Consumers who want to watch movies or TV-shows online are limited to the content that they are permitted to see in their home country.

This means that the Netflix or Amazon library in one country can be entirely different to those made available in a neighboring nation.

This is a direct result of the territorial licensing deals the entertainment industry is built on. However, now that people are more connected online, these restrictions are an increasing source of frustration. That frustration can, in turn, fuel piracy.

Many PlayStation users were reminded of these licensing complications a few days ago when they were informed that several purchased movie titles will disappear from their libraries. While that’s a unique situation, it’s quite common to see movie and TV show titles removed from subscription platforms.

No law can force these platforms to offer content indefinitely but according to European lawmakers, it is possible to level the playing field and remove unnecessary barriers.

EU’s Geo-Blocking Restrictions

To counter consumer-unfriendly limitations, the European Commission previously banned certain types of geo-blocking as part of the Digital Single Market reforms. This legislation has been in place for a few years and works well, although video content is currently exempt .

There are ongoing discussions in the EU that could upend this. Current plans don’t call for an end to regional licenses or the adoption of a general EU-wide license, but they do stress that catalog and heritage content should be available in “unsold” territories. Specifically, citizens shouldn’t be discriminated against based on where they live.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) recently put out a report (pdf) in which it sets out several suggestions and recommendations. They include a lifting of the geo-blocking ban exemption for the audiovisual sector.

Expanding to Video Platforms?

The report recommends the EU Commission to launch a comprehensive review of the current geo-blocking regulation and have that completed by 2025. It also carries several suggestions for improvement and expansion of the current rules.

“The data presented in the report suggest that the effects of such an [geo-blocking] extension would vary by type of content, depending on the level of consumer demand and on the availability of content across the EU,” the report’s summary reads.

“As regards an extension to audio-visual content, it highlights potential benefits for consumers, notably in the availability of a wider choice of content across borders. The report also identifies the potential impact that such an extension of the scope would have on the overall dynamics of the audio-visual sector, but concludes that it needs to be further assessed.”

The proposals don’t include the abolishment of all territorial licenses in the EU, and they’re mindful of the potential impact on the industry. Nevertheless, some industry insiders are spooked; the Creativity Works! coalition ( CW ), for example, which counts the MPA, ACT, and the Premier League among its members.

‘Geo-Blocking Restrictions Threaten Video Industry’

According to CW, geo-blocking technology is crucial to the creative and cultural industries in Europe.

“Geo-blocking is one of the foundations for Europe’s creative and cultural sectors, providing Europeans with the means to create, produce, showcase, publish, distribute and finance diverse, high-quality and affordable content,” they write .

Banning geo-blocking altogether would be a disaster that puts millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of euros in revenue at risk, CW warns. At the same time, it may result in more expensive subscriptions for many consumers.

“Ending geo-blocking’s exclusive territorial licensing would threaten 10,000 European cinemas, access to over 8,500 European VOD films and up to half of European film budgets,” CW writes.

“What’s more, over 100 million European fans could pay more to view the same sports coverage, while major digital streaming platforms might be forced to introduce sharp hikes for consumers in many European countries.”

Upsetting The Status Quo

Understandably, the movie industry is concerned about legislation that upsets the status quo. However, the IMCO report doesn’t recommend a wholesale ban on territorial licenses but aims to ensure that content is available in regions where it currently isn’t.

At this stage, nothing is set in stone, so proposals could change. However, the present recommendations appear to seek a balance between the interests of the entertainment industry and the public at large.

Digital rights organization Communia supports the proposals, which it in part helped to shape. The group is concerned about CW’s suggestion that restricting access to content is the “foundation for Europe’s creative and cultural sectors” and hopes that lawmakers will carefully weigh all arguments.

Communia says the report makes it clear that the entertainment industries can do more to serve customers across all regions. This is a conclusion rightsholders are not happy with, the group notes .

“[O]ne of the core insights of the IMCO report, that as a consequence, the adaptation of existing business models to the changing environment is needed both for consumers and businesses is once again at the risk of being ignored.

“Rightholders are seeking to get this conclusion removed from the report because the stakeholders on the supply side of the AV sector have again decided that rather than adapting to and working with consumer expectations, they can rely on their considerable lobby power to preserve the status quo that they have gotten comfortable with.”

Communia believes, however, that there are plenty of options to improve the situation for the general public, without destroying the entertainment industries.

“If done well, ending geo-blocking would provide all Europeans with more legal access to a more diverse offering of AV content and a thriving cultural sector that can finally stop claiming that denying people access to culture is in anyone’s interest,” the group concludes.

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

While no digital content is ever entirely immune from being copied and distributed illegally, photographs and other images are especially vulnerable.

Tools enabling users to download, copy, share, and then ultimately mass distribute images exist in, or are accessible from, most phones, tablets, and computers.

Photographers aside, no businesses are more aware of these vulnerabilities than publishers of Japanese comics, commonly known as manga. While manga’s cartoon cousin ‘anime’ at least has larger filesizes in its favor, manga is compact, easily copied, and simplicity itself to distribute. It’s a fact not lost on some of the world’s leading pirate sites, some fueled entirely by pirated manga.

To that background, it’s hard not to sympathize with the plight of major Japanese publishers Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shogakukan. They’re leaving no stone unturned to limit piracy of their easily copied products, but when countermeasures begin to negatively affect subscribers in the legal market, that raises questions of how far companies should go.

User of Shueisha’s YanJan! App Accused of Fraud

Launched by publisher Shueisha in 2018, YanJan! ( ヤンジャン! ) is among a growing number of legal manga apps fighting for market share in an extremely popular market sector. Boasting well over a million downloads on Google Play alone, YanJan! can also be downloaded from Apple’s App Store, something that led to unforeseen events according to one user.

“While I was reading 100 Kano on Yanjan, my smartphone started vibrating. I took a screenshot [of a message] saying that my account was suspended, which made me angry,” X/Twitter user DeeyaUNO4dollar explains.

“We have suspended your use of this service because we have confirmed that it has been used fraudulently and violated our terms of service,” the message above reads. “This app prohibits screenshots, video recording, and screen mirroring while viewing works.”

Second Chances

The in-app message included an invitation for DeeyaUNO4dollar to contact YanJan! for a discussion. The message received back from YanJan! is shown below in Japanese, followed by an English summary.

“We have detected that you have taken screenshots (screen captures) and video recordings (this also applies to screen mirroring, etc.) within Manga Viewer more than a certain number of times on your account, so we have taken measures to suspend your use of the service,” the message notes.

The overall tone is that since these activities are banned, suspensions are indeed warranted. In this case, however, DeeyaUNO4dollar received a second chance along with warnings not to repeat the same conduct, which is expressly forbidden by a section in the app’s terms of service agreement, the company said.

Unfazed by a sprawling mass of legal text that realistically almost nobody is likely to read, we can confirm that screenshots are indeed outlawed (translated version below).

Accidental Screenshots, DeeyaUNO4dollar Claims

In many cases, screenshots can be entirely harmless but for content like manga, a series of screenshots can amount to a perfect copy of an entire publication, with the potential for onward sharing via any number of easily accessible tools. There’s no suggestion that DeeyaUNO4dollar distributed anything but according to the manga fan’s explanation, they had no intention of taking any screenshots at all.

The usual method to take a screenshot on an iPhone is to press the power button on the right edge of the device at the same time as pressing the volume up button on the left. However, by entering the settings menu, there’s an option in the device’s accessibility menu to take a screenshot by tapping the back of the phone instead. DeeyaUNO4dollar believes that this led to their iPhone taking screenshots ‘accidentally’ when viewing manga on the app.

While that may indeed be the case, a Tweet posted by the same user in October mentioning the ‘tap’ function reveals that the app handed out warnings back then, for exactly the same thing.

“There is a function on the iPhone that allows you to take screenshots by tapping on the back, but while I was reading a manga on a manga app, for some reason the function reacted and took a screenshot regardless of my intention, and I was told, ‘Don’t take screenshots. Don’t be silly, I’ll ban you if you do that again’.”

“The message has been displayed twice this week alone,” the tweet adds.

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

Over the past several years, a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits has targeted alleged cheaters and cheat makers.

Game companies have emerged as relatively swift victors in cases that never went to trial, but that’s not a given.

The legal dispute between American video game developer Bungie and AimJunkies.com has been fiercely fought and next week heads to a jury trial.

Two years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same allegations were made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the Destiny 2 cheating software.

The case initially seemed set for a quick settlement, but the parties failed to reach an agreement. Instead, Bungie pressed on while AimJunkies went on the defensive, asking the court to dismiss several claims.

AimJunkies argued that cheating isn’t against the law and refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked any substance and were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies argued.

Dismissal, Hacking and Arbitration

Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies . The original complaint failed to provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed copyright.

This was bad news for Bungie but the court did offer the company the option to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did soon after .

Meanwhile, AimJunkies wasn’t sitting idly by. The cheat seller filed a countersuit , accusing Bungie of hacking when it allegedly accessed a defendant’s computer without permission. This hacking counterclaim was eventually dismissed .

Bungie scored its first major win earlier this year in an arbitration proceeding. Judge Ronald Cox concluded that the cheaters violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and related trafficking restrictions, awarding $3.6 million in damages to the game company.

The arbitration ruling is still under appeal and with the battle being fought on multiple fronts, attention shifted back to the federal lawsuit once more, where Bungie continued its copyright and trademark claims this summer.

In July, the game company submitted motions for summary judgment to resolve the copyright infringement dispute before trial. However, the court denied these motions, as there is no hard evidence that any game code was copied. Instead, a jury would have to decide.

Jury Trial

After several years, the dispute is about to reach its climax in a District Court in Seattle, where a jury trial is expected to start next week. This is the first time that a case like this will go before a jury, making it a landmark event.

At the core of the dispute is whether AimJunkies engaged in direct, vicarious, or contributory copyright infringement. If that’s found to be the case, the next question is whether Bungie is entitled to an award for damages.

For AimJunkies, the upcoming trial also raises some concerns. Specifically, the defendant is worried about the negative connotation of the term “cheating”. This may signal to the jury that the activity is legally improper, contrary to the defendant’s legal position.

To prevent confusion, the cheat maker asked the court to ban any mentions of the word “cheat” or “cheat software”, but the request was denied.

Defenses & Counterclaim

At trial, AimJunkies hopes to convince the jury that the cheating software it sold wasn’t infringing any copyrights. In fact, the defendants will claim that they merely sold the software; it was created by an unnamed third party.

“The software at issue here was created by parties other than Defendants. Defendants did not have access to the software Bungie accuses them of copying,” defendants note in a pretrial statement.

“No software created, developed, marketed, advertised, sold or otherwise distributed by Defendants infringes any copyright of Bungie,” AimJunkies’ attorney adds.

The cheat sellers are not the only party on the defensive. Third-party developer James May filed a counterclaim accusing Bungie of circumventing the DMCA by accessing personal files on his computer. Bungie, however, argues that it did nothing wrong.

Bungie might have accessed the developer’s computer, but the company states that none of the files that were allegedly accessed are copyrighted.

“None of the works allegedly accessed by Bungie are works protected by copyright […]. Bungie did not circumvent any of May’s technological measures that protect any files on his computer,” the game company writes in its pretrial statement.

Overall, the arguments from both sides are a guarantee for an intriguing trial. And although AimJunkies is a relatively small player in the broader ‘cheating’ ecosystem, the jury verdict will likely resonate in many gaming communities.

—

A copy of the pretrial order cited in this article, which includes additional argument from both sides, is available here (pdf)

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

In recent years, rightsholders in Sweden have reported significantly increased consumption of pirate IPTV services, and law enforcement’s inability to tackle the problem due to a lack of funding.

Complaints like these are nothing new for rightsholders or indeed anyone else in Europe; when resources are already stretched, it’s inevitable that some crimes will be considered less of a priority than others.

But while there’s insufficient funding for police to tackle pirate IPTV suppliers in Sweden, resources are available to investigate those committing the greatest crime of all; generating money by criminal means but failing to surrender the government’s share of the spoils.

Skatteverket Investigates

The Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) is responsible for collecting personal income tax from citizens, and from companies via corporate tax, VAT, and excise tax. Collecting taxes is critical to the functioning of any country since without revenue, public services like policing may find themselves without appropriate funding, leaving it up to the tax agency to weed out tax evaders, pirate IPTV sellers included.

“During 2021 to 2023, the Swedish Tax Agency has conducted investigations against those who sell illegal IPTV to consumers,” a Skatteverket report on pirate IPTV services reveals.

“To identify sellers, the Swedish Tax Agency has made test purchases and also searched for sellers on the internet. The result was about 200 identified retailers, of which 97 were selected for in-depth investigation.”

Tax Evading Resellers Pursued By Government

The Swedish Tax Agency says that to learn more about the IPTV ecosystem, it collaborated with anti-piracy groups Nordic Content Protection and Rights Alliance, which represent the rights of broadcasters and film and TV companies respectively.

Since distributing content is illegal without first obtaining the rights, most popular unlicensed IPTV services are illegal by default. Skatteverket says that it’s therefore unlikely that distributors and resellers of pirate services register or declare their business activities.

In this investigation, the tax agency focused on resellers, most of whom have shifted away from services such as PayPal in recent years in favor of cryptocurrencies, predominantly bitcoin.

“The Swedish Tax Agency notes that the consumer only needs to swipe money to a crypto exchange, which then ensures that the seller receives their bitcoin. For the consumer, who thus does not need to familiarize themselves with how cryptocurrency works, this makes it extremely easy,” the agency reports.

Tax Agency Has Crypto Experience

“An important success factor for the investigation is that the Swedish Tax Agency developed expertise in tracing cryptocurrencies at an early stage. Several sellers have been identified thanks to the Swedish Tax Agency’s work with cryptocurrencies,” Skatteverket notes in the report.

The agency says that in order for IPTV sellers to be able to use their profits in everyday life, cryptocurrencies need to be turned into regular currency, such as Swedish kronor, euros or dollars. This often requires sellers to have at least one foreign bank account but today, opening an overseas account is easy.

“When the Swedish Tax Agency discovers that payments for illegal IPTV go to foreign bank accounts, a so-called executive order is required. This means that the Swedish Tax Agency can request the information via other countries’ tax authorities. Such warrants have been a common feature of the investigations. They allow the tax authorities to determine the income of the dealer.”

Unrecorded revenue and unrecorded VAT

The Tax Agency reports that the vast majority of its investigations show that IPTV sellers fail to declare their income, and they don’t account for output VAT on IPTV sales either, currently set at 25% in Sweden.

By October 2023, Skatteverket says it had completed 80 in-depth IPTV seller investigations. In 73 of those investigations the agency found unrecorded income and unrecorded output VAT. As a result, the individuals involved had their tax obligations adjusted accordingly.

“In total, the amount to be paid in tax is over SEK 37,000,000 [$3.53 million]. 17 investigations are still ongoing – the amount is highly likely to increase by several million kronor,” Skatteverket notes.

Bigger Money Being Made Higher Up The Chain

The Swedish Tax Agency says that at the bottom level, each reseller generates between SEK 5,000 [$4,770] and SEK 1,000,000 [$95,500] but above them significantly higher revenues have been observed.

“In the largest investigation to date, illegal IPTV was sold for over SEK 30 million [$2.86 million],” the agency notes, adding that other crypto wallets linked to illegal IPTV sales show several hundred million kronor.

For perspective, one hundred million kronor is currently worth around $9.55m.

The full report is available here

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

Two years ago, Google started delisting the URLs of several popular pirate sites from its search results.

This decision didn’t impact all users. Instead, Google voluntarily decided to remove URLs in countries where the sites are blocked by local Internet providers, typically following a court order.

In the Netherlands, for example, The Pirate Bay and many of its mirrors and proxies were delisted by Google in response to a notice sent by local anti-piracy group BREIN. Google took similar action in the UK, France, and other countries, once it was notified by rightsholders.

Knowledge Panels

These interventions don’t stop at simply removing the domains from the search index. Initially, we noticed that the so-called “ knowledge panels ” for the blocked pirate sites were gone too. Apparently, these were also considered problematic.

The image below shows the panel currently shown in countries where The Pirate Bay isn’t blocked. Aside from some basic details, this includes a direct and uncensored link to The Pirate Bay’s homepage.

Showing this knowledge panel in blocked regions wouldn’t make much sense after Google carefully stripped all thepiratebay.org URLs from its search results. In this context, removing the panel entirely seems a logical decision.

URL Disappears

However, when doing some recent searches, we noticed The Pirate Bay’s knowledge panel reappearing in blocked regions such as the UK and the Netherlands. As can be seen below, the official site doesn’t appear anywhere in search results, which has been the case for some time.

Here, the link to thepiratebay.org has now been stripped from the knowledge panel, something we hadn’t seen before.

Whether these interventions will do much to stop people from finding The Pirate Bay is doubtful. Wikipedia remains one of the top search results and the online encyclopedia continues to list the site’s official URL, at least for now.

Bard Refuses to Provide The Pirate Bay’s URL

To check how consistent Google is across its services, we also tried Bard, the company’s AI chatbot . That didn’t get us very far, however, with the AI pointing out that The Pirate Bay facilitates ‘illegal’ activity.

“Please note that The Pirate Bay is a website that facilitates the sharing of copyrighted material, which is illegal in many jurisdictions. As such, I cannot provide you with direct links to the website or instructions on how to find it.

“I would encourage you to seek out legal and ethical ways to acquire the content you are looking for,” Bard notes.

When we phrased the question differently, asking Bard how one can access The Pirate Bay, it offered more concrete suggestions on how to find blocked websites (even though we didn’t mention ‘blocking’). One piece of advice was to use a search engine; this works indeed, unless it’s Google.

“One way to find blocked websites is to use a search engine. There are many different search engines available, so you will need to do some research to find one that is right for you. It is important to choose a search engine that is reputable and has a good track record of privacy and security.

“Another way to find blocked websites is to use a social media site. Many social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, have groups and forums that are dedicated to sharing blocked websites,” Bard added.

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

Over the years, we’ve witnessed dozens of anti-piracy campaigns. Initially, these pointed out that piracy is illegal and immoral, hoping to change people’s views.

“ Don’t Copy That Floppy ” and “ You Wouldn’t Steal a Car ” are prime examples of these early attempts. While these campaigns captured the interest of a broad public, mostly for amusement purposes, they did little to stop piracy.

In recent years the tone of anti-piracy campaigns has changed. Instead of focusing on legal aspects and financial losses, they now place emphasis on pirates themselves being at risk , by associating piracy with ransomware, credit card theft, and other evils.

Just in the past month, two public service announcement campaigns were launched, both with a strong focus on security threats. In addition to rightsholders, these campaigns include State Attorneys General and the U.S. Government’s IPR Center , each adding extra weight to the messaging.

Is Cyber Hygiene a Remedy to IPTV Infringement?

Anti-piracy groups must have a good reason to focus on security issues instead of copyright law. Perhaps the former is more effective?

A new paper titled “ Is cyber hygiene a remedy to IPTV infringement? ” suggests that this could indeed be the case.

With this study, researchers from the University of Oxford, Bournemouth University and Hamad bin Khalifa University researched how psychological factors, including risk-taking and security behaviors, impact people’s tendency to use shady IPTV services. Put differently, what determines whether people are more likely to use ‘risky’ piracy services?

After completing several questionnaires, the UK-based respondents were presented with a mockup of an IPTV service. There were several mockup versions, ranging from a clean interface to ones with popups, even spy- or ransomware. For each version, respondents had to rate the perceived risk level, and their risk-taking inclination.

The resulting scores allow the researchers to see how much risk people are willing to take, with the built-in assumption that unlicensed ‘pirate’ streaming services generally have more risky signs.

Internet Addicted Pirates with Psychopath Personalities

The researchers hypothesized that people who score higher on Internet addiction traits tend to be less reluctant to use risky piracy services. The same should apply to people with dark personalities , which is a combination of the personality traits narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.

The results of the study confirmed these predictions, showing that people who score higher on Internet addiction and dark personality traits are more likely to see risky streaming platforms as less problematic.

Vasilis Katos , Computer Science Professor at Bournemouth University, informs TorrentFreak that this is both good and bad news for anti-piracy advocates. Dark personality traits are relatively fixed and hard to change, but digital addiction can be addressed.

“Our findings show that people’s propensity to risk taking – in our case viewing AV content with a risk of getting infected by malware – is dependent on two main aspects: one’s dark personality traits and the degree of digital addiction.”

“The former is considered pretty constant and stable over time, as the dark personality traits have genetical and biological components, therefore less prone to change. For digital addiction, however, we accept that there are interventions where people can adopt in order to heal,” Katos says.

Cybersecurity Behavior

There is an important caveat, as the researchers stress that addressing Internet addiction might not only affect online piracy, but also legal consumption. After all, binge-watching on official streaming platforms is also a form of addiction.

A more straightforward option to deter pirates lies in the online security realm. The study reveals that people’s cybersecurity practices and behaviors, mediate the link between digital addiction and risky IPTV viewing.

This mediating effect suggests that when people are warned or educated about the risk of malware, fraud, and other evils on pirate sites, they are less likely to use these services.

“[I]n order to reduce the likelihood of someone consuming illegal IPTV content, we can address their digital addiction and/or improve their cybersecurity behaviour and hygiene,” Katos notes.

Piracy Genes?

Put differently, the anti-piracy campaigns that focus on security awareness aspects, which we have seen pop up repeatedly in recent years, can be an effective strategy; perhaps even more effective than legal threats.

That said, the researchers stress that piracy is a complex issue that no single measure can solve. People who are born with dark personalities, particularly the psychopathy trait, are genetically predisposed to take more risks online.

No matter how many malware threats there are, some people are simply willing to take the risk; just like there will always be people who step in to launch new piracy services. It’s in their genes, apparently.

“[A]lthough these [security-focused] campaigns could contribute to the decrease of risky IPTV viewing practices, they will not eliminate the problem, as there is always the portion of the population that are risk takers and perhaps seek thrills, as part of their psyche,” Katos concludes.

—

A copy of the preprint article covering the research in detail is available below. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as such.

Shah R, Cemiloglu D, Yucel C, Ali R, Katos V. Is cyber hygiene a remedy to IPTV infringement? A study of online streaming behaviours and cybersecurity practices . Research Square; 2023.

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

Like many other countries around the world, India’s copyright law allows rightsholders to limit access to pirate sites.

Major entertainment industry companies regularly obtain injunctions that require local Internet providers to block websites to prevent piracy.

In essence, these measures are straightforward as specific domains are identified for blocking. However, injunctions can be issued before infringements take place and can be dynamic or temporary, depending on the situation.

In the early years, blocking injunctions were used as a blunt instrument, instructing Internet providers to block legal platforms such as Vimeo , while GitHub and the Internet Archive also ended up in the crosshairs years ago.

GitHub Blocking Troubles

Accuracy-wise, some progress has been made over the years but that doesn’t mean that overblocking is no longer an issue. Throughout this year, several GitHub users have reported persistent problems accessing the platform.

The issues related to GitHub appeared in January of this year, when several Indian developers noted that they could no longer use the site properly. The main Github.com domain was still accessible but raw.githubusercontent.com, where code is typically stored, was blocked.

This made it impossible for developers to work on projects and several applications that used GitHub-hosted code started to return errors.

“ This URL has been blocked under the instructions in compliance with the orders of a Hon’ble Court ,” a typical error message read.

Since some pirate apps use GitHub it’s possible that raw.githubusercontent.com was listed in a copyright-related injunction, resulting in massive overblocking. As far as we know, the court order in question hasn’t been published but several ISPs were affected.

Problems Persist Despite Reversal

After some backlash, the underlying order was reportedly retracted , after which GitHub started working properly again for most Indians; but not for all. After nearly a year, there are still widespread reports from people who can’t use the site.

The problem is discussed repeatedly on social media and local news outlets with users from ISPs such as JIO and Hathway complaining that raw.githubusercontent.com is not accessible.

“From the past few weeks I am unable to access raw.githubusercontent.com on my Jio network,” one Redditor writes, with many others sharing a similar experience. On X, several users are reporting that they continue to have issues too.

Not all subscribers appear to be affected and other Internet providers don’t appear to have the same issue. This suggests that the affected ISPs didn’t properly unblock the URL earlier this year when the court order was retracted.

GitHub Responds

GitHub is aware of the problems in India. The Microsoft-owned platform informs us that it’s investigating the issue to see if full access for all users can be restored.

“As the global home for all developers, we firmly believe that everyone should be able to contribute to the future of software development regardless of where they live,” GitHub informed us.

“We are aware of reports that there may be issues with accessing the raw.githubusercontent.com domain in India and are investigating to determine how access can be restored.”

Transparency / Speculation

The lack of transparency regarding Indian court orders and retractions doesn’t help to solve the problem. To the public at large, it still isn’t clear on what grounds GitHub was partly blocked.

One potential tie-in could be the PikaShow app. After becoming the official sponsor for the Afghani cricket team during last year’s Asia Cup, Indian rightsholders pulled out all the stops to block the app.

Through an injunction, GitHub was ordered to disclose information on the developers behind the PikaShow account, but it’s possible that a separate blocking order also targeted the site’s raw.githubusercontent.com URL.

The above is pure speculation, which emphasizes the need for more transparency. That’s especially important now that Indian authorities are requiring domain registrars to comply with blocking orders too if they want to continue operating in the country.

Meanwhile, the developers affected by the continuous blockade have to find ways around the technological restrictions. Luckily, that’s not too hard for this tech-savvy audience.

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

Created by software developer Elias Saba and released on the Amazon Appstore in November 2016, ‘Downloader’ offered two things; an empty URL field and a download button.

Downloader was intentionally basic but as a former Fire TV Product Manager at Amazon, Saba knew that a simple tool to transfer files would solve a fundamental shortcoming. Over 50 million installs of Downloader to date speak for the software’s popularity but in May 2023, progress came to a screeching halt.

Several Israeli TV companies filed a DMCA complaint at Google Play alleging that Downloader offered copyrighted content. The companies supplied no details of the content allegedly infringed and said nothing about how ‘Downloader’ somehow managed to violate copyright law.

Google suspended Downloader leaving Saba no other option than to file a DMCA counternotice. The developer was forced to wait 10 business days for the complainants to respond and a total of 20 days for Downloader to be restored. After almost three weeks offline, Downloader had lost 47% of its active users.

Just six months later and it’s happening all over again.

Another Baseless Copyright Complaint

Speaking with TorrentFreak last evening, Saba calmly explained that a new DMCA takedown notice, filed by India-based anti-piracy outfit Markscan, had resulted in Google suspending Downloader once again. The news was delivered by Google on Sunday evening via the notice below.

Deficient DMCA Notice, Entirely Deficient Claims

Given Downloader’s limited capabilities, even a sensible discussion on the merits would’ve required Markscan to come up with something special. In the event, the DMCA notice filed at Google Play falls substantially short of the established minimum standard for removing a single URL, let alone an app boasting 50 million downloads.

In response to a request to ‘Identify and describe the copyrighted work’ allegedly infringed, the response ‘Properties of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.’ is especially unhelpful.

In 2022, Warner revealed that its library consists of more than 145,000 hours of programming, including 12,500 feature films and 2,400 television series comprised of more than 150,000 individual episodes.

Alleging infringement of just one of these copyrighted works would’ve been trivial, had the DMCA notice stated a valid claim against an app that carries and indexes zero content, and is substantially less functional than a web browser.

Google says that it was notified that Downloader “allegedly infringes upon the copyright of others, and violates applicable copyright laws in the relevant country/jurisdiction.” Logic suggests that any alleged infringement would indicate a violation of United States copyright law. However, if we take Markscan’s home turf as an example, are vague allegations acceptable in India?

Just two examples picked at random ( 1 , 2 , pdf) show that takedown notices filed by the same team offer a level of detail likely to meet standards almost anywhere. Why this wasn’t replicated in the complaint against Downloader raises serious questions.

Another DMCA Counternotice, More Time Offline

On Monday evening, Saba filed an appeal at Google Play and 24 minutes later received notification that it had been rejected.

As a result the developer followed up with a DMCA counternotice . No response had been received at the time of writing.

Shortly after, Saba was contact by Google AdMob who informed him that ads in the Downloader app will stop being served if it isn’t restored by Tuesday (today). The background to this message is interesting, as Saba explains.

“You see, I never had ads in my app and relied solely on donation buttons in the app. But when the app was suspended last time, I learned those donation buttons stop working, even for people that already had the app installed,” he informs TorrentFreak.

“As a backup plan, in case the app was suspended again, I added ads to the app for the first time. Now I know it was a mistake going with Google for the ads since, evidently, they break those as well when the app is suspended. I just can’t catch a break.”

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

Signed into law a quarter century ago, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) aimed to equip copyright holders with new tools to protect their works online.

A key element of the law requires online service providers to remove or disable access to infringing content in response to a takedown notice.

The system isn’t bulletproof. Rightsholders repeatedly complain that their content swiftly resurfaces after it’s removed. At the same time, the takedown process is abused by bad actors to censor or remove material in bad faith.

Shopify DMCA Harassment

DMCA abuse is nothing new, but it’s rare for online platforms to take public action against it, let alone take the matter to court. In an attempt to protect its vendors, e-commerce giant Shopify is one of the rare exceptions.

Last month, we reported that Shopify had filed a lawsuit against a “John Doe” who used DMCA takedown notices to remove listings from third-party stores. According to Shopify, the senders of these takedown requests did so without owning the rights.

This alleged scammer isn’t the only one wreaking havoc on the platform. A few days ago, Shopify filed a fresh DMCA abuse complaint at a Florida federal court. This time, the e-commerce platform has a named target; Orlando resident Amir Mokrian, a.k.a Clayton Burnz.

“Defendant Mokrian has repeatedly harassed, and continues to harass, Shopify merchants and Shopify itself through knowingly false allegations of copyright infringement. This lawsuit seeks to halt that misconduct and hold him accountable for the damage he has caused,” Shopify writes.

Dozens of False DMCA Notices

Shopify informs the court that it takes copyright infringement very seriously. The company receives thousands of notices each month and regularly removes shop listings deemed to be infringing. If a store owner is repeatedly targeted, they’re at risk of having their store closed completely.

The e-commerce platform relies on a mix of both human and automated reviews to process DMCA takedowns. This works well in most cases but the process is not bulletproof, as this lawsuit exemplifies.

Using several aliases including “Clayton Burnz”, Defendant Mokrian allegedly sent dozens of DMCA takedown notices to Shopify containing false claims. These requests targeted stores selling snore-reducing mouthguards and footwear insoles over alleged copyright infringement.

However, according to Shopify, these notices were littered with false information. They didn’t include any legitimate copyright complaints but were merely intended to harm other merchants.

Taking Out Competitors

The reason for this behavior is obvious; according to Shopify, Mokrian was running competing stores. By taking out the competition, interest in their own products should rise.

“It is plain that Mokrian submitted his fraudulent DMCA takedown notices for anti-competitive purposes. TeraNue—one of Mokrian’s stores on Shopify—sells snore-reducing mouthguards. Through his takedown notices, Mokrian targeted the same or similar mouthguard products sold by competing merchants,” Shopify informs the court.

“X-Care—another Mokrian store on Shopify—sells foot insoles, the same type of product sold by Rizzsoles.com, a Shopify merchant Mokrian targeted with his false notices. Mokrian used takedown notices not in an effort to root out copyright infringement, but in an effort to root out competition.”

Shopify ended up removing 38 competing products based on these false takedown claims. While these decisions were ultimately reversed, serious harm was done to both the affected shops and the platform itself.

The complaint notes that Shopify was financially impacted by the abuse. The company spent tens of thousands of dollars in personnel time and resources to address the issue. In addition, its goodwill was seriously harmed.

Through the lawsuit, Shopify hopes to be compensated for its losses. In addition, the company asks the Florida court for an injunction against the Orlando resident, prohibiting them from sending any fraudulent DMCA notices going forward.

—

A copy of the complaint Shopify filed at the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida is available here (pdf)

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