Late last month, Internet provider Grande Communications requested assistance from U.S. Marshals to serve piracy tracking company IP-Echelon.

The unusual request is linked to the RIAA lawsuit, where Grande stands accused of failing to disconnect repeat infringers.

Specifically, the ISP wants to find out more about a DMCA notice scam where scammers tried to extract payments.

This phishing scam used fake piracy notifications, abusing IP-Echelon’s name. Since the RIAA lawsuit is partly based on evidence from IP-Echelon’s competitor Rightscorp, Grande believes that it has grounds to find out more about the scam.

After the ISP was unable to reach the piracy tracking company at its Hollywood office it requested help from the Marshals. However, this week the cavalry was called off, as IP-Echelon’s attorney came forward to accept service of the subpoena.

While assistance from US law enforcement is no longer needed, the legal paperwork makes clear that the RIAA is not happy with Grande’s efforts.

Earlier this week, before the call for Marshal assistance was retracted, the RIAA opposed the request. While the issue is moot now, it does reveal the music industry’s views on using the phishing scam as evidence in the lawsuit.

The RIAA told the court that the lawsuit against Grande is about copyright infringements of subscribers, who were put on notice by Rightscorp, not IP-Echelon.

“IP-Echelon appears to provide services similar to Rightscorp’s services. But IP-Echelon is not a party to this litigation. Plaintiffs have not retained IP-Echelon in connection with this litigation or in connection with Grande in any way,” the RIAA wrote.

“Instead, Grande seeks to serve its subpoena because IP-Echelon was apparently the victim of a ‘phishing’ scam in which certain ISPs, including Grande, received fake infringement notices related to copyrighted movies purporting to be from IP-Echelon.”

The RIAA doesn’t deny that Grande and others may have fallen prey to this scam. However, the music group doesn’t see how this is relevant in this case. Instead, they see the efforts to obtain additional evidence as a fishing expedition.

“Grande’s subpoena for evidence about this phishing scam is itself a fishing expedition,” the RIAA writes.

If Grande questions the authenticity of Rightcorp’s notices it can do so through discovery directed to Rightscorp, the RIAA stresses. The music group sees no justification for going after IP-Echelon.

Thus far Grande hasn’t provided any details about its intentions regarding the issue at hand. However, it is likely that they want to use the scam to argue that not all notices can be trusted.

The RIAA clearly doesn’t see the point in doing so and it informs the court that the ISP has already pursued a series of non-party subpoenas, claiming that Grande tries to shift the focus of the case away from its own conduct.

If IP-Echelon testifies, the RIAA expects that anything they’ll bring to the table will be inadmissible.

“The subpoena to IP-Echelon will not lead to the discovery of any admissible evidence; it will only cause the Court and the parties to waste time on pointless discovery that will not aid resolution of the issues in this case,” the RIAA concludes.

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A copy of RIAA’s opposition to Grande’s motion is available here (pdf). Grande’s notice to withdraw its motion can be found here (pdf).

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Finland was one of the pioneers of blocking pirate websites. Back in 2011, it was one of the first countries where Internet providers were ordered to block The Pirate Bay.

The process wasn’t straightforward. Several ISPs appealed the rulings and one even tried to have the matter heard at the Supreme Court, but eventually, the blocks remained.

Despite the hard-fought blocking measures, there hasn’t been much activity in Finland recently. However, that changed this week when copyright holders obtained two fresh blocking orders.

The Market Court, a venue specialized in copyright, competition, and market law disputes, issued a verdict which compels seven Internet providers to block access to the popular torrent sites RARBG and YIFY.

The order applies to the three largest providers DNA, Elisa and TeliaSonera Finland, as well as Blue Lake Communications, Kaisanet, Lounea and MPY. It requires the ISPs to use DNS blocking while also restricting access to the sites’ IP-addresses.

According to the Court, the operators of the sites in question are unknown, but it is clear that they generate a significant amount of advertising revenue by facilitating copyright infringement.

“The anonymous administrators of both services earn substantial sums of advertising money by illegally sharing content made by others,” the Market Court notes, quoted by Helsingin Sanomat.

Recent research suggests that Finns download roughly 12 million movies and 32 million TV-shows from unauthorized sources per year. RARBG and YIFY are among the most popular sites in the country, with an estimated 520,000 visits per month.

While the blockades are bound to frustrate users, it remains to be seen how effective they are. History has shown that users bypass these type of restrictions through proxies and VPNs, or simply by switching to sites that are not blocked yet.

It is not clear whether any of the ISPs plan to appeal the Market Court’s most recent decision. Considering the outcome of the previous blocking cases, that’s not going to be easy.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

For the past several years, Russia has been attempting to censor the Internet by restricting access to a large range of sites. With thousands blocked, pirate sites are some of the main targets but any site with content objectionable to the state can find itself in the crosshairs.

As more blocks have been introduced, the response by many Internet users has been to circumvent them. For pirate sites, proxies and mirrors have been a key mechanism but increasingly citizens have turned to VPNs and other anonymizers that are able to skirt around any ban.

As a result, VPNs and anonymizers themselves have come under scrutiny, with authorities demanding that those operating in Russia register themselves with the state. Of course, many do not, which has led to a cat-and-mouse game.

Historically it’s been easy to find a VPN or similar service using search engines but the Russian Government has a new tool to make that harder. This week, following a third and final reading, the State Duma adopted a bill introducing fines for search engines that provide links to outlawed sites, VPNs and anonymization tools.

According to the amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, failure of online services to stop publishing links to blocked information resources will result in fines of 3,000 to 5,000 rubles ($48 to $80) for citizens, up to 50,000 rubles ($800) for officials, and between 500,000 to 700,000 ($8,019 to $11,227) for legal entities.

In order to advise which sites and services are banned in the country, the Federal State Information System (FGIS) will provide access to an up-to-date database of blocked domains. Search engines will be required to connect to this system within 30 days and those who fail to do so will face fines similar to those detailed above.

TASS reports that the amendments are concomitant with the law on anonymizers adopted at the end of the spring session of the State Duma in 2017. This legislation requires owners and operators of VPN and anonymization systems to first register their identities with the authorities and then connect to the blocked sites register.

Those who fail to comply with the requirements can find themselves fined and placed on the blocked sites register, which is maintained by Russian telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

On May 8, 2010, German citizen Michael Strotzer was the operator of an Internet connection from where an audiobook was made available on a peer-to-peer network.

Germany company Bastei Lübbe AG owned the copyrights to that content and had not given Strotzer permission to share it online. So, on October 28, 2010, Bastei Lübbe wrote to Strotzer with a demand for him to stop infringing their copyrights.

When the company’s letter failed to have the desired effect, Bastei Lübbe took Strotzer to court in Germany in an effort to obtain financial compensation for the alleged damages caused.

Strotzer denied that he had personally carried out the copyright infringement and said that his home network was secure. He also noted that his parents, who lived at the same address, had access to his network.

However, they did not have the audiobook on their computer and did not use file-sharing networks. In addition, he said that their computer had been turned off at the time when the audiobook was shared online.

The Court dismissed the action against Strotzer on the grounds that the copyright infringement could not be directly attributed to him since his parents could also have shared the audiobook. in response, Bastei Lübbe filed an appeal with the Regional Court of First Instance in Munich.

The Court said it was inclined to assume that Michael Strotzer was responsible for the infringement since it wasn’t clear from his statements that third parties had used his network and it was “highly likely” that the infringement was committed by him.

Case law, however, presented issues. The Federal Court previously ruled that it is for the copyright holder to prove the infringement. It also ruled that the Internet connection owner is likely to have committed the infringement if no-one else could have used his Internet connection at the time of the infringement.

That being said, if the internet connection was not sufficiently secure or was available to use by other people at the time of the infringement, the connection owner should disclose the identity of those people, effectively putting those people in the frame.

However, under Article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which ensures the right to respect for a citizen’s private and family life, it was argued that the owner of the connection is not required to provide further information if a family member has had access to his network.

With this in mind, the Munich court referred the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for guidance. Advocate General Szpunar published his opinion yesterday in 21 different languages (except English) but thanks to lawyer Eleonora Rosati, we have his findings in a nutshell.

“[Advocate General Szpunar] advised the CJEU to rule that EU law does not require to provide, at the national level, a presumption of liability of the owner of an internet connection for copyright infringements committed through such connection,” Rosati writes.

“However, if national law envisages such presumption to ensure the protection of copyright, this shall be applied coherently to guarantee effective copyright protection.

“In this sense, the right to family and private life under Article 7 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights may not be interpreted in such as way as to deprive copyright owners of any possibility of effective protection of their own intellectual property, the protection of which is mandated by Article 17(2) of the EU Charter,” Rosati adds.

In other words, if a country (in this case Germany) has national laws that reduce the burdens of proof in order to help protect copyright law (something which is not mandatory under EU law), it should not be the case that rightsholders are unable to enforce their rights due to an apparent conflict with the right to respect for private family life.

“If one was able to invoke Article 7 of the Charter to avoid having to disclose the names of those who might have used the connection, then the copyright owner would be deprived of his IP right,” Rosati explains.

“In any case, should a national court deem such intrusion into one’s own right to family life inadmissible, then the owner of the internet connection should be presumed liable for the relevant infringement, insofar as the copyright owner has no other means to identify the actual infringers.”

When cases are referred to the CJEU, the opinions and subsequent decisions of the Court often contain language which aims to balance what are often seen as conflicting rights. In this case, it’s suggested that the right to family life should not be (ab)used in order to avoid liability in a matter where the rights of another party have been infringed.

The opinion of the Advocate General is not binding but the CJEU generally follows such advice.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

YouTube is known to be a breeding ground for creators. At the same time, however, it’s also regularly used to share copyrighted material without permission.

While copyright holders can issue takedown notices to remove infringing content, a preliminary ruling by the Commercial Court in Vienna has decided this is not sufficient.

The ruling follows a complaint from local television channel Puls 4. After a thorough review of YouTube’s functionalities, the Court concluded that YouTube has an obligation to prevent third parties from uploading infringing content.

In its defense, YouTube argued that it’s a neutral hosting provider under the provisions of the E-Commerce Act. As such, it should be shielded from direct liability for the actions of users.

However, the Commercial Court disagreed, noting that YouTube takes several motivated actions to organize and optimize how videos are displayed. By doing so, it becomes more than a neutral hosting provider.

“Through the connections, sorting, filtering and linking, in particular by creating tables of contents according to predefined categories, determining the surfing behavior of users and creating a tailor-made surfing proposal, offering help etc, YouTube leaves on the role of a neutral intermediary and therefore cannot claim the host provider privilege,” the Court declared.

As a consequence, YouTube will have to take measures to ensure that no copyright-infringing videos are uploaded in the future. This sounds a lot like the upload filters which are part of the EU’s planned copyright reform.

According to Puls 4, the Court’s decision has “the potential to revolutionize the Internet.” While it is limited to copyright infringement and YouTube, the company notes that it could be expanded to other areas and services as well.

“The media, who call themselves social networks, will have to recognize that they must also take responsibility for the content through which they earn many millions. This is a real gamechanger,” says Markus Breitenecker, Managing Director of Puls 4.

YouTube responded by informing Austrian press that the judgment will be “examined in detail”.

“We are keeping all options open, including an appeal,” a spokesman said. “YouTube takes copyright protection very seriously and provides rights owners with tools and resources to protect and exploit their content.”

The current ruling is not yet legally binding, as it has yet to be confirmed, so this isn’t the last we’ll hear of the case.

TF reached out to Puls 4 to find out how YouTube’s Content ID system factors into the case, and whether that is sufficient or not in their view, but at the time of publication we had yet to receive a response.

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