# articles

feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181784
title: Jetflicks Piracy Trial Delayed After Canada Hands Over Masses of Discovery Data
uri: Jetflicks-Piracy-Trial-Delayed-After-Canada-Hands-Over-Masses-of-Disco
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/j-9ZF-qRBO8/
content:
<p><a href="media/b48c012a.usdoj.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg"><img src="media/b48c012a.usdoj.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="260" class="alignright size-full wp-image-91397" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg 190w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px" /></a>In August 2019, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eight-men-behind-two-us-pirate-streaming-services-charged-by-grand-jury-190828/">announced</a> that eight men had been indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.”</p>
<p>All of the defendants &#8211; Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Darryl Julius Polo, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant, and Luis Angel Villarino &#8211; were charged with running Jetflix, a subscription-based streaming service that reportedly carried more than 183,200 TV episodes.</p>
<p>Darryl Julius Polo, a former Jetflicks programmer, was additionally accused of launching and running iStreamitAll, a service carrying 18,479 TV episodes and 10,980 movies.</p>
<p>On December 12, 2019, Polo <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty-in-u-s-criminal-streaming-piracy-case-191214/">pleaded guilty</a> to various copyright infringement and money laundering charges. The next day, former Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.</p>
<p>The remaining six defendants were set to go on trial during December 2019 but following acknowledgment by the court that the case is unusually complex, it was pushed back to February 2020. Due to fresh developments in the investigation, however, the trial will now be pushed back to the summer.</p>
<p>According to court documents filed by the US Government in December 2019, it was already in possession of a significant amount of discovery data (around 88 gigabytes) but following a March 2018 request under the US-Canada Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), law enforcement agencies in Canada had seized a great deal more.</p>
<p>It took around 21 months but on December 16, 2019, the data was finally handed over to the Department of Justice. The volume of evidence is reportedly &#8220;enormous&#8221; and includes reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, subscriber information documents, a list of tickets and messages pertaining to subscribers, plus five forensic images of computers located at OVH, a hosting provider in Canada.</p>
<p>Those five images are said to contain &#8220;well over&#8221; 2.3 million files which together total around 2.72 terabytes of data. The FBI reportedly took the evidence to the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section’s Cybercrime Lab in December 2019 which found information relating to Jetflicks, iStreamitAll and related services including SmackDownOnYou, Sincity Sports Cards, BlockBustersTV, Cardvision TV, and other entities and persons connected with the case.</p>
<p>An estimated 186,000 emails were also discovered, some with Excel and Word attachments. According to the US Government, the overall trove is so extensive it&#8217;s 30 times larger than the discovery provided to the defendants to date. So, given the scale of the task ahead, the US Government advised a Virginia court that all parties would be best served by a further trial delay.</p>
<p>&#8220;In our view, given that neither the government nor the defense has reviewed the data we just received from Canada, all parties would benefit from a continuance,&#8221; the filing reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;The government needs to understand the nature of this new evidence for purposes of our case, and we believe that defense counsel has an obligation to their clients to review this new evidence too.&#8221;</p>
<p>In closing, the Government requested that the trial be shifted to June 22, 2020. This delay was initially opposed by defendants Peter Huber and Yoany Vaillant but an agreement was later reached. As a result, in an order signed this week by District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, the trial was rescheduled for July 14, 2020.</p>
<p>The information provided by Canadian authorities may yet boost the US Government&#8217;s case against the Jetflicks defendants but its lawyers didn&#8217;t waste the opportunity to take a shot at Canada&#8217;s alleged poor conduct when it comes to dealing with pirate sites.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Court may wonder why Jetflicks and iStreamItAll — which were both based in the United States — used a hosting provider in Canada for their operations,&#8221; a footnote reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which represents over 3,200 U.S. companies producing and distributing materials protected by copyright laws throughout the world, among those engaged in piracy, Canada has had a &#8216;long-standing reputation as a safe haven for some of the most massive and flagrant Internet sites dedicated to the online theft of copyright material&#8217;.”</p>
<p>While the same footnote also states that Canada &#8220;has made some progress&#8221; in recent years, it&#8217;s obvious that hosting Jetflicks in Canada didn&#8217;t save its operators from prosecution or from having their data seized and handed to US authorities.</p>
<p><em>The related court filings can be found <a href="media/e1bd3925.jetflixmlat8.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflixmlat8.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/8f70778f.jetflixmlat9.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflixmlat9.pdf">here</a> (pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181815
title: Kim Dotcom Wins Back K.im Domain After Dispute & $100K Sell-Back Offer
uri: Kim-Dotcom-Wins-Back-K-im-Domain-After-Dispute-100K-Sell-Back-Offer
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/eylB1lf3bIc/
content:
<p><a href="media/f3fda91c.kim-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kim-logo.png"><img src="media/f3fda91c.kim-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kim-logo.png" alt="" width="270" height="132" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181588" /></a>Kim Dotcom&#8217;s under-development file-sharing project K.im received a setback recently when its K.im domain fell into third-party hands.</p>
<p><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcoms-k-im-domain-goes-up-for-sale-displays-google-seo-rant-200112/">As reported here on TF</a> last Sunday, communication issues with the registry led to the domain expiring and it was quickly snapped up by Bulgarian expired domain specialist Kalin Karakehayov.</p>
<p>&#8220;[T]he domain k.im was registered by me, Kalin Karakehayov for personal use while it was in an available status. I intend to put nice, non-commercial stuff there like my Google awareness campaign,” Karakehayov informed TF.</p>
<p>Kim Dotcom, on the other hand, was less pleased with the acquisition. Describing Karakehayov as a &#8220;domain squatter&#8221;, he told us that a dispute was underway to reclaim the domain since &#8220;fraudulent behavior&#8221; had been displayed by its new owner. Having a trademark for the term &#8216;K.im&#8217; would work in the project&#8217;s favor, he predicted.</p>
<p>Now, just a few days later, the K.im project has cause to celebrate. Documents shared with TorrentFreak by Kim Dotcom reveal that following a dispute process filed with the Isle of Man registry in charge of the domain, it has been ordered to be returned to the company behind the K.im project.</p>
<p>To get to this stage hasn&#8217;t been straightforward, however. The decision reviewed by TF reveals that the &#8216;Listed Correspondent&#8217; for the K.im domain wasn&#8217;t initially Kalin Karakehayov himself but a third-party identified only as Max Guerin. </p>
<p>This individual reportedly entered into &#8216;negotiations&#8217; with BitCache, the company behind the K.im project, to return the domain and during a December 9, 2019 conference call, set a price of $100,000 to sell it back. During a Telegram conversation a day later, the price was reportedly switched to $50,000 upfront followed by payments of $5,000 per month or the same value in BitCache stock. </p>
<p>Whether the K.im project had any real intention of buying the domain back is unclear but ultimately its operating companies decided to file a complaint to have the domain returned.</p>
<p>As part of the process, the .im registry contacted &#8220;Listed Correspondent&#8221; Max Guerin but received no response. However, on January 6, 2020, Kalin Karakehayov (since designated as the &#8216;Actual Correspondent&#8217;) provided evidence that he is the owner of the domain.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Actual Respondent states that the Listed Correspondent is not the proper party to the dispute and that he has had no personal contact with the Listed Correspondent in any shape or form,&#8221; the decision notes.</p>
<p>Karakehayov told the registry that the domain was registered for his personal, non-commercial use &#8220;with the idea to benefit humanity&#8221; and was not intended to breach K.im&#8217;s trademarks. In the end, however, the registry determined that the domain should be returned to BitCache&#8217;s holding company on the basis that the registration after expiry had been abusive.</p>
<p>&#8220;I conclude that the Domain Name k.im should be transferred to the Complainant immediately upon the expiry of the appeal period,&#8221; the registry&#8217;s designated official writes.</p>
<p>That appeal period is 10 days from January 15, 2020, and according to Karakehayov, he intends to put it to use by contesting the decision.</p>
<p>&#8220;[The decision] does not seem fair to me and I intend to appeal it,&#8221; Karakehayov informs TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181825
title: RomUniverse’s Request to Dismiss Nintendo Piracy Lawsuit Fails
uri: RomUniverse-s-Request-to-Dismiss-Nintendo-Piracy-Lawsuit-Fails
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/gG4x3jAbgX0/
content:
<p><img src="media/bc033a87.romuniverselogo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/romuniverselogo.png" alt="" width="282" height="70" class="alignright size-full wp-image-177133" />Last year, Nintendo <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-sues-romuniverse-for-mass-copyright-infringement/">filed a lawsuit</a> against the game download portal RomUniverse.</p>
<p>The website, which also allows users to download movies and books, was accused of massive copyright infringement, including that relating to many Nintendo titles.</p>
<p>“The Website contains and offers to the public an immense library of unauthorized copies of video games, primarily Nintendo video games designed for nearly every video game system Nintendo has ever produced,&#8221; the complaint read. </p>
<p>The game company argued that the site&#8217;s users downloaded hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works. RomUniverse profited from these infringements by offering premium accounts that allow users to download as many games as they want, Nintendo further alleged.</p>
<p>Despite these harsh allegations the site’s operator, California resident Matthew Storman, wasn&#8217;t giving up. He decided to defend himself in court and responded to Nintendo’s claims last October through a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/romuniverse-admin-asks-court-to-dismiss-nintendos-piracy-lawsuit-191026/">detailed motion to dismiss</a>.</p>
<p>Storman didn’t deny that he is involved in the operation of RomUniverse. However, he sees himself as a Service Provider, who is not part of the ‘forum’ itself. On the contrary, the admin argued that he’s protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.</p>
<p>Nintendo disregarded this defense as <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-counters-romuniverse-operators-defense-in-piracy-case-191226/">improper, untimely, and wholly inadequate</a>. In a detailed response, the game company requested the court to deny Storman&#8217;s motion to dismiss the case.</p>
<p>After considering the arguments from both sides, US District Court Judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consuelo_Bland_Marshall">Consuelo B. Marshall</a> has sided with Nintendo. In a ruling released yesterday, she denies the various arguments presented by Storman. </p>
<p>RomUniverse&#8217;s operator wanted the case dismissed based on failure to state a claim, lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, insufficient service of process, and failure to join a party. None of these arguments convinced the court. </p>
<p>Storman, for example, argued that Nintendo is not the owner of previously purchased games because consumers have the right to sell, destroy, or give them away. The Judge didn&#8217;t address this in detail but concluded that Nintendo&#8217;s copyright registrations are sufficient at this stage.</p>
<p>Many of the defenses were linked to Storman&#8217;s notion that he is shielded by the DMCA&#8217;s safe harbor protections. Nintendo previously said that a motion to dismiss isn&#8217;t the proper stage to invoke this defense and the court agrees.</p>
<p>&#8216;The Court cannot determine whether the DMCA&#8217;s safe harbor provisions apply to Defendant at this stage because there is no evidence before the Court regarding whether Defendant is a service provider who satisfies the statutory requirements for protection pursuant to the DMCA&#8217;s safe harbors,&#8221; Judge Marshall writes.</p>
<p>Even if Storman has the right to safe harbor under the DMCA, that wouldn&#8217;t make the trademark infringement and unfair competition claims go away.</p>
<p>&#8220;Even assuming the DMCA&#8217;s safe harbor provisions apply to Defendant, those safe harbors would not protect Defendant from liability as to Plaintiff&#8217;s trademark infringement and unfair competition claims,&#8221; Judge Marshall adds.</p>
<p>All in all, the court denied RomUniverse&#8217;s motion to dismiss. Judge Marshall further requests the site&#8217;s operator to file a formal response to the complaint, which is due in two weeks. Whether Storman will continue this fight on his own or will retain an attorney is unknown. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of US District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall&#8217;s order is <a href="media/484cc0cf.dismissrom.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/dismissrom.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181856
title: Pirated Copy of ‘1917’ Leaks in Massive Screener Dump
uri: Pirated-Copy-of-1917-Leaks-in-Massive-Screener-Dump
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/mHb7LuqT3bo/
content:
<p><img src="media/3301e0f1.1917screeners.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/1917screeners.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="380" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181881" />Earlier this week we reported that the number of leaked screeners was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/number-of-pirated-screener-leaks-already-higher-than-last-year-200114/">on the rise again</a> after an all-time low last year. </p>
<p>Over the past 24-hours, this number went up significantly with six new leaks bringing the total to 16.</p>
<p>A pirated screener dump of this magnitude in such a short timeframe is something we haven&#8217;t seen before. </p>
<p>What&#8217;s also new is that the release group &#8216;TOPKEK&#8217; is one of the driving forces. Although TOPKEK is not new to releasing pirated movies, they haven&#8217;t gotten involved in leaking screeners in the past. </p>
<p>The most prominent release is &#8216;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">1917</a>,&#8217; which won the Golden Globe for best film and received ten Academy Award nominations earlier this week. A screener copy of the movie was released by both TOPKEK and Hive-CM8. </p>
<p>It&#8217;s likely that both groups obtained their screener copy from a separate source. The file sizes of the releases vary and, according to reports from users, the quality is not the same either. </p>
<p>In their release notes, Hive-CM8 mentions that the movie has already generated enough revenue for it to be released in the open. &#8220;Gross is doing ok, so it&#8217;s ready to go,&#8221; the group writes.</p>
<p><center>From the leaked screener</center><center><div id="pressrelease-link-181856" class="sh-link pressrelease-link sh-hide"><a href="#" onclick="showhide_toggle('pressrelease', 181856, 'Show screenshot', 'Hide screenshot'); return false;" aria-expanded="false"><span id="pressrelease-toggle-181856">Show screenshot</span></a></div><div id="pressrelease-content-181856" class="sh-content pressrelease-content sh-hide" style="display: none;"><img src="media/50cf8b3b.d26f6c54526b87738225d8c8e3f240e2.png" data-original-source="http://extraimage.net/images/2020/01/17/d26f6c54526b87738225d8c8e3f240e2.png" alt="1917" /></div></center></p>
<p>Both TOPKEK and Hive-CM8 also released a copy of the biographical drama &#8216;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3513548/">Richard Jewell</a>,&#8217; another contender for the Oscars. </p>
<p>The other four screeners that leaked all came from TOPKEK. These include &#8216;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5827916/">A hidden Life</a>,&#8217; &#8216;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5073642/">Color Out of Space</a>,&#8217; <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/">Dark Waters</a>,&#8217; and &#8216;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8722346/">Queen and Slim</a>.&#8217; The latter comes with the unusual &#8216;QuerySCR&#8217; tag which suggests that the source of the screener copy may not be known. </p>
<p>The Dark Waters release also stands out. It&#8217;s tagged as a 1080p release and is 33.7 gigabytes in size, considerably larger than the rest. </p>
<p>Seeing this many leaks in the span of a few hours is quite unique. As far as we know, it has never happened before. This certainly makes it newsworthy and may also draw the attention of Hollywood and law enforcement. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181600
title: Manga Scanlation Teams Don’t Want War, They Want Accessible Content
uri: Manga-Scanlation-Teams-Don-t-Want-War-They-Want-Accessible-Content
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/wpgOGMerGxo/
content:
<p><a href="media/68673fe7.anime-pirate.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/anime-pirate.jpg"><img src="media/68673fe7.anime-pirate.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/anime-pirate.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="159" class="alignright size-full wp-image-31311" /></a>In recent months there has been a notable increase in publicised anti-piracy actions against services offering manga content. Publishers have pressured a range of sites, hoping to shut down or at least make life more difficult for these hugely popular platforms.</p>
<p>Among the targets was MandaDex, a so-called &#8216;scanlation&#8217; platform that offers scanned and translated manga publications to an audience underserved by publishers offering restricted foreign language output. The site first reported domain issues and then <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mangadex-returns-under-a-new-domain-confirms-legal-issues-200106/">revealed</a> that its donation processing mechanism had also come under fire, a popular strategy among certain anti-piracy groups.</p>
<p>In the wake of our report, TorrentFreak spoke with an individual in charge of server administration for several scanlation groups including Mangazuki.co, MangaSushi.net, and LHTranslation.net. At least two of these sites process around three million requests per day, according to traffic reports shared with TF.</p>
<p>The source shared information that shows aggressive correspondence received from anti-piracy company RemoveYourMedia, including threats to target a PayPal account and instructions to either remove content or face being &#8220;disappeared&#8221; from search engines.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/6f2e33f7.LH-remove-threat.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/LH-remove-threat.png"><img src="media/6f2e33f7.LH-remove-threat.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/LH-remove-threat.png" alt="" width="649" height="261" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-181838" /></a></center></p>
<p>&#8220;We initially dismissed these emails as being spam, or most likely just some extortion scheme. However, the PayPal account that was listed publicly for donations has been taken down by a DMCA claim from VIZ,&#8221; our source revealed.</p>
<p>Documents sent by PayPal and reviewed by TF reveal the payment processor warning the LHT scanlation platform that it had received complaints from VIZ Media LLC and that certain actions needed to be taken, including the deletion of many URLs, in order to comply with PayPal&#8217;s acceptable use policy. The necessary action was taken and the PayPal account was restored. The groups also took the decision to remove all VIZ Media content from their sites.</p>
<p>Publisher VIZ Media has been at war with manga sites for many years and it was this publisher that recently targeted MangaDex, among others. However, the takedown demands against scanlation sites aren&#8217;t always cut and dried and in many cases don&#8217;t meet the accepted standards in respect of the DMCA.</p>
<p>&#8220;The stuff [LHTranslation] was hosting wasn&#8217;t a direct copy of VIZ&#8217;s work. In fact, it was a fan translation, and we had never received a proper DMCA takedown request. We&#8217;re quite certain extortion doesn&#8217;t count as a valid DMCA complaint,&#8221; our source added.</p>
<p>In broad terms, these scanlation platforms say they have to deal with three types of people filing complaints. The first group is labeled &#8220;DMCA trolls&#8221; and described as people who don&#8217;t hold any rights or licenses but file DMCA takedowns regardless.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve had those emails fly past every once in a while, with poorly worded &#8216;demands&#8217; as well. Because we receive them every once in a while, we kind of assumed the email [threat sent on behalf of VIZ Media] was among them,&#8221; the server admin said.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the second category &#8211; genuine copyright holders who send proper DMCA notices &#8211; apparently aren&#8217;t an issue. There are no objections to these claims, content is taken down and users are directed to where the original material can be purchased instead.</p>
<p>However, those in the final category appear to be the greatest irritant, both in volume terms and the nature of the claims.</p>
<p>&#8220;The third kind, and sadly the one we see the most, are those that take our translations and file a claim on our content. Essentially if torrent leeches were to file complaints after leeching the content,&#8221; our source complained.</p>
<p>Faced with such issues, the server admin says that the groups he deals with have all moved to so-called &#8216;bulletproof&#8217; hosting, not because they want to ignore the DMCA but to avoid the DMCA being abused as a weapon. In fact, the groups don&#8217;t appear averse to working with license holders to reach the goal of delivering manga to the public in English so it can be enjoyed by currently underserved fans.</p>
<p>All in all, however, it&#8217;s a time-consuming process.</p>
<p>After the raw manga images are obtained by the scanlation groups, members are tasked with translating the comics into English while others tidy up the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese text. Further fine-tuning then takes place including re-drawing some pages, applying proper fonts, and putting pages through a final editing process. After a quality control procedure, content is then released on the scanlation sites.</p>
<p>&#8220;After we&#8217;ve released a chapter on our own site, other people take our releases and re-upload them to aggregator sites, like MangaDex, spreading them to the wider masses,&#8221; our source revealed.</p>
<p>&#8220;Both our goal, and that of MangaDex in this process isn&#8217;t to make money, however. Most of this work is done free of charge. We&#8217;re all doing this because we simply love reading mangas and want to bring these series to the West. So other people can enjoy them and in the hope that English publishers see the demand for a certain series and pick them up for official translation.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is also why we always tell our readers to support the official releases and creators. And the reason why MangaDex points to the buy pages of both the official English prints and in some cases the Japanese prints. Because of all this, we often don&#8217;t see ourselves as pirates, but just as fans, as our goal is to simply make series accessible to others,&#8221; the source concluded.</p>
<p>If we take these claims on face value, there appears to be a fairly straightforward way to make progress and counter the perceived scanlation &#8216;threat&#8217;. By making translated content available officially, these groups would not only be out of a &#8216;job&#8217; but manga could also reach a wider audience, presumably alongside increased revenue.</p>
<p>That sounds a little more progressive than shouty emails and having PayPal accounts shut down.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181903
title: ‘Casting Couch’ Movie Company Orders Cloudflare to Unmask Tube Site Pirates
uri: Casting-Couch-Movie-Company-Orders-Cloudflare-to-Unmask-Tube-Sit
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/cqVucfa8CU4/
content:
<p><a href="media/d2bcf64e.cloudflare-logo-e1497134379554.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/cloudflare-logo-e1497134379554.png"><img src="media/d2bcf64e.cloudflare-logo-e1497134379554.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/cloudflare-logo-e1497134379554.png" alt="" width="250" height="126" class="alignright size-full wp-image-140211" /></a>Before taking direct legal action against alleged copyright infringers, it helps if the identities of those people are known to the potential plaintiff. One method to obtain this information is to file an application for a DMCA subpoena.</p>
<p>Commonly filed against domain registries and Cloudflare, DMCA subpoenas can require such companies to give up the names of their allegedly-infringing customers, who are often the operators of &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites. The process of obtaining a subpoena is attractive and relatively easy since the applications are rarely subjected to much scrutiny and can yield useful results.</p>
<p>Last week adult company AMA Multimedia (better known for its Casting Couch X and <a href="https://trademarks.justia.com/owners/ama-multimedia-llc-2771175/">various other brands</a>) filed an application at a Washington court demanding that Cloudflare provide identifying information of customers said to have infringed the company&#8217;s copyrights.</p>
<p>According to AMA, it previously asked Cloudflare to remove or disable access to around three dozen URLs, mostly JPG images and direct content links, on domains including the 12 million visits per month Pornmilo.com and the 15 million visits per month HLSMP4.com. With that content apparently still intact, AMA asked the court for permission to demand information from Cloudflare to identify the alleged infringers.</p>
<p>&#8220;For the period January 1, 2016 through the present, produce all documents and account records that identify the person(s) or entities that caused the infringement of the material described in the attached Exhibit B DMCA notifications to the DMCA Agent for Cloudflare, Inc. and/or who unlawfully uploaded AMA Multimedia LLC’s copyrighted works at the URLs listed in the notifications, including but not limited to identification by names, email addresses, IP addresses, user history, posting history, physical addresses, telephone numbers, and any other identifying information,&#8221; the subpoena to Cloudflare reads.</p>
<p>In respect of the phrase &#8220;person(s) or entities that caused the infringement&#8221;, that could mean the operators of the various listed domains &#8211; pornmilo.com, javbeautiful.com, 3fu.xyz, 4fu.xyz, hlsmp4.com, o0-1.com, o0-2.com, o0-3.com, o0-4.com, and o0-5.com. However, when it comes to identifying the underlying infringers, that could be more tricky.</p>
<p>When one visits Pornmilo.com, the platform gives the initial impression of being a YouTube-like site, presumably one that hosts its own content. On closer inspection, however, the site claims not to host any video content at all.</p>
<p>Indeed, it appears that the videos are embedded having been supplied by Fembed, a service that advertises itself as an &#8220;All-in-one Video Platform Designed by webmasters, for webmasters.&#8221; Essentially, people can host their video files <a href="https://www.fembed.com/#faq">on Fembed</a> and serve them on another site, with or without revenue-generating advertising.</p>
<p>Fembed.com isn&#8217;t mentioned in the DMCA subpoena but it appears to be connected to HLSMP4.com, which is mentioned multiple times. Furthermore, javbeautiful.com, 3fu.xyz, 4fu.xyz and indeed all the other domains redirect to Fembed.com, so it&#8217;s possible that they have the same owners. AMA seem pretty keen to find out exactly who they are.</p>
<p>That being said, it is far from clear how Cloudflare itself can establish who uploaded the infringing content on HLSMP4, Fembed, and the other sites so it can hand that information to AMA. At this early stage that may not concern AMA too much and it&#8217;s possible that outcome is already being anticipated. Nevertheless, the DMCA subpoena has the ability to get closer to the targets in a cheap and relatively easy fashion.</p>
<p><em>The DMCA subpoena documents can be found <a href="media/2ca434a1.3-20-mc-05001-AMA-DMCA-Subpoena-200107-1.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/3-20-mc-05001-AMA-DMCA-Subpoena-200107-1.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/1b09ddf8.3-20-mc-05001-AMA-DMCA-Subpoena-200107-2.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/3-20-mc-05001-AMA-DMCA-Subpoena-200107-2.pdf">here</a> (pdf, NSFW)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=180983
title: ‘Local’ Pirate Sites Are Thriving Around the World
uri: Local-Pirate-Sites-Are-Thriving-Around-the-World
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/S-1jreUnAew/
content:
<p><img src="media/cb194979.globe.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/globe.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="213" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181894" />When the hugely pirate site <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-streaming-giant-indoxxi-quits-to-support-the-local-creative-industry/">IndoXII announced</a> that it would shut down a few weeks ago, drama ensued in Indonesia where most of its multi-million-user audience was based. </p>
<p>This fuss was hardly noticeable in other countries, where even some of the most die-hard piracy &#8216;experts&#8217; had never heard of it. </p>
<p>Apparently, piracy habits are not as global as the Internet itself. Many countries have their local favorites. Sometimes because these are in the native tongue, but different piracy habits also play a role. </p>
<p>Today we&#8217;re going to illustrate this phenomenon by pointing out the most popular pirate sites in a wide variety of regions. Helped by data from piracy tracking firm MUSO and public tracking websites, highlight some local favorites.</p>
<p>Our quest starts in Europe, Bulgaria to be precise, where torrent site Zamunda.net takes the lead. This is a typical example of a local pirate site, with most visitors coming from Bulgaria, where it&#8217;s listed among the country&#8217;s 10 most-visited websites. </p>
<p>If we cross the border into Romania, a different picture emerges. Local streaming site Filmeserialeonline.org comes out on top there. More than two-thirds of the site&#8217;s visitors come from Albania, making it the most popular pirate site in the country.</p>
<p>Staying in the region, we find that Albania favors Filma24.cc, which appears to be a linking site. More than half of the site&#8217;s visitors come from Albania.</p>
<p>Local favorites emerge in other European countries as well. In France, Zone-telechargement.net is very popular, Spain goes for Elitetorrent.li, and Portugal favors Mrpiracy.site. All these sites are not commonly known outside these borders.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/17ce7dcd.mrpiracy.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mrpiracy.jpg" alt="" width="667" height="360" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-181904" /></center></p>
<p>Moving to another continent, Africa, we see a similar trend in several countries. In Nigeria, for example, 9jaflaver.com, is extremely popular. The site also offers news but is listed as a pirate site by industry experts. </p>
<p>In Nigeria&#8217;s neighbor Chad, sports streaming site Yalla-shoot.com comes out on top. This is also the most-visited site in Egypt. Libya, which sits between Chad and Egypt, prefers the streaming site Cimaclub.com, which is also loved in Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Over in the Middle East, we see that Iranians prefer the local site Nex1music.ir. On the other side of the border, in Iraq, Kurdcinama.com is doing very well as the country&#8217;s 33rd most visited website.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/30921226.kurd.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kurd.jpg" alt="" width="664" height="493" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-181905" /></center></p>
<p>Going further east, we see more of the same. Many countries have clear local favorites, which are often in native languages. This includes torrent portal torrentwal2.com in South Korea, as well as b9good.com in Japan.</p>
<p>When we move over to the Americas things get less interesting. While there are local pirate sites there as well, it is mostly familiar names that come out on top.</p>
<p>In the US the most popular &#8216;pirate&#8217; site is Kissanime.ru, for example. Mexico also favors an anime site with animeflv.net coming out on top there. In fact, if we go further south, anime sites are on top in pretty much every country, all the way to Argentina.</p>
<p>Haiti is one of the few exceptions, as torrent9.pl is most popular there. While it&#8217;s not a local site, Haiti is the site&#8217;s second-largest traffic source, close behind Cameroon. </p>
<p>The above clearly shows that even though the Pirate Bays of the world make most news headlines, smaller sites can still be massively popular locally, perhaps more than most people realize. It also reveals that preferences for different types of piracy vary from country to country.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181810
title: Ebook.bike Owner Risks Crippling Sanctions Over Piracy Case Discovery Failures
uri: Ebook-bike-Owner-Risks-Crippling-Sanctions-Over-Piracy-Case-Discovery
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/62Yeo5RU7mk/
content:
<p><img src="media/24879ea8.3geINt6a_400x400.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/3geINt6a_400x400.jpg" width="260" height="260" class="alignright size-full" />In March 2019, author John Van Stry <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/former-pirate-party-leader-asks-to-be-sued-over-ebook-site-has-wish-granted-190401/">filed</a> a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States against former Pirate Party Canada leader Travis McCrea, the operator of eBook download platform eBook.bike.</p>
<p>The complaint alleged that McCrea infringed the copyrights of Van Stry by making “at least twelve” of his works available for download without his permission, along with other titles by Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Joanne Harris, Tom Clancy, and thousands more.</p>
<p>It took months for McCrea to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/travis-mccreas-answer-to-ebook-bike-piracy-lawsuit-cites-dmca-religious-defenses-190928/">file an answer</a> to the complaint and progress since then has been pedestrian, with Van Stry&#8217;s legal team claiming that McCrea frustrated and failed to comply with the requirements of the discovery process.</p>
<p>As previously <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/ebook-piracy-case-plaintiff-vents-frustrations-judge-responds-191201/">reported</a>, Judge Bryson gave McCrea a December 2019 deadline to respond, warning that the court would take action if no significant progress was made. According to Van Stry&#8217;s team, nothing positive has happened since and as a result, the court should subject him to the most serious of sanctions.</p>
<p>In summary, the plaintiff is asking for a number of facts to be taken as a given in the case moving forward and it&#8217;s clear he wants no prisoners taken.</p>
<p>Among other things, in a proposed order Van Stry wants the court to find that McCrea was the sole operator of eBook.bike, wrote the site&#8217;s software, and reproduced copyrighted content (eBooks and covers) by shifting it from server to server and converting from one format to another.</p>
<p>He also wants the court to find that McCrea knowingly distributed millions of copyright-infringing works in the United States, knew that Van Stry&#8217;s copyrights were being violated via the site, and was aware that users of eBook.bike did not have permission to upload or download Van Stry&#8217;s works.</p>
<p>The proposed order further asks the court to rule that McCrea knew about the copyright infringement notices sent by Van Stry, could have taken the relevant content down quickly and easily in response but failed to do so, all while generating advertising revenue from the pirated copies.</p>
<p>On top, Van Stry asks the court to declare that McCrea was the domain registrant and administrator of a second site called Books.cat where he allegedly coordinated with &#8220;hunters&#8221; to obtain eBooks, remove their DRM, and upload the resulting files to eBook.bike.</p>
<p>In the face of no discovery to the contrary, the order also wants the court to find that McCrea made &#8220;hundreds of thousands of dollars&#8221; through eBook.bike, used the revenue to buy an airplane, and destroyed evidence after receiving a document retention notice. Finally, it demands that McCrea be prohibited from supporting the defenses he previously presented to the court.</p>
<p>&#8220;Given the discovery at issue is <em>all</em> of Plaintiff’s written discovery, Plaintiff found this motion a difficult exercise,&#8221; the motion reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;[H]owever, Plaintiff endeavored to (1) accurately capture the truth as Plaintiff understands it when proposing its summary of facts to be taken as a given; and (2) strike a balance by putting forth high-level facts without overwhelming with minutia, on one hand, while maintaining that the proposals remain facts rather than the ultimate conclusions of law, on the other.&#8221;</p>
<p>Only time will tell whether Van Stry will get all his own way on these proposals.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181779
title: Most Canadian ISPs Are Staying Quiet on Pirate Site Blocking
uri: Most-Canadian-ISPs-Are-Staying-Quiet-on-Pirate-Site-Blocking
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/TJEntXmr_Ns/
content:
<p><img src="media/a2cf27d4.canada.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/canada.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="165" class="alignright size-full wp-image-60888" />Last November, Canada’s Federal Court approved the first <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/federal-court-approves-first-pirate-site-blockade-in-canada-191118/">pirate site blockade</a> in the country.</p>
<p>Following a complaint from major media companies Rogers, Bell and TVA, the Court ordered several major ISPs to block access to domains and IP-addresses of the pirate IPTV service GoldTV.</p>
<p>These types of blocking efforts are common in quite a few countries. However, in Canada they are new, which means that developments are closely watched by both supporters and opponents.</p>
<p>One of these newer developments is <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/canadian-pirate-site-blockade-expands-with-new-domains-200109/">the expansion</a> of the blocklist with new domain names. After the initial injunction was ordered GoldTV became accessible through new addresses, effectively circumventing the court&#8217;s measures. This was dealt with by blocking the new domains as well.</p>
<p>This extension of the court&#8217;s order was permitted under the injunction and signed off by the court. This order is also public to those who pay to access it, which allows us to report on it. </p>
<p>However, as more and more blocks are issued this process may become harder to follow. It would be more transparent if ISPs published a list of blocked domains and IP-addresses. This would make it possible for the public to see what&#8217;s going on and report errors. If there are any. </p>
<p>This transparency idea isn&#8217;t too far-fetched. Canada&#8217;s current net neutrality regulations require ISPs to disclose what traffic management practices they use. Disclosing a list of blocked domain names and IP-addresses could fall into the same category. </p>
<p>As we were unable to find any ISP publicly listing this information on a page that&#8217;s available outside its network, we decided to ask them whether they had any plans to provide one.</p>
<p>In addition, we also asked what technical means the ISPs use to block domain names. Is it a simple DNS redirect, or are there more invasive techniques in use?</p>
<p>After waiting for several days, we still only have a response from one Internet provider. The ten remaining companies simply stayed quiet and didn&#8217;t even acknowledge receipt of our questions. </p>
<p>The company that did respond is TekSavvy, which also happens to be the only ISP that <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/teksavvy-appeals-first-canadian-pirate-site-blockade-191126/">appealed the blocking injunction</a>. </p>
<p>TekSavvy’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, informs us that they already provide detailed information to blocked users. This includes links to all the blocked domains and the court order itself. </p>
<p>In the future, TekSavvy plans to make this available to outsiders as well. The ISP shared a copy of the <a href="media/9acaa6a3.2020-01-13-TekSavvy-_-Site-Blocked.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2020-01-13-TekSavvy-_-Site-Blocked.pdf">info page (pdf)</a> with us but it&#8217;s not linked from the ISP&#8217;s website yet. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/3ae8e253.teksavv5.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/teksavv5.jpg" alt="" width="591" height="215" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-181889" /></center></p>
<p>The information shows that TekSavvy is using DNS blocking. It effectively changes the DNS entry so the domains point to the blocking notice instead of the regular page.</p>
<p>Kaplan-Myrth notes that this works but adds that the blockade can be circumvented when subscribers switch to alternative DNS providers such as Google, Cloudflare, or OpenDNS.</p>
<p>While we are pleased with TekSavvy&#8217;s openness, the lack of response from the other ISPs isn&#8217;t very encouraging when it comes to transparency. We contacted Bell, Rogers, SaskTel, Cogeco, Eastlink, Distribitel, Fido, Shaw, Telus, and Videotron, without hearing back.</p>
<p>Although more transparency is welcome, the Canadian system is quite open compared to some other countries. In the UK for example, none of the blocklist changes are publicized beyond the initial court orders. This means that it&#8217;s more or less a guess how many are blocked. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181942
title: New Pirate Sites Line Up to Fill IndoXXI’s Shoes
uri: New-Pirate-Sites-Line-Up-to-Fill-IndoXXI-s-Shoes
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ANm8Oh9y4Sk/
content:
<p><img src="media/43fac36e.indoxx1.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/indoxx1.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="112" class="alignright size-full wp-image-180996" />According to a recent survey, nearly a third of all Indonesians have accessed streaming piracy websites or torrent sites.</p>
<p>In recent months, Indonesia’s Information and Communications Ministry has worked hard to address the country&#8217;s piracy problem. Among other things, the Government has ordered ISPs to block more than 1,000 domain names. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/indonesian-government-continues-whac-a-mole-against-local-streaming-piracy-giant-191223/">main target</a> of these efforts was streaming giant ‘IndoXXI.’ With millions of daily visitors, it was listed among the 25 most-visited sites in the country up until last month.</p>
<p>Initially, the notorious streaming site evaded the blocks by switching to new domains. However, after a new round of blockades just before the new year, it decided to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-streaming-giant-indoxxi-quits-to-support-the-local-creative-industry/">throw in the towel</a>. </p>
<p>“Happy New Year 2020. As of today our site is no longer accessible, as is the case with the IndoXXI lite application,&#8221; the operators wrote at the site.</p>
<p>This news was welcomed by the local movie industry as well as Hollywood, which had previously complained about IndoXXI as well. However, the site&#8217;s demise doesn&#8217;t mean that the piracy problem is over now. </p>
<p>According to the Asia Video Industry Association (<a href="https://avia.org/">AVIA</a>), hundreds of other sites stepped up to fill the gap left by IndoXXI. Some of these mimic the look and feel of the closed site, hoping to draw in visitors. </p>
<p>&#8220;[S]ince this announced closure, many other piracy sites, including some obvious copycat clones of IndoXXI, have become available,&#8221; AVIA notes. </p>
<p><center>One of the many clones</center><br /><center><img src="media/3e7c7e4c.indoxclone-1.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/indoxclone-1.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="384" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-181946" /></center></p>
<p>In response, copyright holders have stepped up again demanding that more domain names be blocked. AVIA notes that more than 200 new sites have been reported to the government during the past week alone.</p>
<p>Although website blockades may have some short-term effects, the Video Coalition of Indonesia (VCI) believes that the government can do more. Ideally, the group would like the culprits behind these sites to be criminally prosecuted.</p>
<p>Neil Gane, General Manager of AVIA’s Coalition Against Piracy, believes that the people running pirate sites are often involved in other crimes as well, which may in part be financed by piracy revenue.</p>
<p>&#8220;Many syndicates and individuals associated with the piracy ecosystem are involved in other criminal endeavors including illicit online gambling, and there is a likelihood that part of the illegal proceeds are used to finance these other crimes,” Gane says.</p>
<p>The call for criminal prosecutions is supported by prominent Indonesian film director Mira Lesmana, who wants the site operators to be brought to justice.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to be able to recoup our financial investments to fund new creative content. We encourage the government to track down and prosecute those Indonesian-based operators who are behind these networks of piracy sites,&#8221; Lesmana says.</p>
<p>The question remains whether criminal prosecutions will do much to stop the flood of pirate sites. In recent years there have been various criminal piracy cases around the world. Despite these efforts, there has been no shortage of pirate sites.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181965
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 01/20/20
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-on-BitTorrent-01-20-20
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/928JG4rmc0g/
content:
<p><img src="media/ffc9830f.terminfd.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/terminfd.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="187" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181969" />This week we have four newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Terminator: Dark Fate is the most downloaded movie.</p>
<p>The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.</p>
<p><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.</p>
<h5>This week&#8217;s most downloaded movies are:</h5>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Movie Rank</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>Rank <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-on-bittorrent-01-13-20/">last week</a></strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie name</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">Most downloaded movies via torrents</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">Terminator: Dark Fate</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxy8udgWRmo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">1917</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjQROMAh_s">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/">Joker</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/">Dark Waters</a> (screener)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvQUIt0BWcU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">Maleficent: Mistress of Evil</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1f8yNxGBk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">Frozen 2</a> (DVDScr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwzLiQZDw2I">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10039344/">Countdown</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZsgNH17_X4">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385887/">Motherless Brooklyn</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385887/">7.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fru8IkuDp_k">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">Ford v Ferrari</a> (DVDScr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">8.3</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3h9Z89U9ZA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(7)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">Once Upon a Time &#8230; in Hollywood</a></td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">7.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeMaP8EPAA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181939
title: UFC 246 Twitch Piracy Fail Raises Questions For Amateur Pirates & UFC Alike
uri: UFC-246-Twitch-Piracy-Fail-Raises-Questions-For-Amateur-Pirates-UFC
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/OrbnDc6OQec/
content:
<p><a href="media/375f1c24.ufc-logo-e1579514869737.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ufc-logo-e1579514869737.png"><img src="media/375f1c24.ufc-logo-e1579514869737.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ufc-logo-e1579514869737.png" alt="" width="270" height="134" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181963" /></a>Conor McGregor is without doubt the biggest star the world of mixed martial arts has ever seen. Often controversial but always entertaining, the Irishman&#8217;s name on a pay-per-view event represents a financial windfall for everyone involved.</p>
<p>As a result, any card displaying McGregor&#8217;s name as one half of the main event attracts huge attention and last Saturday&#8217;s UFC 246 was no different. Taking place in a sold-out T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas and broadcast live on PPV, millions of people parted with money to enjoy the extravaganza. Of course, countless thousands didn&#8217;t pay a penny to the UFC or its official broadcasting partners.</p>
<p>UFC 246 was widely available on &#8216;pirate&#8217; IPTV services and unlicensed sports streaming sites over the weekend. However, it was also broadcast on platforms that have less of a bad reputation for piracy such as Twitch, for example, with one particular instance ending in disaster for the person behind the illicit stream.</p>
<p>On Saturday night and for reasons best known to him, Twitch user <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/skarrsworld">SkarrsWorld</a> streamed the UFC 246 PPV on his channel to what appears to have been a fairly limited audience. However, during a promo section of the event featuring UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, a personal message notification popped up on screen and was immediately broadcast along with the pirated PPV.</p>
<p><center><iframe src="https://clips.twitch.tv/embed?clip=PrettyTalentedTaroKippa" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" height="378" width="620"></iframe></center></p>
<p>While the text in the message raises all sorts of questions, this disaster had the potential to go unnoticed to the wider public. However, an eagle-eyed viewer of the stream noticed the error and <a href="https://clips.twitch.tv/PrettyTalentedTaroKippa">turned the section into a clip</a> which was then shared around on social media.</p>
<p>Just a few hours ago it had already been seen at least 100,000 times and at the time of writing, more than 146,000 views are being reported. That&#8217;s a huge audience for what was originally a niche broadcast and while amusing for some, undoubtedly represents a serious breach for the streamer. Having private matters paraded in public is undesirable but in combination with intentional piracy of a PPV event, the gravity increases.</p>
<p>This rookie mistake raises questions of how easy it has become for Joe Public to get into live pirate streaming and the possible consequences for those who get into the game without considering their own security. This type of online infringement has traditionally been carried out by &#8216;professionals&#8217; with experience of obtaining streams and broadcasting them securely but this Twitch debacle is miles apart. But the issues go deeper than that.</p>
<p>The clip featuring the private message is obviously terribly embarrassing but due to the manner in which the fight played out, the implications of streaming the Conor McGregor vs Donald Cerrone main event on a platform like Twitch are an even bigger cause for concern for the UFC.</p>
<p>From the moment the bell rang to the moment referee Herb Dean called off the fight following a McGregor onslaught, just 40 seconds had passed. To put that into perspective, a fight that had been hyped for weeks (and had dozens of hours of official broadcasting dedicated to it in the lead-up) was over in the space of a GIF. Or, more conveniently, in the Twitch clips that immediately spread like wildfire, even before McGregor could make his victory speech.</p>
<p>While those 40 seconds were just a small part of the pay-per-view, the rest of the card was relatively weak, especially for the casual fans the UFC hopes to scoop up every time McGregor fights. So, when viewed through the prism of considerable dollar costs to view, particularly in the United States, value for money probably wasn&#8217;t on the lips of many paying fans at the end of Saturday night. </p>
<p>A pirate Twitch stream or clip, on the other hand, is likely to have proven more than adequate for the passer-by looking for 40 seconds of pure mixed martial arts excitement. In a world where revenue is king, that&#8217;s not what the UFC ever wants to hear.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181982
title: Italian Court Orders ISPs to Block IPTV Sites Over Serie A Piracy
uri: Italian-Court-Orders-ISPs-to-Block-IPTV-Sites-Over-Serie-A-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/wTYp7FGB6GU/
content:
<p><a href="media/a7c0897c.iptv.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iptv.jpg"><img src="media/a7c0897c.iptv.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iptv.jpg" alt="" width="234" height="155" class="alignright size-full wp-image-135034" /></a>In common with several top football leagues around Europe, Italy&#8217;s Serie A has an ongoing problem with piracy of its live broadcasts.</p>
<p>Sites with embedded streaming players regularly show Serie A matches but perhaps the biggest threat is posed by unlicensed IPTV services. These offer subscription packages that closely mimic and can even outdo those delivered by Serie A&#8217;s official broadcasting partners.</p>
<p>This has provoked a range of anti-piracy actions, such as the one now being reported by anti-piracy group FAPAV (Federazione Anti-Pirateria Audiovisiva). Following a complaint by Serie A and a request from the public prosecutor&#8217;s office, the Court of Rome has handed down a preventative ruling that requires 15 websites offering &#8216;pirate&#8217; IPTV services to be blocked in Italy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Among the methods of access to pirated content, illegal IPTVs are a phenomenon of great importance and with a growing incidence linked not only to audiovisual content but also to live sporting events,&#8221; says FAPAV Secretary-General, Federico Bagnoli Rossi. </p>
<p>&#8220;According to FAPAV / Ipsos research, five million people use this method to watch movies, series and TV shows. As regards sports content in particular, 4.7 million people watched live sports events in a non-legal manner, a figure that has increased compared to 2017.&#8221; </p>
<p>FAPAV says that these types of pirate services not only cause damage to the entertainment industries but also to the economy as a whole. As a result, those affected cannot wait any longer before taking action to stem the tide.</p>
<p>While the ruling from the Court of Rome is yet to be published, the big question here is how effective these types of blockades can be, given the way that IPTV services are set up.</p>
<p>As previously reported, Sky has been working hard to have IPTV service management platform URLs <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/sky-on-a-mission-to-purge-hundreds-of-pirate-iptv-sites-from-google-191215/">removed</a> from Google search. However, other than a reduction in search traffic, the tactic does little if anything to affect the underlying IPTV services which are generally not run from the domains in question.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the effect of blocking sales portal domains does nothing to counter the thousands of resellers funneling customers to the platforms either. It&#8217;s an important point that FAPAV appears to recognize, even going as far as suggesting that customers themselves could become part of their inquiries.</p>
<p>&#8220;The ongoing investigations have as a main objective the identification of the complex structure of the organization made up of dozens of &#8216;resellers&#8217; as well as the hundreds of customers who, by purchasing the subscriptions, not only illegally take advantage of the vision of sporting events and pay-per-view television schedules, but also feed the criminal circuit,&#8221; the group says.</p>
<p>&#8220;The piracy market represents a very thriving business that rests on a large number of customers who feed it, probably unaware of the consequences to which they expose themselves and of the economic damage to the rights holders when compared to citizens who honestly buy regular products.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s clear that no single aspect of anti-piracy activity, whether that&#8217;s sales site blocking or targeting some resellers, will bring all pirate IPTV services to their knees. Instead, groups like FAPAV are deploying a multi-pronged strategy that attempts to disrupt activity wherever it can, thus making life more difficult for pirates and their customers.</p>
<p>Blocking of IPTV services has been taking place in Italy <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/operation-pirate-on-demand-blocks-pirate-iptv-portals-170628/">since at least 2017</a> and in the summer of 2019, a &#8220;high-level&#8221; provider was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/police-dismantle-pirate-iptv-provider-seize-cash-crypto-gold-bars-190723/">taken down</a> after providing Sky programming to the public.</p>
<p>Italian authorities were also heavily involved in the raids that targeted <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/xtream-codes-iptv-system-targeted-in-massive-police-operation/">Xtream-Codes and others last year</a>, an operation that caused the most disruption the IPTV scene has ever seen, even if it did <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-iptv-traffic-dropped-50-after-xtream-codes-raid-190927/">eventually recover</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182011
title: Registrar Suspends Popcorn Time Domain Name Following Complaint
uri: Registrar-Suspends-Popcorn-Time-Domain-Name-Following-Complaint
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dDeGUPFfk-M/
content:
<p><img src="media/ac12bf8c.popcornt.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/popcornt.png" alt="" width="237" height="106" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101106" />Half a decade ago, Popcorn Time was the first application to bridge the gap between torrenting and streaming. </p>
<p>The software amassed millions of users by offering an easy-to-use Netflix-style interface, providing access to the latest pirated movies and TV-shows.</p>
<p>In recent years many other pirate streaming alternatives have outgrown Popcorn Time in terms of popularity. However, the various forks of the app still have a significant user base.</p>
<p>One of the most popular ones is <a href="https://popcorntime.sh/">Popcorntime.sh</a>. Like all other forks, it&#8217;s not linked to the original developers, who have long moved on. However, that doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s spared from legal issues. </p>
<p>Several movie companies previously targeted the app by <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-ordered-to-expose-yts-showbox-and-popcorn-time-site-operators-180919/">obtaining a subpoena</a> which directed Cloudflare to reveal the identity of the operator. The same companies also targeted alleged Popcorn Time users in court. </p>
<p>A few hours ago another problem emerged. Without prior warning, the Popcorntime.sh domain name was suspended by its registrar. A quick Whois search shows the associated “clienthold” status.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/33f009ae.cioentholdpop.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/cioentholdpop.jpg" alt="" width="431" height="231" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182016" /></center></p>
<p>This clienthold status is set by the domain registrar, 101domain in this case, and informs the registry not to activate the DNS. As a result, the website had been rendered inaccessible to the public at large.</p>
<p>A spokesperson from Popcorntime.sh confirmed the problems and informs TorrentFreak that they were not warned in advance about the issue. Nor was it made clear by the registrar what the precise reason for this suspension is.</p>
<p>&#8220;They have sent zero notice before the suspension, neither did they explain why it&#8217;s suspended,&#8221; Popcorn Time&#8217;s spokesperson says.</p>
<p>The 101domain support team did inform Popcorn Time that a complaint had been received, the spokesperson says. However, who this complaint is from and what it&#8217;s about remains a guess.  </p>
<p>This isn&#8217;t the first time that the registrar has taken action. Last November a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/popcorntime-domain-registrar-orders-dns-deactivation-191105/">similar problem occurred</a>. However, according to Popcorn Time, this was the result of a payment issue. This time it appears to be an external complaint. </p>
<p>Given the nature of the Popcorn Time application and repeated complaints from rightsholders in the past about this type of software, it&#8217;s likely that a movie or TV outfit sent a complaint. </p>
<p>We reached out to 101domains with a request for further information but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. </p>
<p>The Popcorn Time spokesperson says that they have switched to <a href="https://popcorntime.app/">Popcorntime.app</a> for the time being.<br />
If they are unable to resolve the domain issue this change could become permanent.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182037
title: Hive-CM8 Accuses TOPKEK of Leaving Watermarks and Tracers in Pirated Screeners
uri: Hive-CM8-Accuses-TOPKEK-of-Leaving-Watermarks-and-Tracers-in-Pirated-S
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/YNfwxEXKETI/
content:
<p><img src="media/3d5a45b0.pirateflag.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/pirateflag.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="174" class="alignright size-full wp-image-175547" />People who operate or even get involved with pirate release groups take major risks. Those who release screeners of unreleased movies up the ante further still. </p>
<p>The movie screeners that are sent out to film insiders to be considered for various awards come with all sorts of protection mechanisms. These include visible and invisible watermarks as well as other tracers that can lead directly to the source. </p>
<p>These extensive protections are supposed to deter people from leaking screeners. This is important, as some of the films have yet to air in theaters. For example, ‘Color Out of Space&#8217; is <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/pirated-copy-of-1917-leaks-in-massive-screener-dump-200117/">widely available</a> on pirate sites at the moment, but will officially premiere in the US this Friday.</p>
<p>Apart from the deterrence factor, the watermarks also help to track down people involved in the leaks. They allow Hollywood to pinpoint the source and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/fbi-busts-movie-industry-insider-for-dvd-screener-leaks-160228/">call in the feds</a> who have helped to bring several people to justice. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, Hive-CM8 has been a constant factor. Rival group EVO has also shared several screeners in the last three years but most others stay away from the practice.</p>
<p>However, a few days ago another group joined in. Out of nowhere, TOPKEK released six screeners in the span of a few hours, including &#8216;1917,&#8217; and the aforementioned ‘Color Out of Space.&#8217;</p>
<p>While the pirate audience was happy with this new material, it appears that Hive-CM8 didn&#8217;t appreciate the form in which it was offered. In the release notes of its most recent screener leak of the film &#8220;Just Mercy,&#8221; the group accuses TOPKEK of putting people at risk by leaving watermarks and tracers in its releases.</p>
<p>&#8220;Bet you all seen the topkek scr flood 2 days ago, we have nothing to do with them btw. We are not happy that they got out like this, with watermarks and tracers still in it. careless and unprofessional it was, its a shame for the community [sic],&#8221; Hive-CM8 writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Whoever owned that bunch will regret sharing this for the rest of his life. Dont you think this will not get back to you, wish you luck. Dont trust the wrong people,&#8221; the group adds in its notes.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/7befb40b.mercynotes.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mercynotes.jpg" alt="" width="583" height="623" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182042" /></center></p>
<p>Verifying Hive-CM8&#8217;s claims independently would require a specific form of technical expertise mostly unavailable to the public. If they&#8217;re true, however, we can expect some legal action to follow soon. </p>
<p>After all, Hollywood sees screener leaks as one as the worst threats to their business. Not only because of the potential revenue losses but also because the screener leaks originate from within the industry. </p>
<p>If Hollywood, with help from law enforcement, can pinpoint a source and perhaps even a release group, they certainly won&#8217;t hesitate. </p>
<p>Hive-CM8, meanwhile, is attempting to play nice with Hollywood. The group has been criticized for holding back releases for too long, as they want to give films time to recoup their investments on the silver screen. </p>
<p>Not everyone appreciates that but the release group stands by the decision taken after it received heavy criticism for its <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/hive-cm8-apologizes-for-leaking-hateful-eight-dvd-screener-151230/">early leaks in 2015</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some might say us delaying some titles is good, some will think this is stupid. Either way, but we think its more fair like this for everyone under the circumstances.</p>
<p>&#8220;We watch the gross in relation to budget so that the movie has a fair chance in cinemas and at the same time make some people happy at home who are not able to visit the cinema [sic],&#8221; Hive-CM8 adds.</p>
<p>Although the group appears to be sincere in its motivations, the major movie studios won&#8217;t hesitate to bring them down if they get the chance. </p>
<p>That said, it seems that the group is good at covering its tracks, as it&#8217;s been releasing screeners for a decade without getting busted. That would have been impossible if the group didn&#8217;t have its security in order. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182063
title: Popular Pirate eBook Site Ebookee.org Has Domain Suspended
uri: Popular-Pirate-eBook-Site-Ebookee-org-Has-Domain-Suspended
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/WTQ_nd0k2s4/
content:
<p><a href="media/cda9a694.ebookee-logo-proper.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ebookee-logo-proper.png"><img src="media/cda9a694.ebookee-logo-proper.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ebookee-logo-proper.png" alt="" width="270" height="100" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182071" /></a>Alongside the mass uptake of digital readers such as Kindles, phones and tablets, plus a relatively small filesize, downloading of eBook and magazine content has gained in popularity over recent years.</p>
<p>There are plenty of sites catering to this popular niche but in common with platforms specializing in other areas, a handful of dedicated sites have found their way onto the preferred lists of many pirates.</p>
<p>One of those is eBookee, a download platform that doesn&#8217;t appear to carry content itself but indexes content hosted on other sites, notably file-hosting services. Indeed, a cursory review of eBookee&#8217;s traffic referral <a href="https://www.similarweb.com/website/ebookee.org#referrals">stats</a> reveals that large volumes of users are directed to platforms such as Rapidgator and Nitroflare, for example.</p>
<p>During the past 24 hours, however, visitors to eBookee.org (the site&#8217;s main domain) were greeted not by links to eBooks or magazines (and less frequently videos and audio), but by a blank page. While temporary site downtime is nothing new in this space, it appears that eBookee has experienced a more significant problem relating to its main domain.</p>
<p>In common with The Pirate Bay&#8217;s main domain, eBookee&#8217;s .org domain is ultimately overseen by the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/planned-org-registry-sale-puts-the-pirate-bay-at-risk-191129/">Public Interest Registry</a> with day-to-day business controlled by India-based Public Domain Registry. As the image below shows, the latter has suspended the domain.</p>
<p><Center><a href="media/b086f203.ebookee-org-whois.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ebookee-org-whois.png"><img src="media/b086f203.ebookee-org-whois.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ebookee-org-whois.png" alt="" width="650" height="401" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182067" /></a></center></p>
<p>While it seems likely that a significant action caused the suspension, the specific issue (such as a complaint from a third-party, for example) hasn&#8217;t been revealed in public. PDR did not immediately respond to TF&#8217;s request for comment but it certainly wouldn&#8217;t be a surprise if the issue was copyright related.</p>
<p>Companies including Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Cambridge University Press, Amazon, and National Geographic have all filed copyright infringement complaints against the platform with Google during the first few weeks of this year.</p>
<p>Overall, Google&#8217;s Transparency Report reveals that over the past several years, it has processed requests from rightsholders and anti-piracy groups to have 858,782 eBookee.org URLs deleted from its search results. Just 52% resulted in content being taken down, with the remainder either not in Google&#8217;s indexes or duplicate requests.</p>
<p>The eBookee.org domain was first registered way back in 2007 but it hasn&#8217;t been a trouble-free ride. In 2015, publishers <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/high-court-orders-uk-isps-to-block-ebook-sites-150527/">obtained an injunction</a> from the High Court in England to have the site&#8217;s domain blocked by local ISPs. That resulted in many proxy sites springing up to service the platform, none of which appear to be working today.</p>
<p>Finally, several social media pages claiming to be connected to or operated by eBookee.org are suggesting a new domain for the site. Checks carried out by TF suggest that the site is probably not connected with the official platform.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182056
title: Popcorn Time Domain Suspension Was Triggered by Falsified Court Document
uri: Popcorn-Time-Domain-Suspension-Was-Triggered-by-Falsified-Court-Docume
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/yZA-HaJy8Vk/
content:
<p><img src="media/ac12bf8c.popcornt.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/popcornt.png" alt="" width="237" height="106" class="alignright size-full wp-image-101106" />Earlier this week registrar 101domain <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/registrar-suspends-popcorn-time-domain-name-following-complaint-200121/">suspended the Popcorntime.sh domain name</a>. </p>
<p>The grounds for the suspension initially remained unclear. However, after asking for clarification, 101domain explained to the site operator that it had received an injunction from a US court.</p>
<p>The injunction in question appeared to have been sent by the Motion Picture Association (MPA). It was signed by a federal judge at the US District Court for the District of Columbia and indeed targeted Popcorntime.sh.</p>
<p>Since the MPA had gone after various Popcorn Time forks in the past, this sounded somewhat plausible. However, the document clearly isn&#8217;t real.</p>
<p>At TorrentFreak, we received a copy of the same injunction two weeks ago. It was sent in by an anonymous tipster who urged us to report on it. While the story made some sense, on closer inspection we found that the injunction was obviously falsified. </p>
<p>For example, the court stamp and the signed date are from May 2019 while the document itself was filed in November 2019, according to the header. The case reference number also identifies a completely unrelated lawsuit and the paperwork shows several other signs of tampering.</p>
<p>Most telling, perhaps, is that the associated injunction is supposed to prevent &#8220;the immediate and irreparable harm will result to Microsoft.&#8221; Microsoft?</p>
<p>Some more digging showed that, while there is no such filing from the MPA, there is an almost identical order from last May in a case between Microsoft and several John Does who operated domains such as identity-verificationservice.info.</p>
<p>This case has nothing to do with Popcorn Time. Someone simply took the document and changed several details, making it look as if it came from the MPA targeting Popcorntime.sh.</p>
<p><center><strong>Use slider to compare the <a href="media/0337396f.2019-05-22-ECF-21-Supplemental-Injunction-Order.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2019-05-22-ECF-21-Supplemental-Injunction-Order.pdf">original (pdf)</a> and <a href="media/c2582944.22-ECF-792-Supplemental-Injunction-Order-MPPA-VS.-John-Doe-1.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2019-11-22-ECF-792-Supplemental-Injunction-Order-MPPA-VS.-John-Doe-1.pdf">fake (pdf)</a></strong></p>
<p></center><center><iframe frameborder="0" class="juxtapose" width="500" height="647" src="https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=bee19a7e-3d27-11ea-b9b8-0edaf8f81e27"></iframe></center></p>
<p>Although this didn&#8217;t take much effort for us to uncover, the fabricated document was apparently sufficient to convince 101domain to suspend the domain. Popcorn Time shared a copy of the response it received from the registrar&#8217;s abuse team, which attached the falsified document. </p>
<p>We reached out to the registrar to verify this and also pointed out our suspicions but unfortunately, we didn&#8217;t hear back. Interestingly, a few hours later 101domain suddenly realized that the document was fabricated. </p>
<p>A Popcorn Time representative informs TorrentFreak that the domain suspension was lifted after 101domain confirmed with the US District Court that the injunction wasn&#8217;t legitimate. </p>
<p>While this is good news for Popcorn Time, it may never have happened if people had started asking questions sooner. </p>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, 101domain was not the only registrar to fall for the falsified court document either. When Popcorn Time had its .sh domain suspended it switched to Popcorntime.app, a domain they registered through 1API.</p>
<p>It didn&#8217;t take long before that registrar received a similarly <a href="media/0f697da3.22_ECF_371_Supplemental_Injunction_Order__MPA_VS._John_Does_.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2019-12-22_ECF_371_Supplemental_Injunction_Order__MPA_VS._John_Does_.pdf">altered &#8216;injunction&#8217; (pdf)</a>. The same Microsoft order was used as the basis again, but this time targeted the new domain Popcorntime.app.</p>
<p>In an email, which the Popcorn Time representative shared with TorrentFreak, 1API explained that Popcorn Time had 48 hours to respond, adding that the domain name may eventually be put on hold.</p>
<p>1API also revealed the request from the original complainant, which was sent from a protonmail.ch address, supposedly by a member of MPA&#8217;s legal team named &#8216;John Gibetstan&#8217;.</p>
<p>&#8220;Hello 1API, I am a representative of the MPA&#8217;s Legal Team. We have obtained an injunction to take control of a domain under your system. The domain in question would be popcorntime.app. You have 5 business days to take action on the injunction,&#8221; it reads. </p>
<p>Aside from the various flaws in the underlying document, this email doesn&#8217;t appear to be very professional. The MPA doesn&#8217;t use Protonmail addresses either, and there&#8217;s not even a John Gibetstan working there.</p>
<p>For now, the PopcornTime.app domain remains available but 1API&#8217;s 48-hour window hasn&#8217;t expired yet. We reached out to 1API requesting additional details and comment on the issue but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. </p>
<p>All in all the whole episode shows that it&#8217;s surprisingly easy for malicious actors to fool some domain registrars, at least initially. Who the fake complainant is and why he or she wants Popcorn Time offline, remains a mystery. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182119
title: Mystery as PortalRoms Disappears Leaving 4 Million Gaming Visitors in the Dark
uri: Mystery-as-PortalRoms-Disappears-Leaving-4-Million-Gaming-Visitors-in
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/hQtiPXMxmCc/
content:
<p><a href="media/4031e02f.portalroms.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms.png"><img src="media/4031e02f.portalroms.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms.png" alt="" width="270" height="140" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182120" /></a>In Internet &#8216;piracy&#8217; years, PortalRoms.com is pretty old domain, having first appeared as a very basic ROM download site way back in 2004, possibly even earlier.</p>
<p>Over the years it has undergone various transformations and possibly ownership changes too. Its now-dormant Twitter account was created back in 2010 but behind the scenes and after fairly slow initial growth, the last decade saw the site grow negligible traffic to become a decent-sized ROM, retro, and emulator player.</p>
<p><Center><a href="media/4c28414f.portalroms-games.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms-games.png"><img src="media/4c28414f.portalroms-games.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms-games.png" alt="" width="650" height="601" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182126" /></a></center></p>
<p>Up until just a few days ago, users of PortalRoms &#8211; who between them have been generating around four million visits per month &#8211; were able to download ROMs covering everything from arcade games to Dreamcast to Nintendo Switch. Rather than store this content on restrictive file-hosting platforms, PortalRoms created torrents instead, a rare move for a site of this type.</p>
<p>Right from the very beginning, PortalRoms operated from PortalRoms.com. However, for reasons that are not clear, last September or October the site made a surprise switch to the Swiss-based PortalRoms.ch domain. As data from SimilarWeb shows, most traffic managed to transfer to the new domain, with little to no disruption.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/3fb12476.portalroms-traffic.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms-traffic.png"><img src="media/3fb12476.portalroms-traffic.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/portalroms-traffic.png" alt="" width="650" height="504" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182125" /></a></center></p>
<p>The same cannot be said of the past few days. With no public announcements to indicate the cause, PortalRoms went dark, leaving millions of users (especially in South America where the site was very popular) without their favorite download portal to fall back on.</p>
<p>When trying to determine the cause of the downtime, the site&#8217;s domain entries aren&#8217;t particularly useful.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak contacted the registrar in control of the .ch domain but the company advised us that the domain is actually controlled by one of their resellers &#8211; 1337 Services LLC. This is the business name of Njalla, the domain company connected to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, a company that strives to give up no useful information on any domain.</p>
<p>It remains possible that PortalRoms is experiencing yet another bout of domain problems but whether they are copyright-related is open to question. Indeed, one of the curious things about PortalRoms.com and PortalRoms.ch is that considering its extensive library and visitor count, anti-piracy groups working for gaming companies like Nintendo or Sony seem to be pretty disinterested.</p>
<p>Google&#8217;s Transparency Report reveals that PortalRoms.com received only 55 complaints targeting 115 URLs when it was in operation. Companies like EA, Rockstar, THQ and Activision got involved but never on any scale. For comparison, the relatively new PortalRoms.ch domain received only four complaints but those contained just over 1,000 URLs. All but a handful were filed by the Entertainment Software Association.</p>
<p>While it remains to be seen whether PortalRoms will ever return, it&#8217;s worth noting that its chosen method of content distribution (torrents, in this case) means that people will still be sharing the ROM and emulator files during the downtime. Indeed, a basic search for &#8216;portalroms&#8217; on various meta-search engines reveals many active torrents with the phrase &#8220;visit www.PORTALROMS.ch for more games _.url&#8221; in their file lists.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182182
title: Movie & TV Show Database Bombards Google With Bizarre Takedown Notices
uri: Movie-TV-Show-Database-Bombards-Google-With-Bizarre-Takedown-Notices
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/j2JoQqajPew/
content:
<p><a href="media/2b933165.allocine-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/allocine-logo.png"><img src="media/2b933165.allocine-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/allocine-logo.png" alt="" width="270" height="171" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182184" /></a>First launched in 1993, France-based company AlloCiné aims to support the entertainment industries by providing information on movies and TV shows.</p>
<p>The company operates a portal located at <a href="http://allocine.fr">Allocine.fr</a> where users can research movies, TV series, actors and view a wide range of additional information such as release dates, for example. While less well-known than iMDb, for example, Allocine.fr is a huge draw with more than 46 million visits per month.</p>
<p>During December 2019 and for reasons that remain unclear, a new wave of DMCA takedown notices began appearing on Google&#8217;s Transparency Report, reportedly sent by AlloCiné and targeting a broad range of sites. All told and from a standing start, the company appears to have requested the removal of more than 6,300 URLs from third-party sites, claiming that they infringe AlloCiné&#8217;s rights.</p>
<p><Center><a href="media/a4c5ee92.allocine-grab.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/allocine-grab.png"><img src="media/a4c5ee92.allocine-grab.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/allocine-grab.png" alt="" width="650" height="336" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182208" /></a></center></p>
<p>Determining whether that&#8217;s actually the case is not easy since the notices submitted to Google don&#8217;t include links where original content can be found. The <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19734729?access_token=8gxfmL890cGSkMgU86eSSw">first notice</a>, dated December 16, 2019, seems to target sites that give the impression of being streaming portals. They bear no close resemblance to AlloCiné and Google eventually rejected every single request.</p>
<p>This pattern largely continues across many copyright claims targeting thousands of URLs but then even more glaring errors start to appear.</p>
<p>While similar to those that preceded it, <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19753598?access_token=DgIqB1PrfgJv13TWSatQRA">this notice</a> asks Google to delete a page on rival entertainment database JustWatch featuring Game of Thrones. It also demands that a link to a Rotten Tomatoes page <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_mandalorian/s01/e06">detailing The Mandalorian</a> is deleted, just one of many targeting the site in the days that followed.</p>
<p>For reasons unknown, <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19765990?access_token=xFsc1LSDqIvhO2KhgSir_w">this notice</a> targets the History Channel while <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19766478?access_token=Q5AAH3fCyUR9DOJ0Syl2Hg">another</a> attempts to delist a Harley Quinn <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/harley-quinn-streaming-watch-online-animated-dc-universe-netfljx-tv-series-1474648">article</a> published by Newsweek.</p>
<p>With Google refusing to take action for almost all URLs thus far, <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19776647?access_token=6I6iBqgrDg5_YgCScf7R9g">another notice</a> persists by demanding the takedown of an <a href="https://www.canalplus.com/series/asylum-city-saison-1-episode-1/h/12782890_50076">information page</a> relating to the TV series Asylum City published on the CanalPlus website. Another <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19775547?access_token=Jo7G-2Qox0tA82SVqhn_9Q">targets</a> pages on both <a href="https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-imagineering-story/season-1/episode-3-episode-04">MetaCritic</a> and <a href="https://decider.com/2019/11/13/the-imagineering-story-disney-plus-stream-it-or-skip-it/">Decider</a> after they covered the Disney show The Imagineers.</p>
<p>Things only go down from here, with <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19777097?access_token=rnagF0AehI5zt7vKkeqeeg">another notice</a> targeting four more Rotten Tomatoes URLs, one belonging to Hulu, plus one owned by Paramount Network. Just a day later, <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19773198?access_token=juYjrCZlc3I3QHc3FAWYSg">another notice</a> swooped back for another bite at Hulu (it is targeted in several notices) plus an attack on the site <a href="https://www.allseries.co.uk/">AllSeries.co.uk</a>. While this might sound like a TV show platform, it is in fact a BMW-focused sales and repairs company in the UK.</p>
<p>Sadly, subsequent notices don&#8217;t offer any improvement, with one <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19808001?access_token=R6KL4BVSS3MXc3yTqXaSGQ">in particular</a> standing out after targeting news site Le Parisien for <a href="http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/series/la-saison-2-de-you-disponible-sur-netflix-pourquoi-le-heros-psychopathe-fascine-les-fans-26-12-2019-8224542.php">writing</a> about Netflix, Wired.com for <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/netflix-the-witcher-season-2/">reporting</a> on The Witcher, and Vulture for <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/the-mandalorian-recap-chapter-7-the-reckoning.html">recapping</a> The Mandalorian.</p>
<p>Quite what AlloCiné is trying to achieve here isn&#8217;t clear but the very same notice also targets the New York Times, Netflix, KickStarter, IGN, Express.co.uk, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, Wikipedia and &#8211; for good measure &#8211; AlloCiné&#8217;s <a href="http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19583048&#038;cserie=23515.html">very own domain</a>.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak&#8217;s request for comment from AlloCiné remains unanswered.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182110
title: Internet Provider RCN Asks Court to Dismiss Piracy Liability Lawsuit
uri: Internet-Provider-RCN-Asks-Court-to-Dismiss-Piracy-Liability-Lawsuit
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/lhxmv6bPq_o/
content:
<p><img src="media/841a9105.rcnlogo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rcnlogo.png" alt="" width="259" height="142" class="alignright size-full wp-image-176585" />Last summer several major music companies <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/music-companies-sue-internet-provider-rcn-for-enabling-massive-piracy-190828/">filed a lawsuit against Internet provider RCN</a>. Helped by the RIAA,  they argued that the ISP turned a blind eye to pirating subscribers.</p>
<p>The lawsuit is in many regards similar to the ones against other ISPs, such as Cox, Grande, and Charter, which were all accused of failing to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.</p>
<p>According to the labels, RCN knew that some of its subscribers were frequently distributing copyrighted material, but failed to take any meaningful action in response. To compensate for this alleged inaction the music companies demand damages. </p>
<p>Last month we saw that the stakes are high in these cases. Following a two week trial, Cox was found guilty with the jury awarding a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-is-liable-for-pirating-subscribers-hit-with-1-billion-damages-verdict-191220/">billion dollars in damages</a>. This is something RCN wants to avoid. </p>
<p>Fighting back, the company submitted a motion to dismiss the lawsuit at the New Jersey federal court this week. </p>
<p>RCN starts by pointing out that the music companies don&#8217;t accuse it of hosting any infringing material. Nor do they argue that the ISP promoted its service to illegally share content. </p>
<p>&#8220;Instead, the thrust of Plaintiffs’ case is that RCN is secondarily liable because it did not terminate the internet access of subscribers accused of copyright infringement,&#8221; RCN writes. </p>
<p>The use of the term &#8220;accused&#8221; is important here. These accusations come from third-party outfit Rightscorp which sent huge amounts of infringement notifications bundled with settlement requests. </p>
<p>According to RCN, Rightscorp used the threat of legal action to extract settlements from subscribers. With this business model, more notices would generally result in more revenue.  </p>
<p>&#8220;This means that Rightscorp is incentivized to send huge volumes of infringement accusations, without regard to the amount or frequency of any actual copyright infringement,&#8221; the ISP notes.</p>
<p>The music companies don&#8217;t claim that they used Rightscorp&#8217;s services themselves. Instead, RCN believes that the rightsholders acquired Rightscorp’s data after the fact, to pursue legal campaigns against ISPs.</p>
<p>In any case, the ISP has very little faith in the accuracy of Rightscorp&#8217;s piracy notifications and clearly disregards them as credible evidence.</p>
<p>&#8220;No reasonable ISP would accept Rightscorp’s copyright infringement allegations as credible, much less actionable. Rightscorp does not provide any evidence whatsoever demonstrating that a given internet user possessed or shared the copyrighted content in question,&#8221; RCN writes. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/87d0ebec.rcnright.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rcnright.jpg" alt="" width="544" height="159" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182129" /></center></p>
<p>Continuing its motion, RCN explains step by step why the music companies&#8217; claims don&#8217;t hold up, starting with the accusation of contributory infringement.</p>
<p>Liability for contributory infringement can only take place if an ISP is aware of direct copyright infringements and actively encourages or induces this activity. That&#8217;s not the case, according to RCN, as Rightcorp&#8217;s notices are not evidence of direct infringement.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rightscorp’s conclusory email allegations cannot confer knowledge of copyright infringement because they are unsupported and unverifiable,&#8221; RCN writes. </p>
<p>The ISP also emphasizes that Rightcorp&#8217;s notices are not DMCA compliant. They don&#8217;t provide sufficient information to disable or remove infringing content, nor do they properly identify the works, as there is no mention of copyright registration numbers.</p>
<p>In addition, RCN points out that its Internet service has substantial non-infringing uses, adding that the music companies failed to show that the ISP promoted or contributed to any infringing uses of its network.</p>
<p>&#8220;Plaintiffs only allege that RCN provided the alleged direct infringers with internet access. This is far too attenuated from the infringing conduct to constitute material contribution,&#8221; RCN adds.</p>
<p>The claim of liability for vicarious copyright infringement also falls flat, RCN argues. The ISP says doesn&#8217;t profit from any of the alleged infringing activity nor does it have the ability to control it. </p>
<p>Finally, the music companies&#8217; claim of liability for direct infringement can&#8217;t be proven either, simply because there&#8217;s no hard evidence that any RCN subscribers engaged in piracy.</p>
<p>&#8220;Taking Plaintiffs’ allegations as true, they cannot show that any infringing content was unlawfully obtained over RCN’s network, or that any user of RCN’s engaged in conduct directly infringing Plaintiffs’ distribution rights,&#8221; RCN notes. </p>
<p>According to the ISP, the music companies failed to state a proper claim so it, therefore, asks the court to dismiss the complaint. </p>
<p>The music companies still have the option to reply to RCN&#8217;s arguments after which the court will rule on the matter.</p>
<p>In related cases, other ISPs have submitted similar motions, with some being more successful than others. Grande managed to have the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/judge-issues-mixed-order-in-riaas-piracy-case-against-isp-grande-180306/">vicarious infringement</a> claim dropped, for example, but Cox&#8217;s attempt to do the same failed.</p>
<p><em>&#8230;</p>
<p>A copy of RCN&#8217;s motion to dismiss the music companies&#8217; complaint is <a href="media/ac44a967.RCNdismiss.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/RCNdismiss.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181527
title: Rivendell Has Now Sent Half a Billion DMCA Takedown Requests to Google
uri: Rivendell-Has-Now-Sent-Half-a-Billion-DMCA-Takedown-Requests-to-Google
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/nTA69GpTnCY/
content:
<p><a href="media/627a165d.rivendell.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell.png"><img src="media/627a165d.rivendell.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell.png" alt="" width="270" height="186" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182103" /></a>DMCA notices or their equivalents can be filed against websites, hosts, ISPs and other services almost anywhere in the world, with the majority of entities taking some action in response.</p>
<p>At Google, for example, the company receives DMCA notices requesting that allegedly-infringing URLs are delisted from search results and at this company alone, the scale is astonishing. At the time of writing, Google has processed requests to remove 4.43 billion URLs from its indexes across 2.77 million domains. These were filed by more than 196,100 copyright holders and 186,100 reporting organizations, which includes anti-piracy groups.</p>
<p>This week, one of those anti-piracy groups reached a historic milestone. French anti-piracy group <a href="http://www.rivendell.biz/">Rivendell</a> sent its 500 millionth URL delisting request to Google, breaking the half-a-billion barrier for a single reporting entity for the first time.</p>
<p><Center><a href="media/e24454af.rivendell-500m.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell-500m.png"><img src="media/e24454af.rivendell-500m.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell-500m.png" alt="" width="650" height="404" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182113" /></a></center></p>
<p>Hervé Lemaire is the owner of Rivendell&#8217;s sister company LeakID, a company he formed in 2006 after he left EMI/Virgin as Head of Digital. Speaking with TorrentFreak this week, he explained that Rivendell was launched in 2013 with a key focus to prevent unlicensed content appearing in Google&#8217;s indexes.</p>
<p>Lemaire didn&#8217;t provide specific details on Rivendell&#8217;s top clients but a cursory view of Google&#8217;s report shows many familiar names from the world of entertainment, including what recently appears to be a strong focus on sports content owned by the Premier League and Italy&#8217;s Serie A.</p>
<p>In common with all anti-piracy companies, Rivendell isn&#8217;t keen to give away its secrets. Lemaire did confirm however that patroling Google&#8217;s indexes is only part of the puzzle and that scanning piracy platforms to identify infringing material quickly plays a big part.</p>
<p>When it comes to dealing with Google itself, Lemaire bucks the trend by complimenting (rather than criticizing) the company for its anti-piracy work.</p>
<p>&#8220;We work closely with the Google team and we are very happy with them,&#8221; he told TF. &#8220;They are very cooperative and when we have a problem with a link we always have an answer and a solution from them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Google doesn&#8217;t impose any reporting limits on Rivendell either, with Lemaire noting that all Google wants is to work with &#8220;serious companies doing a serious job.&#8221;</p>
<p>While the sending of more than half-a-billion URL reports is certainly remarkable, it&#8217;s worth breaking down what type of action was taken in response to them. The image below shows what action Google took, with just under three-quarters of URL requests resulting in immediate removal.</p>
<p><Center><a href="media/050fe446.rivendell-breakdown.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell-breakdown.png"><img src="media/050fe446.rivendell-breakdown.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/rivendell-breakdown.png" alt="" width="650" height="375" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182116" /></a></center></p>
<p>That raises the question of why 25% of Rivendell&#8217;s URL reports failed to result in content being removed.</p>
<p>The red category &#8211; almost 20% &#8211; indicates content that didn&#8217;t actually exist in Google&#8217;s indexes at the time it was detected by Rivendell. The company suggests that because it acts so quickly, it can detect content before it appears in Google&#8217;s results.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you search the links only on Google, you have nothing to do with the protection of content,&#8221; Lemaire says.</p>
<p>&#8220;We do not expect Google to show us the pirated links [immediately]. To be effective we must go to where content is found before it appears on the search engine, especially for live content.&#8221;</p>
<p>This type of proactive takedown isn&#8217;t a problem for Google. As <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-blocks-pirated-search-results-prophylactically-180103/">previously revealed</a>, the company is happy to receive the URLs for content it hasn&#8217;t yet indexed for action when they do eventually appear.</p>
<p>&#8220;We accept notices for URLs that are not even in our index in the first place. That way, we can collect information even about pages and domains we have not yet crawled,” Google copyright counsel Caleb Donaldson previously explained.</p>
<p>&#8220;We process these URLs as we do the others. Once one of these not-in-index URLs is approved for takedown, we prophylactically block it from appearing in our Search results.&#8221;</p>
<p>Lemaire also has straightforward explanations for the other categories too. Requests labeled as &#8216;duplicate&#8217; by Google have already been targeted by other anti-piracy companies while the 1% marked &#8220;No Action&#8221; can be the result of several issues including a lack of evidence, a homepage delisting request, hidden content, or even a &#8216;fake&#8217; pirate website.</p>
<p>The big question, however, is whether all of these delisting efforts actually have any serious impact on the volumes of pirated content being consumed. Lemaire is clear: &#8220;It works.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;For live events like football we were the first to work on removing links before, during and after matches. This is why several European leagues trust us in particular on this subject,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;In general, the removal of illegal links allows legal offers to occupy the top places in search results. There are still improvements to be made regarding the pagerank of illegal sites, however.&#8221;</p>
<p>Lemaire is brief when questioned on what measures are taken to avoid erroneous takedowns, stating that all domains are validated before they are notified to Google. Finally, he also appears to recognize the resourcefulness of his adversaries but says that countering them is enjoyable.</p>
<p>&#8220;Pirates are not stupid and are constantly finding new solutions. It&#8217;s up to us to work to outsmart them .. we love it,&#8221; he concludes.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182131
title: Swedish Court Issues ‘Dynamic’ Pirate Bay Blocking Order
uri: Swedish-Court-Issues-Dynamic-Pirate-Bay-Blocking-Order
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/AaOaTgXZW_8/
content:
<p><img src="media/d4dd039c.thepirate-e1470829181981.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/thepirate-e1470829181981.jpg" alt="" width="220" height="206" class="alignright size-full wp-image-116122" />In recent years, Swedish movie outfits and Hollywood studios, including Disney, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros, have been working hard to get local ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>The first success came a few years ago when a blocking order was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-must-be-blocked-in-sweden-court-of-appeal-rules-170213/">issued against</a> local Internet provider Bredbandsbolaget. This was later followed by an interim order <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/court-orders-swedish-isp-telia-to-block-the-pirate-bay-181016/">against Telia</a>, Sweden’s largest ISP, which was struck down on appeal and sent back to the lower court.</p>
<p>During the second try of the case movie companies again requested a blocking order against The Pirate Bay, as well as three other sites, Dreamfilm, FMovies, and NyaFilmer.</p>
<p>Last month this case was decided in favor of the rightsholders, with the court not only issuing a blocking injunction but also one that can be extended </p>
<p>The Swedish Patent and Market Court ordered Telia to block access to the four pirate sites to prevent these from facilitating further copyright infringement. In addition, the rightsholders are also allowed to add new domain names and IP-addresses going forward.</p>
<p>The movie companies requested this expansion option since blocking orders are often circumvented through new domains and proxy sites. Telia objected to the request for such a &#8220;dynamic&#8221; blocking order, but the court sided with the copyright holders. </p>
<p>&#8220;It is clear that the services change domain names and URLs and that this is a quick, easy and inexpensive way to bypass the effect of a blocking procedure,&#8221; the court writes.  </p>
<p>&#8220;A blocking injunction should, therefore, in order to effectively serve the rights holders&#8217; interest in preventing infringements, not merely target specified domain names and URLs,&#8221; the order adds.</p>
<p>This effectively means that Telia must update its blocklist when it&#8217;s made aware of changes. Any new URLs and IP-addresses have to provide access to any of the four pirate sites, including The Pirate Bay.</p>
<p>Telia also objected to the general blocking order and questioned whether the rightsholders had shown any proof of infringement. However, the court refuted these arguments and stressed that, under EU law, ISP can be ordered to stop pirating subscribers. </p>
<p>The case resulted in a clash between several rights that are defined in the <a href="media/20ba63ef.text_en.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf">Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union</a>. In this instance, the property rights of the movie companies weigh stronger than Telia&#8217;s right to entrepreneurial freedom. </p>
<p>Hans Eriksson, Senior Associate at the law firm  <a href="https://www.westerberg.com/">Westerberg &#038; Partners</a>, highlighted the case at <a href="http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-swedish-patent-and-market-court.html">IPKat</a>, believes that dynamic injunctions, which can be updated regularly, will become more and more common.</p>
<p>&#8220;Dynamic injunctions like this one are likely to be the future for blocking injunctions in Europe,&#8221; Eriksson tells TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>The Market Court&#8217;s injunction is valid for three years. If Telia fails to properly implement the blockades, it risks a penalty of 500,000 Swedish Krona (€47,500). Telia is not happy with the outcome, however, and has already filed an appeal.</p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of the Patent and Market Court&#8217;s order, in Swedish, is <a href="media/94277a0e.Stockholms-TR-PMT-7262-18-Dom-2019-12-09-1.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Stockholms-TR-PMT-7262-18-Dom-2019-12-09-1.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182145
title: Russia’s Anti-Piracy Deal to Delete Content From Search Engines Extended Until 2021
uri: Russia-s-Anti-Piracy-Deal-to-Delete-Content-From-Search-Engines-Exte
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Bru9NVmTBiw/
content:
<p><a href="media/2d238d92.searchman.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/searchman.jpg"><img src="media/2d238d92.searchman.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/searchman.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="156" class="alignright size-full wp-image-135409" /></a>When leading content companies and distributors plus Yandex, Rambler Group, Mail.Ru Group, vKontakte, and RuTube <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/landmark-anti-piracy-database-agreement-signed-in-moscow-181101/">signed up</a> to a landmark anti-piracy memorandum in 2018, new ground was broken in Russia.</p>
<p>Assisted by the creation of a centralized database of allegedly-infringing content, Internet platforms agreed to voluntarily query the resource in near real-time before deleting content from their search indexes. The plan was to make pirated content harder for users to find and within months, hundreds of thousands of links were being purged.</p>
<p>The end-game was to have the terms of the agreement written into local law but as some expected, things didn&#8217;t run entirely to plan. Early October 2019, with the memorandum a year old, it effectively <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/russia-anti-piracy-agreement-expires-now-relies-on-goodwill-of-search-engines-191002/">timed out</a>. Negotiations ensued and a short extension was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/landmark-russian-anti-piracy-agreement-extended-until-end-october-191007/">agreed</a> but a deadline of end October came and went without a draft being presented to parliament.</p>
<p>With another deadline missed, an automatic extension to end December 2019 came into play but it&#8217;s now clear that the plan to formalize the agreement in law is still a very long way off.</p>
<p>During a meeting at the Media and Communications Union, the industry association formed by the largest media companies and telecom industry players, the parties &#8211; with assistance from telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor &#8211; have now agreed to another extension. The voluntary agreement will now continue for at least another year, the clearest indication yet that this isn&#8217;t a straightforward matter.</p>
<p>According to industry sources cited by Vedomosti (<a href="https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/articles/2020/01/23/821337-piratskie-ssilki-iz-poiska">paywall</a>), the decision not to push ahead now towards legislation was taken jointly by the signatories and Roscomnadzor.</p>
<p>While many specifics aren&#8217;t being made public, sources indicate that the mechanism for resolving disputes between the copyright holders and Internet platforms has proven complex. Another area of disagreement centers around demands from rightsholders and content companies to have sites delisted on a permanent basis, if they are repeatedly flagged as offering links to infringing content.</p>
<p>Another key issue is that under the current system there is a clear bias towards video content and the largest copyright holders, while others have to take a back seat or are left out altogether. It will take a considerable period of time to overcome these hurdles, a situation that isn&#8217;t helped by a reported lack of time in the State Duma to deal with the legislation.</p>
<p>As a result, the memorandum will now be extended to the end of January 2021, to allow the parties and the government to come up with a credible framework before writing it into law.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181990
title: Indonesia Faces Call for US Trade Sanctions over Online Piracy
uri: Indonesia-Faces-Call-for-US-Trade-Sanctions-over-Online-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/g_uNo-qOpHs/
content:
<p><img src="media/6be42d6e.sam.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/sam.png" alt="" width="277" height="142" class="alignright size-full wp-image-171871" />Indonesia has been very active on the anti-piracy front in recent months, with the government ordering Internet providers to block hundreds of pirate sites. </p>
<p>Despite these enforcement efforts, several high profile US entertainment industry groups see room for improvement in the Asian country.</p>
<p>The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPA, RIAA, and ESA, made this clear in a recent submission to the US Trade Representative.</p>
<p>IIPA advises the U.S. government to suspend Indonesia’s GSP trade benefits if the country fails to do more to protect the interests of US copyright holders. With many millions of dollars at stake, this is a serious threat.</p>
<p>In their submission, IIPA acknowledges that the Indonesian government has recently taken &#8220;significant strides&#8221; to combat piracy. However, it also adds that &#8220;more should be done.&#8221;</p>
<p>The group notes that the movie and music industries &#8220;worked&#8221; with the government to block hundreds of websites. This resulted in some success stories, such as the recent decision by pirate site <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/new-pirate-sites-line-u-190120/">IndoXXI to voluntarily shut down</a>. </p>
<p>However, blockades are not always effective. In many cases, the initial drops in traffic that occur after a blockade are undone when sites move to new domain names.</p>
<p>&#8220;[T]hese drops in traffic are intermittent as most well-known piracy sites employ a strategy of domain hopping—redirecting domains to circumvent the results of site-blocking efforts,&#8221; IIPA writes.</p>
<p>The Indonesian government has already responded to this by blocking new domains as well, but IIPA sees room for improvement on this front.</p>
<p>&#8220;The government should streamline the process for rights holders to ensure access to infringing sites is disabled and to deal efficiently with the problem of domain hopping,&#8221; the group writes.</p>
<p>These demands are clear but it remains odd to see calls for these types of drastic measures from US companies that have yet to take any action to block a single pirate site in the US itself. </p>
<p>IIPA&#8217;s demands don&#8217;t end there either &#8211; the copyright holders have more suggestions. For example, Indonesia should prioritize enforcement efforts against illegal camcording in theaters as well as live streaming piracy.</p>
<p>&#8220;The government should issue clear guidelines and regulations on illegal camcording and live streaming piracy, and take the initiative to reduce instances of these illegal activities as a priority,&#8221; IIPA writes.</p>
<p>In addition, piracy apps and the distribution points for piracy-enabling set-top boxes should be dealt with as well.</p>
<p>&#8220;IIPA encourages the Indonesian Government to take steps to crack down on piracy apps and on device retailers who preload the devices with apps that facilitate infringement, and take action against key distribution points for devices that are being used illegally.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><img src="media/1049b494.enforce.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/enforce.jpg" alt="" width="559" height="224" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182198" /></center></p>
<p>This is just a small selection of the demands which also include a repeal of certain copyright exceptions and an extension of the copyright term to the life of the author plus 70 years.</p>
<p>According to IIPA, Indonesia was on the right track but in 2019 progress stalled and even regressed. The organization hopes that by listing a wide variety of improvement opportunities, perhaps with a nudge from the US government, progress can continue. </p>
<p>If the US Government doesn&#8217;t see any improvement, it should suspend (some of) the existing trade benefits for the country, the rightsholder groups conclude.</p>
<p>&#8220;If, at the conclusion of the review, the Government of Indonesia has not made adequate progress remedying the deficiencies outlined above, IIPA requests that the Committee suspend or withdraw Indonesia’s GSP benefits, in whole or in part,&#8221; IIPA writes.</p>
<p>This type of pressure is not new. In 2017 the US Government sanctioned Ukraine following a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/ukraine-faces-call-us-trade-sanctions-over-online-piracy-170918/">similar referral from the IIPA</a>. This triggered a wave of copyright-related actions in the country, with President Trump deciding to lift the sanctions <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-ukraine-thailand/trump-reinstates-duty-free-trade-for-some-ukrainian-goods-suspends-it-for-some-thai-goods-idUSKBN1X42K2">a few months ago</a>.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>IIPA’s full submission to the US Trade Representative is <a href="media/6bb7aeb0.IIPA_Indonesia_GSP_Review_Written_Comments.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/IIPA_Indonesia_GSP_Review_Written_Comments.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182277
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 01/27/20
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-on-BitTorrent-01-27-20
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/VCeesjcriu0/
content:
<p><img src="media/ffc9830f.terminfd.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/terminfd.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="187" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181969" />This week we have three newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Terminator: Dark Fate is the most downloaded movie.</p>
<p>The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.</p>
<p><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.</p>
<h5>This week&#8217;s most downloaded movies are:</h5>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Movie Rank</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>Rank <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-on-bittorrent-01-20-20/">last week</a></strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie name</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">Most downloaded movies via torrents</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">Terminator: Dark Fate</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxy8udgWRmo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/joker-torrent-downloads/">Joker</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">Doctor Sleep</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOzFZxB-8cw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">1917</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjQROMAh_s">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">Maleficent: Mistress of Evil</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1f8yNxGBk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134216/">Playing With Fire</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134216/">4.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd5GlZUpfaM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/">Dark Waters</a> (screener)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvQUIt0BWcU">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">Frozen 2</a> (DVDScr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwzLiQZDw2I">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(10)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">Once Upon a Time &#8230; in Hollywood</a></td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">7.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeMaP8EPAA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4916630/">Just Mercy</a> (DVDScr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4916630/">7.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVQbeG5yW78">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182228
title: South Korea Requests Interpol Red Notice to Track Down Pirate Site Operator
uri: South-Korea-Requests-Interpol-Red-Notice-to-Track-Down-Pirate-Site-Ope
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Hu-3wnZLj4Q/
content:
<p><a href="media/0b012175.RedNoticeEnLR-e1580115893856.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/RedNoticeEnLR-e1580115893856.jpg"><img src="media/0b012175.RedNoticeEnLR-e1580115893856.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/RedNoticeEnLR-e1580115893856.jpg" alt="" width="260" height="390" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182248" /></a>For the very first time in a copyright infringement case, South Korea&#8217;s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in conjunction with the National Police Agency has requested a so-called Interpol Red Notice.</p>
<p>Red Notices detail people who are wanted internationally for serious crimes, typically murder, rape, child abuse or armed robbery, according to Interpol. However, South Korean authorities state that since serious copyright infringers can be jailed for significant periods, those with an arrest warrant filed against them can now be pursued internationally.</p>
<p>&#8220;Previously, it was not possible to investigate copyright infringers residing abroad, so the investigation would have to be temporarily suspended and only the information notified to immigration,&#8221; the Ministry says.</p>
<p>&#8220;But now, with a long period of two years in prison or in jail, a copyright infringer with an arrest warrant has been redeemed with the cooperation of the International Criminal Police Agency (Interpol) to arrest the wanted person and lead him to the country.&#8221;</p>
<p>The name of the suspect hasn&#8217;t been released publicly but the Ministry of Culture states that they want their Interpol partners to apprehend the operator of a torrent site (simply referred to as &#8216;torrent&#8212;&#8216;) that offered around 455,000 titles illegally and generated around 15 million visits per month. The only other detail is that the person is Australian and residing overseas.</p>
<p>In its announcement, the Ministry of Culture revealed recent progress in its battle against large scale copyright infringers who allegedly distribute copyright works using overseas servers. After <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/south-korea-promises-new-crackdown-on-pirate-sites-190113/">closing 25 sites in 2018</a>, police say they arrested nine site operators in 2019, arrested a further six, and closed 20 illicit platforms.</p>
<p>Those arrested include three detained for distributing 5,000 comic works and 20,000 pornography titles on sites utilizing overseas servers, plus two who &#8220;earned advertising revenues&#8221; by posting 100,000 comic works on foreign sites.</p>
<p>In parallel, the Korea Communications Commission and the Korea Copyright Protection Office under the Ministry of Arts and Culture have been working closely to improve the country&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/south-korea-expands-site-blocking-efforts-with-sni-eavesdropping-190214/">site-blocking mechanism</a>. In common with other regions around the world, alternative domains, proxies and mirrors that quickly spring up after domains are blocked have been receiving special attention.</p>
<p>As part of the overall crackdown, the National Police Agency is reportedly investigating gambling sites that place banner advertising on &#8216;pirate&#8217; platforms while encouraging international cooperation against infringement, including strengthening ties with service providers and copyright authorities, plus Google. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182239
title: YTS ‘Settles’ Another Movie Piracy Lawsuit, While More Users Get Sued
uri: YTS-Settles-Another-Movie-Piracy-Lawsuit-While-More-Users-Get-S
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/cSsE4PD5IVY/
content:
<p><img src="media/832daf69.hellboy.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/hellboy.jpg" alt="" width="259" height="194" class="alignright size-full wp-image-174903" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/hellboy.jpg 259w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/hellboy-200x150.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px" />With millions of users, torrent site YTS is one of the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2020-200105/">largest pirate sites</a> on the Internet. </p>
<p>The site is a thorn in the side of many filmmakers, several of which dragged the site&#8217;s operator to US courts last year. </p>
<p>These types of lawsuits have proven to be lethal in the past, but not for YTS. We previously reported that YTS <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-site-yts-settles-piracy-lawsuit-with-movie-company-but-stays-online-200102/">settled its dispute</a> with movie outfit Wicked Nevada, and late last week it reached a similar agreement with HB Productions, the makers of the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2274648/">Hellboy</a>.</p>
<p>A new filing submitted at a federal court in Hawaii shows that both parties agreed to a stipulated consent judgment. The order, signed by US District Court Judge Alan Kay, effectively ends the lawsuit. </p>
<p>Senthil Vijay Segaran, the suspected operator of YTS, denies liability but confirms that he is the ‘John Doe’ described in the complaint and admits that people used YTS to share pirated content.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant SENTHIL VIJAY SEGARAN denies liability but acknowledges that he is Defendant JOHN DOE dba YTS identified in the original complaint and concedes that one or more third parties uploaded the torrent file of Plaintiff’s motion picture to his website YTS.LT,&#8221; it reads.</p>
<p>The agreement also comes at a high price for the operator. Similar to the previous settlement, Segaran agrees to pay $150,000 to compensate for the damages suffered by the makers of Hellboy. </p>
<p>In addition, the consent judgment includes a permanent injunction. This prevents YTS’s operator from distributing and/or promoting torrent files that point to the Hellboy film. Thus far this is indeed the case, as YTS.lt no longer lists the movie.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/32adb0fe.ytsconsent.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ytsconsent.jpg" alt="" width="518" height="258" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182246" /></center></p>
<p>It is quite unusual for a movie company to resolve a lawsuit against a torrent site in this manner. Like the previous settlement, this case was handled by attorney Kerry Culpepper, who is also behind the one remaining lawsuit against YTS.  </p>
<p>The fact that YTS remains online is good news for millions of YTS users but not all will be pleased. Around the same time that the filmmakers and YTS resolved their differences, new copyright infringement lawsuits were filed against YTS users. </p>
<p>These cases partly rely on information that appears to have been obtained from the YTS user database. For example, a lawsuit filed against Hawaii resident Puakailima Davis last week states the following;</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant, from Internet Protocol (&#8216;IP&#8217;) address 72.130.57.100, used a registered account associated with the email address “<em>redactedbyTF</em>@gmail.com” to access torrent files from YTS. </p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant went to torrent sites including the website YTS to upload and download Plaintiffs’ copyrighted Works,&#8221; the complaints later adds.</p>
<p>The complaint further mentions at what times the defendant &#8220;logged into her email address,&#8221; although it&#8217;s not clear whether that refers to the website login or that of the email provider.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/movie-companies-sue-yts-users-including-one-who-hid-behind-a-vpn-200106/">mentioned previously</a>, an email address itself is not hard evidence. People who register an account with YTS don’t have to confirm their email, so anyone can sign up with a random address, including those of other people.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not stated how all the referenced information was obtained, which leaves us with little more than speculation.</p>
<p>A possible scenario is that the YTS operator gave up the user information as part of the negotiations. This would not be unprecedented, as the developer of the app <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-app-cotomovies-shuts-down-apologizes-and-exposes-users-190911/">CotoMovies shared</a> similar information with the film companies in the past.</p>
<p>TorrentFreak contacted Kerry Culpepper, the attorney in charge, but he informed us that he couldn&#8217;t comment on the matter at this time. </p>
<p>YTS.lt, meanwhile, remains online.</p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the stipulated consent judgment between HB Productions and Senthil Vijay Segaran, which is <a href="media/b02dac84.Doc-51.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Doc-51.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>. Two new complaints against alleged YTS users are available <a href="media/78e98e61.YTSuser.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/YTSuser.pdf">here (pdf)</a> and <a href="media/5794604f.YTSuser2.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/YTSuser2.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182233
title: BitTorrent Owner Accused of Profiting From Movie Piracy
uri: BitTorrent-Owner-Accused-of-Profiting-From-Movie-Piracy
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/t4mcPFXfcTQ/
content:
<p><a href="media/6a8c9ebb.tron-bittorrent.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/tron-bittorrent.png"><img src="media/6a8c9ebb.tron-bittorrent.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/tron-bittorrent.png" alt="" width="270" height="237" class="alignright size-full wp-image-159222" /></a>In 2018, Justin Sun&#8217;s Rainberry Inc. <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-sells-to-tron-cryptocurrency-founder-justin-sun-180612/">successfully acquired</a> BitTorrent Inc. </p>
<p>While the name Rainberry is rarely used in public, company brands such as BitTorrent, TRON, and TRX are more easily recognized by the public, with controversy rarely far behind. </p>
<p>Developments related to these various brands are usually followed closely by the cryptocurrency press, mainly due to Sun&#8217;s voluminous tweets that tend to focus on crypto matters, rather than the file-sharing activities of the uTorrent owner. </p>
<p>This was also the case yesterday when sites including <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/former-employees-sue-justin-sun-and-tron-foundation-alleging-workplace-hostilities">Coindesk</a> began reporting on an employment law dispute that was quietly filed last October by a pair of former Rainberry Inc. employees. However, this development also has an interesting copyright angle that hasn&#8217;t been explained in detail.</p>
<p>Richard Hall worked as a product manager at the company while Lukasz Juraszek was employed as an engineer, at least before they were dismissed. Their 70-page lawsuit is a trip through many serious allegations, including racism, threats, the witnessing of physical violence, and a number of closely related matters.</p>
<p>However, concerns over Rainberry&#8217;s exposure to copyright infringement issues appear to lie at the root of the legal action.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendant Justin Sun and his hand-picked mainland Chinese-born subordinates were engaged in illegal piracy of copyrighted materials for defendant Rainberry Inc., in order to make a profit from the illegal piracy of those materials, as well as other illegal and unscrupulous activities,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.</p>
<p>Both Hall and Juraszek characterize themselves as &#8220;whistleblowers&#8221; who were subjected to a campaign of harassment after they raised concerns over activity at the company. The lawsuit claims that their employment at Rainberry was terminated following their &#8220;outright refusal to engage in criminal violation of state and national statutes concerning piracy of intellectual property&#8221;, including Hollywood first-run films.</p>
<p>Hall claims he was assigned by the company to work as Senior Director of Product Management on the emerging file-sharing product known publicly as <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-to-fork-ipfs-to-create-decentralized-storage-system-190531/">BitTorrent File System (BTFS)</a>. He says he raised concerns with his superiors that depending on the architecture and implementation of caching and delivery algorithms, users of BTFS might be monetarily rewarded (via crypto tokens, such as BTT) for &#8220;unknowingly storing and distributing inappropriate content&#8221; and/or copyright-infringing material.</p>
<p>These complaints, Hall suggests, resulted in him being demoted in a manner that prevented him from overseeing the BTFS product. Nevertheless, he says he sought out proposals from two law firms specializing in copyright law to provide estimates for a legal review of what Rainberry and TRON were preparing to do, specifically for BTFS and another product called BTFS Movie or BT Movie (the lawsuit uses both).</p>
<p>However, the lawsuit claims that following discussion with Justin Sun, it was determined that no legal review would be carried out. According to Hall, he advised that the &#8216;Movie&#8217; product should be renamed, so that outsiders wouldn&#8217;t be given the impression that the company was encouraging the illegal sharing of movies on the BTFS network.</p>
<p>Shortly after, his employment was terminated on the basis that he was &#8220;not a fit&#8221; for the company, Hall claims.</p>
<p>&#8220;[I]t become clear that Richard Hall was terminated because he raised legitimate legal concerns about the actual or potential for BTFS and associated BTFS Movie projects to be engaged in illegal activity and pirating of copyrighted materials that Justin Sun did not want to have investigated because it would delay the launch and reveal the illegal and nefarious activities in which the company was engaged,&#8221; the lawsuit reads.</p>
<p>In July 2019, Lukasz Juraszek reports that he realized that BTFS was no longer a &#8220;demo app&#8221;. As a result he began to step up his concerns over the application because the company had no control over the content being posted on BTFS &#8220;which at the time was entirely hosted on TRON&#8217;s infrastructure.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to him, the Movie app was then &#8220;handed off&#8221; to Rainberry&#8217;s &#8220;Mainland China&#8221; office for implementation &#8220;by end of July 2019.&#8221;</p>
<p>In August 2019, Juraszek says he again raised concerns that illegal content could be downloaded from BTFS, that he was uncomfortable working on the project, and that attorneys should be consulted before further work was done on BT Movie. He later carried out his own investigations by accessing the TRON &#8220;BT Movie&#8221; website to check if illegal content could be found.</p>
<p>According to him, he found a Chinese-subtitled version of The Lion King (which was still in cinemas) along with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Hobbs &#038; Shaw, Avengers: Infinity Wars&#8221;, and &#8220;many, many others.&#8221;</p>
<p>On August 20, 2019, following what appears to be several strained interactions with management on a variety of topics, Juraszek was reportedly dismissed for &#8220;sharing company information&#8221; with a third-party.</p>
<p>How the lawsuit will progress from here is unclear but the former Rainberry employees are demanding $15 million in damages. For his part, Justin Sun is mounting a vigorous defense, demanding that the complaint is dismissed in its entirety and the plaintiffs paying his costs.</p>
<p>The complaint can be found <a href="media/9e12daff.main.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/main.pdf">here</a> with answers from Justin Sun and co-defendant Cong Li <a href="media/83eaa3bc.1-1.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/1-1.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/090cff34.2.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2.pdf">here</a> (all pdf)</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=181556
title: YouTube Rippers Battle RIAA in Takedown Whack-a-Mole
uri: YouTube-Rippers-Battle-RIAA-in-Takedown-Whack-a-Mole
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/IMAmIfpMsEM/
content:
<p><img src="media/72389cbc.sadyoutube.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/sadyoutube.jpg" alt="" width="275" height="196" class="alignright size-full wp-image-117196" />Late last year the RIAA started targeting several YouTube rippers and downloaders by sending relatively <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/riaa-delists-youtube-rippers-from-google-using-rare-anti-circumvention-notices-191108/">rare takedown requests</a> to Google.</p>
<p>Instead of the usual DMCA copyright notices, the music group asked the search engine to remove various URLs for alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.</p>
<p>The sites in question circumvent YouTube’s rolling cipher, which is a technical protection measure that protects audio and video from being copied without permission, the RIAA argued. As such, they should be removed from Google&#8217;s search results.</p>
<p>This takedown strategy appeared to be quite effective. After taking down the many links to FLVTO, 2Conv, Y2Mate, and Yout, the RIAA expanded its scope to other YouTube rippers. In total, the music group has now targeted thousands of URLs in hundreds of notices.</p>
<p>The upside for the RIAA is that there&#8217;s no standard counter-notice option for these requests. So, even when site owners don&#8217;t agree with the request, they have no option to protest it. Besides going to court, perhaps. </p>
<p>That doesn&#8217;t mean that these operators are sitting idly by while their search traffic is taken away. On the contrary, behind these scenes there&#8217;s a full-blown takedown war going on. Or to phrase it less aggressive: a game of takedown whack-a-mole. </p>
<p>Pretty much all of the large YouTube rippers are continuously updating to new URLs, which are not yet taken down by the RIAA. In most cases, new numbers are simply added to the URL. This ensures that their websites continue to show up in Google&#8217;s search results. </p>
<p>Take Flvto.biz, for example. People who access the site today will notice that the English homepage redirects to Flvto.biz/en44. However, just a few days ago it used Flvto.biz/en42, and in between, it was accessible through Flvto.biz/en43. </p>
<p>The site keeps updating its URLs to remain visible in Google&#8217;s search results. This is indeed needed, as the RIAA continues to send <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19960670?access_token=45A6eHpn2EzThZkxDICaUQ">takedown notices</a> similar to the one below. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/9c05c1b5.flvto-1.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/flvto-1.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="183" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182339" /></center></p>
<p>Many other sites are using the same strategy, which is obvious from new homepages such as 2conv.com/en25, mpgun.com/lang-2en/convert, y2mate.com/en4, ytmp3.cc/en10, savefrom.net/3, and listenvid.com/us4.</p>
<p>The listenvid.com/us4 URL, which is still active at the time of writing, will likely update soon, as the RIAA <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/notices/19977788?access_token=M2qPoU5iasoDgTQDKDnfyw">removed it from Google&#8217;s search results just a few hours ago</a>, as can be seen here; </p>
<p><center><img src="media/8ac41f6c.listenvid.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/listenvid.jpg" alt="" width="550" height="245" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182330" /></center></p>
<p>The above clearly shows that many YouTube rippers are not backing down but the RIAA is showing no signs of stopping either. After it started a few months ago, the group&#8217;s efforts have only increased. Yesterday alone the RIAA submitted over a dozen notices targeting hundreds of URLs. </p>
<p>The result is a game of whack-a-mole that can potentially continue for years. Unless one side gives up of course.</p>
<p>None of the YouTube rippers we contacted responded to our request for comment. From what we can see, their traffic doesn&#8217;t appear to be impacted much. Some have seen a drop in traffic recently, but others witnessed an uptick at the same time. In any case, all the major sites are still findable in Google&#8217;s search results.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182236
title: Promoting Pirate Apps Lands US Phone Store in Court, Again
uri: Promoting-Pirate-Apps-Lands-US-Phone-Store-in-Court-Again
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Wza4FfEdMXA/
content:
<p><img src="media/c37f3efa.vic9.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/vic9.png" alt="" width="271" height="93" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182348" />Millions of people around the world use pirate apps on their mobile devices to stream TV-shows and movies.</p>
<p>In recent years copyright holders have tried to tackle the problem, both in and outside of court. </p>
<p>Hawaiian attorney Kerry Culpepper has been particularly active on the legal front. Representing several affiliated movie companies, he has gone after users, site operators and developers connected to YTS, Popcorn Time, Showbox, and Cotomovies. </p>
<p>In a new lawsuit, filed at a Hawaiian federal court, Culpepper addresses another element of the piracy distribution chain. Representing Hunter Killer Productions, the attorney has filed a complaint against the phone store chain <a href="https://victra.com/">Victra</a>. </p>
<p>The movie company accuses AKA Wireless and ABC Phones, who do business as Victra, of inducing and contributing to copyright infringement. Specifically, the complaint alleges that Victra employees promoted the piracy apps Popcorn Time and Showbox to customers.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants’ employees explained to their customers how to use the movie piracy apps installed onto the customers’ devices to infringe copyright protected content while the customers were at VICTRA stores.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants promoted the movie piracy apps to their customers to entice them to purchase particular products and thereby increase their profit,&#8221; Hunter Killer Productions claims.</p>
<p>The movie company mentions two instances where a Victra employee promoted a pirate app in store. This happened in Verizon-branded stores in El Paso, Texas, and Kahului, Hawaii. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/52117fad.victra2.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/victra2.jpg" alt="" width="607" height="355" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182383" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/victra2.jpg 607w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/victra2-220x130.jpg 220w" sizes="(max-width: 607px) 100vw, 607px" /></center></p>
<p>The complaint is supported by a declaration from a customer who was caught pirating. He mentions that an employee named Sabrina installed “Popcorn Time” on a tablet he bought. She also explained how to use it to watch free movies, without mentioning that it&#8217;s a piracy app.</p>
<p>&#8220;Sabrina never informed me that Popcorn Time was illegal. Because Sabrina worked for VICTRA, I assumed that Popcorn Time was a legitimate platform for watching Copyright protected content like Netflix and was part of the promotion,&#8221; the customer writes.</p>
<p>As mentioned in the complaint, this is not the first time that Victra has been made aware of this issue. Two years ago, the phone store chain was sued by <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/phone-store-employee-sued-for-promoting-pirate-app-showbox-180523/">two other movie companies</a>, which accused it (and its employee) of doing pretty much the same. </p>
<p>That case, which mentions the same alleged offense by an employee of the Kahului store, was eventually dismissed after a settlement was reached. The details of this agreement were not made public. </p>
<p>According to Hunter Killer Productions, Victra profited from the actions of its employees as they led to an increase in sales. The employees are not listed as defendants, but the movie company is holding the phone store liable.</p>
<p>&#8220;The intentional inducement and contributory infringement occurred within the scope of their employment,&#8221; the movie company writes, adding that Victra is therefore liable for these actions.</p>
<p>Hunter Killer Productions requests either actual damages or statutory damages, to compensate its claimed losses. However, considering the legal track record of the movie company, it is likely that this case will eventually be settled for an undisclosed amount. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of the complaint filed by Hunter Killer Productions against Victra is <a href="media/2cb0512f.vic-22-main.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/vic-22-main.pdf">available here (pdf)</a>.<br />
</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182372
title: Kim Dotcom Domain Dispute Settled, Next Up: Supreme Court Extradition Ruling
uri: Kim-Dotcom-Domain-Dispute-Settled-Next-Up-Supreme-Court-Extradition
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dvVBX1TpNFw/
content:
<p><a href="media/f3fda91c.kim-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kim-logo.png"><img src="media/f3fda91c.kim-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/kim-logo.png" alt="" width="270" height="132" class="alignright size-full wp-image-181588" /></a>Kim Dotcom’s under-development file-sharing/crypto project K.im had problems recently when its main K.im domain fell into third-party hands.</p>
<p>As previously <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcoms-k-im-domain-goes-up-for-sale-displays-google-seo-rant-200112/">reported</a>, communication issues with the registry led to the domain expiring and it was quickly snapped up by Kalin Karakehayov, an expired domain specialist.</p>
<p>Dotcom informed TF that the project&#8217;s lawyers filed a complaint with the domain registrar in the hope that the domain would be returned. Indeed, following a review process completed around two weeks ago, the .IM registry determined that since the registration by Karakehayov had been abusive, the domain should be <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-wins-back-k-im-domain-after-dispute-100k-sell-back-attempt-200116/">transferred back</a> to the K.im project.</p>
<p>On the day the decision was handed down, Karakehayov told TF that he intended to appeal. However, just two weeks later it now appears that peace has broken out.</p>
<p>&#8220;After getting to know the people behind k.im, we have agreed to a small, cost-covering settlement to save mutual legal expenses and downtime of their project,&#8221; Karakehayov told us via email.</p>
<p>&#8220;They were very fair in its implementation that due to time constraints was based on pure trust from both sides. We&#8217;re on good terms and I wish all the best for their project.&#8221;</p>
<p>With the domain now apparently back in the hands of the K.im project, TorrentFreak caught up with Kim Dotcom who informs us that he didn&#8217;t personally speak to Karakehayov but the end result is welcome.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are happy to have the domain back,&#8221; he says. &#8220;We are aiming to release K.im this year and I’m confident that millions of users will love it. We are changing how commerce is done on the Internet for the benefit of all. You can expect some whining from the established monopolies.&#8221;</p>
<p>While Dotcom is pleased that this latest roadblock has been overcome, the New Zealand-based entrepreneur has bigger issues to deal with. Specifically, a Supreme Court judgment that will decide whether he and his former Megaupload colleagues will be extradited to the United States to face copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering charges &#8211; not to mention the possibility of decades in prison.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court hearing <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-begins-final-supreme-court-battle-to-avoid-us-extradition-190610/">took place in June 2019</a> after several lower courts had determined that Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann, Bram van der Kolk, and Finn Batato can be sent to the United States to face justice. The defendants are hoping that the Supreme Court will decide to the contrary.</p>
<p>Dotcom informs TorrentFreak that he doesn&#8217;t have a date for the judgment but he&#8217;s nevertheless looking forward to &#8220;dissecting the judgment with the best legal minds.&#8221; That being said, he isn&#8217;t optimistic that the decision will go in his favor.</p>
<p>&#8220;I expect a 3:2 majority in favor of extradition because three of the five judges were appointed by the National Party and the former Attorney General who was responsible for the actions taken against me in New Zealand. This is a political case and it will most likely be a political judgment,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;The law in New Zealand couldn’t be more favorable for me so the judgment will probably be a hack of the law for the history books.&#8221;</p>
<p>While another adverse ruling would represent a significant setback for Dotcom, he maintains that the battle against extradition is far from over.</p>
<p>&#8220;The process doesn’t end with this judgment (unless I win) and Crown Law suggested at the start of the hearing that we could be fighting for another seven years until any finality is achieved,&#8221; he concludes.</p>
<p>If that timeline of events plays out, it will have been 15 years since the shuttering of Megaupload and the raid on Dotcom, his twins born in 2012 will be almost ready to leave school, and at least two US presidents will have come and gone.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182418
title: President Trump Signs USMCA Trade Deal that ‘Exports’ US Copyright Policy
uri: President-Trump-Signs-USMCA-Trade-Deal-that-Exports-US-Copyright
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/9YaOKj1JnWQ/
content:
<p><img src="media/eae84aa1.copyright-branded.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-branded.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="164" class="alignright size-full wp-image-56211" />Last month the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed off on a new trade deal, which replaced the quarter-century old the NAFTA agreement.</p>
<p>The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will accommodate changes in trade that the three countries have witnessed over the years, especially online.</p>
<p>After the US Senate passed the legislation earlier this month, President Trump has now <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2020/january/ambassador-lighthizer-delivers-remarks-usmca-signing">signed the new text into law</a>. Replacing NAFTA with a better deal was one of the President&#8217;s election promises, which is now fulfilled. </p>
<p>The USMCA covers a wide range of trade topics including copyright and anti-piracy enforcement. On the copyright side, the deal doesn&#8217;t bring much change to US law. However, the new deal does require Mexico and Canada to revise some of their policies. </p>
<p>For example, USMCA requires all countries to have a copyright term that continues for at least 70 years after the creator&#8217;s death, which is already the case in the US.</p>
<p>For Canada, however, this means that the country’s current copyright term must be extended by 20 years. This won&#8217;t happen instantly, as the country has negotiated a transition period to consult the public on how to best meet this requirement. In the long term, an extension seems inevitable though. </p>
<p>Another controversial subject that was widely debated by experts and stakeholders is the DMCA-style ‘safe harbor’ text. In the US and under certain conditions, ISPs are shielded from copyright infringement liability under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and the new deal expands this security to Mexico and Canada.</p>
<p>This safe harbor expansion is welcomed by many large technology companies including Internet providers and hosting platforms. However, many major entertainment industry companies and rightsholder groups are not happy, as they are trying to get rid of these broad safe harbor policies. </p>
<p>The Directors Guild of America previously said it was &#8220;deeply disappointed&#8221; that the new USMCA deal will export the &#8220;flawed and outdated United States policy&#8221; that allows online services to &#8220;shirk responsibility for copyright violations.&#8221;</p>
<p>Last year the House Judiciary Committee also <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/house-judiciary-committee-doesnt-want-dmca-style-safe-harbor-in-trade-agreements-190921/">urged the US Trade Representative</a> not to include any safe harbor language in trade deals while the Copyright Office is reviewing the effectiveness of the DMCA law, but without result. </p>
<p>That said, the USMCA&#8217;s safe-harbor language also comes with obligations for online services. The agreement specifically mentions that ISPs must take down pirated content and implement a repeat infringer policy if they want to apply for safe harbor protection. This is largely modeled after the DMCA law.</p>
<p>The safe harbors for copyright infringement and the takedown requirements don&#8217;t apply to Canada as long as it continues to rely on its current notice-and-notice scheme. However, the country will enjoy safe harbors for other objectionable content, modeled after section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act.</p>
<p>Despite criticism from many copyright holder groups, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) is happy that the new trade agreement is now law.</p>
<p>&#8220;USMCA will help facilitate the growth of the legal digital market for creative content while addressing the multi-billion dollar threat of online piracy,&#8221; MPA&#8217;s CEO Charles Rivkin comments.</p>
<p>While Trump has signed the USMCA into law, Mexico and Canada have yet to follow. Canada started this process yesterday when Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland<br />
introduced the <a href="https://www.parl.ca/LegisInfo/BillDetails.aspx?Language=E&#038;billId=10615191">USMCA implementation bill</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182363
title: Instagram Uses DMCA Complaint to Protect Users’ “Copyrighted Works”
uri: Instagram-Uses-DMCA-Complaint-to-Protect-Users-Copyrighted-Works
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/CgxkBj8GmD8/
content:
<p><a href="media/1777560b.instagram-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/instagram-logo.png"><img src="media/1777560b.instagram-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/instagram-logo.png" alt="" width="239" height="235" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182429" /></a>DMCA notices are sent in their millions every single week, mainly to restrict access to copyright-infringing content. These notices usually target the infringing content itself or links to the same, but there are other options too.</p>
<p>The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA allow companies that own or provide access to copyrighted works to target tools and systems that facilitate access to that content in an unauthorized manner. Recent examples can be found in the war currently <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-rippers-battle-riaa-in-takedown-whack-a-mole-200128/">being waged by the RIAA</a> against various YouTube-ripping sites, which provide illicit access to copyright works, according to the industry group.</p>
<p>This week Facebook-owned Instagram entered the arena when it filed a DMCA notice against code <a href="https://github.com/mgp25">repository</a> Github. It targeted Instagram-API, an independent Instagram API created by a Spain-based developer known as &#8216;<a href="https://mgp25.com/">mgp25</a>&#8216;. Instagram claims that at least in part, the notice was filed to prevent unauthorized access to its users&#8217; posts, which can contain copyrighted works.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Company maintains technological measures to control access to and protect Instagram users’ posts, which are copyrighted works. This notice relates to GitHub users offering, providing, and/or trafficking in technologies, products, and/or services primarily designed to circumvent the Company’s technological measures,&#8221; the complaint begins.</p>
<p>According to Instagram, Instagram-API is code that was designed to emulate the official Instagram mobile app, allowing users to send and receive data, including copyrighted content, through Instagram&#8217;s private API. It&#8217;s a description that is broadly confirmed by the tool&#8217;s creator.</p>
<p>&#8220;The API is more or less like a replica of the mobile app. Basically, the API mimics the requests Instagram does, so if you want to check someone&#8217;s profile, the mobile app uses a certain request, so through basic analysis we can emulate that request and be able to get the profile info too. The same happens with other functionalities,&#8221; mgp25 informs TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>While Instagram clearly views the tool as a problem, mgp25 says that it was originally created to solve one.</p>
<p>&#8220;Back in the day I wasn’t able to use Instagram on my phone, and I wanted something to upload photos and communicate with my friends. That’s why I made the API in the first place,&#8221; he explains.</p>
<p>There are no claims from Instagram that Instagram-API was developed using any of its copyrighted code. Indeed, the tool&#8217;s developer says that it was the product of reverse-engineering, something he believes should be protected in today&#8217;s online privacy minefield.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think reverse engineering should be exempt from the DMCA and should be legal. By reverse engineering we can verify whether apps are violating user privacy, stealing data, backdooring your device or <a href="https://objective-see.com/blog/blog_0x52.html">doing even worse things</a>,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>&#8220;Without reverse engineering we wouldn’t know whether the software was a government spy tool. Reverse engineering should be a right every user should have, not only to provide interoperability functionalities but to assure their privacy rights are not being violated.&#8221;</p>
<p>While many would consider that to be a reasonable statement, Instagram isn&#8217;t happy with the broad abilities of Instagram-API. In addition to the above-mentioned features, it also enables access to &#8220;Instagram users&#8217; copyrighted works in manners that exceed the scope of access and functionality that would be permitted by a user with a legitimate, authorized Instagram account,&#8221; the company adds.</p>
<p>After the filing of the <a href="https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/c8188d357f4b98a5b9749a3805e13e4d8d12f3b0">complaint</a>, it took a couple of days for Github to delete the project but it is now well and truly down. The same is true for more than 1,500 forks of Instagram-API that were all wiped out after their URLs were detailed in the same complaint.</p>
<p>Regardless of how mgp25 feels about the takedown, the matter will now come to a close. The developer says he has no idea how far Instagram and Facebook are prepared to go in order to neutralize his software so he won&#8217;t be filing a counter-notice to find out.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182464
title: YouTube Copyright Strike Took Down Livestream Before it Even Started
uri: YouTube-Copyright-Strike-Took-Down-Livestream-Before-it-Even-Started
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/QHu6k0jPycI/
content:
<p><img src="media/72389cbc.sadyoutube.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/sadyoutube.jpg" alt="" width="275" height="196" class="alignright size-full wp-image-117196" />To protect copyright holders, YouTube uses advanced tools that flag and disable videos which are used without permission.</p>
<p>In addition to this Content-ID system, copyright holders can also submit manual takedown notices to remove infringing content. </p>
<p>Both routes have led to abuse in the past, resulting in takedowns of perfectly legitimate videos. This is particularly worrying for channel owners, as these allegations can potentially lead to multiple copyright strikes after which YouTube removes the entire account. </p>
<p>Over the years we have covered takedown mishaps in great detail. However, this week we learned something new. As it turns out, copyright holders also have the ability to remove content that doesn&#8217;t exist yet. A preemptive copyright strike, so to speak.</p>
<p>This unusual takedown strategy was revealed by <a href="https://twitter.com/MattBinder">Matt Binder</a>, a reporter at Mashable who hosts a podcast named DOOMED, which is also live-streamed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder">through YouTube</a>. </p>
<p>Earlier this month, Binder scheduled a show discussing CNN&#8217;s Democratic candidates&#8217; debate with progressive activist Jordan Uhl. The show was recorded after the broadcast and in preparation Binder scheduled the podcast&#8217;s livestream on YouTube, with “post-Democratic debate” in the title.</p>
<p>Many creators use this scheduling feature to announce their upcoming live streams. What&#8217;s new, however, is that Binder&#8217;s scheduled stream was removed before it even started. In other words, the content was deemed to be infringing before it existed. </p>
<p>Binder <a href="https://mashable.com/article/youtube-livestream-bogus-copyright-strike-warner-bros-cnn/?europe=true">documented</a> the unusual episode on Mashable where he also reveals that the takedown notice was issued on behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which owns CNN.</p>
<p>&#8220;The notice informed me that I had received a copyright strike for my scheduled stream,&#8221; Binder writes, noting that YouTube immediately restricted his ability to stream content live.</p>
<p>&#8220;That one copyright strike was enough to disable livestreaming on my channel for the strike&#8217;s three-month duration. If I were to accumulate three strikes, YouTube would just shut down my channel completely, removing all of my content,&#8221; Binder adds.</p>
<p>Apparently, Warner Bros. and CNN were monitoring streams that could potentially infringe on their right to broadcast the Democratic candidate&#8217;s debate. Based on the title alone, they mistakenly concluded that Binder&#8217;s stream was going to be illegal, which it clearly wasn&#8217;t. </p>
<p>To correct the mistake Binder protested the takedown notice, hoping that it would be swiftly reversed. However, his first request was denied because it was unclear if he had a valid reason to file a counter-notification.</p>
<p>As a reporter, Binder followed up the story and reached out directly to YouTube, informing the company that he planned to write about the issue. That worked, as the mistake was soon corrected and the copyright strike disappeared as well. </p>
<p>One has to wonder, however, if the average Joe would be able to achieve the same result. In any case, it seems off that copyright holders can claim copyright infringement on content that has yet to be created. </p>
<p>We previously reported that Google search allows rightsholders to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-blocks-pirated-search-results-prophylactically-180103/">remove infringing URLs that are not yet indexed</a> by the search engine. Binder&#8217;s case is similar but goes a step further as the allegedly infringing content didn&#8217;t exist when the stream was taken down.</p>
<p>YouTube constantly has to balance the interests of its users and those of copyright holders. It&#8217;s likely that the option to preemptively strike live streams is used to make it easier to take down scheduled broadcasts of sports games or other time-sensitive major broadcasts. </p>
<p>While this preemptive takedown option may be useful, Binder&#8217;s example shows that these powers can also lead to overblocking, which can seriously hurt legitimate content creators.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182460
title: DISH Demands $9.9m in Damages From Pirate IPTV Provider
uri: DISH-Demands-9-9m-in-Damages-From-Pirate-IPTV-Provider
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/uAn9Rm38rtA/
content:
<p><a href="media/a7c0897c.iptv.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iptv.jpg"><img src="media/a7c0897c.iptv.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iptv.jpg" alt="" width="234" height="155" class="alignright size-full wp-image-135034" /></a>There are thousands of businesses and individuals involved in the supply and sale of &#8216;pirate&#8217; IPTV services around the globe. </p>
<p>These subscription packages routinely grant access to hundreds and even thousands of otherwise premium channels for a cheap price, undermining the business models of content providers and broadcasters alike. This has resulted in both criminal and civil action across several continents with broadcaster DISH Network leading the charge in the US.</p>
<p>Just one of the company&#8217;s lawsuits, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dish-files-10m-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-against-easybox-iptv-190818/">filed</a> last August in a Texas court, targeted Easybox, an IPTV service that reportedly offered subscribers more than 1,000 channels, including more than two dozen channels exclusively licensed by DISH.</p>
<p>“Defendants capture live broadcast signals of the Protected Channels, transcode these signals into a format useful for streaming over the Internet, transfer the transcoded content to one or more servers provided, controlled, and maintained by Defendants, and then transmit the Protected Channels to Service Users through OTT delivery,&#8221; the DISH complaint alleged.</p>
<p>According to DISH, the company went to great lengths to have Easybox cease its activities in advance of filing the lawsuit, including sending almost 300 copyright infringement notices to the service and its CDN providers, all of which were ignored.</p>
<p><Center><div style="width: 633px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="media/02758c6f.image-108.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/image-108.png" width="623" height="626" class="size-full" /><p class="wp-caption-text">The Easybox IPTV offering</p></div></center></p>
<p>Last September, DISH was <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dish-to-subpoena-google-facebook-paypal-twitter-to-identify-iptv-pirate-operators-190929/">granted</a> permission to subpoena several companies (including PayPal, Google and Namecheap) in order to identify the people behind Easybox. They were eventually named as Hung Tran and Thi Nga Nguyen.</p>
<p>With the individuals mounting no defense, DISH requested a default judgment at the end of December 2019 with a clerk entering a default earlier this month. DISH has now laid out its proposals for a final judgment and permanent injunction.</p>
<p>&#8220;Defendants, without authorization from DISH, transmitted the Protected Channels and the copyrighted works that air on those channels to users of their Easybox set-top boxes, smart IPTV subscriptions, and subscription renewals in the United States. In doing so, Defendants directly infringed DISH’s exclusive rights to distribute and publicly perform the works that air on the Protected Channels,&#8221; the proposed order reads.</p>
<p>Laying out its claim for direct copyright infringement, DISH demands statutory damages of $150,000 for each of 66 registered and copyrighted works owned by DISH and that the defendants &#8220;willfully and maliciously infringed by transmitting without authorization on the Easybox service.&#8221; That&#8217;s a not-insignificant total of $9.9m.</p>
<p>In addition, DISH is demanding a permanent injunction to prevent the defendants or anyone acting in concert with them from streaming, distributing, or publicly performing DISH channels and programming, and/or advertising, selling or providing any service offering the same.</p>
<p>DISH is also requesting an order preventing any company from providing infrastructure to the defendants in respect of Easybox or a similar service. These include data centers, domain companies, domain anonymization services, CDNs, and social media platforms.</p>
<p>The broadcaster further demands that Verisign and any other registries or registrars of the domains Easybox.tv, E900x.com, and k2442.com should render them inaccessible before transferring them to DISH for the company&#8217;s use. Any future domains registered by the defendants for the purposes of infringing DISH&#8217;s rights should be treated similarly, the proposed injunction reads.</p>
<p>The court is yet to sign off on DISH&#8217;s proposals but given the one-way traffic thus far in what has become a busy case generating thousands of pages of documents, a judgment favorable to Easybox seems unlikely.</p>
<p><em>The motion for default judgment and the proposed final judgment and permanent injunction can be found <a href="media/db95dd54.-02994-Dish-Network-v-Easybox-IPTV-Motion-for-Default-200130.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/4-19-cv-02994-Dish-Network-v-Easybox-IPTV-Motion-for-Default-200130.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/ee2a609c.v-Easybox-IPTV-Proposed-final-Judgment-and-Injunction-200130.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/4-19-cv-02994-Dish-Network-v-Easybox-IPTV-Proposed-final-Judgment-and-Injunction-200130.pdf">here</a> (pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182075
title: ‘The US Shouldn’t Sanction South Africa for Copying US-Style Fair Use’
uri: The-US-Shouldn-t-Sanction-South-Africa-for-Copying-US-Style-Fair
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pgEXrl6lzGg/
content:
<p><img src="media/eae84aa1.copyright-branded.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-branded.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="164" class="alignright size-full wp-image-56211" />A few months ago, the office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) started an in-depth inquiry into South Africa’s copyright policies and plans.</p>
<p>The US Government launched this <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/south-africa-faces-us-trade-sanctions-over-online-piracy-191201/">official review</a> following complaints from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). </p>
<p>The coalition of prominent rightsholder groups, including the MPA and RIAA, informed the USTR that they&#8217;re not happy with how South Africa addresses copyright issues. Lacking enforcement of online piracy was prominently mentioned, as well as the country&#8217;s approach towards fair use. </p>
<p>The fair use angle has triggered a wide range of responses from stakeholders who sent their thoughts to the USTR a few days ago. </p>
<p>South Africa plans to introduce a fair use provision into law that is largely based on the US model. According to the IIPA, this is dangerous, as the country can&#8217;t rely on 150 years of existing case law. In addition, the new provisions are even broader than the US variant while they arrive on top of the existing &#8216;fair dealing&#8217; system, the group warns.</p>
<p>The public submissions show that several rightsholders are siding with IIPA, but there&#8217;s also overwhelming pushback from public interest groups, organizations, and legal experts. </p>
<p>Pretty much all critics of the IIPA&#8217;s stance explain that South Africa&#8217;s fair use proposal is largely the same as the US model. The problems signaled by the IIPA are overblown, they argue, adding that South Africans should enjoy the same freedoms as Americans. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s not enough space to highlight all protests, but we will provide a short overview of some of the opposition&#8217;s responses. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://internetassociation.org/">Internet Association</a>, which represents many large technology companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Spotify, strongly urges the USTR to reject the IIPA&#8217;s fair use complaints.</p>
<p>&#8220;South Africa’s fair use measure is modeled on U.S. law and includes a standard four-factor test that strikes an appropriate balance between the interests of authors, creators, and users,&#8221; the Internet Association writes. ​</p>
<p>&#8220;If the U.S. does not stand up for the U.S. copyright framework abroad, then U.S. innovators and exporters will suffer, and other countries will increasingly misuse copyright to limit market entry.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><img src="media/adc06dba.iass.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iass.jpg" alt="" width="582" height="102" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182508" /></center></p>
<p>Wikipedia&#8217;s parent company <a href="https://www.wikimedia.org/">Wikimedia</a> also chimes in. The organization stresses that fair use has allowed US creators and consumers broader access to knowledge. The South African fair use proposal is very similar and by no means a threat, they add.</p>
<p>&#8220;While we respect the need to ensure that copyrighted works are properly protected abroad, the reasonable exceptions and limitations included in the draft amendments to South African copyright law are not going to erode that protection any more than the century-long tradition of fair use has in the United States. </p>
<p>&#8220;[]It makes little sense to prevent South African citizens from the freedoms that have long been held by citizens in our own country,&#8221; Wikimedia notes.</p>
<p>The African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (<a href="https://web.aflia.net/">AfLIA</a>) stresses than many countries have been able to enjoy fair use for decades. Not allowing South Africans the same right is a breach of constitutional rights. </p>
<p>&#8220;A developing country like South Africa, that wants to improve its copyright law by modeling it on the US copyright law and other progressive copyright regimes, should be encouraged and affirmed, not punished for doing so,&#8221; AfLIA writes, urging the USTR to stop its review.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/d4d34cf4.aflia.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/aflia.jpg" alt="" width="522" height="117" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182506" /></center></p>
<p>The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (<a href="https://www.ifla.org/">IFLA</a>) agrees with the other opponents. The group compared the US and South African fair use texts and found &#8220;no substantive differences.&#8221; </p>
<p>Any additional exceptions in the South African proposal follow the model that already exists in US copyright law and can draw on existing jurisprudence, the IFLA adds.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/profile/jaszi/bio">Peter Jaszi</a>, Emeritus Professor of Law at the American University&#8217;s Washington College of Law, sees no roadblocks for the fair use proposal either. </p>
<p>&#8220;It seems anomalous that the creative industries in a country where fair use is a venerable part of the law would object to another nation’s decision to adopt it as part of an effort to promote domestic innovation,&#8221; Jaszi says.</p>
<p>Finally, the South African government is not being swayed by the IIPA&#8217;s concerns either. In its submission, it cites other US businesses, including Google, that support its plans. In addition, South Africa stresses that it has a widely-respected tradition of judicial competence and independence when it comes to intellectual property law.</p>
<p>A complete overview of all the responses, including those in favor of the IIPA, is <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docketBrowser?rpp=25&#038;so=DESC&#038;sb=commentDueDate&#038;po=25&#038;dct=PS&#038;D=USTR-2019-0020">available here</a>. The USTR will take these into account when it makes it final decision on any possible trade sanctions or other recommendations.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182329
title: YTS Lawsuits Offer Clearest Sign Yet That Pirates Shouldn’t Trust Anyone
uri: YTS-Lawsuits-Offer-Clearest-Sign-Yet-That-Pirates-Shouldn-t-Trust-An
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Q7E-bth0iPU/
content:
<p><a href="media/532b37a8.security-breach-lock.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/security-breach-lock.jpg"><img src="media/532b37a8.security-breach-lock.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/security-breach-lock.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="143" class="alignright size-full wp-image-115796" /></a>When mainstream piracy was in its infancy two decades ago, the majority of file-sharers had no idea that they were even at risk from snoopers. Thanks to a massive wave of lawsuits from the RIAA in 2003, that perception soon changed.</p>
<p>Somewhere around 2004, the MPAA embarked on a parallel campaign to drive the message home to pirates that the Internet is not anonymous.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you can think you can get away with illegally swapping movies, you&#8217;re wrong,&#8221; the &#8216;You Can Click But You Can&#8217;t Hide&#8217; posters read. &#8220;Illegally trafficking in movies is not just a dirty little secret between you and your computer. You leave a trail.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><a href="media/7c24edd4.clickbutcant.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/clickbutcant.jpg"><img src="media/7c24edd4.clickbutcant.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/clickbutcant.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="799" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182360" /></a></center></p>
<p>The MPAA also gave unquestionably good advice: the only way to guarantee that users weren&#8217;t caught for sharing pirated movies was not to share them at all. Of course, millions didn&#8217;t listen and by the time that VPNs really started to take off around 2006/2007, file-sharers were laughing into their keyboards.</p>
<p>The biggest threat back then (as it is now) was sharing torrents without protection. Torrents are public and any rightsholder can monitor them before filing a lawsuit for damages. But by 2009 or so, when streaming sites had already embedded themselves as the next big thing, a whole new click-and-play generation had become complacent again, lulled to sleep by the perceived security offered by third-party hosting sources.</p>
<p>Today, millions of people are streaming content via apps and so-called Kodi boxes, mostly with zero protection. The idea, if people even consider it, is that &#8216;pirate&#8217; sites can&#8217;t or won&#8217;t give up their information. That is a dangerous assumption.</p>
<p>As recently documented here on TF, there is a worrying situation <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/movie-companies-sue-yts-users-including-one-who-hid-behind-a-vpn-200106/">playing out on YTS</a>, one of the Internet&#8217;s most popular torrent indexes. Taking all the facts at hand and adding in some educated guesses, it seems that after being subjected to massive legal pressure, the owner of that torrent resource may be handing information on some of its users to movie companies. </p>
<p>To many file-sharers, that might seem an outrageous proposition but when faced with multiple six-digit claims for damages, no one should expect anything different. Once the identity of the site&#8217;s operator became known to the movie company plaintiffs, the pressure seems to have increased to the point that skin-saving might now be the order of the day. That seems to have been the case at <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-app-cotomovies-shuts-down-apologizes-and-exposes-users-190911/">Cotomovies as well</a>.</p>
<p>The thing is, if a torrent site or app developer can be pressured in this way, so can any other site holding potentially incriminating user data. There can be little doubt that many file-hosting and streaming platforms carry detailed logs and if the proverbial hits the fan, they could be handed over. Even some so-called debrid download sites, that appear to offer enhanced security, state that they carry download logs for up to a year.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that if users are expecting pirate sites (or even gray area sites like the now-defunct Openload) not to store their personal information or carry download and upload logs, they are effectively banking on a third-party&#8217;s security and their determination not to buckle under the most severe pressure imaginable.</p>
<p>In 2020 and after almost two decades of aggressive litigation, it&#8217;s perhaps surprising that anyone is taking such things for granted. But people do. They use their regular email addresses to sign up for questionable services, access all kinds of pirate sites without using a VPN, use their personal PayPal accounts for payments and donations, and generally fail to take seriously what could be a very expensive exercise in complacency.</p>
<p>As an example, just last week a user on Reddit reported that a copyright troll in the US had tracked him down with evidence that he&#8217;d shared 20 movies. To put that into settlement terms (to make a lawsuit go away) that could mean paying out $20,000, $40,000 or even $60,000 &#8211; a potentially life-changing or indeed life-ruining sum.</p>
<p>A decade-and-a-half ago the MPAA&#8217;s &#8220;Click But Can&#8217;t Hide&#8221; campaign declared that the Internet is not anonymous. It was accurate (at least by default) but many people continue to believe that security isn&#8217;t important. The truth is, the Internet is getting less anonymous every single year and rightsholders know how to exploit that.</p>
<p>Like the apparent YTS fiasco, expect more preventable &#8216;surprises&#8217; in the months and years to come.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182366
title: Record Labels Will Ask Potential Piracy Trial Jurors if They Read TorrentFreak
uri: Record-Labels-Will-Ask-Potential-Piracy-Trial-Jurors-if-They-Read-Torr
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/fQSvDaHgyig/
content:
<p><img src="media/2e9758f5.tfjus.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/tfjus.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="233" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182406" />Some of the world&#8217;s largest music companies have taken several ISPs to court, accusing them of not doing enough to curb piracy.</p>
<p>This legal campaign, which is supported by the RIAA, resulted in a massive windfall for the copyright holders last month. </p>
<p>Following a two week trial, Cox was found guilty by a jury that awarded <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-is-liable-for-pirating-subscribers-hit-with-1-billion-damages-verdict-191220/">a billion dollars</a> in damages. Soon after this win, the music companies shifted their focus to the next battle, the upcoming trial against ISP Grande Communications.</p>
<p>Similar to the Cox case, the music companies, including Capitol Records, Warner Bros, and Sony Music, argue that the Internet provider willingly <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/riaa-sues-isp-grande-communications-for-failing-to-disconnect-pirates-170422/">turned a blind eye to pirating customers</a>. As such, it should be held accountable for copyright infringements allegedly committed by its users.</p>
<p>Grande will start the trial at a severe disadvantage. The court previously <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/isp-grande-loses-safe-harbor-over-utter-failure-to-terminate-pirating-customers-190318/">granted summary judgment</a> in favor of the record labels, ruling that the ISP will go to trial without a safe harbor defense. This means that it can be held secondarily liable for the pirating activity of its users. </p>
<p>This week both parties submitted their <em>&#8216;voir dire&#8217;</em> questions for potential trial jurors. The jury consists of members of the public, but the legal teams from both sides are allowed to ask questions during the selection process, to ensure that jurors are unbiased. </p>
<p>The music companies, for example, will ask whether potential jurors or people close to them, ever worked for Grande Communications. That makes sense. The same is true for the question that asks whether they have any negative opinions of record labels.</p>
<p>While browsing through the 40 questions for the jurors, we also noticed that the labels are interested in anyone reading this article right now. Apparently, being a reader of TorrentFreak or Ars Technica is something prospective jurors must disclose.</p>
<p>&#8220;Have you ever read or visited Ars Technica or TorrentFreak?&#8221; question 33 reads. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/84a1acef.juryquestions.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/juryquestions.jpg" alt="" width="611" height="223" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182403" /></center></p>
<p>What the labels plan to do with the answers remains a guess. We have covered these and other piracy liability lawsuits in great detail over the years. So, perhaps the labels want to pick our readers, many of whom are legal experts. On the other hand, our news selection and the associated knowledge may also be seen as bias.</p>
<p>Whatever the reason, we&#8217;ll take it as a compliment.  </p>
<p>Reading through the rest of the questions we see more interesting mentions. The labels want to know whether the jurors have ever downloaded anything from torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and RARBG, for example. In addition, they are asked whether they support the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) or if they ever worked for a technology company.</p>
<p>What also stands out is the question that asks prospective jurors if they believe there are &#8220;too many frivolous lawsuits nowadays,&#8221; while asking the candidates to give examples. </p>
<p>The record labels are not the only ones asking questions of course. Grande Communications has also prepared a list, hoping to signal bias or other disqualifying factors. </p>
<p>The ISP asks, for example, if the candidates have ever worked at a record label or in the music industry. The company also asks whether they believe it&#8217;s an ISP’s responsibility to monitor and police online piracy.</p>
<p>Grande doesn&#8217;t ask about TorrentFreak, but it does want to know whether the prospective jurors have ever heard of BitTorrent.</p>
<p>The jury selection for the upcoming trial is scheduled to take place on February 24th and the trial will start a day later. In the coming weeks, both parties will work on their final preparations.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>The record label&#8217;s questions are <a href="media/49d30a03.riaavoirdire.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/riaavoirdire.pdf">available here (pdf)</a> and Grande Communication&#8217;s questions can be found <a href="media/2c1985c4.grandequestions.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/grandequestions.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182380
title: Author Fears That Former Pirate Site Owner is Trying to Bankrupt Him
uri: Author-Fears-That-Former-Pirate-Site-Owner-is-Trying-to-Bankrupt-Him
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/AjmTzjgRiUI/
content:
<p><a href="media/a13a1c0d.bomb-explosion-atomic.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/bomb-explosion-atomic.jpg"><img src="media/a13a1c0d.bomb-explosion-atomic.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/bomb-explosion-atomic.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="157" class="alignright size-full wp-image-123056" /></a>Since the lawsuit was filed in March 2019, we&#8217;ve been keeping a close eye on the battle between author John Van Stry and Travis McCrea, the former operator of eBook download platform, eBook.bike.</p>
<p><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/former-pirate-party-leader-asks-to-be-sued-over-ebook-site-has-wish-granted-190401/">Right from the beginning</a>, it has been an unconventional copyright dispute. Instead of maintaining a low profile, McCrea actually <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/travis-mcrae-sue-me-over-ebook-site-i-want-the-bs-over-done-with-190316/">invited litigation</a>, goading Van Stry and other authors to take him on. McCrea insisted he would prove that what he was doing was entirely legal and eventually Van Stry and his legal team took the bait.</p>
<p>Ten months on and it seems increasingly unlikely that McCrea or Van Stry will come out of this matter in materially better shape than they went in.</p>
<p>If this was being scored as a professional boxing match entering the final rounds, thus far every judge would have Van Stry massively up on points. His legal team has put on a dominating performance and at no juncture has McCrea looked like taking a single round. As a result, Van Stry is now the prohibitive favorite to take the win, at least on paper.</p>
<p>But in this matter, winning rounds is only part of the story. If court documents are to be believed, Van Stry&#8217;s team has put in a massive effort to get this fight won but McCrea hasn&#8217;t put up much of a fight at all, despite calling for the conflict to begin with. In fact, he&#8217;s accused of <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/ebook-piracy-case-plaintiff-vents-frustrations-judge-responds-191201/">obstructing every effort</a> to get the matter settled.</p>
<p>Whether this is the inevitable result of McCrea choosing to defend himself in a complex case isn&#8217;t entirely clear but according to comments made by Van Stry this week, tactics designed to reduce his ability to fight may be at play.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ve followed any of the legal followings, you&#8217;ll know that I was presented with a long list of things for discovery, which really made it seem like Travis was just trying to make my life hard. But I delivered it,&#8221; the author <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/bring-ebookbike-to-justice">wrote</a> on his GoFundMe page, which is raising money towards his litigation.</p>
<p>&#8220;However, Travis has refused to deliver anything. The judge has told him time and time again to produce, but Travis has continually refused. Pretty much he&#8217;s just ignoring everything and everybody. This of course has driven my legal costs way up, but that&#8217;s obviously Travis&#8217; game, to try and bankrupt me or something I guess.&#8221;</p>
<p>While Van Stry is clearly ahead, the costs of coming out on top are mounting. The case to date has cost him $60,000 with less than half of that being covered by donations. That puts the author $30,000 in the red but with the finishing line currently marked with a $90,000 price tag, he could still be $60,000 in the hole at the end.</p>
<p>This personal financial exposure is the result of the case being one of the few on record to feature an individual copyright holder suing a site owner, rather than litigation being carried out by a deep-pocketed corporation. It&#8217;s a point not lost on the author.</p>
<p>&#8220;[P]irates can do what they want of course, because our legal system makes it horrendously expensive for private individuals to go to court and most judges seem to be unaware of these things, possibly because they&#8217;re used to dealing with corporate lawyers who are on a salary. So money isn&#8217;t an issue for anyone in most of their experience,&#8221; he says.</p>
<p>This entire case has been difficult to watch but as the months go by, one has to wonder what any final victory will look like for Van Stry. Importantly, eBook.bike is down and has been for months, so if that was the aim of the litigation the mission has already been accomplished. Obviously an injunction to prevent it from returning would be a useful addition but then what?</p>
<p>If one is obtained in the United States, any judgment would need to be enforced against McCrea in Canada. That&#8217;s not beyond the realms of possibility but given that the former Pirate Party leader has declared he has no assets to speak of, blood and stones come to mind, neither of which can conjure up $60,000. And that&#8217;s ignoring any damages award, which may be considerably less and still might go unpaid.</p>
<p>However, presuming that he had an idea of how much this action would cost going in, it&#8217;s certainly possible that Van Stry considers this a personal mission to do his part to hinder piracy, not just for him, but on behalf of all the other authors that are currently supporting him. And, having come this far, the pressure is probably on to carry this through to the bitter end.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, in piracy mitigation terms, &#8216;hinder&#8217; is the operative word here.</p>
<p>The closure of eBook.bike and/or legal destruction of Travis McCrea won&#8217;t do much to prevent the piracy of Van Stry&#8217;s or his fellow authors&#8217; books on other platforms. And, from a strictly financial perspective, one has to sell an awful lot of books to recover $90,000.</p>
<p>So, to an outsider, this now looks like a battle of ideals, with McCrea&#8217;s &#8216;pirate&#8217; mantra on one hand and Van Stry doggedly pushing back in the opposite direction. Unfortunately and in purely practical terms, it seems increasingly unlikely that either side will benefit financially from this litigation, unless one counts Van Stry&#8217;s legal team in that equation, of course.</p>
<p>Then again, perhaps money isn&#8217;t everything.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182526
title: Cox Asks Court to Overturn or Lower ‘Shockingly Excessive’ $1 Billion Piracy Verdict
uri: Cox-Asks-Court-to-Overturn-or-Lower-Shockingly-Excessive-1-Bill
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/saJj4UWZ1kE/
content:
<p><img src="media/a34c6170.cassettapemusic.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/cassettapemusic.png" alt="" width="276" height="152" class="alignright size-full wp-image-175024" />Last December Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels. </p>
<p>Following a two-week trial, the jury held Cox liable for the copyright infringements of its subscribers, ordering the company to pay <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-is-liable-for-pirating-subscribers-hit-with-1-billion-damages-verdict-191220/">$1 billion in damages</a>. </p>
<p>The verdict sent a shockwave through the industry, not least because several other ISPs are caught up in similar lawsuits. Cox itself is heavily disappointed by the decision and would like the court to overturn the verdict.</p>
<p>Late last week Cox <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-wants-judge-not-jury-to-rule-on-crucial-piracy-liability-questions-191218/">renewed</a> its request for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_as_a_matter_of_law">judgment as a matter of law</a>, asking the court instead of the jury to rule on several piracy liability questions.</p>
<p>According to Cox, the evidence presented did not support the jury’s findings of direct, contributory, or vicarious liability. In addition, the ISP argued that least 8,000 copyrighted works should not have been part of the judgment. </p>
<p>This motion was submitted together with a separate request to lower the damages award. If the court chooses not to grant the judgment as a matter of law, this so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittitur">motion for remittitur</a> will come into play. </p>
<p>Federal courts have the power to lower the awarded damages when the scale of the amount is disproportionate to the evidence or when it results in a miscarriage of justice. According to Cox, that&#8217;s certainly the case here.</p>
<p>&#8220;The $1 billion verdict in this case is a shocking miscarriage of justice. It vastly exceeds any previous statutory damages award under the Copyright Act,&#8221; the ISP writes in its motion for remittitur.</p>
<p>&#8220;It is wholly disproportionate to the evidence of harm to Plaintiffs, benefit to Cox, or any demonstrated need for deterrence, and is unsupportable under the Court’s jury instruction on damages,&#8221; Cox adds.</p>
<p>The ISP points out that the damages award appears to be the largest ever in a copyright case, eight times higher than the previous record. According to Cox, there is no basis for this high amount, especially since Cox is not a direct infringer.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/fd079dc4.coxrem.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/coxrem.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="187" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182547" /></center></p>
<p>In the damages instruction, the jury was asked to take a variety of factors into account. This included the profits Cox earned because of the infringement, a deterrent against future infringement, willfulness, and the need to punish the ISP.</p>
<p>According to Cox, however, the massive damages are in no way justified by these factors and the presented evidence.</p>
<p>&#8220;As applied by the jury, however, [the factors] resulted in an award that bore no relationship to these considerations, and was so grossly excessive as to constitute a miscarriage of justice. </p>
<p>&#8220;Because the extraordinary $1 billion verdict cannot be supported by the factors the jury was instructed to consider or the evidence informing those factors, Cox is entitled to a substantial remittitur or a new trial,&#8221; the ISP states.</p>
<p>Among other things, the ISP stresses that any profits it made from repeat infringers are not exclusively tied to infringing activity. Any reasonable connection to the excessive damages amount is missing.</p>
<p>If the court prefers not to consider lowering the damages amount, the ISP would like to have a retrial to argue its case again and show that an award of $1 billion in damages is shockingly excessive.</p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of Cox&#8217;s renewed request for a judgment as a matter of law is available <a href="media/3c3f5210.coxmatterlaw.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/coxmatterlaw.pdf">here (pdf)</a> and the motion for remittitur can be found <a href="media/901dcbd8.coxremitt.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/coxremitt.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182565
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 02/03/20
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-on-BitTorrent-02-03-20
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/dVp_4TTGmdI/
content:
<p><img src="media/7206058c.fordfer-e1580744430321.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/fordfer-e1580744430321.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="214" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182568" />This week we have two newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Ford v Ferrari is the most downloaded movie.</p>
<p>The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.</p>
<p><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.</p>
<h5>This week&#8217;s most downloaded movies are:</h5>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Movie Rank</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>Rank <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-on-bittorrent-01-27-20/">last week</a></strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie name</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">Most downloaded movies via torrents</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">Ford v Ferrari</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">8.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3h9Z89U9ZA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">Terminator: Dark Fate</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxy8udgWRmo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">Doctor Sleep</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOzFZxB-8cw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/joker-torrent-downloads/">Joker</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/">Uncut Gems</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/">7.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTfJp2Ts9X8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">1917</a> (DVDscr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8579674/">8.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjQROMAh_s">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(8)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">Frozen 2</a> (DVDScr)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4520988/">7.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwzLiQZDw2I">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(9)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">Once Upon a Time &#8230; in Hollywood</a></td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7131622/">7.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeMaP8EPAA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(6)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134216/">Playing With Fire</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9134216/">4.7</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd5GlZUpfaM">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">Maleficent: Mistress of Evil</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4777008/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL1f8yNxGBk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182524
title: Supreme Court Denies Kim Dotcom’s Appeal to Access Illegal Spy Recordings
uri: Supreme-Court-Denies-Kim-Dotcom-s-Appeal-to-Access-Illegal-Spy-Recor
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/FtNM9nARiu8/
content:
<p><a href="media/1cb7b67e.echelon-spy.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/echelon-spy.jpg"><img src="media/1cb7b67e.echelon-spy.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/echelon-spy.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="215" class="alignright size-full wp-image-58301" /></a>In the weeks and months leading up to and beyond the 2012 raid on Kim Dotcom and his former associates, the Megaupload founder was being spied on by the authorities in New Zealand.</p>
<p>Between December 2011 and March 2012, the highly secretive Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spy agency listened in on the private communications of Kim and former wife Mona Dotcom, plus Megaupload co-defendant Bram van der Kolk.</p>
<p>Given the US-instigated investigation into Dotcom and Megaupload, this type of eavesdropping may seem little out of the ordinary. However, GCSB&#8217;s powers are limited by law, including that it may not conduct surveillance on New Zealand citizens or permanent residents. Since Dotcom is a permanent resident, that made the spying illegal.</p>
<p>Ever since the authorities accepted that potential evidence had been illegally obtained, the Megaupload founder has put considerable effort into finding out exactly what was captured by the GCSB. At every turn, however, he has been declined access to the material.</p>
<p>In 2017, for example, the High Court <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-denied-access-to-illegally-obtained-spy-recordings-170720/">rejected</a> Dotcom&#8217;s request, claiming that the release of the intercepted communications would undermine national security. Overall, the ruling added, withholding the information would be in the public interest, even if that was at the expense of Dotcom&#8217;s rights.</p>
<p>Predictably, Dotcom refused to back down, immediately taking the matter to the Court of Appeal. Unfortunately for him, the result was the same.</p>
<p>While accepting that the intercepted communications are &#8220;relevant&#8221; and could be &#8220;put to use&#8221;, in a 2019 ruling the Court <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/court-of-appeal-denies-kim-dotcom-access-to-illegal-spy-recordings-101129/">determined</a> that Dotcom&#8217;s right to access the information was outweighed by national security concerns.</p>
<p>With the Supreme Court the only avenue left for Dotcom, an appeal was subsequently filed there. In a written judgment published today, the Supreme Court sided with the decisions of the lower courts and refused to hear the appeal.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are not satisfied that it is necessary in the interests of justice to hear the<br />
proposed appeal. While there may be questions arising about the scope and<br />
application of s 70 of the Evidence Act, the present case is not the appropriate case to consider those issues,&#8221; the panel of three judges writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;No question of principle arises. Rather, the matters the applicant wishes to raise relate to whether natural justice was met in this particular case and as to the weight given to the competing public interests on these facts.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rejecting the notion that there had been a miscarriage of justice, the judges note that since the case has been examined in detail by the lower courts and justice will be done by compensating Dotcom for his loss of dignity, the Supreme Court will not review the matter. </p>
<p>&#8220;Mr Dotcom’s arguments would reprise matters all of which have been carefully examined in the Courts below and, as the Court of Appeal noted, the &#8216;general nature of the disputed information is known to Mr Dotcom&#8217;. In addition, these issues would arise in a context where the respondent has been held to account having accepted liability and the central question is as to the level of damages,&#8221; the judges add.</p>
<p>In a statement on the decision to deny his appeal, this morning Dotcom criticizes the entire process, drawing particular attention to the fact that his lawyers have been prevented from doing their jobs properly on the grounds of national security.</p>
<p>&#8220;[T]hey have not been permitted to have any meaningful input into this process because, at every stage, the GCSB has required its evidence and submissions to be treated as classified and heard only in a secret hearing from which my counsel and I were excluded,&#8221; Dotcom writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Courts’ reasons were also classified and not stated in their decisions. We have been blindfolded, with one hand tied behind our backs, while up against the fully equipped and limitlessly funded GCSB and Crown lawyers seeking to keep us all in the dark and away from the truth.&#8221;</p>
<p>While at some point Dotcom will be awarded damages for the illegal spying, he says this process has never been about money, not least since it ceased being economically viable a long time ago.  </p>
<p>&#8220;For me, it has always been about ensuring that we know what has happened and, as a result, the GCSB is held accountable publicly for its unlawful conduct under John Key’s National government. I want to make sure that this never happens again.</p>
<p>&#8220;We shouldn’t be kept in the dark when state agencies act unlawfully and they should never get away with not being fully accountable to us, as the GCSB has now achieved. They don’t care about paying some money to me and my family, although they will fight to limit that also. They just care about you and I not getting to know what they did, or the actual harm they caused,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>But while today&#8217;s ruling was handed down by New Zealand&#8217;s top court, Dotcom believes that interference from the United States played an important role in denying him access to the illegally captured communications. As a result, he&#8217;s now embarking on a new mission, one to change the law in New Zealand.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don’t like the United States influencing what we all should be entitled to as people of New Zealand, as I fear may have happened here. No one should. But, they, and the GCSB, has stopped me from knowing the truth, at least for now. If the Court of Appeal’s decision represents the law in New Zealand, then the law must change. I will fight for that change. Please join me,&#8221; he concludes.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-domain-dispute-settled-next-up-supreme-court-extradition-ruling-200129/">reported last week</a>, Dotcom is awaiting another decision from the Supreme Court regarding his extradition to the United States. He doesn&#8217;t believe the decision will go in his favor but is preparing for a long battle, one that could see him fight in New Zealand for another seven years.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182572
title: IPTV Supplier Omniverse Wants Hovsat to Pay its $50 Million Piracy Damages Bill
uri: IPTV-Supplier-Omniverse-Wants-Hovsat-to-Pay-its-50-Million-Piracy-Dam
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/ucq49TzGUog/
content:
<p><img src="media/cc98a9b3.omniverse1.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/omniverse1.jpg" alt="" width="284" height="162" class="alignright size-full wp-image-168567" />Last year, several major Hollywood studios <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/ace-sues-cord-cutting-service-omniverse-for-copyright-infringement/">filed a piracy lawsuit</a> against Omniverse One World Television.</p>
<p>Under the flag of anti-piracy group ACE, the companies accused Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo of supplying pirated streaming channels to various IPTV services.</p>
<p>Omniverse offered live-streaming services to third-party distributors, such as Dragon Box and HDHomerun, which in turn offered live TV streaming packages to customers. According to ACE, the company was a pirate streaming TV supplier, offering these channels without permission from its members.</p>
<p>The IPTV supplier initially denied the allegations and countered that it did everything by the book. The company pointed to a licensing deal it had with cable company Hovsat, which relied on a long-standing agreement with DirecTV to distribute TV content.</p>
<p>As the case progressed, the Hovsat deal didn&#8217;t turn out to be as solid as expected. After several IPTV providers distanced themselves from Omniverse, it threw in the towel. Last November the company agreed to a liability <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/iptv-supplier-omniverse-agrees-to-pay-50-million-in-piracy-damages-191113/">judgment of $50 million</a> for the copyright infringements it caused. </p>
<p>While Omniverse agreed to the monstrous judgment, it mostly blames Hovsat, as it made clear in a separate complaint that was filed against the company last summer. The IPTV supplier always believed that it was properly licensed and wants Hovsat to cover the multi-million piracy bill. </p>
<p>As time went by it became apparent that Hovsat, a revoked New Jersey corporation, wasn&#8217;t responding in court. The same is true for its alleged owner Shant Hovnanian. This lack of response has now prompted Omniverse to request a default judgment. </p>
<p>In a new filing submitted at a federal court in California, Omniverse is demanding $50 million, the exact damages amount it agreed with the Hollywood studios last November.</p>
<p>&#8220;HovSat is the party responsible for the copyright infringement alleged by the Plaintiffs by way of misrepresenting to Omniverse that HovSat actually received a license to distribute the copyrighted content through agreements with DirecTV,&#8221; Omniverse writes.</p>
<p>The defunct IPTV supplier accuses Hovsat of fraudulently claiming that it had a valid and lawful copyright license from DirecTV. This breach of contract made Omniverse liable for millions of dollars in damages.</p>
<p>&#8220;Had HovSat not made the misrepresentations regarding acquiring the distribution licenses for the copyrighted content, and thus not breached their contract with Omniverse, Omniverse would have never been subject to the above-caption lawsuit raised by Plaintiffs. It logically follows that HovSat’s misrepresentations thus proximately and directly caused the $50,000,000 in damages suffered by Omniverse,&#8221; the filing adds.</p>
<p>The court has yet to sign off on the default judgment. However, since Hovsat is not defending itself in court, there is a good chance that the IPTV supplier will indeed come out the winner. Whether it will ever recoup any of the potential damages from Hovsat is another question.</p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of the proposed default judgment, which has yet to be signed off, is available <a href="media/19733ed9.omni2.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/omni2.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.<br />
</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182562
title: Jury Finds Pirate TV Box Sellers Guilty Under the Serious Crime Act
uri: Jury-Finds-Pirate-TV-Box-Sellers-Guilty-Under-the-Serious-Crime-Act
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/YIUZxC49T2Q/
content:
<p><a href="media/ac7f3648.blackboxtv-e1580825257696.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/blackboxtv-e1580825257696.png"><img src="media/ac7f3648.blackboxtv-e1580825257696.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/blackboxtv-e1580825257696.png" alt="" width="270" height="298" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182607" /></a>Those looking for a way to obtain otherwise premium subscription TV packages at a cheap price will find that piracy-configured TV devices are easily available online. Equally, those who prefer to see the goods before buying them can often find them for sale at markets up and down the UK.</p>
<p>Markets that develop a reputation for pirated and counterfeit goods can attract the attention of the authorities, including local councils. That was the case in July 2017 when <a href="https://www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/services/business/what-does-trading-standards-do/what-does-trading-standards-do.aspx">Hertfordshire Trading Standards</a> officers carried out a covert operation at <a href="http://www.wendyfairmarkets.com/markets.html">Bovingdon Market</a>.</p>
<p>According to Hertfordshire Council, the officers carried out a filmed, undercover purchase from traders operating from a stand under the BlackBox.tv banner. The piracy-configured device was sold on the premise that it gave access to movies and sports without the buyer having to pay a subscription.</p>
<p>The case took two-and-a-half years to go to trial but following a four-day hearing, two men &#8211; Thomas Tewelde and Mohamed Abdou, both from London &#8211; have now been found guilty of offenses under the Serious Crime Act 2007 and Fraud Act 2006.</p>
<p>During the trial, jurors were shown the covert video recorded by Trading Standards and unanimously found that the men had intentionally encouraged buyers of the devices to obtain paid TV services dishonestly. Or, in Serious Crime Act terms, they &#8220;encouraged or assisted the commission of an offense.&#8221;</p>
<p>Furthermore, after tests carried out by Trading Standards reportedly revealed electrical safety issues with the supplied devices, the pair were found guilty of supplying devices that failed to comply with <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electrical-equipment-safety-regulations-2016">Electrical Equipment Safety Regulations</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;We’re keen to support the growth of the creative industries which is significant in Hertfordshire. The sale of these boxes, allowing free access to copyrighted material, puts this industry and Hertfordshire jobs at risk,&#8221; commented <a href="https://democracy.hertfordshire.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=174">Terry Hone</a>, Cabinet Member for Community Safety. </p>
<p>“People who are buying these boxes may not be aware that they too could be committing a serious act of fraud as well as the associated risk of buying a box, which may not have been subject to safety checks, as in this case. If the deal appears too good to be true it likely is.&#8221;</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://twitter.com/HeadRegServices/status/1223286847268442113">tweet</a> welcoming the convictions, Andrew Butler, Head of Regulatory Services at Hertfordshire County Council, revealed that the Federation Against Copyright Theft had been involved in the prosecution of the men. FACT Chief Executive Kieron Sharp issued a warning to others considering the same line of business.</p>
<p>&#8220;The message is very clear,&#8221; Sharp said. &#8220;If you sell a device that provides access to content that is not licensed or owned by you, you will face a criminal conviction and we thank Hertfordshire Trading Standards for their work on this case.&#8221;</p>
<p>The two men will be sentenced on February 28, 2019, at St. Albans Crown Court.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182616
title: Huge French Torrent Site YggTorrent Suffers Domain Suspension
uri: Huge-French-Torrent-Site-YggTorrent-Suffers-Domain-Suspension
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LtD6cRyjsAI/
content:
<p><a href="media/6f017d80.yggtorrent-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/yggtorrent-logo.png"><img src="media/6f017d80.yggtorrent-logo.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/yggtorrent-logo.png" alt="" width="270" height="98" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182621" /></a>While torrent giants such as The Pirate Bay are known and used all around the world, there are many sites that have a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/local-pirate-sites-are-thriving-around-the-world-200118/">strong following</a> in their native countries.</p>
<p>In France, for example, YggTorrent is a spectacular success. It&#8217;s the largest French-language sharing platform and also operates its own torrent tracker, a rarity these days. Alongside a reported 3,500,000 registered members, Alexa stats reveal that YggTorrent.ws is the 38th most-visited domain in the whole of France, period. </p>
<p><Center><a href="media/ed3391b2.ygg-alexa.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ygg-alexa.png"><img src="media/ed3391b2.ygg-alexa.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ygg-alexa.png" alt="" width="500" height="467" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182631" /></a></center></p>
<p>While that is an impressive achievement for a site that is just a handful of years old, unexpected overnight developments at the tracker are set to negatively affect that ranking, if only temporarily.</p>
<p>Earlier today, an individual who identified as one of the operators of YggTorrent informed TF that the torrent site&#8217;s main domain name, YggTorrent.ws, had been &#8220;suddenly disabled&#8221; by its registrar without warning or explanation. As the image below shows, it now displays the ominous &#8216;serverHold&#8217; status.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/b938f103.yggtorrent-whois-e1580894824413.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/yggtorrent-whois-e1580894824413.png"><img src="media/b938f103.yggtorrent-whois-e1580894824413.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/yggtorrent-whois-e1580894824413.png" alt="" width="650" height="338" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182625" /></a></center></p>
<p>According to ICANN, the <a href="https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status-codes-2014-06-16-en">serverHold</a> domain status is uncommon and &#8220;usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.&#8221; The status, which is rarely accompanied by good news, is set by the domain registrar, in this case Tucows.</p>
<p>As its DNS records suggest, the domain was purchased through Peter Sunde&#8217;s Njalla service but as a privacy platform, the company has no control over the &#8216;serverHold&#8217; status.</p>
<p>As a result of this change, visitors to YggTorrent.ws can no longer access the site. However, in common with many platforms operating in a similar niche, YggTorrent has many <a href="https://www2.yggtorrent.se/engine/domains">domains in backup</a> including yggtorrent.pe, yggtorrent.ch and yggtorrent.gg.</p>
<p>At least for the time being, however, the site is promoting the Sweden-based YggTorrent.se domain as its primary alternative. Crucially, it still maintains control over a separate domain for its tracker, which means that torrent sharing can continue for users, even if the main domain is down.</p>
<p>What caused the sudden loss of the .ws domain remains unclear but if history is anything to go by, copyright infringement issues must be at the top of the list. In 2018, YggTorrent was forced to abandon its .com domain <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/popular-torrent-site-loses-domain-after-copyright-complaint-180409/">following a complaint</a> from French anti-piracy outfit SACEM.</p>
<p>Then, in 2019, following a complaint from local anti-piracy group SCPP, a Paris court ordered five French Internet providers to block access to thirteen websites that link to pirated content. Included in that order was YggTorrent.ch, a domain that remains under the control of the site but is currently used for redirection purposes only.</p>
<p>The site&#8217;s operators note that their Icelandic domain is blocked by various ISPs in France too but an additional domain for users affected by that action is already in place.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182602
title: Retired Police Officer Wins $47,777 Judgment Against Copyright Troll
uri: Retired-Police-Officer-Wins-47-777-Judgment-Against-Copyright-Troll
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/tjy6EeJJRlY/
content:
<p><img src="media/efd05bc4.trollsign.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/trollsign.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="167" class="alignright size-full wp-image-108977" />Lawsuits accusing people of downloading pirated videos through BitTorrent are a common sight in US courts. The phenomenon often dubbed as &#8216;copyright trolling&#8217; started roughly a decade ago and remains ongoing.</p>
<p>The scheme can be both simple and lucrative. Rightsholders file complaints against “John Does” who are initially only known by an IP-address. They then request a subpoena to obtain the subscriber details and demand a settlement from the account holder.</p>
<p>This is also what happened when adult content producer ‘Strike 3 Holdings’ filed against a John Doe, known by the IP-address 73.225.38.130, more than two years ago.</p>
<p>Strike 3 is one of the most active copyright litigants in the US and has managed to obtain settlements against many accused pirates. However, this case was different. Instead of settling the case the accused account holder, a retired police officer in his 70s, chose to fight back.</p>
<p>The John Doe submitted <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/retired-police-officer-fires-back-at-copyright-troll-190110/">a counterclaim</a> accusing Strike 3 of abuse of process and “extortion through sham litigation.” The man accused the rightsholder of going on a “fishing expedition,” while knowing that it couldn’t link the subscriber of the IP-address to any specific infringement.</p>
<p>Following this pushback Strike 3 decided to dismiss its copyright infringement claim. However, the defendant wasn&#8217;t willing to let the case go. The retired police officer pushed on and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/retired-police-officer-wants-48773-from-copyright-troll-190802/">requested a summary judgment</a> to set in stone that he’s not a copyright infringer and to have his costs compensated.</p>
<p>This week U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled on the matter, deciding in favor of the falsely accused &#8216;pirate.&#8217; According to the evidence presented before the court, Strike 3 can&#8217;t prove that the man copied any of the company&#8217;s movies. </p>
<p>While Strike 3&#8217;s evidence initially suggested that the file &#8220;hashes&#8221; referred to the actual movie file, the company later admitted that these were merely BitTorrent &#8220;info hashes&#8221; that point to torrent metadata instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;In other words, the referenced &#8216;Info Hash&#8217; does not identify the actual motion picture that John Doe is accused of infringing, but merely the means by which the BitTorrent program can find the motion picture among the files of all of the computers connected to the BitTorrent network,&#8221; Judge Zilly writes. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/64fc8966.somehashes2.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/somehashes2.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="180" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182638" /></center></p>
<p>In this case, Strike 3 bears the burden of proof for the alleged copyright infringements and based on the provided evidence, that standard wasn&#8217;t met. At most, the company can show that &#8216;someone&#8217; with IP address 73.225.38.130 downloaded &#8216;some things&#8217; that are identified by a series of hash sequences.</p>
<p>&#8220;A core element of copyright infringement is a &#8216;copying&#8217; of the protected components of the work. Strike 3 has provided no evidence that John Doe copied any of Strike 3’s copyrighted motion pictures,&#8221; the order reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;Strike 3 cannot link John Doe to the activity associated with the IP address and it has now abandoned any assertion that the items allegedly transferred over the BitTorrent system were themselves copyrighted motion pictures or viewable pieces thereof,&#8221; Judge Zilly adds. </p>
<p>This finding is further backed up by an expert who reviewed the computer of the retired police officer, including many deleted files. This examination failed to find any of the allegedly infringed movies. </p>
<p>As such, the court concludes that &#8216;John Doe&#8217; hasn&#8217;t downloaded any infringing material. In addition to clearing his name, the court also awarded attorney&#8217;s fees and costs, which have to be paid by the rightsholder. </p>
<p>Strike 3 asked the court to deny this request but Judge Zilly argued that this would improperly reward the company for using its suspicious litigation script, also known as copyright trolling. </p>
<p>Instead, the court ordered Strike 3 to pay the requested $40,501.63 in attorney’s fees and $7,275.63 in additional costs, totaling $47,777.26.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/a0abc533.zillyorder.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/zillyorder.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="361" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182636" /></center></p>
<p>John Doe&#8217;s attorney, <a href="http://www.edmolaw.com/">J. Curtis Edmondson</a>, is happy with the outcome. It saves his client a lot of money and could also help others who are in a similar position.  </p>
<p>&#8220;Any client who is sued by Strike 3 has potential exposure that starts in the tens of thousands of dollars, Edmondson tells TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>&#8220;For my retired client, this means he does not risk what he has saved for his retirement. That alone would take a lot of stress off someone, retired or not.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the broader picture, the order confirmed that Strike 3&#8217;s initial evidence claims, which are used to obtain subpoenas from ISPs, are not always sufficient to find an infringing movie on a hard drive.</p>
<p>In this case, the court also denied a wholesale inspection of the John Doe&#8217;s hard drive, limiting it to &#8220;hash values&#8221; only, which means that there&#8217;s insufficient evidence to prove actual copyright infringement. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly&#8217;s judgment is available <a href="media/e1b915dd.zillypoliceorder.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/zillypoliceorder.pdf">here (pdf)</a> and the associated order can be found <a href="media/85146148.zillypolice.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/zillypolice.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182603
title: Millions Illegally Streamed the Super Bowl via YouTube and Facebook
uri: Millions-Illegally-Streamed-the-Super-Bowl-via-YouTube-and-Facebook
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Ua5kZlzLJb0/
content:
<p><img src="media/c3be1e89.Super_Bowl_LIV-e1580899788287.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Super_Bowl_LIV-e1580899788287.png" alt="" width="277" height="217" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182646" />Online streaming has made it much easier for people to consume online entertainment whenever and wherever they want. This applies to movies and TV-shows but also to sporting events. </p>
<p>Last weekend&#8217;s Super Bowl game, for example, was available on a wide variety of legal streaming platforms including YouTube TV. At the same time, however, the game was also being offered for free in YouTube&#8217;s darker corners. </p>
<p>This problem isn&#8217;t by any means limited to YouTube, or the Super Bowl. For pretty much every significant sports broadcast there are pirate broadcasts available on all major streaming services. </p>
<p>That said, with an audience of over 100 million viewers, the Big Game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs drew a much larger crowd. This also becomes apparent from the streaming numbers we received from piracy tracking outfit <a href="http://www.vft-solutions.com/">VFT Solutions</a>. </p>
<p>VFT tracked down pirate streams on YouTube, Facebook, VK, Twitch, and Twitter&#8217;s Periscope.  Pirated streams on these services were monitored for the duration of the live event as well as 3-hours after to capture part of the &#8220;on-demand&#8221; audience.</p>
<p>The company&#8217;s data doesn&#8217;t take dedicated pirate platforms into account but there was no shortage of streams. In total, 2,650 pirate Super Bowl streams were detected, which were watched by more than 12 million people. </p>
<p>The vast majority of the streams were found on Facebook (70.6%), followed by YouTube (20.8%), Periscope (4.8%), Twitch (3.2%) and VK (0.6%). Below is an example of one of the pirate streams on YouTube.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/cf2369ec.piratestream.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/piratestream.jpg" alt="" width="586" height="350" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182644" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/piratestream.jpg 586w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/piratestream-220x130.jpg 220w" sizes="(max-width: 586px) 100vw, 586px" /></center></p>
<p>While Facebook listed the most streams, the view count on YouTube was actually higher. More than half of all viewers tuned in via YouTube (62.9%), followed by Facebook (22.7%) and Periscope (13.1%), with Twitch and VK picking up the remaining 1.3%. </p>
<p>Most of these pirate streams, roughly four out of five, were watched live. The rest was picked up on-demand after the official broadcast. </p>
<p>While the numbers are definitely impressive, not everyone watched the entire game. In fact,  more than 60% watched less than 15 minutes, perhaps in part because their streams were taken down. </p>
<p>According to VFT the figures show that sports streaming piracy is rampant. Right now, most rightsholders respond to streams by issuing takedown requests but according to the tracking company, takedowns alone are not the answer.</p>
<p>Wayne Lonstein, CEO at VFT Solutions, believes that it&#8217;s much more effective to also educate these streamers and point them towards legal alternatives.</p>
<p>&#8220;If you take down the streams, what happens to the millions of viewers? They are left to search for other streams. In combination with takedowns, there needs to be education, communication, and redirection to alternative sources,&#8221; Lonstein tells TF. </p>
<p>&#8220;We believe there is a large percentage of the social stream viewer universe who are interested in the brand&#8217;s content and are receptive to and even desirous of engaging with content creators and their services,&#8221; he adds. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/b1567140.youtubetos.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/youtubetos.jpg" alt="" width="615" height="330" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182649" /></center></p>
<p>It shouldn&#8217;t come as a surprise that this is exactly what VFT offers to its clients. The company provides a &#8216;message insertion&#8217; service where it reached out to pirates through direct messages or public chats, in an effort to direct them to legal options.</p>
<p>According to VFT, the pirate audience provides a huge opportunity. While some may never want to pay, a significant portion of the millions of pirate viewers may simply need a push in the right direction. </p>
<p>It&#8217;s an interesting thought, to say the least. </p>
<p>We don&#8217;t know whether reaching out to pirates through chats and direct messages is the answer, but certainly more can be done. At the moment, removed videos simply display a &#8220;this content is not available&#8221; notice. Why not replace that with a link to all the legal alternatives?</p>
<p>After all, many people simply don&#8217;t know what the legal options are or can&#8217;t find them. Even NFL legend <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/tom-brady-pirated-the-super-bowl-last-year-120205/">Tom Brady admitted to pirating the Big Game</a> in the past. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182517
title: Pirate IPTV Supplier One Box TV Ordered to Pay $3.8m Damages
uri: Pirate-IPTV-Supplier-One-Box-TV-Ordered-to-Pay-3-8m-Damages
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/9M10877moCk/
content:
<p><img src="media/e5238521.image-110.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/image-110.png" width="261" height="204" class="alignright size-full" />There are many hundreds of entities and individuals involved in the provision, distribution and sale of unlicensed IPTV services worldwide, with the majority managing to avoid serious consequences &#8211; at least for now.</p>
<p>But while most remain somewhat in the shadows, others make themselves more visible, sometimes following the decision to incorporate as an official entity. That may have been the case with One Box TV, LLC, a three-year-old Florida-registered company that made a business out of the sale of piracy-configured IPTV devices and subscriptions from its websites and a booth at a flea market.</p>
<p>Following an investigation carried out by DISH Networks and NagraStar, in August 2019 the companies <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dish-sues-pirate-iptv-services-one-box-tv-miracle-box-190830/">filed a lawsuit</a> against One Box TV and sole manager Donna Fogle in a Florida court. According to the complaint, the company sold $19 per month IPTV subscriptions (described as &#8216;device codes&#8217;) offering unlicensed DISH programming alongside pre-configured Android-style boxes for around $275.</p>
<p>The content offered by One Box TV was illegally obtained from DISH&#8217;s satellite communications and rebroadcast to the public for commercial advantage and personal financial gain, DISH alleged. This activity breached the Federal Communications Act (FCA) causing the broadcaster considerable financial damage, the complaint added.</p>
<p>The case has been &#8216;progressing&#8217; for months without input from the defendants so it&#8217;s no surprise that DISH and NagraStar moved for a default judgment. DISH informed the court that it should be entitled to significant statutory damages under various sections of the FCA ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 for each violation, with Section 605(e)(4) allowing the plaintiffs to seek damages for each piracy device distributed.</p>
<p>Following One Box TV&#8217;s default, DISH and NagraStar obtained permission to conduct discovery among financial institutions associated with the IPTV seller to ascertain how many devices/device codes it had sold. According to DISH, the amount totaled at least 3,805 units, which could have put One Box TV on the hook for $38 million, even if the minimum statutory damages were awarded by the court. </p>
<p>Instead, DISH requested a much lower amount of $1,000 per violation for a total of $3,805,000 in statutory damages. On top, the company sought a permanent injunction. The court was happy to oblige.</p>
<p>&#8220;Having reviewed the record evidence, the Court concludes OneBox is liable for violating the Federal Communications Act,&#8221; District Judge James S. Moody writes in his order.</p>
<p>&#8220;Dish has shown OneBox violated the Act at least 3,805 times, entitling Dish to the $3,805,000 it seeks in statutory damages. And Dish proved entitlement to a permanent injunction against OneBox by demonstrating irreparable harm and that there is no adequate remedy at law.&#8221;</p>
<p>The injunction is comprehensive and forbids One Box TV, Donna Fogle, and/or anyone acting in concert with them from rebroadcasting DISH programming and/or offering subscriptions/device codes providing access to DISH&#8217;s content and communications.</p>
<p>Whether the plaintiffs will ever see any of the $3.8m in damages remains an open question.</p>
<p><em>The order and final default judgment obtained by TF can be viewed <a href="media/93e2b89e.8-19-cv-02147-DISH-v-OneBox-Default-Judgement-200131.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/8-19-cv-02147-DISH-v-OneBox-Default-Judgement-200131.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/3f7dc318.8-19-cv-02147-DISH-v-OneBox-Default-Judgement2-200203.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/8-19-cv-02147-DISH-v-OneBox-Default-Judgement2-200203.pdf">here</a> (pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182714
title: U.S. Counters Appeal of Criminally Convicted ‘Copyright Troll’ Lawyer
uri: U-S-Counters-Appeal-of-Criminally-Convicted-Copyright-Troll-Law
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/95u1t8W_vmA/
content:
<p><img src="media/156f4109.prison.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/prison.jpg" alt="" width="267" height="182" class="alignright size-full wp-image-174207" />Last summer, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-troll-lawyer-sentenced-to-14-years-in-prison-190614/">14 years in prison</a>, to be followed by two years of supervised release.</p>
<p>Hansmeier was a key player in the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent. </p>
<p>Hansmeier and fellow attorney John Steele went a step further though. Among other things they lied to the courts, committed identity theft, and concocted a scheme to <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-helps-to-expose-copyright-troll-honeypot-130604/">upload their own torrents to The Pirate Bay</a>, creating a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirated downloads.</p>
<p>Both attorneys pleaded guilty but Hansmeier reserved the right to appeal, which he did at the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. </p>
<p>In his brief, submitted last fall, Hansmeier admits that he abused legal discovery processes. However, he maintains that many of the accused subscribers were pirates. As such, the settlements with these people were legitimate and not fraudulent. </p>
<p>There&#8217;s no dispute that there was foul play involved, but these matters should be addressed by civil and regulatory systems of justice and not by criminal law, Hansmeier&#8217;s lawyer argued. </p>
<p>This week, U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick responded to these arguments. According to the US, Hansmeier built a career suing thousands of people across the country, accusing them of pirating content he and his co-conspirators uploaded as bait. </p>
<p>That some victims may have indeed shared infringing material is beside the point. According to the federal prosecutors, Hansmeier’s appeal is premised on a misunderstanding of the indictment&#8217;s claims. </p>
<p>&#8220;Contrary to his claims, the indictment does not charge that the only lies in this case were made to courts. Far from it. Instead, Hansmeier’s lawsuits were fraudulent from the start,&#8221; the prosecution writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;His scheme entailed lying to courts and using the courts to execute his scheme to defraud victims and making explicit misrepresentations and material omissions to those victims in order to exact quick settlement payments.&#8221; </p>
<p>Thus, even though some victims may have broken the law, they were caught by someone who broke the law to catch them, and committed crimes in the process. Or as the prosecution puts it;</p>
<p>&#8220;Even if theoretically those victims could be sued for copyright infringement, Hansmeier still misrepresented the nature of his lawsuits in order to exact payments. It was part of his scheme to use litigation to create the illusion of a legitimate civil action environment when, in reality, the entirety of the litigation was a scam and was intended to facilitate his shakedown.&#8221;</p>
<p>In addition to the attempt to undo the conviction by framing his offenses as a civil matter, Hansmeier also disputed the court&#8217;s order to award roughly $1.5 million in restitution to the victims. This is in part based on the same logic. Since some victims did break the law, Hansmeier argues that the settlements were legitimate. </p>
<p>The prosecution doesn&#8217;t agree with this either. While some may have broken the law, they are victims because Hansmeier&#8217;s lied and defrauded the court in order to get these settlements.</p>
<p>On top of that, the former Prenda attorney signed a plea agreement where he specifically admitted to receiving more than $3 million in fraudulent proceeds from the lawsuits he was involved in.</p>
<p>&#8220;Thus, he agreed that the people who paid him as a result of his copyright infringement lawsuits were fraud victims by acknowledging that the amounts they paid him were &#8216;fraudulent proceeds.&#8217; He cannot now say that they were not,&#8221; the federal prosecutors write. </p>
<p>Based on the above and various other arguments, the US Government asks the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to affirm the district court’s judgment. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of the full response from U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald and Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Kirkpatrick is available <a href="media/6c705173.Hansmeier8thCirGovtBrief-Final-.docx.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Hansmeier8thCirGovtBrief-Final-.docx.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182779
uri: YouTuber-Who-Slammed-Copyright-Lawsuit-Against-Katy-Perry-Hit-With-Cop
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/uEdOWGBDFNc/
title:
YouTuber Who Slammed Copyright Lawsuit Against Katy Perry Hit With Copyright Complaint From Perry’s Publisher

content:
<p><a href="media/72389cbc.sadyoutube.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/sadyoutube.jpg"><img src="media/72389cbc.sadyoutube.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/sadyoutube.jpg" alt="" width="275" height="196" class="alignright size-full wp-image-117196" /></a>In August 2019, a jury found that the writers of the Katy Perry hit &#8216;Dark Horse&#8217; had infringed on the rights of Christian rapper &#8216;Flame&#8217; over his 2008 track &#8216;Joyful Noise&#8221;. The $2.78 million judgment sent shockwaves through the industry, with Perry&#8217;s side describing the decision a “travesty of justice.”</p>
<p>“The writers of Dark Horse view the verdicts as a travesty of justice. There is no infringement,&#8221; the statement read. &#8220;There was no access of substantial similarity. The only thing in common is unprotectable expression — evenly spaced &#8216;C&#8217; and &#8216;B&#8217; notes — repeated. People including musicologists from all over are expressing their dismay over this.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of those who found the lawsuit ridiculous was musician and YouTuber Adam Neely, who <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg">posted a video on YouTube</a> explaining why it made absolutely no sense. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg">The video</a>, in which he unequivocally supported Perry&#8217;s side, pulled in millions of views and as a result the musician was asked to comment by numerous news publications covering the case.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Neely himself now finds himself at the center of a copyright dispute as a result of his original video. In a new video posted to YouTube today, Neely recounts his journey following the case, noting that he strongly defended both Katy Perry and her publisher, Warner Chappell, in the belief that the lawsuit was bad for musicians, bad for creativity, and bad for the artform of music-making.</p>
<p>Warner Chappell, however, appear to see things differently. Instead of quietly thanking their avid supporter, they have hit his video with a copyright complaint instead.</p>
<p>&#8220;Katy Perry&#8217;s publisher, Warner Chappell, just claimed one of my videos. Warner Chappell did not hire me to make this video defending their platform in public and yet they have now claimed the advertising revenue for the video,&#8221; he explains.</p>
<p>&#8220;That is, of course, an incredibly crappy thing for Warner Chappell to do. But it gets a lot weirder. Katy Perry lost that suit so where does that leave the copyright for Warner Chappell? Dark Horse was found to be infringing on Joyful Noise so why is Warner Chappell still able to claim my video and take my advertising revenue?&#8221;</p>
<p>But Neely&#8217;s frustrations only increase after digging into the claim itself. It claims that Neely &#8220;used the melody&#8221; for Dark Horse in his video. However, the defendants in the Perry case previously stated that particular musical component of Dark Horse <em>wasn&#8217;t a melody at all</em>, but rather a background element to their track. The melody of Dark Horse never even appeared in Neely&#8217;s video &#8211; but the drama doesn&#8217;t stop there.</p>
<p>The allegedly-infringing content according to Warner Chappell was found between 35 seconds and 44 seconds into Neely&#8217;s video. However, as the exasperated musician points out, that part of the track was actually a demonstration of a section of Joyful Noise, not Dark Horse.</p>
<p>&#8220;[Warner Chappell] are claiming my video for a melody that they just lost a lawsuit defending. My video was all about how they should HAVE NOT lost the lawsuit because that melody was so minor as to not be copyrightable,&#8221; Neely says.</p>
<p>Only adding insult to injury is that this wasn&#8217;t a claim actioned automatically by YouTube&#8217;s systems, but was actually filed manually by a human being. This, Neely suggests, means that whoever filed the claim couldn&#8217;t tell the difference between the melodies in the two tracks and ended up filing a complaint against the wrong one.</p>
<p>This trainwreck is going to be hard to explain away&#8230;</p>
<p><Center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KM6X2MEl7R8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182522
title: Anti-Piracy Coalition ACE Goes After Clipwatching and Fembed
uri: Anti-Piracy-Coalition-ACE-Goes-After-Clipwatching-and-Fembed
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/P7LNJXa7bao/
content:
<p><img src="media/4634b5b0.clipwatching-e1580979546699.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/clipwatching-e1580979546699.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="183" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182684" />The online piracy ecosystem is constantly evolving.</p>
<p>Ten years ago the entertainment industries were mostly concerned with torrent sites. Today, online streaming sites and services are the main challenges.</p>
<p>To tackle this threat, some of the largest companies in the world bundled their powers. In 2017 they formed the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (<a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-dramatically-expanding-ace-global-anti-piracy-coalition-190507/">ACE</a>), which lists prominent members including major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and other entertainment giants.</p>
<p>The coalition has been very active both in- and outside of court. It has shut down various streaming tools, including unofficial Kodi add-ons and builds, and secured million-dollar judgments against pirate streaming box vendors.</p>
<p>This week we spotted a new tactic. On behalf of ACE, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) obtained a DMCA subpoena at a California District Court. The subpoena is directed at CDN provider Cloudflare and targets the video hosting services Fembed.com and Clipwatching.com.</p>
<p>Both sites allow users to upload videos that can be streamed from external sites. This makes them attractive to many pirate sites, which use these platforms to host their videos.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/c78f106d.clipwatchingstr-e1580979491625.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/clipwatchingstr-e1580979491625.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="363" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182685" /></center></p>
<p>The MPA sees these hosting sites as pirate operations. In <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/mpa-adds-1xbet-and-baidu-to-latest-piracy-threat-report/">its submission</a> to the US Trade Representative, the industry group highlighted Clipwatching.com as one of the most notorious copyright infringers online.</p>
<p>&#8220;As a video host, Clipwatching.com has a generous affiliation program, offering payments of $60 for every 10,000 views in tier 1 countries. Users can pay $30 per year to access the uploaded content without advertisements,&#8221; MPA wrote.</p>
<p>With the recently obtained subpoena, the MPA hopes to find out more about the people running these sites. Late last week it sent a copy of the legal paperwork to Cloudflare, asking it to hand over any personal information it has on the associated account holders. </p>
<p>&#8220;[Y]ou are required to disclose to the Motion Picture Association, Inc. (on behalf of the ACE Members) information sufficient to identify the infringers. This would include the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history,&#8221; the MPA informed Cloudflare.</p>
<p>According to the MPA, both sites have exploited the exclusive rights of ACE members. This includes hosting pirated copies of the movies &#8220;The Lion King&#8221; and &#8220;Daddy&#8217;s Home,&#8221; which remain online today. </p>
<p><center><img src="media/3901daed.mpaasub.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mpaasub.jpg" alt="" width="626" height="391" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182686" /></center></p>
<p>The obtained personal information will be used to &#8220;protect&#8221; the movie companies&#8217; copyrights, the MPA notes. Exactly how that will take place is unknown, but if the information is usable, the operators can expect some legal pressure.</p>
<p>These DMCA subpoenas are not new. The RIAA has been using the same tactic for a few months already, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/as-riaa-targets-yet-more-youtube-ripping-sites-heres-the-state-of-play-191005/">with mixed success</a>. However, as far as we know, this is the first DMCA subpoena ACE has obtained against Cloudflare. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of the subpoena the MPA obtained on behalf of ACE is available <a href="media/a160da73.mpasubp.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mpasubp.pdf">here (pdf)</a>. A copy of the letter to Cloudflare can be found <a href="media/890b5ae0.mpadecl.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mpadecl.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182721
title: Unofficial Coronavirus Papers Archive Serves Up Half a Terabyte of Knowledge
uri: Unofficial-Coronavirus-Papers-Archive-Serves-Up-Half-a-Terabyte-of-Kno
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/0YCu4wMyuEk/
content:
<p><a href="media/461c5262.corona-v.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/corona-v.png"><img src="media/461c5262.corona-v.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/corona-v.png" alt="" width="270" height="271" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182730" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/corona-v.png 270w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/corona-v-150x150.png 150w" sizes="(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px" /></a>The idea that scientific papers and studies should be locked up behind a paywall is a tightly held belief among the world&#8217;s largest, richest publishers. To the founder of the infamous Sci-Hub &#8211; often known as The Pirate Bay of Science &#8211; that is objectionable to the point of being offensive to humanity.</p>
<p>Granting free access to scientific knowledge for the benefit of all mankind is a growing movement. As <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/meet-the-guy-behind-the-libgen-torrent-seeding-movement-191205/">reported</a> here last December, people such as an archivist known as &#8216;shrine&#8217; are now adding significant momentum to the cause, one that a few weeks ago received a specific calling.</p>
<p>Having made almost continuous headlines all around the planet this year, the Wuhan Coronavirus Outbreak needs little introduction. At the time of writing, it has <a href="https://coronavirus.app/">infected</a> at least 31,500 people in 28 countries, killing more than 630. Preventing its spread is now a global matter and while doctors and scientists do their work, people like &#8216;shrine&#8217; are doing their part to assist.</p>
<p>A few days ago, a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/exdka0/the_coronavirus_papers_unlocked_5352_scientific/">thread</a> appeared on Reddit announcing the creation of an <a href="https://the-eye.eu/public/Papers/CoronaVirusPapers/">unofficial database of coronavirus-related papers and studies</a>.</p>
<p>Organized by &#8216;shrine&#8217; with support from friends and hosting provided by &#8216;Archivist&#8217; at archiving site <a href="https://the-eye.eu/">The-Eye.eu</a>, the database was compiled after scanning Sci-Hub&#8217;s 80 million documents for anything related to coronaviruses and placing them in one place for easy access. The archive currently holds 5,532 studies and papers dating from 2020 right back to 1968.</p>
<p><center><div id="attachment_182743" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="media/603fd89a.corondb-sample.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/corondb-sample.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-182743" src="media/603fd89a.corondb-sample.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/corondb-sample.png" alt="" width="650" height="405" class="size-full wp-image-182743" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-182743" class="wp-caption-text">A tiny sample of the coronavirus archive</p></div></center></p>
<p>&#8220;Our project is illegal, but it’s the right thing to do in this crisis. We refuse to put copyright before human lives. Sharing everything we know about the virus is essential, which is why international scientists are openly sharing their coronavirus findings in an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/01/24/scientists-are-unraveling-chinese-coronavirus-with-unprecedented-speed-openness/">unprecedented way</a>,&#8221; &#8216;shrine&#8217; writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;Developing-world scientists often work without article access due to complex and expensive contract agreements between publishers, universities, and hospitals, relying on overseas colleagues to help them hunt down PDF files. The virus is not going to wait for this, so we need to act with conviction, now.&#8221;</p>
<p>This week, Vice <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3b3v5/archivists-are-bypassing-paywalls-to-share-studies-about-coronaviruses">reported</a> that scientific publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley, and Springer Nature, had removed their paywalls to allow free access to some research studies on multiple strains of the coronavirus. But for &#8216;shrine&#8217;, it was too little, too late.</p>
<p>&#8220;Publishers kept their Coronavirus paywalls active for nearly three weeks before waking up and providing a severely limited open access release,&#8221; he informs TorrentFreak.</p>
<p>&#8220;In our view this obstruction and delay to open research access during the crisis constitutes a crime against humanity, and should be seen as a direct attack against our life and health as a species.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even though the project is just a few days old, visitors to the archive have been arriving from all over the world.</p>
<p>Traffic data shared with TF shows that users from North America are responsible for just over 42% of the database&#8217;s hits, with Europe a close second accounting for almost 39%. Oceania and Asia follow in third and fourth place with 4.57% and 2.13% respectively, with South America and Africa sitting at the bottom.</p>
<p><center><a href="media/f16c71cc.4.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/4.png"><img src="media/f16c71cc.4.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/4.png" alt="" width="455" height="278" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-182752" /></a></center></p>
<p>At the time of writing, the unofficial archive has received more than half a billion requests which in turn have consumed around half a terabyte of bandwidth <em>(see visual logfile sample render below)</em>. According to &#8216;shrine&#8217; the project has been well received but if just a small amount of information from the archive proves useful to anyone in this health crisis, it will be mission accomplished.</p>
<p>&#8220;The Coronavirus Papers release has been met with appreciation and support from anonymous virologists, and we consider the project a success if we have assisted even one scientist with access to one of these critical studies.</p>
<p>&#8220;We hope that the archive continues to hold value as research continues, long after the publishers forget about the threat of pandemics and put their paywalls back up,&#8221; he adds.</p>
<p>While the archive at The-Eye is conveniently and instantly available, the entire collection of coronavirus papers &#8211; along with the earlier Libgen-archiving material &#8211; is also available via torrents. This method of sharing scientific studies is seen as crucial to maintaining access long term since it augments centralized storage with robust decentralization. </p>
<p>&#8220;The human right to education is enshrined in the torrents. The immutable 100-terabyte torrent collection stands as a promise of knowledge for future generations, for as long as we keep seeding humanity&#8217;s library keeps standing,&#8221; &#8216;shrine&#8217; says.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are coming to realize that de-centralized web protocols like BitTorrent, IPFS, DAT, and others are central to the democratization of knowledge. The de-centralized protocols make it so that we&#8217;re not fighting alone, people all over the world can stand up with us for humanity&#8217;s knowledge.&#8221;</p>
<p><Center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jgNmgY8Sevg" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></center></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182679
title: US Court Orders Easybox IPTV to Pay $9.9m in Copyright Infringement Damages
uri: US-Court-Orders-Easybox-IPTV-to-Pay-9-9m-in-Copyright-Infringement-Da
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/U4tghUhFM4U/
content:
<p><img src="media/a7c0897c.iptv.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/iptv.jpg" width="234" height="155" class="alignright size-full" />As part of its ongoing campaign targeting unlicensed IPTV providers servicing the US market, broadcaster DISH Network filed a lawsuit in a Texas court last August.</p>
<p>It <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dish-files-10m-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-against-easybox-iptv-190818/">targeted</a> Easybox, an IPTV service that reportedly offered subscribers more than 1,000 channels, including more than two dozen channels exclusively licensed by DISH.</p>
<p>The broadcaster&#8217;s lawsuits often target IPTV providers for alleged breaches of the Federal Communications Act but in this instance, the lawsuit was based in copyright law. In common with other similar actions currently winding their way through US courts, this one met little opposition along the way.</p>
<p>DISH says it tried to get Easybox to stop its illegal activities on many occasions before filing the lawsuit, including by sending around 300 copyright infringement notices to the provider and its CDN providers between 2016 and 2019. All were ignored so the broadcaster was left with little option but to bring the matter before a judge.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/dish-demands-9-9m-in-damages-from-pirate-iptv-provider-200131/">reported in detail</a> last week, DISH recently put forward a proposed final judgment and permanent injunction for the court&#8217;s consideration. That has now been largely accepted and signed off by the court, with some exceptions, but largely along the lines of DISH&#8217;s recommendations.</p>
<p>In an order signed February 5 by District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes, the Judge notes that defendants Hung Tran and Thi Nga Nguyen were served on November 21, 2019, but neither filed an answer or otherwise appeared to defend the action. As a result, the order grants DISH $150,000 in statutory damages for 66 of DISH&#8217;s copyrighted works infringed via the IPTV service.</p>
<p>&#8220;Dish Network LLC will take $9,900,000 from Hung Tran, Thi Nga Nguyen, and Easybox IPTV, jointly and severally, plus interest,&#8221; the default judgment reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;This amount reflects statutory damages of $150,000 for their willful infringement of sixty-six of Dish&#8217;s copyrighted works.&#8221;</p>
<p>The terms of the permanent junction are less tightly-worded than those proposed by DISH but still restrain the defendants, Easybox IPTV, or any entity they create, from distributing DISH&#8217;s channels in the United States or selling Easybox set-top boxes or IPTV subscriptions that stream DISH&#8217;s channels.</p>
<p>The injunction also orders various service providers to stop doing business with Easybox and the named defendants, if that business entails transmitting copyrighted TV shows. Those third-party Internet companies are named as Global Layer B.V. and WorldStream B.V. (Netherlands), OVH Hosting Inc. (Canada), and Netrouting Inc. (United States). </p>
<p>In its proposed permanent injunction, DISH previously requested that the registries in control of domain names connected to Easybox should render them inaccessible before transferring them to DISH for the company’s use. The actual injunction handed down by Judge Hughes doesn&#8217;t go quite that far.</p>
<p>&#8220;Registries must disable the domain names used to transmit Dish&#8217;s protected channels within forty-eight hours of receiving this order. The domain names to be disabled include easybox.tv, e900x.com, and k2442.com, and any future domain name used by Easybox IPTV, Hung Tran, or Thi Nga Nguyen to transmit Dish&#8217;s channels.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whether the defendants will pay all or indeed any of the damages handed down by the Court remains an open question. The Easybox service and associated sites appear to have been down for some time.</p>
<p><em>The default judgment and injunction can be viewed <a href="ttps://torrentfreak.com/images/4-19-cv-02994-Dish-Network-v-Easybox-IPTV-Default-Judgment-and-Injunction-200502.pdf">here</a> (pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182651
title: Record Labels Question TorrentFreak’s Reliability in Court
uri: Record-Labels-Question-TorrentFreak-s-Reliability-in-Court
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/F2bmOc4M7Xk/
content:
<p><img src="media/3af5ff06.vinyl-e1581067435601.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/vinyl-e1581067435601.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="189" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182741" />Last weekend, we reported on a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/record-labels-will-ask-potential-piracy-trial-jurors-if-they-read-torrentfreak-200202/">rather peculiar legal request</a> from a group of major record labels. </p>
<p>The companies, which will go to trial against Internet provider Grande later this month, want to know whether potential jury members read TorrentFreak. </p>
<p>In theory, it could be an attempt to get well-informed jurors on the bench. However, it&#8217;s also possible that the labels see our reporting as biased. That second scenario seems more likely based on some new information we have received. </p>
<p>This week the same record labels, including Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Warner Bros Records, mentioned TorrentFreak again. This mention is part of a motion in another lawsuit, the one against <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/music-companies-sue-isp-bright-house-for-failing-to-disconnect-pirates-190325/">ISP Bright House</a>. This case also revolves around liability for pirating subscribers.</p>
<p>Before we highlight the TorrentFreak mention, some background information on the lawsuit is required. </p>
<p>In short, the labels argue that the ISP is liable for pirating subscribers because it failed to disconnect repeat infringers. Bright House disagrees. Among other things, it pointed out that under the <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/former-copyright-alert-system-portal-now-links-to-mattress-review-site-190512/">Copyright Alert System</a>, which the labels took part in, ISPs were not required to disconnect repeat infringers. </p>
<p>Last month. the ISP asked the court to take &#8220;judicial notice&#8221; of several documents related to the Copyright Alert System. This included the memorandum of understanding, as well as several news reports &#8211; including one of our articles &#8211; that reference statements from participating ISPs such as AT&#038;T and Verizon. </p>
<p>These &#8220;judicial notices&#8221; basically ask the court to accept certain facts into the record that can&#8217;t be reasonably doubted. With regard to the news articles, Bright House doesn&#8217;t ask the court to accept that all information in them is factual, but simply that the ISPs did indeed make these statements.</p>
<p>This request wasn&#8217;t well-received by the record labels, for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>In their response, the labels point out that three of the five documents are not &#8220;press releases&#8221; that were &#8220;issued by the Internet service providers.&#8221; Instead, they point to news articles or blog posts of which the &#8220;reliability&#8221; is &#8220;suspect.&#8221;</p>
<p>As an example of these suspect articles, the record labels <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/att-starts-six-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-next-month-will-block-websites-121012/">highlight one of our articles </a>but also reports from <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/01/verizon-uh-we-arent-cutting-off-users-over-copyright-claims/">Ars Technica</a> and <a href="media/6580abf4.gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.7.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.7.pdf">Business Insider</a>. </p>
<p>&#8220;Exhibit 5 is another article, this one written by &#8216;Ernesto&#8217; (no last name provided), for a website called &#8216;TorrentFreak.&#8217; Far from being a press release issued by AT&#038;T, the article purports to describe leaked AT&#038;T documents that TorrentFreak obtained,&#8221; the response reads.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/9cb5962b.pressrel2.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/pressrel2.jpg" alt="" width="599" height="171" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182751" /></center></p>
<p>We fully stand behind the accuracy of the reported information, which was never disputed and is certainly reliable. That said, the record labels do have a point. Our report is not a direct press release from an ISP and that applies to the other news reports too. </p>
<p>We simply reported on information that we received from an employee. The two other news articles are not press releases either, although they do include statements that were attributed to ISPs that participated in the Copyright Alert System.</p>
<p>That said, the labels don&#8217;t even want to accept the ISPs&#8217; official press releases (<a href="media/8813d86c.gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.3.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.3.pdf">e.g.</a>), as these apparently aren&#8217;t “self authenticating.” Even the publicly published memorandum of understanding (MOU) doesn&#8217;t pass muster, the companies write. </p>
<p>&#8220;Taking judicial notice of this document is inappropriate, as there is no indication from the document itself that it in fact is the final MOU or that the MOU was not amended, terminated, or qualified at some later point in time,&#8221; the labels write.</p>
<p>What we have here is an ISP that is trying to show that other ISPs who participated in the music industry sanctioned Copyright Alert System did not terminate any subscribers. The record labels are trying to block this, as they do not agree with or indeed like this argument. </p>
<p>As said before, the labels do have a point about the news articles not being press releases. That said, Bright House may not have to jump through hoops if they simply want to argue that copyright alerts didn&#8217;t automatically lead to terminations.</p>
<p>If we pull up an <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160304190603/http://www.copyrightinformation.org/resources-faq/copyright-alert-system-faqs/">archived version</a> of the official Copyright Alert System website, which was backed by the music industry, we read the following:</p>
<p>&#8220;While the ISPs can modify the Mitigation Measures in a manner consistent with their own policies, ISPs will not use account termination as a Mitigation Measure.&#8221;</p>
<p><center><img src="media/f4287d36.mitigate.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/mitigate.jpg" alt="" width="601" height="196" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182750" /></center></p>
<p>Even better, perhaps, the same site also archived <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160310113903/http://www.copyrightinformation.org/resources-faq/">all of the &#8216;final&#8217; MOU</a>, including all the amendments that were later made. </p>
<p>We&#8217;re not legal experts, but this appears to be fairly solid, coming directly from the source. That said, the record labels will likely disagree. In any case, it&#8217;s not up to us to present any arguments. </p>
<p>Finally, we want to briefly come back to the record label&#8217;s comment that our reliability is suspect. That&#8217;s an interesting argument, as our reporting has repeatedly been cited by copyright holders in the past.  </p>
<p>For example, the RIAA used our coverage <a href="media/0e20f885.Music-Community-Submission-in-re-DMCA-512-FINAL-7559445.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Music-Community-Submission-in-re-DMCA-512-FINAL-7559445.pdf">as evidence</a> in comments it made to the U.S. Copyright Office. Similarly, the International Intellectual Property Alliance <a href="http://International Intellectual Property Alliance">mentioned</a> our reporting repeatedly in public submissions to the US Government.</p>
<p>In fact, even Sony Music Entertainment, which today questions our reliability, cited our reporting <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=COLC-2015-0013-90111">in an earlier submission</a> to the US Trade Representative. Apparently, our coverage about <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-asked-to-remove-100000-pirate-links-every-hour-160306/">Google&#8217;s takedown efforts</a> was pretty solid according to the company.</p>
<p>While we realize that the stakes and circumstances are different in this case, we just want to set the record straight.</p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of Bright House&#8217;s request for judicial notice is available <a href="media/a88035f2.gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.0.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.100.0.pdf">here (pdf)</a>. The response from the record labels can be found <a href="media/766c7372.gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.107.0.pdf" data-original-source="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725/gov.uscourts.flmd.361725.107.0.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182819
title: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 02/10/20
uri: Top-10-Most-Pirated-Movies-of-The-Week-on-BitTorrent-02-10-20
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/qeVqrRIIchg/
content:
<p><img src="media/c7f0ea3b.21b2.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/21b2.jpg" alt="" width="304" height="207" class="alignright size-full wp-image-182822" />This week we have five newcomers in our chart.</p>
<p>Ford v Ferrari is the most downloaded movie.</p>
<p>The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.</p>
<p><a href="http://torrentfreak.com/category/dvdrip/feed/"><strong>RSS feed</strong></a> for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.</p>
<h5>This week&#8217;s most downloaded movies are:</h5>
<table class="css hover">
<thead>
<tr>
<th width="12%"><strong>Movie Rank</strong></th>
<th width="15%"><strong>Rank <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-the-week-on-bittorrent-02-03-20/">last week</a></strong></th>
<th><strong>Movie name</strong></th>
<th width="18%"><strong>IMDb Rating / Trailer</strong></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tfoot>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">Most downloaded movies via torrents</td>
</tr>
</tfoot>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>1</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8688634/">21 Bridges</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8688634/">6.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVZDhunTrYA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>2</strong></td>
<td>(1)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">Ford v Ferrari</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1950186/">8.2</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3h9Z89U9ZA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>3</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8946378/">Knives Out</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8946378/">8.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi-1NchUqMA">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>4</strong></td>
<td>(2)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">Terminator: Dark Fate</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6450804/">6.4</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxy8udgWRmo">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>5</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/">Jojo Rabbit</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2584384/">8.0</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL4McUzXfFI">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>6</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6673612/">Dolittle</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6673612/">5.6</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSBEWeXkMIk">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>7</strong></td>
<td>(3)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">Doctor Sleep</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/">7.5</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOzFZxB-8cw">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>8</strong></td>
<td>(4)</td>
<td><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/joker-torrent-downloads/">Joker</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7286456/">8.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGVQLHvwOY">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>9</strong></td>
<td>(&#8230;)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6924650/">Midway</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6924650/">6.8</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfTYY_pac8o">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>10</strong></td>
<td>(5)</td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/">Uncut Gems</a> </td>
<td><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5727208/">7.9</a> / <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTfJp2Ts9X8">trailer</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182798
title: Tech Giants Warn U.S. Against EU Upload Filters and Site Blocking
uri: Tech-Giants-Warn-U-S-Against-EU-Upload-Filters-and-Site-Blocking
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/NJQ_cB3W89E/
content:
<p><img src="media/b155e2d8.riskwarndanger.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/riskwarndanger.jpg" alt="" width="289" height="229" class="alignright size-full wp-image-168363" />Last year there were fierce protests against the EU Copyright Directive which, according to opponents, would result in broad upload filters on the web. </p>
<p>Despite this pushback, the directive passed, and individual EU member states are now working on implementing the text into local law. </p>
<p>This includes <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eu-parliament-adopts-copyright-directive-including-article-13-190326/">Article 17</a> (formerly Article 13), which requires many online services to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, these companies should ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services. </p>
<p>These new requirements are welcomed by rightsholders but many tech companies see them as a threat. This week, several industry groups issued a warning about the negative consequences in their submissions for the US Trade Representative&#8217;s Special 301 Report.</p>
<p>The Computer &#038; Communications Industry Association (<a href="https://www.ccianet.org/">CCIA</a>), which includes Amazon, Cloudflare, Facebook, and Google as members, is one of the concerned groups. According to the CCIA, Article 17 will have significant consequences for both online services and users.</p>
<p>&#8220;Online services must implement filtering technologies in order to comply with the requirements under Article 17. While Article 17 avoids the word &#8216;filter&#8217;, practically speaking content-based filtering will be required if a service is to have any hope of achieving compliance,&#8221; the group writes.</p>
<p>CCIA notes that Article 17 will result in a ‘notice-and-staydown’ obligation. This goes against the current global standards that provide online services with a safe harbor against copyright infringements committed by users.</p>
<p>As a result, tech companies fear that they will no longer be able to operate freely in the EU. In some cases, that could mean that they can&#8217;t operate there at all. Contrary to claims from EU officials, CCIA believes that lawful activities carried out by users will be severely restricted. </p>
<p>Technically speaking, fair use including memes and parodies will still be allowed. However, since these copyright exceptions can&#8217;t be determined by automatic filters, services may choose to remove more content than they have to.</p>
<p>&#8220;Because algorithms used to monitor content on platforms cannot contextualize to determine whether the content was lawfully uploaded under one of the exceptions listed, the law requires platforms to err on the side of removing content,&#8221; CCIA writes.</p>
<p>This is exacerbated by the concern that copyright exceptions apply to users, but not to the platforms, the tech companies argue. This means that online services can still be held liable for content users have posted lawfully. </p>
<p>While it&#8217;s too late to stop the legislation now, CCIA urges the US Government to make EU member states aware of these concerns. Ideally, EU member states should ensure that the fallout from the new requirements is limited. For example, by requiring rightsholders to notify online services before they have to take action.</p>
<p>This criticism is shared by the <a href="https://internetassociation.org/">Internet Association</a> (IA), which includes many of the same tech companies as members.</p>
<p>&#8220;The EU Directive effectively requires internet services of all sizes to implement comprehensive content filtering systems, without regard for the inevitable consequences of such filtering,&#8221; IA writes.</p>
<p>In addition to the critique on Article 17, both industry groups also flagged various European website blocking schemes and orders as problematic. In particular, those that take place without any oversight from courts. </p>
<p>This includes Greece&#8217;s “Committee for Online Copyright Infringement” which issued various <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/greek-isps-ordered-to-block-38-domains-including-the-pirate-bay-181109/">pirate site blockades</a> after a similar attempt previously <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-site-blockades-are-disproportional-greek-court-rules-150121/">failed in court</a>.</p>
<p>The IA and CCIA both mention Italy&#8217;s <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/italys-pirate-site-blocklist-expands-with-flashx-rarbg-and-others-170306/">site-blocking efforts</a> as well. This is administered by the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) which can require ISPs to block sites without a judicial process. </p>
<p>Finally, Russian <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-begins-removing-banned-sites-from-search-results-190213/">piracy blocking efforts</a> are mentioned too. These affect some of the tech companies directly, as it requires search engines to remove all links to<br />
allegedly infringing websites within 24 hours.</p>
<p>&#8220;In practice, this law has resulted in overbroad removal and delisting requests for general-purpose websites that would not be subject to removal under Section 512 of the Copyright Act or other parts of U.S. copyright law,&#8221; IA writes. </p>
<p>The tech companies hope that the US Government will take its concerns into account. Aside from the EU-focused issues, the full requests of both CCIA and IA highlight a variety of concerns in other regions as well.</p>
<p>—</p>
<p>The CCIA’s submission to the USTR is available <a href="media/45dd4011.CCIA_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/CCIA_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf">here (pdf)</a> and the Internet Association’s submission can be <a href="media/0405b046.Internet_Association_-_2020_Special_301_Review_Comments.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Internet_Association_-_2020_Special_301_Review_Comments.pdf">found here (pdf)</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182825
title: Olympic Committee & Top Soccer Groups Urge US Govt. Action Over Pirate IPTV
uri: Olympic-Committee-Top-Soccer-Groups-Urge-US-Govt-Action-Over-Pirate
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iiukzkvVMiA/
content:
<p><a href="media/f350a6f0.ustrb.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ustrb.jpg"><img src="media/f350a6f0.ustrb.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/ustrb.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="172" class="alignright size-full wp-image-132637" /></a>Each year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes its Special 301 Report that highlights countries that are considered to be failing when it comes to the protection of intellectual property rights.</p>
<p>As part of the preparations for publication, the USTR asks for input from copyright holders, content distributors and other interested parties, which are then taken into consideration when deciding which countries appear in the final report. One of the hot topics in 2020 has its center in the Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>In 2017, a new broadcaster called beoutQ began transmitting from the country, mainly utilizing satellite communications. However, instead of licensing or producing its own content, beoutQ rebranded and rebroadcast content owned by Qatar-based broadcaster beIN Sport. After much outcry and complaints from content owners globally, the USTR <a href="media/e884b4ba.2019_Special_301_Report.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/2019_Special_301_Report.pdf">labeled beoutQ</a> a &#8220;notorious market&#8221; in its 2019 Special 301 Report.</p>
<p>In August 2019, beoutQ suddenly stopped broadcasting via satellite but that was not the end of the matter. With millions of beoutQ devices installed in homes, the IPTV-enabled devices are now being primarily repurposed as streaming boxes, delivering the same content as they did before but utilizing the Internet. According to some of the world&#8217;s leading sports leagues and bodies, this presents a clear threat to the industries they represent.</p>
<p>In submissions to the USTR filed over the past few days, the International Olympic Committee, global soccer governing body FIFA, Englands&#8217; Premier League and Spain&#8217;s La Liga, urge the USTR to keep Saudi Arabia on the Priority Watch List for 2020 on the basis that it denies &#8220;adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights.&#8221;</p>
<p>The submissions begin with an outline of what each organization does and how beoutQ has affected their businesses. There is a level of déjà vu when reading the submissions by the Premier League and La Liga in that their collaboration is obvious, with entire sections cut and paste across the submissions. In that respect, they agree in exactly the same words that while the satellite broadcasting element isn&#8217;t an immediate threat, the IPTV capabilities are.</p>
<p>&#8220;Although beoutQ ceased broadcasting in mid-August 2019 (though rumors continue to circulate about its possible return), piracy continues to run rampant in Saudi Arabia. IPTV apps providing access to vast swaths of pirated content continue to be available on the up to three million beoutQ set-top boxes reportedly in circulation in Saudi Arabia and the region, among other IPTV boxes in the Saudi market,&#8221; both submissions read.</p>
<p>&#8220;For example, an independent report commissioned by the Premier League and several other sports rights holders and published in April 2019 revealed that one such IPTV app EVDTV, is itself based in Saudi Arabia. According to that report, contact details for the pirate service are publicly available on the app&#8217;s website, universeiptvs.com, which provides, inter alia, a phone number and location in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>&#8220;Despite repeated complaints by beIN and other rights holders, Saudi Arabia has never brought criminal action against beoutQ, or its Saudi facilitators and supporters,&#8221; the pair add in unison.</p>
<p>The FIFA submission is essentially an edited variant of the submissions presented by the Premier League and La Liga, with various paragraphs copied verbatim and others that are more specific to its role as a governing body. However, they all agree that after spending 15 months attempting to initiate a copyright infringement case in Saudi Arabia against beoutQ and its Saudi-based facilitators, it proved impossible to obtain legal counsel in the country.</p>
<p>With no legal remedy available, the USTR should punish Saudi Arabia, the soccer groups insist.</p>
<p>For its part, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) says its policy is to ensure that the Olympics reaches the widest possible audience, by allocating broadcasting rights to television, radio, mobile and Internet platforms. It says that the majority of the revenue generated by these rights is pumped back into sports and supporting athletes, including those in the United States.</p>
<p>The big issue in the Middle East and North Africa is that the IOC has licensed beIN, the official broadcasting partner that has been heavily targeted by beoutQ with its pirated broadcasts, which included the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games. With the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games coming up, the IOC is concerned that its broadcasting partnerships could be undermined once again.</p>
<p>&#8220;In view of this longstanding situation, the IOC respectfully requests that USTR maintain Saudi Arabia’s position on the Priority Watch List and engage with Saudi Arabia to encourage the Kingdom to protect and enforce the intellectual property rights of rights holders and to consider taking further appropriate steps in order to address the ongoing harm caused to rights-holders and broadcasters from this pirate activity,&#8221; the IOC concludes.</p>
<p><em>The submissions from IOC, FIFA, Premier League and La Liga can be found here (<a href="media/83cec0eb.IOC_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/IOC_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf">1</a>,<a href="media/6b89a47a.FIFA_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/FIFA_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf">2</a>,<a href="media/b02f7a49.Premier_League_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/Premier_League_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf">3</a>,<a href="media/cd3c308a.LaLiga_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/LaLiga_2020_Special_301_Review_Comment.pdf">4</a> pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182675
title: .CA Domain Registry Objects to Pirate Site Blocking Order
uri: CA-Domain-Registry-Objects-to-Pirate-Site-Blocking-Order
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RVbO-irWmWc/
content:
<p><img src="media/a2cf27d4.canada.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/canada.jpg" alt="" width="222" height="165" class="alignright size-full wp-image-60888" />Last November, Canada’s Federal Court approved the first <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/federal-court-approves-first-pirate-site-blockade-in-canada-191118/">pirate site blockade</a> in the country.</p>
<p>Following a complaint from major media companies Rogers, Bell and TVA, the Court ordered several major ISPs to block access to domains and IP-addresses of the pirate IPTV service GoldTV.</p>
<p>This is the first blocking order of its kind in Canada but could be the start of many. While most of the targeted ISPs stayed quiet and didn’t even acknowledge receipt of our questions, TekSavvy chose to appeal the blocking injunction.</p>
<p>The Internet provider is not the only organization that&#8217;s worried about the blocking order. Several others have raised concerns and some have now asked the Federal Court of Appeal if they can intervene in the case. This includes <a href="https://cira.ca/">CIRA</a>, the registry that operates the .CA domain name. </p>
<p>The registry, which also provides DNS services for .PT, .SE, and .ES domains, says it didn&#8217;t previously intervene because it wasn&#8217;t aware of the proceeding. It only learned about the blockades after these were reported in the media. </p>
<p>Among other things, CIRA is concerned that the website blocking injunction will interfere with the open Internet infrastructure. In addition, it will also bypass its authority by pointing Internet users to other locations when they try to access a .CA domain.</p>
<p>&#8220;Ordering ISPs to intercept and redirect internet communications could conflict with CIRA&#8217;s longstanding commitment to maintain an open and effective internet architecture,&#8221; CIRA writes.</p>
<p>&#8220;It could jeopardize CIRA&#8217;s mission to steward the .CA domain and to provide high quality registry, DNS, and cybersecurity services,&#8221; the registry adds.</p>
<p>Ideally, more stakeholders should have been consulted before making such a drastic decision, the registry notes. In CIRA&#8217;s view, site blocking is not the answer to address infringing sites. It directly conflicts with the Telecommunications Act while there are better alternatives. </p>
<p>One of the options suggested by CIRA is to identify the site owners through the WHOIS database. The organization says that it can provide such information when it&#8217;s compelled to do so by a Canadian court order. </p>
<p>Possible measures could also include involving other third-party intermediaries such as hosting companies and payment intermediaries. </p>
<p>&#8220;Any and all of those options are, while still extreme, more consistent with the Telecommunications Act and less intrusive into the technical architecture of the internet than the remedy sought from and granted by the Federal Court,&#8221; CIRA writes.</p>
<p>Based on these and other arguments, the registry asks the Federal Court of Appeal to grant its motion to intervene in the case.</p>
<p>Another organization that would like to be heard is the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (<a href="https://cippic.ca/">CIPPIC</a>). The group, which is connected to the University of Ottawa, also believes that the site-blocking order should be reversed. </p>
<p>&#8220;ISP-based website blocking is an intrusive remedy, incompatible with the right to free expression,&#8221; CIPPIC writes, adding that it also raises issues with the Copyright Act and the Telecommunications Act. </p>
<p>Such orders should not be taken lightly and deserve more scrutiny than the Federal Court has offered so far.</p>
<p>CIPPIC raises a variety of issues which it wants to argue in more detail. This also includes possible conflicts with net neutrality.</p>
<p>&#8220;ISP-based website blocking orders have a significant potential to disrupt communications networks and interfere with network innovation,&#8221; CIPPIC writes. </p>
<p>&#8220;Any ISP-based website blocking order must therefore ensure it does not undermine the CRTC’s role, legislatively mandated under section 36 of the Telecommunications Act, for monitoring net neutrality and ISP interference with transmitted content&#8221;</p>
<p>Both motions to intervene have yet to be reviewed by the Court and more may still be filed, also from rightsholders. </p>
<p>Given the interest of these parties, it&#8217;s clear that the matter has triggered much broader interest than during the initial proceeding. </p>
<p><em>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of CIRA&#8217;s motion to intervene is available <a href="media/a4ef6624.CIRA-motion-record.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/CIRA-motion-record.pdf">here (pdf)</a> and CIPPIC&#8217;s motion can be found <a href="media/1ec13c20.20200203-CIPPIC_MRIntervention-FCT.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/20200203-CIPPIC_MRIntervention-FCT.pdf">here (pdf)</a>.</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182870
title: Steal This Show S05E05: ‘Russia’s Sandworm’
uri: Steal-This-Show-S05E05-Russia-s-Sandworm
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/XAl3eFqrEMs/
content:
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-113928" src="media/3f816ea2.stslogo180.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/stslogo180.png" alt="" width="180" height="180">In this episode, we meet Andy Greenberg, senior writer at Wired Magazine and author of <a href="https://andygreenberg.net/">Sandworm, A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hacker</a>. </p>
<p>We discussed how Russia is developing a secret hacking program with the ability to take out national infrastructure across the world &#8212; and how, under a new paradigm of &#8216;total war&#8217;, essential elements of our lived environment are increasingly vulnerable to digital attack &#8212; from banking to electricity to transport systems and beyond. </p>
<p>Find out why Russia may now be trying to export the &#8216;controlled instability&#8217; it has produced in Ukraine to the West, and how this could provide the country with an unprecedented &#8216;asymmetric&#8217; military upper hand.<br />
&#8212;</p>
<p><a href="https://stealthisshow.com">Steal This Show</a> aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing crypto, privacy, copyright and file-sharing developments. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis.</p>
<p><strong>Host:</strong> Jamie King</p>
<p><strong>Guest: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Greenberg">Andy Greenberg</a></strong></p>
<p><center><iframe src="//stealthisshow.com/?lpe-frame=1&amp;lpe-season=5&amp;lpe-episode=05" width="100%" height="180px" frameborder="0"></iframe></center></p>
<p><strong><sup><em>If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. <a href="https://patreon.com/user?u=4275705">Check out Steal This Show&#8217;s Patreon campaign</a>: support us and get all kinds of&nbsp;fantastic benefits!</em></sup></strong></p>
<p><strong>Produced </strong> <em>by </em>Jamie King<br />
<strong>Edited &amp; Mixed</strong> <em>by</em> Lucas Marston<br />
<strong>Original Music</strong> <em>by</em> David Triana<br />
<strong>Web Production</strong> <em>by</em> Eric Barch</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182841
title: Movie Companies File Lawsuits in Canada Targeting 3,348 Alleged BitTorrent Pirates
uri: Movie-Companies-File-Lawsuits-in-Canada-Targeting-3-348-Alleged-BitTor
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/OgxA5v-Vx14/
content:
<p><a href="media/efd05bc4.trollsign.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/trollsign.jpg"><img src="media/efd05bc4.trollsign.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/trollsign.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="167" class="alignright size-full wp-image-108977" /></a>In the United States, several companies are actively filing large volumes of lawsuits against alleged movie pirates, many of whom are said to have downloaded pornographic material.</p>
<p>However, there is a growing trend of companies connected to mainstream movies aggressively enforcing their rights with a view to obtaining settlements against <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/movie-companies-sue-yts-users-including-one-who-hid-behind-a-vpn-200106/">regular file-sharers</a>, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/torrent-site-yts-settles-piracy-lawsuit-with-movie-company-but-stays-online-200102/">torrent site operators</a>, and even <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-app-cotomovies-shuts-down-apologizes-and-exposes-users-190911/">app developers</a>.</p>
<p>Two companies involved in this area are Rambo V Productions, Inc. (Rambo: Last Blood) and Fallen Productions, Inc. (Angel Has Fallen). While mostly active in the United States, two lawsuits filed in Canada&#8217;s Federal Court of Toronto in recent days show that their litigation and cash settlement program is beginning to spread.</p>
<p>Filed closely together on February 7, the two statements of claim are almost identical, differing only in respect of movie titles and IP addresses, plus dates and times when the infringing behavior allegedly took place. The Rambo V Productions claim targets 1,218 Doe Defendants, with Angel Has Fallen targeting 2,130.</p>
<p>In common with all related complaints, the claims detail how BitTorrent technology works and how individuals participate in concert with other users in order to download and share movies online, without obtaining permission from the copyright holders.</p>
<p>&#8220;Each Doe Defendant has unlawfully, and without the Plaintiff&#8217;s authorization or consent, utilized the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network to download and/or unlawfully offer to upload the Work thus infringing the Plaintiff&#8217;s copyright in the Work,&#8221; the claims read.</p>
<p>In similar cases filed in other jurisdictions, it is common for each defendant to be referenced by a single IP address alongside an alleged date and time of infringement. In these cases, however, all defendants have two dates and times of supposed infringement logged against them, which are spaced several days apart. The reason for this becomes apparent in the following paragraph.</p>
<p>&#8220;In accordance with the provisions of s. 41.25 and s. 41.26 of the Copyright Act each Defendant was notified of his or her Unlawful Acts by Notice,&#8221; the claims read.</p>
<p>This is a reference to the provisions (<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/section-41.25.html">1</a>,<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/section-41.26.html">2</a>) in Canadian law that allow copyright holders to send warning notices to alleged infringers via their service providers. According to the plaintiffs in both cases, each Doe Defendant was sent such a notice but failed to take remedial action.</p>
<p>&#8220;The First Notice informed each Defendant that they had been detected by forensic software as offering for upload the Work, and indicated that if the Work was taken down that there would be no action taken as against such Defendant. Each Defendant failed to respond, or refused to respond, to the First Notice and continued his or her Unlawful Acts,&#8221; they add.</p>
<p>When no action was taken in response to the first notice, the plaintiffs claim that their counsel sent a second notice to the Doe Defendants, informing them that the copyrighted work was still being made available and that legal action could follow.</p>
<p>&#8220;This Second Notice indicated that the work had not been removed and that legal action may be taken as against such Defendant. The Defendant failed or refused to respond to the Second Notice and has continued his or her Unlawful Acts,&#8221; the claims note.</p>
<p>While one person is usually named as the customer of an ISP (the person who pays the bill) it is common for other people in a particular household to have access to the same Internet connection via a router. This means that the bill payer may or indeed may not be the person (the Doe Defendant) who committed any of the alleged infringements.</p>
<p>The claims for both Rambo: Last Blood and Angel Has Fallen attempt to cover all bases by stating that even if the bill payer isn&#8217;t the direct infringer, he or she is ultimately responsible.</p>
<p>&#8220;In that case, the customer should have, and ought to have, the knowledge of who was using the customer&#8217;s internet account at the specifically identified date and time,&#8221; the claims add. But the responsibility doesn&#8217;t end there.</p>
<p>While acknowledging that some of the defendants may not be &#8216;direct infringers&#8217;, the plaintiffs state that through &#8220;negligence or wilful blindness&#8221; they &#8220;authorized others&#8221; to infringe after failing to exercise sufficient control over the use of their Internet connections when they knew that infringement was taking place.</p>
<p>&#8220;Each Defendant was provided with prior notice (the First Notice) that such Defendant&#8217;s internet account was being used in a way that infringed the Plaintiff&#8217;s copyright, and yet such Defendant did nothing to prevent or cease the infringement. Each Defendant therefore knew or should have known that their internet account was being used contrary to s. 27(1) and s.27(2) of the Copyright Act,&#8221; both claims add.</p>
<p>While the statements of claim state that defendants can be served in either Canada or the United States, both indicate that the listed IP addresses are believed to be located in Canada and that damages and injunctions will be sought as part of the action.</p>
<p><a href="https://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2020/02/two-new-mass-copyright-lawsuits-rambo.html">Excess Copyright</a>&#8216;s Howard Knopf believes that the plaintiffs will now attempt to obtain “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwich_Pharmacal_order">Norwich Orders</a>” to force the ISPs to hand over the identities of the individuals behind the listed IP addresses. At this stage it&#8217;s unclear whether any or all will fight back.</p>
<p><em>The claims filed by Rambo V Productions and Fallen Productions can be found <a href="media/14c69068.446431551-Rambo-Last-Blood-T-196-20-ID-11513966-1-pdf.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/446431551-Rambo-Last-Blood-T-196-20-ID-11513966-1-pdf.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/1bafdab1.446431553-Angel-has-fallen-T-198-20-ID-11513969-pdf.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/446431553-Angel-has-fallen-T-198-20-ID-11513969-pdf.pdf">here</a></em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182878
title: Rightsholders Asked Google to Remove Five Million ThePirateBay.org URLs
uri: Rightsholders-Asked-Google-to-Remove-Five-Million-ThePirateBay-org-URL
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/O9M_QA__Kd4/
content:
<p><img src="media/d4dd039c.thepirate-e1470829181981.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/thepirate-e1470829181981.jpg" alt="" width="220" height="206" class="alignright size-full wp-image-116122" />The Pirate Bay is widely known for its refusal to remove content based on copyright infringement claims. Those who tried in the past found themselves mocked instead.</p>
<p>This means that copyright holders have to find other ways to minimize the site&#8217;s impact. That includes sending takedown requests to search engines, to lower the site&#8217;s presence there. </p>
<p>Most of these takedown notices are sent to Google, which receives requests to remove thousands of Pirate Bay links every day. These quickly add up and have now surpassed five million requests against Thepiratebay.org URLs alone. </p>
<p>Like many other pirate sites, The Pirate Bay has many proxy sites and previously used other domains as well. If we added all of these together, the totals would run into the dozens of millions.</p>
<p>The vast majority of thepiratebay.org URLs were reported since 2016, when the iconic torrent site returned to its original .org domain name, as can be seen in the graph below. </p>
<p><center></p>
<h4>Targeted thepiratebay.org urls</h4>
<p></center><center><img src="media/f5bb5120.tpb5m2.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/tpb5m2.jpg" alt="" width="657" height="323" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182894" /></center></p>
<p>The figures reported in Google&#8217;s <a href="https://transparencyreport.google.com/">transparency report</a> count all the URLs that were submitted by copyright holders. This also includes duplicate requests. In other words, it doesn&#8217;t mean that five million search results were removed. </p>
<p>Of the 5,047,397 reported URLs, nearly two-thirds (66.5%) resulted in removed links. Little over 10% are duplicates that were sent in before by other copyright holders and 22.2% of the URLs were not indexed by Google in the first place. </p>
<p>It may seem odd that copyright holders ask Google to remove content that isn&#8217;t in its search engine. However, the company previously explained that it accepts these requests, which are put on a <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-blocks-pirated-search-results-prophylactically-180103/">preemptive blacklist</a>, to ensure that they are not added in the future. </p>
<p>When all of the above is taken into account there is still 0.8% left. These are reported URLs for which Google took no action. This can happen when the takedown request has clear errors, or if the reported URL isn&#8217;t copyright infringing.</p>
<p><center><img src="media/d7e04dd3.thepcats.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/thepcats.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="491" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182900" /></center></p>
<p>As we previously reported, rightsholders have repeatedly asked Google to remove thepiratebay.org&#8217;s homepage. However, since this doesn&#8217;t link to any infringing content, Google <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-categorically-refuses-to-remove-the-pirate-bays-homepage-180729/">keeps this page in its search results</a>. </p>
<p>Google does, however, downgrade The Pirate Bay searches for some content. Because the site is repeatedly targeted, the search engine <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/google-punishing-pirate-sites-in-search-results-works-160713/">lowers its ranking</a> in results for movies and other types of media. </p>
<p>While five million targeted URLs is significant, it is by no means a record. Several other sites including 4shared.com, Rapidgator.net, and Chomikuj.pl have been reported dozens of millions of times. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182880
title: US Congress Starts Review on Possible Modernization of the DMCA
uri: US-Congress-Starts-Review-on-Possible-Modernization-of-the-DMCA
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Trzbj-LUY_w/
content:
<p><a href="media/0333c7dc.copyright-blood.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-blood.jpg"><img src="media/0333c7dc.copyright-blood.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/copyright-blood.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="151" class="alignright size-full wp-image-120567" /></a>When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was introduced in 1998, few people could of imagined the online developments of the next two decades. Nevertheless, the law remains in place today and at times, according to some, struggles to keep up with whatever technology throws at it.</p>
<p>The DMCA is a complex beast but some of its key goals are to outlaw the production and distribution of tools and services designed to circumvent DRM systems controlling access to copyright works (Section 1201 anti-circumvention) and limit the liability of online service providers for the actions of their users (Section 512). Particularly in respect of the latter, many copyright holders believe that changes are long overdue.</p>
<p>With the U.S. Copyright Office already conducting its own study into the DMCA, Senator Thom Tillis has launched a new initiative in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property to find ways to modernize the DMCA to better tackle the drastic changes of the past 22 years. Supported by written testimony from a number of copyright experts, the first hearing took place yesterday.</p>
<p>Even at this early stage, it seems clear that while Section 1201 isn&#8217;t considered perfect and has its detractors, it is Section 512 that will likely prove the most controversial to address, particularly in respect of notice-and-takedown and related service provider safe harbor provisions. In his testimony, <a href="https://iipa.org/staff/steven-j-metalitz/">Steven J. Metalitz</a>, who helped to draft the DMCA more than two decades ago, provided his assessment of why the law no longer works as intended.</p>
<p>Metalitz references three &#8216;V&#8217;s as major issues faced by rightsholders today &#8211; the volume of infringement; the velocity of infringing activity; and the importance of voluntary arrangements, including licensing and technological collaboration. </p>
<p>&#8220;Section 512 in general, and the notice-and-takedown system in particular, implicitly assume a model in which the volume of infringing activity is sufficiently low that human decision making can feasibly be applied on virtually a case-by case basis to decisions about whether to file a notice of infringement, how such notices are to be processed, and what action should be taken in response to them,&#8221; Metalitz testified.</p>
<p>&#8220;If that model was ever a realistic approach, the huge volume of online infringement soon outstripped it. It was not long before the entire notice-and-takedown process became fully automated on both sides: robots talking to robots to decide the fate of particular disputed postings or links, which themselves had been generated through automated processes.&#8221;</p>
<p>Addressing the current velocity of online infringements, Metalitz said the question of how quickly a service provider must act to deal with an infringement complaint to maintain safe harbor is now an issue.</p>
<p>Drafters of the DMCA may not have envisioned a situation where infringing content is not only made instantly available to an audience of millions, but can instantly reappear even following a successful takedown notice, rendering the system pointless, Metalitz said.</p>
<p>&#8220;In reviewing section 512, the subcommittee should consider what changes are needed to respond to this vast acceleration in the velocity of online infringement, as well as the ease with which Internet users with even limited tech savvy can carry it out,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>To help address some of these issues, Metalitz hopes that the subcommittee will look at the role of voluntary arrangements between copyright holders and service providers, such as licensing and other mechanisms, that can help to mitigate and manage online infringement, perhaps underpinned by changes in the law.</p>
<p>Given her position as Director of Copyright Research and Policy at the Center For Protection of Intellectual Property, the testimony of <a href="https://cpip.gmu.edu/about/our-team/sandra-aistars/">Sandra Aistars</a> demonstrated a clear determination towards a tightening of the law, with suggestions on the notice-and-takedown/service provider front proving of particular interest.</p>
<p>&#8220;I do not advocate doing away with the protections safe harbors have afforded internet companies, because along with the negative, they have also done much to spur positive developments and creativity on the internet. Nevertheless, I believe that the last twenty two years of applying the DMCA to everyday practice have demonstrated that the marketplace and the courts have eroded the original intent of Congress,&#8221; Aistars testified.</p>
<p>&#8220;In considering legislation, it will be important to focus on how best to restore those elements of the DMCA intended to foster cooperation between stakeholders. One clear area of legislative reform would be to restore/clarify the original meaning of red flag knowledge.</p>
<p>&#8220;Similarly, elements of the DMCA which have received little or no attention &#8212; such as the concept of sending notice of infringements by means of representative lists, rather than link by link, and the requirement to accommodate standard technical measures, should be revisited and incorporated more effectively into any new legislation,&#8221; she added.</p>
<p>That brings Aistars to the conclusion that notice-and-takedown is for the past and something more permanent should be considered for the future. Legislation that provides incentives for service providers to develop technologies or policies to achieve notice-and-staydown regimes would be favorable, she argued, especially since Europe is moving towards that with <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eu-parliament-adopts-copyright-directive-including-article-13-190326/">Article 17</a> of the Copyright Directive.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some progress has already been made on this in the European Union Digital Single Market Directive, demonstrating not only that this is an achievable goal, but that internet services operating in the EU will already be required to meet such standards,&#8221; Aistars added.</p>
<p>But while Aistars suggests that the DMCA needs significant work to be effective in today&#8217;s environment, others believe that it is still delivering on its goal to encourage innovation. Any significant change, perhaps in line with the EU&#8217;s plans, could hinder that, some suggest.</p>
<p>Professor Rebecca Tushnet of the Harvard Law School works with the <a href="https://www.transformativeworks.org/">Organization for Transformative Works</a>, a user-generated content project with a budget of less than $400,000 per year. It receives 1.12 billion page views per month yet receives less than one DMCA notice per month, most of them invalid.</p>
<p>&#8220;Empirical research reveals that most of the internet service providers who rely on §512 are like us: receiving relatively low levels of notices and handling them individually. There just aren’t that many entities receiving millions of notices,&#8221; her testimony reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;While market pressures and business decisions have led a few large sites like YouTube to more filter-based systems, it is important not to treat YouTube as a model for the internet at large—unless the only online service we want to survive is YouTube.&#8221;</p>
<p>Tushnet believes that most beneficiaries of Section 512 are not companies like Google or Facebook. Indeed, if Congress targets these kinds of entities with changes to copyright law, it will only help them dominate the market.</p>
<p>&#8220;If Congress changes the DMCA to target Google and Facebook, or because of rogue overseas sites that already aren’t complying with the DMCA to begin with, it will ensure that only Facebook, Google and pirate sites survive, making the problem of market concentration even worse without protecting creators,&#8221; Tushnet said.</p>
<p>&#8220;Most service providers don’t need and can’t get expensive filtering technology. A mandate for that, whether called &#8216;staydown&#8217; or something else, would destroy the small and medium entities that are vital to innovation, creativity, and competition on the internet.&#8221;</p>
<p>Finally and perhaps unsurprisingly, the thorny issue of dealing with so-called &#8216;repeat infringers&#8217; is set for hot debate, embedded as it is with Section 512, safe harbor, and its potential effect on regular Internet users. It is certainly on Sandra Aistars&#8217; agenda, up to and including taking the most aggressive measures possible against those accused of infringing copyright via their home connections.</p>
<p>Referencing the recent <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/cox-pays-substantial-settlement-to-end-repeat-infringer-piracy-lawsuit-180827/">BMG v Cox case</a>, which dealt with the repeat infringements of BitTorrent users and the failure of the ISP to disconnect them, Aistars expressed disappointment at those who submitted amicus briefs arguing that disconnection would be unfavorable if multiple users in a household had access to an Internet connection.</p>
<p>&#8220;Apparently these parties believe high speed internet service is more of a basic human necessity than housing or transportation, which can both be seized under federal forfeiture laws regardless if jointly held,&#8221; Aistars testimony reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;While I do not suggest that the circumstances under which federal forfeiture is permitted are exactly comparable, surely if the seizure of a jointly owned home or automobile is permissible, disabling internet service must also be under appropriate circumstances. Clearly ISPs have no qualms disabling service for nonpayment, for instance.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yesterday&#8217;s hearing was just the beginning but for those who want all of the details thus far, the testimonies are available <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/the-digital-millennium-copyright-act-at-22-what-is-it-why-it-was-enacted-and-where-are-we-now">here</a>.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182932
title: UK Court Finds GTA V Cheat Makers Guilty of Copyright Infringement
uri: UK-Court-Finds-GTA-V-Cheat-Makers-Guilty-of-Copyright-Infringement
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/PnH5eqddGC8/
content:
<p><img src="media/14a077fa.gtanew.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/gtanew.jpg" alt="" width="277" height="238" class="alignright size-full wp-image-162562" /><a href="https://www.rockstargames.com/">Rockstar Games</a>, the company behind ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (GTA V), has taken cheat developers and sellers to court around the world in recent years. </p>
<p>We have previously reported of lawsuits in <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/gta-v-cheat-developer-settles-copyright-infringement-case-190312/">the US</a> and <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/gta-cheat-developers-have-homes-searched-and-assets-frozen-181015/">Australia</a> against people involved with the &#8220;Elusive&#8221; and &#8220;Infamous&#8221; cheats. More recently, a case in the UK caught our attention. </p>
<p>At the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court, Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a complaint against several people connected to the now-defunct &#8220;Epsilon&#8221; cheat.</p>
<p>Epsilon was a so-called &#8216;mod menu&#8217; which offered players significant advantages. The game companies reportedly shut down the cheat in 2018 and identified five men connected to it. They were accused of copyright infringement by creating and distributing the software.</p>
<p>Since the complaint was filed, three defendants settled their case through consent orders. The remaining two went to court recently, where they hoped to be found not guilty. </p>
<p>The defendants didn&#8217;t deny their involvement with Epsilon. However, in defense of the copyright infringement claims, the pair argued that they showed a disclaimer of liability to users of the cheat.</p>
<p>In addition, the two men countered that many of the materials they used to create the cheat were sourced from other sites, including a popular and well-known public cheating site that offers GTA V&#8217;s source code.</p>
<p><center>Epsilon screenshot, courtesy of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Wz3WsVajE">je modz</a></center><center><img src="media/2d6bbc27.epsi-e1581587426971.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/epsi-e1581587426971.png" alt="" width="600" height="389" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182943" /></center></p>
<p>According to the court, these and other defenses were not sufficient. The liability disclaimer was seen as &#8220;mere window dressing&#8221; and the fact that they relied on external sources to create Epsilon is irrelevant. </p>
<p>&#8220;[P]ublic availability of the means to infringe copyright is not a defense to copyright infringement,&#8221; Justice Falk writes in the order.</p>
<p>All in all, the court ruled in favor of Rockstar and Take-Two, granting summary judgment for copyright infringement against the two men. This means that the case won&#8217;t go to trial. </p>
<p>Both defendants were also accused of (inducement of) breach of contract and breach of contract. The court sided with the game companies here as well, except for the breach of contract claim against one of the two, who was a minor at the time of the offense. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.worldipreview.com/news/english-ip-court-backs-gta-makers-in-cheat-code-suit-19321">mentioned</a> by Worldipreview, any costs associated with the judgment may have to be determined in a separate trial. Justice Falk, however, hopes that the parties will reach an agreement on this outstanding matter outside of court.</p>
<p>&#8212;</p>
<p>A copy of Justice Falk&#8217;s order at Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court is <a href="https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2020/179.html">available here</a>. </p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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feed_id: https://torrentfreak.com/?p=182979
title: US Govt: Massive Jetflicks Pirate Site Was Disguised as Aviation Service
uri: US-Govt-Massive-Jetflicks-Pirate-Site-Was-Disguised-as-Aviation-Servi
url: http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/10K8MA8SeYo/
content:
<p><a href="media/b48c012a.usdoj.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg"><img src="media/b48c012a.usdoj.jpg" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg" alt="" width="190" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-91397" srcset="https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj.jpg 190w, https://torrentfreak.com/images/usdoj-150x150.jpg 150w" sizes="(max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px" /></a>In August 2019, eight men were <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/eight-men-behind-two-us-pirate-streaming-services-charged-by-grand-jury-190828/">indicted by a grand jury</a> for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running &#8220;two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.&#8221;</p>
<p>Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Darryl Julius Polo, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant, and Luis Angel Villarino were the operators of Jetflicks, an unlicensed subscription-based TV show streaming service running out of Las Vegas, Nevada.</p>
<p>The defendants were charged with reproducing thousands of copyrighted TV shows and streaming them to customers all over the United States. Jetflicks reportedly had a massive library running to more than 183,000 episodes.</p>
<p>Last December, Darryl Julius Polo &#8211; who also ran another service called iStreamitAll &#8211; <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty-in-u-s-criminal-streaming-piracy-case-191214/">pleaded guilty</a> to copyright infringement and money laundering charges. Alongside, Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement.</p>
<p>The trial of the other defendants is set to go to trial in the summer, having been <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/jetflicks-piracy-trial-delayed-after-canada-hands-over-masses-of-discovery-data-200115/">recently delayed</a> due to Canadian authorities handing over a trove of discovery material. However, a legal matter involving Jetflick&#8217;s Kristopher Lee Dallmann has now provided an early glimpse into how that pirate streaming service was born.</p>
<p>As part of a US Government motion requesting confirmation that Dallmann waived his attorney-client privilege with respect to legal advice he received on the operation of Jetflicks, an FBI agent&#8217;s affidavit reveals what was said by Dallmann during the execution of a search warrant on his Las Vegas home on November 16, 2017.</p>
<p>Under questioning, Dallmann told the agent that the FBI misunderstood the nature of Jetflicks, claiming it was an entity providing aviation services.</p>
<p>&#8220;[Dallmann] described Jetflicks as a service through which customers could put their personal DVD collection onto a mobile device that could be utilized on aircraft,&#8221; the agent explained, adding that Dallman said that Jetflicks provided &#8220;minimal streaming services&#8221; and that its primary source of income came from digitizing personal DVD collections.</p>
<p>During the interview, Dallmann said that Jetflicks only ever had two customers, who combined paid a total of $80,000. Later, however, the Las Vegas resident admitted to streaming TV shows without permission but said that was permissible under the law since if a complaint was received, he would remove the content.</p>
<p>Following a pause in the interview, during which Dallmann used the bathroom, the tone appeared to change. The FBI agent reports Dallmann as weeping while admitting that he hadn&#8217;t been telling the entire truth. The Jetflicks business, or the DVD digitization service at least, hadn&#8217;t been successful and as a result, he&#8217;d turned to downloading TV shows from various websites and streaming them illegally via Jetflicks.</p>
<p>Dallmann volunteered that he had sought legal advice from an unnamed attorney who told him that Jetflicks could operate legally as long as content was taken down following a copyright complaint. However, Dallmann also admitted to receiving a cease-and-desist notice sent by the MPAA but said that the same attorney advised him to ignore it, dismissing the correspondence as having been &#8220;written by an amateur&#8221;.</p>
<p>According to the US Government, the illegal Jetflicks streaming operation and DVD digitization project (named as Jetflicks MoVi Entertainment System) ran alongside each other. The premise for the latter was that Dallmann &#8220;would contract with private aircraft owners to digitize their personal DVD collections of movies and television shows so they could watch their favorite movies and shows on digital devices on their planes.&#8221;</p>
<p>Interestingly, it&#8217;s reported that the Jetflicks MoVi Entertainment System was being built with copyright in mind. Promotional material seized by the FBI stated that Jetflicks would need to inspect a customer&#8217;s DVD collection to ensure that all original copies were owned before a customer&#8217;s new digital system could be populated.</p>
<p>&#8220;This aviation-services business, however, never got off the ground,&#8221; the motion reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;So, Mr. Dallmann and other conspirators quickly realized that it was much more lucrative to run and expand what amounted to an illegal version of Netflix, that is, a service where they obtained infringing digital copies of television shows from pirate sites, processed and renamed those works, and then streamed and distributed them on an unlimited basis to paying subscribers.&#8221;</p>
<p>While the aviation business failed, it&#8217;s claimed that the defendants used its identity to ensure that banks and payment processors for the streaming business carried on supplying their services.</p>
<p>According to the Government, Dallmann and his co-conspirators told service providers that their business focused on in-flight entertainment, referring them to Jetflicks.com rather than the Jetflicks.mobi domain used by the streaming entity.</p>
<div id="attachment_182986" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="media/67154be0.jetflicks-archive-e1581604773264.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflicks-archive-e1581604773264.png"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-182986" src="media/67154be0.jetflicks-archive-e1581604773264.png" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflicks-archive-e1581604773264.png" alt="" width="650" height="353" class="size-full wp-image-182986" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-182986" class="wp-caption-text">Archive image from Jetflicks.com</p></div>
<p>&#8220;For example, beginning in November 2016, Jetflicks used a company called Stripe to process subscriptions for the jetflicks.mobi illegal streaming service,&#8221; the motion reads.</p>
<p>&#8220;However, the Jetflicks Stripe account listed the domain as &#8216;jetflicks.com&#8217; and Mr. Dallmann described his business to Stripe as follows: &#8216;Private and Corporate aviation entertainment system sales, service, and subscription services. We invented the first entertainment system for private aviation that is classified as carry-on equipment&#8217;.”</p>
<p>Dallmann reportedly made a further statement to Stripe, shortly after opening the account, that his &#8220;aviation&#8221; business had 3,500 active customers. An application for a Wells Fargo account had Dallmann stating his business as &#8220;In flight entertainment for private jets.&#8221;</p>
<p>The untruths apparently continued when Jetflicks responded to streaming customers who complained that certain TV shows weren&#8217;t available on the service. They were told that the service&#8217;s &#8220;legal department&#8221; were negotiating contracts with copyright owners and that in some cases &#8220;a lot of red tape&#8221; was involved.</p>
<p>One customer who asked about the show True Blood was reportedly told that &#8220;Contract renewals and negotiations are in progress with HBO. They have a new HBO-ToGo mobile phone app now&#8230; so you can understand how they want it all on their app now. We will keep working on it but nothing moves fast with that sort of thing.&#8221;</p>
<p>The trial of the six remaining defendants is set to go ahead in July 2020.</p>
<p><em>The US Government&#8217;s motion and supporting affidavit can be found <a href="media/b0bbb4bf.jetflicks-motion.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflicks-motion.pdf">here</a> and <a href="media/dd89bebb.jetflicks-affi.pdf" data-original-source="https://torrentfreak.com/images/jetflicks-affi.pdf">here</a> (pdf)</em></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://torrentfreak.com/">TF</a>, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-popular-torrent-sites-of-2018-180107/">torrent sites</a> and more. We also have <a href="https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-keep-you-anonymous-in-2019/">VPN reviews, </a><a href="https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-discount-coupon-offer-torguard-nordvpn-expressvpn-pia/">discounts, offers and coupons</a>.</p>
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