The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) has published the findings of its 2023 study on ‘European Citizens and Intellectual Property: Perception, Awareness and Behavior.’

The study aims to gain a better understanding of European consumers’ attitudes toward intellectual property and covers physical counterfeit goods and online digital content; our focus here will be on the latter.

Most Europeans Oppose Use of Illegal Content Sources

Given the entertainment industries’ regular and urgent calls to tackle online piracy, the EUIPO study paints a more positive picture in respect of attitudes towards illegal content.

“In general, most Europeans do not support obtaining digital content from illegal sources. The majority disagree with a variety of reasons that are sometimes used to justify this behavior, such as that it is OK if only for personal use (65 % disagree or tend to disagree with this), if the price of the content is too high (72 %), or if the content is not available via a legal source (74 %),” the report notes.

In line with most, if not all, studies in recent years, acceptance of piracy decreases with age. While 19% of citizens aged 55-64, and 18% of those aged 65 and over, believe that its acceptable to access content via illegal sources if the price is too high, acceptance rates jump to 41% and 46% in the 25-34 and 15-24 groups, respectively.

Piracy acceptance rates are also higher in the younger age groups when content isn’t available from legal sources, reaching 44% among 15 to 24-year-olds. However, the majority of Europeans (80%) say that they prefer to obtain content from legal sources, if an affordable legal option is available.

In that respect, a surprising 69% of respondents consider the quality and range of content to be better than that currently available from illegal platforms.

14% of EU Citizens Pirate, But Not Exclusively

The study found that 43% of Europeans paid to access online content from a legal service in the past 12 months. Just 14% admitted to having used illegal sources during the same period but these aren’t all hardcore pirates. Of this group, six in every 10 citizens (60%) also purchased content from legal sources, leaving a small minority overall who only consume content from illegal sources.

Among those who used exclusively legal sources, the main reason cited for not using illegal sources is that the content they want is available on legal platforms (44%), with 40% stating that they prefer not to use illegal platforms because of the harm this could cause to content creators.

Avoidance due to perceived dangers of pirate sites affecting either themselves or someone else was relatively low, 13% and 19%, respectively. Fear of being caught and/or fined was higher at 24%.

Overall, 82% of those surveyed agreed that obtaining content illegally carries a risk of exposure to some kind of harmful content, such as scams or content inappropriate for minors. This belief is held more among those who don’t access content online (85%) than those who do (75%).

Sports Content Popular With Pirates

While 14% of Europeans report that they accessed content from illegal sources in the previous 12 months, one type of content proved to be the biggest draw.

Sports content was obtained from illegal sources by 12% of Europeans, with 11% saying that they used a set-top box or downloaded apps. Once again, the younger the pirate, the more likely they are to access content illegally.

“Accessing content from illegal sources is considerably more common than average among younger Europeans. In the 15-24 age group, 33 % report using illegal online sources intentionally, 27 % say they have streamed content from illegal sources to watch sports, and 25 % say that they have used illicit streaming devices to access content illegally – all more than double the EU average,” the study notes.

Where Europeans Access Illegal Content

Just over four in ten Europeans (43%) who access content illegally online say they do so via dedicated websites. Roughly a third (32%) say they acquire content using social media with just under a quarter mentioning apps (23%). Peer-to-peer networks like BitTorrent and dedicated IPTV services are used less often.

“There are no marked differences between age groups or Member States when it comes to preferred channels,” the study notes.

Uploading, Sharing, Providing Content to Others

In light of the 14% of Europeans who accessed content from unlicensed sources in the preceding 12 months, that 11% overall uploaded/shared content with others seems relatively high.

In common with those who download or stream from illegal platforms, uploading is much more common among younger people. The researchers note that in the 15-24 and 25-34 groups, 25% and 21% uploaded/shared content in the preceding 12 months, a figure that drops to less than 10% among those aged 44 and above.

“There is a very strong correlation between accessing content illegally and making protected content illegally accessible by uploading it: 42 % of those who have also accessed online content from illegal sources have also uploaded protected content, while only 6 % of those who have not accessed content illegally have uploaded protected content,” the researchers add.

Justifications & Reasons to Stop Pirating Content

According to the study, those who access content online using illegal sources are more likely to believe that there are reasons to justify this behavior than those who do not. Leading justifications for accessing content illegally include ‘personal use’ (71%), legal content being too expensive (68%), and the content being unavailable on a legal service already purchased (65%).

“The impact of price and availability of offers is mirrored in the fact that a better affordability of content from legal sources and a larger offer of such are the most important reasons that users of illegal sources would stop using them (for 43 % and 37 % of Europeans, respectively),” the researchers note.

“A better understanding of the harm caused by using pirated content to the content producers or to jobs and the European economy (22 % and 21 %, respectively) are much less likely to keep people from using illegal sources.”

The full report is available here here (pdf)

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

For several decades, The Scene has been the main source of all pirated content made available on the Internet.

Technically, release groups operate in a closed ecosystem, but the reality is different. The vast majority of the files published on private Scene servers eventually find their way to public pirate sites.

The secretive nature of The Scene has been a major challenge for law enforcement but in the summer of 2020, the US Department of Justice made a major breakthrough . Following a thorough investigation, three members of the illustrious SPARKS group were indicted .

The Rose That Grew from Concrete

The raids and the criminal investigation sent shockwaves around The Scene. Some groups stopped releasing entirely and others significantly slowed down their output , which was felt in many parts of the public piracy ecosystem too.

Amid this turmoil, a new TV release group going by the name of CAKES emerged. The group published its first release “The 100 S07E16” on October 1, 2020, and many more would follow.

During the next few years, CAKES built its reputation as a steady release group, one that eventually covered 7,000 titles. That’s an impressive average of more than 50 new releases per week.

Aside from the massive output, CAKES was also known for including four lines from Drake’s track “ Pound Cake ” in its release notes. These same lines are also at the start of its farewell message.

Overly focused, it’s far from the time to rest now
Debates growin’ ’bout who they think is the best now
Took a while, got the jokers out of the deck now
I’m holdin’ all the cards and dudes wanna play chess now

Do For Love

The message explains that when CAKES started out, the team made an internal promise to pull the plug when “the love” is gone. Without going into further details, that time has apparently arrived.

While some people may be disappointed with this decision, CAKES has clearly made up its mind. The group prefers to highlight the achievements and experiences instead, referring to the past few years as a “crazy journey.”

“If you had told us how the last few years would go, we wouldn’t have believed you. The skills learnt, the massive lows, the euphoric highs, it couldn’t have happened with a better group of people.”

“I couldn’t be prouder of our team, not just for what was achieved but knowing the right moment to call time. As sad as this is, goodbye from team CAKES,” the group adds.

GLHF!

While the notice doesn’t spell it out, CAKES is likely not the only group to shut down. There seems to be a connection with another group, GLHF, which is also mentioned in the farewell message.

GLHF stopped releasing new titles over a week ago, which is highly atypical. The group originally started in December 2020, shortly after CAKES became active, and has released more than 6,500 titles since.

With CAKES and potentially GLHF affected, two steady suppliers of TV releases have disappeared. This doesn’t mean that all piracy will end; other groups typically appear, just like CAKES did earlier.

Or could there be more going on behind the scenes, perhaps?

CAKES ends its farewell with a final musical reference that is quite fitting, considering all the drama and uncertainty. The quote from Jay Z’s track “ What More Can I Say ” leaves plenty of room for interpretation.

We’re supposed to be number one on everybody list
We’ll see what happens when I no longer exist

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

According to the original complaint filed July 2, 2020, this was a case about “copyright piracy” and how YouTube, the largest video-sharing website in the world, plays host to huge numbers of videos infringing on the rights of copyright holders.

It was a case about how YouTube facilitates and induces a “hotbed of copyright infringement” through its development and implementation of a copyright enforcement system called Content ID, a system that protects powerful copyright owners yet denies ordinary creators any “meaningful opportunity” to enforce their rights.

It was a case about how this system maximizes YouTube’s profits but bars the platform from claiming safe harbor protection under the Copyright Act. Rather than terminating repeat infringers, the system provides them with cover, the lawsuit claimed.

11th Hour Issues Prompt Weekend Filings

Starting today, these claims would’ve been heard before a jury at trial in California.

On Saturday, plaintiffs Maria Schneider, Uniglobe Entertainment, and AST Publishing moved the Court for leave to dismiss without prejudice all of AST Publishing’s claims against YouTube, Uniglobe Entertainment’s claims based on foreign works, and Maria Schneider’s claims relating to Copyright Management Information (CMI).

The plaintiffs had hoped to pursue the litigation as a class action, but on May 22, the Court denied class certification. In their motion filed Saturday, the plaintiffs say this changed their views about how best to prosecute the case; YouTube’s repositioning was on display May 25 when it withdrew its safe harbor defense.

The plaintiffs say they reached an agreement with YouTube for a stipulated dismissal of claims without prejudice , but last Friday, YouTube reversed course.

“Through the good-faith efforts of Plaintiffs, and guided by the advice of the Court, the parties came to an agreement to significantly narrow the issues remaining to be tried before the jury. Defendants should not now be allowed to renege on the agreement that they made with Plaintiffs and that was the basis of the trial plan submitted to and adopted by the Court,” their motion reads.

Jury Trial Scheduled To Begin Today

Following earlier events plus those on Friday, Saturday and finally Sunday, the claims in this lawsuit won’t be heard today, tomorrow, or any other day in the future. After almost three years of litigation, it is all over.

“Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), Plaintiffs Maria Schneider, Uniglobe Entertainment, LLC, and AST Publishing, LTD, and Defendants YouTube, LLC and Google LLC, hereby stipulate to the dismissal of the action,” the parties’ stipulation of dismissal dated Sunday reads.

“All claims that Plaintiffs raised or could have raised in this action are dismissed WITH PREJUDICE. Each Party will bear its own costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees.”

Related documents can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 , pdf)

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

In the wake of the 30+ year prison sentences handed down to the people behind Flawless IPTV, we’ve been exploring various aspects of the service’s operations and the extraordinary effort expended by the Premier League to bring Flawless down.

While no single facet of Flawless’ operations can explain why such punitive sentences were considered appropriate, the emphasis on the service’s efforts to undermine the Premier League’s ISP blocking program played no small part.

One of the key aims of the blocking program is to prevent football fans in the UK from watching games played in the UK at 3:00pm on Saturday. This ‘blackout’ only affects viewers in the UK; the plan at Flawless was to enable UK football fans to enjoy these games by offering 3:00pm games played in the UK yet only available legally in other countries.

ISP Blocking Program

By offering access to 3:00pm kick-off games, Flawless had a product that wasn’t available to buy in the UK. Fans loved the service but in the background, the Premier League was pulling out all the stops to prevent fans from accessing it.

Birmingham-based anti-piracy company Friend MTS was tasked with monitoring the internet for pirated Premier League streams. However, just like anyone else, the company needed to access the services offering those streams so that server locations could be identified and sent to ISPs Sky, Virgin, BT, TalkTalk, EE, and Plusnet for subsequent blocking.

Using covertly purchased Flawless subscriptions supported by watermarking technology, in 2017 Friend MTS was able to identify specific Sky viewing cards used by Flawless and trace those cards directly to Flawless kingpin Mark Gould. Sky responded by canceling the cards, but the cat-and-mouse game would continue.

A Mole Inside Friend MTS

Our 2019 article provided significant detail on the blocking program, including that information was being leaked from inside an anti-piracy company. We knew that company was Friend MTS, but only more recently did it become clear why the company rejected our requests for comment.

In April 2018, a person who identified themselves as ‘Bill’ opened a support ticket at Flawless. Claiming to work at Friend MTS, ‘Bill’ said that in return for payment via bitcoin, he would provide information from inside the company that would allow Flawless to identify the usernames and passwords of accounts used to obtain information on their service.

It later emerged that ‘Bill’ was Zak Smith, a Friend MTS employee who went on to supply Flawless with crucial information on the blocking system and other sensitive material from inside the company. Information handed over included a list of covert subscriptions and the payment methods used by the anti-piracy company to acquire them – PayPal accounts and scans/photographs of credit/debit cards, among others.

Blocking the Blockers

Using information already in Flawless’ possession, enhanced by the information detailed above, the IPTV provider was able to turn the tables by blocking Friend MTS IP addresses from the Flawless service. Not that the anti-piracy company was initially aware of that.

Through the development and use of a custom script, when the anti-piracy company attempted to access the Flawless service, to obtain IP addresses to be forwarded to ISPs for subsequent blocking, Flawless diverted those requests to servers operated by rival pirate IPTV services.

That meant that any IP address and related server/hosting information obtained during the sweep was actually related to services other than Flawless. When IP addresses were forwarded to the ISPs for blocking, rival IPTV providers were blocked, not Flawless itself.

The Beginning of the End

When arrests of those behind Flawless began in May 2018, information obtained from seized devices revealed the existence of ‘Bill’ and the information he’d supplied to Flawless. Knowing the information had come from inside Friend MTS, the company launched an investigation.

Comparisons were made between the times that data was leaked to Flawless and the company’s security systems which logged people in and out of the building, recording times and dates. With suspicion mounting that Bill was Zak Smith, attention turned to photographs ‘Bill’ had sent to Flawless.

In addition to confidential information, these photographs accidentally captured details of equipment and the office itself. ‘Bill’ was arrested under his real name on August 7, 2018, and pleaded guilty in February 2020. He was not sentenced with the others late last month, with reports indicating that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

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

The success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT inspired Microsoft to add more AI features to its Bing search engine.

The idea is that this will allow users to receive more elaborate answers compared to an ordinary list of links.

Whether this strategy will pay off has yet to be seen, but in our tests, something else stood out. People are not the only ones asking questions. Bing itself is quite interested to hear what its users think too.

Bing’s Pirate Bay Poll

As expected, a regular keyword search for “Pirate Bay” returns a lot of information about the site. In addition to the correct URL, which was previously absent , Bing also lists an intriguing poll. Specifically, it wants to know how people effectively protect themselves while using The Pirate Bay.

Bing provides its users with four options to choose from, including the use of a VPN, a proxy, the Tor browser, or a dedicated IP address. Depending on one’s definition of ‘safe’ a VPN is the most obvious answer, which is also reflected in the results .

This poll has little to do with ChatGPT of course but it is possible that Bing somehow uses the results to improve its general search functionality. Or perhaps these questions are generated by AI?

As a small experiment, we decided to ask Bing the same question it asked us ( What is the most effective way to protect yourself while using The Pirate Bay? ). And indeed, a VPN does up as the answer in a massive font.

Torrent Clients, Fmovies, RARBG, and The Dark Web

User polls aren’t exclusive to The Pirate Bay. There are several other file-sharing and piracy-related topics where other polls appear. When we type BitTorrent, for example, we’re asked about our favorite torrent client.

The options are rather limited but with 57%, uTorrent is the clear winner, followed by qBitTorrent with nearly a quarter of the votes.

When we search for Fmovies, one of the most popular pirate streaming sites, Bing suddenly wants to know what movie genres we watch most often on the site. Here, ‘action’ is the public’s favorite with nearly half of the votes.

Meanwhile, RARBG’s demise has yet to be reflected in Bing’s data. The search engine mentions a copycat site as the top result and still asks whether people think that a VPN is necessary to access RARBG.

Finally, there’s also a poll about the dark web, but perhaps it’s best if we don’t mention that explicitly.

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

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

Historically, Internet providers rarely applied such a drastic measure, but under pressure from lawsuits, many ISPs are now acutely aware of their obligations.

Music Companies sued RCN

Internet provider RCN is one of the providers targeted by this legal campaign. Four years ago, the company was sued by several major music industry companies including Arista Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, and Warner Records.

The music companies alleged that RCN wasn’t doing enough to stop subscribers from pirating on its network. Instead of terminating the accounts of persistent pirates, the Internet provider looked away, they argued.

The stakes in these liability lawsuits are high. Internet providers face hundreds of millions of dollars in damages claims, while tens of thousands of Internet subscribers are at risk of having their accounts terminated.

Exploring a Potential Settlement

RCN initially responded to the allegations with a counterattack. The company accused the RIAA and its anti-piracy partner of sending ‘false and fraudulent’ DMCA notices, arguing they shouldn’t serve as evidence for disconnections.

This countersuit ultimately failed . In two instances, a New Jersey federal court concluded that RCN failed to show that it was financially hurt by any incorrect or incomplete DMCA notices. As such, the case moved forward.

These cases can lead to a high-profile trial, but it appears that both parties are exploring options to end the matter before it gets that far. Specifically, they are considering a potential settlement.

“More recently, the Parties have communicated directly about the possibility of settlement but are not currently engaged in settlement discussions. The Parties are open to discussing potential settlement avenues with the Court,” they wrote in a status report to the court last week.

The settlement option is serious, both parties reiterated in a court hearing this week. And to help the process, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hirsch appointed a mediator yesterday.

“Counsel and the parties (including individuals with settlement authority) shall attend mediation sessions as requested by the Mediator,” Judge Hirsch writes .

While we don’t know the positions of both parties, rightsholders have won similar lawsuits in the past which puts the music companies at an advantage. However, with a settlement, RCN is likely to avoid a Cox-style billion-dollar verdict .

Filmmaker Suit ‘Expands’

An eventual settlement won’t end all piracy-related trouble at RCN. The provider is also involved in a similar lawsuit with several movie companies; they recently tried to involve Reddit users in their evidence-gathering efforts.

This lawsuit continues, and a few days ago the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in which they demand millions of dollars in damages. The complaint also calls for a site-blocking injunction targeting popular pirate site domains such as YTS, The Pirate Bay, and 1337x.

The amended complaint now lists high-profile law firm Foley and Lardner among the plaintiffs’ attorneys and adds new piracy evidence from Facterra. The evidence-gathering company, owned by American Films , was also added to a similar lawsuit against Internet provider WOW.

—

A copy of the status update in the lawsuit between the music companies and RCN is available here (pdf) . The proposed amended complaint of the filmmakers against RCN can be found here (pdf)

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

With an estimated 2.5 billion users overall and around 120 million users active daily, YouTube is an entertainment powerhouse and a globally-recognized brand.

Premium products aside, YouTube is free to use. But with around a billion hours of content consumed every day, YouTube has to find ways to make that pay.

The most visible cost to the user is advertising, lots and lots of advertising. Less visible costs include significant user tracking, with an average of seven trackers per YouTube page, according to WhoTracksMe data.

With a growing subset of YouTube’s users becoming more aware of how the platform is monetized, YouTube appears to be paying greater attention to those with a preference to opt out, whether that’s through browser extensions like uBlock Origin or other methods that require even less effort.

Invidious: A Privacy Front-End For YouTube

Invidious describes itself as an open source alternative front-end to YouTube. In basic terms, this means accessing YouTube via a different interface on a different domain which strips away the advertising, user tracking, and reliance on Google subscriptions.

A Public Invidious Instance

The software is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and, for those with nominal technical skills, Invidious can be self-hosted on relatively modest hardware using Docker . For those who prefer just to use Invidious, there is no shortage of people happy to share their instances with the public.

How long that will continue is now up for debate.

YouTube Legal Orders Invidious to Shut Down

A few hours ago, the Invidious team revealed that YouTube’s legal department had made contact, claiming to have become “recently aware” of breaches of YouTube terms of service agreements and developer policies.

The crux of YouTube/Google’s claims is that clients (Invidious in this case) that use YouTube’s API (application programming interface) must display and link to Google’s privacy policy and “clearly and comprehensively” explain how their client uses and processes user information.

API clients must not “place any limitations” on YouTube functionality, or “mimic or replicate core user experiences” unless they add “significant independent value or functionality.” Clients may not infringe copyrights or exploit copyright-infringing materials, Google adds. ( 1 , 2 )

“We hope that you will cooperate with us by correcting and ceasing to Offer Your Client that violates our terms and policies within 7 days from the date of this letter,” the shutdown notice concludes.

Invidious Team Feel Uncooperative

The main problems apparent in Google’s cease and desist are straightforward; Invidious does not use YouTube’s API, and as a result, the project’s developers never agreed to any associated terms of service. As anyone who foolishly left their own instance open to the public will confirm, Invidious is effectively a proxy service, one with a penchant for bandwidth.

“[YouTube/Google] don’t understand that we never agreed to any of their TOS/policies, they don’t understand that we don’t use their API,” team member TheFrenchGhosty commented on GitHub.

“Things will continue normally until they can’t anymore. Assume it’s just the start. Assume they’ll ask GitHub to takedown the repos (if so go to our Gitea https://gitea.invidious.io/iv-org ). Assume the team wont be able to work on Invidious. You know what you have to do.”

The team says they “won’t do anything” unless they have to, but also acknowledge that this may not end well.

The cease and desist may not specifically apply due to its focus on YouTube’s API but, since users of YouTube are also subjected to endless terms and conditions, finding a different angle won’t be hard. If YouTube/Google really wants the Invidious team out of the picture, they are prepared for that, but disappearing their software will present a whole new set of challenges.

“May Invidious live and prosper, with, or without us,” the team conclude.

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

Following an in-depth investigation and a five-year Premier League private prosecution, five men behind the UK’s largest-ever piracy service were sentenced last month to more than 30 years behind bars .

While other branded services were featured in the investigation, the focus was on Flawless IPTV and its operations between August 2016 and May 2018.

During this period, Flawless served around 42,000 customers direct, charging each around £10 per month. The service had around 100 resellers who were free to set their own prices. They sold to around 20,000 subscribers, with Flawless taking a £6 per month cut for each subscription purchased.

The prosecution said that Flawless generated around £4.6 million in gross revenue, but that was an educated estimate. In 2018, Flawless began accepting payments from subscribers in bitcoin and evidence showing how much was received proved impossible to obtain.

That certainly wasn’t the case in respect of the service’s outgoings. Bank and PayPal accounts dealing in regular currency revealed payments to numerous entities all around the world. Documents made available to TorrentFreak provide unique insight into how much it cost to run Flawless and how much various people and entities were paid.

Flawless Had Almost Two Dozen ‘Employees’

In addition to the six people at the top who handled day-to-day operations, over the 22-month period between 01/08/16 to 22/05/18, Flawless employed at least 23 people.

A spreadsheet recovered as part of the investigation, covering the period February 2017 to April 2018, reveals Flawless turnover (gross revenue) per month at the top and the names of 10 ‘Senior Staff’ employees and how much they were paid directly underneath. (All in pounds sterling)

Since TorrentFreak was able to link employee names with identities in some cases, all personal information is redacted here. The prosecution clearly holds the full details, but we cannot confirm there are no investigations or prosecutions pending against the above.

The same holds true for 13 former moderators of Flawless.

According to bank and PayPal accounts identified in the investigation, total payments to employees during the period August 2016 to May 2018 exceeded £439,300 and were by far the largest expense for the Flawless operation.

Infrastructure and Stream Suppliers

No IPTV operation can exist without two key components; a supply of pirate streams and then servers to distribute those streams to subscribers.

Recent media coverage made much of how Flawless used its own methods to obtain streams from legal suppliers, but the IPTV provider also made purchases from ‘wholesale’ pirate stream suppliers.

For the reasons mentioned above, the names of the stream suppliers are also redacted here. However, they include what is likely to be the world’s largest wholesale supplier of pirate IPTV streams.

We can confirm that the same supplier is a priority target, not only for UK rightsholders, but also for those in Hollywood and beyond. Since the supplier continues to operate and is well aware of the Flawless investigation, possible enforcement action doesn’t appear to act as a deterrent.

Hosting Providers

Payments to employees aside, Flawless’ second largest expense was hosting providers. Again, we have taken the decision to redact the names of these companies.

They include major international corporations that most readers will recognize but as far as we know, none are accused of any wrongdoing, despite receiving in excess of £281,600 for their services. That amount includes the payments listed below for the period February 2017 to April 2018.

Other costs of operating Flawless included £28,000 for app development, around £12,200 paid to Xtream Codes ( shut down in 2019 ), £9,500 paid to card-sharing suppliers, £3,600 to Sky viewing card suppliers, and £1,200 paid to the WHMCS billing platform.

During its 22 months online, Flawless’ overall expenditure on staff and suppliers was at least £818,200, an average of roughly £37,200 per month, just to stay online. The true costs, which go way beyond money, are clearly much, much higher.

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

Every day, millions of people from all over the world submit posts, comments, and other content to Reddit.

The social news and discussion platform turns 18 later this month and according to a Danish anti-piracy group, it’s time for the platform to ‘take responsibility’.

These comments from the Rights Alliance come in response to a revelation from the local radio program “Kulturen”. In a recent episode, it revealed that sexually explicit scenes were systematically shared on Reddit, totally absent of the broader context.

Widespread Abuse

Kulturen reported hearing from 20 Danish actresses affected by this issue, which some describe as abuse and being molested. While they are fine with the original sex or nude scenes, being featured this way is not what they intended.

Actress Andrea Vagn Jensen, who has had one of her explicit scenes shared online, explains to DR that there’s a huge difference between appearing naked in a film and being posted on Reddit.

“It’s just abuse. You deliver something for the production and the story, and then you end up being molested that way,” Jensen notes.

“It’s crazy that some people feel entitled to do that, and what’s just as crazy is that there are so many people who subscribe to it,” fellow actress Signe Egholm Olsen said, responding to the story.

This issue isn’t limited to Denmark. While the explicit nature of sex scenes is generally milder in Hollywood, there are entire subreddits dedicated to sharing nude clips from American productions too.

Copyright Violations

Aside from the personal integrity issues, posting the scenes has copyright implications too; removal on those grounds provides the most straightforward option when asking Reddit to take action, which many rightsholders have already done.

In this case, the Rights Alliance also reported the issue to the police, on behalf of the Danish Actors’ Association and the respective rightsholders. In addition to the financial aspects, copyrights also have moral rights which include the right to integrity, which could come into play here.

In response to the controversy, several clips were removed by Reddit, but that doesn’t end the problem as the scenes can simply be re-uploaded. The Rights Alliance, therefore, urges Reddit to take its responsibilities seriously under Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive.

Article 17 requires large platforms to ensure that copyright-infringing content does not reappear after it’s removed. This can be achieved through upload and other filtering technologies, which are already in place on YouTube, Facebook, and elsewhere.

‘Reddit Should Filter Uploads’

Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund explains that these other platforms paved the way by showing that it is possible to develop effective filters. Reddit should follow suit.

“Reddit should step up and find solutions that prevent users from uploading illegal content to their platform,” Fredenslund says.

Fredenslund further informs us that the group hasn’t reached out to Reddit directly. That wasn’t needed since the problematic clips had already been removed. However, the group believes that upload filters are needed to prevent future trouble. That includes banning external URLs.

“From what we have explored with regard to their platform, they should be able to filter illegal uploads of short movies. Also very important, they could make sure that links to illegal websites are banned from being posted/webcasted on Reddit.”

For Reddit, filtering uploads would go a step further than the current DMCA takedown policy so whether the site plans to do so is unknown. TorrentFreak asked the company for a comment but, at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back.

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