As movie and TV show piracy has migrated from the desktop towards mobile and living room-based devices, copyright holders have found the need to adapt to a new enemy.

Dealing with streaming services is now high on the agenda, with third-party Kodi addons and various Android apps posing the biggest challenge. Alongside is the much less prevalent but rapidly growing pay IPTV market, in which thousands of premium channels are delivered to homes for a relatively small fee.

In Australia, copyright holders are treating these services in much the same way as torrent sites. They feel that if they can force ISPs to block them, the problem can be mitigated. Most recently, movie and TV show giants Village Roadshow, Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount filed an application targeting HDSubs+, a pirate IPTV operation servicing thousands of Australians.

Filed in October, the application for the injunction targets Australia’s largest ISPs including Telstra, Optus, TPG, and Vocus, plus their subsidiaries. The movie and TV show companies want them to quickly block HDSubs+, to prevent it from reaching its audience.

HDSubs+ IPTV packageHowever, blocking isn’t particularly straightforward. Due to the way IPTV services are setup a number of domains need to be blocked, including their sales platforms, EPG (electronic program guide), software (such as an Android app), updates, and sundry other services. In HDSubs+ case around ten domains need to be restricted but in court today, Village Roadshow revealed that probably won’t deal with the problem.

HDSubs+ appears to be undergoing some kind of transformation, possibly to mitigate efforts to block it in Australia. ComputerWorld reports that it is now directing subscribers to update to a new version that works in a more evasive manner.

If they agree, HDSubs+ customers are being migrated over to a service called PressPlayPlus. It works in the same way as the old system but no longer uses the domain names cited in Village Roadshow’s injunction application. This means that DNS blocks, the usual weapon of choice for local ISPs, will prove futile.

Village Roadshow says that with this in mind it may be forced to seek enhanced IP address blocking, unless it is granted a speedy hearing for its application. This, in turn, may result in the normally cooperative ISPs returning to court to argue their case.

“If that’s what you want to do, then you’ll have to amend the orders and let the parties know,” Judge John Nicholas said.

“It’s only the former [DNS blocking] that carriage service providers have agreed to in the past.”

As things stand, Village Roadshow will return to court on December 15 for a case management hearing but in the meantime, the Federal Court must deal with another IPTV-related blocking request.

In common with its Australian and US-based counterparts, Hong Kong-based broadcaster Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) has launched a similar case asking local ISPs to block another IPTV service.

“Television Broadcasts Limited can confirm that we have commenced legal action in Australia to protect our copyright,” a TVB spokesperson told Computerworld.

TVB wants ISPs including Telstra, Optus, Vocus, and TPG plus their subsidiaries to block access to seven Android-based services named as A1, BlueTV, EVPAD, FunTV, MoonBox, Unblock, and hTV5.

Court documents list 21 URLs maintaining the services. They will all need to be blocked by DNS or other means, if the former proves futile. Online reports suggest that there are similarities among the IPTV products listed above. A demo for the FunTV IPTV service is shown below.

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As part of an emerging crackdown on tools and systems with the ability to bypass China’s ‘Great Firewall’, during the summer Chinese government pressure began to affect Apple.

During the final days of July, Apple was forced to remove many of the most-used VPN applications from its Chinese App Store. In a short email from the company, VPN providers and software developers were told that VPN applications are considered illegal in China.

“We are writing to notify you that your application will be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,” Apple informed the affected VPNs.

While the position on the ground doesn’t appear to have changed in the interim, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook today expressed optimism that the VPN apps would eventually be restored to their former positions on China’s version of the App Store.

“My hope over time is that some of the things, the couple of things that’s been pulled, come back,” Cook said. “I have great hope on that and great optimism on that.”

According to Reuters, Cook said that he always tries to find ways to work together to settle differences and if he gets criticized for that “so be it.”

Speaking at the Fortune Forum in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Cook said that he believes strongly in freedoms. But back home in the US, Apple has been strongly criticized for not doing enough to uphold freedom of speech and communication in China.

Back in October, two US senators wrote to Cook asking why the company had removed the VPN apps from the company’s store in China.

“VPNs allow users to access the uncensored Internet in China and other countries that restrict Internet freedom. If these reports are true, we are concerned that Apple may be enabling the Chinese government’s censorship and surveillance of the Internet,” senators Ted Cruz and Patrick Leahy wrote.

“While Apple’s many contributions to the global exchange of information are admirable, removing VPN apps that allow individuals in China to evade the Great Firewall and access the Internet privately does not enable people in China to ‘speak up’.”

They were comments Senator Leahy underlined again yesterday.

“American tech companies have become leading champions of free expression. But that commitment should not end at our borders,” Leahy told CNBC.

“Global leaders in innovation, like Apple, have both an opportunity and a moral obligation to promote free expression and other basic human rights in countries that routinely deny these rights.”

Whether the optimism expressed by Cook today is based on discussions with the Chinese government is unknown. However, it seems unlikely that authorities would be willing to significantly compromise on their dedication to maintaining the Great Firewall, which not only controls access to locally controversial content but also seeks to boost the success of Chinese companies.

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On a regular basis, major media companies and their associates seek assistance from the authorities in order to curb copyright infringement.

In some cases, this has resulted in special police units that have piracy among their main objectives, such as The City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) in the UK.

Over in Denmark, the Government greenlighted a similar initiative last week. Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen approved a new task force that will operate under police wings, with an exclusive focus on intellectual property crimes.

“This is the culmination of a joint effort among Danish trade organizations’ calls for public engagement in the enforcement of IP crime in Denmark,” Maria Fredenslund, CEO of the local anti-piracy group RettighedsAlliancen (Rights Alliance) tells TorrentFreak.

“Similar to the PIPCU unit in the UK the task force will be specialized in IP crime and will handle existing cases and develop digital enforcement,” she adds.

The new unit will consist of five or six investigators, who will be assisted by prosecutors. The main goal will be to tackle organized crime on as many levels as possible.

The new police task force will first operate on a trial basis. After the first half year, the Government will evaluate its progress and decide if the project will continue. If that happens, the unit may also get involved in website blocking efforts.

Pirate site blockades are not new in Denmark, but thus far these have been the result of civil procedures initiated by copyright holders. According to new plans, which still have to be approved, legislation that’s currently used to block terrorist content may be used against pirate sites as well.

“The Government will look into the possibility to give the police authority to carry out blockades of infringing websites,” Fredenslund says.

This would be possible under a provision in the Administration of Justice Act, which the Danish Parliament recently adopted. While the blocking requests would be submitted by the police unit, instead of copyright holders, a court still has to approve them.

“The decision to block a website is made with a court order by request of the police. The court order shall list the specific circumstances that prove the conditions for the blocking of the website have been met. The court order may be revoked at any time,” the relevant provision reads.

For the time being, the new anti-piracy task force will focus on handling other copyright infringement cases, which these are plenty of.

Rights Alliance is happy with the help they are getting. The anti-piracy group has been working on their own “piracy disruption machine” in recent months and with assistance from law enforcement, they hope to achieve some good results soon.

For now, however, the private blocking requests are continuing as well.

Just yesterday the District Court in Frederiksberg issued an order (pdf) in favor of the Rights Alliance, requiring a local ISP to block dozens of Popcorn Time related domain names. As part of a voluntary agreement, this block will be implemented by other Internet providers as well.

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Due to a supposed drafting error in Australia’s implementation of the Australia – US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), copyright safe harbor provisions currently only apply to commercial Internet service providers.

This means that while local ISPs such as Telstra receive protection from copyright infringement complaints, services such as Google, Facebook and YouTube face legal uncertainty.

Proposed amendments to the Copyright Act earlier this year would’ve seen enhanced safe harbor protections for such platforms but they were withdrawn at the eleventh hour so that the government could consider “further feedback” from interested parties.

Shortly after the government embarked on a detailed consultation with entertainment industry groups. They accuse platforms like YouTube of exploiting safe harbor provisions in the US and Europe, which forces copyright holders into an expensive battle to have infringing content taken down. They do not want that in Australia and at least for now, they appear to have achieved their aims.

According to a report from AFR (paywall), the Australian government is set to introduce new legislation Wednesday which will expand safe harbors for some organizations but will exclude companies such as Google, Facebook, and similar platforms.

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield confirmed the exclusions while noting that additional safeguards will be available to institutions, libraries, and organizations in the disability, archive and culture sectors.

“The measures in the bill will ensure these sectors are protected from legal liability where they can demonstrate that they have taken reasonable steps to deal with copyright infringement by users of their online platforms,” Senator Fifield told AFR.

“Extending the safe harbor scheme in this way will provide greater certainty to institutions in these sectors and enhance their ability to provide more innovative and creative services for all Australians.”

According to the Senator, the government will continue its work with stakeholders to further reform safe harbor provisions, before applying them to other service providers.

The news that Google, Facebook, and similar platforms are to be denied access to the new safe harbor rules will be seen as a victory for rightsholders. They’re desperately trying to tighten up legislation in other regions where such safeguards are already in place, arguing that platforms utilizing user-generated content for profit should obtain appropriate licensing first.

This so-called ‘Value Gap’ (1,2,3) and associated proactive filtering proposals are among the hottest copyright topics right now, generating intense debate across Europe and the United States.

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ISP blocking has become a prime measure for the entertainment industry to target pirate sites on the Internet.

In recent years sites have been blocked throughout Europe, in Asia, and even Down Under.

In most countries, these blockades are ordered by local courts, which compel Internet providers to restrict access to certain websites. In Canada, however, there’s a plan in the works to allow for website blockades without judicial oversight.

A coalition of movie industry companies and ISPs, including Bell, Rogers, and Cineplex are discussing a proposal to implement such measures. The Canadian blocklist would be maintained by a new non-profit organization called “Internet Piracy Review Agency” (IPRA) and enforced through the CTRC, Canadaland reports.

The plan doesn’t come as a total surprise as Bell alluded to a nationwide blocking mechanism during a recent Government hearing. What becomes clear from the new plans, however, is that the telco is not alone.

The new proposal is being discussed by various stakeholders including ISPs and local movie companies. As in other countries, major American movie companies are also in the loop, but they will not be listed as official applicants when the plan is submitted to the CRTC.

Canadian law professor Micheal Geist is very critical of the plans. Although the proposal would only cover sites that “blatantly, overwhelmingly or structurally” engage in or facilitate copyright infringement, this can be a blurry line.

“Recent history suggests that the list will quickly grow to cover tougher judgment calls. For example, Bell has targeted TVAddons, a site that contains considerable non-infringing content,” Geist notes.

“It can be expected that many other sites disliked by rights holders or broadcasters would find their way onto the block list,” he adds.

While the full list of applicants is not ready yet, it is expected that the coalition will file its proposal to the CRTC before the end of the month.

Thus far, the Government appears to be reluctant in its response. In comments to Canadaland spokesperson Karl Sasseville stressed that Canada maintains committed to an open Internet.

“Our government supports an open internet where Canadians have the ability to access the content of their choice in accordance to Canadian laws,” Sasseville says. “While other parts of the world are focused on building walls, we’re focused on opening doors‎.”

As we’ve seen in the past, “net neutrality” and website blocking are not mutually exclusive. Courts around the world, also in Canada, have ordered content to be blocked, open Internet or not. However, bypassing the judicial system may prove to be a problem.

Professor Geist is happy with the Government’s comments and notes that legal basis for the proposal is thin.

He stresses that the ISPs involved in these plans should seriously consider if they want to continue down this path, which isn’t necessarily in the best interest of their customers.

“The government rightly seems dismissive of the proposal in the Canadaland report but as leading Internet providers, Bell and Rogers should be ashamed for leading the charge on such a dangerous, anti-speech and anti-consumer proposal,” Geist concludes.

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