stifle competition, or earn millions of dollars by claiming ownership of content created by others.

Weaponized Takedowns

This week, Billboard highlights yet another troubling example. The music publication reports that artists are “weaponizing” false claims against rivals, taking down music that’s starting to get traction.

 

This problem isn’t limited to a single service but as one of the largest streaming services, Spotify often finds itself involved. Reports of fake or unjustified copyright claims have been circulating for many years and the situation doesn’t appear to be improving. A search on Spotify’s community site brings up several examples of people who have been targeted by false copyright claims.

 

“I’m having issues with a third party making a false copyright claim on my music. They do not have any rights in the sound recording and only make false claims out of spite,” one user writes.

No Counter Notice?

The problem with Spotify’s system is that it’s relatively easy to flag a track and have it removed. However, there is no official option for the accused party to appeal the takedown. Instead, they have to resolve the matter with the accuser directly.

 

If the accuser doesn’t respond, the artist is simply out of luck, one manager tells Billboard. This is particularly problematic for smaller artists, who don’t have a direct line to people higher up in the Spotify chain.

 

“I could just not like a record, claim it was infringing, and then not respond to [the artist behind the record] when they reach out to me,” the manager says. “Then that record would be held in purgatory unless they have a relationship with Spotify that can help them undo [the takedown].”

 

Another music manager said that roughly three weeks were spent tracking down an accuser. They stalked the claimant on Instagram and then cold-called them, in a desperate attempt to address the issue. All this time the popular track remained offline, not earning a single dime.

Room for Improvement

Spotify notes that these problematic takedowns are affecting the entire industry. The streaming service does its best to prevent abuse and will continue to make improvements.

 

“We have robust, active mitigation measures in place that identify bad actors, limit their impact, and penalize them accordingly. We are continuously evolving our efforts to limit the impact of such individuals on our service,” a spokesperson said.

 

Right now, bigger labels will find it easier to address wrongful takedowns than indie artists, which creates an unfair situation. Implementing a counter-notice system, as the DMCA prescribes, could be a good start to improve things.

 

It’s been 16 years since music industry group IFPI pressured Danish ISPs to block Russian music site AllofMP3. In 2022, most major audiovisual rightsholders are involved in the practice.

 

Pioneered by the Premier League and its anti-piracy partners, pirate IPTV injunctions now provide authority for sophisticated flexible blocking, edging ever closer to the Holy Grail of real-time stream disruption.

 

Top-tier football leagues LaLiga and Serie A share this goal but to compel ISPs to block pirate services in any way, an initial court process is a requirement in EU countries. This includes Malta where the leagues (in one case through a local rightsholder) asked the court to authorize stream disruption.

Application filed by LaLiga

A 2017 report from Malta’s Broadcasting Authority revealed that one in five households were using pirate IPTV services to access illegal streams. Three years later, Malta became entangled in ‘Operation Perfect Storm‘, a pan-European IPTV anti-piracy operation coordinated by Eurojust.

 

After blocking injunctions arrived in Malta courtesy of sports organizations, this February an agent for LaLiga filed a new application citing the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (Regulation) Act (pdf).

 

Under Article 8, rightholders can ask a court to order measures to “prevent any imminent infringement.” These measures include injunctions against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties to infringe intellectual property rights. LaLiga named three local ISPs – Epic Communications Limited, Melita Limited, GO Plc – as respondents with the power to prevent further infringement.

 

While absent from public records, LaLiga presented a January 2022 report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers which identified IP addresses streaming LaLiga content to Maltese internet users, without the appropriate rights. LaLiga informed the First Hall of the Civil Court that while the residential ISPs themselves aren’t acting illegally, their provision of internet access allows subscribers to gain access to infringing streams.

 

As a result, LaLiga sought an order that would compel the ISPs to render the illegal streams inaccessible to subscribers, while rendering the ISPs liable for costs.

Application filed by Infront Sports & Media AG

A second application was filed at the First Hall of the Civil Court in April. Presented by Infront Sports & Media AG, a Switzerland-based company that holds rights to Serie A matches, the application followed a similar format to LaLiga’s and also cited a PriceWaterhouseCoopers infringement report.

 

Infront asked the court to issue an injunction compelling the same ISPs to block the pirate services under Article 8 of the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (Regulation) Act, noting that the ISPs should be required to pay costs to cover the legal proceedings.

Football Leagues Win Dynamic Injunctions

Decisions handed down late June by Judge Ian Spiteri Bailey indicate that negotiations took place between the rightsholders and ISPs after the applications were filed earlier this year. Since then, some type of agreement had been reached.

 

In a joint submission both parties acknowledged that the court would have to publish its decisions but specifically requested that the agreements (and in particular their ‘operating methodology’) should remain confidential.

 

Such secrecy is commonly found around piracy blocking cases so it comes as no surprise to see the same here. However, in both the LaLiga and Serie A cases the Judge decided that the private agreements reached between the parties should be considered parts of the relevant judgment, leaving a lot of gaps to speculate over.

 

In broad terms, the Judge agreed that all of the undisclosed IP addresses in the undisclosed documents should be blocked under the terms of the undisclosed agreements, to protect LaLiga and Serie A matches in the 2022/23 season.

 

The ISPs must also block access to undisclosed IP addresses that fall under Clause 5 of the undisclosed agreement, any time before the 2022/23 season, as long as they are notified of them not less than 96 hours before a match. There are other terms too but none that make much sense without seeing all of the undisclosed documentation.

 

In summary, however, the injunctions appear to be dynamic, meaning that they can be modified to include new IP addresses in the event that pirate IPTV services take countermeasures.

 

Original (translated/pdf) applications here (1,2) judgments here (1,2)

 

Amidst growing concerns surrounding online privacy and security, VPN services have become increasingly popular in recent years.

 

Millions of people use VPNs to stay secure and to prevent outsiders from tracking their online activities. As with regular Internet providers, a subsection of these subscribers may be engaged in shady activities. This can create serious problems.

 

In the past, we have seen VPN services being taken to court over alleged piracy taking place through their network. These targets also included the American VPN company Torguard, which settled a dispute out of court. However, things would soon take a turn for the worse.

Criminal Prosecution in Greece

Earlier this year, TorGuard‘s owner Ben Van Pelt became the prime target of a criminal investigation in Greece. As it turns out, someone used a stolen credit card through the VPN service, attempting to make online purchases of €126.25, €498.68, €0.67 and €1,400 at Greek companies.

 

All these transactions failed as the bank recognized that something was amiss. However, the card’s owner filed a complaint nonetheless and the Greek authorities took up the matter. Soon after, a police investigation was launched to find the person responsible for the attempted fraud.

 

This investigation eventually pointed to a shared IP address that was registered to TorGuard. In most cases the trail would end there as the VPN service has no logs to connect an IP address to a person. For the Greek authorities, the case was just getting started.

 

The authorities identified Ben Van Pelt, who founded and owns the Florida-based TorGuard VPN service, as the culprit. As such, he is now the prime suspect in a foreign criminal investigation, facing up to five years in prison.

‘Incredible Accusations’

Mr. Van Pelt hired attorney Alexis Anagnostakis to help him in this matter. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the lawyer says that it’s “unbelievable” that his client is being held personally liable for the fraudulent activity.

 

“The irregularities of the investigation are extremely difficult to justify and have led to an incredible accusation against an upstanding businessman. There is no evidence whatsoever that Mr. Van Pelt was personally involved in the alleged fraud or had any participation or was an accessory,” Anagnostakis notes.

 

Anagnostakis is convinced that his client hasn’t done anything wrong and hopes that the authorities will soon realize this as well.

 

“As the Barrister defending Mr. Van Pelt, I believe that Mr. Van Pelt is manifestly innocent of the attributed charges against him and should be fully acquitted by the Court for this reason.”

Downside of Transparency?

The criminal accusations have taken Ben Van Pelt by surprise. Dealing with the uncertainty of a criminal lawsuit in a foreign country is tough but Torguard’s owner plans to fight the case with all means at his disposal.

 

Van Pelt has always been transparent about the ownership of the VPN company because he wants people to trust the service. Despite the legal trouble, that won’t change.

 

“This is an unfortunate situation that can affect any company structured with full ownership transparency. It is very frustrating to be falsely accused of something when there is a complete lack of factual evidence and a general misunderstanding of the technology involved,” Van Pelt informs TorrentFreak.

 

“I have a new appreciation for the protections afforded to businesses and individuals on a global scale, however, TorGuard will continue to operate transparently as trust is the cornerstone of our operations. If my customers do not know exactly who they are doing business with, how can they trust me?”

 

Whether Van Pelt will be able to prove his innocence will become apparent next year. In February, the Three-Member Court for Misdemeanours in Athens will hear the case. In addition to the Greek lawyer Anagnostakis, TorGuard’s owner is also represented by former US Attorney Vincent Citro.

 

More than eight years ago, internet subscribers in Finland began receiving letters claiming that they owed hundreds of euros to companies they’d never heard of.

 

The letters, sent by the law firm Hedman Partners, alleged that subscribers’ internet connections had been used to download or share movies (some pornographic) using BitTorrent. Alleged pirates were given a choice – pay a substantial settlement amount to the rightsholders or face punishing legal action. This controversial business model would occupy Finland’s legal system for years to come.

 

Thousands of settlement letters, demanding between 600 and 3,000 euros per offense, targeted account holders, with some cases going to court. In 2015, the chief judge at Finland’s Market Court questioned whether the system had the resources to cope but that didn’t deter those seeking to turn piracy into profit.

Initial Victory For Internet Subscribers

Three years after internet subscribers first began receiving settlement demands, a case before the Market Court cast doubt on the future of cash settlement factories in Finland.

 

Filmmakers had requested the personal details of hundreds of alleged BitTorrent users from local ISP DNA, so they too could be sent demands for cash. According to Section 60a of Finland’s Copyright Act, rightsholders are entitled to obtain a subscriber’s details if they make content available to the public “to a significant extent.”

 

In this case, the filmmakers’ did provide evidence of infringement but failed to show how serious those infringements actually were – the amount of data transferred or incidences of repeat infringement, for example.

 

As a result, the Court decided that when balancing the defendants’ privacy rights against those of the filmmakers, the failure of the applicants to meet the criteria in Article 60a meant that the application for disclosure should be dismissed.

Rightsholders Refuse to Give Up

In January 2020, media company Scanbox Entertainment filed an application at the Market Court again seeking subscriber details from DNA relating to 34 subscribers. This time it provided additional evidence including the size of the ‘swarm’ (# of people sharing) to which subscribers connected, the size of all swarms where the same content was being shared, plus evidence of ‘test pieces’ downloaded.

 

The ISP objected, claiming that Section 60a could not be applied; none of the subscribers identified in the application had made the copyrighted material available to the public to a significant extent, as required by law. In some cases, DNA said, alleged infringers had only made content available for a few minutes – seconds in others.

 

The Market Court ruled that the subscribers should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Ultimately it was determined that the threshold for “significant infringement” had been met in five cases – users who shared movies for several days and/or long periods of time repeatedly.

 

The Court ordered DNA to hand over the details of those customers to Scanbox and, by extension, a network of movie companies all over Europe and the United States.

Supreme Court Hears Appeal

After both sides were granted permission to appeal, DNA filed a request for the Market Court’s decision to be overturned and for Scanbox’s appeal to be dismissed. Scanbox responded by demanding that DNA’s appeal should be dismissed and the Market Court’s ruling should be annulled and then applied against all subscribers.

 

The Supreme Court conducted a detailed analysis of the application, including whether the sharing allegedly carried out by the 34 subscribers meets the threshold required under law.

 

The Supreme Court’s Key Findings:

 

– In order to prove that [copyrighted content] has been made available to the public, it is not necessary to prove that the relevant user has first downloaded from the network a number of parts of the file representing a certain de minimis threshold value.

 

– By downloading and installing a separate program that is a prerequisite for using BitTorrent technology, users are aware of the program’s features and have given their consent to use the program. In this regard, the fact that the file containing the work can be downloaded automatically and in very small parts is not important.

 

– The European Court of Justice has given importance to the large number of IP addresses connected to the network when assessing whether a significant number of persons use a peer-to-peer network using BitTorrent technology.

 

The Court of Justice of the European Union has also considered it relevant when interpreting the concept of making available to the public that there is an unlimited number of potential recipients and that there is quite a significant number of persons.

 

– Based on the report presented in the case, BitTorrent users have practically no opportunity to influence in which swarm they share the work and how many users are attached to this swarm. The number of users of the swarm can be considered to indicate the total number of persons who directly participated in the sharing and downloading of a certain work at a certain moment.

 

– Based on the report presented in the case, an internet subscriber cannot be surprised by the fact that the downloadable work can be downloaded by other users at the same time when BitTorrent is used.

 

– The disclosure of the subscriber information in question is in accordance with the goal of achieving a fair balance between the copyright holder’s right to access information and the privacy protection of internet users.

 

“The Supreme Court, based on the above-mentioned grounds, considers that [DNA] must be ordered to hand over to [the rightsholders], in addition to what is ordered by the Market Court, the user’s and subscriber’s contact information also from those telecom subscriptions for which the Market Court has rejected the application,” the decision concludes.

 

In short, all 34 subscribers met the threshold for significant infringement and will have their details passed on to the rightsholders. It is likely that all will receive demands for cash settlements in the near future and that more applications will be filed by rightsholders now they have a green light.

 

The only remaining questions relate to the scale of the operation and how aggressively it will be pursued.

 

The Supreme Court decision can be found here

 

Two years ago, Hawaiian anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper turned some of the most popular piracy brands into a powerful anti-piracy tool.

 

The attorney, who is listed as director of the company ’42 Ventures,’ registered several piracy-related trademarks, including ‘YTS’ and ‘Popcorn Time.’

 

The company, which was founded a year earlier, legally claimed these marks and uses them on a website that doesn’t draw any significant traffic. What did get people’s attention, however, were the enforcement actions that followed.

YTS Trademark Enforcement

Shortly after the trademarks were granted, Culpepper managed to suspend the Twitter account of a popular Popcorn Time fork. He offered to return it in exchange for a Popcorn Time licensing deal, which failed.

 

In addition, the attorney also filed a YTS trademark infringement lawsuit on behalf of 42 Ventures. The complaint, filed at a Hawaii federal court, targeted the operators of yst.lt, ytsag.me, yts.ae, ytsmovies.cc, and yts.ms, plus apps such as “Y Movies,” “YTS Movies Library” and “YTS movies.”

 

The people behind these sites, who are believed to be from India, China and Egypt, used the YTS brand as a promotional tool. This isn’t uncommon, as YTS has been a popular pirate brand for years. After originally belonging to a long-defunct release group, others now use it to lure in pirates.

Case Dismissed

As the lawsuit progressed, several defendants chose to settle the matter under undisclosed terms. Three others failed to respond completely, however, which prompted 42 Ventures to request $250,000 default judgments against all of the remaining defendants.

 

This didn’t go as smoothly as the trademark owner would have hoped. While there was no doubt that the YTS sites and apps used the trademark without permission, the Hawaiian federal court concluded that it didn’t have jurisdiction over the foreign defendants.

 

In an order issued nearly two years ago, Judge Watson wrote that the defendants’ connections with US-based services including Cloudflare, Amazon, and Namecheap, don’t prove that the site and app operators subjected themselves to US jurisdiction. As such, the case was dismissed.

Appeal and Do-over

Attorney Kerry Culpepper didn’t give up. On behalf of 42 Ventures, he appealed the District Court’s decision and won. The Ninth Circuit court granted him the option to amend the original complaint to address the jurisdiction shortcomings.

 

According to the appeals court, jurisdiction can be invoked if the defendants deliberately use US-based servers to improve speeds for US visitors.

 

“[D]eliberately choosing servers in the United States to enable faster service to U.S.-based customers could indicate purposeful direction to the United States,” the Ninth Circuit Court wrote.

 

Earlier this year, the case went back to the Hawaii District Court where an amended complaint was filed. The court looked at the issue again and, a few days ago, this resulted in a clear win for 42 Ventures.

Foreign Defendants Can be Sued

The order, released by Hawaii District Court Judge Derrick Watson, adopts the report and recommendations issued by Magistrate Judge Wes Porter last month and concludes the court has jurisdiction.

 

After reviewing all the arguments, which also cite a recent appeals court jurisdiction decision in the case against the Pakistani owner of the defunct torrent site MKVCage, the court agrees that default judgments can be issued against the three defendants.

 

“Based on Plaintiff’s allegations that Defendants have chosen to host their infringing websites and apps on servers located in the United States, and these websites and apps use or display Plaintiff’s YTS mark in connection with Defendants’ goods and services, the Court finds Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged Defendants’ tortious actions occurred in the United States.

 

“This is underscored by the allegations that Defendants also distribute pirated copies of motion pictures with file names that include Plaintiff’s mark to individuals in the United States,” Magistrate Judge Wes Porter adds.

 

In addition to showing that the actions took place in the United States, 42 Ventures also showed that this wasn’t a mere coincidence. The defendants specifically used US-based services to improve speed and accessibility, the company asaid.

3X $250,000 YTS Trademark Infringement Damages

As compensation for its alleged losses, 42 Ventures requested $250,000 from defendant Mav, and $2 million from Shan and Azzan. Ruling on this request, the court agrees that a meaningful statutory damages award is appropriate.

 

After weighing the pros and cons, Magistrate Judge Wes Porter decided that a $250,000 trademark infringement damages award against each defendant is appropriate here. That brings total damages to $750,000.

 

In addition, Judge Porter also approved a permanent injunction that prohibits defendants Shan and Azzan from using the YTS trademark going forward. An injunction against defendant Mav is not needed, as he has already shut down the YTS.MS website previously.

 

—-

 

All the Magistrate’s recommendations (pdf) were taken over by District Court Judge Derrick Watson late last week. That order is available here (pdf)

 

In response to a call for evidence from the House of Lords Committee on the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud, various companies, groups and organizations have been submitting their views on how the UK can tackle the rise in fraud.

 

The consultation closed last month and among the submissions is one headed up by the MPA with support from various entities including BBC, BPI, BSkyB, Premier League, FACT, IFPI, ITV, Publishers Association and UK Music.

 

The submission paints a picture of companies attempting to fight back against piracy (and by extension fraud) but subsequently facing investigative hurdles as they attempt to identify their targets.

Absence of Reliable Information

The MPA says that in order for commercial-scale pirates (such as IPTV providers & streaming platforms) to operate, they need access to legitimate services such as online hosting, advertising, payment processing and e-commerce platforms. During an investigation, these legal services are potentially important sources of information but it doesn’t always work out that way.

 

“[T]he problem frequently comes down to the fact that the online intermediaries providing the business infrastructure that enables the operation of the illicit service cannot supply any information that allows for the verification of the illegal service provider. That, or the information they can provide has clearly been stolen, falsified, or is incomplete or otherwise misleading,” the MPA writes.

 

“The ease with which nefarious actors can remain anonymous in their underlying business transactions actively facilitates both digital piracy and potentially other crimes perpetrated online, including acts of digital fraud.”

Piracy-as-a-Service

The MPA says that the lack of accurate information helps so-called Piracy-as-a-Service (PaaS) platforms to thrive. These range from ready-made pirate streaming site templates, databases containing tens of thousands of movies and TV shows, IPTV dashboards and infrastructure, through to video hosting services that obscure links to infringing content.

 

These services significantly lower the barriers to entry for people looking to get into the piracy business – in some cases the time to set up a piracy platform can be measured in minutes rather than days or weeks. The MPA says this provides fuel for even more fraud so the government should help by imposing strict Know Your Business Customer (KYBC) rules.

 

The means to achieve this goal are available in the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 but currently there’s no enforcement. Rightsholders would like to see an amendment introducing penalties for those who currently choose not to comply, hopefully leading to greater due diligence and subsequent rightsholder access to accurate, pirate-identifying information.

 

“Introducing a KYBC obligation on intermediaries that provide internet services to others would require those intermediaries to ascertain and verify the identity details of their commercial customers, irrespective of their location, before any business can be conducted between the two,” MPA adds.

 

The submission contains investigation summaries where a solid KYBC regime might have helped rightsholders out. One example is particularly egregious to the point of being incredible, if only from an accounting and taxation perspective.

Openload: Multi-Year Investigation Hit Anonymous ‘Dead End’

Openload was one of the largest file-hosting sites on the Internet but in 2019 and with little warning, the platform suddenly shut down taking related service Streamango with it. With more traffic than Hulu, HBO Go and Sky, that was a very big deal.

 

Following the initial chaos the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment claimed responsibility for the sites’ demise. “The operator behind both pirate operations is required to stop operating the services and pay a significant damage award,” the announcement added.

 

Whether the requirement to pay damages led to anything actually being paid is still unknown but in comments to the UK government, the MPA suggests that due to a lack of KYBC accountability, the Openload investigation didn’t go exactly to plan.

 

“After a multi-year, resource-intensive investigation by MPA, this service was revealed to be hosted in and operated from within the European Union (EU), with infrastructure from EU service providers,” the MPA explains.

 

“When the MPA obtained a court order directing the EU hosting provider to identify its customer for Openload and two other pirate services, we hit a dead end: the listed customer was a defunct Hong Kong shell entity.”

MPA Frustration Begins in France, Ends in Asia

Documents dated 2020 seen by TorrentFreak reveal that the three sites were Openload, Streamango and RapidVideo, a file-hosting site that shut down within days of the others back in 2019. All three sites apparently used the same hosting company, described by the MPA in the documents as a “global hyper-scale cloud provider” with 300,000 servers in 28 datacenters across 19 countries.

 

An order issued in August 2019 by the High Court in Lille, France, required that host to hand over all information “permitting identification of the persons” who created and operated the three sites. Under the kind of KYBC regime the MPA would now like to see in place, that should’ve been possible. In the event, nothing close to that happened.

 

The host isn’t named by the MPA but it was almost certainly France-based OVH. Responsive documents handed over to the MPA at the time revealed that the three services paid a staggering 19 million euros in hosting fees. Bills sent to Openload and Streamango by the host were paid using either a PayPal account registered to an advertising company in Costa Rica or untraceable credit cards.

 

A business address provided by Openload to the hosting company led the MPA to a “dead end” in Hong Kong.

 

In what looks like a follow-up from the host, the MPA was informed that “the data communicated by our client are purely declarative. [Host] therefore does not possess any element permitting verification of authenticity.” Communication from another hosting company in Germany noted that the information it had on file was provided by the customer and had not been checked for accuracy.

 

“The introduction of KYBC obligations in the UK would address this failure by forcing UK-based intermediaries to know exactly who their business customers are,” the MPA’s submission continues.

 

“In MPA’s experience, concerted action on transparency in the UK and EU would have the added effect of significantly degrading the quality of the infringing services that pirate operators based overseas can provide to UK consumers by forcing them to use lower quality infrastructure based outside of Europe.”

 

The MPA’s submission to the Lords Select Committee can be found here

 

Notable for their rise and public demise, piracy-related brands such as Napster, LimeWire, and Megaupload are still widely recognized today, despite their shutdowns long ago.

 

Then there’s The Pirate Bay, a site that has endured almost 20 years of chaos yet still hasn’t fallen, largely due to the groundwork of three instantly recognizable figureheads – Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm.

 

Part of their remarkable story is told in the excellent Simon Klose documentary ‘TPB AFK‘ but despite that being a great film, in some respects it fell a little short. For example, the Pirate Bay co-founders were never shown in an armed shoot-out with police in Stockholm.

 

Admittedly, that never actually happened but in this day and age, there’s less need for facts to get in the way of a good story. Especially when that story is about another infamous torrent site, one that in spiritual terms is the closest thing India has to The Pirate Bay.

Thrill, Drama, Crime: Tamil Rockers Has it All

Tamil Rockers launched as a torrent site in 2011, offering all of the usual types of pirate booty. In common with The Pirate Bay, over the years Tamil Rockers gained a cult following, with folklore recalling the group’s humble beginnings in a Chennai shed, a great setup for any movie.

 

Like its Swedish counterpart, Tamil Rockers soon became enemy number one for the local movie industry and in 2015, there was even talk of movie releases being suspended to ensure the site had no content to pirate.

 

Since then the site has been blocked by ISPs and numerous proxies, mirrors, clones, and copycats have emerged. Police have also made many arrests, often claiming to have detained key Tamil Rockers staff.

 

 

In 2020, however, it was still one of the most popular torrent sites in the world so the next logical step for irritated entertainment companies was to make a Tamil Rockers TV series with glitz, glamor and chaotic police shoot-outs – obviously.

Tamil Rockerz – The TV Series

Headquartered in Chennai, allegedly just 15 minutes from the original Tamil Rockers shed, sits AVM Productions, the veteran movie and TV show company behind the upcoming series ‘Tamil Rockerz’.

 

“Tamil Rockerz deep dives into the dark side of the piracy world and unravels the industry’s constant battle against identifying the group that is involved in releasing pirated content,” AVM says.

 

The series will be released on streaming platform SonyLIV and promises to ask the big questions right off the bat.

 

The plot seems to center around Rudra, a cop struggling with an inevitably troubled past. His mission – should he choose to accept it (spoiler: he did) – is to stop the TamilRockerz piracy group from leaking an upcoming, big-budget, blockbuster movie.

 

A movie called ‘Singadurai’ is mentioned in the trailer but whatever the movie’s name, Rudra has just 10 days to prevent a looming disaster for the local movie industry. The rumor is that TamilRockerz, whoever they are, might be invincible.

 

TamilRockerz stars Arun Vijay and Vani Bhojan, who was once voted the most desirable woman on Indian TV. It will stream on SonyLIV but a firm release date is yet to be announced.

 

AVM Productions is clearly aware of the nature of its target audience so has presumably made peace with the 100% chance the series will appear on TamilRockers sites and thousands more like them.

 

 

Internet providers are generally seen as neutral service providers but according to several record labels, some of these companies willingly profit from piracy.

 

In recent years we have seen several lawsuits against ISPs including Charter, Cox, RCN, and Bright House, which are accused of failing to terminate repeat copyright infringers.

Music Industry vs. Bright House

Under US copyright law, Internet providers must act against persistent pirates “in appropriate circumstances.” The lawsuits claim that the ISPs failed to do so, in part to protect their own profits.

 

In the case against Bright House, which Charter now owns, several major music industry companies, including Artista Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Warner Records, presented similar arguments to the court in 2019. After three years the case is about to go to trial.

 

In order to settle crucial matters before they are presented to the jury, both sides recently submitted requests for summary judgments.

Two Summary Judgment Requests

Bright House asked the court to dismiss the only remaining ‘contributory’ copyright infringement claim. According to the ISP, there is no evidence that the company induced, caused, or materially contributed to the piracy activities of its subscribers.

 

Among other things, Bright House pointed out that it had a robust anti-infringement program in place, through which it tried to discourage and prevent future infringements. In addition, the ISP said that it never received tens of thousands of piracy notices, as these were sent to the wrong address.

 

The music companies also requested a partial summary judgment. They took the opposite stance by asking the court to rule that the ISP is liable for the pirating activities of its subscribers.

 

According to the plaintiffs, Bright House’s anti-piracy scheme fell short. They note that the law requires ISPs to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. That didn’t happen here.

Court Reserves Issues for Trial

These summary judgments could’ve had a big impact on the forthcoming trial but not in this case. Late last week, US District Court Judge Mary Scriven denied both requests, ruling that there are material disputes of fact which are better handled at trial.

 

For example, Bright House’s claim that notices were not received deserves a more detailed examination. The same applies to the question of whether the ISP did enough to address the pirating activities of subscribers.

 

The music companies’ request for summary judgment was denied for a similar reason. The record labels asked the court to confirm that the files that Bright House subscribers shared were indeed pirated copies. However, Judge Scriven wants to leave these and other issues open.

 

“This case will proceed to trial as planned, and the jury will be called upon to review the evidence and resolve the factual disputes on these questions,” Judge Scriven writes in her order.

 

If a motion for either party had been granted, that would have had a major impact on the direction of the trial. However, many crucial questions now remain open, meaning that either side can still come out as a winner.

 

—

 

A copy of US District Court Judge Mary Scriven’s orders on the motions for summary judgment is available here (1,2)

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have five new entries on the list. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is the most downloaded title.

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

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	7.2 / trailer
2	(3)	Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore	6.4 / trailer
3	(4)	The Man from Toronto	5.7 / trailer
4	(8)	The Batman	8.4 / trailer
5	(5)	Everything Everywhere All at Once	8.5 / trailer
6	(7)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
7	(…)	Rubicon	4.5 / trailer
8	(…)	The Princess	5.4 / trailer
9	(2)	Crimes of the Future	6.1 / trailer
10	(back)	Uncharted	6.4 / trailer

 

 

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

 

When video and broadcasting companies take on their pirate site competitors it’s only natural that once they have their day in court, measures are taken to ensure the sites don’t just simply come back online.

 

While even airtight injunctions can’t work miracles, they do make it easier to disrupt a pirate site’s business to the point that it may not be worth carrying on. On the other hand, an overbroad injunction has the potential to disrupt the business of third-party services too, despite them having little to do with the infringement or any reasonable way to predict it.

Big Injunction, Big Tech Problems

That’s exactly what happened when several Israel-based video companies won three lawsuits and injunctions to shut down three streaming/IPTV platforms. The injunctions granted extreme powers, from residential ISP blocking to almost any other action the plaintiffs deemed fit to keep the sites offline.

 

Almost immediately that led to friction with third-party service providers and the situation only worsened when a concerned Cloudflare found itself threatened with contempt of court for non-compliance. The CDN company fought back with support from Google and EFF and that led the parties back to the negotiating table.

 

Filings in the case last week suggested an acceptance by the plaintiffs that the injunction cannot be enforced in its present form. The parties promised to work on a new injunction to address both sides’ concerns and as a result, a new proposal now awaits the court’s approval.

Original Injunction Undergoes Surgery

The permanent injunction handed down against pirate IPTV platform Israel.tv began in conventional fashion by permanently restraining its operators (and anyone acting in concert or participation with them) from doing anything in future that would breach the plaintiffs’ rights.

 

However, by also stating that the same applies to third-party services that may come into contact with the defendants’ operations, now or anytime in the future, the plaintiffs started rubbing up against companies like Cloudflare, which rejects any idea they’re ‘acting in concert’ with pirates. As a result, the proposed amended injunction looks much less threatening.

 

The first change comes with the removal of powers related to enforcement against “third parties providing services used in connection with Defendants’ operations.” And where the injunction initially referred to those “Operating and/or hosting Defendants’ Infringing Website,” it now reads “Operating Defendants’ Infringing Website.”

 

But that’s just the beginning.

Major ISPs No Longer Required to Block Pirate Sites

Before Cloudflare got involved, the first obviously broad part of the injunction was a requirement for every single ISP in the United States to block the three IPTV services, not just at their current domains but also any they might use in the future. All blocked domains were also set to be diverted to an anti-piracy landing page, as a deterrent message.

 

The entire section laying out the requirements and terms for such blocking has now been completely removed from the proposed amended injunction. No ISP blocking in any form is requested but the deletions go much further than just that.

 

The original also ordered all third parties “used in connection” with the pirate sites not to do so again, now or in the future. Those third parties included ISPs, webhosts, CDNs, DNS and VPN providers, domain name entities, advertising partners, search engines, payment processors, banks, credit card companies, plus many, many more. That section has also been removed.

Dealing With New Domains

The original injunction not only gave the plaintiffs broad powers to take action against the pirate sites’ existing domains but also any new domains registered by the defendants to replace those already seized. In common with other aspects of the order, including those that granted authority over companies like Cloudflare, there was a complete lack of judicial oversight.

 

The plaintiffs believed they could issue an order, without supporting evidence, and third parties must comply. In the proposed amended injunction, that is not the case. When the plaintiffs identify ‘newly detected domains’ they will be required to notify the court and request permission to further amend the injunction. When/if granted, that order will have to be served on registries and registrars.

 

Previously, the injunction required domain companies to make domains inactive within seven days and configure them to divert to the video companies’ anti-piracy page. That requirement has also been removed while a new section explains that if a registry or registrar wants to object to a disabling order, they are allowed to do so, without being held in contempt of court.

 

Continuing the theme that action can be taken against piracy-facilitating domains but only when the court has knowledge and oversight, the proposed amended injunction details an updated list of specific domains, including the following:

 

israel.tv, israeli.tv, israeltv.com, israel-tv.xyz, israeltv.to, t2m.is.isr, t2m.ac, isr.dev and zira.to. Newer additions include israeltv.se, israeltv.nu, israeltv.su, isratv.ru, israeltv.am, israeltv.la, israeltv.bz, israeltv.hk, israetv.eu, israeltv.is and sini.la.

 

Interestingly, the proposed injunction also prohibits the operators of israel.tv (and related domains) from using specific applications listed on Google Play that facilitate access to infringing content owned by the plaintiffs. The pirate operators are also restrained from accessing a Facebook account (‘TvFromIsrael’) and various other messaging channels previously used to provide customer support and new domain information.

Entire Section Dedicated to Cloudflare

With the contempt of court issue behind them, Cloudflare and the plaintiffs appear to have settled their differences. An entire section in the injunction dedicated to Cloudflare suggests that the CDN company is indeed prepared to help the video companies but they’ll have to conform to certain standards.

 

Before even contacting Cloudflare they’ll first need to make “reasonable, good faith efforts to identify and obtain relief for the identified domains from hosting providers and domain name registries and registrars.”

 

If the plaintiffs still need Cloudflare’s assistance, Cloudflare will comply with requests against domain names listed in this injunction and future injunctions by preventing access to the following:

 

Pass-through security services, content delivery network (CDN) services, video streaming services, and authoritative DNS services, DNS, CDN, streaming services, and any related services

 

An additional note states that the plaintiffs acknowledge that Cloudflare’s compliance “will not necessarily prevent the Defendants from providing users with access to Defendants’ infringing services.”

 

Given the agreement on the terms, the amended injunction will likely be signed off by the court in the coming days. Service providers everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief while rightsholders will have a template for similar cases moving forward.

 

The proposed amended injunction documents can be found here (1,2,3,4,5 pdf)

 

There is no denying that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) has been rather successful over the past few years.

 

The anti-piracy group, which represents prominent rightsholders such as Apple, the BBC, Canal+, Disney, Sky, Netflix, and Warner Bros, systematically hunts down key piracy players.

 

ACE is well connected with law enforcement around the world and continues to expand its user base. Last week, two new rightsholders from Asia were added to the roster and last month sports broadcaster beIN joined the group.

Crackdown on Egyptian Sports Streaming Sites

The partnership with beIN is already proving fruitful. A few days ago four major sports streaming sites, including Yalla-Shoot-7sry.com, yalla-shoot.us, and Yallashoot-news.com, were taken offline after infringing beIN’s rights.

 

The sites in question had a combined 4.8 million ‘users’ in May and were particularly popular in Egypt. ACE and beIN received help from 60 Egyptian police officers as well as the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.

 

The police action resulted in three arrests and the seizures of several domain names, which are now controlled by ACE. Instead of live sports, visitors to these sites will now see an ACE banner, informing them that their favorite streaming portal is no longer available due to copyright infringement.

 

Research by TorrentFreak revealed that several other sports streaming domains have also been taken over by ACE. These include Goal-cairo.net, Yalla-shoot.club, and Yalla-live.us.

ACE and beIN Celebrate

Both ACE and beIN are pleased with the results of the operation. Commenting on the takedowns, ACE’s global content protection chief Jan van Voorn praises the broad cooperation.

 

“Working together, we have the network, the resources and the expertise needed to tackle the serious threat piracy poses to media companies all over the world and to protect the legal marketplace for content creators,” Van Voorn notes.

 

A beIN spokesperson shares this sentiment and considers last week’s action a major success that will help to protect rightsholders worldwide.

 

“Actions like those undertaken by Egyptian law enforcement agencies are a huge victory. In concert with ACE, we collectively have the means to support takedowns of this nature throughout the region, and will continue to do so to protect the leagues, fellow broadcasters and the entire sporting ecosystem.”

Largest Sports Streaming Sites are Still Online

There is no denying that the takedown efforts had a significant impact. However, that doesn’t mean that the sports streaming problem in Egypt has been solved. In fact, the largest “Yalla-Shoot” sites still remain online.

 

At the time of writing, Yalla-shoot.io, Yalla-shoot.com and Yalla-shoot-new.com are still accessible. Together, these sites have a combined 20 million ‘users’ which is four times as many as the domains that were seized.

 

There’s no doubt that ACE and beIN have these domains on their radar. The question is whether they can track down the operators or convince domain registries and registrars to take action.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Bungie vs. Aimjunkies

Bungie sued Aimjunkies last summer, accusing it of copyright and trademark infringement among other things. The cheat seller returned fire with a strong defense. It argued that cheating isn’t against the law and said that the cheat software itself isn’t copyright infringing.

 

The Seattle federal court largely agreed with AimJunkies and dismissed Bungie’s copyright infringement claims. However, Bungie was given the opportunity to file an amended complaint containing more details on the alleged wrongdoings, which it did shortly after.

 

As the case continues, both parties are also conducting discovery, hoping to obtain additional information to support their respective positions. As part of this process, Bungie subpoenaed PayPal requesting copies of account information and other documents related to the cheat seller.

 

The subpoena lists several names and email addresses that PayPal should search for, as well as a phone number. In addition, Bungie would like to have all documents related to accounts or transactions from the merchant NETNOOBS, through which the cheats were apparently sold.

‘Bungie Targets Family Members’

This information may prove useful to Bungie’s claims but according to AimJunkies and the other defendants, it goes way too far.

 

The cheat seller submitted a motion for a protective order in court this week, hoping to limit the subpoena. According to the defendants, the requested information includes sensitive private details, as well as records related to the wives and children of the individual defendants.

 

Exposing this information has nothing to do with the cheating activity that’s at the center of the lawsuit, the defense notes.

 

“This is particularly true in the case of family members who were not involved in any of Defendants’ activities but are, nonetheless identified in the subpoena and whose personal information would be released.”

Exposing Cheat Buyers?

AimJunkies further believe that the subpoena may be intended to get more details on its customers; the actual cheaters. This information is not relevant to the lawsuit either and could be used to approach cheaters.

 

“(i)t appears the goal of the subpoena is to identify Defendants’ customers as well. The identities of these customers has nothing to do with any legitimate issue in this case,” the defense writes.

 

“Seeking the names and identities of Defendants’ customers is not only highly irrelevant, it appears intended to enable Bungie to harass Defendants’ customers by dragging them into this matter with ostensible ‘third party’ discovery.”

 

Finally, AimJunkies stresses that its motion to dismiss the case against several of the defendants is still pending. If granted, some of the people listed in the subpoena will no longer be involved in the case. As such, it might be best to at least delay any disclosures until that motion is decided on.

 

The defendants don’t want to prevent all information from being shared by PayPal. Instead, they ask the court to limit the subpoena to reveal the number of “Destiny 2” cheats that were sold and what revenues, if any, were generated.

 

The court has not yet responded to Aimjunkies’ request but it’s clear that both parties intend to fight this case tooth and nail.

 

—–

 

A copy of Bungie’s subpoena to PayPal is available here (pdf) and Aimjunkies’ objections can be found here (pdf)

 

Most higher-tier anti-piracy groups are interested in taking down illegal sites, services and other commercial-scale pirates.

 

Many of their targets are given multiple warnings before anything terrible happens because ending their piracy is the main goal. If that can be achieved without a legal battle, it’s better for everyone and it’s cheaper for everyone too.

 

But there are also anti-piracy groups that don’t give warnings and don’t believe in second chances, no matter how small the infringement or how poor the alleged infringer might be. In fact, these groups deliberately target residential internet subscribers and demand hundreds, even thousands of dollars, euros or pounds in compensation – and feel entirely justified doing so because the law allows it.

 

Public support for these enforcement schemes is comparable to that enjoyed by wheel clampers and ANPR-powered parking fine companies. Even some MPs have said they don’t like them, and they’ve even been criticized in the House of Lords.

 

The common denominator is the obviously unhealthy power disparity between corporate giants and ordinary internet subscribers, something that is built-in and then reinforced by design. However, there is always someone bigger than the big guys and when they show up, the schadenfreude can be delicious. But before the main course, here’s a small hors d’oeuvre.

The Power of the Limited Liability Partnership

Hatton and Berkeley (H&B) and its partners have been demanding cash settlements from UK internet subscribers for years. Its settlement model was initially quite ordinary but when it began promoting Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) as an anti-piracy “insurance wrapper“, the projection of power was obvious.

 

The plan presented by H&B envisioned the use of LLP corporate structures to protect businesses involved in settlement campaigns, ensuring that if things went bad for them litigation-wise, any financial liability could be pre-planned and minimal.

 

In short, fortified corporate trenches should be dug to defend against financially insecure and legally-unaware members of the public. H&B Administration LLP was ready to step up a gear but what followed next was perhaps more surprising.

FACT Administration LLP

In September 2019, FACT Worldwide Limited – a company operated by Federation Against Copyright Theft chief Kieron Sharp – became a member of H&B Administration LLP. Even to admiring critics, that came as a big disappointment.

 

Due to its very nature, FACT’s work has at times been controversial but its solid reputation is built on decades of painstaking work in complex and high-profile commercial-scale piracy cases. Cash settlement models targeting the public with expensive ‘speeding tickets’ seemed a particularly poor fit.

 

Nevertheless, in 2020 Sharp also joined the LLP as a named member and in 2021, H&B Administration LLP changed its name to FACT Administration LLP. It soon began pressuring internet subscribers for cash settlements on behalf of its movie company members and later added a scary payment portal warning of potential criminal action, as well as civil.

Protective Wrappers Are Subject to the Law

But while LLPs might have protective qualities, they aren’t encased in a lawless bubble. Operating an LLP triggers responsibilities including statutory reporting requirements. These are laid down by the government and when ignored, escalating levels of otherwise avoidable trouble can lie ahead.

 

For example, should an LLP fail to submit its confirmation statement on time, the government doesn’t get immediately upset. If we use the document below as an example, the statement date is April 11, 2022, and it’s completely acceptable to submit one before April 25.

 

Taking longer, however, means the addition of big red text on a previously clean record.

 

Of course, it’s human to forget things so the government is very good these days in that it can send a reminder before the statement is actually due – a friendly ‘pre-infringement notice’ of sorts. It’s a very reasonable way to remind people that legal obligations aren’t being met.

 

But even that isn’t enough to get some corporations going. Before they have time to shout “protective wrapper” and demand £800, several months have passed and perhaps the most basic and cheap of all company filings still hasn’t been done.

 

Quite why that’s the case here is anyone’s guess. Anti-piracy groups always seem so particular about the law when it comes to the actions of other people. When alleging infringement, for example, they sometimes suggest that internet subscribers who aren’t the infringer failed in their “duty of care” by not anticipating what someone else might privately do on their connection, at some indeterminable point in the future.

 

If they’d had the luxury of an official reminder in advance, detailing specific dates and legal requirements, and that was followed by several polite warnings after, you could probably see their point. But for settlement targets, that never happens. No warnings, no chances. Give us money.

More Warnings Incoming

Thankfully, people who run LLPs do get polite reminders and then warnings about their failure to comply with their legal obligations. Earlier this week a notice appeared on the FACT Administration LLP page on Companies House, announcing that if it persists with its non-compliance, things could get very serious indeed.

 

“The Registrar of Companies gives notice that, unless cause is shown to the contrary, the Limited Liability Partnership will be struck off the register and dissolved not less than 2 months from the date shown above [28/06/2022],” it reads.

 

“Upon the Limited Liability Partnership’s dissolution, all property and rights vested in, or held in trust for, the Limited Liability Partnership are deemed to be bona vacantia, and will belong to the Crown.”

 

This notice represents yet another warning to comply with the law after months and months of non-compliance. But here we are several days later and still nothing has been done. Some ‘duties of care’ are less important than others, it seems.

 

As a result, this week FACT Administration LLP was featured free of charge in Britain’s oldest newspaper – The Gazette. It’s much less ‘fun’ than the country’s tabloids but easily competes with the ‘red tops’ when it comes to scandals, even while striving for reporting accuracy.

 

“Not filing your confirmation statements, annual returns or accounts is a criminal offense – and directors or LLP designated members could be personally fined in the criminal courts,” UK Government advice reads.

 

“Failing to pay your late filing penalty can result in enforcement proceedings. Any criminal proceedings for not filing confirmation statements, annual returns or accounts is separate from (and in addition to) any late filing penalties issued by Companies House against the company.”

 

But of course, despite all the loud words and threats of dissolving the LLP and giving the LLP’s assets to the Crown, it’s unlikely that anything terrible will happen. There are no immediate financial penalties for filing a late confirmation statement and no matter how badly things go, it’s nearly always possible to get a company back on track eventually.

 

Another plus side is that filing a confirmation statement is both easy and ridiculously cheap – just £13. However, if people can’t spare 20 minutes and have money to burn (perhaps alleged pirates donated generously lately) a familiar company with an address in Mayfair, London, says it will do it for just £125. Probably best to send a few reminders, though, just in case.

 

Finally, reminders might also be needed in respect of US-based company TCYK LLC. Its movie – ‘The Company You Keep’ – featured in cash settlement letters initially sent out in 2015, including one sent to an 82-year-old grandmother.

 

The problem is that despite being listed as an active member of FACT Administration LLP, corporate data in the United States shows that the company has been dissolved leading to the possibility that doesn’t exist. Companies House doesn’t appear to have been informed about that but in a few months, perhaps someone will let them know.

 

——-

 

FACT Administration LLP structure facing strike off

 

Current person/entity with significant control: Hatton & Berkeley Management Ltd (Director: Robert Croucher, 75%+ shareholder 1)

 

Members, countries of incorporation (where applicable), plus sources/connections

 

Robert Croucher (UK) 1,2
Kieron Sharp (UK) 1,2
Oliver Williams (UK) 1,2
After 2 Movie LLC (USA) 1,2
After 34 Nevada LLC (USA) 1,2
Azil Productions LLC (USA) 1,2
Cinestate Run Hide Fight LLC (USA) 1,2
FACT Worldwide Ltd (UK) 1,2
H Films Inc. (USA) 1,2
Hatton & Berkeley Management Ltd (UK) 1,2
Icon Film Distribution Ltd (UK) 1,2
Right Angle Productions LLC (USA) 1,2
TCYK LLC (USA) 1,2 (dissolved)
Voltage Holdings LLC (USA) 1,2
Wonder One LLC (USA) 1,2

 

Former member/notable resignation:

 

Copyright Management Services Ltd (Patrick Achache – also Maverickeye/Guardaley)

 

Last fall, movie director Quentin Tarantino announced that he would auction ‘Pulp Fiction’ NFTs to the public.

 

These NFTs would unlock handwritten scripts and exclusive custom commentary from Tarantino, assets that many fans would like to get their hands on.

 

NFTs are not without copyright issues, however, as Quentin Tarantino swiftly discovered. Movie studio Miramax, which owns most of the rights to the film, sees the plan as a contract breach and copyright infringement.

NFT Copyright Battle

In a lawsuit filed at a California federal court last November, the movie company accused the director of attempting to cash in on something to which he doesn’t own the full rights.

 

“Eager to cash in on the non-fungible token (‘NFT’) boom, as widely reported in the media, Quentin Tarantino recently announced plans to auction off seven ‘exclusive scenes’ from the 1994 motion picture Pulp Fiction in the form of NFTs,” the complaint read.

 

Despite this legal dispute, the first NFT was put up for auction early this year, selling for over a million dollars. Follow-up auctions were halted soon after but the same can’t be said about the legal battle.

 

After some early mud-throwing back and forth, Tarantino’s legal team asked the court to dismiss the case last month. According to the defense, Miramax’s claims are ungrounded. Tarantino sees the film as a derivative of the screenplay he personally wrote and still holds the rights to

‘Tarantino Only has the Print rights’

This week, Miramax responded to the motion, arguing that the star director misrepresented the facts. While he indeed retained some rights to the screenplay, those rights are rather limited.

 

“Defendants are roughly half right about the rights to Pulp Fiction. As one of the authors of what would become the blockbuster movie, Quentin Tarantino at one point had extensive rights to some elements that ultimately comprised the film.”

 

“But he assigned and transferred virtually all of those rights to Miramax in June 1993, carving out only a specifically enumerated, limited set of ‘Reserved Rights’ far narrower than Defendants’ Motion suggests,” Miramax adds.

‘History Rewritten’

Tarantino is “shockingly” trying to mischaracterize the license agreements by leaving out critical parts, Miramax informs the court. The movie company admits that the director reserved the print publication rights to the screenplay, but not much more than that.

 

The movie studio says that the 1993 agreement clearly shows that it holds virtually all rights to the Pulp Fiction screenplay. The legal paperwork also carved out a section for the distribution of content in new types of media that had yet to be invented.

 

That last past wasn’t mentioned by Tarantino’s legal team. Since NFTs did not exist yet in the nineties, these would certainly qualify as a new type of media, Miramax argues.

 

“Defendants’ arguments rely on an incomplete, misleading factual history of their contractual rights and a strained reading of those limited rights. Put simply, nonfungible tokens, which host and display unique content using blockchain technology, were not (and could not have been) contemplated by the parties in 1993,” Miramax writes.

‘More Infringements’

Whether that is indeed the case is up for the court to decide. However, the movie studio believes that there are plenty of reasons to continue the case. Aside from the screenplay rights disagreement, the NFT sale also used other images and artwork that were directly related to Pulp Fiction.

 

For example, the early artwork on TarantinoNFTs.com featured iconic depictions of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, which have since been replaced with an image of Tarantino himself.

 

In addition, several tweets from the Tarantino NFT team with alleged copyright-infringing material were deleted as well. The tweets are also listed as infringing examples in the legal paperwork. These alleged infringements alone should be sufficient to support a valid copyright claim, Miramax notes.

 

—

 

A copy of Miramax’ objections and response to Tarantino’s motion is available here (pdf).

 

In many countries around Europe, pirate IPTV services, suppliers and resellers have become primary targets for entertainment industry groups.

 

These cut-price subscription streaming platforms are both widely available and popular with consumers but rightsholders view them as criminal enterprises with no legitimate place in the market. That belief is shared by law enforcement agencies across the continent, with Spain just one of the battlegrounds.

EGEDA Files Complaint, Police Carry Out Raids

In May 2019, audiovisual rights management group EGEDA filed a criminal complaint against Comprarccam, a supplier of pirate IPTV and card-sharing subscriptions.

 

A police investigation led to a report stating that the pirate operation was servicing at least 15,000 customers in Spain. Two of its leaders had been identified and traced to the cities of Salamanca and Zamora.

 

Police followed up with a two-phase operation in February and March 2020. Officers were able to seize documents and accounts information and then follow up with coordinated raids. Searches were carried out at six locations and seven individuals were arrested – one each in Zamora and Salamanca, one in Córdoba, three in Valencia, and another in Málaga.

 

All were detained under suspicion of IP-related crimes, including telecommunications fraud. Police seized computer equipment, mobile phones, more than 10,000 euros in cash, plus seven gold bars. The group’s website and associated pirate services were closed down. Financial accounts and payment processing facilities were frozen based on claims that the group cost rightsholders around 11.8 million euros.

The Criminal Organization

According to prosecutors the ‘criminal organization’ behind the IPTV and card-sharing operation was led by two men.

 

One reportedly operated the ‘logistics center’ from his home in Zamora, carrying out tasks such as IPTV panel management and the servicing of users via online messaging. A second man from Salamanca was the administrator of a service that redirected users to streams enabling illegal access to sports content, movies and TV shows.

 

Five other members, responsible for distributing the infringing subscriptions to customers, operated from Córdoba, Valencia (x3) and Málaga. These individuals were considered important players but not as crucial as the men in Zamora and Salamanca.

 

An investigation carried out by the Technological Crimes Group of the Valladolid National Police determined that between May 2019 and May 2020, the defendants’ fraud netted them around 1.2 million euros.

Defendants Sentenced to Almost Nine Years in Prison

More than two years after the raids, a court in Zamora (Audiencia Provincial) has now sentenced all seven defendants for fraud offenses based on the facilitation of access to infringing content.

 

The two leaders were each sentenced to 23 months in prison. Two others received sentences of 18 months and 16 months, with the remaining three handed 9 months each. However, it appears the defendants will avoid an immediate custodial sentence after pleading guilty and taking steps to repay the money they earned during the fraud period.

 

According to a local report, the defendants have already paid back most of the $1.2 million euros they earned with 250,000 euros left as a pending amount. If any of the defendants commit any new crimes during the next two years, they will be sent straight to prison to serve their sentences.

 

Over the past several years, The Football Association Premier League has been working hard to combat the availability of illegal match streams broadcast over the Internet.

 

Pirate IPTV services, web-based streaming sites, and a smörgåsbord of infringing apps all create issues for the world’s most famous football league. From a practical standpoint, it’s impossible to shut them all down. Instead, the Premier League employs a strategy to make it appear they’ve been shut down in the hope it will achieve a similar result.

 

Working closely with UK-based anti-piracy company Friend MTS, the Premier League uses a number of interesting techniques to detect where pirate streams are coming from and then passes this data to internet service providers so they can implement blocking.

 

Given the interference in ISP subscriber communications, this cannot be done on a whim so Premier League obtains legal authority first. In the case of Ireland, the process is dealt with at the Commercial Court (part of the High Court) and this week the Premier League was granted permission to block illegal streams during the 2022/23 season.

Injunction Extension Awarded Under Copyright Act 2000

The blocking injunction for the forthcoming season targets Eircom/eir, Virgin Media, Sky Ireland/Sky Subscriber Services and Vodafone. It’s an extension of an injunction first handed down in 2019 and over time has been tweaked to maximize blocking efficiency.

 

According to the Premier League, evidence provided by Sky shows that existing blocking measures are indeed an effective deterrent.

 

The Irish Times reports that Sky subscriber numbers (Sky has Premier League broadcasting rights) have increased since 2019 and while this isn’t solely attributable to blocking, there has been an increase over the past three years.

 

Mr Justice Denis McDonald agreed that an extension to the injunction was justified so that the Premier League could continue to protect its rights during the forthcoming season.

Premier League’s Three Years of Pressure in Ireland

After winning its first ISP blocking injunction at the High Court in London during 2017, a year later the Premier League sought to expand its program into Ireland.

 

In 2019, Ireland’s Commercial Court gave the Premier League a green light to compel Eircom, Sky, Virgin and Vodafone to block pirate streams until June 30, 2020.

 

Just under a year later, Premier League won an extension to that injunction to tackle piracy during the 2020/21 season.

 

Following the now established pattern, in 2021 another year of blocking permission was granted, this time on an enhanced basis, using measures that given their secrecy are not available for public consumption.

 

Reports do not indicate that the current extension for 2022/23 grants the Premier League any additional powers but at least for the time being, the football league appears satisfied that the terms of the injunction meets its needs.

 

There’s an old proverb that goes something like “An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city” and that “arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.”

 

Many of us have been there at some point in our lives but most of us don’t have more than 850K followers on Twitter watching our disputes play out in public. Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom does, and in recent weeks his irritation with two former friends and colleagues has started to boil over.

 

Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, appeared to be great friends and business partners when building and running Megaupload together. Even after the US Government tore the service down in 2012, the trio worked hard to launch New Zealand file-hosting service Mega in 2013, aiming to emulate Megaupload’s success, minus the legal bills.

Criticism of Mega Begins

What happened next is unclear but according to New Zealand’s company register, Dotcom resigned as a Mega director on August 29, 2013. Ortmann gave up his directorship on April 1, 2015, but along with colleague van der Kolk, he still works at Mega today.

 

During the summer of 2013, Dotcom declared he was done with Mega and was no longer a shareholder. He wanted to concentrate on building Baboom, the music platform concept formerly known as Megabox.

 

A year later, Dotcom severed all ties with Baboom. Dotcom’s shares in Baboom had been acquired by an early investor in Mega and just a few months later, Dotcom declared Mega “unsafe” citing a “hostile takeover by a Chinese investor.”

 

In the years that followed Dotcom periodically criticized Mega, including in 2016 when he repeated his claims of Chinese influence while warning users to backup their files. At the time, Mega chairman Stephen Hall said he didn’t know what was motivating Dotcom to make such comments but more than six years on, Dotcom is still making them.

Ortmann and van der Kolk Become New Targets

Turning his attention to former colleagues Ortmann and van der Kolk, last week Dotcom publicly blamed them for his exit from Mega, claiming they had “stolen” the company from him. How this dovetails with previous allegations related to his major falling out with former Mega CEO Tony Lentino, who also founded domain name registrar Instra, is unknown.

 

Local media reports suggest that Dotcom hasn’t spoken to former friends Ortmann and van der Kolk for years but their recent deal to avoid extradition in the Megaupload case by pleading guilty to organized crime charges puts Dotcom in a tough spot.

 

“My co-defendants who claimed to be innocent for 10+ years were offered a sweet exit deal for a false confession,” he said last week. And he wasn’t finished there.

 

After a research team found that Mega was vulnerable to attacks that allow for a “full compromise of the confidentiality of user files”, Ortmann himself responded via a security notification stating that the issues had been fixed.

 

In response, Dotcom accused Ortmann and van der Kolk of creating “backdoors” in Mega so that the Chinese government could decrypt users’ files. “Same shady guys who just made a deal with the US and NZ Govt to get out of the US extradition case by falsely accusing me,” he added.

Conflict Risks Collateral Damage

Whether this reference to the no-extradition-deal betrayed what was really on Dotcom’s mind is up for debate but whatever the motivation, he’s not letting it go. In a tweet posted yesterday, he again informed his 850K+ followers that the company he founded “is not safe” and people who think that their files are unreadable by Mega are wrong.

 

Shortly after, Dotcom delivered another message, one even darker in tone. It targeted Mega, the company he co-founded and where his colleagues still work. It’s possible to interpret the tweet in several ways but none seem beneficial to his former colleagues, Mega, or its users.

 

“In addition to security vulnerabilities a comprehensive report about mass copyright infringement on Mega with millions of active links and channels is in the works,” he said.

 

The production of a copyright infringement report related to Mega or Megaupload is something usually associated with Dotcom’s rivals. Back in 2014, a NetNames report did just that and was met with a fiery response from Dotcom’s former company.

 

In this case, however, Dotcom claims the aim of the new infringement report is to bathe Mega and Megaupload in the same light, to benefit them both. By showing their similarities, the report will demonstrate that “Mega is still like Megaupload, a perfectly legal dual use technology.”

 

Whether technology is indeed the crux of this particular problem is up for debate.

 

None of the charges to which Ortmann and van der Kolk pleaded guilty are technology-reliant but instead stand on a common basis of human intent. Barring technicalities, that’s often where complex copyright cases find themselves hanging in the balance.

 

But perhaps the most worrying thing about this new complication in an escalating dispute is its potential to affect the minority of users that actually store infringing files on Mega. Any detailed report of “mass copyright infringement” will draw negative attention directly to them, especially if the report includes active hyperlinks as Dotcom suggests.

 

Couple that with Dotcom’s allegations that the content of user files can be read, any conclusion that this upcoming infringement report hasn’t been thought through from a user perspective can be easily forgiven. That certainly wasn’t the case when users were invited to join the privacy-focused site when it launched.

 

“Let them look at Mega. There’s nothing to see (because) it’s all encrypted,” Dotcom told Reuters in 2014, scoffing at the prospect of another Hollywood lawsuit.

 

But even if user files can’t be read in the way Dotcom suggests, a detailed report of live, infringing links on Mega still raises issues for users. When Mega-hosted files are shared publicly, their links carry the necessary information to access the content and those files can be traced right back to user accounts.

 

As usual there’s a lot to unpack here, with many ifs, buts, maybes, and sundry moving parts. If nothing else though, perhaps the most important takeaway is that when friends start fighting over emotional matters, avoiding collateral damage isn’t always a top priority.

 

In the summer of 2017, a large coalition of major entertainment industry companies announced a new phase in the war against piracy.

 

With a focus on web-based illegal streaming, pirate IPTV, and associated apps, the Alliance of Creativity and Entertainment embarked on a mission to protect its members rights.

 

Through the MPA, Hollywood studios including Disney, Warner Bros, Paramount, and MGM teamed with streaming giants Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu. Content-creating broadcasters Sky and BBC were also in the mix but ACE had even bigger plans.

 

At launch in 2017, ACE had 30 members but with steady growth over the past few years and the addition of two new members this week, the anti-piracy coalition now boasts 39 member companies, all of them determined to disrupt illegal streaming piracy.

ACE Adds First Two Asia-Based Companies

Hong Kong-based video streaming platform Viu is available in seven Asian markets including Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Myanmar. Operating ad-supported and premium tiers, Via also produces original content under its ‘Viu Original’ branding.

 

True Visions is Thailand’s leader cable satellite TV provider and in 2020 teamed with the MPA to shut down three pirate streaming sites. More recently it worked with ACE to shut down We-Play, one of the largest piracy portals in Thailand.

 

Both are now members of the ACE coalition, swelling its ranks to 39 companie.

MPA/ACE Chief Welcomes New Members

Charles Rivkin, Chairman of ACE and the Motion Picture Association, says the addition of Viu and True Visions is the beginning of an ACE expansion to include local media companies from key markets around the world.

 

“By growing ACE’s footprint throughout the APAC region, we are building new relationships with local law enforcement authorities and other key partners in our ongoing effort to shut down piracy operations around the world,” Rivkin says.

 

“These new members further strengthen ACE’s global reach and collective approach to disrupting a piracy ecosystem that harms the creative economy worldwide.”

 

Sompan Charumilinda, Executive Vice Chairman of True Visions, believes that joining ACE will allow his company to tackle piracy more effectively and improve its reputation overseas.

 

“We want to support Thai people, as they compete in a globalized marketplace, by protecting their work with strong intellectual property rights stewardship,” he says.

 

“We are pleased to be the first member of ACE based in Thailand and look forward to helping drive important actions in this market that will improve the piracy landscape and pave the way for a brighter future.”

 

Janice Lee, CEO of Viu, notes that one of her company’s goals is to encourage users of piracy sites to move to legal services like Viu. The disruption services offered by ACE will help Viu to achieve that.

 

“As one of the leading video-on-demand services offering premium Asian content, we recognize the need to address the piracy that is widespread in our markets,” Lee says.

 

“We are committed to ensuring that consumers move from illegal piracy sites to legal options like Viu by providing an unparalleled viewer experience and investing in the creative ecosystem.”

 

These two new members of ACE mark the coalition’s official expansion into Asia. In April 2022, ACE also broke new ground with the addition of sports broadcaster beIN SPORTS and a promise to disrupt piracy of live sporting events. More sports rightsholders are expected to join ACE in the coming months.

 

Last week, Brazilian law enforcement agencies announced a new wave of Operation 404.

 

The anti-piracy initiative began in 2019 and with the assistance of law enforcement agencies in the United States and United Kingdom, Brazilian authorities claim to have put hundreds of websites and apps out of action via blocking and domain seizures.

Department of Justice Announces Seizures

Following last week’s announcement by the Government of Brazil, the US Department of Justice released additional information on Monday. It confirmed that as part of ongoing efforts by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to combat copyright infringement, six website domains had been seized.

 

As the seizure banner now displayed on those domains shows, the official seals of IPR Center, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security Investigations are followed by that of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security, indicating the seizures were carried out to assist the Brazilian government.

 

The six domains – all unquestionably linked to music piracy – read as follows: Corourbanos.com, Corourbano.com, Pautamp3.com, SIMP3.com, Flowactivo.co and Mp3Teca.ws. Things get more interesting when drilling down into how the domains were seized and on what basis. But there are other questions too.

Affidavit in Support of Seizure Warrant

On June 14, 2022, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (ICE) filed an HSI Special Agent affidavit at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. It details why there is probable cause to seize the six domains by citing alleged criminal copyright infringement offenses.

 

The affidavit states that in April 2022, HSI received information from Brazil-based anti-piracy company Ltahub, which acts as a representative of Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and Interscope Records in Latin America & the Caribbean.

 

Also in April, HSI received additional information from IFPI which, in common with its member labels, confirmed that the domains were being used to distribute copyrighted music without authorization. The Special Agent confirmed that infringing music could be downloaded in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Infringing Domains

Given the evidence in the affidavit, there is no doubt that the domains engage in mass copyright infringement.

 

Corourbanos.com and Corourbano.com are linked, with the former servicing an estimated 1.1 million visitors per month but the latter, just 72K. Pautamp3.com has an estimated monthly audience of 680,000 visits, SIMP3.com an estimated 1.8 million, Flowactivo.co around 1.6 million (more on that later), and Mp3Teca.ws roughly 1.4 million.

 

Given that pre-release piracy is considered one of the most damaging forms of infringement by the recording industry, it’s worth highlighting that Corourbanos.com and SIMP3.com are directly accused of making music available in advance of commercial release. As per the affidavit, all of the pirate music site domains easily meet the standard for criminal copyright infringement.

Domain Seizures

After showing that the domains are involved in criminality as per US law, the HSI Special Agent states that a criminal seizure warrant is justified on the basis that if the domain owners were convicted, the domains would be subject to forfeiture.

 

While there is nothing in the affidavit (or subsequent IFPI and DoJ press releases) to indicate that the owners of the domains are being prosecuted, seizing their domains at this stage immediately puts their platforms out of action. And as it turns out, seizing them wasn’t difficult at all since they all have connections to the United States, one way or another.

 

Corourbanos.com, Corourbano.com Pautamp3.com, and SIMP3.com, all utilize the ‘.com’ top-level domain. The registry for ‘.com’ is VeriSign, conveniently located in Reston, Virginia, meaning that these domains could be seized at the highest level.

 

Verisign was required to direct the domains to two specified name servers (ns1.seizedservers.com and ns2.seizedservers.com) and prevent any further modification or transfer, pending completion of forfeiture proceedings. The registry was also ordered to notify US-based domain registrars GoDaddy and Namecheap of the seizures so they could make the necessary administrative changes.

 

The seizures of Flowactivo.co and Mp3Teca.ws were executed differently since their domain registries are located outside United States jurisdiction. The registry for ‘.co’ is in Bogotá, Colombia, and the registry for ‘.ws’ is in Samoa.

 

These jurisdiction issues were easily overcome by ignoring these overseas registries altogether. Dropping down a level, HSI/ICE targeted the domains’ registrar instead. Located in Scottsdale, Arizona, GoDaddy LLC was given the same name server and modification prevention instructions as Verisign, which provided a functionally similar end result.

Domains Seized For Brazil. Interesting

The HSI/ICE affidavit filed in Virginia makes no mention of cooperation with the Brazilian authorities or indeed Operation 404, of which the seizures were a part. This is where the seizures start to make less sense, at least considering their presentation by both US and Brazilian authorities.

 

Corourbanos.com enjoyed around 1.1 million visits per month, confirmed by data provided by SimilarWeb. However, the same data shows that the overwhelming majority of visitors were from Peru (50%), Dominican Republic (12.4%), and Chile (9.4%). Just 6.4% came from the United States with Mexico coming in below 3%.

 

Corourbano.com had just 76,000 visitors per month with just over 89% coming from Peru. Less than 6% came from Spain, with the Dominican Republic and Guatemala following with 3% and 2% respectively. In short, these two domains presented in Spanish were of little interest to Brazilians who, in the main, speak Portuguese.

 

Pautamp3.com continues a similar pattern. Presented in Spanish (around 4% of Brazil’s population are speakers), around 27% of its visitors are predictably from Spain, 17% from Argentina, 11% from Mexico, 6% from Chile and 5.5% hail from Ecuador. Whichever way the traffic is cut, the share from Brazil and the United States is negligible.

 

SIMP3.com is also presented in Spanish and is most popular in Spain (30%), through to Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia (6%). Again, interest in Brazil is negligible.

 

Flowactivo.co is also in Spanish but bucks the trend with 37% of its visitors coming from the US, followed by Spain, Italy and Venezuela. However, the site’s traffic is much smaller than the 1.6 million visits per month cited in the affidavit. Over the past three months the platform had just 130K visits per month according to SimilarWeb data.

 

Traffic claims for Mp3Teca.ws also seem inflated. The affidavit claims 1.4 million visits per month but SimilarWeb disagrees stating between 800K and a million visits per month over the last three months. And again, the site isn’t remotely popular in Brazil or the United States. Most traffic comes from Venezuela (20%) followed by Dominican Republic, Spain, Mexico and Ecuador (7%).

Conclusion

From the small sample of data it’s difficult to draw solid conclusions but it’s certainly interesting that of six domain seizures carried out by the United States, ostensibly to assist a Brazilian anti-piracy operation, none are of notable interest to pirates in Brazil. On the other hand, the recording industry outside Brazil (especially in Spanish-speaking countries) will benefit but quite why that had to be achieved through the US and Brazil is another question.

 

An answer may partially lie in Brazil being under continued US scrutiny for not doing enough to combat piracy. It’s on the USTR’s Special 301 Watch List (pdf) for failing to combat IPTV piracy, for example, and interestingly the latest phase of Operation 404 prominently featured seized streaming devices.

 

The other big takeaway is that if pirate sites use a domain that either has its registry or registrar in the United States, it can be taken away in an instant. That raises the question of the hundreds of pirate sites that have more traffic than even the most popular of these six seized domains, yet somehow remain completely untargeted by similar US seizures.

 

The seizure documents can be found here and here (pdf)

 

Over the years, copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb online piracy, with varying levels of success.

 

Site blocking has emerged as one of the preferred solutions. While blocking measures are not bulletproof, the general idea is that they pose a large enough hurdle for casual pirates to choose legal options instead.

 

Courts in dozens of countries around the world have issued blocking orders. The first blockades were set up in Europe but countries in Asia and the Americas followed soon after. Africa has lagged behind a bit, but that’s starting to change as well.

Kenya’s High Court Issues Pirate Site Blocking Order

A few days ago, the High Court of Kenya approved a permanent injunction that requires local ISPs including Safaricom and Jamii Telecom to block dozens of illegal sports streaming sites.

 

The list of sites includes 44 names and includes Cricfree, Firstsrowsports, Rojadirecta, Totalsportek, and Yalla-shoot. An overview of all the sites is included at the bottom of this article.

 

The case originally started in 2019, when MultiChoice Kenya sent takedown notices to the providers, hoping they would block the sports streaming sites. When that didn’t happen, the broadcaster took the matter to court.

 

Last week, Justice Wilfrida Okwany concluded that the ISPs are indeed legally obliged to take action. When a rightsholder sends a valid takedown request, Internet providers can’t simply ignore it, as happened in this case.

 

This is the first blocking order in Kenya, which is based on a 2019 revision of the country’s copyright law. The revised law allows rightsholders to issue takedown requests to ISPs. While Internet providers can’t “remove” third-party sites, they can block them, the Court confirmed.

 

The ruling comes as a disappointment to the ISPs. They previously backed a plan to have the Copyright Act amendment repealed. This proposal was eventually withdrawn from Parliament, in part because the US Government stepped in.

“Landmark Ruling”

MultiChoice Kenya’s Managing Director, Nancy Matimu, is pleased with the outcome which she describes as an important milestone in the fight against piracy in Africa.

 

“We have been fighting for years to ensure that there are legal copyright protections, and that those protections are enforced. The court has reaffirmed the stance of the law that copyright must be protected.”

 

Matimu hopes that Kenya’s site blocking order will be an inspiration for other African countries. If others follow suit, it will send a positive signal to international rightsholders.

 

“This is a landmark ruling. With this verdict, Kenya is saying that any business looking to invest in Kenya can rest assured that their intellectual property will be protected.”

‘More Can be Done’

Indeed, international copyright holders will be pleased to see that site blocking has officially arrived in Kenya. However, there are still plenty of other items on their wishlist.

 

Last week, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which includes the MPA and RIAA, shared a list of shortcomings in Kenya’s copyright and enforcement framework with the US Government.

 

Among other things, IIPA would like to see Kenya implement a repeat infringer policy to terminate the accounts of persistent pirates. In addition, the copyright term should expand to the life of the author, plus an additional 70 years.

 

—

 

The full list of 44 blocked sites is as follows.

 

1. Totalsportek
2. ronaldo7
3. stream-cr7
4. ripple
5. vipleague
6. livesoccertv
7. livesport
8. soccer-live stream
9. LiveTV
10. vipbox live
11. sportnews
12. jokerlivestream
13. Cricfree
14. Fullmatchesandshows
15. Vipboxtv
16. liveharleyquinnwidge
17. Messistream
18. Yalla-shoot
19. HD streams
20. Cdn livetvcdn
21. Firstsrowsports
22. Livefootballol
23. Miradetodo
24. Livestream
25. Tvball7
26. Skytivi
27. Freeintertv
28. Vipstand
29. Extremotvplay
30. Stream2watch
31. Oeb
32. Ishunter
33. Myfeed2all
34. Barcelona stream
35. sport stream
36. Cricfree
37. Indiostv
38. Sport365 live
39. Kora-online TV
40. Stream woop
41. Sportzonline
42. Sportv
43. Rojadirecta
44. Cricsports

 

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 five new entries on the list. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is the most downloaded title.

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

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	7.2 / trailer
2	(…)	Crimes of the Future	6.1 / trailer
3	(1)	Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore	6.4 / trailer
4	(…)	The Man from Toronto	5.7 / trailer
5	(5)	Everything Everywhere All at Once	8.5 / trailer
6	(…)	Watcher	6.3 / trailer
7	(…)	Jurassic World Dominion	6.0 / trailer
8	(4)	The Batman	8.4 / trailer
9	(2)	The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent	7.2 / trailer
10	(3)	Morbius	5.1 / trailer

 

 

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

 

To the global audience Ulož.to may not be a household name but in the Czech Republic, it is huge.

 

The file-sharing and hosting service has millions of users and is listed among the 40 most-visited websites in the country. In addition, its mobile apps are frequently used as well.

 

Like many other file storage platforms, Ulož can be used to share a wide variety of files but, according to copyright holders, many people abuse the platform to share pirated music, movies, and TV shows.

Filter Battle in Court

Similar to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, Uloz removes infringing content when it receives takedown notices but Czech anti-piracy group Dilia believes that the procedure doesn’t go far enough.

 

Representing several rightsholders, Dilia took Uloz to court, successfully requesting far-reaching anti-piracy filters. In 2019, a Prague court ruled that the file-sharing site must block searches for several film-related terms.

 

Uloz was not pleased with this decision. The company complained that these types of filters pose a threat to the free Internet since they lead to overbroad censorship. To prevent this, Uloz fought the issue all the way up to the Supreme Court.

 

Rightsholders, meanwhile, were not satisfied either. They requested more far-reaching measures from the file-sharing platform, instead of tailored filters for a subset of keywords.

Supreme Court Affirms Piracy Filters

After hearing the arguments from both sides, last week the Supreme Court decided to keep the lower court’s ruling intact. This means that Uloz must continue to filter searches for a list of “forbidden words” and block downloads of related movies.

 

The highlighted movies are all local titles and include “Pelíšků” (Cosy Dens), “Kobry a užovky” (The Snake Brothers), “Ostře sledované vlaky” (Closely Watched Trains), “Vesničko má středisková” (My Sweet Little Village), “S čerty nejsou žerty” (Give the Devil His Due) and “Obušku, z pytle ven” (Stick, Start Beating!).

 

There is some silver lining for Uloz as well. The Supreme Court rejected the rightsholders’ argument that the service is liable for the infringements of its users. More far-reaching anti-piracy measures were also rejected.

 

“The mere fact that a provider of a file storage service is generally aware that works are unlawfully made available through its service […] is not sufficient to conclude that the service provider acts to participate in individual copyright offenses,” the Court found.

 

That said, if rightsholders point out specific instances of infringement, Uloz has to take action. In this case it must use technical measures to prevent people from finding and downloading the six films.

 

“After all, such technological measures currently exist and […] are capable of detecting repeatedly unauthorized storage and access to files containing works or objects of copyright-related rights,” the judges write.

“Censored”

When we search for one of the six film titles on Uloz today, we see the following error message. “The search for this term was censored by a decision of the court.”

 

Uloz respects the Supreme Court’s decision, which confirms that it’s a legitimate business. However, the file-sharing platform believes that the filter requirements go too far and will lead to censorship.

 

“We agree with a significant part of the court’s ruling. The judgment once again confirmed that it works in full compliance with Czech and European law. Many of Dilia’s charges were correctly dismissed during the trial,” Uloz says.

 

“However, one part of the verdict is, in our opinion and judged by our experts, still in conflict with freedom of speech and introduces disproportionate censorship.”

Legal Challenge

The Supreme Court ruling is not the end of the legal battle. The file-sharing platform says that it will challenge the censorship part at the Constitutional Court. According to Uloz, the current verdict restricts people’s freedom of expression, which violates the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

 

Last year, Uloz also successfully appealed a preliminary court order that required it to block files that contain the word Šarlatán” (Charlatan). At the time, the court concluded that filtering searches for a generic word goes too far.

 

Ten years is a long period of time in anyone’s life so when former Megaupload executives Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk spotted a light at the end of the tunnel, they understandably took it.

 

After more than a decade of fighting US extradition, the men recently reached an agreement to be charged and sentenced in New Zealand instead.

 

Not having to spend years fighting a criminal case in the United States potentially followed by a decade or two in prison is a victory in itself but having spent between a quarter and a fifth of their lives in legal limbo, Ortmann and van der Kolk had clearly had enough.

 

With the authorities in the US and New Zealand holding most of the cards, the men would’ve faced a series of high-stakes gambles by continuing to fight. With the odds of winning diminishing with every new roll and financial costs almost certainly set to explode no matter what the outcome, the decision to limit damages early is also one that allows the men to move on.

 

Last week the former Megaupload pair pleaded guilty, were convicted by a judge in New Zealand’s High Court, and now await sentencing. The crimes they admitted to in New Zealand are supposed to be similar to those they faced in the United States. In reality they are massively simplified and carry nothing like the maximum sentences available for the offenses listed in the US superseding criminal indictment dated January 16, 2012.

Megaupload Was Intended for Piracy

According to Ortmann and van der Kolk’s charging document, Megaupload was conceived, designed, and operated as a piracy-facilitating site right from the beginning. Together with Kim Dotcom, the trio reportedly noticed how much money Rapidshare was making from large-scale copyright infringement and set out to mimic it.

 

The objectives of the ‘organized criminal group’ behind Megaupload were to encourage the uploading of highly popular files knowing they were “overwhelmingly” infringing, to host and distribute those files, and to disguise the volume of infringing content on the site. Another objective, according to the document, was to frustrate the efforts of copyright holders who wanted their content removed.

 

Megaupload generated advertising revenue due to the popularity of the copyright-infringing content. The pirated content also attracted users who were incentivized to purchase premium subscriptions.

 

Ortmann and van der Kolk admitted that the primary source of Megaupload’s traffic, its primary income, and the reason for its popularity, were all down to the infringing content available on the site. And they knew that mass copyright infringement was hurting rights holders

Participation in an Organized Criminal Group

Ortmann and van der Kolk were convicted on four charges in total. Charges 1 and 2 relate to offenses contrary to sections 98A and 7A of the Crimes Act 1961.

 

Section 98A of the Crimes Act 1961 states that a person commits an offense and is liable to imprisonment for participating in an organized criminal group.

 

Under this law and in this case, an organized criminal group is in broad terms three or more people with an objective to obtain material benefits from the “commission of offenses” that are locally punishable by a four-year prison term. If benefits were obtained outside New Zealand and would’ve attracted a four-year sentence locally, the same standard applies.

 

Section 7A of the Crimes Act 1961 relates to offenses that occurred wholly outside New Zealand but can be prosecuted locally. The legislation has a primary focus on terrorist acts but offenses contrary to Section 98A are also covered.

 

The first charge relates to offenses under 98A and 7A and carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. The second charge is identical but carries a ten year maximum sentence. This suggests that some of the crimes took place when five years was the maximum sentence for participating in a criminal group. The remainder came after New Zealand upped the maximum to ten years to discourage organized and gang crime.

Conspiring to Cause Loss by Deception

The third charge relates to offenses contrary to sections 240(1)(d) and 310 of the Crimes Act 1961.

 

Section 240(1)(d) states that someone found guilty of obtaining by deception (or causing loss by deception) by any deception and without claim of right, “causes loss to any other person.” Section 310 states that someone found guilty of conspiring with any person to commit an offense is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years.

 

In the charging document, various acts of deception are attributed to Ortmann, van der Kolk and/or Kim Dotcom. They include telling NBC Universal that it was impossible to host infringing videos on sister site Megavideo and informing the USTR that Megaupload had a repeat infringer policy, had terminated 120,000 repeat infringers, and deleted infringing content worldwide, not just the United States.

 

Assurances were also given to PayPal that infringing content had been taken down and uploaders had been blocked but “only a few” of the uploaders were tackled, the document says.

Conspiring to Dishonestly Obtain Documents

The final charge relates to offenses contrary to sections 228 and 310 of the Crimes Act 1961. Section 310 relates to conspiracy (as above) while section 228(1)(a) is much more unusual.

 

“Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, with intent to obtain any property, service, pecuniary advantage, or valuable consideration, dishonestly and without claim of right, takes or obtains any document,” it reads.

 

At the time of writing, New Zealand courts are most likely to hand down concurrent sentences. This means that separate sentences are handed down for each offense committed but those sentences are served simultaneously.

 

Given that the maximum sentence available for any of the above offenses is 10 years, Ortmann and van der Kolk are unlikely to face a sentence longer than that.

 

They also admitted guilt as soon as they were charged in New Zealand so there could be a sentencing reduction of 25%. Neither are violent offenders so could be eligible for release after serving just a third of their sentence.

 

While the sentencing judge will seek to hold the men accountable, after more than a decade of proving they can be responsible citizens of value to New Zealand (and in effect are rehabilitated already), a short sentence isn’t out of the question.

 

Kim Dotcom believes they may get just two years of home detention but while charges might be negotiable, sentence deals are expressly forbidden.

 

Finally, it’s worth noting the nature of these charges. Ever since the raid of Megaupload in 2012, Kim Dotcom has warned that if he goes to prison for hosting someone else’s infringing content on Megaupload, that could be disastrous for all service providers in New Zealand since there would be no ‘safe harbor’ for services under copyright law.

 

Whether by design or not, the charges above may have copyright infringment as the underlying acts but they seem to pose no threat to the status quo. Indeed, they don’t rely on the technical aspects of the Megaupload service at all but instead rest on the trio’s previously private discussions relating to copyright infringement and what wasn’t done to prevent it.

 

The full charging document can be found here (pdf)