Fortnite developer and publisher Epic Games hoped to get a default judgment against an alleged cheater from Russia, but the court is not yet convinced. US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler believes that the copyright infringement claims are not sufficient to grant a permanent injunction and has asked the developer to clarify several issues in a new complaint. Frustrated by thousands of cheaters who wreak havoc in Fortnite’s “Battle Royale,” game publisher Epic Games decided to take several to court. The game developer isn’t trying to bankrupt these people financially. It is mainly interested in preventing them from cheating in the future. The main strategy thus far has been to ‘settle’ the cases. Several accused cheaters have signed consent judgments, promising not to cheat or engage in any copyright infringing activity going forward. This tactic doesn’t work in all cases. One of the accused, a man from Russia going by the name of Konstantin Vladimirovich Rak, has failed to respond to the allegations in court. This failure prompted Epic Games to file for a default judgment, requesting an injunction that would prevent the defendant from using Epic’s copyrighted works to develop cheats, as well as other infringing activity. Without Rak being able to put up a defense, one might expect an easy win for Fortnite’s developer, but that’s certainly not the case. In an order published this week, United States Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler notes that the balance currently weighs against granting the default judgment. Judge Beeler is specifically concerned with the merits of Epic’s claims and the sufficiency of the complaint. This includes the copyright infringement accusations, which need work. One of the claims is that Mr. Rak engaged in direct copyright infringement. This requires Epic to show that the alleged infringer violates its exclusive rights, but that’s not the case here, “Epic alleges that users can download Mr. Rak’s cheat and then inject the cheat into Fortnite code, but it does not allege that Mr. Rak himself injected the cheat into Fortnite code or created an unauthorized derivative work,” Judge Beeler notes. In addition, the defendant allegedly displayed the cheat in action by posting gameplay on YouTube, thereby violating its exclusive right ‘to perform the copyrighted work publicly.’ However, without further details, the court is not convinced that this is copyright infringement. “Epic does not allege what exactly Mr. Rak publicly performed or address whether its copyright extends to that performance. On this issue, Epic’s complaint says only that the Rak Video ‘showed full-screen gameplay using the cheat,’ without more,” Judge Beeler writes. Then, there is the issue of whether posting gameplay material on YouTube is, in fact, copyright infringement. The court doesn’t want to draw any hard conclusions without hearing both sides but concludes that Epic’s claims are not sufficient. “[T]the court declines to rule on whether posting a video on YouTube of gameplay from a video game does or does not infringe upon a copyright holder’s […] rights. The court will just say this: if it does infringe, Epic has not met its burden of demonstrating that to the court.” Besides issues with the copyright claims, the trademark allegations are also lacking. Epic claims that the defendant uses the Fortnite trademark without authorization, but doesn’t link this to the sale of goods or services, as it should. “Epic does not plead that Mr. Rak proposed any commercial transaction or offered anything for sale, much less that consumers would be misled into buying something from him or any other third party under the mistaken belief that it was coming from Epic,” Judge Beeler writes. Before making a final recommendation, the court will allow Epic to amend its complaint to address the deficiencies. In addition, Epic has to provide the defendant with Russian translations of its filings.

Soulseek, one of the oldest file-sharing applications around, has been banned from accepting donations through PayPal due to piracy concerns. According to digital rights group EFF, which tried to intervene on behalf of Soulseek, this is a form of "financial censorship" that's become increasingly widespread. Founded around the turn of the last century, Soulseek is a small dinosaur in the file-sharing world. Created by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel, the application swiftly turned into a tight community of music fans, which is still active today. Over the years Soulseek operators Nir and Roz Arbel have seen other file-sharing tools come and go, but all this time they remained dedicated to their principles. Despite its name, Soulseek had long found its purpose. While it kept a relatively low profile, Soulseek is not immune to the “stigma” that comes with being a file-sharing tool. In 2015, PayPal cut off its ability to collect donations, claiming that sharing tools required pre-approval, even though that policy didn’t exist when it signed up. Soulseek is not a profit-oriented platform but donations are welcomed. Without PayPal, this became a challenge, but luckily for the developers, the Electonic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was able to intervene. February 2016 everything returned to normal when the PayPal account was restored, for a while at least. Earlier his year, PayPal apparently changed its mind and booted the application once again. Soulseek operator Roz Arbel was told that the application violated the payment service’s acceptable use policy and that ‘pre-approval’ was required for ‘file-sharing’ tools. It was pretty much the same recycled argument from years before. Faced with this deja-vu, Soulseek turned to EFF for help once again, but this time PayPal wouldn’t budge. “PayPal made it clear that they’re not willing to offer Soulseek financial services any longer. The company did give the Arbels access to their funds and tax documentation, after a request from EFF,” the digital rights group writes. EFF asked whether PayPal’s latest ban was linked to a concrete copyright complaint, but the payment processor didn’t provide any further information. It just confirmed that Soulseek was banned, apparently for good. This stance doesn’t come as a complete surprise. PayPal is widely known for its aggressive stance towards BitTorrent sites, Usenet providers and file-hosting services after all. While some cases may be clearer than others, EFF sees the Soulseek example as a clear illustration of financial censorship. “What the Arbels are experiencing is a form of financial censorship that has, unfortunately, become increasingly widespread. Following the law isn’t enough—PayPal apparently expects a small message board service with a file-sharing function to do far more than the law requires.” “PayPal explained to us that they will cut off sites that ‘allow for the transfer or download of copyrighted material.’ Taken literally, that’s a staggeringly broad claim,” EFF writes. EFF points out that pretty much all content on the Internet is automatically copyrighted. Still, there are thousands of online services that allow people to share it. Downloading copyrighted material is also possible on Dropbox and Google Drive, for example. In PayPal’s policy, the company suggests that merchants must have a procedure to both “monitor” the files on their service and “remove or otherwise prevent access” to copyright-infringing work. Perhaps that’s where Soulseek goes wrong, but that wouldn’t be fair according to EFF. “If payment processors were to cut off Internet services simply because they could be used for copyright infringement, a huge swath of the web would lose the ability to accept payments,” EFF writes. “As a matter of policy, Soulseek respects its users’ privacy by not surveilling their conversations or file exchanges. Violating users’ privacy shouldn’t be the price of entry for using a payment processor.” It’s clear that Soulseek and PayPal have parted ways. While EFF may not be able to change that, it encourages PayPal and other Internet companies to be more transparent about when and how often they terminate accounts due to complaints from governments or copyright holders.

Russia's most powerful entertainment producers and distributors have written to Yandex, the country's leading search provider, demanding the removal of 'pirate' sites from search results. The letter, signed by movie, music, and TV bosses, demands both detection and deletion of content. According to one of the signatories, Google will receive the same letter. With the online piracy wars about to enter their third decade, there’s an increasing emphasis on pressurizing influential third-parties to tackle the problem. As a result, much blame is laid at the feet of companies like Google, who are regularly blamed for not doing more to tackle infringements carried out by individuals and entities outside of their control. Search results are a particularly sticky subject. Google, Bing, and Yahoo, for example, wish to provide the most comprehensive indexes possible. On the flip side, entertainment industry companies insist that those indexes shouldn’t help people find pirated content. If they do, it’s argued that these companies act as piracy facilitators. This familiar battle is now underway in Russia, where Yandex is in receipt of a strongly-worded letter which accuses the search giant of being a big part of the piracy problem. According to local publication Vedomosti, the letter is signed by Leonid Agronov, general director of the National Federation of the Music Industry, Alexei Byrdin, general director of the Internet Video Association, Sergei Selyanov, director of the Association of Film and Television Producers, and Pavel Stepanov, president of the Media Communication Union. The entertainment giants explain that due to ‘pirate’ search results appearing in its indexes, Yandex is contributing to the growth of online piracy. They want the company to show responsibility by adopting measures to both find and remove infringing links from search and related products. “We urge Yandex to use all available methods to detect illegal content and eliminate it both from search results and from the applications and services of Yandex,” the letter reads. It’s suggested that Yandex should take a similar path to that taken by search companies in the UK, via the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding which declares common interests in fighting piracy. Yandex won’t be alone, however. A spokesman for the Media and Communications Union, which is one of the groups behind the letter, told Vedomosti that a similar letter would be sent to Google in the near future. Needless to say, Google is no stranger to these kinds of allegations, whether in Europe or the United States. In the letter, search engines like Yandex are accused of promoting illegal resources over legal content, resulting in revenue being siphoned away from legitimate players and into the hands of criminals. The search engine is also accused of taking down material in response to demands under the DMCA, but not doing enough in Russia. “Yandex actively cooperates with copyright holders and is working to improve the culture of legal content consumption,” the company said in a statement, adding that it actually stands to benefit from ads promoting sales of non-infringing content. “Yandex stands for an honest Internet, in which quality legal content is available to the user and rightsholders earn from that legitimate consumption,” the company said. Unlike in the United States under the DMCA, content isn’t as readily taken down in Russia. Yandex also opposes filtering search results, warning that the system is easily abused by rightsholders and others looking to stifle competition. That being said, Yandex says that rightsholders are welcome to take advantage of the local site-blocking mechanism which tackles both source sites and their mirrors. With these inaccessible, ‘pirate’ search results become useless.

The US Government has asked a federal court in Georgia to dismiss the indictment against an alleged pirate app store operator. This means that, after more than half a decade, this case will be closed. The US previously accused the defendant of being linked to Applanet, but could not back up the copyright infringement charges. applanetAssisted by police in France and the Netherlands, the FBI took down the “pirate” Android stores Appbucket, Applanet, and SnappzMarket during the summer of 2012. During the years that followed several people connected to the Android app sites were arrested and indicted, resulting in prison sentences for some. SnappzMarket’s Scott Walton was handed a 46-month prison sentence for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, and his colleague Joshua Taylor was sentenced to a 16-month term. While some defendants pleaded guilty in order to get a reduced sentence, not all did. David Lee, a California man linked to Applanet, decided to fight the case instead, and not without success. The US Government had charged Lee with aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringement (pdf). In addition, he was charged with conspiring to infringe copyrights and violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. As the case progressed, it became clear that the U.S. Government’s evidence wasn’t as strong as initially thought. Before the trial even started, the prosecution voluntarily dropped the criminal copyright infringement charge. What remained was the conspiracy charge, but after hearing evidence and testimony from both sides of the case, the jury was unable to issue a unanimous decision. As a result, the case ended in a mistrial two years ago. The Department of Justice did not let the case go though. Soon after the mistrial, it informed the court that it would re-try Lee. This second trial was delayed a few times but never took place. Instead, the US Government asked the court to dismiss the indictment against the alleged pirate app store operator, without providing any context. This request was granted earlier this week, which means that Lee is relieved of all charges. It is not clear what moved the US to dismiss the case. TorrentFreak contacted both Lee’s lawyers and the US Department of Justice for comment, but at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back. However, with the indictment dismissed, Lee can close this chapter of his life after nearly six years.

Sceper, one of the most popular release blogs of recent times, disappeared without warning earlier this year after "real-life" issues got in the way of delivering pirate media to the masses. Now the site is preparing a comeback after the planned sale of the platform reportedly turned into an attempted scam. Sceper's co-owner gives TorrentFreak the lowdown. Earlier this year, TorrentFreak received a steady stream of emails from users of Sceper.ws, one of the most popular “release blog” sites. After about eight years of serving up links to large volumes of mainstream content, the site had apparently disappeared. There was no warning or indication of what may have transpired, but several weeks ago a message appeared on its homepage, indicating the platform was up for sale. Intrigued as to why its operators had decided to throw in the towel, TF made contact seeking information. This week we received a response from part owner and long-standing editor ‘Error’ but it wasn’t what we were expecting. “The problems started when we stopped paying attention to our website due to real-life issues,” Error explained. “Once we forgot to renew our domain which caused a few days of down time and more recently we switched to a new server and the payment renewal was not automated, so it expired. In the end, I decided it would be better to sell the site to a person who can actually take care of it and run it as we used to years back.” Error says that after putting the site up for sale they had a lot of responses from people with bids, but one individual stood out as a reasonable person with a decent offer. In the world of ‘warez’, however, not many things are straightforward. Few people want to make their identities known and meeting people face to face is mostly out of the question. Error says he asked the prospective buyer to nominate an intermediary, such as a trusted and well-known person within the warez scene. The offer was declined. “[The buyer] said that he didn’t trust anyone and was fine sending the money in two payments, half before he received the database and half after he was satisfied that he can work with the old database. Then the domain transfer could happen,” Error explains. The buyer identified himself as a former editor of a Sceper rival which had shut down under legal pressure back in 2012. Additional proof came in the form of a panel screenshot which showed the buyer had access to a current scene release blog and other related domains. An email address used in correspondence with Error also belonged to the same blog, confirming the buyer’s identity. Error says he hadn’t heard of the release blog until that moment, but he concluded that Sceper would be safe under this potential new ownership. However, when asked to send the first payment before receiving the Sceper database, the buyer asked for the database in advance, ostensibly to see it working first. Error put trust in him. “After a couple of days he told me that the database had some issues, it was too big and consuming a lot of hardware resources, so he needed to run it live,” Error explains. After some back and forth, Error agreed to add the buyer’s nameservers to the Sceper.ws domain. “The site went live and I came back to check the next day. He said MySQL had some issues and he needed more time to extract posts and import everything to a fresh installation to resolve the issues completely.” With technical discussions underway on Skype, chats seen by TF dating back to May reveal Error repeatedly asking for an initial payment. Each time, the prospective buyer – who we will call ‘FD’ – gave reasons not to pay. “I know you waited long, but it was very hard work. I worked whole days on it, please be a little more patient. I am not sure many people would be able to fix this, if any, so basically you found the right person,” FD said. What followed was a discussion about what money system to use, such as bitcoin, but the conversation suddenly died on Saturday, May 26. Messages sent on a daily basis after that went ignored. On May 30, FD finally responded, informing Error that he’d been in an accident and asking for more time. Error asked for more details but received no response. It took until June 3 before radio silence was broken by a person on Skype claiming to be FD’s brother. Apparently, ‘FD’ had been involved in a “direct hit” with another car whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and veered onto the other side of the road. FD reportedly had significant injuries and was in hospital but had managed to brief his brother on the Sceper deal, from both technical and financial perspectives. Messages reviewed by TF show clear similarities in writing style between the supposed brothers, something which didn’t go unnoticed by Error. Nevertheless, in correspondence Error remained both calm and polite, showing concern for the reportedly injured party and assisting with the transfer. “I just didn’t want to be too rude and out of courtesy gave him the benefit of doubt,” he says. “Of course, I did not believe it, it was too obvious the way he was messaging, acting like he knows every technical detail like his brother but backing off the moment I brought up the topic of money.” From June 6, several messages to FD and/or his supposed brother went unanswered but with Error dealing with real-life issues, the site became less of a priority. A couple of days later, however, Error noticed that the Sceper homepage had an announcement advising former users of Sceper.ws to switch to Sceper.net. This coincided with several posts to Reddit (by an account known to be affiliated with the release blog run by the prospective buyer) telling people to use the .net domain. Sceper.net itself, which was registered just days before, also carried a notice claiming to be the new home of Sceper.ws. “That rang the alarm bell. I logged in to my Skype and FD was no longer in my friend list. I removed his name servers and placed an image on Sceper.ws,” Error explains. From there the dispute moved to email, with FD insisting that he’d been in the hospital for the previous 15 days. However, he did offer an explanation for the mysterious and coincidental promotion of the Sceper.net domain. “I am investigating the happening around Sceper at the moment,” he wrote in a June 12 email to Error. “I see that someone redirected Sceper.ws traffic somehow. The leak might be coming from the server, there’s been a couple of brute force attacks recently, so some data might have been compromised.” In response, Error pointed out the mounting issues. The reluctance to pay, the posts on Reddit and elsewhere advertising the .net domain, being blocked on Skype, not to mention the disabling of Error’s WordPress account. FD responded by doubling down on the malware claims and stating that at this point he was simply glad to be alive. Ever polite, Error wished FD a speedy recovery but was then offered something extraordinary in return. “Since you’ve been very patient and understanding I will neglect your accusations pointed at me. I can help you bring down Sceper.net cause I found out how and where my data got stolen,” FD said. The quid pro quo for this generous act was that FD wouldn’t be paying for the database anymore because it had failed to live up to expectations and wouldn’t generate the traffic he hoped. Instead, there would be a new deal, with him buying just the Sceper.ws domain in two installments. Error flatly refused and said that he’d only accept payment for the full amount. “Have a nice day,” Error concluded. And that was that. After reviewing all chat logs and emails detailing the proposed sale and negotiations after that, TorrentFreak contacted ‘FD’ for his take on the above allegations. At the time of publication, we had not received a response. So now a new wait continues, not necessarily for the sale of Sceper.ws, but for its relaunch. With a fresh outlook, Error says the site will relaunch “very soon.” He’ll be hoping that moving forward, any drama will be kept to a minimum.

When the aspiring Italian author Wallace Lee had his stories about Rambo targeted with a takedown notice, he considered becoming a "pirate writer." Luckily, however, Rambo's creator came to the rescue by officially sanctioning his work. And with help from torrent sites, "Rambo Year One" is now a critically acclaimed success. In this day and age, aspiring artists have access to a wide variety of tools they can use to create a decent product. Creating something is easy, but the real challenge is to escape obscurity and get noticed by the public. Traditionally, this task has been fulfilled by major publishers and other media distributors, but there are also alternative routes. The stories of YouTube sensations who turned into their own media empires come to mind. But in darker corners of the web, which are mostly associated with piracy, there are success stories too. This week we spoke to Italian author Wallace Lee, whose unofficial Rambo-prequel “Rambo Year One” received great reviews after relying on torrents as a main distribution channel. Lee’s story starts several years ago, when he began publishing short Rambo stories on a personal blog hosted by WordPress. It was fan-fiction in its purest form, but the author soon realized that not everyone was happy with his work. “Two years before free-sharing my first novel, I had a blog where I used to post my Rambo prequel short tales for free. And yet, a few months later, my site was shut down because the laws in the US allow copyright owners to stop fanfiction too, and even if it’s just for free.” It turned out that a rightsholder objected to his use of the Rambo character. While Lee doesn’t recall the sender of the notice, it meant that he could no longer publish his work as he pleased. Caught in a copyright stranglehold, the author felt limited in his creative expression. Ironically, he saw torrents as his way out. If he published his works on The Pirate Bay, copyright holders couldn’t touch him, he thought. It was a defiant thought, which may have worked, but luckily for him, it didn’t get that far. Instead of becoming a ‘pirate writer,’ Lee received permission from David Morrell, author of the novel “First Blood” on which the Rambo empire was built. “Frankly, I feel very lucky things ended up this way because I did not want to be at war with the same guys who owned Rambo in the first place,” Lee tells TorrentFreak. With permission to freely share his book, the unofficial Rambo-prequel was finally released. While Lee no longer had to turn to piracy, he was still committed to using torrent sites to get exposure and escape obscurity. That worked to a certain degree. The book was picked up here and there, but without a major publisher, it was hard to be taken seriously by literary critics. “The prejudice was extremely harsh and lasted for a very long time. For one whole year at least, I was just ‘the crazy guy who was writing a Rambo-prequel saga for nothing’,” Lee says. That changed when the author started to point people toward the historical accuracy of the book, which has the Vietnam war as the backdrop, and using that as one of the main selling points. “Everyone was astonished by the idea that a Rambo prequel aspired to be a good historical novel too, and that was when important people decided to finally give me a chance. And when they did, they were pleased.” This eventually led to more and more positive reviews, including a reading recommendation from the Calvino literary awards in Italy. Recognition Looking back, Lee doesn’t think he would have come this far without torrents. They helped, not only to keep distribution costs low, but also to make his work visible to an audience of millions. “Torrents helped a lot, and they’re still doing so in terms of distribution. Distribution is the most important part of the success of ANY artwork: books, music, films, everything,” Lee tells us. “Torrents solved the problem by making my work worldwide both visible and available at the same time. Without the torrents, thousands of people in the world would have never found my websites and novels on the internet.” Now, a few years later, the book has been translated by fans into two more languages, German and Spanish. They are all available for free in Epub, Mobi, and Pdf format, and the author uploaded new torrents on several sites just last week. Rambo Year One In addition to public sites such as The Pirate Bay, 1337X and Ettv, Lee also uploaded the release to the Italian private tracker TNT Village, which helped him a lot over the years. Looking back, the whole experience has been a great success. In addition to getting recognized internationally as an Italian author, he is now in talks with several publishing companies to publish his non-Rambo novels. Lee currently accepts donations on his site, where people can also find his other novels, for free. He never made a penny from the Rambo-prequel though, and never intended to. What he got instead was worth much more than that. “Receiving words of appreciation from actual US veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for your Rambo-prequel novels, has no price,” Lee says.

Foxtel has returned to Federal Court in Sydney with a new application to block 'pirate' sites. The company is targeting several torrent indexes including ETTV and Torrents.me plus streaming sites Sockshare, WatchFreeMovies, and others. Each stand accused of providing unlawful access to TV shows including Game of Thrones. Due to streamlining, the order could be granted in just days. Back in April, pay TV company Foxtel filed the latest in a series of blocking applications, this time targeting more than two dozen domain names facilitating access to 15 torrent and streaming services. To save on time and costs, Foxtel envisioned things going a little bit differently this time around. The company didn’t want to have expert witnesses present in court and asked whether live demonstrations of websites could be replaced by videos and screenshots instead. Foxtel also said that if the ISPs expected to block the domains agree, it wouldn’t serve its evidence on them as it had done previously. The company then asked Justice Nicholas to deal with the entire injunction application “on paper.” He declined, instead scheduling a hearing to take place today. As hoped by Foxtel, events were indeed more streamlined. According to a ZDNet report, the hearing lasted for just an hour, with no live website demonstrations and the requested videos being allowed. The application targeted 15 torrent site domains and ten streaming sites located overseas (a requirement for blocking under Australian law), each of which “unashamedly and flagrantly” infringes copyright. ComputerWorld lists the torrent sites as ETTV, MagnetDL, Torrent Download (possibly TorrentDownloads.me), Torrent Room (TorrentRoom.com), and Torrents.me. A domain facilitating access to the previously-blocked Pirate Bay was also included in the application. Also demonstrated in Court was a search bar that can be used to access content on torrent sites including 1337x and The Pirate Bay. No further details on the bar have been made available, but as a standalone item, blocking seems unlikely. The streaming services targeted by Foxtel include HDO, HDEuropix, 123Hulu, Watch32, Sockshare, NewEpisodes, 1Movies, 5Movies, WatchFreeMovies and SeriesTop. They represent just a handful of the hundreds of similar domains offering streaming today. Both the torrent and streaming sites stand accused of facilitating access to a range of popular TV shows including Game of Thrones, Grey’s Anatomy and Fear the Walking Dead plus movies including Jason Bourne, Pacific Rim, and Red Sparrow. Under Section 115a of the Copyright Act, Foxtel wants the usual ISPs – Optus, Vocus, Telstra, TPG plus their subsidiaries – to render the sites inaccessible by the usual means. None were present in Court today, and none turned up at the case management hearing on Friday either. It’s a pattern that’s likely to continue moving forward. Due to no special systems or technology being deployed by any of the websites in question, the application is expected to run smoothly. Indeed, reports suggest that Justice Nicholas could hand down a decision as soon as 21 June. Update: The order was granted this morning, June 20, just a day after the hearing. The process was straightforward and reported here and here.

Several popular YouTube accounts, including those belonging to 'MIT OpenCourseWare' and the 'Blender Foundation,' have had all their videos blocked. People who try to access the videos are informed that they are not available in their country, suggesting that YouTube's piracy filters have been triggered. It's unclear, however, who or what is to blame. To protect copyright holders, YouTube uses an advanced piracy recognition system that flags and disables videos which are used without permission. This system, known as Content ID, works well most of the time, but it is far from perfect. It’s not well equipped to determine whether content deployment is protected under ‘fair use’, and in some cases it even views white noise or birds chirping as piracy. Over the past several days, an even more worrying trend has appeared. Several popular YouTube accounts including those belonging to ‘MIT OpenCourseWare‘ and the ‘Blender Foundation,’ have suddenly had all their videos blocked. People who try to watch one of the freely available MIT courses on YouTube get the following message, which typically appears as an anti-piracy notice if an uploader doesn’t have the rights to show content locally. “This video contains content from MIT. It is not available in your country.” The message appears in all locations that we were able to check, suggesting that it may very well apply worldwide. In any case, on social media there’s no shortage of people mentioning that they can no longer access the courses. Blocked courseware… The issue hasn’t gone unnoticed by MIT’s OpenCourseWare team which is investigating the matter, without pointing fingers. “You may have noticed that we are having some trouble with our videos! Please stand by. The elves are working around the clock to fix the issue,” they write, referring people to non-video content in the meantime. Interestingly, the MIT case doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident. Another organization that was hit by the same mysterious blocking efforts is the Blender Foundation. The nonprofit organization, which is leading the development of the open source 3D content-creation application Blender, has also had its videos blocked. Ton Roosendaal, Chairman of the Blender Foundation, noticed the issue on Saturday and contacted YouTube. “This is most probably an error from their side,” Roosendaal said. At the time of writing, the issue still hasn’t been resolved. What the heck… Both organizations have verified YouTube accounts and many subscribers, which makes them high profile targets. However, two days have passed and it’s still unclear what’s going on. The blocking message is part of YouTube’s piracy filter system, but why it was triggered is unknown. As the original publishers, both certainly have the right to publish the videos in question. Looking even further, we were able to spot dozens of accounts which show similar “blocking” messages. They include verified ones, such as India’s Press Information Bureau, soccer club Sparta Praha, and England Rugby. TorrentFreak reached out to YouTube to ask why the videos of these accounts have been blocked but at the time of publication, we had yet to hear back. Something appears to be awfully wrong though. The timing of the incident is interesting, to say the least. This week there’s an important vote scheduled in the European Parliament, which will determine the course of EU copyright law. One of the most contested changes is the so-called “upload filter,” which is detailed in Article 13 of the copyright reform proposal. According to opponents, such YouTube-like piracy filters are a threat to free speech. These apparent “mistakes” show that there is a point to that. Ironically, even French politicians, who were expected to vote in favor of the upload filters, may now reconsider their stance after YouTube temporarily disabled their account following three copyright strikes. Update: YouTube notes that the issue is related to its updated partner agreements. The company is working on a solution. We updated the title to reflect this and avoid confusion. “Videos on a limited number of sites have been blocked as we updated our partner agreements. We are working with MITOpenCourseWare and Blender Foundation to get their videos back online,” a YouTube spokesperson tells TorrentFreak. Update 2: Blender’s Ton Roosendaal notes that YouTube wants the organization to sign a monetization agreement. “Google sent a contract to Blender Foundation in which we have to accept monetizing our Youtube channel content. Time for a more lengthy article… meanwhile, here’s the contract.” Update June 22: While some channels are restored, others still appear to face the same issue after 5 days. This includes HUMAN BEATBOX who were told by YouTube that engineers are trying to solve the “technical issue.” “We’re so troubled by the recent glitches. HUMAN BEATBOX has been on YouTube since 2007 and represents one of the few larger channels for beatboxers, an artist community that thrives on the platform. Whether it’s us or a big channel like MIT, the ones who are truly hurt by AI-driven discrimination like this are the communities — YouTube’s real bread and butter,” says Nate Harris, co-owner of HUMAN BEATBOX.

BitTorrent Inc, the parent company behind the popular file-sharing client uTorrent, recently made a deal to sell to Justin Sun, the founder of cryptocurrency TRON. According to new information, Sun has agreed to pay $140 million for the company. While no details have yet been confirmed, a shareholder notes that BitTorrent will in part be used to “legitimize” TRON’s business. Last month, TF broke the news that Justin Sun, the entrepreneur behind the popular cryptocurrency TRON, was in the process of acquiring BitTorrent Inc. The San-Francisco based file-sharing company confirmed the interest from Sun and last week sources added that details of the sale had been finalized. One of the questions that remained unanswered is how much the company is worth. This gap has now been filled by TechCrunch, which reports that TRON’s founder agreed to pay $140 million to acquire the company. According to the report, there are still some outstanding issues regarding the terms of the deal. More than one person claims to have introduced Sun to BitTorrent, which guarantees an extra payout. This has yet to be resolved. It is unclear what Sun’s plans are for BitTorrent but the existing products, including uTorrent, are not expected to go away. According to a shareholder quoted by TechCrunch, one of the plans is to use the acquisition to “legitimize” TRON’s business, which currently has a controversial reputation. This is an interesting goal, as BitTorrent itself has also dealt with some controversy of its own. The company was previously asked to do more to combat piracy and a few weeks ago, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas launched an investigation into the links between uTorrent usage and images of child exploitation. While the final details are worked out, BitTorrent – or Rainberry as it’s called now – has begun hiring new personnel. The company is currently looking for a recruiter to hire new talent as well as several developers, including a senior iOS Engineer. BitTorrent is currently working on a new iOS app which will allow users to play videos on their mobile devices. When completed, it will be released on Apple’s App Store. The $140 million acquisition follows a turbulent time for BitTorrent during which the company was nearly destroyed due to questionable management practices. At the same time, none of the new products, services, and business models it developed managed to surpass the early success it had with uTorrent. Whether the deal with TRON’s founder is a turning point has yet to be seen. TorrentFreak reached out to the company to find out more about its future plans but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. Upate: Without mentioning the aquisition by name, BitTorrent has released the following statement. “Our attention has been drawn to the news items that have appeared in the past few weeks speculating about a change in BitTorrent’s business model. We wish to reiterate that BitTorrent has no plans to change what we do or charge for the services we provide. We have no plans to enable mining of cryptocurrency now or in the future. BitTorrent has been a pioneer of peer-to-peer file sharing and we believe our vision of democratizing the Web by enabling decentralized, resilient access to information remains as relevant as it was when we started. We reiterate that we are committed to our hundreds of million users worldwide and will continue to invest and innovate in the BitTorrent and uTorrent products.”

The Pirate Bay appears to be suffering some technical problems. The site's upload functionality has been broken for several days, preventing new torrents from being added to the site. Some Pirate Bay uploaders are eagerly waiting to release new content, but it's unclear when the issues will be resolved. thepirateThe Pirate Bay has more than its fair share of technical inconveniences. Every other week the site goes down for a few hours, or days, just to reappear as if nothing ever happened. In recent days many users have noticed some hiccups as well, as TPB’s upload functionality is currently broken. According to the recent uploads page, no new torrents have been added since last weekend. The last torrent was uploaded on Sunday and the recent torrents page suggests that the problems started just before 7:00 a.m. Central European Time. After that, things went quiet and the official Pirate Bay status page confirms that no new uploads are coming through. What’s causing the trouble is unknown at the moment. Recent torrents Several trusted VIP uploaders have mentioned the problem in the TPB forums. They reportedly see an “Error – File empty” notice on their end, no matter what they try. These upload issues are not completely new, but it’s been a while since problems have lasted this long. TPB moderator “workerbee” points people to the status page and confirms that the situation is the same for all. “Everyone is experiencing the same problem. The situation will be sorted out in due course,” the mod notes. Seasoned uploaders have weathered quite a few stormy periods on the site, so they might not be bothered too much. However, some are losing patience and are growing more pessimistic by the day. “Been down since Sat.. for uploads,” VIP uploader psspss2 writes. “TPB sinking ship too many holes.”

The Free State Foundation, a think tank founded in 2006 which receives regular donations from the MPAA, is calling on Congress to tackle the threat from streaming piracy. In a new paper, FSF notes that those streaming unlicensed content to the public are currently guilty of a misdemeanor, an offense that should be upgraded to a felony if piracy is to be brought under control. Soon after the turn of the century, P2P consumption of unlicensed media quickly dominated the file-sharing landscape. The BitTorrent protocol emerged as the unchallenged kind of peer-to-peer transfers and for many years no rival could get anywhere near its level of market saturation. Then, soon after the turn of the decade, the tide began to turn. With cheaper, faster bandwidth becoming increasingly available to a broader user base, opportunities to stream content directly from websites gathered unprecedented momentum. What began several years earlier as a relatively niche activity, soon turned into a content monster. This critical shift in consumption habits was interesting on several fronts, not least since it made piracy accessible to relative novices via the growing Internet-enabled set-top box market. As a result, illegal streaming is now considered one of the major threats, but various pro-copyright groups are concerned that current legislation doesn’t go far enough to tackle those involved in supply. The problem was summed up in April 2015 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee by then-Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante. “Currently, criminals who engage in unlawful internet streaming can only be charged with a misdemeanor, even though those who unlawfully reproduce and distribute copyrighted material can be charged with a felony,” Pallante said. “This distinction makes no sense. As streaming becomes a dominant method of obtaining content online, unlawful streaming has no less of an adverse impact on the rights of copyright owners than unlawful distribution.” In a new paper published by the Free State Foundation (FSF), a think tank founded in 2006 which receives regular donations from the MPAA, streaming is again described as a misdemeanor offense and one that should be taken more seriously to protect copyright holders. In its report ‘Modernizing Criminal Copyright Law to Combat Online Piracy’, FSF notes that copyright holders face difficulties prosecuting mass-scale willful infringement via civil lawsuits. So, to give them the assistance they require, Congress should upgrade piracy via streaming to a felony offense. “Congress should update criminal copyright law to better address growing copyright piracy taking place through online streaming sites and enabled by illicit streaming devices,” FSF writes. “Currently, willful copyright infringement via online streaming is only a misdemeanor, whereas willful infringement via digital downloading is a felony when statutory minimums are satisfied. “This disparate treatment of streaming and downloading has no principled basis. Consumers increasingly access copyrighted video and music through streaming.” FSF states that punishments for misdemeanor copyright infringement (willful infringements of exclusive rights other than reproduction and distribution) include up to a year of prison and a fine of up to $100,000, or both. Punishments for felony copyright infringement usually include up to five years in prison or a $250,000 fine, or both. Due to its scope, the latter option for serious offenses is viewed by FSF as a more significant deterrent that can better protect copyright holders. “By making willful infringement of multiple or high value copyrighted works via online streaming a felony, Congress would empower law enforcement to better combat black market online traffickers in copyrighted content,” FSF adds. In addition to the more severe sentencing of those who stream to the public, FSF would like to see law enforcement given more tools to catch them in the act in the first instance. In some quarters, its suggestions are likely to be viewed as extremely controversial. “Additionally, Congress should consider providing federal law enforcement with more tools, including the authority to seek wiretaps to obtain evidence of suspected criminal copyright activities, to combat online piracy. Similar wiretap authority already exists in the case of theft of trade secrets and economic espionage,” FSF writes. The report isn’t specific as to which players should be disrupted via such legislation, but repeated references to piracy-enabled set-top boxes, addon-enabled software, hosting services and others in the streaming ecosystem indicates a tendency towards plugging loopholes across the board in a largely untested and still-developing market. What also seems clear is a desire to shift enforcement costs onto the state, rather than them being carried entirely by copyright holders who would otherwise have to engage in difficult and expensive civil litigation. “Despite suffering substantial harm on account of online piracy, copyright owners are often ill-equipped and financially unable to combat such piracy through civil lawsuits,” FSF reports. “Pirates of copyrighted content are not often amenable to service of process and to civil litigation. Unsurprisingly, many technically sophisticated online piracy operations are designed to avoid accountability to copyright holders and to the civil justice system. “Thus, circumstances clearly exist in which the civil justice system is inadequate or unable to address or combat online piracy operations.” While the terminology used in the FSF report can at times suggest a tightening of the law against those who stream to the public and those who consume streaming content, it eventually makes clear that such legislation should be directed “to online traffickers in copyrighted content, not individual Internet users.” It also states that “reasonable safe harbor provisions” should exist for online service providers to receive immunity from criminal and civil liability, providing they remove or disable access to infringing content when advised by a rightsholder. Considering the donations FSF receives from the MPAA, it’s probably safe to assume that the report’s recommendations are broadly aligned with those of the Hollywood group. In that respect, it’s interesting that the studios feel that current law exposes them in some way. Thus far, tools to tackle administrators of pirate streaming sites in the US don’t appear to have been lacking but perhaps there is currently a little too much room for maneuver.

The EU's plans to modernize copyright law in Europe are moving ahead. The Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament (JURI) just adopted several proposals, including the controversial "upload filters." Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda is disappointed but notes that the fight is not over yet. Through a series of new proposals, the European Commission is working hard to modernize EU copyright law. These plans have not been without controversy. In particular, Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive has been widely criticized as it would pressure online services to monitor and filter uploaded content. The article states (full text) that online services are liable for any uploaded content unless they take “effective and proportionate” action to prevent copyright infringements, as identified by copyright holders. That also includes preventing allegedly infringing files from being reuploaded, which implies some form of hash filtering and continuous monitoring of all user uploads. That said, there are several exceptions and limitations, as highlighted here. Today, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament (JURI) voted on the issue. With a 15 to 10 majority, the Article 13 proposal of Rapporteur Voss was adopted. This means that the plans move ahead in their current form, despite massive public outcry. Over the past year, we have repeatedly covered the widespread opposition. Legal scholars, digital activists, politicians, all worried that the upload restrictions would violate the rights of regular Internet users. In recent weeks, the wave of protests swelled. More prominent figures sounded the alarm bell, including Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, the Internet Archive’s Brewster Kahle, and Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia. The campaign was picked up by the public as well. Roughly 320,000 people have signed petitions urging lawmakers to reject the plans and over the last week more than 50,000 tweets went up mentioning the #SaveYourInternet hashtag. In addition to Article 13, there was also considerable pushback against Article 11, which is regularly referred to as the “link tax.” This proposal was accepted as well, with a 13 to 12 majority. Now that the proposal has passed the Committee the plans will move to plenary before progressing towards the final vote on copyright reform next spring. It also means that they are now much harder to stop or change. That has been done before, such as with ACTA, but achieving that type of momentum will be a tough challenge. Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda, who suggested alternatives to the controversial proposals, is disappointed with the outcome. However, she’s not giving up yet. “These measures will break the internet. People will run into trouble doing everyday things like discussing the news and expressing themselves online. Locking down our freedom to participate to serve the special interests of large media companies is unacceptable,” Reda says. “I will challenge this outcome and request a vote in the European Parliament next month. We can still overturn this result and preserve the free internet.”

SET TV, an IPTV service being sued by several Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix, went offline last week while hinting at technical issues. However, responses filed at a California District Court this week reveal that the service has shut down, with all marketing and subscription sales terminated. Back in April, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership forged between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, sued Florida-based Set Broadcast, LLC. The entertainment industry companies accused Set Broadcast of running SET TV, an unauthorized IPTV service offering otherwise subscription TV channels and media without appropriate licensing. “Defendants market and sell subscriptions to ‘Setvnow,’ a software application that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the complaint reads. Despite the legal pressure, SET TV had remained online but that all changed last week when it suddenly disappeared. In response to customer complaints, SET TV implied that technical issues might be to blame and it would eventually return. However, a filing with a California District court this week reveals that the SET TV ride appears to be over. “Setvnow is no longer available. It is no longer marketed and subscriptions are no longer sold,” lawyers for Set Broadcast, LLC reveal in their filing. What follows is a point-by-point addressing of each issue raised in the ACE complaint, with three features catching the eye: acceptance that they offered a content service, claims that they lack knowledge and information on a large number of points, plus repeated use of the word ‘deny’ whenever infringement is mentioned. Set TV begins by admitting that it sold subscriptions to its service and acknowledging that marketing material detailed in the ACE lawsuit looks familiar. It also concedes that it encouraged users to download and install the Setvnow software on various devices. The company also agrees that it sold a hardware box that was, at least in part, designed to work with the Setvnow service. However, in response to claims of marketing efforts informing “customers who want more of a cable box experience” that for just $89, they can “simply turn it on and watch TV” without having to do anything more than “PLUG AND PLAY,” the defendants claim to lack knowledge or information. From here, at least as far as a technical rebuttal to ACE claims go, the responses are relatively blunt and often repetitive to read. First up, ACE claimed that defendants sold illegal access to their copyright works, but that’s something Set Broadcast flatly denies. ACE also noted that while the service provided “hallmarks of using authorized streaming services” such as a friendly interface, customers only paid money to Set Broadcast, not the copyright owners. Set Broadcast says it has no knowledge of how customers perceived the service but admits to not paying any money to ACE “for the Setvnow service.” To the next dozen points, Set Broadcast claims to have “no knowledge or information”, mostly in response to basic statements of fact such as who the plaintiffs are and where their offices are located. In response to the claim that defendant Jason Labossiere is the owner and operator of Set Broadcast, LLC, Set Broadcast issues a flat denial but offers no additional information. Further details concerning Nelson Johnson, a manager at Set Broadcast, are also picked over, with questions raised over his employment status and place of residence. From here, Set Broadcast addresses a number of statements made by ACE members regarding who the plaintiffs are, what they do, and what content they own. On each count, Set Broadcast claims to have no knowledge or information, which makes for fairly bland and unconvincing reading. That being said, Set Broadcast doesn’t shy away from responding on a number of crucial issues. The company acknowledges that promotional material produced by the plaintiffs, showing that the SET TV service offered 500 channels and “thousands” of “on demand” options for $20, is theirs. It also admits to selling subscriptions and concedes that the SET TV software facilitated streaming of “captured content”, including live content, and delivered it to Setvnow users. The company also admits to using third-party sources for on-demand content. But despite admitting to many of ACE’s claims over the marketing and provision of the service, whenever the plaintiffs used the word “infringing” to describe the nature of the content delivered to users, Set Broadcast has a one-word response. “Defendants’ customers use Setvnow for intended and unquestionably infringing purposes, most notably to obtain immediate, unrestricted, and unauthorized access to unauthorized streams of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works,” ACE wrote. “Deny,” came the response. “Defendants promote the use of Setvnow for overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, infringing purposes, and that is how their customers use Setvnow,” ACE added. “Deny,” Set Broadcast repeats. With a distinct pattern emerging, there’s no need to detail the one-word response to each of ACE’s allegations including that the defendants willfully and intentionally induced and contributed to the infringement of their rights and that ACE members are entitled to damages and Defendants’ profits in amounts to be proven at trial. The claim that ACE members are entitled to attorneys’ fees plus preliminary and permanent injunctions are also given the same two-syllable treatment. However, at the end of the filing, Set Broadcast springs into life, detailing three affirmative defenses against all of ACE’s charges. First up, Set Broadcast claims that ACE failed to mitigate damages. Second, the company states that “Plaintiffs’ claims are barred to the extent Plaintiffs have forfeited or abandoned copyright or failed to comply with necessary formalities.” Finally, Set Broadcast suggests it could be an “innocent infringer”. “Damages are limited under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c)(2) because Defendants ‘were not aware and had no reason to believe that [their] acts constituted an infringement of copyright’,” Set concludes. Since SET TV is now apparently a thing of the past, it will be interesting to see how this case develops. While Set Broadcast flatly denies any infringement of ACE members’ rights, it doesn’t deny that it’s been running a pay service which facilitates the delivery of third-party content to its customers. The big questions now are whether the case will ever head to a full trial and if the defenses cited by SET TV provide more than a sliver of hope for the company.

Cloudflare has settled its piracy liability lawsuit with adult publisher ALS Scan. The case in question was scheduled to go to trial with the CDN provider standing accused of contributory copyright infringement. Details of the settlement agreement have not been made public, but Cloudflare must be happy to move on. As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe. This includes many pirate sites. In recent years many copyright holders have complained about Cloudflare’s involvement with these platforms, and in 2016 adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan took it a step further by dragging the company to court. ALS accused Cloudflare of various types of copyright infringement, noting that several of its customers used the company’s servers to distribute pirated content to the public. During the legal battle that followed, the CDN provider managed to have several counts dismissed. However, the accusation of contributory copyright infringement remained. Earlier this year California District Court Judge George Wu ruled that Cloudflare can substantially assist copyright infringements by hosting cached copies of files. Whether Cloudflare did this and could be held liable was something to be decided at trial. However, according to a recent filing, there will be no trial. This week both parties filed a joint stipulation asking the court to dismiss all claims against Cloudflare. “ALS Scan, Inc. and Cloudflare, Inc. hereby stipulate to dismissal without prejudice of the claims and action against Cloudflare, Inc., with each side bearing its own attorney’s fees, costs, and expenses,” they write. ALS Scan and Cloudflare have signed a settlement agreement behind closed doors. The terms of the deal have not been made public, but each party will attorney’s fees, costs, and other expenses. While the court retains jurisdiction over the matter in case any settlement disputes arise, the lawsuit is essentially over. Whether Cloudflare agreed to pay a settlement fee is unknown, but the agreement takes away a lot of uncertainty for the CDN provider. If they had gone to trial, where the controversial “Daily Stormer” issue could be used as evidence, the company’s fate would be in the hands of a jury. A negative decision there could have severely impacted its future. TorrentFreak requested a comment from a Cloudflare spokesperson and ALS Scan’s attorneys on the matter, but neither has responded at the time of publication.

Under siege, third-party Kodi addon platform, has announced the resignation of its founder. Adam Lackman, who is being targeted by Canada's leading telecoms companies in a copyright infringement battle, says he will give up admin rights and access to sensitive information, in order to preserve the longevity of the TVAddons platform. TF spoke with the Canadian to find out more. Right now, life isn’t particularly pleasant for the founder of TVAddons. As previously documented, Adam Lackman is being sued by an army of Canadian telecoms giants including Bell Canada, Bell ExpressVu, Bell Media, Videotron, Groupe TVA, Rogers Communications and Rogers Media. With mixed results in court thus far, last week saw bailiffs for the plaintiffs revisit Lackman’s home, hoping to secure property to pay off CAD$50,000 in costs run up by the telco’s attorneys. In the end, however, the bailiffs only earmarked a laptop and two “near worthless” prints. The goods will be sold at auction come July 31 unless Lackman can come up with the cash amount, which has now swelled to CAD$57,500. With this latest aggressive act ringing in his ears, it appears that TVAddons have been considering what can be done to safeguard the future of the site. Lackman, perhaps understandably, is now seen as a potential Achilles’ Heel, something which has prompted a fresh announcement about his future. “Under immense pressure, our team and I have decided that it would be best if I resigned from an administrative role in order to protect the longevity of our platform,” he informs TF. “I will continue to remain onboard in a marketing position, also doing general community outreach like I always have.” More information is available in a TVAddons post on the topic, which also details the rather unusual method used to select his successor. “In selecting the individual to replace Adam in his former role as administrator, an automated script was used to randomly select his replacement from amongst our most trusted senior staff,” the report reads. “At the time of selection, the automated script also delivered relevant passwords which the new administrator then changed so that only he would know them. Only the staff member selected knows that he is our new platform administrator.” While unusual in its reported execution, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that given the ongoing assault on TVAddons, this latest move is designed to take the pressure off Lackman. We asked him if not being the operator of the site would be helpful moving forward. “When we relaunched last August, it was decided amongst our team members that I would not be the owner of the new domain. The new owner was selected in a similar fashion to how the new admin was selected. I can’t say who the owner is, and actually I don’t know his identity anyway,” Lackman explained. “I have therefore not been the owner of the new site since it was launched. And since we launched it without any of the assets of the previous website, we see it as an entirely new entity.” Given the circumstances surrounding the resignation and the subsequent and unusual appointment of a successor, TF further asked whether the move would be viewed as credible by the telcos and their operatives. Lackman said he didn’t know but pointed out that since he’d been honest over ownership details in the past, that could stand him in good stead for the future. “Considering I gave them the domains last year pursuant to their court order, even though they were owned overseas by a corporation in the first place, it should show them that I respect the law and the courts and would not take action to circumvent their authority,” he said. “However, I am also not sure it matters whether the plaintiffs believe it or not, as they have demonstrated a willingness to create their own narrative in order to suit their own agenda anyway.” In a final note, the TVAddons team says that their new administrator is likely to “surface publicly” in a few weeks’ time, something which could be followed shortly after by some upgrades to the site. Update: Lackman informs TF that after speaking with his lawyers, they will be blocking the seizure of his laptop which falls under the seizure exemption of “work instruments needed for the exercise of your profession.” “The bailiff would have known that the laptop was exempt, but put it down for seizure for the purpose of causing me additional grief in having to take legal measures to ensure that it is not seized,” he says.

Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof is continuing its crusade against copyright holders that target alleged file-sharers. The company has published an article which shows that these copyright cases have little to do with the Government's intention of protecting individual copyright holders with limited financial means. In recent years file-sharers around the world have been threatened with lawsuits, if they don’t pay a significant settlement fee. These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in countries such as Germany and the United States, and in recent years they have conquered Sweden as well. Where Internet providers remain on the sidelines in most countries, Swedish ISP Bahnhof has shown to be a fierce opponent of the copyright enforcement efforts. The company uses all possible means to protect its subscribers, both in an outside of court. In an article published a few days ago, Bahnhof Communicator Carolina Lindahl takes a closer look at the legal basis underlying the threatening letters. Lindahl notes that the Swedish Government sees a need for strict copyright infringement penalties while keeping the barriers for creators to go to court low because they often have limited resources. “In copyright litigation […], it is often the author himself who is a party, and usually the author has limited financial resources,” the Government’s code for Penalties for Certain Serious IP violations reads. However, according to Bahnhof, this is far removed from reality. Lindahl sifted through the legal paperwork related to copyright infringement cases filed at the Criminal Court, to see which companies are behind them. The research uncovered 76 cases, the majority of which formed the basis for the tens of thousands of piracy settlement letters that were sent out. Only five of these cases were filed by the creator of the work, Lindahl notes. In other instances, the creators were represented by intermediaries or licensees, such as Copyright Management Services and Crystalis Entertainment. While these companies may have the legal right to pursue these cases, they are not the original creators of the films they sue over. “The government’s claim – that it is often the author himself who is a party – does not seem to be correct at all,” Lindahl writes. In addition, the ISP rejects the notion that copyright holders have “limited financial resources.” Using public sources, Lindahl shows that several of the companies involved have millions of dollars in revenues. So, instead of protecting individual creators with limited means, the ISP says that the Government’s policy allows major companies to “extort” money from individuals, including those with limited financial resources. “Our legislation rests on assumptions that are badly rooted in reality,” Lindahl writes, noting that government policy only makes rich film companies richer. “The result is an extortion operation that is profitable for already profitable media companies and costly for young people, retirees, and other individuals on the margin, without the capability to tackle sudden costs of thousands of kronor. “The lone and economically limited authors are in fact groups of authors with great wealth. Without pure greed, they probably don’t need to send out extortion letters,” the article adds. Lindahl tells TF that she does see a few options to deal with the issue at hand. Sweden could follow the example of its neighbor Denmark, for example, where copyright trolling is ‘outlawed.’ Alternatively, courts could call the IP-monitoring evidence into question, which isn’t always as solid as it seems. That said, she’s not very hopeful that anything will change soon. “I don’t trust our government or authorities to do anything about this. I’m sure they enjoy things just as they are,” Lindahl notes. “Either because they are stupid and really believe they’re helping the poor, because they have private engagements with copyright organizations, or because they like to chase and punish pirates every way they can. Or all of the above.”

Faced with a copyright infringement related ban in Mexico, streaming media platform Roku is working hard to win hearts and minds. In May, the company invited a group of Mexican journalists to its Silicon Valley headquarters to hear about its anti-piracy efforts. However, Mexico's Telecommunications Law Institute says the company needs to follow the example set by Apple TV. Until the turn of the decade, obtaining online pirate content was almost exclusively achieved by individuals with desktop and laptop computers. With the rise of streaming, set-top devices are now the major entry point. With Kodi-enabled Android devices grabbing much of the attention (and criticism), other platforms have also been feeling the heat. Despite offering plenty of legitimate content such as HBO Go, Hulu, and Netflix and playing no active role in the provision of unlicensed media, Roku is one of those enduring a bumpy ride. Last year following a complaint from Cablevision, the Superior Court of Justice of the City of Mexico handed down a ban, prohibiting stores like Amazon from importing and selling Roku devices due to third parties offering unlicensed content via the platform. It didn’t take long for Roku to react. Last August the company began displaying warnings to users who added channels to their device that weren’t obtained via the official Roku store. Then just a month later, it was revealed that Roku was assembling its own anti-piracy team. In the background the legal wheels turned, with Roku trying everything in its power to have the Mexico ban overturned. As of today the ban remains with no clear end in sight but that doesn’t mean that Roku has been standing still. It appears that on May 23, a group of Mexican journalists was welcomed to Roku’s Silicon Valley headquarters. Just days later, Roku CEO Anthony Wood and Marketing Director Matthew Anderson visited Mexico City. While these events were no doubt designed to build bridges, Mexico’s Telecommunications Law Institute (IDET) painted the efforts in a rather different light. According to El Economista, IDET said the moves were designed to exert pressure on the judiciary and to sway public opinion in favor of Roku. “[Roku’s] intention is to influence the judges who are reviewing this case, which formally has not begun,” said IDET member Gonzalo Rojón. “We feel they are doing that because they want to influence the judges, but the truth is that intellectual property rights are still not respected and the truth is that this is a very strong problem for Mexico.” In a response, Roku denied this interpretation, stating that their aim is to introduce Mexico to its business and to demonstrate the measures it takes to counter copyright-infringing content. “On May 23, we invited a group of Mexican journalists to the Roku headquarters in Silicon Valley to introduce them to the company and our history in the streaming market and also to explain the strong anti-piracy measures we have implemented in Mexico and around the world,” Marketing Director Matthew Anderson explained. “Right now, we feel it is very important to help journalists and the public understand more about Roku and our history, that we are a reliable company, particularly for the leading content generation companies in the world that distribute their content on the platform. We want to explain the anti-piracy measures we are taking.” While both IDET and Roku agree that piracy is a problem, there is a difference of opinion on where the bounds of responsibility lie. IDET holds Roku to blame when unlicensed content appears via its service but Roku insists that piracy is an Internet-wide issue that has spread to platforms everywhere. IDET has been extremely vocal on the topic and has published three press releases on the subject of Roku during the last couple of weeks. They say that Roku needs to do more, holding up competitors such as Apple TV and Google Chromecast as examples of set-top devices that tackle piracy well. “Roku seeks to become the most economical, simple and accessible device in the streaming market. Its competitors in this segment are Apple TV and the giant Google that have similar devices which, however, do not face legal conflicts similar to those of Roku,” IDET writes. “It is a cheap and accessible technology but it allows the streaming of stolen signals directly to the television screen. [Roku’s] Matthew Anderson, who comes from the legitimate content generation industry, assures that Roku strives to bring to the market a ‘legal’ means of downloading content. But with a presence in 23 countries, more than 45,000 associated channels, and more than 21 million accounts, Roku – unlike Apple TV and Google – is still vulnerable.” There is no dispute that Roku wants to reduce piracy and IDET agrees that Roku in no way advertises or encourages any means to infringe and it is third-parties abusing Roku that are to blame. However, Roku and IDET seem to have a difference of opinion as to how this should be tackled. For its part, Roku says that once it’s advised that infringing content is being made available via its platform, it takes steps to eliminate it. It’s a system employed by Internet platforms all over the world and recognized as being at the core of the DMCA, for example. IDET, however, wants Roku to be more proactive. It says that once the content has been made available via Roku the damage has already been done and it appears that unlike some of its competitors, Roku has not found a solution to that problem. “Why can Apple or Google prevent this situation? Because their devices eliminate the possibility of distributing stolen material in advance. It’s just a technology issue. It is not understood why an important streaming platform, such as Roku, has not been able to turn this problem around,” IDET says. With the import and sales ban stubbornly in place, IDET says that no one wants Roku devices off the market. They’re good for competition and provide consumers with more options. However, Roku will have to do more if it wants to do business in Mexico, a solution that IDET insists is merely a technical step away. “No one is against selling Roku devices in the market. On the contrary, the promotion of competition is applauded and the consumers of audiovisual content have more and better and better options to decide,” IDET writes. “What is unfortunate is that this high caliber competitor can not resolve the intrusion of piracy on his device. In the end it is just a matter of technology to invest in an appropriate software. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.” Reports that 40% of all Roku users in Mexico are pirates certainly don’t help the company’s case (Roku contests the figure) but by banning services such as the popular cCloud, the company shows good intent that may eventually pave the way for the ban to be lifted in Mexico.

Netflix wants to expand its Global Copyright & Content Protection Group. The streaming giant is looking for an individual "who can hit the ground running" into a variety of tasks, from scanning all the major social media platforms and dealing with takedown requests, to gathering data on pirate streaming sites, cyberlockers and usenet platforms. For many years, Netflix relied on content supplied by other companies to satisfy its growing userbase. Now, however, that reliance is beginning to take a back seat to productions of its own. Back in February, Netflix CFO David Wells said that his company was set to spend more than $8 billion on content in 2018, a figure that contributes to the 700 original TV shows and 80 movies it will offer globally this year. There can be little doubt, Netflix is now a powerful creator and commissioner of content in its own right. This shift in strategy raises some interesting points, not least concerning the company’s attitude toward piracy. While the MPAA has spat venom over the issue for decades, Netflix has appeared somewhat more relaxed. Quietly, however, Netflix understands that scraping every possible dollar from consumers while restricting the availability of pirated content is something it must sink resources into. Back in 2017, we revealed the existence of Netflix’s Global Copyright Protection Group when the company advertised for a Global Copyright Protection Counsel. Since then the company has recruited more individuals to the cause and this week advertised for another new recruit. Netflix’s new Copyright and Content Protection Coordinator will work with the Global Copyright & Content Protection Group to protect Netflix Originals, the TV shows and movies for which Netflix owns the rights. “The ideal candidate will have carried out a similar role at another company and can hit the ground running,” the listing for the position reads. “He or she should have experience of anti-piracy initiatives and be very well versed in managing an effective notice and take down program and experience of working with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Bing, VK, Daily Motion and other well known platforms.” Although Netflix’s business model is somewhat different to that of more traditional studios, the company faces the same problems with pirate links appearing online. To that end, the successful applicant will be expected to disrupt this availability as much as possible, particularly through the management of the company’s DMCA notice sending systems. The company’s new coordinator will be expected to carry out daily scanning of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Periscope, Google Search, Bing, VK, DailyMotion and other platforms used for piracy. Fingerprinting technologies on YouTube (ContentID) and Facebook (Rights Manager) will also need to be monitored, with attention paid to content that’s uploaded in a way that circumvents those recognition systems. Of course, these legitimate platforms are just the tip of a very large iceberg. It seems likely that Netflix content is more likely to be found illegally on torrent and streaming platforms so these will need to be tackled too, with Netflix advising that the candidate will gather data on “pirate streaming sites, cyberlockers and usenet platforms.” While Netflix is now a true competitor to the mainstream Hollywood studios and companies like Amazon, they all have to deal with piracy in roughly the same way. These synergies were formalized last June with the debut of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a coalition of 30 companies dedicated to presenting a united front against piracy. As a founding member of ACE, Netflix contributes $5m per year to the alliance. This expensive relationship needs to be nurtured so the new coordinator will have responsibilities there too, working with other ACE members to tackle the piracy threat.

YouTube is a great video platform that has a lot to offer to both consumers and creators. At least, those who play by the rules. For creators, there is a major drawback though, one that put a spotlight on the alternative 'free-libre' software PeerTube this week. On Tuesday we reported that several YouTube channels had all their videos blocked worldwide. This included those belonging to MIT OpenCourseWare,’ the ‘Blender Foundation,’ and many others. The error message that was displayed typically appears for copyright reasons. However, in this case, the problem was more complicated, related to a new license agreement, among other things. While some prominent channels have now been restored, others still face similar issues. The people at Human Beatbox, for example, tell us that they are experiencing the same problem, which at the time of writing is still not fixed. YouTube simply informed them that its a “technical issue” which the engineers are trying to resolve. Meanwhile, all videos of theirs and many other channels have been inaccessible for nearly a week… Whatever the problem is, it’s clearly a ‘mistake’ of epic proportions. While YouTube probably has no intention to ‘censor’ these channels, it shows what can go wrong if creators put their faith in the hands of a single service. A service they have no control over at all, which removes your content, erroneously or not. Luckily there are some alternatives that put creators in control again. PeerTube is one of these options. When the Blender Foundation had all its videos blocked by YouTube earlier this week, a decision was taken to give this alternative a try. In a matter of hours, Blender had a fully operational streaming site, one which they had complete control over. This prompted TF to take a closer look at PeerTube and what it has to offer. Blender testing PeerTube Put simply, PeerTube allows anyone to set up their own video streaming site. This can run independently, but it can also be linked, or federated, with other PeerTube instances to create a broader reach. All with P2P steaming support. The first version of PeerTube launched last year. It’s operated by the small French non-profit organization Framasoft, and thus far it hasn’t really broken through in English-speaking countries. The Blender Foundation’s problems, while very unfortunate, may change that. “Blender’s example illustrates our main goal: autonomy, independence from external platforms. When you centralize videos and attention, you gain power over the users. Our approach goes the other way,” Framasoft’s Pouhiou tells TF. PeerTube comes with built-in WebTorrent support. This means that viewers also contribute their bandwidth, which can come in handy if a video goes viral. To ‘federate’ with other PeerTube instances, the software uses the ActivityPub protocol, which is also used by the popular social networking software Mastodon. This helps to grow the video library if needed, but it’s entirely optional. “Federation allows diversity in the governances: each PeerTube Instance Hoster can determine their own set of rules, their settings, their moderation policy, etcetera,” Pouhiou says. Embedding a PeerTube video The idea behind PeerTube is to let creators regain control over their content. This helps to avoid censorship in the broadest sense of the word, and also “problems” that block videos for days on end. It’s this spirit that also drives the developers to make the software entirely free and open. “To us, it is really about taking back the web into our own hands. We have a joke about the ‘Power to the people’ song of John Lennon: PeerTube is kind of ‘Software to the people’,” Pouhiou tells us. “That’s why PeerTube has to be Free-Libre software: not even we should be able to ‘close’ the code, it would give us way too much power, which we don’t want.” Of course, there are plenty of downsides to alternatives like PeerTube. For one, in terms of costs, they are not free to operate. Even though WebTorrent can limit the bandwidth bill to a degree, it requires hosting and some technical skills. Monetizing PeerTube videos will also require more work. You can’t just click a button and magically start earning money. And then there’s the issue of reaching a wide audience, which may be harder for creators who are ‘locked’ into external services. That said, for outfits such as Blender and MIT OpenSourceWare which are non-profit and have their own sites which people know how to find, it makes a lot of sense. At the least, everyone who relies on external platforms might want to stop and think for a minute if they really want to put all their eggs in someone else’s basket. More information on PeerTube can be found on the official site. The company recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to ensure continued development, which has raised over €20,000 at the time of writing.

When several torrent distribution groups started their own home at ETTV.tv, they moved into unchartered territory. In addition to distributing the latest releases, they were facing new problems, including ISP blockades. With a new proxy portal, ETTV is now responding to this week's Australian blockade, as well as similar efforts. For several years, ETTV has been a household name in the torrent community. The group, which distributes pirated TV-shows, originated at ExtraTorrent but when the site closed it built its own home. Together with several like-minded uploaders, including ETHD, they launched ETTV.tv last fall. While the groups still distribute their work on other mainstream torrent indexes, the site’s traffic has been growing steadily. That doesn’t mean that it’s been a smooth ride though. Like many other sites that offer pirated content, ETTV has been subject to various blocking efforts. Some ISPs in India are blocking the site, for example, and this week Australian providers were ordered to do the same. To counter these efforts ETTV.tv has now launched its own proxy portal at ETTVproxies.com. The site currently lists one operational ‘alternative,’ but a site representative tells TF that other domains will follow. “We’re going to launch more. This is just the beginning for us,” ETTV informs TorrentFreak. “The goal here is to bypass these blocks they are trying to do. It’s not hard to evade their blocks at all, but for those that can’t be bothered ..we will have a bunch of domains which they can find us on.” Generally speaking, ETTV is not overly concerned about the blocking efforts. While they are a nuisance, determined users have several options to circumvent them, even without a proxy site. “We think the website blockades are useless. Some people are going to evade them using VPNs, some people using public DNS services such as Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or Google (8.8.8.8), and others are using Tor.” ETTV is also planning to launch its own Tor version of the site, to make it more resilient. Also, it will keep its proxies out of popular search engines, hoping to stay under the radar as much as possible. As we highlighted in the past, ETTV, ETHD, and similar groups don’t rip or encode any releases themselves. They’re pretty much automated scripts that take scene releases, and put these out in public. There’s a broad audience for this content as their torrents are downloaded millions of times every week. This has also inspired some copycats to take away some of their traffic. But, ETTV is not too worried about those. “They do not provide original content, and they will never gain popularity especially since people know who we are and where to find us, so they will eventually shut down,” ETTV tells us. The biggest threat are the copyright holders, perhaps. Many torrent sites have come and gone over the past decade and a half, and several operators have paid a high price for stepping into this business. Again, ETTV doesn’t seem to be too bothered about the ever-looming crackdown. “Let’s see how much progress they will make by 2028. Last 15 years was a complete failure for them. The only people that got something out of this are the lawyers. Everybody else lost. Some more, some less,” ETTV concludes.

Watermarking has long been one of the tools used to track sources of pirated content so with the growth of live content streaming, it's becoming more important than ever. However, while broadcasters can use these marks to shut down infringing streams in a live situation, pirates are reportedly able to remove them using devices readily available on eBay. Anyone familiar with the annual leak of awards season movies onto the Internet will recognize the watermarks used to identify the purpose of a copy. The “For Your Consideration” watermarks are perhaps the most widely recognized additions to DVD screeners, notifying the viewer that the copy was originally provided for the scrutiny of Oscars and similar voters. Other watermarks, with “Property of Studio XYZ here” splashed across the screen, serve a similar purpose. While these watermarks are designed to ensure that any leaks result in heavily defaced ‘pirate’ copies, other less visible watermarks can be used by studios to track a leak back to its original source, including back to a single person. These provide a deterrent but in the event a copy is diverted or stolen, they do nothing to stop a leak that has already happened. In the case of pirate streams of live events, such as TV and sports programs made available online via websites and illicit IPTV services, watermarks have the ability to help anti-piracy efforts much closer to real-time. Since pirate streams are often captured from consumer decoders, a watermark denoting which subscriber account is being used can be embedded into the video. Once the mark is identified and matched with a customer device, the stream can be cut off at its source by the broadcaster. Watermark hashcodes during the Mayweather v McGregor fight While it is possible to remove these codes, doing so isn’t always straightforward. Systems can place the watermark in any place at any time, meaning that some always slip through the net. However, others are more easily dealt with, as a report from security company Irdeto reveals. “So-called ‘HashCode removal tools’ work in near real-time to strip away any kind of visual marks from a video feed. This ranges from unique fingerprints right down to the broadcaster’s on-screen logo that’s so familiar on many channels, both helping pirates to cover their tracks,” the company explains. “These tools are so smart, they take a sample of the surrounding pixels and re-use them to replace the visual marks, so the viewer of the pirate stream barely notices any disturbance in the picture.” Irdeto says that its work with TV companies has revealed an uptick in the use of such tools in recent months. That’s partially down to how readily available they are. “Research by Irdeto’s anti-piracy team found HashCode removal tools openly on sale via popular selling platforms like eBay and Alibaba for less than US$2,000,” the company reveals. “These devices fall into a legal grey-area. They don’t actively ENABLE piracy, but they do help pirates to mask their identity. This means the sellers don’t even need to be shy about describing exactly what their products can achieve,” Irdeto notes. Indeed, some companies are happy to publish demonstrations on YouTube showing their systems in action, complete with before-and-after videos supplemented by behind the scenes action. While these devices have their uses, Irdeto says they cannot tackle the most sophisticated watermarking systems that use covert methods. “A unique User ID is still inserted into the stream and persists through different screen-capture and transformation techniques, but because the pirates can’t see the watermarks, they have a hard time obscuring them,” Irdeto explains. While both overt and covert watermarking has its uses, to date they haven’t managed to prevent the major IPTV ‘wholesalers’ from putting together packages consisting of thousands of pirated TV channels from most major broadcasters worldwide. With these consistently available for just a few dollars, euros, or pounds per month, the cat and mouse game will continue.

The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. 'Rampage' tops the chart this week, followed by ‘Ready Player One'. 'Escape Plan 2: Hades' completes the top three. This week we have five newcomers in our chart. Rampage is the most downloaded movie. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

The Coalition Against Piracy, an initiative backed by companies including Disney, Fox, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, BBC and the Premier League, has revealed the extent that piracy-enabled set-top boxes have penetrated homes in Hong Kong. Their YouGov survey reveals that one in four Hong Kong residents now use the devices with half saying that they'd canceled legal services as a result. 2017 saw the birth of two major anti-piracy coalitions with some common members and similar goals. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was formed by 30 major players including Disney, HBO, and NBCUniversal. Several of the same media giants are also involved in the Coalition Against Piracy (CAP). CAP coordinates anti-piracy efforts in Asia and is backed by CASBAA, Disney, Fox, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, Premier League, Turner Asia-Pacific, A&E Networks, Astro, BBC Worldwide, National Basketball Association, TV5MONDE, Viacom International, and others. From the outset, CAP has had the stated aim of tackling the pirate set-top box market. CAP General Manager Neil described their prevalence as “staggering” and a new report published this morning appears to back that up. The newly released survey, commissioned by CAP and carried out by YouGov, reveals that one in four Hong Kong consumers own a set-top box that can be used to stream pirated TV and movies content. “TV boxes BossTV (9%), Ubox (7%), EVPad (6%), Lingcod (5%), and Magic Box (4%), which come pre-loaded with applications allowing ‘plug-and-play’ access to pirated content, are among the most popular ISDs amongst Hong Kong consumers,” the study reveals. It’s claimed that these devices, which often contain piracy-enabled Kodi setups, dedicated Android apps, and players configured to receive pirate IPTV services, are taking chunks out legitimate content distributors’ userbases. The survey offers some evidence to that end and the numbers are significant. Of the quarter of all consumers who own a piracy-enabled set-top box, almost half (49%) told the survey that they had canceled all or some of their subscriptions to legal pay-TV services as a result. Slightly more than one in four (26%) claimed to have canceled their subscription to a local premium provider as a direct consequence of owning a pirate box, with 21% saying the same for their international subscriptions. Almost a fifth (19%) claimed to have canceled a part of their traditional cable TV bundle after acquiring a device, In common with other players in the anti-piracy space, the Coalition Against Piracy has a two-pronged strategy when it comes to presenting this information to the public. In addition to highlighting the damage these devices can do to the suppliers of entertainment, CAP warns customers of the negative issues they face as users. “The damage that content theft does to the creative industries is without dispute. However, the damage done to consumers themselves, because of the nexus between content piracy and malware, is only beginning to be recognized,” CAP Managing Director Neil Gane says. “The piracy ecosystem is a hotbed for malware, whether purchasing ISDs from Sham Shui Po’s Golden Arcade [a popular electronics ‘hotspot’ in Hong Kong] or downloading content from infamous torrent sites. “Unfortunately the appetite for free or paying cheap subscription rates for stolen content, blinkers some consumers from the real risks of malicious malware infection such as spyware,” Gane adds. While it is certainly possible to download content that contains malware from torrent sites, people who use set-top boxes to stream content rarely do so from torrent sites. Streaming platforms and file-locker sites are the number one source for video and malware almost never transfers to devices in this manner. The effort to associate malware with set-top boxes running Kodi is nothing new but the claims are not without challenge. A report published by TorrentFreak earlier this month revealed that several major anti-virus vendors are entirely unaware of any such threat. That’s not to say there aren’t issues with malicious software, of course. People buying ready-configured Android boxes, for example, could have almost anything inserted into their devices pre-sale, so it really is a matter of ‘buyer beware.’ Overall, however, there can be little doubt that these devices are having an impact on legitimate distribution models particularly considering their popularity with younger people. The study found that the boxes are particularly popular with high-income 25-34-year-olds, which is a desirable and valuable market for distributors. “The illicit streaming device (ISD) ecosystem is impacting all businesses involved in the production and distribution of legitimate content,” says Louis Boswell, CEO of Casbaa. “ISD piracy is also organized crime, pure and simple, with crime syndicates making substantial illicit revenues from the provision of illegally re-transmitted TV channels and the sale of such ISDs.” In addition to public information campaigns, CASBAA welcomes enforcement action against those involved in the growing industry. In May, Hong Kong customs arrested seven men and one woman while seizing more than 350 pirate devices. Last October, ACE and CAP teamed up to shut down an illicit IPTV provider in Australia. While these operations are touted as successes, it will take a remarkable effort to stem the tide of this piracy juggernaut which has now spread to every major country on the planet.

The Pirate Bay has been hard to reach for the past week. No further details have been announced but the Tor version of the site remains operational. However, with many instances of downtime this year already, this hardly passes as "news" anymore. About a week ago we reported that The Pirate Bay’s upload functionality was broken. While this problem was eventually solved after a few days, the regular domain became unusable soon after. Today, more than five days later, the problem persists. For most people, the site currently displays a CloudFlare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider mentioning that a “bad gateway” is causing the issue. No further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. However, judging from past experience, it’s likely some technical issue that needs fixing. TPB 502 Cloudflare error The Pirate Bay has had quite a few stints of downtime in recent months, and by now it’s becoming a regular occurrence. While more than five days is a new record, aside from the 2014 ‘raid,’ there’s no news to report. The moderators in the official forums don’t appear to have any information on the ongoing issues either. They do point out, however, that the site is not down completely. TPB is still available via its .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example. The site’s Tor traffic goes through a separate server and works just fine. The Pirate Bay team has a status page in the forums where people can check to see if an outage is affecting everyone or not. This also shows that the Tor version of the site is working fine. At least, at the time of writing.

Google recently received a takedown notice, sent on behalf of FIFA, asking the search engine to remove several allegedly infringing sites. FIFA hoped to limit the availability of pirated World Cup streams but Google decided not to take any action. In part, perhaps, because not all reported sites were offering pirated content. With hundreds of millions of viewers from all over the world, the FIFA World Cup in Russia is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year. During these weeks, fans are most concerned with the performance of their favorite teams. For FIFA and all other stakeholders, however, the World Cup is also a battle against piracy. While most people watch the matches through licensed broadcasters, there is a large group of people who resort to unauthorized sources. These so-called “pirate” streams are available via hundreds of sites or apps, generating millions of views during popular sporting events. Other fans are using VPNs and proxies to bypass geo-blockades to tune into legal broadcasts. By changing their virtual location to one where the World Cup is freely accessible, they can watch without paying. These types of ‘piracy’ are a thorn in the side of rightsholders, who are doing their best to take appropriate countermeasures. Sony Entertainment Network, for example, sent out preemptive takedown notices to streaming sites a few weeks ago. More recently we spotted a takedown notice which NetResult sent to Google, on behalf of FIFA, targeting various allegedly infringing sites. The list includes several known offenders, such as zorrostream.net and thefirstrow.eu, and asks Google to remove these sites from search results. In addition, it also targets several URLs which ‘advise’ users how they can access World Cup streams through a VPN, which some use to bypass geo-blockades. For example, the takedown notice lists URLs from ExpressVPN and BestVPN, which explain how users can access FIFA World Cup matches from various locations. “The listed URLs are all either linking directly to embedded live streams of unauthorized live football content (2018 FIFA World Cup), or advising users how to access unauthorized live streams not available in their territory,” the notice reads. From the takedown notice Interestingly, Google decided not to remove any of the reported URLs. The search engine has given no explanation, but it’s possible that the notice in question is seen as too general. In many cases, it points to the homepages of sites, without identifying a specific copyright infringement. Whether it’s illegal to advise users how they can use a VPN to access World Cup streams is also up for debate. Finally, it appears that not all of the URLs identified in FIFA’s takedown notice are actually infringing. The list also includes a page from the Canadian sports service Sportsnet.ca, which is owned by Rogers Media. FIFA’s notice also targets the American sports streaming service FuboTV, which is partly funded by investors such as AMC Networks, 21st Century Fox, and Sky. Considering the latter, it might be wise that Google didn’t blindly honor the request. TorrentFreak reached out to NetResult’s parent company MarkMonitor for more information on FIFA’s takedown efforts, but the company informed us that it couldn’t comment on individual brands or companies. FIFA and other rightsholders, meanwhile, continue to fight World Cup piracy globally and on several fronts. In addition to VPN tips and traditional streaming sites, they’re also up against alleged pirate TV services such as BeoutQ, and Fly TV from Ghana.