Despite having some of the toughest laws on the planet for tackling the appearance of pirate content, the copyright infringement wars in Russia appear to be intensifying.

Last week, to protest the existence of ‘pirate’ content in search results, major broadcasters Gazprom-Media, National Media Group (NMG), and others removed their TV channels from Yandex’s ‘TV Online’ service. The media companies said that they would only allow their content to appear again if Yandex removes pirated content completely.

With no clear sign of removals underway, it was later revealed that Gazprom-Media had filed a copyright infringement complaint with the Moscow City Court, the entity responsible for handling ISP blocking requests.

According to the media giant, the Court subsequently handed down a decision which now compels Yandex to remove links to pirated TV shows belonging to Gazprom-Media.

In a follow-up, telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor, which is responsible for ordering ISPs to block sites, contacted Yandex with an instruction to remove infringing content from its Yandex.video service.

While mostly unknown to Western Internet users, the index is heavily populated with pirated content, especially TV shows and movies. As the image below shows, its ‘featured’ content section (which appears without any prompting) is populated by pirate content of recent movies.

According to Interfax, Yandex was informed that under the relevant anti-piracy legislation, it needs to remove content owned by Gazprom-Media channels including TNT, TV-3, 2×2, and Super, as instructed by the Moscow City Court. Yandex did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement to Interfax Tuesday, Deputy Head of Roskomnadzor Vadim Subbotin warned that Yandex.video (which is also available under Yandex.ru/video/) will be blocked Thursday night (August 30) if the pirate links aren’t removed.

“If Yandex does not take measures, then according to the law, the Yandex.Video service must be blocked. There’s nowhere to go,” Subbotin said. “Let’s wait for the execution of the decision, we will hold consultations with them.”

Sites accused of copyright infringement are given three days to respond to a notice ordering them to take action. Time runs out for Yandex tomorrow night.

“On Thursday evening, these three days will expire,” Subbotin added.

It isn’t clear why Yandex didn’t immediately respond to the orders of the Moscow City Court but despite its standing as a prominent service, it appears it won’t be allowed any extra room for maneuver.

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The DMCA is a particularly useful tool for copyright holders who want to make sure that infringing copies of their work are not widely distributed.

Whether it’s a copy of a pirated song, an ebook, or a photo, the DMCA covers it all.

The majority of the takedown requests filed on an average day are fairly mundane. However, there are those that raise eyebrows, which includes the recent efforts of Columbia Pictures.

The movie studio is planning to distribute the upcoming ‘Holmes and Watson‘ movie, a highly anticipated release among Sherlock fans. So, when the first promotional poster appeared online a few days ago, they jumped all over it.

The poster, featuring Will Ferrell and John Reilly as Holmes and Watson, shows both men signaling their initials. On top of that is a large red title that reads “Holmies,” as shown in this Reddit post.

Following a series of news articles, the poster was shared on Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. This isn’t something out of the ordinary, as the same happens with other prominent movies. What’s unusual, however, is that the posters have begun to ‘disappear.’

Several news sites that reported on and linked to the poster have removed the image and Slashfilm even took the entire article down. Around the same time, several copies shared on Twitter disappeared too.

Gone

As it turns out, Twitter removed the promotional posters following a DMCA notice. TorrentFreak received a copy of a takedown request which anti-piracy company Entura sent to Twitter on behalf of Columbia Pictures.

Some of the reported uploads

The unusual takedowns haven’t gone unnoticed. Twitter user Sloth Mom has been particularly vocal after one of her tweets was targeted.

“Apparently Columbia Pictures didn’t like me tweeting the poster of the upcoming Holmes and Watson movie with the comment ‘I’m here for it’ for… Reasons? Good going Columbia, now anyone seeing that tweet won’t know what I’m here for,” she Tweeted.

This sparked a lively debate with people condemning Columbia Pictures. But, while it’s clear that Columbia Pictures doesn’t want the poster to be promoted, the question that remains is why?

TorrentFreak reached out to Entura for more details on the matter. At the time of writing we have yet to hear back, leaving us with little more than speculation.

There are of course many possible explanations. The most likely option we’ve seen thus far refers to the “Holmies” title that’s on the original poster. Apparently, that term is also used for ‘groupies‘ of the Aurora shooter James Holmes.

“Err, ‘Holmies’ also means ‘fans of the kid who shot up that DARK KNIGHT theater’ so they might be freaking out and try to scrub the poster from existence,” Twitter user Standing Leaf writes.

Holmies…

If that’s the case, Paramount Pictures is using the DMCA requests with an ulterior motive. Understandable, perhaps, but the affected recipients who risk losing their account over too many strikes won’t like that.

“Even if that’s true, it’s a disgusting overreach to threaten people’s social media accounts over sharing a promotional poster,” Sloth Mom puts it.

Again, without an official explanation, this all remains guesswork. Perhaps a good detective can get to the bottom of it though.

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The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada, and Mexico was negotiated a quarter century ago.

Over the past twenty-five years, trade has changed drastically, especially online, so the United States planned to modernize the international deal.

Several negotiation rounds have taken place with all three parties. However, it appears that things are now moving ahead without Canada, which hasn’t been happy with some of the previous US proposals.

Yesterday the US and Mexico confirmed that they had reached agreement on key elements of a new trade deal. While everything has yet to be finalized, the US Trade Representative (USTR) frames it as a major improvement.

“The United States and Mexico have reached a preliminary agreement in principle, subject to finalization and implementation, to update the 24-year-old NAFTA with modern provisions representing a 21st century, high-standard agreement,” the USTR notes.

One of the key achievements, according to the US, is that the new deal includes the most comprehensive enforcement provisions of any trade agreement. The final wording has yet to be released, but a summary of the Intellectual Property chapter shows what’s in store.

Among other things, both parties agree to implement criminal measures against camcording in movie theaters, as well as cable and signal piracy. This, on top of a general agreement to enforce against piracy and counterfeiting that takes place on a commercial scale.

On of the key achievements

While these terms remain vague without the full context, they’re not as confusing as the USTR’s statement on an ‘extension’ of the current copyright term.

“Extend the minimum copyright term to 75 years for works like song performances and ensure that works such as digital music, movies, and books can be protected through current technologies such as technological protection measures and rights management information,” it reads.

Some understood this as an extension of the current US term, which for individuals is life plus 70 years. This is also the case with digital rights group Public Knowledge, which branded it as an outrageous copyright giveaway.

“The inclusion of a copyright term extension in the trade agreement announced today is a staggeringly brazen attempt by the entertainment industries to launder unpopular policies through international agreements,” the group wrote.

Journalists also jumped on this unusual issue. The USTR initially told reporters that it was indeed the plan to extend the copyright term to life plus 75 years, but according to Techdirt, this was later changed to a 75-year floor. In other words, a minimum that includes the author’s life.

This floor would not change much in either country, except for very young creators in US kindergartens, perhaps.

One of the hottest topics during the previous negotiations was the “safe harbor” issue. Content industry groups stressed that these should be tightened, while Internet law experts and advocacy groups proposed an expansion of US-style safe harbors to Mexico and Canada.

The fact sheet released by the USTR makes it clear that safe harbors are included and that rightsholders will be protected as well, but how this will be implemented remains a question.

“Establish a notice-and-takedown system for copyright safe harbors for Internet service providers (ISPs) that provides protection for IP and predictability for legitimate technology enterprises who do not directly benefit from the infringement, consistent with United States law,” it reads.

Responding to the announcement, a group of prominent music industry players including ASCAP, BMI, and the RIAA, again called for strong copyright protections.

“We are deeply concerned by the efforts of some to use the agreement to lock in flawed interpretations of pre-Internet ‘safe harbors’ perpetuating the theft of American music, creating safe havens preventing successful enforcement efforts within our trading partner nations..,” the music groups write.

A more detailed summary of what to expect in the new trade deal is available on the USTR’s website. Without the full agreement, it’s hard to draw any strong conclusions, but no matter to which side the scale tips, this isn’t the last we’ve heard of it.

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Copyright trolling is a messy business with an extremely poor reputation but that hasn’t stopped dozens of companies trying to profit from it.

Plenty of cases go the trolls’ way, settled privately for large sums before ever reaching a courtroom. But, every now and again, things go bad for them in an extremely big way.

In Oregan during 2016, a case filed by the makers of the Adam Sandler movie The Cobbler against an alleged pirate received a big set back. A judge dismissed a direct infringement complaint against Thomas Gonzales when it became clear that the defendant probably wasn’t the infringer.

Gonzales’ case is an interesting one. Rather being targeted in his home as many alleged infringers are, his alleged wrongdoing took place in the adult foster care home he runs. His Comcast account, which was connected to an open WiFi network, had allegedly been used to download and share the movie. Due to the network’s open nature, anyone could’ve carried out the infringement.

Due to concerns over privacy, Gonzales refused to hand over the names of other individuals with access to the WiFi network unless Cobbler obtained a court order. The district court subsequently granted leave to depose Gonzales but the process did not reveal the identity of the infringer.

This important set of circumstances didn’t deter the trolls, who pushed ahead with the case regardless. The decision was a poor one. Early 2017, District Judge Michael Simon ruled that the plaintiffs could not claim direct or indirect infringement and should pay Gonzales’ legal fees of $17,222.

“The Court will issue a Judgment dismissing with prejudice Plaintiff’s indirect infringement claim and without prejudice Plaintiff’s direct infringement claim against Mr. Gonzales,” the Judge wrote.

By shifting the costs onto the rightsholders, the Court hoped to send the message that bringing cases without solid evidence can prove costly. However, that message must’ve got lost in translation as the trolls doubled down and took the case to appeal. That decision also proved to be a poor one.

In a ruling handed down yesterday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Margaret McKeown makes it crystal clear that Cobbler Nevada LLC, the owner of the copyright in question, has no case against Gonzales.

“In this copyright action, we consider whether a bare allegation that a defendant is the registered subscriber of an Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address associated with infringing activity is sufficient to state a claim for direct or contributory infringement,” the Judge writes.

“We conclude that it is not.”

Cobbler Nevada claimed that Gonzales had directly infringed their rights or, in the alternative, contributed to another person’s infringement by failing to secure his open WiFi. The district court, which previously heard the case, dismissed these claims. The Ninth Circuit agreed that was the correct decision.

“The direct infringement claim fails because Gonzales’s status as the registered subscriber of an infringing IP address, standing alone, does not create a reasonable inference that he is also the infringer,” the Judge notes.

“Because multiple devices and individuals may be able to connect via an IP address, simply identifying the IP subscriber solves only part of the puzzle. A plaintiff must allege something more to create a reasonable inference that a subscriber is also an infringer.”

Cobbler’s backup plan, that failing a direct infringement claim it could claim contributory infringement, also crashed and burned. Since the rightsholder couldn’t show that Gonzales had done anything to encourage the downloading and sharing of the movie, the claim was dismissed.

“[W]ithout allegations of intentional encouragement or inducement of infringement, an individual’s failure to take affirmative steps to police his internet connection is insufficient to state a claim,” the decision reads.

In an additional analysis, Judge McKeown notes that while finding an infringing IP address is usually pretty straightforward, it’s not always easy for copyright holders to find out who was behind the address at the relevant times.

“The reasons are obvious — simply establishing an account does not mean the subscriber is even accessing the internet, and multiple devices can access the internet under the same IP address,” the Judge writes.

“Identifying an infringer becomes even more difficult in instances like this one, where numerous people live in and visit a facility that uses the same internet service. While we recognize this obstacle to naming the correct defendant, this complication does not change the plaintiff’s burden to plead factual allegations that create a reasonable inference that the defendant is the infringer.”

It will be interesting to see how this ruling affects other similar cases moving forward. Many homes and businesses have WiFi that is accessible to several residents, workers, or visitors. Identifying who was at the helm at the time of an alleged infringement will be challenging at best, impossible at worst.

The Ninth Circuit ruling is available here (pdf)

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The Pirate Bay has been hard to reach since last weekend.

For most people, the site currently displays a CloudFlare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider mentioning that a “bad gateway” is causing the issue.

As usual, no further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. However, judging from past experience, it’s likely a small technical issue that needs fixing.

TPB 502 Cloudflare error

The Pirate Bay has had quite a few stints of downtime in years. The popular torrent site usually returns after several hours, but outages of more than a day have become more common recently.

Amid the downtime, there’s still some good news for those who desperately need to access the notorious torrent site.

TPB is still available via its .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example. The site’s Tor traffic goes through a separate server and works just fine. Several dedicated TPB proxies are still up as well.

The Pirate Bay team has a status page in the forums where people can check to see if an outage is affecting everyone or not. This also shows that the Tor version of the site is working fine, and that new torrents are still coming through.

The main .org domain will probably be back in action soon enough, but seasoned TPB users will probably know the drill by now…

TPB Status

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