With millions of daily users, Reddit is without a doubt one of the most visited sites on the Internet.

The community-oriented platform has “subreddits” dedicated to pretty much every topic one can think of, including several that are linked to online piracy and related issues.

A few years ago copyright holders paid little attention to these discussions. In 2017, the site removed ‘just’ 4,352 pieces of content in response to copyright holders’ complaints. Fast-forward to today, and the site removes well over a million items each year for the same reason.

Reddit celebrated its 18th anniversary this summer amidst a massive controversy over its decision to charge for API access. This triggered a subreddit blackout protest in which thousands of communities went private and some decided to throw in the towel for good.

These actions undoubtedly had an impact on the community, but most parts of the site continued to operate. Copyright complaints kept coming in and increased in volume compared to the same period last year, the site’s latest mid-year transparency report shows.

1169% Increase in User Access Requests

Before, going into the copyright infringement report it is worth pointing out a statistic that was directly triggered by the new API policy. User access requests, which allow users to ask for a copy of their account information, skyrocketed in the first half of 2023.

The number of access requests increased from 11,321 during the last six months of 2022, to 144,306 in the first six months of 2023. According to Reddit, much of that 1169.3% increase was the result of moderators asking subreddit members to flood Reddit with work.

“This dramatic surge in access requests was driven predominately by Redditor protests staged in response to Reddit’s API policy change,” Reddit writes in its transparency report.

“A number of moderators and users encouraged members of their communities to request their account information for user data mobility, and to create a compliance burden for Reddit.”

Copyright Takedown Notices Peak

There were no dramatic increases related to Reddit’s copyright policies. While the volume continued to rise slightly, all increases are in the single digits now.

During the first months of the year, copyright holders asked Reddit to remove a record-setting 949,208 pieces of content. This includes images and videos, along with links that point to infringing content shared elsewhere.

The majority of these flagged items, 71%, were eventually removed by Reddit. This means that 676,982 pieces of content were taken off the platform.

Compared to the second half of last year, there was a 2% increase in items reported, a new record for Reddit. However, the number of items removed actually dropped slightly, because the actionability rate decreased.

Snarking and Fair Use

In addition, there were also thousands of invalid takedown requests for which Reddit took no action. That includes cases of obvious fair use, URLs that failed to identify specific content, and instances where Reddit ruled that the reported content isn’t infringing.

One of the rejected notices was sent by someone who tried to have a post removed from a subreddit dedicated to “ snarking ” social media influencers. Apparently, the sender was the one being snarked, but since that’s not copyright infringement, Reddit left the post up.

“The reported content was a text post that criticized the reporter’s Instagram account. None of the reporter’s copyrighted works from their Instagram account appeared in the reported content, so we declined to process the notice,” Reddit explains.

User and Subreddit Bans

Links and posts are not the only things at risk; users and subreddits can also be banned for repeat copyright infringements. Over the past several years we have seen a clear increase in copyright-related bans, but that’s coming to a halt now, at least temporarily.

During the first half of 2023, Reddit permanently suspended the accounts of 221 users and banned 571 subreddits for excessive copyright violations. For comparison, during the same months last year, 3,859 users lost their accounts while 1,543 subreddits were banned.

These bans are in part the result of legal obligations. Under the DMCA, Reddit is required to implement a reasonable policy to deal with repeat copyright infringers on its platform.

According to Reddit, the sharp drop can in part be explained by the fact that the offending accounts and users were already booted from the platform due to other policy violations.

“The significant decrease in user and subreddit copyright bans occurred because many of these users and subreddits were already temporarily or permanently suspended for other content policy violations at the time of review.”

All in all, Reddit’s latest transparency report shows that while takedowns are still going up slightly, the tide may turn someday soon.

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

Website blocking has become the go-to anti-piracy measure for the entertainment industries when tackling pirate sites on the internet.

The practice has been around for well over 15 years and has gradually expanded to more than forty countries around the world.

The actual blocking is done by Internet providers, often following a court order. These measures can range from simple DNS blocks to more elaborate schemes involving Server Name Indication (SNI) eavesdropping, or a combination of both.

Thus far, the more thorough blocking efforts have worked relatively well. However, as privacy concerns grew, new interfering technologies have emerged. Encrypted DNS and SNI , for example, made blocking efforts much harder, although not impossible.

Encrypted Client Hello

A few days ago, Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare implemented widespread support for Encrypted Client Hello (ECH), a privacy technology that aims to render web traffic surveillance futile. This means that site blocking implemented by ISPs will be rendered useless in most, if not all cases.

ECH is a newly proposed privacy standard that’s been in the making for a few years. The goal is to increase privacy for Internet users and it has already gained support from Chrome , Firefox , Edge , and other browsers. Users can enable it in the settings, which may still be experimental in some cases.

The main barrier to widespread adoption is that this privacy technology is a two-way street. This means that websites have to support it as well. Cloudflare has made a huge leap forward on that front by enabling it by default on all free plans, which currently serve millions of sites. Other subscribers can apply to have it enabled.

“Cloudflare is a big proponent of privacy for everyone and is excited about the prospects of bringing this technology to life,” Cloudflare writes in its announcement

“Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) is a successor to ESNI and masks the Server Name Indication (SNI) that is used to negotiate a TLS handshake. This means that whenever a user visits a website on Cloudflare that has ECH enabled, no one except for the user, Cloudflare, and the website owner will be able to determine which website was visited.”

ECH Defeats Site Blocking

The push for increased piracy is well-intended but for rightsholders it represents a major drawback too; when correctly configured ECH defeats site-blocking efforts. Tests conducted by TorrentFreak show that ISP blocking measures in the UK, the Netherlands, and Spain were rendered ineffective.

This doesn’t automatically apply to all blocked sites, as the sites must have ECH enabled too. We have seen mixed results for The Pirate Bay, perhaps because it has a paid Cloudflare plan, but other pirate sites are easily unblocked.

This new privacy feature hasn’t gone unnoticed by pirate site operators. The people behind the Spanish torrent site DonTorrent, which had dozens of domains blocked locally, are encouraging users to try ECH.

“Before ECH, your online privacy was like a secret whispered in the wind, easily picked up by prying ears. But now, with ECH by your side, your data is like hidden treasure on a remote island, inaccessible to anyone trying to get there without the right key,” DonTorrent notes.

“This feature encrypts your data so that neither ISPs nor organizations like ACE and MPA [can] censor, persecute and intimidate websites that they consider ‘illegal’, the site adds in a fairly satirical blog post .

Privacy vs. Piracy

Cloudflare and other tech companies are not supporting ECH to make site-blocking efforts obsolete. However, this privacy progress likely won’t be welcomed by rightsholders, who’ve repeatedly criticized Cloudflare for hiding the hosting locations of pirate sites.

TorrentFreak reached out to a major anti-piracy organization for a comment on these new developments, but we have yet to receive an on-the-record response. It wouldn’t be unthinkable, however, that we will see more blocking lawsuits against Cloudflare in the future.

For now, Cloudflare isn’t mentioning blocking at all. Instead, it is simply excited about making the Internet more private and secure for everyone.

“If you’re a website, and you care about users visiting your website in a fashion that doesn’t allow any intermediary to see what users are doing, enable ECH today on Cloudflare,” the company writes.

“Over time, we hope others will follow our footsteps, leading to a more private Internet for everyone. The more providers that offer ECH, the harder it becomes for anyone to listen in on what users are doing on the Internet. Heck, we might even solve privacy for good.”

—

^{* Note: We initially had trouble getting ECH to work. As it turns out, some ‘web shield’ functionalities in anti-virus software can cause issues.}

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

Artificial intelligence is booming. Dozens of companies are enthusiastic about its potential and many regular people are tinkering with it too.

The ‘AI Hub’ Discord server was the place to be for true AI enthusiasts. In just a matter of months, it grew from zero to a thriving community of more than 500,000 members.

Through the server, people shared the latest tips and tricks, new developments, but also complete models. They included voice models of popular musicians including Bruno Mars, Frank Sinatra, Rihanna, and Stevie Wonder.

Whether the models themselves are infringing is a question yet to be answered in court. However, the models are trained using commercial music, and openly sharing a library of copyrighted tracks is a clear no-go.

RIAA Targeted “AI Hub” Users

AI Hub was well aware of these sensitivities and didn’t allow members to post copyrighted content. The message apparently didn’t reach all members, which prompted the RIAA to step in earlier this year.

The RIAA represents the rights of American music companies and keeps a very close eye on the AI landscape. When it discovered copyright-infringing content being shared on the AI Hub server, the industry group took the matter to court.

RIAA obtained a DMCA subpoena to obtain the identities of several members who allegedly shared infringing content. Whether this also included voice models wasn’t clear, but the shared datasets with copyrighted music were definitely problematic.

As part of its legal efforts, the RIAA also asked Discord to shut down the AI Hub server, which at the time had just over 80k members. Discord didn’t take action against the server at the time, but the RIAA actively reminded the company to appropriately deal with repeat infringers.

“AI Hub” Shut Down

Following the RIAA’s enforcement effort the server continued to grow. While most members obeyed the rules, there were some outliers. This week, AI Hub was taken down completely, presumably in response to repeat copyright allegations.

It’s not clear whether the RIAA had anything to do with the server’s downfall. A new server, which snatched the .gg/aihub invite link, now welcomes former members and provides more context.

“AI Hub was banned because of copyright, apparently someone did the trick of editing posts and added several links with copyrighted content, which left Discord with no option but to DMCA the server,” the new server explains.

This backup server has nothing to do with the original AI Hub, and we obviously can’t verify any of its claims. TorrentFreak reached out to our contact at the original server but they didn’t immediately reply.

Whack an AI-Mole

Based on the information available, it does indeed seem likely that AI Hub was taken down in response to repeat copyright complaints. Despite its size, Discord only processes a few hundred DMCA takedowns per month, and a subset of these complained about content on AI Hub.

While Discord has to comply with the DMCA – which includes taking action against repeat infringers – it is sad to see such a thriving community disappear due to the actions of a small minority. Discord didn’t immediately reply to our request for comment.

This likely isn’t the end of it though. Given the success of AI Hub, there are several new servers lined up to take its place. Many of these might face similar problems in the future if they continue to grow. After all, it’s virtually impossible to control everything posted by 500k+ members.

This means that we will continue to see an AI whack-a-mole. But perhaps AI can fix that problem eventually, if it’s allowed to.

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

A few years ago, book piracy was considered a fringe activity that rarely made the news, but times have changed.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice targeted popular shadow library Z-Library, accusing it of mass copyright infringement. Two of the site’s alleged operators were arrested and their prosecution is still pending .

In recent months, shadow libraries have also been named in other lawsuits. Publishers sued Libgen over “ staggering ” levels of infringement, for example. At the same time, several lawsuits accused OpenAI of using Libgen and other unauthorized libraries to train their large language models.

These legal efforts have put the operators of shadow libraries under serious pressure, but they remain online, at least for now. In fact, the crackdown on Z-Library propelled a new player into the mix last year; Anna’s Archive .

Anna’s Archive Expands

Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for book piracy sources and shadow libraries. The site launched days after Z-Library was targeted last November, to ensure and facilitate the availability of books and articles to the broader public.

With more than 20 million indexed books and nearly 100 million papers – many of which are shared without permission – Anna’s Archive has come a long way already. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the public at large, as the meta-search engine has more than 12 million monthly visits according to recent traffic estimates.

For Anna’s Archive, this is all just the beginning. The people behind the site aim to play a crucial role in preserving all available books in the world, even if that means being at odds with copyright law.

Scraping WorldCat’s Billion+ Records

This week, the search engine announced a new milestone that should help it reach this ultimate goal. Over the past several months, Anna’s Archive has been secretly scraping WorldCat , the world’s largest book metadata database..

WorldCat is run by the non-profit organization OCLC and works with tens of thousands of libraries globally. Its database is proprietary and not freely available but Anna’s Archive managed to bypass the restrictions, to make their own copy freely available.

“Even though OCLC is a non-profit, their business model requires protecting their database. Well, we’re sorry to say, friends at OCLC, we’re giving it all away,” Anna’s Archive notes.

The meta-search engine says it managed to scrape a staggering three terabytes of metadata. The dataset includes 1.3 billion unique IDs that, after removing duplicates and other noise, equate to 700 million unique records.

Superior Goal

The average user is probably not especially interested in downloading metadata; they want books. However, Anna’s Archive believes that these records will help to achieve its ultimate goal.

“We think this release marks a major milestone in mapping out all the books in the world. We can now work on making a TODO list of all the books that still need to be preserved.

“That is a massive undertaking that requires a lot of people and institutions working on it, both legal and shadow libraries, and we hope to be a cornerstone in this effort,” Anna informs TorrentFreak.

Scraping WorldCat is just the first step. The next is to put this information to work and figure out how complete the current library offerings are.

Making Sense of The Data

The WorldCat data isn’t just limited to books but also includes music, video, and online articles. This has to be cleaned up and deduplicated, which requires some advanced data science skills.

“This is why we’re looking to get the community involved, and why we’re hosting the mini-competition for data scientists. It’s a massive dataset, and we need some help,” Anna says.

In a blog post announcing the new changes and competition, the meta-search engine also notes that AI researchers have shown an interest in the project. This makes sense, as large libraries are ideal for training LLM’s.

AI and Legal Risks

Many commercial AI tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are believed to have been trained on books from shadow libraries. This triggered a flurry of copyright infringement lawsuits that are ongoing.

Right now, there is still a lot of uncertainty about what data can be used and under what conditions but courts and lawmakers will offer more guidance on that front in the years to come.

The uncertainty hasn’t stopped AI groups from reaching out to Anna’s Archive, which receives emails from LLM creators every day and is actively working with several unnamed parties.

Needless to say, running the largest shadow library search engines is not without risk. Publishers and authors likely see Anna’s Archive as a massive piracy operation and legal threats are constantly looming.

Anna’s Archive is well aware of these risks and is “obviously very worried”. However, the team behind the site believes that these risks are worth taking in the grander scheme of things.

“We believe that efforts like ours to preserve the legacy of humanity should be fully legal, and that copyright is way too strict. But alas, this is not to be. We take every precaution. This mission is so important that it’s worth the risks,” Anna concludes.

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

Tom Cruise’s “ Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One ” hasn’t had the easiest path to the silver screen.

The film’s production started right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the planned theatrical release was pushed back several times, to eventually premiere in June 2023.

With well over half a billion dollars in global box office revenues , the film has been quite a success. The mission is not complete though, as the digital release, scheduled for October 10, has not yet rolled out.

With anticipation just starting to build again, the film has suffered yet another setback. A few days ago, high-quality pirated copies of the new Mission Impossible film began circulating on pirate sites. The fact that it leaked ahead of the official digital release makes it even worse.

Mission Impossible Leaks

These types of leaks are common enough not to make the news but, in this case, something stands out. In common with the COVID-19 pandemic, all signs suggest that the leak originated from China, as evidenced by this full-screen mention of the China Film Administration that prominently appears in the leak before the movie begins.

The China Film Administration ( CFA ) is led by the communist party of China. Among other things, it issues film screening licenses, which are displayed through an animated dragon logo at the start of films, as is the case here.

There is absolutely nothing to suggest that the Administration itself has anything to do with the leak. However, the Dragon logo does indicate that the leak is linked to China in some way or another.

Chinese Subtitles

In addition to the Film Administration’s pre-roll, the release comes with hardcoded Chinese and English subtitles. Although several pirate releases are tagged “KORSUB,” the captions represent another Chinese connection.

Needless to say, Paramount Pictures and director Tom Cruise won’t be happy with this early leak. However, stopping it from spreading further is literally an impossible mission now that it’s widely circulating through hundreds of pirate sites all over the world.

Interestingly, the leak appeared shortly after the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) sent a submission to the US Trade Representative, suggesting that China could do more to combat piracy.

Rightsholders Raise Chinese Piracy Concerns

The IIPA mentioned that the film industry has signaled numerous piracy issues in China. They include the problem of illegal recording or ‘camming’ in movie theaters, a concern that was previously shared with Chinese government agencies, including the China Film Administration.

“Unauthorized camcording of movies in theaters—a key source for online audiovisual infringements—remains a significant problem in China for the film industry. Also fueling the growing camcording problem is the increasing problem of people in Chinese movie theaters using cameras, including those on handheld mobile devices, to live-stream theatrical broadcasts of films online.

“The motion picture industry has raised the camcording issue with relevant Chinese government agencies, e.g., China Film Administration (CFA), NCAC, and the China Film Distribution and Exhibition Association (CFDEA),” IIPA added .

The good news is that “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” didn’t leak from China in a cammed version. However, this high-quality release ahead of the digital premiere might be just as bad.

Thus far, the advance pirate release hasn’t broken any records. While hundreds of thousands of people have already downloaded or streamed a copy, it appears that the hardcoded subtitles put off at least part of the potential audience.

“Two sets of subtitles that’s just silly, PASS!,” one commenter notes on a popular pirate site, with another adding that they will wait for the digital release because the subtitles are “too distracting.”

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

In our brave new world where millions of ordinary people are copyright holders of snaps they publish to social media or videos they upload to YouTube, awareness of copyright law is at an all-time high.

Evidence is easily found on Reddit, where users of /r/copyright and similar subs answer questions including: “Can I print t-shirts with Batman on the front if I only do a few and give them away?” and “Is it copyright if nobody knows I copied a song and changed it so it sounds nothing like the original?”

Similar gems are a regular occurrence on YouTube. Who hasn’t seen copies of well-known tracks uploaded in full and protected by the statement: “I do not own this song. Full credits go to the copyright owner. No copyright infringement intended.”

And then there’s the increasing number of channels posting ‘copyright disclaimers’ citing Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, stating that since everything on the channel is ‘fair use’, channel owners are exempt and can never be sued.

While exemption is an interesting proposition, the image above appears to show a channel going further still; while happily claiming fair use ‘protection’ for themselves, they warn of legal penalties should anyone else use “any part” of their video.

Success, Fair Use and Lawsuits

With lots of hard work and even more luck, these channels could one day be as successful as the award-winning H3 Podcast . Created by Ethan and Hila Klein, the channel has over 2.93 million subscribers and almost 1.2 billion views.

Not only are the Klein’s experts in growing a brand and popularizing their work, they are also very knowledgeable about copyright law, and particularly well-versed when it comes to fair use. Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped them from being sued; of the last seven years or so, at least three years have been spent defending copyright infringement lawsuits.

The Klein’s emerged victorious from a lawsuit in 2017 after mounting a successful fair use defense . That wasn’t without its traumas; copyright lawsuits can be extremely expensive and the Kleins’ lives may have taken a different turn had fans not donated $170,000 towards their defense .

119 Seconds of Boxing, 124 Weeks of Litigation (and counting)

It’s not uncommon for the H3 Podcast to discuss current events, providing the type of commentary and criticism that allows for the limited use of copyrighted content without having to obtain prior permission. In April 2021, in the wake of Jake Paul’s 119-second knockout of former UFC fighter Ben Askren, H3 Podcast declared the fight “a disaster” in a video on YouTube, alongside footage of the fight to back up their claims.

Event promotor Triller responded with a copyright infringement lawsuit demanding $50 million in damages. Four months later, H3 Podcast’s attorneys filed an extremely detailed motion to dismiss, most likely at considerable expense.

If those ‘fair use immunity’ disclaimers on YouTube actually worked, H3 Podcast wouldn’t be spending money defending the use of a clip that represents just a fraction of a four-hour broadcast. Admittedly, things were complicated somewhat by Ethan’s claim on the show that he hadn’t actually paid for the fight.

Indeed, the clip shown on the YouTube podcast was actually a pirated copy that Ethan had uploaded to a different YouTube channel as an unlisted video. Of course, Triller’s legal team seized the opportunity to pile on the pressure.

Does a URL in a Video Infringe Copyright

With a subtle shift in tactics, Triller said it had no interest in stifling H3’s commentary and criticism, in a video that had already generated a million views. Triller even implied that under slightly different circumstances, the clip of the fight shown in the commentary video could’ve been shown legally, if it wasn’t for the defendants’ “negligence, willfulness, or maliciousness, or some combination thereof.”

The image below shows a screenshot of that video, with the offending information redacted.

The fact that the URL of the unlisted video appeared in H3’s commentary piece (‘distribution video’) allowed Triller to claim that the video facilitated the infringements of those who watched the fight on the unlisted channel, which relied on H3’s directly infringing upload.

Order on H3’s Motion to Dismiss

With the lawsuit now into its third year, the court has just ruled on a motion to dismiss filed by H3. One aspect of that motion argued that Triller’s claims fail because the unlisted fight video was ‘fixed’ after the broadcast was transmitted. The court found that since Triller alleged that H3 had a copy of the video, but wasn’t on the list of those authorized to obtain the broadcast, at this stage, the company’s allegations are sufficient.

The court’s handling of the URL in the unlisted video, which appeared in the commentary video unredacted, went as follows:

Defendants made the Unlisted Video independently accessible by displaying its URL in the Distribution Video. Anyone with that URL was able to access the Unlisted Video. At the time of the briefing of the Motion, it appears that the Unlisted Video had been viewed 65 times.

Although the Distribution Video displayed the URL in small font, and although no one spoke on the Distribution Video urging viewers to watch the Unlisted Video or read the URL, the URL was visible. The Distribution Video was viewed more than one million times, far more times than the Unlisted Video.

However, drawing every reasonable inference in Plaintiff’s favor, and recognizing that evidence of Defendants’ claimed intent is not to be considered in considering a motion to dismiss, the allegations of the [Second Amended Complaint] are sufficient to present the inference that Defendants created the Unlisted Video and made it publicly accessible for reasons unrelated to the critical commentary in the Distribution Video.

In conclusion, the motion to dismiss was denied in part and granted in part, meaning the case will continue. For how long isn’t clear, but for YouTubers preparing their next counternotice in response to a copyright claim, there’s considerable food for thought.

While it’s convenient to claim that use of copyrighted content is ‘fair’, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is. Even in cases where everything points towards a finding of fair use, there is nothing to stop a rightsholder from filing a lawsuit, no obvious timeframe to discover who was right, and no miracle way of paying attorneys’ fees.

Millions of people rely on fair use every single day, but it’s a legal defense to be called upon sparingly, not a magic YouTube spell for everyday use.

The order on H3’s motion to dismiss is available here ( pdf )

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

This month, the Philippines celebrates its creative industries by dedicating a special month to their work. On top of that, the Government presented a long-awaited ‘gift’.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) announced that local site-blocking plans are about to come to fruition. IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba signed a memorandum that will go into effect in late November.

As part of the agreement, Internet providers will voluntarily block access to known pirate sites. These plans aren’t new; a similar memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed more than two years ago, but that never went into effect.

New Blocking Agreement

The new MOU is an amended agreement between the Philippine Government and local Internet providers. The four-page document sets the rules for an administrative pirate site-blocking scheme, that doesn’t require any oversight from courts.

The basics of the plan are fairly straightforward. Copyright holders can submit site blocking requests, which are then sent to dedicated evaluation officers who will review all details and make a decision within five days.

If a blocking request is granted, Internet providers are informed, so they can implement appropriate blocking measures. This can be as simple as blocking DNS queries, banning URLs, blacklisting IP-addresses, or a combination of these measures.

After being alerted, Internet providers have two days to put the blockades in place.

“Upon receipt of the Request, the ISP/s shall, within forty-eight hours, implement an efficient and effective Site Blocking mechanism to block its subscribers’ access to the Website complained of,” the memorandum reads.

Objections Allowed

The operators of the targeted sites will also be informed about the blocking measures and allowed to appeal. If site operators don’t have a contact address, they can find a copy of the blocking request on IPOPHL’s website, where these will eventually appear.

Similarly, Internet providers are also allowed to share any concerns, in case problems arise down the road.

While these types of administrative blocking schemes are not new, this is the first one of its kind in Asia. All parties involved hope that it will help to deter rampant piracy in the Philippines, where more than half of consumers admit to accessing pirate services.

An earlier version of the memorandum proposed a more complex system, with the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as a middleman. The NTC remains a signatory to the updated version, but won’t have to review all requests individually.

Hollywood’s ‘Watching’

The new administrative site-blocking scheme is a Philippine endeavor, but the efforts were closely watched by Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association, which is mentioned as a partner.

Earlier this year, there were reports that the MPA signed an agreement with IPOPHL to develop a “rolling site-blocking regime” with the primary focus to disrupt access to pirate sites. That sounds similar to the agreement just announced.

All in all, the Philippines is making steady progress in its anti-piracy battle, joining more than forty other countries around the world with its blocking program. Interestingly, site blocking is not a viable option yet in the United States, Hollywood’s home turf.

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

Google’s Play Store offers a vast library of millions of apps, in pretty much every category imaginable.

Most of the software is perfectly legitimate but there are some problematic apps too, including those that can be abused by pirates.

Over the years, rightsholders have reported many thousands of apps, often for copyright infringement. While some of these takedown notices are questionable , most pirate apps quietly disappear from the platform.

The RIAA is one of the entertainment industry outfits keeping an eye on Google Play. The anti-piracy group is known to target stream-rippers that allow people to download music from YouTube. This resulted in several lawsuits and thousands of takedown notices , mostly aimed at Google Search.

RIAA Flags Music Apps

In recent weeks, we have seen a series of notices from the RIAA that target music download apps in Google Play. The notices appeared in the Lumen database , where Google publishes its takedown requests. Before August there were less than a handful of requests by the music group; since then more than sixty have been filed.

The takedown notices all target music-related apps. Many of these promise free music, MP3 download functionality, and the option to download videos and music from social media sites.

“Search, download and play music offline wherever you are. MP3 Download & Music Downloader search mp3, download high quality music for free,” one of the apps boasts .

Other apps specifically target themselves as ‘tube’ download tools, but carefully avoid mentioning YouTube. There are some that reference popular YouTube ripper brands such as “MP3Juice” to grab people’s attention.

5+ Million Downloads

The RIAA sees these applications as pirate tools. In most cases, the apps have a few thousand installs at most, but there is one that clearly stands out.

With more than five million downloads and more than 78,000 reviews, ‘ Video & Music Downloader ‘ is a massive target. The app was released roughly a year ago and continues to grow at a rapid pace.

‘Video & Music Downloader’ doesn’t explicitly advertise itself as a tool to convert music videos into MP3s, but many people may use it for that reason. On this ‘circumvention’ ground, RIAA would like to have it removed from Google Play.

Thus far, the app remains online. It’s unclear whether Google denied RIAA’s request or whether it is still under review. However, looking more closely at all flagged URLs, we see that the enforcement efforts have mixed results.

Mixed Results

After reviewing all 68 takedown requests filed since mid-August, we found that the majority of the apps are still online. A total of thirty apps were removed from Google Play.

We don’t want to draw overly-strong conclusions, but it appears that Google has denied some of RIAA’s takedowns intentionally. At the bottom of this article, we’ve listed a complete overview of all the apps and their current availability.

It’s possible that some requests may have been denied because the apps don’t openly advertise themselves as music-ripping tools. For example, the popular ‘Video & Music Downloader’ listing doesn’t mention that it can convert music videos to MP3s, but it does so on its own website . The term YouTube isn’t mentioned anywhere.

Increased Enforcement

It’s apparent that the RIAA has stepped up its Google Play enforcement actions recently. However, the recent surge in requests may be partly related to reporting changes at Google’s end. The music group told TorrentFreak that infringing apps have been on its radar for a while now.

“RIAA has been enforcing against apps that engage in the infringement of our members recordings since 2009. Mobile app piracy remains a top priority and we will continue to expand our efforts in response to changes in the mobile app space.”

To find out if anything changed on Google’s end we requested a comment, but the company didn’t immediately reply.

In any case, the RIAA is trying hard to get music downloading apps removed from Google Play. While it has enjoyed some success, this is easier said than done. App developers will become more cautious in how they advertise their tools, carefully avoiding ‘problematic’ words.

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All of the apps flagged by the RIAA as problematic between August 18 and September 21 are listed below. The URLs marked with an asterisk have been removed from Google Play and those marked with a minus remain available.

<sup>– https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mp4mp3
– https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Tamjar.Mp3Download
– https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=downloader.vitmate.downloaderapp.freedownload
– https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.locmusic.playersong
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From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Generative AI models such as ChatGPT have captured the imaginations of millions of people, offering a glimpse of what an AI-assisted future might look like.

The new technology also brings up novel copyright issues. For example, several rightsholders are worried that their work is being used to train and exploit AI without any form of compensation.

These concerns have triggered numerous AI-related lawsuits in the United States, many of which target OpenAI. Just a few days ago , the Author’s Guild and several prominent members including George RR Martin and John Grisham joined in on the legal action.

The allegations in their complaint are similar to others aired over the past few months. The first case was filed in a Californian federal court by authors Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad, who were later joined by writer/comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors in a similar suit.

According to the plaintiffs, large language model training sets shouldn’t be permitted to use every piece of text they come across online. They accuse OpenAI of using books as training data, without permission, relying on datasets that were sourced from pirate sites.

The complaints mention the controversial Books2 and Books3 datasets that are believed to be sourced from shadow libraries such as LibGen, Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Bibliotik.

OpenAI’s Motion to Dismiss

In August, OpenAI responded to these complaints, asking a California federal court to dismiss nearly all claims. According to the tech company, there are no viable claims for vicarious copyright infringement, DMCA violation, unfair competition, and unjust enrichment.

The only claim that wasn’t contested by OpenAI is direct copyright infringement, which the company plans to address at a later stage.

Among its arguments to dismiss the claims, the AI company cited fair use. It argued that the use of large amounts of copyrighted texts could be seen as ‘fair’ because it helps to facilitate progress and innovation.

“Numerous courts have applied the fair use doctrine to strike that balance, recognizing that the use of copyrighted materials by innovators in transformative ways does not violate copyright,” OpenAI wrote.

Authors Respond

The authors responded to those arguments this week. While the ‘Tremblay’ and ‘Silverman’ cases are not yet officially merged, both submitted the exact same opposition briefs, asking the court to deny OpenAI’s motion to dismiss the claims.

According to the authors, it is “telling” that OpenAI makes no attempt to dismiss the direct copyright infringement claim. This issue is best suited to be discussed at trial and the same applies to the other claims.

“Nevertheless, OpenAI still tries to leverage its motion to pre-litigate issues it thinks will carry the day in the future. This is improper on a motion to dismiss and should be disregarded,” they write.

The Fair Use Urban Legend

The authors note that OpenAI’s detailed interpretation of fair use in an AI context is irrelevant, at least at this stage. Fair use is a defense that is typically not used to dismiss copyright infringement claims before they’re properly argued.

“Fair use, of course, is an important—yet limited—feature of U.S. copyright law. Importantly, however, fair use is an affirmative defense, and is “inappropriate to resolve on a motion to dismiss.” Given that, OpenAI’s arguments regarding fair use are wholly misplaced.

To bolster their argument, the authors refer to a recent ruling in a Thomson Reuters lawsuit, which also deals with AI-related copyright claims. In that case, the court rejected the fair use argument and referred the matter to trial.

In addition, the plaintiffs note that using copyrighted works for AI purposes isn’t always considered fair use; that’s an urban legend.

“Contrary to widespread urban legend in the AI industry, no U.S. court has squarely ruled on the question of whether training an AI model with copyrighted expression is fair use,” plaintiffs write.

Piracy as a Source

The authors also double down on their piracy allegations and mention three types of copyright infringement. In addition to using copyrighted works for training data, the LLM models themselves are also infringing derivative works, and the same applies to the output of the models.

These accusations and claims largely rely on the suspicion that OpenAI used hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books as training material. While the company never mentioned its source, the authors believe that the models are trained on pirated books from shadow libraries such as LibGen, Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Bibliotik.

“The book datasets used by OpenAI for training language models included thousands of copyrighted books, including books written by Plaintiffs,” they write.

“Given the size of these book datasets, the most likely source of these books is one or more of the notorious ‘shadow library’ websites that host massive numbers of pirated texts that are not in the public domain.”

The direct and vicarious copyright infringement claims rest on this suspicion, and the same is true for the DMCA violations. The authors hope that they will be able to prove this at trial and ask the court not to dismiss any claims prematurely.

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Copies of the authors’ identical opposition briefs in response to OpenAI’s motion to dismiss are available here ( Tremblay et. al / Silverman et al )

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