For people who enjoy movies and TV shows but prefer not to hand over a monthly subscription, Pluto TV is one of the most popular legal services around.

Depending on the region, Pluto TV offers up to 250 ‘channels’ covering TV shows, movies, general entertainment, documentaries, sports, and news. For those who prefer audio-only, Pluto TV throws in a selection of music channels too.

Pluto TV is available on mobile Android and iOS devices, media streaming devices such as Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast and Roku, and via apps on the Xbox and PlayStation gaming platforms. However, a condition of using Pluto TV is that it must only be consumed using through approved software.

Watch For Free, Pay in Other Ways

Official Pluto TV apps deliver video content and Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) to users who, incidentally, don’t even need to sign up. These apps play a key role in the advertising mechanisms that generate revenue for the Pluto TV service and support the free-to-watch model.

Viewed from a different angle, some users don’t like to be tied down to official apps and would rather use their own software. Users may also prefer less advertising or find the amount of user data scooped up by official apps a privacy risk.

Pluto TV uses systems that monitor and track user behavior (GitHub repo here ), so when viewers completely do away with official apps, it undermines Pluto TV’s business model, and that has an impact on revenue. In a strongly-worded copyright complaint sent this week, rightsholders say that will not be tolerated.

M3U Playlists and Pluto TV

Playlists using the .m3u format have been around for years. Often used to instruct a media player to play a bunch of locally stored songs in a particular order, .m3u playlist files can also point to online locations where media streams can be found. While these playlists can be used to access pirate IPTV services, some are configured to access Pluto TV streams from their official sources.

Downloading a Pluto TV .m3u playlist takes a second and they can be used in anything from VLC Media Player to systems like TVHeadEnd , which enables streaming to locations in a network, no official apps required.

While this offers new opportunities for users, supplying .m3u playlists isn’t without risk. The GitHub repo shown below used to offer Pluto TV playlists for download before suddenly experiencing issues last week.

These issues were caused by a DMCA notice sent by the Motion Picture Association to GitHub. The complaint is dated February 14 but wasn’t officially published until this week.

Massive Copyright Infringement

The language used in the complaint makes it extremely clear that the MPA views playlists as a threat and illegal under copyright law.

“We are writing to notify you of, and request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the playlist file, PlutoTV_mr.m3u, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc. at [former repo location],” the notice reads (minor edits for clarity) .

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the Playlist, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows.”

The MPA references an attachment (not published on GitHub) that provides “a representative list of infringements” occurring via the playlist, along with screenshots to show MPA member studios’ content “being streamed without authorization through the playlist.”

GitHub responded by taking the playlist down and the associated repo no longer exists. While that solves the immediate problem, Pluto TV playlists and playlists for many other similar platforms aren’t going to disappear overnight.

Due to their nature, Pluto TV and similar playlist aren’t viewed in the same light as pirate IPTV service playlists, so taking a look at the MPA’s claims may prove informative.

Suppliers and Users Infringe Copyright

The MPA’s complaint basically accuses the entire chain of copyright infringement offenses, GitHub included.

“By offering this Playlist for download, your Repository enables the Playlists blatant infringement of the MPA Member Studios copyrights and countless other copyrights. Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent on the Playlist that infringement plainly is its predominant use and purpose,” the notice to GitHub reads.

Importantly, GitHub acted appropriately, so enjoys safe harbor protection. The same does not apply to the people involved in creating and then offering the playlist for download. The MPA cites several major copyright lawsuits where defendants were ultimately found liable for infringement, but Columbia Pictures vs. Fung seems to offer the clearest picture.

Contributory Copyright Infringement

Columbia Pictures sued Gary Fung, former owner of torrent index isoHunt, for operating a website that facilitated access to their copyrighted content. Fung was found liable for contributory copyright infringement on the basis that he induced third parties (isoHunt’s users) to download infringing copies of the studios’ copyrighted works. Fung later settled with the MPA.

The terms of Pluto TV’s license ( section 5.2 ) forbid users from accessing the service in ways that are not expressly authorized by the platform.

Use of an unauthorized playlist breaches those terms, and for any user who claims not to have accepted or even read those terms of service, they may find themselves without any viewing license at all. In any event, claims of inducement (playlist suppliers/distributors) rely on the acts of primary infringers (users/viewers).

By citing MPA member studios’ content as being infringed, issues involving Pluto TV itself become less important, at least for the purposes of the DMCA takedown notice. That being said, we probably haven’t heard the last of ‘playlist piracy’ as featured here.

The MPA’s DMCA notice to Github can be found here

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

‘Operation 404’ is an ongoing law enforcement initiative in Brazil that aims to disrupt the availability of pirated content online.

Operation 404 took on pirate IPTV services in 2022, but earlier waves have targeted everything from regular websites to popular Android apps .

According to a government announcement, authorities have just shut down “the two biggest digital anime pirate sites” in Brazil as part of Operation 404 offshoot, ‘Operation Anime’.

Operation Anime

Information provided by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security states that Operation Anime was led by the Minas Gerais State Civil Police. The objective was to “repress crimes committed against intellectual property” on the internet, specifically piracy of Japanese cartoons, better known as anime.

“The action is part of a mobilization coordinated by the National Secretariat for Public Security, of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (Senasp/MJSP), through the Cybernetic Operations Laboratory,” the announcement adds.

The Laboratório de Operações Cibernéticas, as it’s known in Brazil, is more closely associated with the mitigation of cyberattacks than it is piracy. However, since many crimes can have an online component, preventing serious crime and tracking down offenders is also part of the unit’s remit.

“Two Biggest Digital Anime Piracy Sites Taken Down”

The Ministry of Justice notes that the operation received support from the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), an anti-piracy group that helps to protect anime content in Japan and overseas.

The statement indicates a significant operation; search and seizure warrants, blocking and/or suspension of websites, action against content in search engines, and the removal of profiles and pages on social networks.

“During the execution of the warrants, the objective is to seize computer equipment, including: internal HDs, computer devices, which demonstrate the materiality of the crime. The two biggest anime digital piracy sites have been taken down,” the government department adds.

Having supplied an abundance of information relating to who did what, where, and why, the names of the sites claimed to have been shut down are never mentioned, despite being the most important part of the story.

Report on Brazilian TV

The TV report embedded below doesn’t name the sites either but does reveal some details of the operation. Speaking in Portuguese, a police officer says that a target was identified in Arapiraca, the second-largest city in the Alagoas region.

An unnamed 22-year-old computing student is suspected of running a large anime piracy site.

The officer explains that running a piracy site could lead to four years in prison, “and with this regulation here in Alagoas, this young man must be indicted for the crime of piracy.”

Was BetterAnime Targeted?

When Brazilian authorities report Operation 404 successes, they rarely mention specific dates for individual actions. Indeed, there is some evidence to show that sites or applications may have been taken down or blocked over longer periods, weeks or even months.

Given the timing, some believe that BetterAnime.net was taken down as part of Operation Anime. The site enjoyed around six million visits each month, with users mostly complimentary regarding its speed and content selection.

A tweet published on the site’s official Twitter account yesterday confirms the closure of BetterAnime but says it had nothing to do with the government’s announcement.

“[F]or crying out loud. I wasn’t arrested,” the tweet insists.

“It happened to be at the same time. I received a DMCA notice with a ‘request’ to shut down the site. If you don’t comply, the thing could lead to court, etc.”

A message on the now-shuttered site adds the following: “For copyright reasons, the BetterAnime website has been closed down. It was a good journey and full of learning, but the time has come to close the project. Thank you to everyone who has supported us during this time.”

Case solved? Probably not.

Other Sites Targeted Recently?

With around five million visits each month and 95% of its traffic originating from Brazil, Animes-Vision has a similar profile to BetterAnime. Or rather it did, until recently.

A notice on the site confirms that its operators decided to close the platform down “for major and copyright reasons.”

There’s no direct information to confirm any arrests, but in any case, five million visits per month wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to claim the number one or even number two slots taken by the largest anime piracy sites in Brazil.

The recent shutdown of Anbient.com provides few additional clues. With over 60% of its traffic hailing from Brazil but with around 100,000 visits per month, the site simply wasn’t big enough to match the profile mentioned by the authorities.

The shutdown notice displayed on the former anime platform (above) is mostly generic, but in sticky situations, that’s often the case. Especially so when compliance with a cease-and-desist notice offers a much simpler way out.

Two Serious Contenders

Since anime-online.site is completely offline, there’s obviously no notice to report here. The site appears to have been popular in Brazil but with just a few hundred thousand visits per month, it can’t be considered a major player. A site with a similar name can.

Currently offline and displaying a Cloudflare error, animesonline.cc fits the profile perfectly. In December 2022 alone the site had over 20 million visits, and 99% of its traffic originated from Brazil.

The Cloudflare error appears regardless of visitor location but we can’t yet confirm the reasons for the message or the downtime. As far as we’re aware, the site’s downtime is yet to be explained and people are beginning to ask questions.

Interestingly, or potentially entirely coincidentally, the same Cloudflare message also appears on another massively popular anime piracy site.

Animefire.net had 10 million visits in December 2022, and almost 92% of its visitors were from Brazil. It meets the criteria mentioned by the Brazilian government perfectly. It may suddenly reappear online unscathed but that would contradict the government’s claims that the two largest anime piracy sites have been taken down. Stranger things have happened, of course, but there are other things to consider.

Mystery Solved or More Mystery?

While numerous moving parts can distort site popularity, Animes-Online.cc and Animefire.net seem likely to have been the two most popular anime piracy sites in Brazil, at least before they went offline. They may yet return but in the meantime, here’s an interesting coincidence.

With 22.3 million visits in December 2022 and over 99% of its audience coming from Brazil, Mangalivre.net is a hot contender for Brazil’s most popular site for Japanese comics, otherwise known as manga. Right now the site is down and displaying the same Cloudflare error as those on the anime sites. Again, user location seems irrelevant.

After pulling in millions of visitors in December 2022, sites also down and showing exactly the same Cloudflare message include Animeyabu.com and Animesbr.biz.

Other sites in the anime and manga niches appear to be offline too. Given that there are obvious links between some of these sites (and many other sites not even mentioned here), could that mean they’re all experiencing simultaneous but coincidental technical difficulties?

It’s also possible that they’ve all been taken down as a precautionary measure due to the recent actions in Brazil, and will eventually return as if nothing has happened. Or maybe, potentially, the authorities in Brazil – with help from Japan – have hit the jackpot.

Given that not even the names of the sites taken down are being made public, all options remain on the table. Coincidences happen – regularly. We’ll have to sit and wait patiently, just like everyone else.

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

In the summer of 2021, game developer Bungie filed a complaint targeting three well-known cheat sellers; Elite Tech Boss, Lavicheats & VeteranCheats .

The case against Elite Tech Boss has been the most eventful thus far. Within a few months, this resulted in a consent judgment where a key defendant agreed to pay $13.5 million in damages.

That judgment didn’t settle the matter completely as Bungie still has other targets in its crosshairs . Meanwhile, there are other cases to resolve.

LaviCheats and VeteranCheats failed to answer the complaints filed in the United States. As a result, Bungie requested a $12 million default judgment against the latter a few days ago, shortly followed by a similar, albeit lower, claim against Lavicheats.com.

You’ve Been Served

Late last week Bungie filed a motion for default judgment against LaviCheats at a Washington federal court. The game company asked the court to rule on the matter without hearing the defendant, as they apparently have no interest in making a court appearance.

Bungie believes that LaviCheats is operated by India-resident Kunal Bansal, AKA “Lavi”. However, no known address exists for this person. To alert Bansal to the legal proceeding, Bungie sent an email and posted a message in the LaviCheats forums.

These unusual serving options were authorized by the court and proved successful. Although there was no response in court, Destiny 2 cheats were removed from the LaviCheats website.

In a message posted on the website, LaviCheats explained that it will no longer sell Destiny 2 hacks because of the lawsuit. At the same time, however, LaviCheats advised people to buy cheats at Cobracheats instead.

The referral is not a coincidence; Bungie believes that Bansal is also the driving force behind this cheat shop, as well as others.

“[A]fter receiving notice of this lawsuit, Bansal moved his unlawful activities with respect to the Cheat Software to one or more other websites believed to be owned and/or operated by him, including the websites located at cobracheats.com, lavicheats.org, and protocolv.com,” Bungie explains.

$6.7 Million Default Judgment

As the defendant failed to show up in court, Bungie moved ahead on its own. In the motion filed last Friday, the company requests a total award of $6,700,973.34. This figure comprises damages, attorneys’ fees and other costs.

The bulk of the proposed award relates to Lavicheats’ alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The game developer believes it’s entitled to $2,000 for each of the 2,790 cheat copies that were downloaded.

“Bansal’s […] ongoing conduct demonstrates a willingness to continue with his illegal activities, as to warrant a statutory damage award of at least $2,000 for each of the 2,790 Cheat Software for Destiny 2 that Bansal’s own website admitted were downloaded, for a total of $5,580,000.”

Bungie further alleges that Lavicheats infringed its copyrights, so is entitled to claim the maximum $300,000 in statutory damages for two titles. In addition, Bungie seeks $579,270 in damages for trademark infringements, an amount that equals Bansal’s Destiny 2 cheat profits.

High But Warranted

The $6 million figure is high but justified, Bungie tells the court. Stressing that the company had to spend millions of dollars to fight cheaters, it’s appropriate to send a strong message.

“[A]lthough the total amount Bungie seeks may be considered large, the damages are proportional to the harm caused by Bansal’s flagrant and willful violation of Bungie’s rights,” Bungie notes.

In addition to the damages request, the motion also seeks a permanent injunction, barring Bansal from engaging in any Bungie-related cheating or infringement activities going forward.

The Washington federal court has yet to review and rule on the motion. Without a defending party, however, little stands in the way of another Bungie victory.

—

A copy of Bungie’s motion for a default judgment against Kunal Bansal (LaviCheats) is available here (pdf)

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

In 2021, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged creators of the software.

AimJunkies denied the claims and argued that cheating isn’t against the law . In addition, it argued that the copyright infringement allegations were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available.

Court Dismissed Bungie’s Copyright Claims

Last May, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies . The original complaint didn’t provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed any copyrights, the judge concluded.

This was bad news for Bungie, but the court allowed the game developer to amend its complaint, which it did. That copyright infringement dispute is still ongoing and on its way to a trial that’s expected to take place later this year.

In 2022, Judge Zilly referred several of the non-copyright-related complaints to arbitration, including allegations that AimJunkies’ cheats violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and were illegally sold to third parties.

Arbitration Judge Sides with Bungie

The arbitration process was conducted behind the scenes, but Bungie shared the outcome with the Washington federal court a few days ago. In a resounding win for the developer, Bungie walked away with an award of $4.3 million in damages and fees.

The bulk of the award relates to DMCA-related damages. According to arbitration Judge Ronald Cox, the evidence makes it clear that AimJunkies and third-party developer James May bypassed Bungie’s technical protection measures in violation of the DMCA.

“May testified that on many occasions, he connected reverse engineering tools to the Destiny 2 process in order to reverse engineer it and develop a cheat for the game,” Judge Cox writes.

“He also testified that after being caught and banned by Bungie several times for doing so, he attempted various ways to bypass the bans and circumvent the protections Bungie had in place to prevent reverse engineering.”

All Liable for Circumvention

May is not an employee of AimJunkies or its parent company Phoenix Digital. However, the latter can be held liable; the reverse engineering was carried out to develop the cheating software, which was sold and profited from.

“Thus, the remaining respondents are liable for May’s violations. They are likewise liable for the circumvention by the many users of the cheats sold by Phoenix on the website,” Judge Cox writes.

The arbitrator concludes that the circumvention was malicious, which entitles Bungie to $2,500 per offense. Based on 102 violations, total damages amounted to $255,000.

In reaching this conclusion, the testimony of AimJunkies owner David Shaefer was disregarded. Judge Cox found his testimony non-credible, partly due to Shaefer substantially understating revenue from the sale of the cheats.

Trafficking

In addition to violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, the defendants were also found liable for trafficking in circumvention devices. Or put differently, selling and shipping the cheats.

Sales of the cheats and loader, which effectively bypassed Bungie’s copyright protections, amount to 1,361 copies in total.

“The evidence shows that Phoenix sold more than one thousand copies of the cheats. They also distributed more than one thousand copies of the cheat loader that was used to inject the cheats into the Destiny 2 process.

“Given respondents’ egregious and willful conduct, including their ongoing concealment of sales, Bungie is entitled to the full statutory damages available,” Judge Cox adds.

Trafficking violations resulted in a $3,402,500 award, and when added to damages for circumvention violations, an award of $3,657,500 covered all DMCA violations.

$4,396,222 and Forward

The arbitrator also sided with Bungie’s claims regarding breach of contract, tortious interference, consumer protection, and spoilation. As such, the game developer is entitled to attorneys’ fees and other awards.

In total, an award of $4,396,222 was handed to the game developer.

Last week, Bungie asked the federal court to accept this final award and approve an associated injunction, which prevents the AimJunkies defendants from engaging in any similar activities going forward.

In addition, Bungie is using its arbitration successes to defend against AimJunkies’s counterclaims in the ongoing copyright battle.

AimJunkies argued that by decompiling and reverse-engineering its cheat software, Bungie violated AimJunkies’ terms of service and breached the terms of its contract. Bungie says that the arbitration result counters AimJunkies’ claims since it found the software itself illegal.

“Phoenix Digital’s Terms of Service, which apply to the sale/license of Defendants’ Destiny 2 cheat software, are void because they are in violation of public policy and/or illegal,” Bungie countered in a filing last Friday.

—

A copy of the arbitration Judge’s conclusions is available here (pdf) . Bungie asked the federal court to confirm this (pdf) and enter a judgment accordingly

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

GitHub’s user search page currently reports a healthy 108 million users but that still means a few billion internet users are missing out.

While notable alternatives exist , GitHub is a goldmine of information, ideas, and free education. That’s before considering the mountain of open source software available for download.

From those building promising software from scratch to those who just love to tinker, GitHub has something for everyone. But like all sites hosting user-generated content, GitHub regularly finds itself in the middle of third-party copyright disputes in need of a solution.

Software that may appear problematic at first glance cause almost no problems for Github. Powerful torrent site search tools, indexing software, and automatic content downloaders are rarely an issue. The same can’t be said for dedicated movie and TV show downloading apps advertised precisely for that purpose.

Other pieces of code exist in contested gray areas, with the 2020 takedown of youtube-dl perhaps the best example. That matter is effectively ongoing, with GitHub making a stand for the future freedoms of developers in the appeal of Yout vs. RIAA .

Since GitHub publishes all DMCA notices publicly, everyone gets an opportunity to see the law in action, beginning to end.

GitHub Transparency Report 2022

In 2022, GitHub received and processed 2,321 valid DMCA notices, an increase of almost 27% over the 1,828 notices reported for 2021 . For reasons we’ll outline later, this shouldn’t be considered a major issue.

All DMCA notices for 2022 are available for viewing in GitHub’s DMCA repo , covering instances where GitHub took content down or asked users to remove infringing content instead.

Asking GitHub users to remove or modify content can help to prevent an entire repo from being taken offline – particularly useful when other projects rely on the original repo’s code.

Processing Erroneous, Abusive, and Other Notices

Thanks to transparency reporting in general (Google is the largest contributor by volume), abuse of the DMCA takedown system is regularly exposed. Most commonly, fraudulent notices are used to wipe out legitimate content.

In other instances, DMCA notices may go further than the law allows, contain errors, or even massive blunders. The targets of those notices can object via a DMCA counter notice. If the notice sender does not initiate timely legal action in response to a counter notice, disputed content is reinstated.

Some notices may present an opportunity to fix problems less formally, and GitHub can sometimes play a role in helping the parties reach an understanding, including by the sender retracting the complaint. Reversals apply when a seemingly valid DMCA notice is processed by GitHub but then invalidated by subsequent information.

“[W]e received and processed 36 valid counter notices, one reversal, and seven retractions, for a total of 44 notices that resulted in content being restored in 2022. We did not receive notice of any legal action filed related to a DMCA takedown request during this reporting period,” GitHub reports.

In any event, GitHub seems to work harder at resolving issues than other major platforms, which is a plus in a widely abused takedown system.

Anti-Circumvention Complaints

Narrowly-defined exceptions aside, software designed to circumvent technological protection measures, in place to protect underlying copyrighted content, is likely to violate section 1201 of the DMCA . Manufacturing, importing or offering these tools to the public is prohibited so if GitHub receives a complaint, a response is required.

As the continuing youtube-dl controversy demonstrates, a middle ground exists where rightsholders believe they have a clear anti-circumvention claim but others completely disagree . As a result, GitHub routinely scrutinizes claims made under section 1201.

When rightsholders file an anti-circumvention complaint with GitHub, the platform seeks additional information before taking action against a repository. Complainants are asked to supply information on the technical measures , explain how they effectively control access to copyrighted material, while showing that the project on GitHub circumvents those measures.

A unique feature of anti-circumvention notices is the lack of an official counter notice. That may explain why so many rightsholders have used them in place of regular takedown notices over the past several years. GitHub has certainly seen an increase.

“The proportion of takedown notices that allege circumvention increased significantly in 2022 compared to 2021,” GitHub reports.

In 2022, 15.7% of all notices sent to GitHub alleged circumvention, compared to just 5% in 2021. In 2020, similar allegations appeared in just 3% of notices.

Back in 2018, less than 2% of notices carried a circumvention claim. GitHub says it’s conducting an investigation to shine more light on the growing popularity of these notices.

Content Taken Down Overall

In 2022, GitHub took down 25,501 projects , including repositories, gists, and GitHub Pages sites. After processing counter notices, retractions, and reversals, 114 projects were subsequently reinstated. The final figure for 2022 was 25,387 projects permanently taken down, a 31% increase over the 19,276 projects reported in 2021. GitHub appears unconcerned.

“The number 25,387 may sound like a lot of projects, but it’s less than .02% of the more than 200 million repositories on GitHub in 2022,” the Microsoft company notes.

Receiving no complaints for 99.98% of uploaded content is quite an achievement but for some rightsholders, that’s still not good enough.

In notices sent to Google, they demand the removal of Github URLs from search results. They fail to achieve that goal 90% of the time showing once again that if content needs to be removed, the only effective method is targeting the source.

GitHub’s Transparency Report 2022 can be found here

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

The Oscars are the most anticipated movie awards show of the year, closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans around the world.

Next month, the 93rd Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where millions of movie fans will see the crowning of this year’s “Best Picture”.

There are currently ten contenders in the race for the prestigious award. The nominees range from blockbuster titles such as “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick, to lesser-known gems such as “Tár” and “Triangle of Sadness”.

Oscar Pirates

An Oscar nomination is a big deal for the latter category. The press attention opens the door to a new audience, which ultimately translates into additional revenue. However, there’s also a darker side to this phenomenon in the form of online piracy.

Pirates come in all shapes and sizes but their consumption habits show a lot of overlap with the rest of the population. This means that if a movie is generating positive headlines, more people will be interested in downloading or streaming a pirated copy.

To demonstrate this phenomenon, we looked at the estimated number of downloads through torrent sites for all best picture nominees, excluding “Women Talking,” which hadn’t been pirated yet.

The Nomination Boost

These data, collected with help from Iknow , reveal a clear Oscar boost for the nominated titles. On the first full day after the announcement, the downloads for nearly all films increased compared to a week earlier. This Oscar-boost effect ranges from 10% to 90%, as shown in the overview below.

Movie	Increase (18/25 January)
All Quiet on the Western Front	61%
Avatar: The Way of Water	-9%
Elvis	43%
Everything Everywhere All at Once	60%
Tár	89%
The Banshees of Inisherin	63%
The Fabelmans	58%
Top Gun: Maverick	15%
Triangle of Sadness	68%

There are two main outliers in this list; “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Top Gun: Maverick”. These are the biggest blockbusters, already seen by millions, and the extra exposure didn’t do all that much.

The effect is markedly different for “Tár” and “Triangle of Sadness”, with interest almost doubling for both following the Oscar nominations. The other titles ended up somewhere in the middle, still with significant increases.

The chart above shows daily download estimates for the Oscar nominees, excluding the two blockbusters. This clearly shows the spike starting on the 24th of January, which lasted for a few days. After that, pirate interest in these titles went back to normal.

More Awards?

When we first looked at the data we couldn’t immediately explain why there was a separate increase in downloads on January 11th for “The Fablemans”, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, and “The Banshees of Inisherin”. That was two weeks before the nominations. Could there be something wrong with the data?

While we can never completely rule out errors, the more likely explanation is another awards show. On January 11th “The Fablemans”, “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won multiple Golden Globes , beating all other films.

These data show that awards shows are still a big deal, also for pirates. However, the effect is the most pronounced for smaller releases that gain most from additional media exposure. If one of these scoops up the best picture award next month, another major piracy boost is likely.

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

Over the past few years, millions of people in dozens of countries have continuously gorged on rumors, speculation, misinformation, disinformation and, on rare occasions, actual information pertaining to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Safe in the knowledge that 24/7/365 wall-to-wall multi-media coverage would never be enough, Penguin Random House (PRH) reportedly paid a $20 million advance for Prince Harry to end all speculation, once and for all, in a brand new book.

Released on January 10, ‘Spare’ was an immediate smash-hit sensation, with PRH reporting record-breaking global sales of more than 3.2 million units across print, digital, and audio formats – in its first week on sale.

Sales Could’ve Been Better

Despite becoming a number one best-seller in multiple countries, not every country has access to ‘Spare’. In common with many Western entertainment companies, publisher Penguin Random House pulled out of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine last year. As previously reported , that has caused huge issues for the cinema industry and beyond.

With most Western content either unlicensed or unavailable legally in Russia, multiple plans to pirate that content, enforce compulsory licensing (piracy, effectively), or say good riddance because Russia never needed it anyway, are all on the table. And then off the table, depending on the mood.

In the meantime, a major publishing house has come up with a different solution.

Plea to Foreign Publishers, Fears Over Piracy

Controlling around 30% of the Russian market, Eksmo-AST is Russia’s largest publisher. A month after Russia invaded Ukraine, the company urged foreign companies to reconsider their boycott of Russian publishers.

“I would like to invite you to think of our mission: publishers’ mission, authors’ mission and the mission of literature in general. Is it just a business matter for you or is it above all to strive to make the written word a leading tool to achieve understanding, to help human ideas make it to the top of the world’s agenda?” the letter reads.

“In the last 15 years together we have almost eliminated piracy – it hardly exists in print and no more than 3% of all e-books are pirated now – quite the opposite of the awful situation we had seen in the past.”

As part of its efforts to ensure authors’ rights are respected globally, Eksmo-AST Group company AST Publishing LTD joined a copyright-based class action lawsuit in the United States. It accuses YouTube/Google of not doing enough to prevent piracy , which undermines authors’ rights in their literary and artistic works.

With that case nowhere near a conclusion and Western publishers like Penguin Random House still unwilling to license their books in Russia, Eksmo-AST will ensure that the content of Prince Harry’s book will still be published in the local market. The company says the method used is completely legal, and not at all controversial or problematic.

A Copy? Plagiarism? No, It’s a ‘Retelling’

Whether Eksmmo-AST is yet to spot the four illegal copies of ‘Spare’ on the first page of Yandex search results is unclear, but the publisher still wants Prince Harry’s story to be heard in Russia.

News outlet Kommersant reports that several Russian publishers are preparing to circumvent the ban on the release of bestsellers in Russia by publishing new books in a ‘саммари’ format. Roughly translated as ‘summary’, these are not direct copies of original books and no direct quotes are used from the original, the publisher insists.

“The summary will reflect the key ideas of the book without using excerpts from it: the author of the summary read the book in English and retold it in her own language,” Eksmo CEO Yevgeny Kapiev told Kommersant.

Ebook and audiobook service LitRes is already offering an ‘abridged’ version of ‘Spare’ for 139.5 rubles ($1.86) due to an introductory discount of 50%.

Both companies appear to be relying on a law that allows non-fiction books to be “retold” and published without breaking copyright law. Eksmo told TASS that permission from copyright holders is not required for retelling.

“A professional team worked on the summary, the retelling contains the main ideas of the book, without using excerpts. The volume of the retelling is one author’s sheet, no more than 15% of the original,” the spokesperson said.

“However, as before, as always, our publishing group is ready for dialogue and cooperation in case [the authors] appeal.”

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

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

Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years.

Internet provider RCN is among the targeted providers. In 2021, the company was sued by several film companies, including the makers of The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen, and Hellboy.

The movie 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 damages claims reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, while tens of thousands of Internet subscribers are at risk of having their accounts terminated.

Reddit Users as Evidence

RCN denied most of the allegations and asked the New Jersey federal court to dismiss the case. That effort failed last October and the matter is now proceeding, with both parties gathering evidence.

The filmmakers have previously shown that they don’t shy away from relying on evidence from unrelated third parties. This includes Redditors who have semi-anonymously shared their thoughts on piracy warnings and repeat infringer policies from Internet providers.

In the RCN case, this is no different. Attorney Kerry Culpepper discovered several Reddit discussions with potentially relevant comments. Some Reddit users specifically mention RCN. Others refer to ISPs in more general terms but could refer to RCN or other brands of the Astound conglomerate .

To gather more details, the filmmakers would like to know who these commenters are. To obtain their identities, they obtained a subpoena compelling Reddit to share basic account information, including IP-address logs for ‘ben125125’, ‘SquattingCroat’, “Griffdog21′, ‘aromaticbotanist’, ‘ChikaraFan’, ‘compypaq’, ‘dotsamantha’, ‘ilikepie96mng’ and ‘matt3324’.”

Reddit Objects

Reddit is not pleased with the request. On January 17, the company informed the filmmakers that it would alert the subscribers, allowing them to contest the subpoena. In addition, Reddit suggested that handing over personal details could violate users’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

Roughly two weeks later, none of the affected users had filed an objection in court. However, Reddit decided to share information about “ben125125”, while protecting the other users.

As shown above, “ben125125” responded to a thread about piracy warnings and specifically mentioned RCN. That wasn’t as obvious in the other comments and Reddit feels that disclosing their identities goes too far.

“Reddit maintains its objections to the subpoena’s remaining requests for identifying information associated with the eight additional accounts listed in the subpoena,” Reddit’s attorneys informed the filmmakers in an email.

“Reddit has reviewed the examples provided by plaintiffs and continues to believe the requests for identifying information associated with the additional eight accounts are more in the nature of a fishing expedition and are neither relevant nor permissible under the First Amendment.”

Among other things, Reddit stresses that some of the comments are well beyond the three-year statute of limitations. In fact, one comment was posted 13 years ago. In addition, the comments don’t all reference RCN, the provider at the heart of the dispute.

Filmmakers Ask Court to Step In

The rightsholders see things differently. This week they asked the Jersey federal court to compel Reddit to hand over the requested details and IP-address logs, as these are highly relevant. Disclosing the information is proportional to the needs of the case, they argue.

The comments can provide evidence that RCN can control the conduct of subscribers and didn’t have a proper repeat infringer policy, with the latter acting as a draw to potential subscribers.

This includes a comment from the user ChikaraFan about RCN’s alleged “lax” policy for dealing with repeat infringers, which the filmmakers plan to use as evidence.

“Plaintiffs wish to use ChikaraFan’s statement as evidence of and that this ‘fairly lax’ policy was a draw for becoming a customer.

“Even though the statement was made eight years ago, Plaintiffs can use the information requested in the subpoena to contact ChikaraFan and authenticate her/his post to obtain evidence to support their claims.”

Relevant and Proportional

Other posts are also relevant and proportional, the rightsholders argue. These include several comments suggesting that ISPs don’t have very strict repeat infringer policies, without mentioning the names of the providers.

The filmmakers believe that these can be very useful if they are about RCN or one of the other Internet provider brands operated under parent company Astound.

The motion to compel also counters Reddit’s First Amendment right to anonymous speech argument, noting that none of the users filed an official protest after being notified.

The Reddit users apparently don’t have to fear repercussions themselves, as the film companies stress that they’re not interested in pursuing legal action or financial claims against them.

“Rather, Plaintiffs just wish to discuss the comments the subscribers made and use their comments as evidence that RCN monitors and controls the conduct of its subscribers, RCN has no meaningful policy for terminating repeat infringers and this lax or no policy was a draw for using RCN’s service,” they write.

The matter is now with the court, which must decide whether Reddit can be compelled to identify the affected users. The list no longer includes ‘dotsamantha’ who was dropped from the request. Reddit, meanwhile, may have to say more on the matter.

Whatever it Takes

If anything, the above shows that film companies are willing to dig deep to prove a point. This can drag relatively anonymous Reddit users into a lawsuit they probably never even heard about.

The issue isn’t limited to Reddit either; rightsholders can pull comments from Twitter and other social media platforms.

Whether this unconventional tactic will yield results has yet to be seen. Based on recent history, it is clear that the filmmakers and their lead attorney don’t give up easily.

In a separate case last year, they won a $14 million copyright judgment against LiquidVPN. Since then, the companies have pulled out all the stops to get their money.

Just last month, the filmmakers obtained a worldwide asset restraining order (pdf) that prohibits the former operators of the defunct VPN provider from disposing or transferring valuable assets. The same case also triggered a battle over a $300,000 yacht that was left abandoned after the verdict.

The RCN case and Reddit dispute are more straightforward but the tactics deployed show that the filmmakers are willing to do whatever it takes, using all legal means at their disposal.

—

A copy of the motion to compel Reddit to comply with the subpoena, as filed at the Jersey federal court this week, is available here (pdf)

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

For more than 15 years, rightsholders have been obtaining injunctions that require internet service providers to block pirate sites. With no clear roadmap, early blocking applications met one complication after another. Today, most run relatively smoothly.

From a cold, legal perspective, a 2020 blocking application filed by publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society should’ve been straightforward. Benefiting from the experiences of the High Court in London and the adoption of U.S-penned terms such as ‘rogue site’, Indian judges had readily embraced blocking injunctions as a reasonable response to rampant infringement.

Applications for 10,000+ domains to be blocked within days are now routinely approved by India’s courts. In Sci-Hub’s case, the clock has already been running for more than two years. The reasons for that are both straightforward and complex.

On one hand, unauthorized mass copying and distribution of movies, TV shows, and music is widely recognized as copyright infringement. When scientific papers and academic articles enter the equation, the ground suddenly starts to shift. Underpinned by the widespread belief that publishers exploit academic works, to sustain a monopoly that restricts access to information in favor of profit, all bets are suddenly off.

Even among those who view other types of piracy as immoral, access to education for those unable to afford it is increasingly considered the new moral standard. Perhaps more than anywhere else, people in India are prepared to stand up and fight for an education.

Alexandra Elbakyan: This Case Should Be Dismissed

Unlike most pirate site operators, Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan has become an accessible public figure. Supported by millions of students, academics and scientists, when Elbakyan takes on the ‘greedy’ publishers, a win for her is seen as a win for all.

The general consensus is that copyright law favors the publishers, but in a recent motion to dismiss, Elbakyan had other things on her mind too.

As Justice Sanjeev Narula at the High Court of Delhi explains in a recently published order, Elbakyan called for the entire case to be dismissed for failure to state a claim. Based on the assertion that the assignment agreements relied upon by the publishers do not confer ownership of copyrights relating to the allegedly infringed works, Elbakyan declared them void.

“Reliance is placed upon Section 16 and 19 of the Copyright Act, 1957, to argue that agreements relating to copyrights must specify royalty or some other form of consideration, failing which, they cannot affect the assignment of copyright,” Justice Narula writes.

“ Section 25 of the Contract Act is relied upon to contend an agreement without consideration is void.”

Mandatory Economic Component Absent

Mr. Gopal Sankaranarayan, Senior Counsel representing Elbakyan, informed the court that the publishers are required by law to “pay royalty and other consideration” to the authors of scientific articles in exchange for the exclusive right of distribution.

Examination of the agreements showed that the authors have not been compensated, Sankaranarayan said. Not only is the mandatory economic component absent from the agreements, they are also irrelevant. The agreements pertain to the publication of books; Elbakyan is accused of distributing articles.

Plaintiffs Own The Copyrights

Before addressing these matters directly, the Judge turns to a statement previously submitted to the Court.

“Ms. Elbakyan [defendant no.1], in her written statement, has categorically admitted that Plaintiffs are owners of copyright in subject works,” the Judge notes. “This admission was attempted to be withdrawn by way of an application [..] which was dismissed by this Court by way of a detailed order dated 3rd November, 2022.”

The November order also contains a statement by the judge: (edited for clarity)

By virtue of agreements between the Plaintiffs and authors of the various literary works published by the Plaintiffs, the Plaintiffs have been assigned and thus are the owners of, inter alia, the exclusive rights to (a) issue copies of the literary works to the public, (b) to reproduce the literary works in any form including the storing of it in any medium by electronic means, and (c) communicate the work to the public. The Plaintiffs are thus the owners of the copyright.

Since the application to withdraw Elbakyan’s admissions failed last November, those admissions will remain on record, Justice Narula says. Having asserted copyright ownership via assignment agreements and presented evidence that Elbakyan infringed their copyrights, the plaintiffs demonstrated a cause of action.

On that basis, the Judge finds no grounds for dismissing the plaintiffs’ blocking application. The next hearing is scheduled for July 2023. In the meantime, Sci-Hub has received some unexpected news.

After suspending Sci-Hub’s .SE domain in January , The Swedish Internet Foundation has now restored it following what appears to have been a successful “ownership verification process.”

The February 9, 2023 and November 2022 orders can be found here ( 1 , 2 , pdf)

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