Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years with WideOpenWest ( WOW! ) as one of the targets .

The Colorado-based Internet provider was sued by a group of movie companies including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures. The filmmakers accuse the ISP of failing to disconnect the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for sharing copyrighted material via BitTorrent.

The movie companies hold WOW! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages. The ISP rejects the claims and responded with a motion to dismiss, which was denied last year , and the case remains ongoing today.

Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Expansion

After the case was stalled for over a year, the movie companies requested permission to submit an amended complaint, which would add seven new plaintiffs and more than 300 new works.

The proposals raised the stakes significantly. Instead of 57 works, good for maximum statutory damages of roughly $8 million, an expansion to roughly 375 works would increase the statutory maximum to $56 million.

In addition to the monetary stakes, the proposed update also introduced evidence from two new third-party piracy tracking companies, Irdeto and Facterra. The initial complaint only included piracy tracking information from anti-piracy partner Maverickeye.

WOW protested these additions, but the court allowed the movie companies to go ahead. This week, they filed their second amended complaint at the Colorado federal court, making the changes official.

Same Claims, Higher Stakes

The nature of the claims against WOW! haven’t changed. The movie companies accuse the Internet provider of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as DMCA violations.

The complaint lists several examples of WOW! subscribers who, according to the referenced piracy tracking data, repeatedly shared copyright-infringing content including plaintiffs’ films.

WOW! purportedly received tens of thousands of infringement notices and was allegedly aware of these piracy activities. However, the ISP decided not to take any action as that could hurt its revenues, the movie companies allege.

“Defendant knew that if it terminated or otherwise prevented repeat infringer subscribers from using its service to infringe, or made it less attractive for such use, Defendant would enroll fewer new subscribers, lose existing subscribers, and ultimately lose revenue,” the amended complaint reads.

Redditors and Site Blocking

In addition to IP-address logs and other evidence, the movie companies also cite screenshots from Reddit users who discussed WOW!’s handling of piracy notices, or its lack thereof. They suggest that this acted as a draw to potential subscribers.

“The ability of subscribers ‘who want it all’ to use Defendant’s high speed service to ‘intensively upload and download’ Plaintiffs’ Works without having their services terminated despite multiple notices being sent to Defendant acts as a powerful draw for subscribers of Defendant’s service,” they write.

Besides terminating accounts of subscribers whose connections are repeatedly used to pirate, the ISP could have taken other ‘simple’ actions as well. For example, by blocking notorious ‘pirate’ sites such as torrent sites YTS and (the now defunct) RARB.

“Upon information and belief, Defendant refuses to block or limit its subscribers from accessing notorious piracy websites out of fear of losing subscriber revenue,” the complaint reads.

Increased Damages and More

To compensate for this wrongdoing, the plaintiffs request statutory damages up to the maximum of $150,000 per work. With roughly 375 titles in suit, damages could reach $56,250,000 for the copyright infringements alone. The DMCA violations could add millions more to this tally, the movie companies note.

On top of the damages increase, the movie companies still seek far-reaching injunctive relief. They specifically request an order requiring WOW! to terminate the accounts of subscribers targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

In addition to this mandatory three-strikes policy, WOW! should also block all alleged pirate sites listed in the USTR’s annual overview of notorious markets . This includes the likes of The Pirate Bay, FMovies, and YTS.

Finally, the movie companies request an order that requires the Internet provider to disclose the identities of account holders whose accounts are flagged for copyright infringement. Needless to say, such an order would allow the companies to target the alleged pirates directly.

—

A copy of the movie companies’ second amended complaint, filed against WOW! at the US District Court for Colorado, is available here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Italy’s Piracy Shield blocking platform is the mechanism through which sports rightsholders exercise their right to use state-approved tools in their fight against IPTV piracy.

In common with other systems in use around Europe, Piracy Shield acts on information provided by rightsholders. After identifying the target to be blocked, domain names and IP addresses are fed into the Piracy Shield system.

From there, data is pumped directly to the nation’s ISPs who must block or risk financial penalties.

Given that Piracy Shield cannot function without human input, when we refer to Piracy Shield here that means the entire chain. From data collection and approval for entry, through to actual blocking, regardless of whether any component is software, hardware, or human.

Who Benefits From Overblocking?

Pirates aside, two broad pools of people participate in site-blocking debates: those who understand the internet and the fallibility of human beings, and those who are equally aware of the risks but have an overriding and extremely urgent piracy problem to solve.

The concerns of the former include the not insignificant risk of innocent platforms being blocked in error. Such overblocking can be triggered by a simple typo or something more complex, a pirate site sharing an IP address with one or more completely innocent sites, for example.

Similar concerns are shared by rightsholders and anti-piracy groups; nobody ever reduced piracy by blocking innocent sites and no anti-piracy group’s work has ever been made easier by a belligerent mob shouting about censorship.

Given that a high-paced, dynamic environment virtually guarantees at least some mistakes, debating the inevitable isn’t anywhere near as important as finding out what went wrong, improving the system, and if required, having a discussion about it.

Piracy Shield “Works Perfectly”

During an appearance on Sky TG24 by AGCOM commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio and Federico Bagnoli Rossi, president of anti-piracy group FAPAV, it was revealed that since the launch of the Piracy Shield platform, there have been no overblocking blunders whatsoever.

Yet media reports published by DDAY.it and Wired recently, both contained sufficient evidence to mount a credible and, in at least one case, publicly verifiable argument directly to the contrary.

So did the publications both make blunders of their own? Is it feasible that they independently decided to report instances of collateral damage, against innocent web entities, without evidence or regard for the truth?

AGCOM Analysis: FAKE NEWS

A text excerpt from the TV show published by Libero.it begins by stating that AGCOM and FAPAV give the Piracy Shield system “full marks” based on its work thus far and that any reports of “friendly fire” blocking should be considered “fake news.”

“This is absolutely false and unfounded news,” states Capitanio. “Since the launch of the platform no DNS or IP address holder has made a request to AGCOM, as required by law, to have a site rehabilitated. There is a procedure for those who report that is so rigorous, I am not aware of any public administration sites being blocked in recent weeks.”

In other words, since AGCOM received no complaints of wrongful blocking from anyone wrongfully blocked, it must follow that no wrongful blocking took place. Whether the two publications mentioned above now consider their reporting debunked seems unlikely.

Similar stories are regularly discussed among workers at the country’s ISPs and associated entities. The so-called “rigorous” complaints procedure is mostly mocked for its critical failings.

Rigorously Impossible to Complain

After spending the last two weeks in the virtual company of people who keep Italy’s internet running, one thing is beyond doubt: how the system is being portrayed in public does not align with facts on the ground.

Workers at Italy’s ISPs and closely related companies don’t seem entirely consumed by the imposition of Piracy Shield on their businesses, but they are showing signs of frustration.

Many feel they have no voice and after AGCOM and FAPAV appeared on TV, unhindered by the views of the IT workers compelled to make blocking happen, it was immediately understood that bickering among themselves in public would’ve “spoiled the advertorial.”

Others chimed in on the rigorous complaint procedure referenced by AGCOM that, through its own basic failings, effectively doesn’t exist.

Instant Blocking on Tap (No Instant Undo)

The image below shows summaries of three recent orders for full and perpetual blocking to be administered through the Piracy Shield platform. The full orders are also available and can make for interesting reading.

But while commendably detailed in almost every respect, a decision has clearly been made to list only a single domain (some with subdomains) in each order to identify the platform authorized for blocking. Once an order is published there is a five-day window of opportunity for a complainant to file a complaint.

The text here shows that this option is useless for those wrongfully blocked; it seems highly unlikely that an unknown third party would receive a copy of an order in advance of Piracy Shield accidentally blocking them. That raises the prospect of a blocked innocent third party having to a) proactively discover that their connectivity has been limited b) isolate the problem to Italy c) discover the existence of AGCOM d) learn Italian and e) find the blocking order relating to them.

Don’t Get Too Optimistic

Awkwardly, and after all that detective work, the domains of innocent third parties do not appear in blocking orders for obvious reasons. That may suggest that they have been unlawfully blocked, especially since the regulations and Piracy Shield policy disallow any blocking of innocent parties.

In any event, overblocking is almost always the result of other things, such as shared IP addresses, which also do not appear in the orders published by AGCOM. While AGCOM does publish aggregated figures for IP addresses blocked after the initial order, zero IP addresses are published in public.

Since IP addresses don’t appear in initial orders, they can only appear in ‘subsequent reports’. The good news here is that those allowed to complain can at least try to file a complaint if they’re negatively affected. They must do that within five days of the ‘subsequent report’ (containing the IP addresses) being published on the AGCOM site.

There are some issues with that logic, however. First, AGCOM doesn’t publish subsequent reports. Second, a complaint will not stop the blocking.

Third, and probably most importantly, wherever the complaint procedure is mentioned, only recipients of a blocking order are specifically mentioned as qualified to complain.

That raises the prospect of pirate IPTV providers – immaculately reported to AGCOM for scrutiny before being deemed illegal by the regulator – being allowed to file a complaint. Those who have done absolutely nothing wrong, on the other hand, are treated as if they don’t even exist.

Of course, since they don’t even exist, filing complaints can be tricky. And, as established earlier, if there are no complaints that leads to the clear conclusion mentioned on TV: there has been no overblocking and any news to the contrary is fake.

‘Everyone Breaks The Rules’

This remarkable system “is a shit show” from beginning to end, a source familiar with it informs TF. There’s even a sarcastic suggestion that everyone abiding by the rules and regulations could bring the entire system down.

First, the law that disallows blocking of legitimate servers doing the legitimate work of legitimate third parties, is being violated. That means legitimate users are blocked, maybe in violation of their basic human right to send and receive information.

Second, information about blocks that should be published to facilitate correction of blunders, is not being published, also in violation of the regulations. Finally, we’re informed that some ISPs, having seen the mess, have decided to unblock some IP addresses without permission from those who initiated the mess, thus contravening the rules themselves.

One IT worker also expressed an interest in appearing on TV during the next debate but expects the spot to be scooped up by an ISP that also sells TV subscriptions.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In recent months, Movie-Web has quickly gained popularity among a particular group of movie aficionados.

The open source software, which is still available on GitHub, allows anyone to set up a movie search engine capable of streaming content from third-party sources. These external sources tend to have large libraries of pirated entertainment.

Like Google

Movie-Web’s developers are not oblivious to the legal ramifications but since they don’t host any files, they hoped to avoid legal trouble. The software just provides a search engine for third-party content, they argued.

“Think of it like Google, we search the Internet for videos, but we don’t own the sites, nor the content. We merely link to them,” Movie-Web explained in its FAQ.

That ‘Google’ argument has previously been used by torrent sites. However, history has shown that this doesn’t make such projects immune to legal issues. And as Movie-Web grew, Hollywood started to take notice, and action.

Movie-Web Domain Shutdown

Yesterday, the movie-web.app domain was suddenly taken down. According to a message posted on the official Discord server, this is the result of a “court action” from several movie companies including Warner Bros. Netflix, Paramount, Universal, and Disney.

TorrentFreak is not aware of any lawsuit, but [I]t appears that action was taken against the movie-web.app domain. It seems likely that registrar Namecheap suspended the domain after receiving a legal complaint from the aforementioned Hollywood companies.

Update: After publishing the article we learned that there is a legal action that requires registrars to take action against several ‘pirate’ domains. We’re looking into the matter and will follow this up later.

Namecheap updated the domain’s status to clientHold, which effectively rendered the domain inaccessible. The measure is often used to suspend pirate site domains following copyright holder complaints.

No Comeback

The surprise takedown only affects Movie-Web’s publicly hosted ‘demo’ instance. On Discord, the Movie-Web team says that it has no plans to bring this website back in any shape or form.

“As a team, we always said that if we were taken down, we would go down without a fight and we have decided to stick to that. We have zero interest in getting involved with legal matters, and so we will not be trying to circumvent this takedown in any way,” developer ‘BinaryOverload’ writes.

While this is the end of the popular movie-web.app site, the project isn’t dead yet. The code remains available on GitHub and people can still use it to run their own self-hosted instances.

In fact, the Movie-Web team points to several of these third-party instances, which were not targeted in the same takedown effort.

More Targets…

TorrentFreak reached out to the Movie-Web team requesting more details about the takedown action but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.

Looking through the discussions, we found a comment from user ‘chaos,’ one of the project leads, who confirms that the domain name takedown happened through Namecheap. This also suggests that Movie-Web wasn’t the only target. [see earlier update]

“This wasn’t just targeting movie-web, it was a blanket attack on a lot of other domains/sites as well. I doubt they actually have any grounds, but Namecheap isn’t going to go to court to defend piracy,” ‘chaos’ wrote.

The Movie-Web team says that it will continue to support people who want to self-host instances of the app, when possible. In addition, it will also maintain the list of “official mirrors” that they trust and recommend. Whether Hollywood will approve remains to be seen.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The InterPlanetary File System, more broadly known as IPFS , has been around for nearly a decade.

While the name may sound alien to the general public, the peer-to-peer file storage network has a growing user base among the tech-savvy.

In short, IPFS is a decentralized network where users make files available to each other. The system makes websites and files censorship-resistant and not vulnerable to regular hosting outages; as long as at least one user in the network continues to share.

These advantages allow archivists, content creators, researchers, and others to reliably distribute large volumes of data over the Internet. Many developers support the project and some do so actively, by running an IPFS gateway that the public can freely use to access IPFS-stored content.

IPFS DMCA Notices

The operators of these gateways are not aware of how people use them; they simply enable the technology. However, that hasn’t stopped copyright holders from sending complaints that urge operators to prevent alleged copyright infringements.

In recent years, several gateway operators have received DMCA takedown requests for content available through, but not stored on, their service. These complaints are not only lodged against small players. Cloudflare has also received thousands of takedown requests.

While Cloudflare has in-house legal experts to rely on, these notices can be a challenge for smaller developers who tend to run IPFS gateways as hobby projects. This also applies to computer scientist Mike Damm, who operates the Hardbin.com service.

IPFS & JetBrains Keys

Hardbin is an encrypted pastebin that enables users to share text. The service relies on IPFS for storing content and offers a gateway through which it can be viewed publicly.

Technically, Hardbin doesn’t store any third-party material but it can be published and accessed through the site. Not all rightsholders are happy with this and the Czech software company JetBrains shared its concerns with the operator last October.

JetBrains sent a takedown notice to the site, asking for the content to be removed. In response, Mr. Damm explained that Hardbin.com is an IPFS gateway that doesn’t store content, hoping that would resolve the matter. It didn’t.

While JetBrains now understands that IPFS gateways don’t store content, the company suggested disabling the Hardbin.com URL through which the software keys can be accessed. If not, the operator could be liable for copyright infringement under the DMCA, the software company warned.

“By knowingly facilitating the access to the cracks, activation codes, or other methods that aim to circumvent measures for protecting JetBrains’ products from unauthorized use, you are directly liable, even if you did not directly engage in software piracy activities.”

“Further, by knowingly inducing or providing links to the tools which are then employed in unauthorized access of JetBrains’ software, you may be liable for contributory copyright infringement,” JetBrains added.

Note: While Hardbin had an active “write” function, TorrentFreak was informed that the HTML file at issue here wasn’t uploaded to the IPFS network using Hardbin. It was uploaded by third parties using an external service, but accessible through Hardbin’s gateway.

EFF Steps Up

Faced with this legal conundrum, Mr. Damm reached out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation ( EFF ), who stepped up to help. EFF replied to JetBrains on behalf of the Hardbin.com operator, stressing that the service is not legally responsible for the alleged availability of the pirated software keys.

“That suggestion is baseless. As Mr. Damm has explained, an IPFS gateway is a conduit similar to VPNs, internet access services, or Tor nodes,” the letter from EFF attorney Kit Walsh reads.

“Mr. Damm is not presenting the complained-of link to the public; the link is only generated when a user provides the hash that identifies the file they wish to retrieve. This step is analogous to providing a domain name to an ISP’s DNS server in order to obtain the IP address corresponding to that domain..,” Walsh adds.

JetBrains’s suggestion that Hardbin violates the DMCA is not accurate, according to EFF. The letter points out that the IPFS gateway is not a hosting service, but a general-purpose conduit for information, which should not be held liable.

The software company sent its letter under Section 1201 of the DMCA, which applies to trafficking in circumvention technology. This is different from the traditional Section 512 takedowns. However, EFF sees no reason why liability should apply in this case.

“It would be absurd to suggest that Congress granted conduits special immunity for copyright claims based on third party activity but then, in the same statute, made them liable for pseudo-copyright Section 1201 claims,” Walsh writes.

Liability is Complex

EFF’s response doesn’t necessarily suggest that all IPFS gateways are immune to liability. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Walsh explains that there are several aspects operators may want to consider before sending a similarly styled response.

This includes whether they make money by offering the gateway service to users with accounts, whether they have made any statements encouraging people to use their service for infringement, and whether they host the complained-of files.

Thus far, the responses from IPFS operators have been mixed. Cloudflare, for example, has disabled access to thousands of externally stored files through its IPFS gateway, and other gateways have responded similarly in the past.

UK-based programmer James Stanley, who previously operated Hardbin.com, temporarily took the entire service offline when he received requests to take down thousands of links. Legal threats and uncertainties make it less fun to run these projects, he noted at the time.

Hardbin’s current operator sought help from EFF and the site remains online. To hear the other side of the story we also reached out to JetBrains but the company has yet to reply.

While IPFS gateway operators can feel strengthened by the position EFF takes in its response, legal uncertainties always remain. EFF’s Kit Walsh informs us that she will consider writing a FAQ to address these legal aspects and nuances, similar to the legal FAQ for TOR relay operators.

—

A copy of the second takedown notice Jetbrains sent to Mr. Damm is available here (pdf) and EFF’s response letter can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

For many people, Google is the go-to starting point when they need to find something on the web. With just a few keystrokes, the search engine can find virtually anything.

This is generally good, but copyright holders are not happy with all content that can be discovered. Pirates sites, for example, should remain hidden when possible.

In recent years Google has tweaked its algorithms to address this issue. At the same time, it continues to process DMCA takedown notices which allow rightsholders to ‘remove’ problematic content, even when it’s yet to be indexed.

Takedown Transparency

In the spring of 2012, Google expanded its Transparency Report by publishing all DMCA requests the company receives, including the targeted links and their senders. For the first time, outsiders were able to see the URLs copyright holders targeted and in what quantity.

Here at TorrentFreak, we’ve also paid considerable attention to how the volume of these requests has evolved. In the early years, there was a rapid rise in DMCA takedowns, reaching a peak around 2017 and then dropping off afterward.

Surprisingly, this trend reversal was only temporary. Last year it became clear that Google search DMCA notices had picked up again. And this second surge continues to this day.

8 Billion Reported URLs

A few days ago, Google processed its eight billionth takedown request, measured by individual reported URLs. This follows a little over six months after the seven billionth request, establishing a record-breaking pace.

For comparison, between 2019 and 2021, it took almost two full years to add a billion new takedowns.

As highlighted previously, the recent surge is partly caused by an increase in activity from the takedown outfits Link-Busters.com and Comeso. Together, they now submit the vast majority of all takedown requests.

These companies work with a variety of rightsholders. Link-Busters, for example, mostly works with major publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette.

Active Senders

To give an indication of the volume, Link-Busters.com flagged an average of more than two million URLs per day recently. If that pace continues, it will report more than 700 million URLs a year.

Comeso currently averages around 1.2 million reported URLs per week , which translates to well over 400 million yearly takedowns.

A large number of Comeso takedowns were sent on behalf of Kakao Entertainment, a major webtoon publisher. Earlier this week the Korean media giant released a whitepaper celebrating a record number of 208 million “takedown operations” between June to December 2023. The majority of these relate to Google takedown requests, the company confirmed to us, but other search engines and services were targeted as well.

While hundreds of millions of removals sure sound impressive, some nuance is warranted, as not all URLs are deindexed by Google. For example, only 36% of Comeso’s requests resulted in content being removed. Most URLs, about 58%, were not indexed by Google and put on a blacklist instead. The remaining URLs were not removed for other reasons.

Whether these efforts will put a significant dent in publishing piracy has yet to be seen, but the two takedown companies are certainly doing their best.

10 Billion?

If this trend continues, we could be at 10 billion takedowns by this time this year. That sounds like a lot and it certainly is. However, pirate sites are not oblivious to this tactic and actively switch to new domains, so there can always be more.

To offer some context, there are thousands of “Z-Library” related domains online, each with millions of URLs. That adds up quickly.

In the grander scheme of things, the eight billion figure might represent just a tiny speck. It’s less than 0.007% of the 130 trillion webpages Google search reportedly had indexed years ago.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The Internet Archive is widely known for its Wayback Machine, which preserves copies of the web for future generations.

These archiving efforts, which started decades ago, will become more valuable over time. The same could apply to IA’s other projects, including the digitization of old books and records.

Six years ago, the Archive began archiving the sounds of 78-rpm gramophone records, a format obsolete today. In addition to capturing their unique audio, including all ‘crackles and hisses’, this saves unique recordings for future generations before the vinyl or shellac disintegrates.

The ‘ Great 78 Project ‘ received praise from curators, historians, and music fans but not all music industry insiders were happy with it. Several record labels including Sony and UMG, sued the Internet Archive for copyright infringement in Manhattan federal court last year.

IA’s Motion to Dismiss

A few weeks ago, IA responded to these allegations with a motion to dismiss . According to the Archive, many of the claims are simply too late, as they supposedly point to infringements that occurred over three years ago. The record labels were aware of this, they allege, as the RIAA sent a cease and desist letter on their behalf but took no further action at the time.

The motion is centered around the statute of limitations but IA also stressed the importance of their archiving efforts, hinting that it would be eligible for a fair use defense.

Specifically, the motion explained that the ‘Great 78 Project’ aims to systematically archive these old records, including the hisses, crackles and pops, to preserve them for future generations.

“The specific quality of the sound, including the peculiar and distinct crackles and other imperfections that are a hallmark of this antiquated medium formed an indelible part of American culture for many decades,” the motion reads.

Record Labels Respond

The record labels responded to this motion a few days ago, letting the court know that they see no reason to dismiss any claims at this stage. The RIAA letter that IA relied on didn’t mention any dates and shouldn’t be construed as knowledge of any specific infringements, they counter.

“[T]he letter cannot demonstrate that Plaintiffs were aware, or should have been aware, that Defendants infringed any of the particular works in suit at the time the letter was sent,” their reply reads.

The labels listed a total of 2,749 musical works, which are good for a potential statutory damages award of more than $400 million. None of these claims should be dismissed at this stage, they argue, as discovery could show that they are timely.

“Later in the case, discovery will adduce the multitude of dates pivotal to the statute of limitations analysis, including: all of the dates Defendants created copies of the sound recordings at issue […] and the dates that the Defendants distributed and/or transmitted the sound recordings at issue to others.”

The Archive’s motion to dismiss is limited to the statute of limitation argument but the record labels also picked up on the “hisses and crackles” references, which they couldn’t ignore.

‘Hisses and Crackles’

The music companies are convinced that IA’s archiving of obsolete records is illegal, equating it to a massive pirate streaming library.

“Defendants have created a massive online storefront providing digital copies of thousands of these protected sound recordings to anyone to stream or download for free. The Great 78 Project is illegal,” they state.

The labels further believe that the defendants are “dreaming up baseless arguments” to justify their activity. This includes the value placed on the unique sound of old records, which the music companies label the ‘Rice Krispies’ argument.

These sounds are not a feature, but a bug, the music companies counter. They are audible imperfections, a sign of decaying physical records, which were never intended to be heard.

“When these recordings were released, they did not have all of the same hisses, crackles, and pops they have today. Many of those flaws result from the brittle discs’ many decades of age,” the labels note.

“Contrary to Defendants’ arguments, recording the hisses and crackles does not preserve how the records sounded on release. Instead, it anachronistically captures how an older format behaves after more than seventy years of aging.”

Fair Use?

Today, many people have come to appreciate these unique sounds. IA stressed that, without digitizing them, they may be soon lost forever. As such, its archiving effort should be able to rely on a fair use defense.

While the court is not yet being asked to consider the fair use aspect, the labels reject IA’s line of reasoning.

“Fair use cannot be perverted into forfeiting a sound recording’s protection under copyright law just because the recording is copied, distributed, and performed in something other than its cleanest sound. If ever there were a theory of fair use invented for litigation, this is it,” they write.

All in all, it’s clear that both parties have a very different take on the ‘Great 78 Project‘. First, the court has to decide whether any claims will be dismissed based on the statute of limitations argument. After that, we will likely see more ‘fair use’ fireworks.

The music companies also responded to a separate motion to dismiss from the Kahle-Austin Foundation. The foundation argued that there are no grounds to include it in the lawsuit, as it only helped to fund the Internet Archive, but the labels argue that as a named sponsor it knew of the infringements.

—-

A copy of the record labels’ response to IA’s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf) . The response to the Kahle-Austin Foundation can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The action in Canada this week is being described as the second phase of an operation that began last year .

Events were triggered when rightsholders led by Bell Media filed a criminal complaint against pirate IPTV service, Arubox TV.

Following an investigation by the Quebec Provincial Police, in 2023 the Office of Criminal Assets Recovery and Money Laundering carried out five searches; a condo in Laval and premises in Saint-Eustache and Brownsburg-Chatham were among the targets.

When some of those locations were targeted again this week, police may have returned to finish the job.

At Least Five Arrested For Links to Arubox TV and Stocker IPTV

During Tuesday’s raids, conducted by the Quebec Provincial Police at locations in Gatineau, Longueuil, Saint-Eustache, and Brownsburg-Chatham, at least five people were detained for suspected links to Arubox TV and Stocker IPTV.

The suspects were arrested on suspicion of various crimes including theft of telecommunications services, fraud, and money laundering. According to a local media report, Videotron, Bell, and Rogers are among the TV companies affected. Police say that more arrests are likely to follow.

Police claim that Arubox and Stocker packages provided access to more than 3,000 channels and in four years attracted over 7,000 subscribers. During the period 2020 to date, that reportedly generated around CA$2 million (US$1.5 million) for their operators, with sales over the past few months presumably taking place under the eye of the authorities.

Court Appearances via Videoconference

Following their arrests, the suspects appeared by videolink at the Trois-Rivières courthouse in Québec, accused of the crimes mentioned earlier plus another, mischief in relation to data .

Section 430(1.1) of the Criminal Code describes the offense as knowingly and intentionally destroying or altering data, to the extent it becomes useless or ineffective, or lawful use of the data is obstructed.

In respect of damage to the cable companies, the suspects stand accused of depriving them of an amount in excess of CA$500,000 using deception and fraudulent means.

Suspects Identified

The suspects were identified in court as follows: Éric Grenier (who is yet to be arrested) and Danick Rouleau, plus alleged accomplices Sarah-Maude Grenier, Christian Sabourin, Marie-Ève ​​Poliquin Karaguioules, Daniel Perreault-Marcotte, Patrick Cyr and Éric Laforge.

Éric Grenier is the alleged operator of Arubox.tv and per our 2023 report , he made no secret of his involvement in the IPTV market. Over several years, Canadian news reports have repeatedly linked Grenier to a local chapter of the Hells Angels and in that respect, police aren’t yet ruling anything out.

Danick Rouleau is the alleged operator of Stocker IPTV. The nature of the Stocker service isn’t made clear, something that also holds true for the Arubox service. The ‘signal theft’ allegations against the men imply a video capturing operation but thus far we’ve seen little to support that theory, at least in respect of Arubox.TV

Descriptions of the other suspects are currently limited to their names, but it seems likely that as the case develops, so will the media’s interest. It seems unlikely to be boring, let’s put it that way.

Were The Pirate Services Taken Down?

One curious aspect of the case is that for reasons that remain unclear, the portal through which Arubox customers watched the service seems to be at least partially operational. Attempting to access it via a web browser obviously produces an error but remains online nonetheless.

Determining whether it’s fully operational requires a subscription but in the current environment, that’s obviously best avoided. There is a way to obtain usable MAC addresses to access some portals of this type without handing over cash, but that’s most likely illegal, regardless of the nature of the service.

Fortunately, and regardless of its use of Cloudflare, Arubox’s setup allows for the identification of an IPTV server that seems to be still alive; that’s despite the raids this week and despite the action in May 2023.

That raises the question of why it hasn’t been shut down like servers in other cases involving Bell. We have no idea but the eight-minute walk from Bell HQ in Montreal to the server location probably rules out distance.

Are Subscribers Facing Arrest?

Police say that IPTV subscribers are not a target in the current action, which should put some minds at rest. However, they are advising people to return their set-top boxes to an official drop-off point at the Quebec Electronic Products Recycling Program.

Whether handing in close to top-of-the-range set-top boxes for dismantling sounds attractive will be a personal choice but the devices in themselves are not illegal. That’s good news for those who want to be kind to the environment; if there’s one thing better than recycling, it’s getting the most use out of a device before that’s even necessary.

Formuler Z10/11 devices sold by Arubox recently can be returned to factory settings in just a few seconds , leaving owners to install whatever legal apps they like from Google’s Play Store. They also outperform most smart TVs and won’t spy on your viewing habits nearly as much.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Late 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels, including Sony and Universal.

Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages .

Heavily disappointed by the decision, Cox later asked the court to set the jury verdict aside and decide the issue directly, arguing that the “shockingly excessive” damages should be lowered. Both requests were denied by the court, which upheld the original damages award .

Despite the setbacks, Cox didn’t give up. The company believes the district court’s ruling is a disaster for Internet providers. If it stands, the verdict will also have dramatic consequences for the general public, the company warned.

Cox Appealed

In 2021, the Internet provider took the matter to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit , hoping to reverse the lower court’s judgment. According to the company’s lawyers, “the music industry is waging war on the internet” with these lawsuits.

The entire dispute revolves around the legal obligations of Internet providers when it comes to pirating subscribers. According to the law, ISPs must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that allows them to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

The music companies argued that Cox failed to do so. As a result, the ISP should be held liable for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement.

While a jury previously found Cox liable for both types of secondary copyright infringement, Cox believes this was in error. It argued that some issues, including vicarious liability, should have been decided in its favor before they were sent to the jury.

Court of Appeals Reverses Vicarious Liability Ruling

After taking a fresh look at the case and weighing the evidence, the Court of Appeals partly ruled in favor of Cox in a decision handed down yesterday. The court concludes that Cox is not vicariously liable for piracy carried out by subscribers, as it didn’t directly profit from the activity.

The district court previously ruled that Cox was liable, concluding that it profited from not terminating the accounts of repeat infringers, which allowed the company to keep collecting monthly subscription fees. The Court of Appeals reaches a different conclusion.

To establish liability, there should be evidence to show the ISP had a direct financial benefit from the reported copyright infringements. That’s not the case here, according to the court.

“To prove vicarious liability, therefore, Sony had to show that Cox profited from its subscribers’ infringing download and distribution of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted songs. It did not,” the Court of Appeals notes.

Court of Appeals Reverses Vicarious Liability Ruling

The district court previously ruled that Cox could be held liable for failing to terminate subscribers who paid monthly fees. Cox was aware of that and considered the monthly payments when deciding whether to terminate an account or not.

According to the Court of Appeals, this is not enough, as the direct connection between the infringing activity and financial gain is absent.

“The continued payment of monthly fees for internet service, even by repeat infringers, was not a financial benefit flowing directly from the copyright infringement itself,” the decision reads.

“As Cox points out, subscribers paid a flat monthly fee for their internet access no matter what they did online. Indeed, Cox would receive the same monthly fees even if all of its subscribers stopped infringing.”

Piracy Draw and Payment Tiers

The music companies also argued that the ability to pirate through Cox acted as a draw to potential pirates, as evidence showed more than 10% of all traffic on the network was likely piracy-related.

That didn’t convince the appeals court; it notes that people don’t exclusively use their Internet connections to pirate and there’s no evidence to show subscribers favoring Cox over other providers.

“No one disputes that Cox’s subscribers need the internet for countless reasons, whether or not they can infringe. Sony has not identified evidence that any infringing subscribers purchased internet access because it enabled them to infringe copyrighted music.

“Nor does any evidence suggest that customers chose Cox’s internet service, as opposed to a competitor’s, because of any knowledge or expectation about Cox’s lenient response to infringement,” the ruling adds.

Similarly, the music companies’ argument that pirates paid for higher bandwidth tiers that are more expensive, was also rejected.

“Sony has not identified any evidence that customers were attracted to Cox’s internet service or paid higher monthly fees because of the opportunity to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights.”

Contributory Infringement Remains

The second liability theory deals with contributory copyright infringement. Here, the music companies had to show that Cox ‘knew’ that piracy would likely occur if it continued to provide its Internet services to particular subscribers.

According to the Court of Appeals, there was sufficient evidence to reach this conclusion. As such, the contributory copyright infringement ruling remains intact.

“The jury saw evidence that Cox knew of specific instances of repeat copyright infringement occurring on its network, that Cox traced those instances to specific users, and that Cox chose to continue providing monthly internet access to those users despite believing the online infringement would continue because it wanted to avoid losing revenue.”

Court Vacates $1 Billion Damages Order

The Court of Appeals’ conclusions are a mixed bag, which may trigger further appeals while having an effect on previously established damages.

Given these new findings, the Court of Appeals concludes that the $1 billion damages award issued by the jury cannot stand. Instead, it is vacated, and a new trial will have to determine the scale of the damages.

Cox is still liable in part and the number of infringed works is unchanged. However, the court feels that, given the new situation, the jury could have reached a different conclusion.

“We have reversed the vicarious liability verdict because Cox did not directly profit from its subscribers’ infringement. Without that legally erroneous finding, the jury’s assessment of at least these damages factors may be different.”

“We therefore vacate the damages award and remand for a new trial on damages,” the court concludes.

—-

A copy of The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals order and associated ruling are available here ( 1 , 2 )

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

A few hours ago a TorrentFreak reader linked us to a list of almost 200 domains with several things in common.

The vast majority have naming conventions that almost certainly point to some type of piracy activity. No shortage of the word ‘streams’ for example, along with other familiar pirate terms such as HD, cine, film, movie, plus the likes of buff, cric and crack.

Sites with ‘anime’ in their domain names also stand out; they include the popular Animebytes, a platform that above most seemed to be generating significant panic. A gloomy discussion on Reddit spoke of the site having just hours to live, a fate that may have since been suspended but with a root cause that remains unresolved.

The Sun Doesn’t Shine on .TV

The sites on the list have other things in common too. All operate from .TV domains that were registered at Finnish registrar Sarek Oy. As things stand, none have any functioning DNS and that means all are completely inaccessible, at least as far as site users are concerned.

The list can be viewed here and given its size and the platforms on it, it feels safe to conclude that this blackout is currently affecting millions of pirates. It’s probably fraying the nerves of many site operators too, albeit some more than others.

As far as we know, information and explanations for the unprecedented failure are in short supply, at least those announced directly from Sarek Oy. It’s the middle of the night in Finland, so it may be a few hours before any official announcement arrives.

Domain Status: serverHold

After checking a few dozen WHOIS records for domains on the list, all display a domain status of ‘serverHold’. ICANN’s official description notes that the status is set by domain registries to indicate that a domain is not activated in the Domain Name System (DNS).

Given the way the current problem manifests itself, the explanation is accurate but not especially helpful.

The bigger question is why hundreds of domains were suddenly placed on serverHold and why did that have to be done so urgently that there was no time to inform the domain owners? That will likely become evident during the next few hours, but we can confirm that sites operating .TV domains with other registrars remain functional.

That may suggest an issue specific to the registrar. Some type of issue between the registry and registrar seems most likely, but it’s hard to imagine either party simply deciding to render so many domains inoperable, seemingly all at once, without any kind of warning.

So at least for now, beads of perspiration will have to persist while soaking up the irony. Perhaps more than any other registrar in operation right now, Sarek Oy’s reputation for keeping sites online is extremely well known. That it’s currently at the center of one of the largest blackouts in recent history is unexpected, to say the least.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.