MG Premium, part of the Mindgeek adult empire, had been homing in piracy platforms YesPornPlease.com and VShare.io for some time.

 

In 2019 the Brazzers owner obtained a DMCA subpoena requiring Cloudflare to hand over the personal details of the sites’ owners. In January 2020, YesPornPlease had around 100 million visitors per month (SimilarWeb stats) so any information would’ve been useful to MG Premium.

 

Sources within unlicensed adult site circles soon indicated that Cloudflare had little to offer but according to MG, the sites infringed its copyrights on a grand scale so something needed to be done about them.

MG Premium Files Copyright Lawsuit

Late February 2020, MG Premium filed a full-blown copyright lawsuit in a Washington court against the then-unknown operators of the platforms. It alleged that the platforms operated under the guise of being user-generated content sites but were in fact directly and knowingly involved in the “trafficking of tens of thousands of pirated works.”

 

Almost immediately the sites went offline but MG Premium’s claims stood and were further honed in an amended complaint filed in December 2020.

 

MG Premium named Thomas Zang (Belize), Howard Stroble (US), Matthew Bradley (Gibraltar or GB), Michael Goal (Columbia), Mateusz Czajka (Poland), plus Viktor Ivanov and Aleksey Samokhinas as defendants. The adult content company alleged egregious and willful violations of its copyrights by defendants who failed to comply with the requirements of the DMCA, including by failing to register a DMCA agent, failing to respond to takedown notices, and failing to implement a repeat infringer policy.

 

As a result, MG said they could claim no safe harbor as a service provider.

 

“The YesPornPlease Web Site is a pirate website, displaying copyrighted adult entertainment content without authorization or license,” MG Premium wrote in its amended complaint.

 

“The YesPornPlease Web Site is operated in conjunction with the VShare Web Site, wherein purported Internet users desiring to post videos on the YesPornPlease Web Site must actually upload the video to the VShare Web Site and then are directed to ‘copy and paste’ the URL assigned to the uploaded video on the VShare Web Site onto the YesPornPlease Web Site.”

 

MG Premium further alleged that users were encouraged to upload content in exchange for monetary rewards based on the length of the video, the amount of content downloaded and the time actually watched. The YesPornPlease site generated revenue via pop-up ads, MG added.

 

Stating that the defendants engaged in “intentional, knowing, negligent, or willfully blind conduct”, MG Premium alleged direct copyright infringement and inducement of copyright infringement relating to 3,078 of its copyrighted works, demanding the maximum of $150,000 in statutory damages for each.

 

The adult company also requested broad preliminary and permanent injunctions plus a freeze on the sites’ domains.

MG Premium Claims Losses of $727 Million

Since none of the defendants appeared in court to respond to the complaint, MG Premium served them via email, enabling it to move for a default judgment. Interestingly, the 3,078 allegedly infringed works were subsequently trimmed down to 2,433 since the remainder were displayed before MG had registered them at the US Copyright Office.

 

Nevertheless, 2,433 copyrighted works is still a high number considering the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work available – a total of almost $365 million.

 

To support this claim, MG Premium settled on YesPornPlease having 3.2 million users per month for the 24 months preceding the lawsuit, arguing that a subscription to Brazzers is $9.99 per month, therefore it “lost” revenues of $727,232,000 during that period.

Judge Issues Default Judgment

In a default judgment handed down Tuesday, Judge Benjamin H. Settle writes that he wasn’t happy with the losses being claimed and wasn’t convinced that maximum statutory damages were warranted either.

 

“[W]hile MG Premium has demonstrated that maximum statutory damage awards are often affirmed when the infringement is willful, it has not cited a case making or affirming a statutory damages award anywhere near the sum it seeks, particularly against individual defendants,” his judgment reads.

 

“Further, MG Premium’s claimed lost revenue is speculative; the 3.2 million users it cites admittedly did not pay Defendants the sum it claims it charges for access to its adult videos. In other words, MG Premium did not lose, and Defendants did not make, $727 million when Defendants provided free access to MG Premium’s protected works. $365 million is similarly not a fair or accurate estimation of any lost revenue, or of illicit profit.”

 

Describing the damages claim as “obscene”, the Judge says that a more reasonable (albeit massive) award is appropriate and will act as a deterrent, even though it’s unlikely the judgment will be paid.

Defendants to Pay $36.5 Million

“In its discretion and in the interests of justice, the Court will therefore award statutory damages of $15,000 for each of the 2,433 offending videos, for a total of $36,495,000. The award is against the five individual defendants, jointly and severally,” Judge Settle writes in his judgment.

 

Noting that it is unlikely that MG Premium will recover the damages, the Judge then turns to the requested injunction to restrain the defendants moving forward. All things considered, a broad permanent injunction is warranted in this case.

 

The judgment also orders Verisign to disable the domain ‘yespornplease.com’ and transfer it to MG Premium. At the time of writing, it appears to drive traffic to a webcam site. References to VShare.io are absent from the judgment.

 

Supporting court documents can be found here (1,2, pdf)

 

The music industry has pushed for site blocking measures around the world, with quite a bit of success.

 

Among the main targets are popular stream-ripping services. This includes Yout.com, which is operated by the American developer Johnathan Nader.

 

Unlike many of his peers, Nader isn’t simply taking these blocking orders lying down. On the contrary, where possible, he actively challenges them in court, as we’ve seen in Denmark, Spain, and Brazil.

 

The Brazilian appeal was an initial success as the court lifted the ISP blockade. However, this didn’t last. When the authorities officially announced that Yout.com would be criminally prosecuted, the blocking measures were reinstated.

Peru’s Stream-Ripper Blockades

In Peru, a similar issue has emerged. Last spring local ISPs were ordered to block Yout.com and other stream-ripping sites as a precautionary measure, while the authorities conducted their investigations for potential legal action against the sites.

 

The temporary blocking measure came at the request of the government agency INDECOPI, which works closely with rightsholder groups such as IFPI. The authorities argue that the stream-ripping sites allow users to download content from YouTube without permission.

 

Interestingly, the content cited in the complaint is not related to music. Instead, it lists short films such as “Hair Love” and “Almost Home.”

 

According to the original injunction, the blockades had to remain in place for 30 days. However, almost a year has passed since and several major Peruvian ISPs are still blocking Yout.com and other sites.

Yout’s ‘Appeal’

This prompted Yout.com’s operator to hire a local attorney to appeal the injunction at Peru’s Competition and Intellectual Property Court. In a ruling released a few days ago, the court clarified that there is no legal requirement for the ISPs to continue blocking the sites.

 

“…to date no complaint or sanctioning procedure has been initiated with respect to the works mentioned in Table No. 1; therefore, the Chamber concludes that the precautionary measure under appeal has expired,” the court’s Specialized Intellectual Property Chamber writes (translated pdf).

 

While this sounds like a win for Yout.com, in reality the issue is more complicated. Since the court concludes that the precautionary measure no longer applies, it can’t be appealed either.

 

“There is no need to rule on the appeal against the injunction granted in the First Instance, filed by Yout LLC,” the court writes.

 

The problem for Yout is that the ISPs are still blocking the site, even though they are not legally required to do so. The site’s attorney has reached out to both INDECOPI and the ISPs, urging them to lift the expired measures.

 

If the ISPs choose to keep the blockades in place, Yout can potentially file a formal complaint in court. However, that will likely take months to play out and will increase the legal bills significantly.

No Appeal Possible in Spain

In addition to the problematic situation in Peru, Yout.com also has a setback in Spain last week. The stream-ripper site is blocked there as well but this order wasn’t easy to track down.

 

Through the RIAA, Yout’s lawyers eventually learned that the blockade, which also targets several other stream-rippers, was ordered by a court in Barcelona following a complaint from the anti-piracy group AGEDI.

 

Yout then filed an official appeal at Spain’s Supreme Court. Among other things, the site objected to the fact that it wasn’t in any way involved in the blocking lawsuit.

 

The Supreme Court denied hearing this appeal because Yout.com is not a party to the legal procedure. That was, ironically, one of the main reasons why the appeal was filed in the first place.

 

According to Yout’s Spanish lawyers, there are still some legal options but they estimate the chance of successfully overturning the order at less than 1% now.

Frustrating

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Yout’s operator indicated that he’s frustrated with all the legal roadblocks that continue to show up. However, he will continue to fight these blocking measures whenever possible.

 

“I’m elated: after the RIAA informed us of the legal actions and proceedings we were not privy to in other countries; Yout was able to at least show up to defend itself,” Nader tells us.

 

In addition to the blocking cases, Yout also filed a lawsuit against the RIAA in the United States, hoping to have the site declared legal there. That case remains ongoing.

 

In 2018, broadcaster DISH Network sued the people behind pirate IPTV service SetTV for illegally obtaining the company’s broadcasting from its satellite service and redistributing them online.

 

At a Florida court, DISH and encryption partner NagraStar sued several individuals, companies and trusts collectively doing business as SetTV via the domain settvnow.com. The plaintiffs stated that the complex business structure was designed to frustrate enforcement efforts and hide profits made by SET Broadcast LLC and various individuals.

 

The plaintiffs alleged that the $20 per month service offered access to 500 live channels, including on-demand content and PPV broadcasts, plus pre-configured hardware devices that came pre-loaded with the SetTV application. For this they demanded millions of dollars in damages under the Federal Communications Act (FCA).

 

Within months, the lawsuit was over. In a final judgment, operators Nelson Johnson and Jason LaBossiere plus Set Broadcast LLC and Streaming Entertainment Technology LLC agreed to pay DISH a staggering $90,199,000 in damages for violations of the FCA.

 

Via a permanent injunction issued by the court in October 2018, all defendants and their cohorts were permanently enjoined from breaching DISH rights in the future, including by operating any similar services or selling devices. However, according to a lengthy submission filed with the court Monday, the defendants should be held in contempt for violating the permanent injunction.

 

In short, DISH believes the defendants are well and truly back in the pirate IPTV business and the company has a lot of evidence to back up its claims.

DISH Wants Court to Reinstate The Case

On June 4, 2018, the court issued a temporary restraining order against the SetTV defendants, which included measures to freeze their assets. According to DISH, that was based on the defendants’ “extensive criminal backgrounds and histories of violating court orders in other contexts.”

 

DISH says that LaBossiere co-owned SetTV with two other men – Sean Beaman and Stefan Gollner. In a one-year period leading up to its lawsuit, Beaman’s companies received $4.7 million from SetTV. Immediately after the DISH lawsuit was filed, an additional $800,000 was transferred in the same direction.

 

DISH claims that $3.4 million was transferred from accounts in violation of the court’s asset freeze but after showing a copy of a contempt motion to the defendants’ council, the defendants plus Beaman engaged in settlement discussions. That included a confidential settlement, an agreed final judgment, a permanent injunction, plus an agreement from Beaman to be bound by that injunction.

 

That hasn’t gone to plan. DISH says that LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner are behind several other new pirate IPTV services and brands including ExpediteTV, UptickTV, Mundo TV, PingTV, and Must TV, in defiance of the injunction.

Men Never Left the Pirate IPTV Business

ExpediteTV, which offered 800+ channels for around $24, was touted as the “best deal on IPTV”. DISH investigators subscribed to the service (via expeditetv.com) and carried out monitoring between January 2019 and February 2020. The broadcaster found its watermarks on content being offered by the service, plus content that had been obtained by DISH affiliate Sling TV.

 

Roy Clemons was an officer at the original SET TV LLC and together with brother Brent Clemons, was retained by LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner to process credit card payments for the SetTV service. The Clemons brothers were retained to process payments for ExpediteTV too, and were tasked to set up entities, bank accounts and merchant accounts to receive funds.

 

Evidence obtained by DISH from the brothers includes text messages where Beaman discusses ExpediteTV with Ken Clemons and asks for money to be transferred to a Wells Fargo bank account, established by Gollner around a month after the permanent injunction was issued. Between January and May 2019, 86 payments explicitly citing ExpediteTV were deposited to a total of more than $1 million.

 

DISH alleges that LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner also sold ExpediteTV subscriptions that were later identified on credit card records as ‘UptickTV’, another IPTV selling entity with a domain owned by Beaman under a fictitious business name registered to LaBossiere’s address in Largo, Florida.

DISH Obtains Evidence From Jailhouse Phone Recordings

In May 2021, DISH obtained evidence from the business chat service Avochato showing that LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner used it to sell and market ExpediteTV subscriptions to customers who were then serviced via the same platform. The Avochato account was created by Beaman and his credit cards and Gollner’s bank account were associated with it.

 

In the same month, DISH obtain telephone recordings from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office that show an apparently incarcerated LaBossiere discussing the ExpediteTV service and legal action by DISH with Beaman and Osivette Brito. Brito is described as a reseller of SetTV subscriptions and the developer of the ExpediteTV software.

 

LaBossiere reportedly made 850 telephone calls in April and May 2021, including 68 calls to Beaman and 81 calls to Brito. One call took place two days after DISH contacted LaBossiere’s counsel regarding the ExpediteTV service and according to DISH, that news had reached the defendants.

 

“Brito informed LaBossiere that Brent Clemons ‘open[ed] his mouth,’ that DISH was enforcing the SetTV judgment, and advised LaBossiere to speak with his counsel because ‘[t]hey know Sean. They know you. They know everything’,” DISH informs the court.

Yet More Pirate IPTV Services

According to DISH, other IPTV brands (including Mundo TV) that retransmit DISH and Sling TV content are also related to the same men.

 

It appears that DISH may have been alerted to these services after receiving an unsolicited email to an address it used when it made test purchases for ExpediteTV. DISH went ahead and bought the Mundo TV package on offer and the card was processed by a company with connections to LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner.

 

At some point, when trying to renew a subscription to another service called PingTV (located at uptickrenew.com, also associated with LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner), DISH was directed to Must TV and its payment was processed by Mundo TV. This leads DISH to the conclusion that all of these additional services are hidden behind diverse branding to hide the illicit activities of LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner.

Violation of Injunction is Contempt of Court

In summary, DISH argues that the court’s permanent injunction is “clear, definite, unambiguous, and not susceptible to any interpretation” that would explain why LaBossiere, Beaman, and Gollner failed to comply with the order. They all received actual notice of the injunction and agreed to its terms yet have “repeatedly thumbed their noses at the legal process” and shown “absolute disrespect” to the court.

 

As a result, DISH is demanding the imposition of a $1,000 coercive daily sanction after a finding of contempt plus attorneys’ fees and costs incurred by DISH in bringing its motion.

 

The related court documents can be found here and here

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “The King’s Man” is the most downloaded title.

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

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(2)	The King’s Man	6.5 / trailer
2	(…)	West Side Story	7.7 / trailer
3	(1)	Scream	6.8 / trailer
4	(4)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	9.0 / trailer
5	(8)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer
6	(…)	Project ‘Gemini’	3.7 / trailer
7	(9)	Licorice Pizza	7.8 / trailer
8	(5)	Eternals	6.6 / trailer
9	(…)	No Exit	6.2 / trailer
10	(…)	Gasoline Alley	3.6 / trailer

 

 

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

 

Late September 2021, a group of independent movie companies filed a lawsuit against DataCamp, alleging that the CDN company provided services to several VPN providers.

 

According to that complaint, DataCamp failed to terminate the accounts of these providers after being sent several warnings. As a result, the company was accused of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement alongside calls for an injunction.

 

A new lawsuit filed against DataCamp in the United States makes similar copyright infringement allegations.

Pirate IPTV Services Used DataCamp

Filed in an Illinois district court Friday, the lawsuit sees US broadcaster DISH Network taking on UK-based DataCamp on foreign soil. DISH explains that IPTV services often depend on Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) to deliver their product to the end-user.

 

According to DISH, DataCamp operates a CDN for this purpose, one that is utilized by at least 11 providers that have illegally distributed DISH content. These include Banjo TV, Bollywood IPTV, Comstar TV, Express IPTV, Gennie TV, Gold TV, IPGuys, Istar, Red IPTV, Sky IPTV, and Zumm TV.

Lawsuit Highlights MPA Complaints About DataCamp

Setting the stage against DataCamp, DISH’s lawsuit draws attention to a 2018 submission to the USTR which saw the Motion Picture Association (MPA) complain that DataCamp’s infrastructure was being used by pirate IPTV services to distribute copyrighted content.

 

In common with the earlier lawsuit filed by the movie companies, DISH further alleges that despite receiving “hundreds of notices” requesting removal of content under the DMCA, DataCamp failed to respond in an appropriate manner. Furthermore, it’s alleged that DataCamp was sent copies of lawsuits and judgments relating to pirate IPTV services but the company’s responses were completely lacking.

US Company Sues UK Company Overseas

DataCamp Ltd is a tech company based in the UK operating under robust local laws that limit the liability of hosting companies when it comes to the actions of third parties. The system is not dissimilar to that in the United States. However, case law in the United States is undoubtedly richer and the possibility of high statutory damages awards are absent from the UK.

 

Whether these factors encouraged DISH to sue DataCamp in the US is unknown but according to the broadcaster, a local lawsuit is appropriate. DataCamp operates some of its ‘CDN77’ servers in Illinois, has websites that are visible there, while end-users of pirate IPTV services are also located in the district.

DataCamp’s CDN77 Service

According to the complaint, the named pirate IPTV services utilize DataCamp’s CDN to transmit their illegal services. It alleges that DataCamp markets its CDN as specializing in “live stream processing” while assisting customers with IPTV/OTT delivery.

 

“Send us your live stream over standard protocols…and let us convert and transcode your video…to optimize viewer experience,” its marketing alleged read.

 

“When it comes to protecting the video content from unwanted attention, there are several access management and content protection features that [Datacamp] offers for free, e.g. Secure Tokens, built-in DRM, origin protection, hotlink protection or IP & geo whitelisting/blacklisting.”

 

In addition, DISH claims that DataCamp provides additional products that enable the pirate IPTV providers to offer services such as a DVR and time-shifting. In summary, the broadcaster claims that without CDN77, their ability to offer a top-tier service would be limited.

DataCamp ‘Conceals’ Pirate Service Operators

Complaints against Cloudflare are well documented, including those that allege that the CDN company hides the identities of pirates. Here, DISH says that DataCamp acts in a similar fashion and that by hiding the true location of pirate services, CDN77 hinders their investigations.

 

Furthermore, the broadcaster says that DataCamp did not remove or disable content when the company sent DMCA notices. Interestingly, it also criticizes the company for not giving its customers (in this case pirate IPTV services) the ability to send DMCA counter notices to DISH. Had it done so, DISH would’ve been able to identify the operators of those services.

 

“Datacamp did not remove or disable access to the content identified in the Infringement Notices – nor did it require its customers to submit DMCA-compliant counter notices, which would have identified the operators of the Pirate Services to DISH,” the company writes.

DMCA and DataCamp’s Infringement Policies

The complaint alleges that since October 2017, DataCamp has “deliberately refused” to take reasonable steps to prevent the pirate IPTV providers from using its services.

 

DISH said it provided detailed information about infringements but accuses DataCamp of doing little by way of preventative action.

 

“Datacamp failed to remove or block the Protected Channels or the Works from being transmitted through its servers and failed to terminate the Pirate Services responsible for the infringement, despite receiving the Infringement Notices and other evidence provided by DISH and Networks,” the lawsuit adds.

 

DISH says that DataCamp was not powerless to act. It could’ve found out whether the pirate IPTV services were legally authorized to transmit the works before the company transcoded them. It could’ve responded or responded more promptly to complaints. It could’ve been tougher on ‘pirate’ customers who falsely claimed they had done nothing wrong or that the reported infringing behavior had stopped.

 

Perhaps most importantly, DISH says that DataCamp could’ve implemented a repeat infringer policy that would see an account suspended for receiving one infringement notice and then terminated for receiving more. At the least, it could’ve enforced its own customer service agreement which states that accounts can be terminated for “any reason”.

 

All of this and more leads DISH to one conclusion – DataCamp is liable for its customers’ actions.

No Safe Harbor

Referencing the DMCA and the ‘safe harbor’ that limits service providers’ liability, DISH says that DataCamp can claim none under copyright law for the following reasons.

 

Starting with the fundamentals, DataCamp failed to designate a DMCA agent and/or failed to publish the agent’s details on the DataCamp websites. DataCamp failed to remove or disable content in response to complaints, even when it had “knowledge or awareness” that the content was infringing.

 

The company also failed to “adopt and reasonably implement” a repeat infringer policy which, according to DISH, means that the company received financial benefit from the pirate IPTV services’ infringements.

 

“Datacamp decided not to terminate the Pirate Services’ accounts or remove or disable access to the Works because it wanted to maintain the revenue that would come from the accounts,” the complaint adds.

Claims for Relief

DISH says that since it owns the exclusive rights to its TV shows, these were directly infringed by the pirate IPTV services and DataCamp’s CDN was used to publicly perform them. As a result, DataCamp “materially contributes” to that direct infringement under 17 U.S. Code § 501.

 

In addition to such contributory infringement, DISH says that DataCamp is liable as a vicarious copyright infringer since it profited from its clients’ infringement despite having the ability to stop them.

 

Describing DataCamp’s actions as “willful, malicious, intentional, purposeful”, the broadcaster is demanding a permanent injunction against the CDN company that would require it to disconnect the pirate IPTV services and implement a robust repeat infringer policy.

 

For 217 or more registered works, DISH is also demanding statutory damages of $150,000 per work, to a total of $32.5 million.

 

The complaint can be found here (pdf)

 

Last week, Kanye West dropped his latest album ‘Donda 2‘. As previously announced, this is no regular release.

 

The album is not available on Spotify, Apple, or any of the other major streaming platforms. Instead, fans who want to listen to the tracks have to purchase Kanye’s Stem Player, a $200 audio device.

 

“Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own,” Kanye wrote on Instagram, explaining the move.

 

While this exclusive release may guarantee that a higher percentage of the revenue goes to Kanye and his crew, fans are not necessarily better off. $200 is quite a steep price for an album, even if it comes with added interactive features.

Donda 2 is Widely Pirated

As a result, many Kanye fans opted to wait for pirated versions of the tracks to surface online. They didn’t have to wait very long, as the full album leaked fairly soon after becoming available on the Stem Player. In fact, the Stem Player itself was ‘pirated’ too.

 

A few days ago, Reddit user ‘Lucaiii’ posted a “Stem Player Player,” and emulator that allows people to listen to and download music from the official player website without paying.

 

Needless to say, there has been plenty of interest in both the emulator and the pirated copies of Donda 2 that appeared online. At the time of writing, Donda 2 is the most shared album on sites such as 1337x and The Pirate Bay, where many thousands of people have grabbed a copy.

 

This once again illustrates that piracy is often driven by a lack of affordable legal options. That said, there are plenty of people who paid for the Stem Player as well, so Kanye might still be better off revenue-wise.

Not Kanye’s First Piracy Controversy

In any case, the interest among pirates shouldn’t have come as a surprise for the rapper. When he released “The Life of Pablo” exclusively on Tidal in 2016 there was also a piracy surge, which came with a twist.

 

Angered by mass-piracy, Kanye considered taking legal action against notorious torrent site The Pirate Bay. While he would not be the first to try, no lawsuits followed. Instead, a follow-up tweet quickly turned the tables.

 

The tweet showed that the rapper had an open browser tab titled ”Pirate Bay Torrent Xfe..,” which likely pointed to a pirated copy of a VST/AU plugin from Xfer Records. This company was co-founded by DJ Deadmau5 who subsequently called out Kanye as a ‘dick’.

 

Whether Kanye was really pirating music tools or whether he was simply trolling remains an unanswered question. However, the whole ordeal did trigger the launch of a Kanye-inspired Pirate Bay mirror, which was quite popular for a while, until it vanished.

 

In July 2021, Norway’s DN.no news service reported (paywall) on the plight of Fabel, a local platform dedicated to the distribution of audiobooks.

 

The report indicated that large parts of the Fabel catalog were being distributed for free on an unnamed pirate site. The publication managed to track down Russian man Nikita Volgin, who claimed to have connections to the platform.

Volgin Blames Publishers For Sub-Standard Service

“As a user, I think Fabel has a quite expensive subscription, and at the same delivers a low-quality service full of flaws,” Volgin said in his interview last year.

 

“I’m a little unsure but there is maybe not a free option to listen to Norwegian audiobooks online. Therefore I think the [pirate] website is a successful and useful project.”

 

Volgin, a then 37-year-old, was reported as owning a honey production company in Kviteseid, a municipality in Telemark, Norway. However, the company also owned dozens of domains related to audiobook piracy.

 

At the time, Volgin insisted that he was not directly behind the audiobook piracy site. Instead, he claimed to be an expert in SEO, skills which he used to make the platform more visible. He also revealed that Norway had actually deported him in 2020 after selling honey without a work permit. This meant he had to leave his family behind in the country, something that he was clearly bitter about.

“We Will Destroy The Audiobook Industry”

“So now Norway gets what Norway deserves,” Volgin said, referring to his deportation. “With my colleagues I will destroy the entire industry involved in recording and selling audiobooks.”

 

But aggravating publishers and selling honey illegally weren’t Volgin’s only brushes with the law.

 

In 2011 he was convicted in Russia for hacking the website of football club FC Zenit or, more accurately according to this Sophos report, hijacking its DNS. He admitted wrongdoing but said he had been politically motivated.

 

A decade later his name was again being mentioned in court, this time in Norway. Fabel and Forlagshuset Vigmostad & Bjørke, the fourth largest publisher in Norway, reported the Volgin-connected pirate audiobook site to the police after its corporate branding was displayed on the platform.

Volgin Ordered to Remove The Audiobooks, Whack-a-Mole Ensues

A ruling from the Telemark District Court last July ordered Volgin to remove all audiobooks from the pirate site. He was also ordered to hand over his computers and electronic equipment. Police went on to make seizures at an address in Telemark.

 

Since then it appears the police have had no luck in shutting the platform down, a situation that audiobook publisher Lydbokforlaget finds distressing.

 

“The case is uncomfortable. We have used large resources to stop this in the last year,” publishing manager Ann-Kristin Vasselen informs VG.no.

 

While they have had temporary success in shutting down what they believe to be the same website, it reappears under new domains, with two more currently in operation.

 

“We see that there is an intensity in this since the websites constantly appear with small changes in domain names,” police investigation leader Bård Teigen told VG. “We take the case seriously, such cases are challenging for our social systems.”

“Just a Joke” – Not So, Police Insist

In a recent email interview with VG, a now 38-year-old Volgin says that his declaration of war against the audiobook industry was just a joke and that some free audiobooks should be available in the Norweigan market.

 

“I actually think it is unfair that the industry in a prosperous country like Norway can not offer the public a small selection of free audiobooks. This can be called a charity project,” he says.

 

In respect of the district court ruling requiring him to remove the audiobooks from the website, Volgin says that the court made a mistake in claiming him to be the owner.

 

“It does not belong to me personally, so I can not be fully responsible for it. We have a team working on the project,” he says.

 

According to the police, the operation to deal with the site, which goes under several domains, is international. A server was shut down in Hong Kong and another in the United States. Volgin says that he currently lives in Ukraine.

 

“We have contacted those who own the domain names to have the two new pages shut down, but this is time-consuming and complicated. There is also a lot of new stuff for us to get acquainted with,” says police investigator Bård Teigen.

 

A lawyer acting for the publishers says that he appreciates that Volgin’s deportation from Norway has made the case more complex but they insist that since the website is targeting Norway, police should do something to stop it.

 

Police say they are pursuing the case with several charges in mind – identity theft, illegal use of company information on the illegal site, plus violations of the Copyright Act carrying a penalty of up to three years in prison.

 

Every year the US Trade Representative publishes a new update of its Special 301 Report, highlighting countries that fail to live up to U.S copyright protection standards.

 

The annual overview is meant to motivate foreign governments to improve policy and legislation in favor of US copyright holders.

 

This year’s list will be published in a few weeks. One of the ‘nominated’ countries is Peru, which is being closely watched by rightsholders. In response to various issues that were raised, Peru’s National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) sent an update of its plans and accomplishments to the USTR.

Peru Commits to Tackling Online Piracy

These diplomatic updates are nothing new. However, they can sometimes offer more insight into the collaboration between states and private organizations that, usually, remains behind closed doors.

 

This is also the case with the latest letter from Peru. Responding to questions and remarks from rightsholders, INDECOPI informs the USTR that fighting online piracy remains high on the agenda.

 

Over the past year, the government organization has asked ISPs to block several stream-ripping sites, for example, and these efforts will continue.

 

“INDECOPI will continue monitoring and surveillance in the digital environment of suspected piracy sites for the year 2022 and will take the corresponding actions to block illegal sites that would allow the downloading of works under the modality of stream ripping, as well as regarding the transmission of sports events via streaming.”

Collaboration With IFPI

To ensure that no stone is left unturned, INDECOPI has teamed up with the global music industry group IFPI, which it describes as one of its allies in the fight against online piracy.

 

IFPI puts pirate sites on the radar of the Peruvian Government but it also provides training and education, so the proper authorities can increase their anti-piracy skillset.

 

“INDECOPI has just signed a few days ago a memorandum of understanding with IFPI […] to implement jointly cooperation mechanisms, particularly regarding training and exchange of information for the detection […] of websites, as well as mobile and desktop applications, through which are carried out or contribute to allegedly infringing acts.”

Information and Education

Among other things, IFPI will share information about infringing sites with the authorities. INDECOPI can then use this information to take legal action.

 

Last year the government already requested ISP blockades of 17 websites. These include the stream-ripping services FLVto.biz, Y2Mate, and Yout.com. However, with help from the music industry, this list is expected to grow in the coming year.

 

IFPI confirmed to TorrentFreak that it signed a cooperation agreement with Peru’s IP authority. One of the main goals is to exchange intelligence on the music piracy landscape and assist in the ongoing blocking efforts and related investigations.

 

It is quite common for rightsholders and their representatives to be involved in site blocking proceedings, either through lawsuits or administrative procedures. However, this is the first time we’ve seen it being framed as a collaboration.

 

In addition to IFPI, Peru has also teamed up with the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Spain. Both countries will combine their forces to fight online piracy and other copyright infringing activities.

 

—

 

A copy of INDECOPI’s letter to the USTR is available here (pdf).

 

ResearchGate is a social networking site aimed at the academic community. Its users, which currently number around 20 million, are able to upload content to the platform, which at times includes published research papers.

 

In September 2017 the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) wrote to ResearchGate on behalf of 140 publishers. The group said that in its opinion, the platform had a responsibility to address infringing content on its servers.

 

STM demanded that ResearchGate should implement a system to identify copyrighted content but the platform rejected the proposition. Five publishers – Elsevier, ACS, Brill, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer – which form the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, reported that ResearchGate wanted publishers to send takedown notices so that infringing content could be removed.

 

In October 2017, scientific publishers Elsevier and American Chemical Society (ACS) followed up with a copyright infringement lawsuit against ResearchGate in Germany, seeking clarity on the legal situation plus damages.

 

That decision is now in, with both sides framing the outcome as a win for them yet somehow unsatisfactory for both.

Decision of the Court

In a release from the 21st civil chamber of the Munich I Regional Court, the basics are made clear. The publishers believed that since they own the rights to the articles (50 were presented in the case), they should not be available without permission on ResearchGate. On the other hand, ResearchGate said that it could not be held liable for making the articles available, since any papers were uploaded by users of the site.

 

The Court found that ResearchGate was indeed responsible for the infringing content being made available and issued an injunction preventing the content from reappearing in the future, despite it having been completely removed several years ago. However, the Court denied the publishers an award for damages, something that was completely omitted from the publishers’ press announcement celebrating the victory.

Publishers: ResearchGate is Responsible For Illegal Content

From the publishers’ side, this is a victory for them. ACS and Elsevier say that the Court confirmed that ResearchGate was responsible for content made available illegally on its site and welcome the fact that the 50 papers are now subject to an injunction. The group added that the Court found that ResearchGate wasn’t a passive provider of infrastructure and played an active part in illegal sharing by providing “specific tools”.

 

“We welcome the court´s decision confirming that it is illegal for ResearchGate to make content available on its site without permission from publishers, which it does for its own commercial gain. ResearchGate’s insistence that publishers should send takedown notices for this content is not in line with the law, and it is highly disruptive to the research community,” their announcement reads.

 

The publishers add that the Court found its agreements “legally valid” but notable by its absence is any mention of the Court’s refusal to award damages. ResearchGate, on the other hand, leads with that as its own victory.

ResearchGate: Damages Claim Dismissed

While the question of liability is certainly important, an award for damages could’ve been financially significant for ResearchGate. The reason that the Court refused to award any whatsoever is just as significant.

 

According to ResearchGate, the publishers’ standard copyright licensing agreements disclosed as part of the lawsuit revealed that they are typically signed by a single author, despite being authored by multiple authors. According to the Court, these agreements were insufficient to demonstrate the acquisition of rights.

 

“[The] plaintiffs were not able to comprehensively present the granting of rights in even one of the fifty cases in dispute,” a translation from the Court’s ruling reads.

 

“Overall, the Board has the impression that the plaintiffs, by invoking various indications of their legal position, are primarily trying to cover up the insufficient documentation of the acquisition of rights, which sometimes makes it impossible for them to present the necessary factual circumstances for the asserted legal position.”

 

The Court added that it should not be difficult “for a publisher, whose business basis is the legal acquisition of rights” to get something like this right. ResearchGate’s opinion is that the publishers could have other related problems moving forward.

 

“This ruling has potentially far-reaching implications for the plaintiffs’ ability to assert their copyright ownership in the future,” the platform notes.

The Question of Liability and Content Removal

ResearchGate also addresses the question of liability. The company notes that the ruling requires it to refrain from displaying the “50 articles, abstracts and previews” identified in the suit but says that it has already filed an appeal in that regard.

 

“We removed the articles, which had been uploaded by their authors, as well as the other materials, years ago,” the company says.

 

ResearchGate further notes that it has always operated a notice-and-takedown system and more recently, in response to recent changes in German and EU law, has also built a content blocking system.

 

“These measures are available to any publisher who wishes to take advantage of them, and Elsevier and ACS are already using them,” the company adds.

 

The publishers make no mention of this, instead reporting that they offered their own “easy-to-use automated solution” that would make the “takedown of articles by ResearchGate unnecessary” – but ResearchGate rejected it.

 

Mid-June 2017 and in the wake of a lawsuit filed in the United States by broadcaster DISH Network, TVAddons – the largest third-party Kodi add-on repository at the time – disappeared from the Internet.

 

All signs pointed to the events being connected but by August 2017, a bigger picture was emerging.

 

On June 2, 2017, a coalition of Canadian telecoms giants including Bell Canada, Bell ExpressVu, Bell Media, Videotron, Groupe TVA, Rogers Communications and Rogers Media, had filed a copyright complaint in Canada’s Federal Court against Montreal resident Adam Lackman, the man behind TVAddons.

 

The plaintiffs’ case against Lackman ran to 18 pages and contained claims that he communicated copyrighted TV shows including Game of Thrones, Prison Break, The Big Bang Theory, America’s Got Talent, Keeping Up With The Kardashians and dozens more, to the public in breach of copyright, due to him developing, hosting, distributing or promoting infringing Kodi add-ons.

Lawsuit Execution Was Highly Controversial

On June 9 the Federal Court handed down an interim injunction against Lackman restraining him from various activities in respect of TVAddons. The process took place ex parte, meaning that Lackman was unable to mount a defense. The plaintiffs were also granted an Anton Piller order, a civil search warrant that allowed them to access Lackman’s home without prior notice.

 

TVAddons later came back under a new domain name but the damage had been done. After a resurgence in 2019, the site’s traffic went steadily downhill to a mere fraction of that achieved during its glory days.

 

The lawsuit filed by DISH was settled months earlier but declining interest in Kodi (plus obvious legal considerations when it came to developing or distributing potentially infringing add-ons) meant that TVAddons was never likely to fully recover.

 

Up until a couple of weeks ago the site was still operational but in a replay of 2017, it once again disappeared along with its social media and Github channels. The site’s domain records further suggested something was afoot, with the TVAddons domain suddenly transferred to GoDaddy. We can now reveal that TVAddons is gone for good.

Plaintiffs and Lackman Agree Consent Judgment

In a letter dated February 18, 2022, the media companies and Lackman told the Federal Court that they had resolved their differences by agreeing to a consent judgment. That was reviewed and issued by Justice Rochester, who laid out the agreed terms in her judgment handed down February 22, 2022.

 

Lackman admits to communicating TV shows owned by the plaintiffs to the public, including by directly or indirectly participating in the “development, hosting, distribution or promotion of Kodi add-ons that provide users with unauthorized access” to the plaintiffs’ TV shows, contrary to sections 3(1)(f) and 27(1) of the Copyright Act.

 

The TVAddons founder further admits that he made the TV shows available to the public in a manner that provided access “from a place and at a time individually chosen by them” and induced and authorized users of the infringing add-ons to “initiate acts of infringement of the Plaintiffs’ right to communicate the Plaintiffs Programs to the public by telecommunication”, again by developing, hosting, distributing or promoting Kodi add-ons.

Permanent Injunction

The Federal Court issued a permanent injunction to restrain Lackman (and anyone acting with him, under his authority, or in association) from communicating the plaintiffs’ content to the public in any way, including via the development or distribution of infringing add-ons such as the ‘FreeTelly’ and ‘Indigo‘ tools.

 

The terms of the injunction are lengthy and comprehensive, leaving no doubt that TVAddons and all related tools and services are now dead, with Lackman unable to do anything remotely similar in the future.

Lackman Must Pay Plaintiffs US$14.5 Million

Given how long the case has taken to progress, there was always likely to be a damages and costs component to the judgment, whenever it finally arrived. Whether Lackman really has millions of dollars kicking around is an open question but if nothing else, the judgment should act as a deterrent.

 

“THIS COURT ORDERS the Defendant Mr. Lackman to pay the Plaintiffs the amount of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) in the form of a lump sum for damages, profits, punitive and exemplary damages, and costs,” Justice Rochester writes.

 

The judgment is in Canadian dollars but for reference, that’s currently around US$14.5 million.

 

The judgment also authorizes the bailiffs and independent supervising solicitor (with the assistance of computer forensics experts) to transfer the evidence obtained during the search of June 2017 to the media companies. Exactly what data was seized is currently unclear but it is likely to be sensitive, particularly if the trove includes user data and/or information about Kodi add-on developers.

 

Finally, it appears the media companies will also be taking control of “login credentials, accounts, domains, subdomains and servers” in order to bring this years-long battle to a conclusion. Adam Lackman announced his relief on Twitter, noting that “It wasn’t the outcome I had hoped for, but an outcome nonetheless.”

 

The consent judgment can be found here (pdf)

 

As one of the more popular user-submitted content sites on the internet today, Reddit and its community moderators have to work hard to keep the platform in order.

 

In 2021, Reddit’s users created nearly 5.8 billion posts, comments, private messages and chats across the platform, with 297,161,752 later being removed by moderators (around 175.8k), removed by site admins (108.6K), and the authors themselves (12.6K).

 

Content can be removed for a variety of reasons. ‘Content manipulation’ is the largest category and encompasses spam, community interference (so-call ‘brigading’), vote manipulation, and similar issues. For the purpose of this report, however, we’ll home in on the copyright issues faced by Reddit during the last year and how the site responded to them.

Copyright Removals

In common with the vast majority of large companies based in the US, Reddit has to follow the requirements of the DMCA which means that when it receives a valid copyright notice, it must comply by taking the identified content down. On the other hand, when submitters send notices that are incomplete or invalid in some other way, Reddit does not.

 

“In 2021, Reddit received 177,450 copyright notices reporting 920,672 pieces of content. This represents an increase of 104% from 2020. We removed 665,898 pieces of content in response to these takedown notices,” the company reveals in the latest edition of its transparency report.

 

Under the DMCA, Reddit is also required to take “appropriate action” against so-called “repeat infringers”, which in the company’s case can involve the termination of not only user accounts but also entire subreddit communities, especially ones where “excessive amounts” of infringing content keep getting posted.

 

“In 2021, Reddit permanently suspended 2,813 users and banned 2,625 subreddits for excessive copyright infringement,” the company writes.

 

These figures represent a substantial increase over those published for 2020. In that year, Reddit banned just 303 users and terminated 514 subreddits.

 

Although overall copyright complaints are up 104% on the previous year, the site’s termination policy doesn’t appear to have changed significantly. This may suggest that some users and subreddits simply aren’t getting the message that by repeatedly posting infringing content, it can and will result in both them and their communities getting banned.

Invalid Copyright Notices Are Rejected

Any copyright notices sent to Reddit must comply with various rules. Primarily they must deal with copyright, not other issues such as privacy or harassment. When they do address copyright issues they must meet the requirements of copyright law and include specified information. Furthermore, the submitter must also consider whether the content they’re complaining about is being used legally, i.e under the doctrine of fair use.

 

Should a submitted notice fail to meet these requirements, action by Reddit is declined. In 2021 260,884 pieces of content did not qualify for removal due to invalid, incomplete, or duplicate copyright notices. These included a complaint from a video game publisher that requested the removal of posts purported to reveal game mechanics for a not-yet-released game.

 

“Although the notice claimed that ‘leaked images of the unreleased game’ infringed the publisher’s copyrights in the game, the only image found in either of the reported posts was a screenshot of further plain text description of game mechanics. Since the reported content was merely related to the rightsholder’s work but did not copy from it in a way that constitutes infringement, we declined to remove the content,” Reddit reveals.

 

When someone complains about a specific piece of content and that content is taken down, under US copyright law the targeted user has the ability to appeal via a DMCA counter notice. Such counter notices are required to follow a structure but successful notices can result in content being restored. Content can also be restored if the submitter of the original notice issues a retraction.

 

“Reddit complies with counter notices and retraction requests that are complete, and rejects those that are incomplete or invalid. In 2021, Reddit received 542 counter notices and 72 retraction requests. 285 counter notices were found to be valid, resulting in restoration of all the associated content to Reddit. Similarly, all retraction requests resulted in restoration of the associated content,” the company notes.

 

With around 297 million pieces of content removed by Reddit in 2021, the 665,898 pieces removed on copyright grounds represent a small fraction of the overall problem. However, with user accounts and entire communities on the line, consequences can be great when errant users repeatedly and intentionally overstep the line.

 

The 2021 transparency report, which also covers law enforcement requests, can be found here

 

Pirate site blockades are the preferred anti-piracy tool for many copyright holders around the world. This is also the case in Australia, where blocking injunctions are commonplace today.

 

This week, a group of prominent Hollywood studios, Netflix, and Village Roadshow, obtained the latest blocking order in Australia’s Federal Court.

Fresh Blocking Order

The complaint, filed in December, targets 34 sites and a total of 54 domain names. Most of the pirate sites are streaming portals, such as 123movies, Yomovies, Soap2Day, Myflixer, Vumoo, and 123Chill.

 

The movie companies also added ETTVCentral.com, a domain that was used by the popular torrent distribution group ETTV. However, that doesn’t make much of an impact as the site was shut down due to financial issues a few weeks ago.

 

The court’s order is directed at all the major Australian Internet providers including those operating under Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG and Vodafone corporate groups. These ISPs have 15 days to disable access to the listed domains and IP addresses.

 

In addition, Internet providers are required to inform blocked visitors about the underlying court action. This can be done by redirecting traffic to a dedicated blocking page.

 

“[ISPs] must use reasonable efforts to ensure that the webpage informs the user of that Respondent’s service that access to that website has been disabled because this Court has determined that it infringes or facilitates the infringement of copyright,” the order reads.

Whack a Mole

In the past, pirate sites have often switched to new domain names in an attempt to bypass blocking measures. This is still an option today, but the rightsholders have the liberty to send updated locations to the ISPs, which then have to be blocked as well.

 

This week’s order is initially valid for three years but the movie companies are allowed to ask for an extension if the sites remain operational going forward.

 

In theory, the affected sites have the option to object to the blocking measures but, as far as we know, none of the pirate sites intends to do so.

 

Most of the pirate sites that will be blocked gained popularity after their competitors were targeted in earlier blocking rounds. We expect that this pattern will continue to repeat itself.

 

At the same time, however, there is also research that suggests that the majority of Aussie pirates simply give up instead of looking for alternative sources. A smaller but significant percentage use a VPN to bypass the blocking measures.

 

—

 

A copy of the blocking order, obtained by Village Roadshow, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Universal, Warner Bros, and Netflix is available here (pdf). A full list of all the blocked domain names, some of which are mirrors, can be found below.

 

– Yomovies.so
– Yomovies.is
– Yomovies.ac
– Yomovies.cs
– Yomovies.sh
– Cimaclub.cc
– Cima-club.cc
– Goojara.to
– Movamovie.net
– Nmovies.cc
– 123movies.gy
– 123movies.vu
– 123movies.page
– 123movies.ms
– Movieswatch.tv
– Putlocker-website.com
– Musichq.net
– Dopebox.to
– Dopebox.net
– 123chill.to
– 123series.ru
– M4uhd.tv
– Flixhq.ru
– Ummagurau.com
– Watchmovieshd.ru
– Kiss-cartoon.io
– Soap2day.video
– Soap2day.film
– Swatchseries.ru
– Watchserieshd.ru
– Watchserieshd.ru
– Ettvcentral.com
– Vumoo.life
– W-123movies.com
– 123moviess.sc
– New.la123movies.org
– La123movies.org
– 123movies-official.site
– M4ufree.com
– Ssoap2day.to
– Ssoap2day.art
– Moviesjoy.one
– Gomovies.fan
– Putlockers.li
– 7movierulz.lv
– 7movierulz.pw
– 7movierulz.mg
– 7movierulz.vg
– 7movierulz.mx
– 7movierulz.pe
– Myflixer.to
– Primewire.es
– Putlocker.es

 

PrimeWire is a popular streaming portal that provides a database of links to pirated movies and TV shows hosted by third parties. It’s been around for at least eight years but in December 2021 it became clear that major movie and TV show companies had seen enough.

 

In a lawsuit filed by Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Disney and Netflix in the United States, the studios accused PrimeWire of massive copyright infringement by encouraging users of the site to upload links to pirated content.

 

They said that this not only infringes their distribution rights but amounts to unfair competition to the detriment of VOD services such as Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, and Peacock. Indeed, the studios claim that PrimeWire is effectively an attractive one-stop shop, one that provides all of their exclusive content under one roof.

Court Issues Preliminary Injunction

Early January 2022, after the studios had demanded millions in damages and a preliminary injunction, the court responded by granting the latter. The order enjoins and restrains the PrimeWire defendants and anyone acting in concert with them from carrying out a number of actions, including linking to, distributing, reproducing, copying, hosting, uploading, and displaying the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.

 

The injunction also ordered PrimeWire to take no action that would transfer the domains primewire.li, primewire.ag and primewire.vc to any other registrant or registrar. Domain name registrars and registries API Gmbh, Gandi SAS, Namecheap, Inc., Nic AG, SWITCH, and Afilias, Inc., were ordered to freeze and disable the three PrimeWire domains.

 

Primewire.ag was subsequently disabled by Gandi, rendering it inaccessible. The others, however, remained functional, allowing PrimeWire to stay up, business as usual. In addition, a new site appeared – primewirestatus.org – which acts as a news portal to give up-to-date information on new PrimeWire domains, should the old ones shut down.

 

We were unable to definitively link this domain to PrimeWire. However, in a call to the court, the studios now state that the people behind PrimeWire are also the people behind PrimeWireStatus, although they currently appear unable to identify any of them by name.

Studios Demand Action After PrimeWire Defies Court

In a motion for partial default judgment and leave to serve discovery, the studios say that since the operators of PrimeWire have failed to answer its original complaint, the court is entitled to enter judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor. They say that the defendants were correctly served but are nevertheless “openly defying” the injunction and have “taken steps to evade its reach.”

 

Describing PrimeWire as “prolific copyright pirates”, the studios say that on the day the preliminary injunction was served, they discovered that the PrimeWire team had taken countermeaasures.

 

“The same day Plaintiffs served Defendants with the [preliminary injunction] order, Plaintiffs discovered Defendants switched to a domain name registrar that is known for tolerating piracy,” their motion reads.

 

“On or around January 10, Defendants transferred the primewire.li and primewire.vc domains to a new domain name registrar, Sarek Oy, which is known for providing domain name registrar services to websites that provide access to infringing content.”

 

Then on January 11, the PrimeWire team added a new banner to streaming site alerting users to the existence of primewirestatus.org, “so [they] will always know where to find PrimeWire.”

Domain Registries and Registrars

According to the studios, they served notice of the preliminary injunction on all of PrimeWire’s prior and current registrars and registries and requested that they should freeze and disable PrimeWire’s domains.

 

Registrar Gandi SAS complied with the requirements and disabled the primewire.ag domain but Sarek Oy, the registrar to which the other PrimeWire domains were transferred, is reportedly being less helpful and “has not responded to Plaintiffs’ original or second communications and request for compliance.”

 

As a result, PrimeWire is still accessible from its .li and .vc domains, leading to a conclusion from the plaintiffs that PrimeWire is determined to render the preliminary injunction ineffective. Seeking a permanent injunction with the ability to tackle any new URLs, the studios want to seize PrimeWire’s domains so that they can be used to deliver an anti-piracy message to PrimeWire’s users

The Question of Damages

While the studios’ original complaint demanded millions in statutory damages, they also want to find out how much money has been generated by PrimeWire from advertising. They say they need permission from the court to do so.

 

“Plaintiffs believe a large damages award here will be appropriate given the scale of Defendants’ infringement, but need discovery to gather more information regarding Defendants’ ill-gotten profits,” they write.

 

“While Defendants suggested in limited communications with Plaintiffs that they generate little revenue through the PrimeWire Websites, Plaintiffs are entitled to discover the true facts.”

 

That might be easier said than done. The studios say they will need to contact PrimeWire’s current and former advertising networks and sponsored link providers to gain that information but since some are abroad and are expected to be uncooperative, it may take as long as six months to obtain the information.

 

In summary, Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Disney and Netflix seek a partial default judgment against the 10 ‘Doe’ defendants doing business as PrimeWire plus a tough and flexible permanent injunction to take PrimeWire offline.

 

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

 

There is little doubt that for many people, streaming services have become the standard for watching movies and TV-shows.

 

Subscription-based streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ even converted some hardcore pirates, as they were seen as more convenient alternatives.

 

There is a problem though. The whole appeal of the streaming model becomes diluted when there are too many ‘Netflixes.’ Paying for a handful of streaming subscriptions and navigating from service to service for an evening of entertainment is not the best experience.

 

Research has shown that the fragmented streaming landscape keeps piracy relevant, instead of making it disappear.

 

A few hours ago Elon Musk added his two cents on the streaming service jungle. In true Musk fashion, the richest man on the planet uses the “distracted boyfriend” meme to illustrate his point.

 

“Entertainment is becoming a username/password/2FA nightmare,” he tweeted a few hours ago.

 

The tweet doesn’t come with any further context but it’s clear that the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is not entirely happy with the paid streaming ecosystem in its current form. Whether he uses The Pirate Bay himself is another question though.

 

Paying the subscription fees shouldn’t be a problem for the eccentric billionaire. In theory, he could just be annoyed by the fact that he has to remember multiple usernames and passwords. Or he’s just trolling.

 

Whatever the reasoning is, many pirates will feel emboldened by the support. Some have started to tweet other memes, hoping that Musk will pick these up as well.

 

And indeed, shortly after posting his original message, Musk liked another tweet by Antonio Lievano who posted another streaming/piracy theme.

 

Whether Musk’s cryptic criticism will have any impact on the streaming platforms themselves is highly unlikely though.

 

In an ideal world people would like to have access to all content from a single and affordable streaming platform but at the moment that seems like a pipe dream. For now, only pirate sites can offer that luxury, albeit illegally.

 

By providing a massive library of scientific and academic publications for free, Sci-Hub and Libgen have achieved a somewhat unique status in the ‘pirate’ market.

 

On the one hand, the platforms freely spread knowledge and education, two of the most valuable commodities for those seeking a more enlightened and progressive global community.

 

On the other, the platforms do so by leveraging copyrighted content that is owned and monetized by massive corporations who insist that their business models are being illegally undermined.

 

The belief that all information should be free is certainly not new but having scientific and academic knowledge as a subject matter has lit a fire under people who would normally shy away from promoting infringement. After balancing the greater good of the many against the profits of the few, some scientists and researchers are even prepared to go to court to fight for Sci-Hub’s existence.

Blocking Case in India

Given their size and reach, Sci-Hub and Libgen are regularly targeted by academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society. In late 2020 they filed an application for an ISP blocking injunction at the High Court in Delhi, which in other piracy cases has proven a relatively straightforward matter.

 

Very quickly, however, large groups of scientists, academics, teachers and students protested the legal action. A judge then agreed that dissenting voices should be heard, declaring the case and a matter of public importance.

 

All of that said, applications to intervene in such matters aren’t always a success, as one group of researchers has just discovered.

Court Rejects Intervention Application

Researcher and scientist Subbiah Arunachalam (sometimes referred to as Mr. Open Access) is well known for his campaigns in favor of open access for academic journals in developing countries. Biochemist Padmanabhan Balaram is a former director of the Indian Institute of Science and himself the author of more than 400 research papers.

 

Together with colleague and open access advocate Madhan Muthu, the academics filed an application to intervene in the Sci-Hub case alongside a call for a government investigation into the “monopolistic and unfair pricing” in the scientific publishing sector.

 

The application was based on a straightforward premise. If Sci-Hub and Libgen are blocked by ISPs in India, researchers’ access to scientific papers distributed by Sci-Hub would be denied, something that would have a “deleterious impact on public interest.”

 

That reasoning alone proved insufficient in the eyes of Justice C Hari Shankar.

 

“That, by itself, in my view, cannot constitute a basis to allow a third party to intervene in the proceedings in such a fashion,” his ruling reads.

 

“If the material in question is infringing, it would have to be taken off and if the consequence is that it becomes unavailable to persons who were making use of such material, that is but a consequence which follows in law, and cannot be a basis for such persons to intervene in the litigation which is in the nature of a lis in personam.”

Justice Shankar Has Other Concerns

As far as the injunction application is concerned, the researchers are not connected to Sci-Hub, the publishers, or the allegations of copyright infringement. For the purposes of their intervention, they identify as consumers of potentially infringing content with sincere concerns for the public interest.

 

On this basis, however, they represent a small subset of a potentially massive pool of Sci-Hub users who may also feel that the site should stay open for the greater good. This raises concerns for the Court in respect of its power to allow a party to present an opinion or participate in a case.

 

“In my view, such intervention cannot be permitted under Order I Rule 8A of the CPC. If such intervention is permitted, it would be a carte blanche for persons, who claim to be beneficiaries of material which is alleged to be infringing in nature, to start intervening in the infringement proceedings, which would seriously impact the prosecution of the proceedings in the Court,” the order reads.

 

“In view thereof, I am of the opinion that no case for permitting intervention, by the applicants in the present lis is made out. The application is, accordingly, rejected.”

Other Applications for Intervention

As reported last November, additional intervention applications have also been filed with the High Court by other researchers. These are still pending but are being challenged by the academic publisher plaintiffs.

 

It is not currently clear whether these applications will be similarly rejected. In at least one of the applications there are claims that since India’s Copyright Act provides exceptions for “fair dealing”, making available and consuming copyrighted research material would not constitute infringement under Section 52(1)(a)(i) of the Copyright Act.

 

The same application also raises concerns that a broad blocking injunction would not only cover the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works but all other content on Sci-Hub on a permanent basis.

 

The High Court order denying intervention can be found here (pdf)

 

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

 

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

 

This week we have two new entries on the list. “Scream” is the most downloaded title.

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

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1	(…)	Scream	6.8 / trailer
2	(1)	The King’s Man	6.5 / trailer
3	(6)	Marry Me	7.2 / trailer
4	(5)	Spider-Man: No Way Home	9.0 / trailer
5	(3)	Eternals	6.6 / trailer
6	(2)	House of Gucci	6.8 / trailer
7	(…)	Texas Chainsaw Massacre	5.0 / trailer
8	(9)	The Matrix Resurrections	5.8 / trailer
9	(…)	Licorice Pizza	7.8 / trailer
10	(7)	Dune	8.3 / trailer

 

 

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

 

Roughly 25 years ago, Google started its business as a simple and straightforward search engine.

 

The startup swiftly captured a dominant market share and branched out into other businesses, including online advertising and video streaming.

 

Google is a leading player in all of these markets today. This brings in a yearly revenues of hundreds of billions of dollars, an amount that continues to go up at a rapid pace. At the same time, however, complaints from copyright holders have grown as well.

 

To deal with these complaints, Google’s parent company Alphabet has implemented a wide variety of complimentary anti-piracy measures. An overview of these technologies was shared with the U.S. Copyright Office recently, which revealed some things we weren’t aware of.

 

The submission (pdf) is part of the Copyright Office’s inquiry into technological copyright protection measures, which could be used as input for a new and improved version of the DMCA law.

 

According to Google, there is no need for new legislation. The company points out that it’s already taking extensive voluntary measures to curb piracy and promote a healthy Internet.

Punishing Pre-Release Piracy Searches

This arsenal of anti-piracy measures includes the demotion of pirate sites in search results. Google started doing this ten years ago. It basically means that if Google receives a high number of takedown requests for a particular domain name, other results from the same site are downranked as well.

 

This system has been optimized over the years. For example, Google can now detect if a site switches to a new domain name so that the demotion signals are carried over.

 

One DMCA takedown feature that’s new to us is that rightsholders can now indicate if the reported content is unreleased or still-in-theater. When that’s the case, Google can take even stricter measures.

 

“[W]e have added a ‘still-in-theaters/prerelease’ tag for DMCA notices involving this category of content to enhance the Search demotion signal,” Google writes.

 

We assume that this “prerelease” flag will result in a stricter downranking punishment, but Google doesn’t provide any further details on that.

DMCA Demonetization

Another search-related measure that’s new to us involves Google’s advertising business. When the company receives a takedown notice for an infringing URL in its search engine, the response doesn’t stop there.

 

If the reported site has any Google ads, these will be automatically disabled in conjunction. At the same time, searches, where the reported URL appeared, will be stripped from ads as well.

 

“When a URL is delisted from Search following a DMCA notice, any Google ads running on that page are automatically disabled. We also will not run ads on Search that link to delisted pages,” Google writes.

 

It’s interesting to see how a takedown notice targeted at search results automatically affects another Google product. It certainly amplifies the punishment, but it also results in more collateral damage for wrongly identified URLs.

 

At the same time, we wonder where this integration stops. Could the next step be to block these URLs in the Chrome browser as well?

Fingerprinting & Hash Matching

The overview shared by Google also includes other widely known anti-piracy technologies such as YouTube’s Content ID. This system processes four million claims per day and handles 98% of all copyright issues on the video platform.

 

Automated recognition tools are not exclusive to YouTube, however. Google Drive also uses hash matching to prevent content that was previously reported as copyright-infringing from being publicly shared.

 

This hash matching, which also takes place on YouTube, ensures that infringing content stays down, or at least out of public view.

 

This technology isn’t perfect. The hash filter recently flagged text files containing only a 0 or a 1 as copyright infringement. And it appears that macOS ‘.DS_Store’ files are erroneously being flagged as well.

 

It’s safe to say that Google finds itself in a difficult position. The company has to find a balance between helping rightsholders and keeping its customers happy. Most people don’t mind that infringing content is removed as long as it’s done without collateral damage. And based on recent experience, that’s easier said than done.

 

The public’s aversion to automated takedown tools was also apparent in the Copyright Office’s consultation. This triggered thousands of responses from the public, with many taking a critical position in respect of upload filters and similar technologies.

 

Pirate site blocking was a novelty ten years ago, but today it’s common practice in many countries. This is also true for Greece, where the first domains were targeted in 2018.

 

These blocking requests are managed by the EDPPI, a special commission at the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports that acts following complaints from rightsholders.

 

The Greek system is different from that of many other countries because it doesn’t involve court oversight. It’s an administrative procedure that allows copyright holders to swiftly request pirate site blockades, without the need for lengthy and costly legal proceedings.

 

Since the start of the program, copyright holders have submitted 46 blocking requests, targeting hundreds of domain names. This includes local pirate portals but also mainstream sites such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x, and YTS.

New Preemptive Blockades

As part of the regular procedure, a total of 485 domain names have been blocked so far. However, with help from an amendment to Greece’s copyright law, it is now possible to request blocking of “live” pirate streams as well.

 

The amendment grants EDPPI the power to issue preemptive live blocking orders against domain names and IP addresses that provide access to live broadcasts, such as sporting events.

 

These orders are sent to local ISPs at least 24 hours before the start of a live broadcast. These providers are then required to take swift action and risk a fine for each day they fail to comply.

 

This new amendment was passed a few months ago and has already resulted in a variety of complaints. Rightsholders of prominent sporting events such as the Champions League, Premier League, MotoGP, Formula 1, ATP, and the NBA.

 

In total, EDDPI has issued 21 live blocking decisions, ordering Greek ISPs to block at least 362 domain names and 185 IP addresses. These are mostly linked to streaming portals or unauthorized IPTV services.

Legal Options

Visitors who try to access one of the blocked domain names are now redirected to a custom landing page informing them that they’ve been blocked by EDDPI. At the same time, visitors are encouraged to look for legal alternatives.

 

The legal options are available on the “Enjoy Legal” website. This is part of the EU Intellectual Property Office’s Agorateka initiative which keeps track of all the authorized digital entertainment options in Europe.

 

These and other anti-piracy efforts were also shared with the U.S. Trade Representative this week. According to the Hellenic Copyright Organization, the landing page has been viewed more than 300,000 times since it launched on December 13, 2021.

 

“Since then, and until February 11, 2022, it has been displayed more than 330,000 times, reaching nearly 100,000 users. It is notable that the actual numbers of blockings are far greater, since the blocking page is not displayed in all instances,” the Copyright Organization writes.

 

Whether the preemptive blocking efforts will be effective in restricting live streaming piracy in the long term has yet to be seen but, thus far, rightsholders and the Greek authorities are pleased with the progress being made.

 

In December 2021, movie and TV giants Universal, Disney, Paramount, Warner and Columbia joined Netflix, Amazon, Apple and several other studios in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Texas resident Dwayne Anthony Johnson.

 

The plaintiffs alleged that Johnson (and Does 1-20) are the brains behind pirate IPTV providers AllAccessTV (AATV) and Quality Restreams. The latest in a growing line of copyright cases against similar platforms, the complaint alleged that the services supply infringing movies and TV shows via their IPTV and VOD platforms, breaching the studios’ rights.

 

The claim for damages (statutory $150,000 per work) was accompanied by a request for an injunction to shut the platforms down.

 

Late January, Johnson’s legal team argued against an injunction, claiming that such an order wasn’t necessary since certain named domains were already down. In any event, they continued, the proposed injunction was ‘deficient’ while key evidence provided by MPA anti-piracy chief Jan van Voorn was labeled “biased” and “inaccurate”. The evidence of Steve Kang, Vice President of Creative Content Protection at NBCUniversal Media, was also criticized.

Studios Respond

In a reply to the motion for preliminary injunction filed earlier this month, the studios begin by highlighting that despite the technicalities raised in Johnson’s opposition, there was no attempt to dispute the fundamental basis for the court issuing an injunction.

 

They explain that the key arguments and evidence support their allegations that Johnson is involved with and doing business as AATV and Quality Restreams and that his “cherry-picked” criticisms only attempt to obfuscate that.

 

“[N]one of Defendant’s misguided and meritless arguments do anything to undercut the fundamental need for an injunction that stops the mass-scale infringement occurring here,” they write.

 

“Although Defendant attempts to poke holes in the sufficiency of Plaintiffs’ evidence, he cannot (and does not) undercut the fundamental premise that he and his cohorts are operating an illegal streaming scheme.”

 

The reply notes that Johnson is the registrant for allaccessiptv.com and myaatv.com, two domains associated with the AATV service. He is also the owner/manager of VPN Safe Vault LLC which through the domain backoffice.vpnsafevault.com, AATV subscriptions are sold. The studios also claim that Johnson is the creator and administrator of a private Facebook page (MediaBoxx Corporation) which services AATV resellers.

 

Furthermore, Johnson did not dispute that he created and fostered an “extensive network of resellers”, instead claiming that he cannot be held liable for their conduct, despite the resellers utilizing Johnson’s websites to sign up for his service. As for VPN Safe Vault, the studios say that the portal is still in operation and selling subscriptions to AATV services.

 

As for the claims of biased and inaccurate evidence from experts who are not independent, the studios brush all of the claims aside, adding that the evidence is both considered, substantial, and sufficient at this stage of the case.

 

For good measure, however, a supplemental declaration by MPA anti-piracy chief Jan van Voorn provides additional technical details on the AATV service. In any event, this is just a small part of the overall evidence the studios have amassed against Johnson, they add.

Joint Stipulation and Preliminary Injunction

Despite the apparent gap between the parties, late Thursday the parties told the court that they had agreed to the terms of a proposed preliminary injunction. This does not mean that Johnson is admitting liability, the parties stress. Neither does it mean he will accept the terms of any permanent injunction.

 

At a California district court, Judge André Birotte dealt with the matter quickly.

 

“Defendant Dwayne Anthony Johnson d/b/a AllAccessTV and Quality Restreams (‘Defendant’), and all persons who are allegedly acting in active concert or participation with Defendant (collectively, the ‘Enjoined Parties’), are hereby preliminary restrained and enjoined,” he writes.

 

The order states that the enjoined parties shall not “directly or secondarily, publicly perform, copy, reproduce, distribute, stream, transmit, or otherwise infringe in any manner any of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, or any other works whose copyrights are owned or exclusively controlled by Plaintiffs and/or their affiliates.”

 

Neither will they “facilitate, induce, or contribute to the unauthorized reproduction and/or public performance of the Copyrighted Works by others.”

 

No party is allowed to operate or do business in any way as AllAccessTV and Quality Restreams, including by operating any website, application, system, software, or service for purposes of providing unauthorized access to IPTV or VOID services to any person or entity.

 

The injunction also includes a list of domains that cannot be modified, sold, transferred or deleted. No changes can be made to WHOIS information, either by the defendant or registrars Namecheap and GoDaddy. Within five days, however, all domains must be parked. They read as follows:

aatvdigitalmedia.com, aatvpanel.com, aatvapp.live, myaatv.com, aatvdigital.com, aatvwebplayer.com, allaccessiptv.com, allaccesstv.live, tv.allaccesstv.live, vod.allaccesstv.live, kids.allaccesstv.live, aatv.media, qualityrestreams.com, qsplaylist.com, qualitystreamz.guru, qsprovider.com, mediaflo.net, and v2.dmdapi.com.

 

For good measure, just in case anyone gets any ideas, the enjoined parties may not engage in any action that has the effect of circumventing the requirements of the injunction.

 

Court documents referenced in this article can be found here (1,2,3, pdf)

 

In its yearly “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets”, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) lists a few dozen websites said to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting.

 

The overview is largely based on input from copyright industry groups, including the RIAA and MPA, that submitted their recommendations late last year.

 

According to USTR, the annual overview aims to motivate the private sector and foreign governments to reduce piracy. To that end, the list identifies sites and services that reportedly engage in, facilitate, turn a blind eye to, or benefit from piracy or counterfeiting.

 

These targets traditionally include popular piracy portals such as well-known torrent sites and streaming portals. However, in recent years we have also seen hosting companies, advertisers, and e-commerce platforms being added.

Torrent Sites, Cyberlockers and Streaming Portals

This year’s overview is a mixed bag again. As expected, the USTR mentions torrent sites such as RARBG, RuTracker, The Pirate Bay, and 1337x. The same is true for the torrent-based streaming application Popcorn Time, which was decimated recently.

 

Interestingly, USTR writes that an individual who operated a Popcorn Time app in Denmark was sentenced to probation in Denmark recently. However, that’s not completely accurate, as the person in question didn’t create the app, but merely linked to it.

 

Regular streaming sites are also on the list of notorious markets with Fmovies and Cuevana as prime examples, while cyberlockers 1Fichier and Uploaded also secured their spots. In addition, video hosting service 2embed also made it onto the list for the first time.

Music, Games, Books, and Science

The music industry nominated several stream-rippers as notorious markets and FLVTO.biz, 2Conv.com, and MP3Juices.cc are included this year. The same applies to the music download platform Newalbumreleases.net, which shares new and pre-release music.

 

Game companies are particularly concerned with cheats. Mpgh.net, which reportedly offers several hundred thousand free cheats to over four million users, made it into the latest overview.

 

“The rise of unauthorized digital goods and cheat software negatively affects video game companies and consumers by unfairly altering game play for legitimate consumers, while also diverting significant revenue away from video game developers and publishers,” USTR writes.

 

On the publishing side, Sci-Hub and Libgen are seen as two of the greatest piracy threats. The latter focuses on academic articles while the former also offers a broader selection of books, comics, audiobooks, and magazines.

IPTV Services

In recent years IPTV services and dedicated piracy boxes have continued to grow in popularity and several have made it into the NML this year. These include BestbuyIPTV.store, iStar and Spider

 

The Iraqi-based IPTV services Chaloos and Shabakaty are mentioned as well. As we reported recently, the latter is reportedly operated by Iraq’s largest internet provider, which is also mentioned by the USTR.

 

“EarthLink Telecommunications, an Iraqi company and the largest Internet service provider in Iraq, is reported to host a pirate IPTV service, mobile app, and website called Shabakaty and offers this service to the subscribers of its Internet service for no additional charge,” USTR writes.

Hosting, Advertising, and Shopping

Aside from sites and services that are directly linked to piracy, the USTR also calls out several third-party intermediaries including hosting companies and advertising services.

 

BlueAngelHost, for example, is called out for describing itself as a “DMCA Ignored” hosting provider while FlokiNET reportedly fails to cooperate with copyright holders and law enforcement.

 

On the advertising front, RevenueHits is seen as a bad actor as it’s reportedly one of the most popular advertising networks among pirate sites.

 

Finally, the NML (Notorious Markets List) also includes several online services that are linked to the sale of counterfeit goods. These include billion-dollar businesses such as AliExpress, Shopee, Bukalapak, and Pinduoduo.

Criticism

The above is merely a selection of all the digital notorious markets and a full overview of all the included sites and services is available below.

 

A common critique on the NML is that it’s mostly based on complaints from rightsholders. The USTR itself doesn’t verify these claims in detail, despite the strong implications the report may have.

 

“The NML does not make findings of legal violations nor does it reflect the U.S. Government’s analysis of the general IP protection and enforcement climate in the countries connected with the listed markets,” USTR clarifies.

 

This year, several companies have objected to a potential listing and some did so with success.

 

Advertising companies PropellerAds and PopAds successfully submitted a rebuttal after being nominated by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), pointing out that they have several anti-piracy measures and policies in place.

 

Similarly, the .IS and .TO domain name registries also countered the MPA’s allegations that they facilitate piracy. Neither of them is included in the USTR’s final list of notorious markets.

 

….

 

—

 

A copy of USTR’s 2021 overview of notorious markets (published yesterday) is available here (pdf). The full list of highlighted online sites/services, including those focused on counterfeiting, is as follows:

 

-1337x.to
-1Fichier
-2Embed
-Aliexpress
-Baidu Wangpan
-Bestbuyiptv.store
-Blueangelhost
-Bukalapak.com
-Chaloos
-Chomikuj.pl
-Cuevana3.io
-DHgate.com
-Dytt8.net
-Egy.best
-FlokiNET
-Flvto.biz and 2Conv.com
-Fmovies.to
-Indiamart
-Istar
-Libgen.is
-MP3juices.cc
-Mpgh.net
-Newalbumreleases.net
-Pelisplus.icu
-Phimmoi
-Pinduoduo.com
-Popcorn Time
-Private Layer
-Rapidgator.net
-Rarbg.to
-Revenuehits.com
-Rutracker.org
-Sci-Hub.io
-Shabakatv
-Shopee.com
-Spider
-Taobao.com
-Thepiratebay.org
-Tokopedia.com
-Uploaded.net
-VK.com
-WeChat

 

Founded more than 16 years ago, Rojadirecta is one of the oldest and most popular linking sites for sports streaming events.

 

The site, which is operated by the Spanish company Puerto 80 Projects, has built a loyal user base over the years. At the same time, it has fought quite a few legal battles too.

 

The Spanish site famously challenged a domain seizure by the U.S. Government, with success. On its home turf, there have been some victories in court as well but, in recent years, the tide has turned.

Tide Turned

In 2016, the Commercial Court of A Coruña ruled that Rojadirecta must stop linking to unauthorized streams of football events. This order followed a complaint by Mediapro and DTS, which hold the local rights to many sporting events.

 

Following the order, Rojadirecta eventually closed its doors to Spanish visitors. However, the site’s operator, Igor Seoane, was not giving up.

 

Rojadirecta appealed the decision at the Provincial Court of A Coruña in 2018. That wasn’t a success as the original order was confirmed. In response, the site’s operator decided to petition the Supreme Court, hoping it would take on the case.

Supreme Court Rejects Case

A few days ago the Supreme Court rejected the petition and declined to hear the case, El Confidencial reports. The Court’s exact reasoning is unclear but it effectively means that the site will remain inaccessible in Spain for the foreseeable future.

 

Rojadirecta previously argued that the site should be seen as a neutral intermediary that indexes third-party content. However, the A Coruña court classified it as a content provider instead.

 

Mediapro had more success at the Supreme Court. The rightsholder objected to the lower court’s judgment, which doesn’t hold Rojadirecta’s operator personally liable. This petition was accepted by the Supreme Court and hearings are scheduled to start later this month.

Options Run Out

For the sports streaming site, the rejection is yet another setback and it only has a few legal options left. It can still take the matter to the Constitutional Court of Spain or to the European Court of Human Rights.

 

In addition to the civil case, Rojadirecta is also at the center of a criminal lawsuit in Spain. In this case, the prosecution seeks a four-year prison sentence for the operator and up to two years for five accomplices.

 

Spanish football league LaLiga and Mediapro are also a party to the criminal proceeding. They demand even tougher sentences and also want six million euros in damages.

 

When fans want to get a brief idea of the nature and plotline of a movie they intend to watch, they often do so view studio-released trailers. Some purists believe that even these can give away too much but in Japan some fans are going even further.

 

So-called ‘Fast Movies’ have been in existence for some time. These videos are often around 10 minutes in length but rather than giving a flavor of a movie to whet the appetite, they are designed to give away entire plotlines and necessarily include spoilers.

 

For copyright holders in Japan, this is a step too far and last year several ‘Fast Movie’ uploaders discovered that criminal copyright infringement offenses had been attributed to their YouTube uploads.

 

In June 2021, three people were arrested for uploading these 10-minute edits. A month later, two more people were arrested linked to the same types of offenses.

‘Fast Cinema’ Uploader Speaks With The Media

In the wake of these arrests, 48-year-old YouTuber Yukio Takasugi, who uses the name ‘Fast Cinema’ online, was approached by local media outlet MBS.

 

They asked whether he thought his activities were illegal. At the time he noted that “more than half” of the revenue from his videos goes to YouTube, adding that the didn’t believe he was doing anything wrong.

 

After the interview was published, Takasugi somewhat ironically complained that the news outlet had edited his interview.

 

“They interviewed me for about an hour, but I felt like, ‘Oh, you’re only using that part? I’m not happy about that’,” he said.

 

MBS pointed out that Takasugi was making money from editing down other people’s movies but that didn’t deter him. According to MBS, the man later appeared in a blond wig and continued to upload his videos.

Raided in December 2021

MBS discovered that police raided Takasugi last December and subsequently called the man again. He was adamant that what he was doing was not illegal and assured the publication that his work wasn’t hurting anyone.

 

“I’m just getting my ass handed to me by the investigators, and I don’t want to get in the way,” he said, criticizing copyright protection organizations.

 

“All they do is lie, lie and lie. Tell them to do it fair and square. They’re trying to convince people that fast films are pirated. It’s all true, don’t be silly. I’m angry about the fact that they don’t do it fairly.”

 

Anti-piracy group Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) is now known to have made the referral to the police. Following the December raid, this week police arrested Takasugi.

Arrested For Uploading Edits of Parasite and Other Movies

According to CODA, on February 15 the Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters Living Environment Division and the Shiogama Police Station arrested a man on suspicion of violating copyright law.

 

The anti-piracy group doesn’t name the suspect but from the details it’s clearly Takasugi who was detained. While he is believed to have edited, narrated, and then uploaded many ‘fast movies’, CODA cites just three, including the hit Korean drama Parasite.

 

CODA also notes that in June 2021 the man told the media he had made dozens of uploads, earning him around 1.5m yen (US$13,000).

Suspect Denies Wrongdoing

Takasugi is reportedly denying the charges, claiming that what he did fell within the rights of quotation. Unlike the US, however, Japan has no broad ‘fair use’ type exceptions to copyright law so it’s unclear how this defense will progress.

 

The other suspects who were arrested last summer all pleaded guilty to criminal breaches of Japan’s copyright law.

 

One defendant received 2 years in prison (suspended for 4 years) plus a 2,000,000 yen fine. Another received 18 months in prison (suspended for 3 years) and a 1,000,000 yen fine. The final defendant was handed 18 months in prison (suspended for 3 years) + 500,000 yen fine.

 

“CODA will continue to take measures such as identifying uploaders for malicious accounts,” the anti-piracy group concludes.

 

The non-fungible token (NFT) craze that’s been sweeping the internet for months now is a truly sight to behold. Huge sums of cryptocurrency are traded for these often Ethereum blockchain ‘items’ alongside dreams that one day they will be worth substantially more.

 

As a result, the hype around NFTs (particularly where they relate to some kind of art) has reached astonishing levels, with new projects appearing all the time promising to revolutionize this and democratize that. Since the music industry is often criticized for not doing enough to support artists, some platforms have decided they can do better.

 

Thus far, it hasn’t gone well. Early February the RIAA stepped in to issue a cease-and-desist against HitPiece.com, describing it as a scam site designed to mislead and defraud fans with its offer to sell them NFTs genuinely associated with artists. According to their RIAA, that certainly wasn’t the case.

NFT Music Stream

With HitPiece now in some kind of hibernation, another NFT-focused platform has been thrust into the spotlight afting launching this month. NFT Music Stream promises a “new chain of sound” alongside pledges to bring artists, fans, distributors and labels together “in one single beautiful, efficient and transparent” NFT music platform.

 

“NFT MUSIC STREAM is a fun, exciting private NFT Music platform where content creators can charge for audio & music content and get paid in crypto. It gives investors the freedom to distribute, monetize, and stream audio via our NFT MUSIC Streaming Platform,” the service says.

 

“We have established a decentralized music distribution and royalty management system to better reward artists and their fans. NFT Music Stream connects fans directly with artists in a beautiful music player interface.”

Streaming Service Upsets Artists

That music player was available on Streamer.fm but despite its claims to help “cut out the middle man” to give artists a greater share of the spoils, many quickly realized that something was amiss. According to the masses of complaints from artists on Twitter, few – if any – had agreed to have their music placed on the platform.

 

Composer Kerry Muzzey, for example, took to Twitter to complain that the new streaming service had no rights to monetize his copyrighted works. However, after an unspecified number of DMs to the @nftmusicstream account, they blocked him along with many other artists making similar complaints.

 

Muzzey responded with a strongly-worded cease-and-desist notice and he wasn’t the only one.

 

Of course, big questions remained. Why did NFT Music Stream believe it had the rights to distribute artists’ content without their explicit permission? Equally, where was it getting its music and artwork from to populate its music player? And, indeed, was that licensed in some way, and if so, by whom?

NFT Music Stream Subscribed to YouTube Music

Given that NFT Music Stream’s White Paper is just six pages long and provides almost no useful information about anything, it was up to the more technical among artists to have a quick look under the hood. That didn’t go well either.

 

Posting on Twitter, @shyphomusic expressed their concerns that the “next evolution in the industry” was actually a “glorified frontend for YouTube.” Another claimed that the site’s code used a domain owned by Spotify for API use.

 

With the YouTube claim raising a number of eyebrows, artists pressed NFT Music Stream on the details. Surprisingly the company quickly admitted that rather than the “decentralized music distribution” system mentioned in its advertising, its player is indeed a front-end for YouTube, accessed via a “bulk subscription“, meaning that when a track is played, “royalties are paid to the artist via their agreement with YouTube.”

 

When the question of artist consent was raised, the company said that since artists had given YouTube permission to show their content, NFT Music Stream had permission too.

 

“The artist did consent to make their music available to YouTube who charge us to use it and pass the royalties back to the artist. We do not make NFT’s from it. We do not profit from it. A music NFT can ONLY be made from music directly uploaded and minted by the artist themself,” the company responded.

 

“If you don’t want your music being provided as part of a subscription service you can cancel your agreement with them. That said, email our support team with proof of ownership / representation to remove it,” the service bluntly added.

NFT Music Stream Player Taken Down

Given that NFT Music Stream is now on record saying that it doesn’t make any NFTs from the artists’ content pulled from YouTube, the big question is why it was put on the service in the first place. NFT Music Stream said that many users are “missing the point of the project” which is an interesting take given that the artists it’s claiming to support clearly haven’t been sufficiently briefed.

 

“Firstly, we have not profited in anyway from Musicians and Artists, in fact we have lost money as we pay YouTube Music (not to be confused with YouTube directly) the rights to host the music who then pays the royalties accordingly. Our goal is for the future where artists get to keep 98% of streaming profits through NFT distribution,” they added.

 

With artists in general clearly outraged with the launch and baffled by the business plan, NFT Music Stream also managed to annoy musician and musicians’ rights champion David Lowery. Not just because he was annoyed on artists’ behalf, but because his music was also made available on the platform without his express permission.

“Don’t blow me off,” Lowery warned the platform. “In case you aren’t familiar with my work,” he added, linking directly to an article detailing his class action lawsuit against Spotify which cost the streaming service tens of millions of dollars.

 

Only making matters worse, the artwork in the screenshots posted by Lowery point to what appear to be unauthorized uploads of his music on YouTube. This suggests that no matter what mental gymnastics are applied to NFT Music Stream’s music player service or business model, Lowery is unlikely to see a penny from either of them.

 

A worse start to a pro-artist service is hard to imagine but all the signs suggest it won’t be the last.

 

Late 2020, Senator Thom Tillis released a discussion draft of the “Digital Copyright Act” (DCA), which aims to be a successor to the current DMCA.

 

The DCA hints at far-reaching changes to the way online intermediaries approach the piracy problem. Among other things, these services would have to ensure that pirated content stays offline after it’s taken down once.

 

This “takedown and staydown’ approach relies on technical protection tools, which include upload filters. This is a sensitive subject that previously generated quite a bit of pushback when the EU drafted its Copyright Directive.

 

To gauge the various options and viewpoints, the Copyright Office launched a series of consultations on the various technical tools that can help to detect and remove pirated content from online platforms.

 

This effort includes a public consultation where various stakeholders and members of the public were invited to share their thoughts, which they did en masse.

Thousands of Comments

In total, nearly 6,000 responses came in. These include overviews from the big tech platforms that already use automated takedown tools, such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms.

 

Google, for example, provides an overview of the various technical measures it uses to combat copyright infringement. This includes hash filtering on Google Drive, demotion of pirate sites in its search engine, and YouTube’s flagship Content ID system.

 

Many of these solutions are voluntary and go beyond what’s legally required. However, Google remains critical about mandatory upload filter requirements.

 

“While we believe our efforts in this space have been effective and targeted, we remain concerned about the potential impact of proposals to condition safe harbors on the implementation of any specific technical measures, in particular the automated filters that would be necessary to operationalize a ‘notice and staydown’ regime,” Google writes.

Effective Takedown Tech?

The consultation also elicited many responses from rightsholders and anti-piracy groups, including the Motion Picture Association. According to the MPA, technical measures can be very effective, if they’re deployed correctly.

 

“While cross-industry technical measures have thus far not enjoyed great success, we believe the adoption and broad implementation of technical measures can greatly assist in addressing the problem of online copyright piracy,” MPA writes.

 

The MPA recognizes that any technology carries the risk of abuse and overcorrection but claims that these faulty and fraudulent takedown notices are often the result of human error and intentional abuse, not technology.

 

Not everyone is confident that automated takedown tools are the answer. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), for example, stresses that automated filtering tools often miss important context that can differentiate between clear copyright infringement and fair use.

 

This concern is also broadly supported by comments from the general public, which make up the majority of the consultation responses. It is impractical to provide a detailed summary of the thousands of responses, but from what we have seen, the vast majority are clearly against automated filters.

Public Upload Filter Opposition

One cautioning comment comes from Katy Wood, who notes that automated filters are quite blunt and inefficient.

 

“The biggest obstacle is that any sort of automatic detection is going to completely lack nuance, which has already been proven time and time again. The answer to copyright issues is not strangling the internet, it is providing better legal protections to those who are stolen from,” Wood writes.

 

The risk that automated upload filters can target legitimate content is repeated in hundreds of comments, including the examples below.

 

“Upload filters will only harm innocent users who minimally use copyrighted content under fair use, as memes, jokes and/or video/text reviews,” Aaron Sargent writes.

 

“Automatic filters are a bad idea for copyrighted content because they do not factor in context or identity,” B. O. says.

 

“No service should ever be using automated filters because *they don’t work*. They take down lots and lots of 100% legal independent content, including expressive political speech which is accorded the highest level of first amendment protection,” Nathanael Nerode writes.

 

“Filters are unable to factor in things like context, which leaves them routinely filtering out legal speech. This restricts one of our inalienable rights, the right to free speech and expression,” Mary Weien adds.

Personal Anecdotes

There are also comments from people who share their personal experiences. Bruce Ryan, for example, who’s in his late 50s. He converted some Super 8 films from his youth that were recorded by his now 92-year-old father.

 

The videos were uploaded to YouTube but were not publicly listed. However, that didn’t prevent them from being flagged by the Content ID system.

 

“In a scene with a chaotic childhood baseball game, my father narrated it over background banjo music. The filter had automatically scanned that 1-minute clip of a 50+ year old instrumental and declared my father’s use of it in his home video to be a copyright violation,” Ryan writes.

 

“YouTube gave me the option of stripping *all* the audio from the clip I uploaded which would have also removed my father’s narration. Losing my father’s voice would have severely diminished the joy of these old home videos,” he adds.

Artists Don’t Want Filters

For balance, we also searched for submissions from individual artists. While there are larger groups advocating for more automated protection, the individual comments we found were critical of upload filters as well.

 

Several creators argue that stricter upload controls will mainly benefit large corporations, but not so much individual artists.

 

Cecilia Ross, who describes herself as a private artist, is one of the people warning against large companies being given more control over what’s posted online.

 

“From what I’ve seen, most technical measures put private content creators and rightsholders at a disadvantage. Any company can claim something as their own and it’s difficult for private artists to protect their work from predatory companies,” Ross notes.

 

Another artist, Melissa Fitzgerald, stresses that piracy is a terrible thing. However, in fighting it, fair use shouldn’t be overlooked.

 

“The [filtering] systems are not nuanced enough to recognize fair use. If measure(s) are enacted to police copyright more on the internet it will only benefit the already wealthy and powerful.

 

“The other result of this is fair use will be squished and the internet will be in the grip of a few companies that are already becoming monopolies. The public domain needs to stay in the hands of the public, intellectual property needs to be let out into the world and remixed,” Fitzgerald adds.

 

Many other artists and creators share the same outlook. The general consensus, based on the comments we’ve seen, is that protecting copyright is a good idea, but not through automated systems that mostly benefit large corporations.

 

While we haven’t read all 6,000 comments in detail, the overall impression we get is that the public at large doesn’t see automatic upload filters as a good idea. But by now, that should hardly come as a surprise.