As the Internet Archive continues to deal with an adverse ruling in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the world’s largest publishing companies, late Friday some of the world’s largest record labels launched similar legal action in the United States.

Filed in Manhattan federal court, the complaint lists UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Concord Bicycle Assets, CMGI Recorded Music Assets, Sony Music and Arista Music as plaintiffs, with Internet Archive (IA), founder Brewster Kahle, Kahle/Austin Foundation, George Blood and George Blood L.P named as defendants.

Pre-1972 78rpm Records by Iconic Artists, All Deceased

The plaintiffs’ complaint focuses on the Internet Archive’s ‘Great 78 Project’ which aims to preserve, research and discover 78rpm records produced between 1898 and the 1950s.

“While the commercially viable recordings will have been restored or remastered onto LP’s or CD, there is still research value in the artifacts and usage evidence in the often rare 78rpm discs and recordings,” IA wrote following the launch of the project in 2017.

“Already, over 20 collections have been selected by the Internet Archive for physical and digital preservation and access. Started by many volunteer collectors, these new collections have been selected, digitized and preserved by the Internet Archive, George Blood LP, and the Archive of Contemporary Music.”

From IA’s perspective, the project is all about the preservation of art. From the diametrically opposed view of the plaintiffs, the defendants willfully made copies thousands of recordings to which they own the copyrights. The digitized copies were then uploaded to the Internet Archive from where they were illegally distributed to users of the website millions of times.

The complaint lists 2,769 individual works from some of the most fmaous artists of all time, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and Louis Armstrong. Listed songs include “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby, “Sing, Sing, Sing” by Benny Goodman, “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly, and “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry.

Plaintiffs: Preservation Claims Are a “Smokescreen”

The nonprofit Internet Archive is known for its ambitious projects that aim to retain, restore and redistribute content that they believe should never be lost to history. For the plaintiffs, these grand ambitions are nothing but a “smokescreen” to hide what amounts to IA offering “free and unlimited access to music for everyone,” regardless of copyright.

“In truth, Defendants’ malfeasance springs from their disregard for copyright law and the rights of artists and content owners. Internet Archive and the other Defendants have a long history of opposing, fighting, and ignoring copyright law, proclaiming that their zealotry serves the public good. In reality, Defendants are nothing more than mass infringers,” the complaint reads.

The record companies further reject claims that the music being made available illegally needs to be ‘saved’. They claim that of the 2,749 recordings listed in the complaint, all but a “small sample” are already available to stream or download from licensed online platforms so they “face no danger of being lost, forgotten, or destroyed.”

The complaint states that when the 78rpm records were converted into digital files, IA reproduced copyrighted recordings without permission. When IA copied those files to a server, that amounted to another unauthorized reproduction, and when it transferred those copies to the public, yet another. When it streamed unlicensed copies to the public, each time that constituted an unlicensed public performance.

“When Defendants exploit Plaintiffs’ sound recordings without authorization, neither Plaintiffs nor their artists see a dime. Not only does this harm Plaintiffs and the artists or their heirs by depriving them of compensation, but it undermines the value of music,” the complaint adds.

Overall Infringement and Claims For Relief

The plaintiffs allege that the Great 78 Project contains more than 400,000 works that have been downloaded or streamed millions of times. In a letter sent by the RIAA to IA in 2020, the plaintiffs allege that IA owner Brewster Kahle was informed of the following:

“You and Internet Archive have reproduced thousands of sound recordings in which RIAA member companies own or exclusively control copyrights, and have made those recordings available to the public for unrestricted download and streaming, all without the consent of the rights owners.

“Your unauthorized reproduction, distribution and public performance of these recordings is a plain violation of the RIAA member companies’ rights under 17 U.S.C. § 1401 , and constitutes nothing less than piracy on a massive scale.”

The RIAA says that Kahle and the Internet Archive were ordered to “immediately cease and desist from their infringement” but the demand was ignored.

The complaint lists several causes of action against different combinations of defendants, including unlawful reproduction under 17 U.S.C. §§ 106(1) and 1401(a)(1) for which the companies are entitled damages and any profits accrued. Alternatively the record companies seek statutory damages of $150,000 for each protected recording infringed, so with over 2,700 works in suit, damages could exceed $400m.

Other claims include infringing reproduction and distribution, infringing public performance, contributory copyright infringement, inducement of infringement, and vicarious copyright infringement. The companies also seek injunctive relief to restrain “continuing infringing conduct.”

The complaint and list of sound recordings are available here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

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

With momentum building in favor of pirate site blocking measures elsewhere in Europe, Austrian ISPs took their opposition all the way to the country’s Supreme Court.

Despite concerns over the implications for net neutrality, rightsholders’ interests prevailed. Like many of their foreign counterparts, Austrian ISPs soon found themselves compelled by court order to block torrent and streaming sites, those offering unlicensed musical works, plus scientific article and textbook repositories.

Domain/DNS Blocking Received Surprise ‘Upgrade’

For years Austrian ISPs had deployed DNS blocking in response to court orders but in the summer of 2022, everything changed. New pirate site blocking orders not only contained domain names to be blocked, but also a list of IP addresses.

When the ISPs discovered that the IP addresses belonged to Cloudflare, arms were thrown up in despair. With no opportunity to contest the court-ordered blockades, ISPs had no other choice than to block the IP addresses, rendering countless innocent sites using Cloudflare inaccessible.

While this disruption was controversial and avoidable, the long term effect should be more positive.

IP Address Blocking Violated Net Neutrality

In a series of reports published this week, local telecoms regulator Telekom Control Commission (TKK) states that the IP address blocks implemented last August amounted to net neutrality violations under EU law.

“In a decision dated August 7, 2023, the Telekom Control Commission decided on the admissibility of blocking networks by [various local ISPs] based on a warning from the rights holder SATEL Film GmbH in accordance with Section 81 (1a) UrhG ,” one of the reports begins.

“The provider mentioned had set up DNS access blocks on the one hand and an IP access block on the other in its network at the end of August 2022. With regard to the DNS access blocks, no current violation of Art 3 Para 3 VO (EU) 2015/2120 was found and the procedure was discontinued in this respect.

“With regard to the blocking of access to the IP address 190.115.18.20, the Telekom Control Commission found a violation of Article 3 Paragraph 3 of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 , because the IP access block poses the risk of ‘overblocking’ any website content.”

In a follow-up announcement, TKK said that, since DNS-based blocking is generally sufficient to protect rightsholders, that will be the only method available to them moving forward.

Protecting Net Neutrality

After declaring IP address-based blocking prohibited in Austria, TKK explained its reasoning to a background of net neutrality and freedom of expression on the Internet.

“Since countless websites can be accessed from a single IP address, the risk of blocking websites or Internet services of uninvolved third parties is particularly high in the event of a block,” a TKK spokesman said.

“In Austria, network blocks have so far mainly been implemented with so-called ‘DNS blocks’. With this type of block, only individual domains are blocked and blocking notices are displayed instead. It is important that this practice is maintained in order to maintain the legally required proportionality in the future.”

TKK’s commitment to transparency includes publishing all blocking decisions and the domains they affect.

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

Two years ago, the RIAA secured a major victory in its piracy lawsuit against YouTube-rippers FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com and their Russian operator Tofig Kurbanov.

A Virginia federal court issued a default judgment in favor of several prominent music companies after the defendant walked away from the lawsuit.

According to the order, there is a clear need to deter the behavior of Kurbanov who failed to hand over evidence including server logs . “A less drastic sanction is unlikely to salvage this case,” the judge wrote.

$82 million Damages Award?

Following this win, the RIAA asked for an injunction to stop the sites’ worldwide stream-ripping activities and demanded $83 million in damages. Both of these requests were taken up in a report and recommendation issued by Magistrate Judge Buchanan.

“Defendant’s Websites caused the Plaintiffs to lose profits and streaming revenue because of the enormous internet traffic to and use of the Websites’ stream-ripping functions,” Judge Buchanan wrote.

The recommendation was approved by U.S. District Court Judge Claude Hilton last year, securing a multi-million dollar win for the music companies. That same order also spelled the end of the stream-ripping sites, at least in theory.

Appeal?

The Russian operator of FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com didn’t give up immediately. Shortly after the million-dollar judgment came in he requested an appeal and last month the case was docketed at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

The filing suggested that Kurbanov would like to continue the fight but this week it became clear that won’t be the case. On the contrary, the appeal was dismissed voluntarily, before it even started.

“[T]he parties hereby stipulate and agree that the above-captioned appeal is dismissed with prejudice. Each party shall bear its own costs. Defendant-Appellant is responsible for paying any Court fees that are due,” the filing reads.

Money Ran Out

The voluntary dismissal doesn’t necessarily mean that the operator accepts the lower court’s judgment. Instead, TorrentFreak is informed that he doesn’t have the money to fund a proper challenge.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, defense attorney Val Gurvits explains that Mr. Kurbanov simply ran out of money. The lawyer still believes, however, that the District Court’s decision was worth challenging.

“It is disappointing that a person who has never once set foot in the United States and who has only operated a website accessible anywhere in the world can be ordered to appear in a court half way around the world,” Gurvits says.

“And, if he fails to do so – or simply can’t afford to do so – that he can be hit with millions of dollars of damages even when there has been no evidence that the Plaintiffs actually suffered any damages as a result of his conduct.”

What Now?

Absent an appeal, the $83 million damages award in favor of the RIAA stands, although that might be hard to pay without funds. In addition, the court’s order also prohibits Mr. Kurbanov from keeping FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com up and running.

At the time of writing, both YouTube rippers are still accessible in most parts of the world but the site’s operator previously decided to ban all U.S. traffic, which is still the case today.

TorrentFreak asked the RIAA whether it has any plans to ensure that the YouTube rippers comply with the court order but the music group prefers not to comment any further at this time.

Mr. Kurbanov hasn’t commented publicly on his decision or future plans but his attorney notes that the defense would have liked to take the appeal forward.

“We would have loved to be able to continue this fight on the merits, but unfortunately our client was unable to do so,” Gurvits says.

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

At least on the surface, the story of Sdarot, Israel’s most popular pirate site, sounds quite similar to that of The Pirate Bay. Loved by millions and loathed by entertainment companies, both have demonstrated an unusual ability to remain online, despite overwhelming odds.

But while The Pirate Bay has generated considerable revenue over the years, Sdarot’s existence and its ability to generate profit seem inexorably intertwined. The subscription fees, paid by some (but not all) of its users in return for access to Israel’s top premium TV channels, are the main attraction. They’re also the reason the people behind Sdarot’s are among the most hounded pirate site operators on the planet.

Legal Action in the United States

With legal victories and blocking injunctions proving all but useless in Israel, companies including United King Film Distribution, DBS Satellite Services, and Hot Communication, filed three copyright infringement lawsuits in New York, with Sdarot one of the main targets. The companies requested an award for damages and then received one worth $23 million, not bad all things considered.

A decision by the entertainment companies to go hard with their injunction demands, including that every ISP in the United States should be forced to block Sdarot’s domains, was outrageously ambitious yet somehow received approval from the court in 2022.

What followed was an ill-thought-through attack on Cloudflare and universal disapproval from Big Tech. That led to the blocking demands being withdrawn and a mostly secret process to degrade Sdarot’s ability to conduct business online.

Sdarot Remains in Business; But For How Long?

Reports emerging over the past few days indicate that in addition to legal problems in the United States, Sdarot now faces a new lawsuit in Israel. Following an investigation by Zira, an anti-piracy group that has hounded Sdarot for years, a lawsuit was filed at the Tel Aviv District Court against 14 people alleged to be involved in the operation of the pirate TV show platform.

According to Israeli news outlet Walla, the letter of claim describes a “well-oiled criminal system” that illegally records and distributes copyrighted content, and then launders the revenue, hiding it from tax authorities. Those behind the platform are also accused of exploiting minors, an allegation we’ll return to in a moment.

Zira reportedly engaged an unnamed European cybersecurity company to “follow the money” or, more accurately, cryptocurrency wallets used to receive payments from users before forwarding to other wallets. As published by Walla, the document below appears to be part of the evidence package and claims to show a BTC wallet with an extremely healthy balance.

BTC transaction document (credit: Walla )

In common with the investigation that eventually took down Megaupload, Zira appears to have avoided discrimination based on the type or scale of alleged offending at Sdarot. From the top of the site to the very bottom, anyone involved seems eligible.

Owner Through to Facebook Moderator

The alleged owner of Sdarot (TV shows) and sister site Sratim (movies) is named in the lawsuit as Michael Ben-Ami, a former resident of Dimona who no longer lives in Israel. Seeing Ben-Ami’s name in print after years in the shadows provokes a trip down memory lane.

When local TV companies were trying to shut down and/or block Sdarot in 2013, the name of the site’s operator was initially unknown. After subsequently identifying Ben-Ami as the main suspect, police raided his home looking for evidence. Reports at the time claimed that officers were confronted by Ben-Ami’s then-wife/partner who pulled out a knife and turned a ‘normal’ police drama into a potential crisis.

As far as we know, no one was injured, which left Ben-Ami – a former police officer – to deny all involvement in the site.

The lawsuit goes on to name Ephraim Fishel Shtroch as a central figure in the streaming operation. The resident of Beit Shemesh stands accused of developing the site’s mobile and smart TV applications. Also among the accused is Ashdod resident Aviel Twito, who reportedly provided hosting services for Sdarot in Israel, plus Ariel Eisental and Bar Lubinger, who stand vaguely accused of helping the site to make pirated content available.

The list concludes with those who helped to run the site, such as Shaul Amedi and Daniel Levy, and those who moderated social media channels; Shoval Reshef and Lipez Nossen (Discord), David Shemesh (Telegram), plus Alik Abramson and Yuval Abramzon (Facebook). Idan Yuval stands accused of designing Sdarot’s website while Yarin Shimoni is said to have provided voice-overs for content released on the platform.

Commenting on the lawsuit, CEO of Zira Ido Natan said an important step had been taken against widespread copyright infringement in Israel. According to the person behind Sdarot’s Twitter account, Zira’s more recent steps against infringement have been going on for quite some time.

No Love Lost Between Sdarot and Zira

After celebrating Sdarot’s 1,000,000th member on June 16, early July the person controlling the Twitter account spoke of experiencing “somewhat significant technical malfunctions” due to Zira’s activities against the site. That turned out to be the seizure of Sdarot’s server in Israel which in turn solicited a response from Sdarot containing a threat against someone allegedly involved.

On July 12, alarm bells rang more urgently at Sdarot HQ, wherever that might be.

“The site is under attack on several different fronts at the same time now, in at least four different countries! The site is currently only active for subscribers until we return to full normality in a few days,” an announcement declared.

What followed were public allegations against Zira CEO, Ido Natan. The tweet in question claims that Natan previously worked as the Minister of Justice’s personal assistant and then suddenly became CEO of Zira.

A day later Eli Cohen, the pseudonym used by the owner of Sdarot, offered to close down the site if certain conditions were met.

With memes quickly descending into more personal insults, Sdarot acknowledged the existence of the Zira lawsuit on August 2 and also appeared to shine light on allegations that the site “exploited minors.”

“I heard that Zira reached the bottom of the ladder. They decided to sue 14 people, some of whom live in Israel. Some of them are minors, all because they claim to have been part of the site’s team about a decade ago,” the tweet reads, adding: “You increased our motivation to continue.”

This week Sdarot announced two things: 1) the operation to shut the site down (Operation: Mechta Shemesh) had come to an end. 2) On September 7, 2023, Sdarot is expected to make a full comeback.

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

Adult entertainment company MG Premium has left no stone unturned in its three-year legal standoff with the operator of piracy sites including the hugely popular ‘DaftSex’.

The first public sign of the battle ahead arrived courtesy of a huge MG Premium DMCA takedown campaign that aimed to remove 832,000 DaftSex URLs from Google search.

Mass copyright takedowns like these should a) make sites like DaftSex harder to find and b) trigger Google’s downranking mechanism which reduces search engine placement in response to DMCA notices.

Then came MG Premium’s application for a DMCA subpoena targeting Cloudflare in the summer of 2020, which hoped to obtain the identity of DaftSex’s operator.

At the time DaftSex was pulling in tens of millions of visits per month and MG Premium’s goal was to reduce that to zero, through the courts if necessary.

MG Premium Files Lawsuit Against the Operator of DaftSex

Filed at the federal court in the District of Washington in 2022, MG Premium went after Vasily Kharchenko, the alleged operator of Daftsex.com, Biqle.com, Daxab.com and other affiliated sites. In response, Kharchenko dug in his heels, failed to appear in the lawsuit, then sat back as District Judge Benjamin Settle awarded MG Premium $32,145,000 in damages in November 2022.

The Judge also signed off on an injunction that authorized the transfer of several domains away from Kharchenko and into MG Premium’s possession.

The MindGeek subsidiary took control of some domains very quickly and redirected them to its own platforms including RedTube. DaftSex acted quickly too; it switched to new domains including Daft.sex, Dsex.to, plus biqle.ru and biqle.org.

In December 2022, MG Premium asked the court to hold Kharchenko in contempt for breaching the injunction. The company also requested permission to take control of the new DaftSex domains at Daft.sex, Dsex.to, and Biqle.org. Since Daftsex was using a Twitter account to inform users of new domains, MG Premium asked the court to issue an order compelling Twitter to either shut down the account or transfer it to MG Premium.

Kharchenko Ignores Order to Show Cause, Judge Runs Out Patience

In his March 2023 order, Judge Settle described MG Premium’s evidence showing Kharchenko violating the injunction, as both “clear and convincing.” Nevertheless, Kharchenko was given yet another chance to participate and informed that he had 30 days to show why he should not be “subject to a bench warrant, to an order holding him in contempt, or to monetary sanctions.”

Having boycotted the entire process to date, and despite being served, Kharchenko failed to comply with the March order. In an order handed down last week, Judge Settle considered MG Premium’s evidence and the laid out the consequences.

After finding that MG Premium’s 2,143 copyrighted works were still being displayed on Daft.sex, Dsex.to, and Biqle.org, Judge Settle found Kharchenko in contempt for violating the injunctions. With that alone unlikely to prevent further infringement, the court came up with a solution to help reduce visibility of the infringing sites.

Judge Declares MG Premium the New Owner of ‘Pirate’ Domains

The section of the order dealing with Kharchenko’s domains initially reads like bad news for MG Premium but then suddenly starts to improve.

“MG Premium has not persuaded the Court that it can or should order non-parties to take concrete steps to prevent the infringement, or as a sanction for Karchenko’s wrongful conduct and his contempt of court,” it begins.

“The Court will not, therefore, Order third parties take affirmative steps to transfer domain name registrars to MG Premium. It will ORDER instead that MG Premium is entitled to ownership of the domain names.” With that, Judge Settle issued the instructions below.

(1) MG Premium or its designee is entitled to be the registrar of record for the domain name Daft.sex, and this Order demonstrates that right to the operator of the .SEX registry, ICM Registry and/or Registry Service, LLSC. Any resulting transfer shall be done at MG Premium’s reasonable expense.

(2) MG Premium or its designee is entitled to be the registrar of record for the domain name Dsex.to, and this Order demonstrates that right to the operator of the .TO registry, Tonic Domains Corp. Any resulting transfer shall be done at MG Premium’s reasonable expense.

(3) MG Premium or its designee is entitled to be the registrar of record for the domain name Biqle.org, and this Order demonstrates that right to the operator of the ORG registry, Public Interest Registry. Any resulting transfer shall be done at MG Premium’s reasonable expense.

Twitter and GitHub Ordered to Eject Kharchenko

Further instructions relate to Kharchenko-operated accounts on Twitter/X and GitHub. The order notes that since MG Premium “is entitled to be the owner of record” of the Twitter account used to communicate with DaftSex users, it should be transferred to the company at “reasonable expense.” The same applies to daftsex.github.io and daftpost.github.io which have been used to inform DaftSex users of new domain names for many months.

Whether any of the above will be enough to prevent ongoing violations of MG Premium’s rights and the terms of the permanent injunction, remains to be seen. Events to date indicate there’s a solid chance that Kharchenko will find ways to circumvent the order. He may have been served but we suspect that his geographical location represents a major roadblock that’s unlikely to be removed for the next several years.

The March order and last week’s contempt order can be found here ( 1 , 2 ,pdf)

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

This is a bit of an unusual post, but we believe that it’s important to let people know that our Twitter / X account was been hijacked and put to new use without our knowledge.

The username and handle were updated as well, and there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to sort this out without direct help from X, which isn’t proving easy.

The account still has our followers so please know that everything that’s posted by the account can’t be trusted. The same is true for all direct messages and other communications.

We hope that the situation can be ‘fixed’ soon and we will update this article when additional news arrives.

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

Roughly 25 years ago, Google started its business as a simple and straightforward search engine.

The startup swiftly captured a dominant market share which it managed to retain and grow as the years passed by.

Google’s position as a search leader also brings responsibility, an issue copyright holders hammered on for a long time. Slowly but steadily, Google tweaked its policies to hinder pirate sites.

The most direct way for the search engine to address the piracy problem is by responding to DMCA notices. If copyright holders spot pirate sites in search results, they can direct Google to remove these links from its indexes.

Seven Billion Reported URLs

Google first started to keep track of these takedown notices at the beginning of the last decade. In the spring of 2012, Google launched its Transparency Report which publishes all DMCA requests the company receives, including the targeted links and their senders. This provided fuel for hundreds of news reports as well as academic research.

A few days ago, Google reached a new milestone when it processed the seven billionth removal request. It’s a mind-boggling number that comes less than a year after the six billionth takedown was recorded.

Looking more closely at the timeline, we see that a billion URLs were reported to Google search in less than nine months. For comparison, it took twice as long to go from five to six billion, suggesting that the takedown volume picked up again after a previously reported decline.

There’s no denying the recent surge in reported links but much of the increase was generated by a single rightsholder in an effort to remove a particular pirate operation from Google search.

Two Domains, One Pirate

Around the start of the year MG Premium began to increase its takedown efforts. The company is an intellectual property vehicle of the MindGeek conglomerate, known for popular adult sites such as PornHub. One of MG Premium’s main goals is to shut down ‘unlicensed’ sites or at least make when unfindable.

Last year, MG Premium scored a multi-million dollar damages win in a U.S. federal court against pirate ‘tube site’ Daftsex . This order also took down the main .com domain, but that didn’t stop the site. Daftsex simply continued using alternative domains which remain available to this day.

This defiant stance prompted MG Premium to start a DMCA takedown spree on a scale never witnessed before. In the first few months of the year, the company flagged more than a quarter billion Daftsex URLs, mostly dsex.to and daft.sex.

The surge is clearly visible in the graph above and at times the company was averaging more than two million takedown requests per day. More recently the volume has come down a bit, but it’s been a major contributor to Google’s takedown uptick.

7 Billion in Perspective

The seven billion figure itself also deserves some clarification. This number only refers to the URLs that were reported to Google, and includes duplicates, as well as pages that were not in Google’s index. The latter category is placed on a special watchlist to make sure they’re not added again in the future.

Google also rejects millions of takedown requests because they fail to show links to infringing content. This applies to more than one hundred TorrentFreak URLs that were flagged incorrectly, as well as pages from Netflix, IMDb , The White House, NASA, and even the FBI .

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that not all takedown notices are sent by the people or companies listed in them. Over the past several years, we have seen numerous imposters sending notices on behalf of legitimate rightsholders. These are often sent by pirate site owners attempting to take out the competition.

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

June 2022 marked the end of a legal battle that despite modest roots, went on to become one of the most interesting copyright cases in recent years.

After paying just $47, a shadowy business entity hoped to obtain a DMCA subpoena that would compel Twitter to hand over the personal details of an alleged copyright infringer. Pseudonymous Twitter user MrMoneyBags had previously posted controversial photographs on Twitter and, as a result, the alleged copyright holder sought to pull back the veil, ostensibly for the purposes of protecting copyrights.

After Twitter defended its user’s rights in court, a favorable ruling meant that MrMoneyBags retained their anonymity. More than a year later, a new DMCA subpoena application filed against Twitter finds itself on the cusp of similar controversy.

DMCA Subpoena Seeks to Identify Twitter Users

The background to this dispute is less than straightforward and for those fresh to the controversy, all but impenetrable. Since the allegations, counterclaims and shifting narratives only serve to distract, our tight focus here relates to part of the fallout; a single DMCA subpoena application seeking an extraordinary amount of personal data belonging to three Twitter users.

The DMCA subpoena application was filed on July 14, 2023, at a U.S. district court in California, San Francisco division. The applicant is Michael Williams who appears to be involved in the cryptocurrency/blockchain world. Williams has a Twitter account where participation is restricted. His targets, three Twitter accounts, are mostly wide open.

The first account mentioned in the subpoena is operated by Brooke Lacey , who describes herself as a technologist and Cybersecurity Masters Student. Twitter user ‘peabeeandjelly’, whose account no longer exists , and GIRL_SQUAD_OG, an account that remains open but is less easily categorized, complete the trio. Suffice to say, Williams and the Twitter users have not been seeing eye-to-eye lately.

Allegations in the Application

The application, filed by Williams himself, seeks to “identify one or more alleged infringers” said to have posted “copyrighted images” owned by Williams, on Twitter, without first obtaining his authorization.

Williams claims that on July 12, July 13, and July 14, notifications were submitted to Twitter via email which identified the content in question, as required under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) .

Lacey’s recent retweet of an attorney’s tweet, suggests that at least some allegedly-infringing content was indeed removed.

The copyrighted material to which Williams claims to hold exclusive rights is listed in the DMCA notices sent to Twitter. Described in one notice as “my personal photo” and accompanied by a URL where it can be viewed for reference, various URLs are identified on Twitter where the users allegedly reproduced the image, in breach of Williams’ rights.

Another notice references additional images (MBW-2 to 9) publicly published on the same website, presumably in support of the DMCA takedown notices sent to Twitter.

Despite Williams appearing pro se , the takedown notices are clear and well-formatted. Whether the images were posted in breach of Williams’ rights largely depends on the context. Liability could be disputed under the doctrine of fair use but since that’s a defense in response to an actual lawsuit, any details would require scrutiny – at huge expense – under the supervision of a judge.

In the meantime, disclosure demands attached the DMCA subpoena application are of immediate interest. A court clerk usually signs off on DMCA subpoenas without a judge getting involved. In this exceptional application, the details suggest that this process is unlikely to be straightforward and also risks much broader controversy.

Proposed DMCA Subpoena

DMCA subpoena applications regularly seek significant levels of personal information held by service providers. A request typically aims to obtain names, email and physical addresses, IP addresses, login times, even details of financial transactions, such as payment of invoices or subscriptions, for example.

In most cases these alleged infringers are intentionally anonymous and since the point of a DMCA subpoena is to enable rightsholders to identify anonymous infringers, any grain of information has the potential to progress an investigation. In the Twitter matter discussed here, at least one of the alleged infringers, Brooke Lacey, is well known online so it’s very unlikely that a DMCA subpoena is the only means of identifying her.

As for the rest of the disclosure demands, ‘comprehensive’ may lack suitable scope. Our summary of those demands are listed as follows:

– All direct messages exchanged between @brookejlacey, @peabeeandjelly since May 1, 2023
– Full names, email/physical addresses, dates of birth, gender, occupations, and photographs
– All past and current usernames, including dates when usernames changed
– Dates and times when profiles were created and the associated IP addresses
– All IP address-containing logs along with dates, times and users’ physical locations
– All direct messages, both sent and received, by the users, since May 1, 2023
– Details of websites or other links in the users’ biographies
– Every Tweet and copies of all photographic images the users have ever posted
– All IMEI (unique cell phone identifier) numbers collected from the users’ phones
– All user data collected from any website posted to the users’ biographies
– Information of accounts (open/closed) linked to the users’ IP addresses or IMEIs
– The users’ billing information
– Details of other apps the users’ downloaded to their mobile phones

Several aspects of these requests are not unusual; after all, disclosure of personally identifying information is the clear purpose of DMCA subpoena applications.

Among other things, the key issues here relate to the scope of the information being sought, whether that information is purely for the purpose of protecting copyright, and how such disclosures might affect innocent third parties.

Privacy Risks, Irrelevant Disclosure

While disclosure of dates of birth may have relevance when dealing with a minor, the relevance of someone’s gender or occupation to what appears to be a relatively minor copyright claim, seems minimal. Obtaining copies of the users’ personal photographs seems overly personal, not to mention ironic given the circumstances.

In general, overly broad requests for information predating alleged infringements and even those more current, raise questions of strict relevance to the matter in hand. Information obtained via a DMCA subpoena process cannot be used for any other purpose beyond protecting copyright but since enforcement is almost non-existence, limited but sufficient disclosure is essential.

Open-ended requests for disclosure of all IP addresses logs, physical locations, and the actual content of all direct messages, have enormous privacy implications for the Twitter users and any number of entirely innocent people. When taken as a whole, the entire package of demands seems more suited to a process overseen by a judge as part of a properly filed lawsuit. A $47 administrative matter seems an entirely unsuitable venue given the issues at stake.

One final thought relates to the impact this type of request may have on Twitter itself. It raises the prospect of any Twitter user posting a single picture without permission, having almost every detail of their online and private lives even remotely connected to Twitter, being disclosed to any third party, based on a simple allegation. Copyright disputes have a tendency to favor rightsholders but as last year’s case shows, opportunities to push back definitely exist.

For these and related reasons it seems highly unlikely that Twitter will comply to the extent demanded in the application. Unfortunately, surprises happen all the time, often at the worst possible time.

The DMCA subpoena application can be found here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

Image credit: Geralt /Pixabay

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

Founded in the last millennium, CannaPower must be one of the oldest pirate sites still around today.

The site currently indexes more than 50,000 audio releases, which are shared through external hosting platforms.

CannaPower Blocking Efforts

With roughly a million monthly visits, mostly from Germany, the download portal is large enough to appear on the music industry’s radar. In fact, it’s become one of the prime enforcement targets and an anti-piracy guinea pig of sorts.

When German Internet providers teamed up with copyright holders and agreed to voluntarily block blatant pirate sites , CannaPower was one of the first targets. At the time, the site operated from the Canna.to domain. Today, Canna-Power.to is its main home, but that domain is blocked too.

The blockades made it more difficult for Germans to visit the site, but certainly not impossible. By switching to a DNS resolver not controlled by local Internet providers, many people can regain access to the site.

Sony Targets DNS Resolver

Rightsholders are well aware of this. In fact, this was likely one of the main reasons that the German branch of Sony Music filed a lawsuit against DNS resolver Quad9 in 2021. The main goal of this court case was to block CannaPower at the third-party DNS resolver.

Sony Music’s lawsuit was successful . While Quad9 is determined to have the blocking order overturned, it initially complied with the blocking order in Germany only. However, after a follow-up complaint from Sony and a €10,000 fine , this blocking effort was rolled out globally.

The DNS blocking case in Germany will set an important precedent but, thus far, it hasn’t resulted in CannaPower throwing in the towel. Quad9 is a relatively small DNS resolver compared to Google, OpenDNS, and Cloudflare, so the effects are limited.

‘They’ll Never Get Us Down’

In an interview with the German site Tarnkappe , the site says that Quad9’s global DNS blocking efforts have no meaningful effect on its traffic numbers. And if more blocking orders should follow, the site doesn’t plan to stop either.

“The number of visitors has remained constant,” CannaPower says. “They will never get us down! And when the time comes, yes, then we’ll just move to the Tor network.”

On the Tor network, rightsholders can’t easily restrict access to a domain name, since ISPs and regular DNS resolvers can’t see this traffic.

CannaPower actually didn’t notice Quad9’s new global blocking effort and found out about it through the news. For now, the site will remain operational from the canna-power.to domain but it plans to switch to a new one in the near future, although that’s reportedly not related to the blocking efforts.

In addition to making it harder for users to access the site, blockades can also lower the revenue of pirate sites by reducing their traffic. While that may happen to CannaPower in the future, money doesn’t appear to be a weak spot either.

“I’m already getting hardly any donations or advertising revenue. The project is basically a hobby of mine. I finance almost everything out of my own pocket. And that will not change in the future,” CannaPower’s operator concludes.

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