Viral videos are big business. Therefore it’s no surprise that specialized companies emerged to help the lucky few to monetize their viral content.

These companies typically take care of licensing and legal issues. This is also the case with Videohat , which uses the ‘catchy’ tagline “Rights = Money”.

Unfortunately, however, getting paid isn’t always straightforward. When a video goes viral, thousands of copies are made without permission, even by mainstream news outlets, other licensing companies, and some of the world’s largest copyright businesses.

Viral Gum Video

This is also what Youssef Abu Bakr noticed when he uploaded a TikTik video of Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti, sharing one of his ‘trademark’ chewing gums. This gesture generated millions of views on TikTok and was reposted thousands of times without permission.

Bakr licenses his videos through Videohat and the latter found out that rights don’t always equal money, not directly. In addition to thousands of smaller accounts, mainstream companies including ESPN also copied the clip, as shown above.

Hoping to get rewarded, Videohat reached out to ESPN with a licensing deal but that didn’t get the desired result. This eventually prompted the company to file a formal case at the U.S. Government’s Copyright Claims Board (CCB) which was launched last year to deal with these types of smaller disputes.

ESPN Hit With Copyright Claim

According to the claim , ESPN is a renowned network that should be quite familiar with copyright law and licensing requirements. Despite this, ESPN reportedly failed to cooperate when Videohat reached out.

The alleged wrongdoing isn’t limited to the TikTok video either. Similar posts appeared on ESPN’s Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts. The latter pair had been removed at the time of writing.

Instead of agreeing to license the video, or reaching out to the original creator, Videohat says that ESPN continues to show the clip without permission to this day. How would ESPN act if the tables were turned, the licensing outfit questions.

“The question is: if we or one of our clients has uploaded a sports event owned by ESPN, would it be ok? Of Course not. Same should apply to ESPN distributing our content without permission,”

“We are asking for a relief of 1500USD per license per URL. (Total of 4500USD),” Videohat’s claim adds.

beIN Complaint

ESPN wasn’t the only sports network hit with a copyright claim, beIN received the same treatment . In a nearly identical complaint, Videohat accuses beIN’s American arm of copying the video without permission and posting it to Facebook and YouTube.

Interestingly, Videohat demands a higher damages figure from beIn, namely, $2,500 per URL for a total of $5,000. At the time of writing, the Facebook post is still online.

Whether the Copyright Claims Board will get to decide on the issue is unknown at this point. The board provides a relatively cheap option to resolve copyright disputes but it’s not mandatory; the accused party has the right to opt out of the proceeding. If that happens, Videohat can still choose to go to federal court.

Copyright Claims Progress?

Thus far the Copyright Claims board hasn’t led to a wave of rulings. On the contrary, of the 383 cases filed, only one resulted in a full decision.

Plagiarism Today reports that in this pioneer case, the board awarded $1,000 to a photographer who discovered that his work was used on the website of a California-based law practice. This is significantly lower than the $30,000 that was initially requested.

More than half of the CCB cases (198) have been closed for other reasons. This often happens when a complaint is not fully compliant and, as expected, there’s also a significant percentage of defendants who opt out.

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

Millions of subscribers to Western streaming services will testify to the South Korean content explosion of recent years.

The ‘Korean Wave’ cultural phenomenon, boosted by movies and TV shows such as Squid Game, Train to Busan, and Parasite, is something to behold.

From the successes of BTS and Psy’s Gangnam Style to the magnificent ‘Oldboy’ released two decades ago, South Korean entertainment quite rightfully receives worldwide appreciation. If everyone actually paid for these pleasures, that would be the icing on the cake for South Korea.

Oppa Anti-Pirate Style

In a combined effort to crack down on piracy of local content, major South Korean broadcasters, including KBS, MBC and JTBC, the Korea Film and Video Copyright Association (film producers and distributors), plus streaming platforms TVING and Wavve, have announced the formation of a new, piracy-fighting coalition.

The Video Copyright Protection Council (이하 영보협) will receive support from the South Korean government’s Copyright Commission as it works to curtail both local and overseas pirates. An interesting factor here is that the project involves the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, the world’s largest anti-piracy coalition.

First Official Target Revealed

The new coalition is expected to file a criminal complaint in South Korea today targeting pirate streaming giant Noonoo TV. While unfamiliar to many in the West, the site offers movies and TV shows to an audience of tens of millions, making it one of the more obvious choices for enforcement action.

The anti-piracy coalition blames Noonoo TV for falling subscriber numbers on legal streaming services. According to various reports, in February Noonoo TV’s operator claimed that the platform’s video content had accumulated more than 1.5 billion views, a figure that would outstrip traffic to legal alternatives.

Alleged Damages: 5,000,000,000,000 South Korean Won

Five trillion won at today’s rates equates to roughly $3.78 billion, an unprecedented damages claim for a copyright case. Ahn Sang-pil, deputy director of MBC’s legal team, says the amount is justified.

“The amount of damage to the domestic video industry caused by Noonoo TV is estimated to be 4.9 trillion won when simply calculated considering the number of views and VOD,” he said.

“Until now, companies have been responding individually to copyright infringement, but illegal distribution of videos using torrent downloads as well as Noonoo TV has become serious, so we have decided to join forces.”

Thus far, efforts to stop Noonoo TV have yielded limited results.

ISP Blockades Were Quickly Countered

Rightsholders say that NooNoo TV generates significant revenue from gambling advertising. Gambling is prohibited in South Korea under laws that forbid anyone from achieving monetary gains (or losses) from wagers that attempt to predict the outcome of activities based on chance.

A cursory view of the site’s homepage reveals the presence of gambling adverts but accessing the site isn’t straightforward. Originally operating from Noonoo.tv, the site has deployed dozens of domains to circumvent ISP blocking measures implemented in 2022.

After starting out with noonoo.tv, blocks were countered with noonoo1.tv, noonoo2.tv and noonoo3.tv. After burning through sequential variants, at the time of writing the site’s Telegram channel says it can be found at noonoo32.tv but how long that will last is difficult to say.

As most people testing any of these domains will quickly discover, accessing Noonoo TV isn’t straightforward. The site geo-blocks visitors from outside South Korea and, in many cases, even a VPN fails to solve the problem.

Where the site is operated from isn’t clear either. Until fairly recently it was claimed to operate out of Paraguay but more recently attention has shifted to the Dominican Republic. It’s certainly possible – if not likely – that the site operates out of neither.

The coalition, meanwhile, seems particularly keen to find out.

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

To the global audience, Hellspy may not be a household name, but in the Czech Republic, it’s widely known.

Founded in 2009, the file-sharing and hosting platform grew out to become one of the country’s most-visited websites. This didn’t go unnoticed by copyright holders, including the RIAA, who repeatedly complained about widespread piracy on the platform.

Operating in the face of legal pressure is a challenge, but Hellspy always felt that it had the law on its side. If users uploaded copyright-infringing content, the company would swiftly remove it after being notified by rightsholders.

EU Copyright ‘Filter’ Directive

This approach worked well for Hellspy and its parent company, I&Q Group. However, when the new EU Copyright Directive passed a few years ago, dark clouds started to form. The indirect upload filter requirements it contained were particularly troublesome.

Article 17 of the Copyright Directive requires online services to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, service providers must ensure that infringing content is taken down and prevented from being re-uploaded to their services.

Many operators of online services interpret this as an indirect upload filter requirement, as that is the only way to ensure that content remains off the platform.

Voluntary Filters

Hellspy also came to this conclusion. Late last year it decided to voluntarily implement filtering technology . This was much needed, as the Czech Republic planned to update its copyright law in January 2023, to comply with the new EU rules.

The upload filters were implemented in collaboration with the local Association of Commercial Television (AKTV). According to early comments from I&Q Group CEO, Jan Hřebabecký, these appeared to be working well.

“[T]hey provide relatively easy and effective filtering of copyrighted content, which is especially important for services of our type in light of the upcoming amendment to the copyright law, which imposes new obligations on us in this area,” Hřebabecký said.

Hellspy stressed that wasn’t happy with these changes but it respected the law. This meant that upload filters were the only viable way to keep the service afloat.

Hellspy Announces Shutdown

Fast forward a few weeks, and Hellspy reached an entirely different conclusion. The site notes that the new legislation places disproportionate burdens on user-generated content platforms. And despite its earlier commitment to start filtering, it has now chosen to shut down.

“Given the legislative situation in the Czech Republic and the maximum transparency of Hellspy to our users, we want to inform you about the end of Hellspy on 1.4.2023,” the site wrote in an email to its users, shared by novinky.cz .

While announcements involving April 1st should always be treated with caution, there are no apparent signs that Hellspy is joking. According to the email, users can request a refund if their paid access plan extends beyond the shutdown date.

Traffic Plummeted

The file-sharing site doesn’t go into detail to explain why it chose to shut down after all. The initial reaction suggested that the technical filtering implementation wasn’t particularly problematic.

In addition to the filters, Hellspy reportedly disabled the search functionality as well. These measures had a direct impact on visitor numbers, which plummeted to new lows in recent months. This is likely to have factored into the shutdown decision.

Hellspy is not the only Czech file-sharing platform that has responded to the new law. Ulož.to, which refuses to implement upload filters , remains online but now points its users to a third-party site to search for content.

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

After entering a guilty plea some time ago, former pirate IPTV service operator Bill Omar Carrasquillo was sentenced Tuesday in a Philadelphia court.

Last month the U.S. government called for 15.5 years in prison for crimes related to Carrasquillo’s pirate IPTV service, Gears TV, which was shut down by the FBI in 2019.

That was still a far cry from the 500+ years thrown around in the earlier stages of the case, but after causing an estimated $167 million in damages to TV providers Charter Communications, Comcast, DirecTV, Frontier Corporation, and Verizon Fios, perhaps not completely out of the question.

Plea Agreement

Some details were already settled prior to sentencing. In Carrasquillo’s plea agreement, the YouTuber acknowledged a laundry list of crimes, from the most serious copyright offenses to fraud and money laundering crimes.

Among them, conspiracy to commit felony & misdemeanor copyright infringement, circumvention of access controls, access device fraud, & wire fraud, circumvention of an access control device, reproduction of a protected work, public performance of a protected work, and wire fraud against the cable companies. Other crimes included making false statements to a bank, money laundering, and tax evasion.

Financial penalties included forfeiture of just over $30 million, including $5.89 million in cash seized from bank accounts, Carrasquillo’s now-famous supercar collection, and multiple pieces of real estate in the Philadelphia area.

Hearing in Philadelphia

In a hearing scheduled for 2:30pm yesterday at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Carrasquillo appeared in courtroom 16A before Judge Harvey Bartle III.

In a sentencing memorandum for the defense, details of Carrasquillo’s early life – most of which had already been made public by Carrasquillo in videos posted to social media – make for depressing reading.

One of 38 children, Carrasquillo had no stable care or supervision. Physically and sexually abused by family members, Carrasquillo was intentionally committed to mental health facilities by one supposed caregiver, purely for the purposes of obtaining prescriptions for narcotics which were then sold.

Carrasquillo’s mother was deported for various crimes and then died as a result of drug addiction. The only constant in his life was his father, who taught a 12-year-old Carrasquillo how to cook crack and sell drugs.

“Omar battles constant battles of depression because he questions his own self-worth. He could have easily accepted that there is no ‘better’ for him,” his attorney said, adding: “HE DID NOT!”

“He began to look for opportunities that did not require formal training or a high school diploma. He found passion and love in the business of marketing and internet sales.”

Despite no formal training or schooling beyond the 11th grade, Carrasquillo developed a highly successful YouTube channel and a construction company, among other legal businesses. The story of how he entered the IPTV business and generated millions in profit is well-documented, but today his “ legal loophole ” theory has been discarded.

“Omar is not asking for a pass,” his attorney assured the Court. “Protected works should not be copied. Period. He crossed the line and he knew he should not have.”

Sentencing

All parties agreed that the TV companies are entitled to restitution and together they will receive $$10,761,573.20. A similar position was adopted for the IRS, which is entitled to restitution in the amount of $5,717,912.02.

From 500+ years imprisonment through to a theoretical 98 years for the crimes listed in the plea agreement, the U.S. government recently acknowledged that the advisory guidelines of 24 years would be “highly unusual” for a copyright matter. Instead, government attorneys recommended a sentence of between 188 and 235 months.

When sentencing Carrasquillo Tuesday, Judge Harvey Bartle III decided that 66 months would be enough to punish Carrasquillo and send a deterrent message to any of his followers considering the same type of behavior.

Carrasquillo: Judge Was “Super Fair”

In video recorded outside the Court, Carrasquillo said he’d been dreading the sentencing hearing but is pleased with the outcome.

“I feel like the Judge was super fair. He heard everyone’s testimony about my character [from] everyone who came to Court. The judge ordered me to 66 months of federal prison, which I thought was fair, especially how much money I made,” he said.

“I’ve got to pay ten point something million in restitution [to the TV companies] which they already have, which will be applied. And I got to pay another $5.7 million in restitution to the IRS. So you know, I’ll be home in the next two to three years.”

After being raided by the FBI in 2019 and being charged in 2021, Carrasquillo said the day had “been a long time coming.”

“You know, the Judge was super lenient but fair, but also [wanted to] deter other people from committing the same type of TV piracy that I committed. But it’s over,” he said.

“I already know what I’m doing, I know what I’m getting. There’s no more stress, no more nothing. I know when I come home, everything will be fine. I’m good. 66 months was super fair. And you know, it sucks for my kids, but I’m happy with it.”

Well-known for his ability to transform dust into gold and losses into wins, Carrasquillo revisited his well-documented struggles with weight and noted an opportunity ahead.

“It’s probably salvation for my fat ass to lose some weight anyway,” he said.

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

In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction ordering DNS resolver Quad9 to block the popular pirate site Canna.to.

The injunction , issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block its users from accessing the site to prevent the distribution of pirated copies of Evanescence’s album “ The Bitter Truth “.

Quad9 Appeals Site Blocking Injunction

The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The not-for-profit foundation submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision set a dangerous precedent.

The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy. However, it believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction last December . However, this was only a preliminary proceeding and Quad9 promised to continue the legal battle, warning of a broad impact on the Internet ecosystem.

Sony Files Main Proceeding

After Sony’s preliminary victory, the music company initiated a main proceeding at the Leipzig court. This was the next step in the legal process and allowed both sides to provide more evidence and expert opinions.

Sony, for example, referenced earlier jurisprudence where Germany’s Federal Court ruled that services such as YouTube can be held liable for copyright infringement if they fail to properly respond to copyright holder complaints.

Quad9’s expert, Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal, contested this line of reasoning , noting that, under EU law, DNS resolvers shouldn’t be treated in the same fashion as platforms that actually host content

Quad9 is more akin to a mere conduit service than a hosting provider, Prof. Janal countered. Courts could instead require Quad9 to take action through a “no-fault” injunction, a process that’s already used in ISP blocking orders. In those cases, however, the intermediary isn’t held liable for pirating users.

Court Confirms DNS Blocking Requirement

After hearing both sides, the Regional Court of Leipzig ultimately handed a win to Sony. This means that Quad9 is required to block the music piracy site canna.to globally. If not, those responsible face a hefty fine, or even a prison sentence.

“The defendant is liable as a perpetrator because it makes its DNS resolver available to Internet users and, through this, it refers to the canna.to service with the infringing download offers relating to the music album in dispute,” the Court writes.

Judge Werner argues that Quad9 should have taken action when the copyright holder alerted it to a pirated copy of the Evanescence album. Its intentional failure to act makes the DNS resolver liable.

In its defense, Quad9 warned that blocking measures have a significant impact on its system architecture and performance. The Court wasn’t receptive to this argument, as the DNS resolver already actively blocks malware as one of its features.

Thus far, Quad9 has blocked Canna.to only for German users. However, the court order suggests that a global blocking order is reasonable and warranted, which is in line with Sony Music’s demands.

“It would also be harmless if, in accordance with the defendant’s argument, websites were blocked globally and irrespective of a specific jurisdiction for all Internet users who use the defendant’s DNS resolver.

“Even worldwide, no legitimate interest of Internet users in accessing this website with obviously exclusively illegal offers is apparent, so that the question of overblocking does not arise,” Judge Werner adds.

‘Absurdly Extreme’

Quad9 is disappointed with the verdict. According to the non-profit foundation, the court order opens the door to widespread global blocking orders that go far beyond the jurisdiction they’re issued in.

“Quad9 believes this is an exceptionally dangerous precedent that could lead to future global-reaching commercialized and political censorship if DNS blocking is applied globally without geographic limitations to certain jurisdictions.”

In addition, the DNS resolver believes that the Court mistakenly labels the service as a liable ‘wrongdoer’. Expanding liability to seemingly neutral services that don’t host any content is “absurdly extreme”, Quad9 notes.

“To put this into perspective, applying wrongdoer liability in this setting is akin to charging a pen manufacturer with fraud because a stranger forged documents while using the manufacturer’s writing utensil,” the Foundation writes.

Quad9 Continues to Fight

According to Quad9, Sony Music hand-picked a relatively small player with limited means, to obtain a favorable precedent. However, Quad9 isn’t giving up the fight. The company will appeal the judgment at the Dresden Court of Appeal, with help from the German Society for Freedom Rights (GFF).

GFF project coordinator Felix Reda , who previously served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, believes that the Leipzig Regional Court has made a glaring error of judgment.

“It treats Quad9 as if the service itself were committing copyright infringement, even though it merely resolves a website name into an IP address,” Reda tells TorrentFreak.

“If one follows this reasoning, the copyright liability of completely neutral infrastructure services like Quad9 would be even stricter than that of social networks, whose copyright liability was extended by the controversial EU Copyright Directive.”

In common with Prof. Janal, Reda stresses that Quad9 should receive similar treatment as ISPs, instead of equating the service to a hosting provider.

“The Digital Services Act makes it unequivocally clear that the liability rules for Internet access providers apply to DNS services. We are confident that this misinterpretation of European and German legal principles will be overturned by the Court of Appeals,” he notes.

For now, Quad9 says it will comply with the court order. This means that it will block access to the Canna.to domain. Whether this will make much of a difference is unknown, as the site moved to the Canna-Power.to domain name a while ago.

—

A copy of the Regional Court of Leipzig’s order is available here (German, pdf) and a translated English copy can be found here (pdf)

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

Two years ago, Internet provider RCN was sued by several film companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.

The filmmakers accused the provider of failing to act against customers accused of piracy. Rather than terminating the accounts of persistent copyright infringers, the Internet provider looked away, they argued.

Subpoena to Unmask Redditors

Many other ISPs have faced similar claims in recent years, but the RCN lawsuit drew attention recently when Reddit was brought into the mix. The filmmakers took an interest in several comments posted by anonymous Redditors, which could potentially help to back up their claims against RCN.

In January, Reddit received a subpoena asking it to uncover the identities of these users. The social discussion platform largely rejected this request, arguing it would violate their users’ First Amendment Right to anonymous speech.

Reddit further argued that the filmmakers served their subpoena before discovery had begun. This wasn’t mentioned in our previous coverage but behind the scenes it had already ignited significant turmoil.

Disputed Discovery Date

According to the filmmakers’ attorney, Kerry Culpepper, discovery started when the subpoena was sent (January 7) and any claim to the contrary is “grossly negligent”, “untrue”, “outrageous”, or even “libelous”.

The lawyer reached out to Reddit asking the company to ‘correct’ the record before it could be reported by the media, fearing that a failure to do so would damage his reputation.

“I extend Reddit the opportunity to file an amended opposition by the end of today […] that deletes that argument and all references to it, explicitly notes that it was completely false, and extends an apology to Plaintiffs’ counsel and the Court for accusing Plaintiffs’ counsel of blatantly violating the rules,” Culpepper wrote.

Reddit wasn’t convinced by this request. Citing the court docket, the discussion platform believes that there is no need to correct anything.

“We do not take your accusations lightly. We have again reviewed the DNJ docket and see a January 26, 2023, docket entry instructing that ‘discovery relevant to all claims and defenses shall commence’.”

“We therefore disagree that any portion of our brief is false and decline your invitation to revise the brief. As for your settlement offer, Reddit respectfully declines,” Reddit’s attorney adds.

Ironically, the contested discovery date wasn’t mentioned in our reporting or that of Ars Technica . However, it’s in the news now.

Filmmakers Respond in Court

The email exchange above is highlighted in the filmmakers’ latest filing, where they respond to Reddit’s objections. The rightsholders maintain that all targeted Reddit users can provide key information and therefore they would like to receive their personal details.

Reddit was initially concerned that its users could be targeted with legal claims, but the filmmakers stress that this is not the case. Reddit still refuses to hand over the information, however, in order to protect the anonymous speech of its users.

The filmmakers tell the court that this First Amendment argument should meet a high standard, which isn’t warranted in this case.

“This Court should reject Reddit’s attempt to treat comments boasting of piracy or complaining of RCN’s browser hijacking as political or religious speech and order Reddit to disclose the requested information in accordance with the proposed order,” Culpepper writes.

Some of the users didn’t mention RCN specifically. For these, the filmmakers propose that Reddit can first share their IP-addresses, so they can check whether they’re subscribers to RCN or an affiliated ISP.

Tensions

The filings and related documents show that tensions between the sides are rising. Culpepper’s declaration, for example, mentions that Reddit has “numerous active forums that openly discuss and support piracy.”

The attorney adds that Reddit’s alleged false statements about the discovery deadline could be a retaliatory move for requesting information about Reddit users, while Reddit can portray itself as having put up a good fight against copyright holders.

Reddit previously described the subpoena as a “wholly unjustified fishing expedition” that would violate the First Amendment and unduly chill speech.

All in all, it is clear that both parties have completely opposite takes on the matter. This isn’t a mud-throwing contest, though, and eventually the court will have to decide whether Reddit must disclose the requested information, or not.

—

A copy of the filmmakers’ reply in support of the motion to compel third-party Reddit to respond to the subpoena is available here (pdf)

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

In May 2022, Elon Musk declared overzealous use of the DMCA a “plague on humanity.”

As CEO of Twitter, Musk understands that his platform has certain obligations if it wishes to maintain protection from liability under copyright law. On receipt of a properly formatted and submitted takedown notice, allegedly infringing content must be taken down.

A dispute that boiled over yesterday began with these two steps but ended up with the copyright holder having his account suspended, presumably by Musk himself or on his instructions.

The two people at the heart of the original dispute are both Twitter users. Since most tweets relating to the initial dispute have since been deleted or disabled, here we rely on archived and cached copies for evidence. Since one user’s account has been suspended, links to the account and its tweets are included but are likely to fail.

Adrien Mauduit (@NightLights_AM)

Adrien Mauduit ( @NightLights_AM , Norway) operates the currently-suspended Night Lights account. He describes himself as a professional nature cinematographer, astrophotographer, and an “Aurora chasing specialist.”

A review of Mauduit’s recent posts suggests that his Twitter account is mainly used to post content he creates himself, usually videos or photographs.

Mauduit’s pinned tweet is/was a stunning short video dated March 4, 2023. It’s described as a “double solar storm punch that created a G3 (max) geomagnetic storm.” This video sits at the heart of the dispute.

Posted on March 3, the video was well received. Comments under the original tweet include: “INCREDIBLE! Feast for the eyes and spirit,” “This one is off the charts!” and “Wow Adrien! Absolutely killing it! Thanks for sharing!”

Massimo (@Rainmaker1973)

Massimo (Italy) operates the @Rainmaker1973 account. He describes himself as an engineer who uses his account to “build the big picture of #science via selected & curated pics, videos & links.”

A review of Massimo’s recent posts suggests that his Twitter account is mainly used to post content created by third parties. The usual format is the inclusion of a photograph or image, a description of the image, a hyperlink to the original source, and sometimes a link to a secondary source with additional information on the current topic.

Dispute Between Mauduit and Massimo

On March 6, Massimo posted the now-deleted tweet seen below. The format detailed above is maintained; a description of the third-party content (this time owned by Mauduit), the content itself (the clip) and two links – one linking to Mauduit’s original tweet ( here ) and another linking to a secondary information source ( here ).

Massimo also cited the source of the clip: “This beautiful display was filmed by @NightLights_AM on Feb 26th in Swedish Lapland.”

According to a now-deleted tweet published by Massimo, this is what happened next.

Mauduit Filed DMCA Notice to Have Massimo’s tweet Removed

“Yesterday I posted this tweet, tagging the author @NightLights_AM and embedding his clip, without uploading anything,” Massimo’s tweet begins.

“He sent a DMCA report which blocked my account: this means I’m on the brink of the permanent suspension. I contacted him and he asked for money.”

Massimo claims that Mauduit had yet “to set the price” but said he would let Massimo know when he’d decided. Copies of these communications have not been made public, so their nature remains unknown. Whether this was a simple request for cash or a business discussion about the cost of licensing the video is unknown.

“I run this account since 2014 without earning any money from it for pure educational purposes. On the other hand he has a business. He was also a follower of mine, until yesterday. But he said ‘I’m the one who breaks Twitter’s rule’,” he continues.

Massimo Alleges Blackmail

According to Massimo, such requests for payment are not uncommon on Twitter. To keep his account open he has paid off multiple ‘blackmailers’ over the years, he says.

“I’ve been blackmailed like this so many times, and I honestly thought this was over,” he reveals.

“I was hit by DMCA tens of times since 2014 and I was suspended once for 3 weeks. I paid more than $1,500 to keep this account open, I’ve paid all those have blackmailed me. I’ve been blocked in error several times and I’m struggling going on like this.”

Massimo then reveals that he received a cash demand from another alleged rightsholder in late 2022.

“I may pay for keeping this account open, but I had another DMCA on Dec 30: it was a virtually resolved case as the author said he would send a retraction, but the case was never formally resolved after more than 2 months,” he says .

“This is not stability, this is not peace of mind for me. This account helped me a lot, I’m still in hospital for a severe post-transplant complication and this is really hurting me.”

After writing in hope that “a solution can be found”, an unexpected third-party suddenly chimed in.

Elon Musk – Weaponization of DMCA Won’t Be Tolerated

In a tweet posted last evening, Musk warned that anyone found to be repeat abusers of the DMCA takedown system faces being sanctioned by Twitter.

“Accounts engaging in repeated, egregious weaponization of DMCA on Twitter or encouraging weaponization of DMCA will receive temporary suspensions. That said, reasonable media takedown requests are, of course, appropriate and will always be supported,” the Twitter CEO wrote .

Whether it happened before or after the publication of this tweet, Mauduit’s account was suspended .

While there was no mention of any review of the evidence before Mauduit’s account was suspended, Musk went on to mention one of Twitter’s priorities.

Enable Monetization By Content Creators

“It is a major priority to enable monetization by content creators!” Musk declared in a follow-up tweet.

“People need to make a living and prosper from their work. We need to make it possible to upload the content in the first place. That’s getting there.”

Under the circumstances, there appears to be a disconnect here. If people need to make a living from their work, and it’s important to enable copyright holders to upload their original works, that was achieved when Mauduit uploaded his own content. Massimo’s references this himself.

“I run this account since 2014 without earning any money from it for pure educational purposes. On the other hand [Mauduit] has a business,” he wrote yesterday.

Since the original content and the reformatted presentation are both unavailable to view live, that should be taken into consideration. However, it may be relevant to look at how this business proposition is playing out for Mauduit (original content creator) and Massimo (no-profit hobby account).

Content Creator v Content Curator

Massimo admittedly makes no money but has a million followers on his account. Mauduit’s account has 40,100 followers and reportedly generates revenue, but how much is completely unknown.

Until Mauduit’s account is reinstated only one side of the story is being heard. The details of his correspondence with Massimo seem particularly relevant; one man’s ‘blackmail’ could be another man’s licensing terms, we just don’t know.

There is already fierce debate relating to any fair use protections Massimo may have, or may not have, according to opinion. That debate will rage on but we did notice something peculiar.

When Mauduit published the original video (image above) the running time was listed as 1 minute 26 seconds. When it appeared on Massimo’s channel, the clip had shrunk to 1 minute 18 seconds. Massimo insists he “embedded” the original video but this discrepancy may suggest the copies are different, possibly due to copying or transcoding.

In any event, the outcome is that an original uploader of unique content has been suspended. That in itself is likely to prove controversial. Some are wondering why Massimo chooses to republish another Twitter user’s original content when retweeting the source could’ve avoided this entire controversy.

And then there’s the revelation that a hobbyist Twitter user has paid off alleged copyright holders multiple times just to keep his account open. That raises the question of how deep this goes and how many people are paying others off.

In this case a genuine rightsholder appears to have requested payment, but the opportunity for scammers to exploit other users must be enormous.

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

Most people born in the 1960s or later will be familiar with Scooby-Doo, the most recognized Great Dane in the world.

For those more advanced in years, think Enid Blyton’s Famous Five; four young people continuously run into mysteries and then solve them with help from a talking dog.

Scooby-Doo fans have been gripped by the format for more than half a century but the twilight years may already be here.

Scooby on the Chopping Block

Last August, David Zaslav, President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said the company had done a “reset” and would no longer release expensive films direct to streaming platforms. One of the first casualties was the almost complete Batgirl movie that reportedly went into company accounts as a tax write-off.

“We’re not going to launch your movie until it’s ready. We’re not going to launch a movie to make a quota. And we’re not going to put a movie out unless we believe in it,” Zaslav said .

Batgirl was joined on the shelf by Scoob! Holiday Haunt, which cost $40 million and was almost finished. Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise was also canned along with Scooby-Doo! and the Mystery Pups .

With reports suggesting that Scooby-Doo And Krypto Too! might meet the same fate, this weekend fans were thrown an unexpected but tasty Scooby snack.

Scooby-Doo And Krypto Too! Leaks Online

South Korean animation studio Digital eMation began work on Scooby-Doo And Krypto Too! in 2021 and stills from the film appeared online last year.

Then this weekend, amidst considerable uncertainty, the question of whether the film would ever see the light of day was answered when the entire show leaked online.

Nobody seems to know who leaked it, much less why, but Warner clearly doesn’t want the film to be seen in public.

Warner Tries to Plug The Leaks

Whether the company intends to release the film or not, Warner’s anti-piracy department is now working hard to take infringing copies down, including on YouTube where fans uploaded copies obtained elsewhere.

Twitter users who shared the excitement (and links to the leaked film) have also been targeted by Warner’s takedown team. For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, Brazilian Scooby-Doo fans appear to be among those most excited.

One slightly over-enthusiastic Twitter user found their account hit with five successive copyright complaints, presumably after posting links to pirate copies.

The question of who leaked the movie remains unanswered but two discussion platforms have been repeatedly mentioned as candidates for the first upload – Twitter and 4chan.

Initial Uploader Anonymous

While anything is possible, a post that appeared on 4chan Saturday afternoon has been attracting quite a lot of attention.

In 4chan tradition, a user under the name ‘Anonymous’ posted a link to the film and a screenshot, then disappeared.

At the time of writing the linked .mp4 file has been downloaded close to 6,000 times but that’s from just one platform. Copies of the movie are now widely available elsewhere, including on various torrent sites.

Interestingly, the copies being shared via BitTorrent have a much larger file size than the 1.19GB variant linked by the poster on 4chan.

The Lumen Database currently lists other DMCA takedown notices targeting a full upload to Archive.org and a copy of the movie hosted on a Google Drive account.

Whether Warner will be able to identify the leaker is unknown. Right now, it looks like they’ve got another mystery on their hands.

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

Over the years, copyright holders have tried a multitude of measures to curb online piracy, with varying levels of success.

Site blocking has emerged as one of the preferred solutions. While blocking measures are not perfect, they can pose a large enough hurdle for casual pirates to choose legal options instead.

Argentinian Blocklist Expanded

Blocking measures have spread around the world in recent years and have now arrived in Argentina. After filing a complaint last year, local anti-piracy group Alianza is now celebrating a big win after local ISPs were instructed to block 30 pirate streaming sites.

The order was handed down by the National Court of First Instance in Federal Civil and Commercial Matters in Buenos Aires. The case was filed by the local offices of DirecTV and Spanish football league La Liga, among others, who received support from Alianza.

National telecommunications body ENACOM instructed local Internet providers to block the 30 domain names. These include TV streaming services such as televisionlibre.net and cablegratis.online, plus sports streaming sites such as futbollibre.net and pirlotv.uk.

Several of the targeted pirate streaming portals have (or had) millions of monthly visitors.

Alianza informs TorrentFreak that the order sets a dynamic blocking precedent in Argentina. This means that ISPs can also be required to block mirror sites and new domains these streaming portals may switch to in future.

Much-Needed Dynamic Blocking Order

Alianza executive director Víctor Roldán notes that dynamic blocking orders are more effective than simply seizing or blocking single domain names.

“According to our research, many of these sites continue to operate through mirrors. That is the reason why we prefer to obtain judicial and administrative measures that can be extended to other websites and URLs, instead of the methods that other associations use,” Roldán says.

The ability to update the blocklist is a much-needed feature since many of the domains targeted by the Argentinian order are already outdated. For example, ACE previously shut down USTVGO and seized the domains of futbollibre.net and televisionlibre.net.

The blocklist also features extremotvplay.com and rojadirectatv.tv, which were taken down by the U.S. Government last December, as well as several domain names that are no longer active at the time of writing.

Silver Bullet?

Alianza says that it’s aware of these issues and will try to target mirror sites when they become available. The group is right to note that the dynamic nature of the order makes it more effective than a single-domain seizure. However, there are downsides to site blocking as well.

Unlike domain name seizures, which have a global effect, site blocking is relatively easy to bypass by switching DNS resolvers or using other circumvention tools.

That said, site-blocking orders are certainly better than doing nothing. According to Roldán, the first surveys from anti-piracy outfit NAGRA suggest that the measures are already having an effect.

“Judicial orders are always effective in our experience. We monitor the blocking effects through Nagra and the survey results we received thus far were very promising,” Alianza’s director tells us.

—

The list of blocked domain names that are included in the original court order (pdf) reads as follows.

1) futbollibre.net
2) televisionlibre.net
3) supertelevisionhd.net
4) rojadirectatv.tv
5) ver-television.online
6) photocall.tv
7) futboltv.online
8) cablegratis.online
9) telefullenvivo .com
10) extremotvplay.com
11) televisiongratishd.com
12) cablegratistv.online
13) lateleenvivo.club
14) chiringuitotv.online
15) tvconexion.com
16) futboltvenvivo.com
17) tarjetarojatv online.sx
18) supertelevisionhd.com
19) pirlotvonline.org
20) lacasadeltikitakatv.net
21) telebunker.com
22) televisiongratisen vivo.com
23) futbolparatodos.net
24) rojadirectatv.pro
25) ustvgo.tv
26) pirlotvonline.info
27) xtremostereo.net
28) pirlotv.uk
29) pirlotv.futbol
30) teleriumtv.me

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