YTS Agrees to a Million Dollars in Piracy Settlements and Remains Online

[Matrix]

 

Popular torrent site YTS has 'settled' another piracy lawsuit, this time with seven movie companies. The site's operator and an associated business agreed to a consent judgment totaling $1,050,000 in damages. YTS removed the relevant movie torrents from the site but remains online. The site's users are not in the clear though, and risk being sued as well.

 

 

Traditionally, when copyright holders go after pirate sites their main mission is to shut them down permanently.

 

This strategy has resulted in the demise of thousands of websites over the past decade or so.

 

In some cases these shutdowns are easy, only requiring a cease and desist order to be delivered to the owner’s home address. However, there are also prolonged legal battles, such as the one against isoHunt.

 

In Hawaii, a group of movie companies, tied to films such as ‘Hitman’s Bodyguard,’ ‘Hunter Killer’ and ‘Mechanic Resurrection,’ has taken a different path. They sued the operator of the popular torrent site YTS.mx last year but are allowing the site to stay online, under certain conditions.

 

The tactic previously became public when attorney Kerry Culpepper struck a deal between YTS and other movie companies. This allowed YTS to stay online as long as it paid damages and made sure that their films were not listed at the torrent site.

 

Now, a group of seven related movie companies has agreed to a similar deal. In a consent judgment, signed at the Hawaii federal court a few days ago, the torrent site operators agreed to pay $150,000 to each company, which amounts to a total of $1,050,000 in damages.

 

The consent judgment lists a person named Senthil Vijay Segaran and the company Techmodo as the YTS operators. In addition to paying over $1 million in piracy damages, they also agreed to remove the torrents of the movie companies, and prevent these from being reuploaded.

 

While a monetary settlement is not unprecedented, it is worth mentioning that YTS is being allowed to continue to operate as usual. Aside from removing torrents that point to the seven movies, nothing appears to have changed. YTS still lists hundreds of other pirated movies.

 

This pragmatic stance is understandable. However, it does seem odd, especially considering the recent anti-piracy push from Millenium Media co-president Jonathan Yunger, who urged US Congress towards more stringent anti-piracy legislation.

 

“Piracy is an existential threat to our business and the livelihoods of all the individual creatives who work so hard to bring entertainment to audiences,” Yunger told Congress last month.

 

This is worth mentioning since Yunger’s company produced many of the movies that are at the base of this lawsuit. In fact, most of the companies that signed a deal with YTS are affiliates of Millenium Media.

 

TorrentFreak spoke to attorney Kerry Culpepper, who informed us that his goal is to represent his clients, not the major studios.

 

“I don’t represent the larger studios, so I have no authority to make any demands on their behalf to a website.

 

If the piracy website removes my clients’ movies, agrees to adopt filters to keep them from popping back up and agrees to pay damages I consider it a victory.”

 

“If those larger studios want me to make a demand on their behalf, they need to hire me,” Culpepper adds.

 

YTS.mx today

 

We also do know that these consent judgments are not the end of the story. At least not for YTS users.

 

After the first deal was announced a few months ago, the movie companies started filing lawsuits against YTS users. This included some who were using a VPN. The associated complaints further included information that appeared to have come directly from the torrent site’s database.

 

So, it’s possible that the rightsholders received more from YTS than money alone. Details from the user database perhaps? That would be in line with earlier enforcement efforts, where the film companies obtained user information from the operator of the piracy app CotoMovies.

 

TorrentFreak spoke to the attorney of the movie companies this week who confirmed that YTS users are indeed at risk. However, in recent weeks, no new lawsuits have been filed as far as we can see.

 

We will keep a close eye on these and other cases to see if more details emerge.

 

In addition to the proposed consent judgment against YTS, the seven movie companies also agreed to a similar deal with the operator of YIFYmovies.is. This torrent site was considerably smaller and shut down months ago, however, the operator also agreed to pay $1,050,000 in damages, on paper.

 

Here is a copy of the consent judgment, signed by the YTS operator as well as Venice PI LLC, MON LLC, Millennium Funding Inc., Bodyguard Productions Inc., TBV Productions LLC, UN4 Productions Inc., and Hunter Killer Productions Inc.

 

Source

[steven36]

I never seen a point in joining a public torrent  site to put myself at risk  . But  i use a VPN  and  TOR Browser for any  web sites i dont trust   , sites I do trust I use just a VPN  ,   Many  torrent  sites remove stuff  because DMCA  but because  it's Mainline DHT   you really can't remove public torrents.  Fact is Groups like YTS.AG they dont just post torrents on there  main website  they post  them  on many torrent sites. Some of the websites  don't follow DMCA  so when YTS.AG removes links from there  website the  torrent  has not been removed  from BitTorrent its up on other sites full of seeds still. 

 

Megaupload  got in trouble  for this  to get someone link removed  it was easy all you had to was report the link  they would remove the Link  but they never would remove the file .  It saved bandwidth  the file only got uploaded  once .you could reuploaad it but you was just wasting your own resources  because if it had the same hash  you just got a copy of  the 1st person to upload it's file,  they never really uploaded copies .You could tell this  because many times when you uploaded  you get  a link with a different file name than the file name tha you uploaded,  just it would be the same file with the same crc ,

 

YTS.AG  just not had the right  agency come after  them because there really is no way to remove public torrents they just die out from no seeds the more sites you upload on the longer it keeps seeds . Sites like RARBG  don't upload to other  sites so ether you have to get it from them are you have to get from a torrent search engine that scrape websites some of them follow DMCA .But the ones that  just scrape mainline DHT  never do , But since RARBG don't  post on other sites  there releases  never keep seeds very long  regardless  if they take it down are not,  But YTS.AG removed releases  are up at 1337x and others . TPB and RARBG ban YTS.AG for copying YIFY  . YIFY always posted on these sites. 

 

KAT followed  DMCA and removed files when they was told and the FBI put the site owner in Jail and seize the site  anyway .  YTS.AG could be cutting deals with Movie companies and the FBI  be investigating them and one day they  seize the site and arrest the site owner  when he goes on a trip away from his country . Only thing this proves that there making Millions  of dollars from   uploading   and this is very common  most sites that post releases make Millions  a year tell one day they get busted. even the people that started TPB pulled a stint in prison on trumped up charges .

 

Using torrents is risky anyhow you dont have to log in a site  . BitTorrent trolls be on p2p monitoring your  downloading and uploading  you can be sued  or reported  to you ISP  because there watching you.  it happens to people everyday  if you don't protect yourself by using a VPN with a  kill switch  or use a Cloud torrent service.

 

 

The BitTorrent trolls that YTS.AG settling with  are  not law enforcement  any info they get from   YTS.AG is only circumstantial evidence. It's not against the law in the US  to visit torrent sites  they dont even block any sites at all.  Its against the law to download copyright protected  works in the USA  is all and it's only a Civil  matter non criminal court and they have to convince a Judge it was you who downloaded it. Many times BitTorrent trolls get in legal trouble themselves for not following the law or go broke from losing cases  in court  .Some judges rule a IP  is not proof because a IP is not a person .But login info is not proof  you downloaded anything just because you visited  dont mean you downloaded anything . Only thing this info could be used for is a scare tactic  in hopes they could get you to admit to downloading  .

 

So it cant be just YTS.AG is telling on people they have to have more proof than login info that 90%  is going to be fake anyway .Most of these sites take throwaway emails  .I even know some sites that you can just put down  any info  they don't even check to see if the email is valid . even if a site dont take throwaway emails most of us have legit emails that are just used for signing up that  we signed up with fake info . I even have a Gmail  its  linked to a fake name  i made up and its not linked to any other email or any phone number . I have 5 or 6 legit emails from different places i made with fake info. They was all made with a vpn  and never been used without a vpn.  On this Linux setup i use for downloading warez  i  have it fixed  were  it wont connect to internet at all without turning the VPN  on  . If i need to use my real ip to fix  my router  i boot into windows because i dual boot  or I use one of my other PCs  i have. I been using a VPN 24/7 since 2011  i deleted  all  my emails  i  made without a  VPN   in the 2000s.

 

All  the info TF posted on this  matter  of how they got these  users info is pure speculation and they never done a news  update that tells us  was anything  done  to  these people  and it happened  back in January .

 

 

Speculation is  just conspiracy theories  and jumping to conclusions . A non longing  vpn is not going  to hand over such info  if they did and was found out about in public court they would be drove out  of business .

 

 

Further more all this happen before we had the Corina Virus  .  Were no longer sure  whats going to happen to Hollywood  .They expect  to make millions of dollars  off movies  and people  are  scared to go to the theaters .  In places  were the  Corina Virus is not bad people  will not even go to the hospital if there sick out of fear they may be some there with the virus. When they lift  stay home orders starting  next month its not going to lift peoples  fears  .People are going to be afraid to get close  to anyone  tell there is a cure . Places  like  New York  were it's really bad  Hospitals are full but places like  were i live were they not been many cases  they have nothing to do much at all , they lucky  if anyone visit. Its everything but  the stores are empty  only reason people go to stores is because   they have too.

 

They cant really make  people stay home in the USA  .People  are doing it because they want  too but the protesters who are against staying  home  are out in the streets protesting  in many states and the cops don't  do nothing. They told the police  not to stop anyone  unless they doing something really bad   the  police are scared  they going to catch it so they not taking no one to jail right now unless they do a really bad crime.

 

Show Stopper: Coronavirus Sends Hollywood Into Unprecedented Crisis

https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/hollywood-coronavirus-entertainment-industry-movies-festivals-1203529795/

 

Its not the same world   it was back in January  now .Actors  are out of work and i doubt people will be buying movie tickets  for along time to  come.  They may  start back making  TV Shows  and Movies  in July  .But they may end up being mostly VOD  releases  because thinks are not going to go back to normal because people are scared .