Individuals and business entities involved in the sale of pirate IPTV services in the UK can often turn a significant profit from customers looking for a cheap entertainment fix.

 

The secret to longevity, aside from maintaining a reliable service at a reasonable price, is to avoid the negative attention of rightsholders, broadcasters and anti-piracy groups. While many succeed, all risk being referred to the police for criminal prosecution. That appears to be the case with three men recently targeted in the north of England.

Organized Crime Unit Makes Arrests

The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (NWROCU) collaborates with police forces across Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, and North Wales.

 

NWROCU reports that in a joint operation with Lancashire Police on March 23, it executed three search warrants as part of the “continuing fight against illegal streaming.”

 

Officers raided three addresses in Blackpool, Kirkham and Oldham and seized a variety of equipment related to the ‘provision’ of an IPTV service offering premium content including TV, movies and live sports.

 

Two 31-year-old men from Blackpool and a 29-year-old man from Oldham were arrested on suspicion of criminal copyright infringement offenses and were later released under investigation.

Who Are The Men?

In common with many announcements relating to similar arrests in the UK, at this stage police offer no additional information that might identify the name of the service, the roles of the men, whether they were operating a service themselves (or acting as resellers), or were involved in some other way.

 

It is also worth noting that rightsholders and broadcasters are always involved behind the scenes in these investigations, with Sky, BT Sport, and English Premier League the most likely candidates.

 

Again, no information on rightsholder involvement has been released but if the men are eventually prosecuted, one (or more) of these companies will claim to be a victim of fraud. The men were arrested for copyright infringement offenses but convictions for fraud are preferred by rightsholders, largely because fraud cases are tried and tested, carry longer prison sentences, and are more easily understood by juries.

Organized Crime Unit Strikes Again

The North West Regional Organised Crime Unit’s involvement in UK pirate IPTV enforcement was confirmed in 2019 when the unit teamed up with the Federation Against Copyright Theft to shut down the Supremacy Kodi add-on repository.

 

Late November 2021, the repository owner, Stephen Millington, 42, appeared at Chester Crown Court after pleading guilty to fraud and copyright offenses related to his own piracy-figured Kodi ‘builds’. According to the prosecution, these pieces of software facilitated illegal access to BT Sport, Sky, Netflix, and other subscription television content. Millington was ultimately sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

 

In cooperation with anti-piracy group FACT, NWROCU has also tested a more gentle approach. In 2019, the police unit delivered cease-and-desist notices to suspected IPTV resellers in the hope they would shut down voluntarily, thus avoiding arrest. The success of the strategy hasn’t been revealed but potential prosecution targets are in plentiful supply.

 

An operation in March 2021, for example, saw NWROCU-affiliated cybercrime police execute five warrants for IPTV-related offenses. Two people were arrested and electrical items, cash and counterfeit goods were seized.

 

Affiliated police forces in Lancashire also shut down North West IPTV back in 2020. High-value assets, including a Range Rover Sport SVR V8 and an Audi A5 convertible, were seized along with designer clothing, designer bags, and jewelry.

 

An estimated 7,000 users of that service later received email warnings from the police, which stated that knowingly subscribing to an illegal IPTV service constitutes a criminal offense.

 

Adult entertainment outfit Malibu Media has often been described as a copyright-trolling operation.

 

The Los Angeles company, known for its popular “X-Art” brand, has gone after thousands of alleged file-sharers in U.S. courts, collecting millions of dollars in settlements.

 

Not too long ago Malibu was one of the most active anti-piracy litigants in the U.S., but in recent years this activity ground to a halt. However, there is at least one case that hasn’t been completely resolved, and Malibu is on the losing end of it.

 

The case in question started in 2018, when Malibu Media accused Mr. Mullins of downloading 11 pirated videos. The defendant fought back and contested the evidence up to the point where Malibu Media agreed to dismiss its claims. However, that wasn’t enough.

 

The defense wanted to see the company’s piracy evidence, but this never came in despite a court order. That frustrated the court, the accused subscriber, and even Malibu’s own attorney, who withdrew from the case because her client failed to comply.

$108,271 in Costs and Fees

In the months that followed little progress was made and last year U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin handed a win to Mr. Mullins. The court ordered Malibu to pay $48,656.73 in costs and attorneys’ fees. After Malibu initially failed to pay, the total amount owed more than doubled to $108,271.

 

This is one of the largest judgments we’ve seen in favor of a wrongfully accused file-sharer.

 

To make sure that the outstanding money is paid, Mullins’ legal team obtained an asset restraining order. This requires Malibu Media and its payment processor Epoch.com to set apart subscription revenue from “X-Art.com” members until everything is paid off.

 

Adding to the pressure, Malibu Media’s boss Collette Pelissier was also held personally liable for the outstanding payments, and the same is true for ZO Digital, a company operated by Pelissier’s husband Mr. Brigham Field.

‘Unjust Enrichment’

In recent months a substantial amount has been paid, but not everything. A few weeks ago, collection attorney Joseph Stewart couple to pay the remaining $17,635.04. Paying that off would put an end to the matter but instead, Pelissier and Field went on the offensive.

 

In an email added to the court docket this week, Pelissier accuses the defense of extortion and unjust enrichment. The letter includes some grammatical and styling errors, which we’ve left intact, but it’s clear that Malibu’s boss is upset with the restraining order.

 

“A federal Judge should not ever be the cause of unjust enrichment. The most recent (I don’t know what to call it)…the scam to have $58,000 paid to The Peacock firm, when we offered to pay the attorney’s fees (which were never due to begin with).

 

“This case is a perfect example of abuse of process, denial of due process, violation of civil and constitutional rights,” Pelissier adds.

 

Malibu Media’s boss notes that she has collected court dockets and transcripts that are reportedly being examined by several attorneys who specialize in this kind of “fraud and extortion”.

Refund?

Instead of paying the outstanding amount, she now demands a refund and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

 

“This is your last chance to refund the stolen aprox $110,000 and the emotional damages that we have suffered (conservatively $50,000/month since August 2021 for 7 months. This would be $360,000 (less than Epoch has remitted in the same period of time in most years). In addition, intentional infliction of emotional distress and substantial defamation.”

 

In addition to abuse of process, unjust enrichment and extortion, Mr. Mullins’ legal team is also accused of defamation. Pelissier writes that she plans to have the responsible attorney disbarred and intends to go after U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin as well.

 

“We will pursue to have you disbarred and Judge Durkin examined by oversight, based on his body of work and how we were denied counsel or breach a draconian TRO (which violated our constitutional rights, even right to counsel). Hopefully this will be the last time I have to interact with you personally,” she writes.

Problematic Behavior

While we don’t know whether any of the threats in this letter will be followed up, it is clear that Mrs. Pelissier has been affected by the unfolding events. That the case is taking an emotional toll was also apparent from a court hearing late last year, where she had a complete breakdown.

 

During that hearing, Malibu’s boss repeatedly interrupted the hearing, much to the frustration of the court, including Judge Durkin.

 

“I deal with prisoners who are more appropriate, I have people who are mentally ill who can conduct themselves with more decency,” Judge Durkin said at the time, before cutting off the call.

 

Without making judgments or drawing any conclusions, it is ironic to see “extortion” and “unjust enrichment” accusations from people who were previously labeled as ‘copyright trolls’. Also, it would probably be wise for Malibu’s representatives to hire an attorney to represent them and handle communications going forward.

 

—

 

A copy of the email, signed by both Mrs. Pelissier and Mr. Field, is available here (pdf)

 

After more than two decades of declining fortunes, 2021 was a blockbuster year for global recorded music revenues.

 

With a growth of 18.5% on the previous year and revenues of $25.9 billion, 2021 marked a return to levels last witnessed pre-Napster in the late 1990s. Nevertheless, more than 20 years later the music industry is still fighting piracy but against a relatively new enemy – YouTube-ripping services.

 

By enabling users to access tracks on YouTube and convert them to MP3 downloads, tools like youtube-dl and sites including Yout, flvto and 2conv are all embroiled in lawsuits involving the IFPI and RIAA, both in the United States and further afield.

 

That being said, there are always more targets for the major labels and two more have just appeared on the radar.

RIAA Filed Complaints With Cloudflare

In emails dated March 29, the RIAA informed Cloudflare that “users of its system” are engaged in copyright infringement so help is needed to track them down.

 

“We have a good faith belief that this activity is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assert that the information in this notification is accurate, based on the data available to us,” the emails read.

 

The RIAA emails to Cloudflare reference two YouTube-ripping style platforms – mp3download.to and 320ytmp3.com. According to SimilarWeb stats, the former’s traffic ranges between 3.5 million and 6 million visits per month. The latter, on the other hand, is a much more popular resource.

 

In December 2021, January and February 2022, the site pulled in between 53 million and 61.8 million visitors per month. Almost 30% of users came from the United States with the UK, Canada and India occupying the rest of the top slots. That makes 320ytmp3.com one of the most popular sites of its type online today.

Cloudflare Won’t Do Much Without a Court Order

The RIAA’s emails asked Cloudflare to take immediate action against both platforms in respect of specific links cited in the RIAA’s complaints, which reference songs by Wham! and Chicago, among others. The emails also ask Cloudflare to “consider the widespread and repeated infringing nature” of the sites in light of the CDN provider’s repeat infringer policy.

 

In reality, though, the RIAA wants something more valuable.

 

Given that Cloudflare won’t give up its customers’ details without authorization, this week the RIAA also filed a DMCA subpoena application at a California court. Listing the same musical works, the music industry group requested an order to compel Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of those behind the two sites, including their names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and payment information.

 

The court quickly signed off on the application, meaning that Cloudflare is now required to hand over information to the RIAA so that its inquiries can be taken to the next level. Whether Cloudflare holds any useful information remains an open question since sites are known to sign up to the service using fake details.

 

However, even in the absence of direct legal action against either of the platforms, there is still a strong chance that one or both will appear in future court-ordered ISP blocking injunctions, mostly actioned by ISPs outside the United States.

 

The RIAA has recently filed DMCA takedown notices against 320ytmp3.com with the aim of removing the site’s links from Google search. Many more have been filed with Google by the BPI in the UK (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) which could be a sign of an upcoming High Court application.

 

Emails to Cloudflare and the DMCA subpoena application can be found here (1,2, pdf)

 

Companies that file hundreds even thousands of copyright infringement lawsuits with the intention of seeking settlements to avoid trial, are often labeled ‘copyright trolls’.

 

In the United States, the undisputed leader in this space is adult video company Strike 3 Holdings, the owner of brands including Blacked, Tushy, and Vixen. In 2021 alone the company filed over 1,900 such lawsuits in U.S. courts but as far as we’re aware, not a single case has ever gone to trial.

 

That doesn’t mean that Strike 3 isn’t prepared to fight cases tooth and nail though.

 

While most actions are quickly settled behind the scenes, some can face a spirited fightback from defendants. One such case has been running for more than two years already and has just taken a surprising turn, even by ‘copyright troll’ standards.

Case Background Against ‘John Doe’

The original lawsuit was filed in a Florida court against an anonymous defendant in March 2020 and was followed by a first amended complaint in August of the same year. According to Strike 3, the defendant used their Frontier Communications account to download and share 36 of its titles “over an extended period of time” using BitTorrent.

 

Also presented as evidence (reportedly collected by Strike 3’s ‘VXN Scan’ monitoring tool) are listings of BitTorrent activity from the same IP address allegedly sharing other rightsholders’ content. The titles are redacted from public records but the obvious suggestion is that infringement goes beyond the plaintiff’s titles.

 

In November 2020, the defendant answered the amended complaint, largely with denials or lack of knowledge, along with a counterclaim. It stated that since Strike 3 had failed to prove any infringement, the court should issue a declaration of noninfringement along with an award for damages, in the defendant’s favor.

 

Mediation in the case went nowhere, so once again Strike 3 went on the offensive with efforts to obtain information from third-party online services. That is not unusual in itself but Strike 3 appears to be pushing the boundaries way too far for the defendant.

Seeking Information From Google

In addition to seeking information from ISP Frontier Communications (which is standard in such cases), Strike 3 also wants access to huge amounts of the defendant’s user account data stored at Google.

 

Included in the request are all documents identifying the basic registration data for the Google account, all data that Google holds on the subscriber’s alternative email addresses, all IP addresses used to access the Google account since July 2019, all connection logs for the same period, plus records relating to purchases made on ALL Google services and products.

 

Strike 3 also wants the technical specifications of every device used by the defendant to access all Google services and products, documents identifying every single file uploaded to Google Drive, all videos uploaded to YouTube and – this is a scorcher – all records held by Google relating to internet searches made by the defendant for terms including ‘torrent’, ‘utorrent’ and ‘vpn’ dating back to July 2019.

 

This initial trove of personal information isn’t enough for Strike 3. It also wants access to the defendant’s Netflix account to obtain evidence relating to its adult movie lawsuit, despite Netflix carrying no pornography.

So What Information Does Strike 3 Want From Netflix?

The basic personal information Netflix holds on subscribers is detailed in a dedicated support page but like many similar platforms, Netflix also builds user profiles to feed its algorithms. This data includes user interactions (viewing history and ratings) plus specific preferences and tastes.

 

To somehow support its allegations that the defendant is responsible for seeding 36 adult movies using BitTorrent, Strike 3 wants all basic registration data from Netflix (full name, email address, phone number) plus additional information, including a list of devices used to access the service.

 

The adult movie company also demands “Clickstream Information”, i.e details of all actions taken by the defendant when logged in to Netflix. This includes profile and device names used, details of every Netflix page visited, the URL of the websites the defendant visited before accessing Netflix, plus dates and times when that happened.

 

In common with the subpoena Strike 3 wants to send to Google, a large proportion of the requested information from Netflix is redacted from the subpoena. However, we can still see that Strike 3 wants to dig deep into the defendant’s devices with requests to receive unique device identifiers, device manufacturers, manufacturers of specific components such as processors, and a whole lot more.

 

Things become even more intrusive with Strike 3’s demand to access the defendant’s gaming activities on Netflix including games played, playing session time length, and just about anything else the porn company can retrieve.

 

Unsurprisingly, the John Doe defendant is pushing back on this massive discovery effort.

Motion to Quash Google and Netflix Subpoenas

In a motion filed with the court, attorneys for the defendant say there is no need or good cause for the documents being subpoenaed, not least since they represent an invasion of privacy are not proportional to the needs of the case.

 

The first opposition against the Google subpoena lists many issues, noting that documents stored at Google would reveal private and personal information, including privileged communications with counsel. The request for YouTube data is “irrelevant” since there is no evidence of the defendant hosting infringing videos on the platform.

 

On the issue of search query data, the motion notes that such searches should be considered private as they can also contain “highly-personal and sensitive issues, such as confidential medical information, racial or ethnic origins, political or religious beliefs or sexuality..”

 

In respect of Netflix, the motion says the request to access “highly invasive personal information unrelated to the simple question of whether Strike 3’s movie data was downloaded on John Doe’s computer” is unacceptable, while access to gaming records is “irrelevant” as Strike 3 does not distribute games.

 

“There is no evidence that either Netflix or Google participated in the production, distribution, or financing of hard-core pornography. Instead, Strike 3 seeks irrelevant information from these two companies with the intent of harvesting John Doe’s personal account information from these two sources. This is manifestly an invasion of privacy. None of this personal account information is relevant to this case,” the motion reads.

 

In summary, John Doe’s attorney believes that no reasonable attorney could have a good faith belief that these broad subpoenas meet the proportionality requirements of the court. Strike 3 should be sanctioned and the court should quash the subpoenas, the motion adds.

 

The first amended complaint and answer here and here, subpoenas to Google and Netflix, and motion to quash (all pdf)

 

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

 

This year’s awards ceremony received plenty of attention as well, with most of the media focusing on the Will Smith incident. Luckily, the winners didn’t get unnoticed by the public at large.

 

There are two films that clearly stand out. The first one is “Dune”, which received the most awards, winning in six categories. The other one is “CODA“, which picked up three awards including the most prestigious of “Best Picture”.

Historic Win

CODA’s win goes in the history books as the first film from a streaming platform to win the top Oscar. This honor goes to Apple, which beat Netflix, which was also in the run for the best picture award with “Don’t Look Up”.

 

In the past we have seen that Oscar wins are not just about prestige, they also increase sales. With a streaming release that’s harder to measure but it’s logical to assume that more people watched the film on Apple’s platform after the awards show.

 

The Oscars also have a direct impact on the interest among pirates. This is something we can measure and the results leave little room for doubt. Based on a sample of torrent downloads tracked by IKnow, we can report that the estimated number of pirated CODA downloads skyrocketed on Monday.

Piracy Surge

The graph below shows that during the first months of the year CODA had a median of roughly 5,000 downloads per day. When the nominations were announced in early February this number doubled momentarily. Leading up to the awards ceremony there was a gradual increase again, with a surge over more than 60,000 estimated downloads on Monday.

 

The number of post-Oscar downloads of “CODA” is higher than the pirated downloads per day last August when the film first leaked online.

 

It’s worth keeping in mind that this sample only tracks pirated downloads through torrent sites. Most piracy takes place through unauthorized streaming sites nowadays. These views can’t be tracked publicly, but it means that the total piracy count will be much higher.

 

The data clearly show that the Best Picture award boosted CODA’s piracy numbers; but what about the other major Oscar winner Dune?

Will Smith Impact

Interestingly, the data show that Dune also got a piracy boost, but nowhere near the levels seen for CODA. We assume that this is in part because Dune was a blockbuster release that many people had watched already.

 

The numbers we’ve seen only include one other film that comes close to the relative piracy boost CODA got and that’s “The King’s Man”. While the film wasn’t nominated in the Best Picture category, Will Smith won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Richard Williams.

 

Apparently, Smith’s controversial behavior on stage at the Oscars also raised people’s interest in the film itself.

 

All in all, we see that the ‘Oscar effect’ is clearly visible for CODA, Dune, and The King’s Man. Winning an award definitely impacts the piracy numbers. That is also clear when we contrast the download estimates for the aforementioned films with Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up” which didn’t win anything.

More Oscar Piracy Trends

There are some other Oscar-related piracy trends that are worth pointing out as well. As we previously observed, screener leaks have become a relatively rare occurrence in recent times. This makes sense, as release windows are dropping or completely disappearing as the result of the online streaming boom.

 

Only three screeners for Oscar-nominated films leaked online this year. This was confirmed by screener-watcher Andy Baio last weekend, who has kept track of these leaks for two decades.

 

The drop in leaks isn’t so much the result of better anti-piracy protection or the Academy banning physical screeners. No, there are simply fewer incentives for release groups to leak screeners, since better quality, pirated copies are often available already.

 

Take CODA, for example. A high-quality copy of the film was shared on pirate sites on the same day it premiered on the Apple TV+ platform. This was long before the first screeners are usually sent out. So, even if a release group has access to a screener, there would be no point in leaking it.

 

Pirate site blocking is a common practice in dozens of countries around the world. In most cases, ISPs are ordered to take action after a relatively short court proceeding.

 

In the Netherlands, it took more than a decade for the first order to be approved. It took detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice before the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay.

 

With all the legal paperwork in order, the doors were opened to more blocking requests. We expected these to follow sooner but anti-piracy group BREIN remained quiet on the blocking front. This was for good reason as rightsholders and ISPs were working on an agreement behind the scenes.

 

Last November, BREIN signed a deal with all large Dutch Internet providers to streamline the blocking process. Through this “Website Blocking Covenant” Ziggo, KPN, DFN, T-Mobile, Canal+, and members of the industry organization NLConnect, promise to block pirate sites when rightsholders obtain a blocking order against one of the other ISPs.

LimeTorrents, YTS, RARBG, Kickasstorrents and EZTV

This week, the government-supported agreement is being put to work for the first time. As part of a yet-to-be-published ruling, BREIN obtained a blocking order requiring Internet provider Delta to restrict access to 1337x, LimeTorrents, YTS, RARBG, Kickasstorrents, EZTV, as well as several proxies and mirrors.

 

Delta confirmed that it had lost the blocking battle earlier this month. The provider informed Tweakers that there was a hearing on March 14, where the matter was decided.

 

The new blocking effort was first reported by users of the ISP KPN and later confirmed by the provider’s support staff. While KPN isn’t named in the order, the covenant requires it to block the sites as well. Other Dutch ISPs are expected to follow suit in a matter of days.

 

These blocklist additions don’t come as a surprise. In November 2021, BREIN informed TorrentFreak that it had started a new proceeding to block six sites, without mentioning any names.

Google to Follow Suit?

The Internet providers are not the only intermediaries to become more cooperative. Google is also working with rightsholders to remove domain names from its search results if there’s a valid ISP blocking order in the country.

 

Thus far, Google has only removed Pirate Bay domains from its search results but we expect that the new additions will follow in due course. According to BREIN director Tim Kuik, Google’s stance is similar to that of the ISPs.

 

“In essence, this is the same situation as recently agreed in the Dutch government-supported covenant between right holders and internet access providers,” Kuik previously informed TorrentFreak.

 

With the six new additions, there are seven domain names blocked in the Netherlands. However, if BREIN follows the path of other rightsholder representatives, many more will follow in the future.

 

A few years ago piracy-related lawsuits were pretty straightforward. Copyright holders would either sue alleged file-sharers or the operators of pirate sites.

 

More recently, we have seen a new breed of lawsuits filed on behalf of the makers of movies such as “Angel Has Fallen”, “Dallas Buyer’s Club”, “Hellboy” and “Rambo V: Last Blood”.

 

These lawsuits target VPN providers, which are generally seen as third-party intermediaries. This includes LiquidVPN. The company was taken to court in March last year, shortly after the former owner was sued in a separate lawsuit.

 

The new owner, Puerto Rico company 1701 Management, is allegedly linked to U.S. resident Mr. Muszynski, who continued operating the service. While running a VPN doesn’t equal copyright infringement, the movie companies accused the service of encouraging and facilitating piracy.

‘Popcorn-Time VPN’

The complaint mentioned a variety of examples where the defendants directly or indirectly referenced copyright-infringing activity. This includes a screenshot of Popcorn Time which shows the Millennium film Survivor. The movie companies argue that, through various public statements, LiquidVPN ‘encouraged’ users to use its service to pirate movies.

 

“The LiquidVPN Defendants describe their VPN service as a tool to ‘Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software’ and promote it as a tool that can be used to pirate copyright protected content ‘without the risk of getting caught by your ISP or anyone else’,” they wrote.

 

Despite the serious allegations, 1701 Management and its alleged owner failed to respond in court. As such, the film companies requested a default judgment. This request was initially denied, as other defendants in the case had yet to resolve their disputes, but last week the filmmakers got the green light.

 

In the request for a default judgment, the rightsholders asked for nearly $10 million in copyright infringement damages, for a total of 66 films. They also sought millions in damages for DMCA violations, as well as damages for trademark infringement.

Court Issues Default Judgment

This week, Florida federal Judge Beth Bloom granted most of the demands. Without LiquidVPN putting up a defense, the court relied on the accusations of the filmmakers, which were properly plead and accepted as true.

 

“LiquidVPN Defendants intentionally induced and encouraged direct infringement of users of Popcorn Time,” Judge Bloom writes, adding that the VPN provider is liable for direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

 

The court stresses that the defendants don’t qualify for safe harbor protection, as they didn’t have a known repeat infringer policy or a registered DMCA agent.

 

“LiquidVPN Defendants have no safe harbor from liability because they fail to implement a policy for terminating repeat infringers and have not registered a DMCA agent with the Copyright office,” Judge Bloom adds.

Millions in Damages

The list of infringed films is 66 titles long and includes “After We Collided”, “Angel Has Fallen”, “Dallas Buyer’s Club”, “Hellboy”, “Hunter Killer”, “Rambo V: Last Blood”, “Survivor”, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”, and “Wild Horses”.

 

For all these films, the LiquidVPN defendants have to pay the maximum statutory damages for copyright infringement, set at $150,000 per work. That adds up to a total of $9.9 million. In addition, they have to pay $4.9 million for altering copyright management information, which violates the DMCA.

 

The court also granted the request for a permanent injunction that requires LiquidVPN to block the piracy websites included in USTR’s annual overview. Those include The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and YTS. In addition, it must implement a repeat infringer policy.

 

Whether LiquidVPN will comply with these requests is unknown. The homepage has been offline for a few months now, but the user panel where people can place new orders still appears to be operational.

Popcorn Time Trademark

In addition to the copyright-related damages, Judge Bloom also awarded $250,000 in trademark infringement damages to the Hawaiian company 42 Ventures. This company is owned by anti-piracy attorney Kerry Culpepper, who previously registered the “Popcorn Time” trademark.

 

Two years ago, Culpepper used this trademark to suspend the Twitter account of a popular Popcorn Time fork. In the present case, LiquidVPN was successfully accused of using the trademark without authorization.

 

“LiquidVPN Defendants have intentionally used Plaintiff 42’s Mark Popcorn Time in U.S. commerce without authorization or license by using the name ‘Popcorn Time VPN’ to promote their VPN service to use the piracy application Popcorn Time,” Judge Bloom writes.

 

As far as we know, this is the first default judgment against a VPN provider. Other companies including VPN Unlimited and VPN.ht have been sued as well, but these settled their disputes out of court.

 

—

 

A copy of U.S. District Court Beth Bloom’s final default judgment and permanent injunction is available here (pdf)

 

While all kinds of measures are promoted as the best way to deal with pirate streaming sites and unlicensed IPTV services, one of the best long-term strategies is to offer legal content on a convenient platform at a fair price.

 

Like all fights against piracy, failing in any area can lead to issues. Persistent price increases, platform exclusives, and the need to subscribe to multiple platforms to get an acceptable content library can put customers off, meaning that pirate sites again find the oxygen they need to survive.

 

Last August, producer and film investor Moshe Edery co-founded Screen iL, an international TV streaming platform aimed at Israelis living abroad.

 

“Leave the pirates and come to the Zionists,” Edery said, noting that everything available on Israeli TV networks would be available on his new platform. “By using our Screen iL, you ensure that the Israelis who create this content will be compensated, not some pirate company.”

 

Of course, not everyone was convinced. Screen iL costs $219.99 for an annual subscription whereas its pirate competitors are often free. Some offer an enhanced experience in return for a donation while others in the pirate IPTV space have subscription rates far lower than Screen iL. This is clearly a problem for Edery who, as part of a broader legal strategy, is putting payment processors on notice.

Mastercard, Visa and American Express Put On Notice

In a joint statement published in The Jerusalem Post, Screen iL plus content companies United King Films, Reshet, Keshet, RGE and Noga Communications, puts Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Isracard on notice. Do something about your support for pirate sites, they warn, or expect us to come after you.

 

“The credit card companies cannot hide behind the claim of not knowing, not hearing or not realizing that the pirate websites are involved in criminal copyright violation and money laundering activities,” the statement reads.

 

“It is a public activity, conducted openly throughout the Internet and subject of many public legal proceedings in Israel and abroad, as well as multiple items in the media, clarifying that it comprises a criminal and illegal activity.”

 

Allegations that Mastercard and Visa support pirate services are certainly nothing new. In Europe, rightsholders indicate that more must be done to prevent pirate sites from using payment processors to generate revenue but, thus far, direct legal threats have been few and far between.

Screen iL’s Targets Include a Major Player

According to Screen iL and its partners, the pirate services of most concern are Israel-tv.com, Israel.tv and Sdarot.tv. They say that the Motion Picture Association reported these sites to London police, presumably the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU). In addition, the platforms were also reported to the FBI and the Department of Justice over copyright violations and money laundering.

 

What the statement doesn’t reveal is that all three of these platforms are also subject to civil litigation in the United States. In November 2021, Screen iL and partners sued Israel-tv.com (pdf), Israel.tv (pdf), and Sdarot.tv, demanding statutory copyright damages of $150,000 for every infringed work.

Two Successes, One Big Failure

In common with many similar lawsuits against pirate sites, none of the defendants have shown up to defend their cases. However, Israel-tv.com and Israel.tv (perhaps in response to the lawsuits) appear to have shut themselves down. Neither service is accessible from the domains listed in the complaints, something which cannot be said of the third site in Screen iL’s list.

 

Sdarot.tv is Israel’s most popular pirate streaming site. Over the last three months its traffic has ranged between 5.8 million and 6.9 million visits per month. The US lawsuit appears to have had little effect on its operations, something that actions in Israel also failed to achieve.

 

The lawsuits filed in the US by Screen iL and partners note that complaints in Israel resulted in court orders that prevent the sites being hosted by ISPs in Israel. Of course, that is easily circumvented, as demonstrated by Sdarot’s ability to service millions of basic users (and subscribers) every month.

 

That probably explains why Edery is now warning Mastercard, Visa, American Express, and Isracard that they will be targeted next, if they fail to prevent Sdarot from doing business with them. Whether that shot across the bows will have any effect remains to be seen but many rightsholders will be watching to see if the companies react.

 

In 2018, Canada’s Federal Court approved the country’s first pirate site-blocking order.

 

Following a complaint from major media companies Rogers, Bell and TVA, the Court ordered several major ISPs to block access to the domains and IP-addresses of pirate IPTV service GoldTV.

Site Blocking Appeals

There was little opposition from Internet providers, except for TekSavvy, which quickly announced an appeal. According to the ISP, the blocking injunction threatens the open Internet, just to advance the interests of a few powerful media conglomerates.

 

Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal disagreed and last year it concluded that the blocking order can stay in place. According to the Court, site-blocking injunctions are an available option under the Copyright Act and they don’t violate freedom of speech or net neutrality.

 

This came as a disappointment to TekSavvy, which decided to take the matter to the Supreme Court. Last fall, the ISP petitioned Canada’s highest court to hear the case, hoping to protect the neutral role of Internet providers.

 

Among other things, the Supreme Court was asked to review whether the Federal Court can issue site-blocking orders in these types of copyright infringement cases. And if blocking measures are indeed permitted, how should freedom of expression be taken into account.

Supreme Court Denies Request

A few days ago, Canada’s Supreme Court denied TekSavvy’s leave to appeal. This effectively means that the Court refuses to take on the case. As a result, the battle over the legitimacy of Canadian pirate site blocking orders ends here.

 

The Supreme Court didn’t explain its decision but it clearly saw no reason to take a closer look at the matter. This news is welcomed by Rogers, Bell and TVA, who were represented by law fiem Smart & Biggar.

 

“This decision confirms once and for all that site-blocking Orders are available in Canada, and is another major victory for Canadian copyright holders in the fight against online piracy,” Smart & Biggar writes.

 

Andy Kaplan-Myrth, TekSavvy’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, is disappointed with the outcome. He hoped that his company and public interest groups would be given the chance to voice their concerns. However, with the denial, the blocking order stands.

‘Breaks the Open Internet’

Although TekSavvy complies with the court’s order, it still isn’t convinced that these blocking efforts are an effective anti-piracy measure.

 

“Site blocking like this breaks the open Internet, and does little to actually block these services. GoldTV just moved around to new addresses, forcing Bell to clumsily try to keep up. Meanwhile, netizens use alternative DNS services, VPNs, or other ISPs that aren’t blocked,” Kaplan-Myrth says.

 

Copyright holders disagree. The original GoldTV blocking order has been extended and is still active today. In addition, Bell and Rogers have recently applied for a dynamic IP-address blocking order to take action against pirated NHL streams.

 

The rightsholders believe that these flexible blocking orders are needed to fight back against pirate services, many of which actively try to evade anti-piracy actions.

More Blockades Coming?

TekSavvy sees this new request as a dangerous development. And whether it is granted or not, the Supreme Court denial means that more blocking requests are likely on the horizon.

 

“Now armed with GoldTV-style orders, whether they get dynamic blocking or not, what’s to stop Canada’s media giants from having courts force ever more ISPs to block ever more copyrighted content? Nothing; expect it to happen,” Kaplan-Myrth says.

 

Although TekSavvy has no other options to appeal in court, it will continue to engage with government and lawmakers to address the problem and protect the open Internet to the best of its abilities.

 

Internet provider Cox Communications has been on the sharp end of several piracy lawsuits in recent years.

 

The biggest hit came three years ago when the Internet provider lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels.

$1 Billion Verdict

A Virginia jury held Cox liable for pirating subscribers because it failed to terminate accounts after repeated accusations, ordering the company to pay $1 billion in damages to the labels. This landmark ruling is currently under appeal. In addition, Cox challenged the verdict through another route as well.

 

In January, Cox filed a motion for relief from judgment at the Virginia federal court. The Internet provider argued that key evidence was concealed during the trial, which could have led to a totally different outcome.

 

The evidence in question pertains to the copyright infringement notices central to the case. Cox was held liable for failing to take action against pirating subscribers, despite receiving numerous notices that were based on evidence from the piracy tracking outfit MarkMonitor.

 

During the trial, the music companies presented a hard drive that contained copies of ‘verified’ music files that were allegedly pirated by Cox subscribers, suggesting that those were the original songs that were pirated between 2012 and 2014.

Recreated Evidence?

However, based on new information that surfaced in a lawsuit against fellow ISP Charter, Cox now believes that this hard drive evidence was recreated at a later date. This information wasn’t disclosed at trial and Cox accused the music companies of misrepresenting key evidence.

 

“The materiality of these misrepresentations and the prejudice to Cox could not be clearer: they were intended to — and did — fend off well-founded challenges to the admissibility of key pieces of evidence, the exclusion of which would have crippled Plaintiffs’ case,” Cox argued in January.

 

“The bottom line is that Plaintiffs lied. They lied to Cox; they lied to the Court; and they lied to the jury. And they rode those lies to a $1 billion judgment,” the ISP added.

 

These are strong allegations and the fact that they were lodged in a billion-dollar piracy lawsuit only adds to the weight. However, after reviewing the arguments from both sides, the court sees no reason to open the case back up.

Hashes are Hashes

U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady acknowledges that some evidence was not disclosed by MarkMonitor at the time. However, the court believes that the ‘recreated’ evidence doesn’t change anything materially.

 

According to the court, it doesn’t matter whether the infringing files were verified before or after the fact. The verification process is based on file hashes, which don’t change over time.

 

“That these files may have been downloaded and verified in 2016 — after the Claims Period — is of no consequence,” Judge O’Grady writes.

 

“Indeed, the dates of the file downloads do not matter in the context of this case because, as fully explained at trial, files with matching hash values are identical regardless of when downloaded.”

Cox Already had Its Chance

The court also notes that Cox had received MarkMonitor’s statement of work before trial, which contained the 2016 metadata. So the ISP could have looked into the matter at the time if it had wanted to.

 

In hindsight, Cox may have done things differently. However, the court sees no reason to steer this matter toward a retrial and concludes that Cox already had its chance.

 

“[T]he Court does not doubt that Defendants received a full and fair trial here. The jury had ample and relevant evidence by which to render their verdict,” Judge O’Grady notes, denying Cox’s request.

 

While Cox’s attempt to get a do-over failed, its protest against the $1 billion damages verdict continues at the appeal court.

 

—

 

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady’s order on the motion for relief from judgment is available here (pdf)

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on March 28 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	8.6 / trailer
2	(…)	Jackass Forever	7.2 / trailer
3	(2)	Turning Red	7.1 / trailer
4	(3)	The Adam Project	6.9 / trailer
5	(…)	Death on the Nile	6.5 / trailer
6	(7)	The Batman	8.4 / trailer
7	(4)	Dog	6.7 / trailer
8	(5)	The King’s Man	6.5 / trailer
9	(8)	Deep Water	5.5 / trailer
10	(9)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer

 

 

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

 

Notices of infringment sent by rightsholders under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are supposed to identify infringing content so that online services can remove it, thus protecting the rightful owners.

 

Increasingly, however, a minority of online actors view DMCA notices as a tool to disrupt and disappear content that isn’t infringing at all.

 

A little over a week ago, persons unknown began sending DMCA notices to YouTube, claiming that the targeted content infringed the rights of games developer Bungie. Working on the basis that the notices were legitimate, YouTube removed the videos, some of which were uploaded by high-profile Destiny content creators. Other notices targeted Bungie’s own channels.

 

At least initially, confusion reigned. Bungie is a supporter of fan-created content and has a policy that specifically allows videos to be uploaded to YouTube. So why was the creator of Destiny damaging itself and its fans? In short, it wasn’t.

 

“We’re aware of a series of copyright takedowns on YouTube and we’re actively investigating. This includes content on our own Bungie channels. These actions are NOT being taken at the request of Bungie or our partners. Please standby for future updates,” the developer wrote on Twitter.

Bungie Launches Investigation

Late last week, Bungie issued another statement revealing that the takedown notices were sent from a fraudulent Google account that was crafted to mimic anti-piracy partner, CSC. Google eventually terminated the account, began reversing the fraudulent takedowns, while removing copyright strikes against YouTube users.

 

Bungie went on to criticize Google for processing the fake notices but noted that the company had agreed to implement improvements to reduce such mistakes in the future. Initial chaos aside then, Bungie and Google acted to clean up the mess but it’s now clear that Bungie isn’t prepared to let this go.

 

In a relatively unusual move, the developer has filed a full-blown lawsuit in the United States to identify the culprits and hold them to account.

High-Impact Lawsuit Suggests Bungie is Not Happy

Late Friday, Bungie filed a lawsuit in a Washington court against John Does 1-10, the currently anonymous senders of the fraudulent DMCA notices. The 29-page complaint begins with allegations of abusive notices sent under the DMCA and then lists five additional causes of action including trademark abuse and violations of consumer protection law.

 

The lawsuit states that the bogus copyright complaints not only disrupted Bungie’s player community and streamers, but also caused Bungie itself “nearly incalculable damage.” Bungie then explains that weaknesses in YouTube’s systems mean that these types of abuse are easily carried out.

 

“Doe Defendants were able to [send fraudulent notices] because of a hole in YouTube’s DMCA-process security, which allows any person to claim to be representing any rights holder in the world for purposes of issuing a DMCA takedown,” Bungie explains.

 

“In other words, as far as YouTube is concerned, any person, anywhere in the world, can issue takedown notices on behalf of any rights holder, anywhere.”

Newly Created Gmail Addresses Used By Defendants

Bungie says that as long as fraudsters have a Google account, they can fill out a takedown form and YouTube will process the takedown request with no additional checks or verification. This loophole was exploited between March 17 and March 22 when a newly-created Gmail address (deliberately crafted to look like an email address used by CRC) sent a wave of fake notices to YouTube.

 

They apparently did not look like legitimate CRC notices, but that wasn’t noticed at YouTube, meaning that the innocent YouTubers received copyright strikes for no reason.

 

The same Gmail address was used to contact the affected uploaders with messages that attempted to discredit legitimate takedown notices sent by CRC on behalf of Bungie. A second newly-created Gmail account was then used to send abusive messages to the email address of Bungie’s brand protection vendor.

 

“This caused Bungie significant reputational and economic damage, for obvious reasons,” Bungie writes, noting that “the Destiny community was bewildered and upset, believing that Bungie had reneged on a promise to allow players to build their
own streaming communities and YouTube channels on Destiny 2 content.”

Unmasking the Fraudsters, Reassuring the Community

At this stage, Bungie admits it doesn’t know the identities of those who sent the notices but it fully intends to find out.

 

The developer says it will use a DMCA subpoena (and other means) to identify them and hold them accountable for their “tortious and illegal conduct, and, frankly, to demonstrate to anyone else stupid enough to volunteer as a Defendant by targeting Bungie’s community for similar attack that they will be met by legal process.”

 

Bungie’s complaint stresses the importance of the Destiny 2 community, highlighting the contributions made by YouTubers including My Name is Byf and Datto. Since the game is free to play, the health of the community is vital since that’s what encourages people to buy additional content.

 

In short, a happy community directly reflects in Bungie’s bottom line and the community was not happy when they thought Destiny creators were being targeted by Bungie.

The Plot Thickens – Bungie Suspects Retaliation

Bungie’s complaint reveals that in early March, CSC was told to issue 41 DMCA takedowns against videos that, in Bungie’s view, violated its policy on use of its intellectual property. For instance, songs ripped from the game, game cut-scenes, or anything else that doesn’t contain a substantial amount of “player created content.”

 

In this case, all DMCA notices targeted Destiny 2 original soundtracks that were subsequently removed from YouTube for copyright infringement by March 16, 2022. Bungie says that all of the notices utilized a particular Gmail address and on March 17, the defendants crafted their own Gmail account to mimic it in order to send the fraudulent DMCA notices.

 

In short, Bungie believes that the YouTube users who were impacted by its earlier DMCA takedown notices decided to teach Bungie a lesson by sending out the wave of fraudulent DMCA notices under the name Bungie, Inc. They then sent messages to affected uploaders telling them that the original and real Gmail address used for takedowns was a fraud.

The Noose Tightens

It’s not especially difficult for security-aware individuals to hide their identities when sending fake DMCA notices but the defendants in this case may have slipped up. If Bungie is correct that the defendants are indeed those targeted in the batch of notices sent out early March, that list is not long and might be narrowed down quite quickly.

 

According to the complaint, the defendants also filed a fraudulent DMCA notice against their own YouTube account, which sounds reasonable if the aim is to be seen as a victim. However, they responded to their own fake takedown notice with a DMCA counternotice to YouTube, stating that both the legitimate and fraudulent DMCA notices were fraudulent.

Bungie Criticizes Google/YouTube

Bungie’s lawsuit is particularly scathing of Google/YouTube’s processes, noting that the system introduced significant delays due to an opaque support process that stranded Bungie in a “circular loop”.

 

In order to get something done, Bungie involved its Global Franchise and Global Finance directors but by March 21, responses still hadn’t arrived. On March 22, Google said that it had suspended the accounts of the fraudsters but would not reveal their identities.

 

In response, Bungie filed this lawsuit which will compel Google to do so. The lawsuit notes that one of the defendants sent emails to YouTubers admitting their part in the scheme and blaming YouTube and Bungie for various shortcomings, including by not responding appropriately to previously-sent bogus notices.

 

“Finally, I know this hardly means anything, but I apologize to you and everyone else who was affected by my selfish actions. You have every right to be furious with me. My goal was to get Bungie to see the fake takedowns and stop them. That’s all,” the email reads.

Causes of Action

Bungie appears disinterested in the apology and is piling on with a number of claims, including that the defendants sent fraudulent DMCA notices containing “knowing and material misrepresentations”, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), for which it is entitled to damages.

 

By referencing Bungie, Inc. in the notices, the defendants stand accused of breaching Bungie trademarks with intent to deceive. And by removing the videos from YouTube, which contain copyrighted Bungie content, the defendants infringed the company’s right to authorize the public display and performance of its copyrighted works under 17 U.S.C. § 106 (exclusive rights in copyrighted works).

 

“As such, Bungie is entitled to damages and injunctive relief, including enhanced statutory damages of $150,000 for each Fraudulent Takedown Notice that willfully infringed Bungie’s copyrights,” the complaint adds, throwing in allegations of business defamation, violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act, and breach of contract for good measure.

 

The complaint detailing the chaos caused by the fake notices can be found here (pdf)

 

Those wanting to learn how many DMCA notices have been sent to Google over the past few years need look no further than the copyright section of its vast and constantly updated Transparency Report.

 

This colossal database contains information on more than five billion DMCA takedown requests, including who sent them, when, and which platforms were targeted. When coupled with the Lumen Database there are ample opportunities to research the copyright takedown landscape but there is an important omission.

 

At no point has Google ever published the detailed takedown requests it receives for YouTube. The platform did provide some overall data late last year, revealing that the vast majority of infringements (722 million in the first six months of 2021) were handled via the automated fingerprinting system, Content ID.

 

Dealing with most claims this way provides efficiency for YouTube but there are times when algorithms get things wrong or complex issues such as determining instances of ‘fair use require input from human beings. To this end, Google/YouTube is now seeking to boost its already massive team.

Copyright Operations Specialist

In a job listing posted a few days ago, Google seeks someone to become a Copyright Operations Specialist at YouTube. This specialist position naturally requires a person with a specific skillset.

 

Ideally, YouTube is looking for someone with experience of SQL and running a quality assurance program but it’s likely that the successful candidate will have a solid knowledge of relevant copyright law too.

 

This will allow them to analyze and cite precedents on copyright-ability, handle complex matters relating to United States and international safe harbor compliance, and deal with exceptions to copyright law such as fair use.

Handling ‘High-Risk’ Internal Escalations

“As a Copyright Operations Specialist, you will manage high-risk internal escalations, and design and implement strategies to improve our copyright compliance program,” the listing reads.

 

“You will resolve legal challenges, scale and streamline complex workflows, provide outstanding customer support, educate internal stakeholders, and improve the YouTube copyright experience for our users.”

 

The parameters of a ‘high-risk internal escalation’ are not defined in the job listing but it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that some copyright complaints may carry more risk depending on who sent them, what content they cover, and whether they deal with complex and politically-sensitive fair use arguments, for example.

 

In any event, the successful candidate will be required to carry out a balancing act between obvious legal and regulatory requirements, the needs of YouTube’s users, plus those of YouTube partners and advertisers.

Dealing With ‘Sensitive Entities’

Who or what is covered by the term ‘senstive entities’ isn’t something detailed in the listing but it seems reasonable to conclude that interactions with them might become subject to a ‘high-risk’ escalation.

 

At least in theory, every copyright complaint should be as important as any other but in a world where many copyrights are held by massively powerful corporations, it would be no surprise to see a prioritization of resources depending on the potential fallout.

 

Perhaps with this in mind, the listing notes that the successful candidate will also be tasked with handling “appeals of enforcement action from sensitive entities” but YouTube also has an eye on potential copyright abuses too.

 

In addition to ‘escalated’ takedown requests, it appears that DMCA counter-notifications can also be ‘escalated’, something that brings much-needed checks and balances onto the desk of the inbound Copyright Operations Specialist.

 

Those interested in the California-based position can find the listing here. A similar position is also available in Singapore, working in-office or remotely.

 

The Oscars are the most prestigious film awards and millions of movie fans are looking forward to seeing who the new winners will be.

 

For filmmakers, it’s an incredible honor to be named among the world’s greatest. Even being nominated is an accolade many people can only dream of.

 

This year, the Spanish drama film “Parallel Mothers” (Madres Paralelas) is among the lucky few. The film was put on the shortlist last December and in February it received nominations for best actress with Penélope Cruz and best music score.

 

The film’s production company El Deseo must be delighted with these nominations. Most filmmakers would proudly share this achievement with the rest of the world. However, El Deseo inadvertently took steps that run counter to that.

Filmmaker Targets Oscars.org

Like many other filmmakers, the Spanish film production company is sending takedown notices to sites and services that link to pirated copies of their films. In most cases, these notices call out pirate sites, but in a request sent to Google, the official Oscars.org website is targeted instead.

 

The movie company asks Google to remove the official Oscars shortlist announcement, which came out last December. “Parallel Mothers” is indeed mentioned there, but not in a piracy context of course.

 

This error is bad enough by itself, but there is more. A brief glance at other takedown notices from El Deseo – which are all sent by its anti-piracy partner 3ANTS – shows that the company also asked Google to remove a harmless page from the Austin Film Society, which features the film “The Skin I Live In.”

More Mistakes

We spotted another awards mistake as well, as the film company also asked Google to remove a news article from OTTplay, featuring a BAFTA nomination for “Parallel Mothers”. Again, there is no trace of piracy activity on that site.

 

The OTTplay website leads us into another rabbit hole. The site, which provides an overview of where people can stream movies and TV-shows legally, doesn’t appear to host any infringing content. However, several rightsholders believe otherwise.

 

A glance at the latest accusations against the site reveals that Netflix, Amazon, and Columbia Pictures all mistake the service for a pirate site.

 

Netflix, for example, asked Google to remove a news article about the popularity of “The Money Heist” and Amazon flagged a page informing people that they can watch “The Boys Presents: Diabolical” legally on Amazon Prime.

 

All in all, the mistakes above show that, in some cases, takedown notices can actually shoot the senders in the foot. Luckily, Google caught all the errors we outlined here, so no real harm was done.

 

As for El Deseo, they have definitely earned a nomination for the most counterproductive DMCA notice of the year. So, if “Parallel Mothers” doesn’t win an Oscar on Monday, they still have hope for another award.

 

A group of independent film companies has taken the issue of piracy liability to a new level over the past year.

 

After pursuing lawsuits against file-sharers, pirate site operators, and app developers, they started going after VPN providers and their hosting companies.

 

This strategy has resulted in a few settlement agreements already. VPN providers Torguard, VPN Unlimited, and VPN.ht all agreed to block torrent traffic on U.S. servers. Hosting company Sharktech did the same and also promised to block popular torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, YTS, and RARBG.

 

It’s unclear whether any damages were paid as part of any of these settlements. What we do know is that the agreements are now being used as ammunition in other cases, as we previously predicted.

Filmmakers vs. Quadranet

This is also happening in a lawsuit filed by a group of filmmakers against hosting provider Quadranet. The Californian company was not inclined to settle and fought back, with success. Last December, a Florida federal court dismissed the complaint.

 

The filmmakers’ tried to hold the hosting company accountable for pirating subscribers of VPN companies that hired servers at Quadranet. According to the court, the hosting company didn’t have any straightforward options to stop or control the infringing activities.

 

The court left no option open to amend the complaint and present new evidence, but the filmmakers were not giving up just yet. They submitted a motion for reconsideration arguing that there is new evidence and sufficient ground to move the case forward.

Null-Routing

Part of the filmmakers’ legal theory is related to the measures that the hosting company could have taken in response to the copyright infringement notices it received. This includes the null-routing of IP-addresses, which makes them unusable, and would stop the infringing activity.

 

The court previously concluded that this measure would go too far as legitimate VPN users could use the same IP-addresses. In addition, Quadranet would interfere with the relationship between VPN companies and their customers, which makes it an “impermissibly broad measure.”

 

The filmmakers disagreed. In their motion for reconsideration, they cited statements from VPN provider TorGuard which said that null-routing is a standard practice among some VPN providers. This would not harm other customers.

 

In the motion for reconsideration, they further suggested that the court should not confuse null-routing of an IP address with null-routing an account.

Court Rejects Filmmakers Arguments

This week, Florida District Court Judge Beth Bloom ruled on the motion, which didn’t convince her to drastically change the previous order. Instead, Judge Bloom doubled down on the conclusion that null-routing is not an effective anti-piracy measure in this instance.

 

“The Court recognizes the technological distinction between null-routing an IP address and null-routing an account that Plaintiffs now seek to emphasize. However, Plaintiffs fail to persuade the Court that null-routing IP addresses is a practical, effective measure,” Judge Bloom wrote.

 

The TorGuard declaration doesn’t change this and has no bearing on Quadranet, Judge Bloom says. The same is true for the argument that another hosting company, Sharktech, voluntarily chose to block torrent traffic and torrent sites.

 

“The manner in which Sharktech operates and is willing to implement systems to attempt to block pirating websites is from an unrelated settlement agreement that has no bearing on Quadranet’s ability and alleged obligation to implement similar measures,” Judge Bloom wrote.

 

After putting aside TorGuard’s statements and Sharktech’s settlement agreement, the court sees no new evidence of measures Quadranet could have taken in response to the alleged copyright infringements.

Not a Practical Anti-Piracy Measure

Even if the TorGuard and Sharktech information was taken into account, the court would still conclude that null-routing isn’t an effective measure. For one, alleged infringers could easily get a new IP-address.

 

“[A]ssuming for the sake of argument that Quadranet could null-route a specific IP address — static or dynamic — without interfering with other end users’ legitimate use of the same IP address, Quadranet’s actions would be wholly ineffective as the copyright infringer could get a new IP address to continue infringing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.

 

“In other words, null-routing an IP address or an account is not a practical measure to police infringing activity,” Judge Bloom adds.

 

All in all, the court sees no reason to amend its earlier conclusion that the filmmakers failed to allege that Quadranet has the practical ability to police infringing activities of third parties. In addition, the motion for reconsideration was denied on other grounds as well.

 

The only part of the motion that was granted is the request to remove several companies, including After Productions, SF Film, and Hunter Killer Productions from the list of plaintiffs.

 

While the order is clearly a setback for the filmmakers, it also comes with a silver lining.

Filmmakers Demand Millions from LiquidVPN

Now that the claims against Quadranet and Torguard have been dismissed, they can go ahead with the motion for default judgment against LiquidVPN. The court previously denied this motion, as it could lead to inconsistent judgments, as the claims against the other defendants were still pending.

 

The filmmakers didn’t waste any time. Yesterday, they filed their motion for a default judgment against LiquidVPN, which failed to defend itself in court. Among other things, the companies request $9,900,000 in damages for the copyright infringement of 66 works and $4,950,000 for violating the DMCA by altering copyright management information.

 

On top of those and other damages, the filmmakers also request that LiquidVPN, whose homepage disappeared months ago, starts blocking popular torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, RARBG, and 1337x.

 

—

 

A copy of District Court Judge Beth Bloom’s order is available here (pdf) and the filmmakers’ request for a default judgment against LiquidVPN can be found here (pdf)

 

Pirates and rightsholders alike understand that eliminating all piracy is an impossible task but if the last 20+ years of mainstream piracy have shown anything, it’s that those with content to protect will never give up trying.

 

That can mean aggressive shutdowns through to policy and legislative changes but the overall goal in the face of an impossible task is disruption. And rightsholders are getting increasingly good at it.

 

One of the current hot potatoes is pirate IPTV, subscription-based services that offer more than any legal streaming service can at the fraction of the price. Rightsholders and broadcasters can’t shut them all down but they can shut down some and for the remainder, life can be made just a little bit more difficult.

 

In addition to actions we’ve already reported on this week in the UK and the Netherlands, here are just a few examples of other anti-piracy actions taken in recent days.

What Happened to Northern IPTV?

After first appearing in the summer of 2019, Northern IPTV grew to become one of the most favored pirate IPTV providers in Canada offering a decent spread of live TV channels and a video-on-demand service. Like many before it, in the closing months of last year Northern IPTV eventually succumbed to copyright issues.

 

Aside from the above, the service gave no indication of who was behind the presumed threats but this week the final piece of the puzzle came into place. The domains from where the IPTV platform used to operate – northerniptv.com and northerniptv.ca – were transferred into the hands of the Motion Picture Association and Motion Picture Association Canada, respectively.

 

This all but confirms that the platform was shut down by the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment, a massive anti-piracy coalition featuring dozens of the world’s largest content creators and broadcasters.

 

Other pirate-IPTV domains falling into the hands of MPA/ACE this week include iptvonline.net, bestiptvonline24.com, iptvonline24.com and iptvonline.ca.

 

Whether the operators of these domains paid a settlement to avoid a lawsuit is unknown but over in the Netherlands, legal action can be the outcome if IPTV sellers put their heads above the parapet.

BREIN Targets Trader Behind ExpatsIPTV

In an announcement this week, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN revealed that after identifying the previously anonymous trader behind ExpatsIPTV, the man was taken to court.

 

After initially denying any involvement, at a hearing the man eventually admitted that he had indeed been selling pirate IPTV packages providing access to TV channels, live sports, movies and TV shows.

 

The court imposed a ban on the seller preventing any further sales with a penalty of 5,000 euros per day (to a maximum of 50,000). He was also ordered to provide information on all other parties involved in ExpatsIPTV within 7 days, enforced by a 600 euros per day penalty for non-compliance. On top, the man was also ordered to pay legal costs of 9,759 euros.

 

Of course, direct lawsuits are always an option to deal with pirate IPTV services. In many cases, however, site blocking is preferred.

Rightsholders Crack Down on Football Piracy

Ligue de Football Professionnel – the governing body in control of the major professional football leagues in France – announced this week that it had obtained an order designed to disrupt pirate IPTV services.

 

Handed down by a Paris court, the order requires several ISPs including Orange, Free, Bouygues and SFR (plus subsidiaries) to block access to a number of pirate IPTV and streaming services that broadcast football games illegally.

 

“The Professional Football League welcomes the decision rendered on March 17 by the President of the Paris Judicial Court ordering, for the first time in France, the blocking by French ISPs of access to pirate IPTV services,” the LFP announced.

 

“On the basis of Article L. 333-10 of the Sports Code, the court also ordered the blocking of streaming sites broadcasting without authorization the Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT championships.”

 

While LFP suggests that this is the first time that IPTV services have been blocked in France, that’s not exactly true. In January it was revealed that French anti-piracy group ALPA, the National Cinema Center, and several major rightsholders had obtained a similar order to block pirate IPTV platforms.

 

Nevertheless, the important thing is the flexibility of these types of orders.

 

The order obtained by LFP is reported to target around 50 locations related to various services but the involvement of new anti-piracy agency Arcom means that should any new domains/IP addresses related to these platforms serve to circumvent blocking, they can be swiftly blocked too.

 

“Faced with the economic stakes for French professional and amateur sport, the public authorities and the judicial authorities have grasped the urgency of providing effective protection for professional football competitions against the serious and repeated attacks to which they are subject,” LFP adds.

 

It’s certainly been a busy week for action against IPTV and similar streaming services but all the signs suggest that this is becoming the new normal. Rightsholders can’t shut every platform down but they can disrupt them, time and time again, using any combination of tools.

 

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 is listed among the 35 most-visited websites in the country, while 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.

Repeated Complaints

This criticism isn’t new. Over the years, Ulož has been reported to the US Trade Representative as a notorious pirate site several times. In addition, the platform was taken to court by the Czech movie distributor CinemArt, which demanded the implementation of an upload filter.

 

Ulož won its ‘filter’ battle with the movie company on appeal but that certainly didn’t end the piracy complaints. Every day, new takedown notices are coming in. While the file-sharing platform removes these infringing files, copyright holders want it to do more.

 

Czech anti-piracy company Weemazz is one of the outfits that has complained repeatedly. Working on behalf of clients such as HBO Europe, Czech Television, and TV Nova, it has sent hundreds of thousands of takedown notices to the platform. While Ulož responds to these requests, infringing content continues to be uploaded.

Google Takes Action

This prompted Weemazz to report the file-sharing platform to Google, asking the company to remove the app from the Play Store. After an independent investigation, this is precisely what Google did.

 

“Google has complied with our request to delete the Uloz.to application, Weemazz boss Radim Horák says. “Based on its own inspection, Google confirmed our findings and removed the application from the Google Store.“

 

Since last week, the Ulož app is no longer available in the Play Store. Interestingly, Apple users can still find it in the App Store. In addition, the site remains available through regular web browsers as well.

 

The Ulož Android app can also be installed through another route. Right around the time that the app was removed from Google’s Play Store, the service sent out a tweet, pointing to a page where users can find the APK, to install it directly on their Android devices.

Uloz.to Filed a Counternotice

Speaking with TorrentFreak, an Uloz.to spokesperson said that the company doesn’t agree with the complaints. It filed a counternotice with Google, hoping to have the app restored in the near future.

 

“We are still in the middle of the counternotice process. We believe that the app will become available again because the claims of rightsholder representatives are more FUD than solid legal argumentation,” Uloz.to informed us.

 

“But it is hard to guess how Google decides in the end because there are no fixed rules. We all can only hope that new regulations will enforce some transparency on gatekeeper platforms like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and so on.”

 

There are indeed new regulations being discussed in the EU and the US that challenge the power of major tech platforms. On the other side, however, there are “upload filter” proposals and regulations planned as well, which could negatively impact Ulož.

 

In addition to disagreeing with the app’s removal, the filesharing platform is also disappointed in the local Czech media. According to Ulož, these only repeated what copyright holders and their representatives wrote in a press release.

 

“All news articles are based on one press release sent by rightsholder representatives. Nobody contacted us for comments and clarification,” Ulož tells us

Rightsholders are Happy for Now

The counternotice could change things but, for now, Weemazz and its clients are pleased to see that Google has removed the app. The anti-piracy company says that it sends out thousands of takedown notices per day without seeing any improvement, so something had to be done.

 

“In January alone, we had illegally shared content on more than 100,000 links removed from Uloz.to. Nevertheless, Uloz.to has not yet taken any measures to prevent illegal sharing in any way or at least better inform its users about the illegality of their activities,” the company says.

 

Ideally, rightsholders would like to see some kind of advanced upload filtering on the file-sharing platform. However, as the legal battle with CinemArt has shown, Ulož opposes such strict measures.

 

According to Weemazz, this leaves rightsholders with no other option than to find alternative means to address the piracy problem. In addition to going after the app, this includes going after Uloz.to users directly, demanding that they pay millions of Czech crowns in damages.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Weemazz to hear more about these reported actions against users, but the company didn’t immediately reply.

 

Last October, the RIAA secured a major victory in its piracy lawsuit against YouTube-rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov.

 

A Virginia federal court issued a default judgment in favor of the RIAA, which represented several prominent music companies.

 

Following this win, the RIAA demanded $83 million in damages for the widespread copyright infringement that allegedly took place through the sites. This request was met with heavy opposition from Mr. Kurbanov but a few weeks ago it was granted nonetheless.

 

The RIAA, which described the legal battle as a landmark case, was happy with the outcome. As it stands, it will act as a deterrent against similar stream-rippers and other potentially infringing sites. However, it is not over yet.

$83 Million Appeal

While Mr. Kurbanov previously walked away from the U.S. court battle, he now intends to keep on fighting. In a new filing submitted a few days ago his legal team informs the court that it will appeal the piracy liability ruling and the damages award at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Speaking with TorrentFreak, defense lawyer Val Gurvits explains that his client will challenge the fact that the sites are held liable for millions of dollars in damages. This is wrong, he believes, as the rightsholders didn’t present any concrete evidence of copyright infringements that took place in the United States.

 

“At this point, Mr. Kurbanov is doing this less for himself and more to shed light on a legal process that has gone off the rails,” Gurvits tells TorrentFreak.

 

This apparent lack of evidence was also brought up in a response to the damages recommendation issued by the magistrate judge last fall. However, District Court Judge Claude Hilton later concluded that these recommendations are in line with the law.

Dangerous Precedent?

Mr. Kurbanov’s legal team sees this conclusion as a clear error. If it stands, they fear that any website owner can be held liable for millions of dollars in damages, without the need for concrete evidence.

 

This would be a great precedent for the RIAA and its members, but not so much for the public at large.

 

“If the record companies can really get multi-million dollar judgments without having to prove a single instance of infringement within the United States, then no one who operates a website is safe,” Gurvits says.

 

“And it is the American consumer that will suffer the most as websites simply decide that it’s just easier to block visitors from the US. That doesn’t benefit anyone… other than the record companies, of course.”

 

The opening brief has yet to be filed at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and we plan to report on that in due course. The same is true for RIAA’s response to it.

 

On September 11, 2018, following an investigation and referral by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, two people were arrested in connection with the unauthorized streaming of TV broadcasts.

 

Officers from Hampshire County Council’s Trading Standards unit assisted by local police executed a warrant at an address in Bursledon, Hampshire, close to the city of Southampton. Reports indicated that two people – a 41-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman – had been arrested under suspicion of offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and money laundering.

 

From the outset, it was clear the operation had been carried out against some type of illegal streaming operation to protect the rights of companies including Sky and BT Sports. The investigation formed part of a wider investigation coordinated by Europol. A day later, Europol announced that four people had been arrested in Ireland.

FACT and Trading Standards Announce Convictions

Information sent to TorrentFreak by FACT and an announcement from Hampshire County Council Trading Standards now reveals that on 18 March, 2022, four individuals were sentenced at Southampton Crown Court after being convicted in connection with the illegal streaming of copyrighted material, including that owned by Sky Sports and BT Sport.

 

Neither release mentions a specific streaming operation but following a request for clarification, FACT suggested that we should look at a well-known online handle.

 

For perhaps a decade, MIKEY1234 has been involved in the development and distribution of software (including Kodi addons) that facilitated access to copyrighted content. In several forum posts over the years, MIKEY1234 also admitted to living in the Southampton area.

 

FACT didn’t immediately respond to additional questions relating to how revenue was generated by MIKEY1234 and his associates but given the harsh sentences handed down last week, it is clear that significant sums were involved.

Defendants Receive Prison Sentences Exceeding 10 Years

According to FACT, the four convicted people, their crimes, and their sentences are as follows:

 

Michael James Simmonds – age 45 of Bridge Road, Bursledon, sentenced under Section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006 (Participating in business for a Fraudulent Purpose) and Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Money Laundering): 5 years 6 months imprisonment on each to run concurrently. To serve half sentence in custody with the remainder served on license

 

Kieran Collins – age 38 of Beccles Road, Great Yarmouth, sentenced under Section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006 (Participating in business for a Fraudulent Purpose) and Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Money Laundering): 3 years imprisonment on each to run concurrently. To serve half sentence in custody with the remainder served on license

 

Amanda Collins – age 37 of Beccles Road, Great Yarmouth, sentenced under Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Money Laundering): 18 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years, requirement to conduct 200 hours of unpaid work

 

Robert Kurian – age 46 of Mascalls Way, Chelmsford, sentenced under Section 327 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (Money Laundering): 8 months imprisonment suspended for 2 years, requirement to conduct 180 hours of unpaid work

Confiscation Under Proceeds of Crime Act

Under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, confiscation orders can be issued against people who benefit from criminal conduct to facilitate the recovery of unlawfully obtained property.

 

For his part in the MIKEY1234-connected operation, Keiran Collins was found to have benefited in the sum of £329,239.51 and was ordered to pay back £15,399.59. Amanda Collins was found to have benefited in the sum of £80,000 and has to pay £59,698.07. Robert Kurian was found to have benefited in the sum of £21,039.06 and is required to pay a nominal amount of £1.

 

Confiscation proceedings against Michael Simmons, who received the harshest sentence, have been instituted but no monetary value has been made public.

 

Kieron Sharp, Chief Executive of FACT, welcomes the convictions and thanks those involved in the operation for their work.

 

“I would like to thank Hampshire County Council Trading Standards for taking on this case following an initial investigation by FACT, assisted by National Trading Standards,” Sharp says.

 

“The individuals sentenced were involved in running a criminal enterprise that generated substantial profits with no regard for the rights of content owners. FACT continues to pursue those operating illegal streaming services who risk criminal convictions and forfeiture of assets.”

 

Earlier this year, we noticed that Google had removed several popular pirate sites from its search results.

 

In the Netherlands, for example, The Pirate Bay and many of its mirrors and proxies were delisted by Google in response to a notice sent by local anti-piracy group BREIN.

 

Later, we learned that similar requests were being sent to Google by movie company representatives in other countries. In response, Google removed thousands of URLs from its search engine in countries such as France, Norway, and the UK. In all cases, the domains were already blocked by ISPs following a court order.

 

Google’s decision to voluntarily take action is noteworthy. The company apparently removed thousands of ‘pirate site’ domain names without being named in a lawsuit and despite earlier objections to this type of whole-site blocking, of which it doubted the efficacy.

 

The search engine hasn’t elaborated publicly on this remarkable step, but it’s clear that the company now believes that delisting pirate sites is the way forward. This is music to the ears of Hollywood, which is happy with Google’s voluntary help.

MPA is Happy With Google’s Help

Motion Picture Association CEO Charles Rivkin believes that initiatives like this really make a difference in the fight against online piracy. Behind the scenes, the MPA assisted Google in this delisting campaign which has been rolled out in ten countries thus far.

 

“Working with MPA, Google has removed a substantial number of piracy-related domains from its search results in these countries to help effectively enforce court orders requiring ISPs to block access to piracy sites,” Rivkin notes.

 

MPA’s boss mentions that nearly 10,000 domains have been removed by Google, spread across ten countries. The search engine takes action based on so-called “no-fault” court orders, which are typically directed at ISPs.

 

Google isn’t mentioned in these orders but is choosing to enforce them voluntarily. This means that domain names such as thepiratebay.org and fmovies.to will be removed from search results completely in many cases. According to the MPA, this action has already had a positive effect.

 

“Google’s delisting of pirate sites works,” Rivkin says. “Our initial research into the efficacy of delisting efforts is promising, showing that traffic to piracy sites when blocked and delisted decreased more sharply than traffic to piracy sites that were only subject to blocking by ISPs.”

Better Than Standard Blockades

ISP blocking orders already reduce traffic to pirate sites but paired with search engine blocks they are even more effective. According to Rivkin, this is especially true for piracy streaming sites, which show a 1.5 times larger traffic decline on average when they are also delisted.

 

“Given the scale of the problem — remember, we’re talking about over 137 billion visits to film and TV piracy sites annually — in real terms, delisting of pirate sites matters,” Rivkin notes.

 

In the past, the entertainment industries and Google haven’t always had the best relationship. In fact, Google was a fierce opponent of the SOPA bill, which would’ve opened the door to pirate site blocking orders in the United States. The current delisting actions show that Google’s perspective has changed.

‘Blocking Injunctions Are Safe and Effective’

In addition to praising Google’s efforts, the MPA also takes the opportunity to show how effective blocking orders can be. This is important, as these are available in dozens of countries around the world, but not in the U.S.

 

The MPA previously opted to change the legal framework in the United States to allow for these orders on its home turf. Rivkin indirectly suggests the same, noting that these “no-fault” blocking orders are both effective and proportional.

 

“The process to issue these orders includes a high level of due process, and often the ISPs and intermediaries participate voluntarily. All the while, these orders have worked exactly as intended by the law — tackling illegal content only and ensuring that the internet user experience and access to legal content is unhindered.”

 

Critics of blocking orders have often countered that they could lead to overblocking, while hardcore pirates can easily circumvent that. According to Rivkin, however, overblocking isn’t really an issue, and while no anti-piracy measure is 100% effective, site blocking is one of the best tools around.

 

“To be sure, no anti-piracy tool is perfect. And there will always be a segment of users who will actively work to evade and circumvent these blocks. But the data are clear: these ‘no-fault’ judicial orders are safe, especially when narrowly targeted at genuine bad actors under the supervision of the courts.

 

“And we know from empirical research and real-world testing with our partners at Google that delisting adjudicated piracy sites from search results makes this already effective legal tool even more potent,” Rivkin concludes.

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on March 21 are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(1)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	8.6 / trailer
2	(5)	Turning Red	7.1 / trailer
3	(2)	The Adam Project	6.9 / trailer
4	(10)	Dog	6.7 / trailer
5	(4)	The King’s Man	6.5 / trailer
6	(3)	Blacklight	4.7 / trailer
7	(9)	The Batman	8.4 / trailer
8	(…)	Deep Water	5.5 / trailer
9	(6)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer
10	(…)	Panama	3.3 / trailer

 

 

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

 

In December 2021, Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Disney and Netflix sued PrimeWire, one of the most recognizable pirate streaming sites around today.

 

The lawsuit claims that PrimeWire encouraged users to upload links to pirated movies and TV shows hosted on third-party sites, then facilitated access to these via its own curated portal. The plaintiffs quickly obtained a preliminary injunction that required PrimeWire to stop infringing their copyrights.

 

At least in the short term, PrimeWire failed to acknowledge the injunction but when one of its domains was seized, the site began preparing for others to fall too. However, to comply with the terms of the preliminary and forthcoming permanent injunction, PrimeWire was required to do much more.

Drastic Action By PrimeWire – And Then Some

Around March 8, 2022, after PrimeWire had announced a new domain (primewire.tf), its operators took a step that would’ve been unthinkable before the lawsuit was filed. In what appears to be an effort to isolate the .tf domain from seizure, PrimeWire removed all links to pirated movies and TV shows hosted on cyberlocker sites, effectively decimating the site’s usefulness to its core audience.

 

In response, the studios told the court that this was a ploy to prevent the new domain from being seized. PrimeWire, which has circumvented blocking orders in the past with new domains, would probably reverse its decision later on and get back into the piracy game, the plaintiffs said.

 

Whether that will happen is unclear for now but PrimeWire is doubling down on its claim that it won’t be a useful piracy source in the future. Indeed, the streaming portal now says it will implement drastic changes to stay on the right side of the law.

Ban on Cyberlocker Links

PrimeWire doesn’t host movies or TV shows itself but does allow users to upload links to them. Essentially, users submit the URLs of videos hosted on cyberlocker-type sites and these are later embedded in PrimeWire, providing the site’s visitors with a central source of curated content.

 

PrimeWire now claims that moving forward, links to these sites (the primary sources of unlicensed streaming content online today) will be completely banned from the platform.

 

“All links to external video services other than youtube.com, archive.org, dailymotion.com and vimeo.com will be permanently removed. Only new links from these services can be submitted,” PrimeWire’s announcement reads.

 

While there is pirated content available on sites like YouTube, the chances of building a competitor to Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, and Hulu (as PrimeWire was) is vanishingly small. Unlike third-party cyberlockers, movies and TV shows are quickly deleted from official sites along with their uploaders, meaning that offering end-users anything but a frustrating experience seems impossible.

 

That being said, PrimeWire says it will go further still.

Preemptive Upload Filtering, Honoring DMCA Notices

While it sounds like PrimeWire will continue to allow users to submit links to video content hosted on the limited platforms listed above, these will be moderated to prevent copyright-infringing material ending up on the site. PrimeWire says it will also implement an upload filter to preemptively target certain material.

 

“To protect against the submission of links from these services that may contain copyrighted content, we will delete links and disable submission of new links preemptively for certain titles, as well as at the request of copyright holders,” the site says.

 

The content to be preemptively filtered isn’t named but logic suggests that removing any content produced by the plaintiffs would be enough to ensure compliance with any injunction the court might hand down. Allowing content produced by other companies wouldn’t breach the injunction but it’s beyond clear that removing all movies and TV shows owned by the plaintiffs would push PrimeWire into a no-man’s land in piracy terms.

Promoting Legal Content From Legal Sources

PrimeWire insists that it is not shutting down. All user accounts will remain, as will the ability for users to comment and chat. TV episode tracking will also continue, along with search and personal TV schedules.

 

However, in an apparent effort to demonstrate change, PrimeWire has introduced features that allow its users to find legal content on licensed platforms. The listing for The Walking Dead, for example, now includes links to Netflix, AppleTV, Amazon and Google Play, among others.

 

Whether the plaintiffs will accept these changes as a genuine effort to stop infringement remains a question but after spending years chasing PrimeWire around the world with blocking orders, trust is probably in short supply right now.

 

Add that to the fact that PrimeWire hasn’t appeared in court to defend the lawsuit and all the pieces are in place to give the studios a relatively easy win, including the seizure of new domains, if they eventually prove to be infringing.

 

For years, U.S. lawmakers have considered options to update the DMCA so it can more effectively deal with today’s online copyright issues.

 

Senator Thom Tillis was one of the most recent to take up the baton. A little over a year ago, he released a discussion draft of the “Digital Copyright Act of 2021” (DCA) a potential successor to the current DMCA.

 

Among other things, the Republican senator believes that online platforms can and should do more to tackle online piracy, a view shared by Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy. Last summer, the pair wrote a letter to the Copyright Office, asking it to look into the feasibility of technical protection measures and automated takedown tools.

 

The Copyright Office launched a consultation in 2021 which triggered massive opposition against upload filters. In the meantime, Tillis and Leahy did not stand idly by. The senators drafted a bill to amend the DMCA to make it easier for the government to prescribe specific takedown tools for online hosting platforms.

SMART Copyright Act of 2022

With a bipartisan bill, the senators want to break the impasse between online services and rightsholders and move things forward. Last week they introduced the SMART Copyright Act of 2022, which could result in some significant changes to the DMCA.

 

The general idea is to grant the Copyright Office the power to designate standard technical protection measures to be implemented by online hosting platforms. These STMs can be tailored to specific niches such as audio and video, which offers much more flexibility than the current regime under the DMCA.

 

“In the fight to combat copyright piracy, there is currently no consensus-based standard technical measures and that needs to be addressed,” Senator Tillis comments.

 

“I am proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation that will provide widely available piracy-fighting measures and create a trusted and workable internet for our creative communities.”

 

Senator Leahy shares this view and stresses that the changes will help to protect artists and creators while enabling them to get paid.

 

“The technology exists to protect against this theft; we just need online platforms to use the technology. I’m working hard to make sure our artists get paid, and we can enjoy legal access to their wonderful creations,” Senator Leahy notes.

Support and Opposition

A government-imposed upload filter is something many rightsholders can rally behind, And indeed, groups such as the Motion Picture Association and Creative Future have already responded positively.

 

However, there are also more reserved responses. Public Knowledge, for example, believes that the bill opens the door to online censorship on a massive scale.

 

“This bill is the latest example of legislation that threatens the vibrant, open, and innovative internet in the name of intellectual property protection,” PK’s Policy Counsel Nicholas Garcia says.

 

“This bill will force digital platforms and websites to implement technical measures that monitor all content that users upload, automatically scrutinizing everything we write, create, and upload online for the sake of copyright protection,” he adds.

 

Re:Create Executive Director Joshua Lamel also believes that the bill is a step in the wrong direction. Describing it as very dangerous, he warns that it will stifle creativity, instead of promoting it.

 

“Technical mandates handed down by government lawyers without technical expertise or oversight will result in content filtering – stifling creativity, innovation, and the flow of information,” Lamel says.

“Facts and Myths”

These comments shouldn’t come as a surprise to Senators Tillis and Leahy. When they announced the bill, they also released a “facts and myths” sheet that aims to address some of this criticism.

 

Among other things, the senators stress that all government-imposed protection tools and takedown measures will go through a consultation process, where all stakeholders and the public are allowed to have their say. Technical experts, such as a yet-to-be appointed Chief Technology Advisor, will weigh in as well.

 

In short, the bill will give the government more tools to facilitate and encourage the implementation of anti-piracy mechanisms, while allowing online services to keep their safe harbors.

 

The full text of the bill provides more details on how the approval process of a proposed protection measure works. In addition to hearing stakeholders, experts, and the public, the designated protection measures have to be weighed on factors such as cost and availability. They shouldn’t create any major burdens for online services.

 

Similarly, the rights of the public are taken into account as well. This includes the impact a technical measure may have on privacy and data protection, as well as on free speech issues such as criticism and news.

 

“The Copyright Office’s particular expertise in the area of copyright and its exceptions — like fair use — can assist with ensuring the right balance is struck between curbing infringement that undermines authors’ constitutional rights and promoting online availability of materials,” the facts and myths sheet reads.

Appeals and Damages

Finally, it is worth noting that online services will be able to appeal officially designated protection measures in court. In addition, they can also choose not to implement them. However, that opens the door to lawsuits from copyright holders.

 

The statutory damages amounts for services that fail to implement the designated technical protection measures are capped at $150,000 for a single violation, but that number can shoot up for repeat offenders.

 

With the bill, Senators Tillis and Leahy want to break the stalemate between copyright holders and online platforms. While many of the latter have already implemented their own takedown tools and systems, the SMART Copyright Act of 2022 envisions a broader rollout, where the authorities can pull more strings.

 

Whether the bill will ever be adopted is unclear at this point, but we can be certain that it will generate plenty of discussion in the months ahead.

 

An interesting feature of the file-sharing and streaming landscapes of the past couple of decades is their interaction with existing copyright law.

 

Over the years many sites, services and platforms providing or facilitating access to infringing content have taken sanctuary in perceived loopholes but most found that few – if any – exist.

 

In Europe, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has been the engine behind several important cases featuring defendants who believed they had found a legal foothold in an otherwise illegal market. In one of these lawsuits, BREIN took on Leaper Beheer BV, a Netherlands-based company and related business entities, that sold pirate IPTV subscriptions in .M3U playlist form.

 

These types of playlists carry no infringing content but they can direct users to where infringing content can be found. In this case, around 4,000 live TV channels and 1,000 movies via an unlicensed IPTV service.

 

In its defense, Leaper argued that it supplied no infringing content itself and that the playlists did not make anything available that wasn’t already available on the internet. BREIN insisted that the distribution of the playlist amounted to a ‘communication to the public’ under EU copyright law.

 

In 2018 the court sided with BREIN, noting that when Leaper Beheer BV, Growler BV, DITisTV and their respective directors distributed the playlist, they made the linked content available to a ‘new audience’ beyond that envisioned by the copyright holders.

Court Orders Infringement to Stop

After copyright infringement was determined, the court ordered the defendants to stop facilitating access to the unlicensed streams or face penalties of 5,000 euros per playlist/IPTV subscription sold, to a maximum of one million euros.

 

Having been found potentially liable, the three companies and their directors signed agreements with BREIN to cease and desist, in order to avoid a full lawsuit that would incur additional costs and a damages award. BREIN says the defendants were also required to pay a settlement fee. When no such payment was forthcoming, BREIN made good on its threat.

 

In partnership with media companies including Talpa and RTL, BREIN seized evidence and initiated legal proceedings. Predictably, the plaintiffs came out on top.

Court Rules in Favor of BREIN – Again

BREIN now reveals that on March 16, 2022, the Court of Maastricht ruled that four companies (Leaper, Growler, DITisTV and Ultimo) and their two directors are liable for the damage caused by their sale of IPTV subscriptions, links to illegal IPTV, and associated set-top boxes.

 

BREIN says that it tried to get the traders to stop selling the 10 euros per month subscriptions as far back as 2014 and had to take the matter to court in 2018 to show infringement was taking place. When the offer to pay a settlement in lieu of a full lawsuit was refused, a case was presented on the merits.

 

Evidence was presented to show that the two directors and their companies willfully set out to infringe copyright, something that is considered an aggravating factor when calculating a damages award. The following email between the directors certainly didn’t help in that respect.

 

Perhaps the market will be really destroyed by the entire competition and BREIN within a year. With 100 shops we can fuck the market all the way to its mother! If we have a lot of money in a year’s time, we can then step into a new business.

Court Finds Directors Personally Liable

A corporate structure can sometimes offer a level of protection for directors when things don’t go to plan but that isn’t the case here. The Dutch court found the companies (and their directors personally), jointly and severally liable for the damage caused to the copyright holders.

 

The exact amount is yet to be determined but the financial costs are already mounting. The Court ordered the defendants to pay the costs of the proceedings, estimated at €20,764 ($22,986), plus legal costs of €2,252 ($2,493).

 

At this point the defendants are worse off financially than they were when a settlement was first offered. However, BREIN suggests that it is still open to the matter being settled out of court. If not, then a separate proceeding to determine damages will go ahead. That’s unlikely to be a small amount.

 

In the meantime, BREIN seems pleased with the results so far.

 

“These guys tried to sing it out as long as possible to rake in as much money as possible. That’s going to cost them now,” says BREIN director Tim Kuik. “Because they are also personally liable, they can no longer hide behind their companies.”

 

The decision can be found here

 

Every day millions of people use YouTube rippers, tools that are often used to download music for free.

 

The music industry is not happy with these services. Stream-ripping is viewed as the largest piracy problem, one that’s more serious than those posed by torrent sites and direct download portals.

 

In response to this threat, the RIAA and its members have taken legal steps to shut down sites or have them blocked by Internet providers. On top of that, rightsholders have also sent hundreds of thousands of takedown requests to Google, asking the company to purge stream-rippers from its search results.

 

These DMCA notices can be pretty effective but since many of the targeted sites take countermeasures, it remains a game of cat and mouse.

MP3Juices and YTMP3 Take Action

This month, we learned that the proverbial mice are also getting into a takedown battle of their own. Apparently, the operator of two of the best-known stream-ripping sites, MP3Juices.cc and YTMP3.cc, is seeking help from Google as well.

 

As with most popular brands on the Internet, the ‘MP3Juices’ and ‘YTMP3’ keywords are used by third parties to attract search traffic. The official site is heavily downranked because it’s repeatedly targeted by rightsholders, so these ‘copycats’ often end up higher in search results than the original.

 

This is a problem for the operator, who wants to put a stop to it. And what better tool to achieve this than sending a DMCA takedown notice?

‘Brand Infringers’

The notice in question came in a few days ago and was sent by someone using the name Ryan Milne. The first request covers both ‘MP3 Juice’ and ‘YTMP3’ brands and 22 URLs that use these terms without permission.

 

“All the reported websites copied our brand name ‘MP3 Juice’ without any authorization. We request immediate removal of all the infringing URLs from Google index and help us to protect our copyrights. Thanks,” it reads.

 

Interestingly, most of the reported sites don’t use any copied logos or other content that we could see, so any copyright infringement isn’t immediately obvious to us.

 

All sites do use the ‘MP3 Juice’ and ‘YTMP3’ keywords, but that would fall into the trademark infringement category. However, a search for the respective trademarks in the register didn’t return any results.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to the operator of the sites to learn more about the takedown request and the motivations behind it. Thus far, we have yet to hear back.

 

Google also seems to be puzzled by the notice. After a week, most of the URLs were still in the pending queue and the search engine eventually decided not to remove them. However, there is a similar “YTMP3” takedown request sent the someone named Hunter Kipling, which did result in the removal of nearly two dozen ‘competing’ URLs.

 

Update: YT1S is turning the table on YTMP#.cc now, accusing the site of using its brand…