In August 2019, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced that eight men had been indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.”

All of the defendants – Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Darryl Julius Polo, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant, and Luis Angel Villarino – were charged with running Jetflix, a subscription-based streaming service that reportedly carried more than 183,200 TV episodes.

Darryl Julius Polo, a former Jetflicks programmer, was additionally accused of launching and running iStreamitAll, a service carrying 18,479 TV episodes and 10,980 movies.

On December 12, 2019, Polo pleaded guilty to various copyright infringement and money laundering charges. The next day, former Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

The remaining six defendants were set to go on trial during December 2019 but following acknowledgment by the court that the case is unusually complex, it was pushed back to February 2020. Due to fresh developments in the investigation, however, the trial will now be pushed back to the summer.

According to court documents filed by the US Government in December 2019, it was already in possession of a significant amount of discovery data (around 88 gigabytes) but following a March 2018 request under the US-Canada Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), law enforcement agencies in Canada had seized a great deal more.

It took around 21 months but on December 16, 2019, the data was finally handed over to the Department of Justice. The volume of evidence is reportedly “enormous” and includes reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, subscriber information documents, a list of tickets and messages pertaining to subscribers, plus five forensic images of computers located at OVH, a hosting provider in Canada.

Those five images are said to contain “well over” 2.3 million files which together total around 2.72 terabytes of data. The FBI reportedly took the evidence to the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section’s Cybercrime Lab in December 2019 which found information relating to Jetflicks, iStreamitAll and related services including SmackDownOnYou, Sincity Sports Cards, BlockBustersTV, Cardvision TV, and other entities and persons connected with the case.

An estimated 186,000 emails were also discovered, some with Excel and Word attachments. According to the US Government, the overall trove is so extensive it’s 30 times larger than the discovery provided to the defendants to date. So, given the scale of the task ahead, the US Government advised a Virginia court that all parties would be best served by a further trial delay.

“In our view, given that neither the government nor the defense has reviewed the data we just received from Canada, all parties would benefit from a continuance,” the filing reads.

“The government needs to understand the nature of this new evidence for purposes of our case, and we believe that defense counsel has an obligation to their clients to review this new evidence too.”

In closing, the Government requested that the trial be shifted to June 22, 2020. This delay was initially opposed by defendants Peter Huber and Yoany Vaillant but an agreement was later reached. As a result, in an order signed this week by District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III, the trial was rescheduled for July 14, 2020.

The information provided by Canadian authorities may yet boost the US Government’s case against the Jetflicks defendants but its lawyers didn’t waste the opportunity to take a shot at Canada’s alleged poor conduct when it comes to dealing with pirate sites.

“The Court may wonder why Jetflicks and iStreamItAll — which were both based in the United States — used a hosting provider in Canada for their operations,” a footnote reads.

“According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which represents over 3,200 U.S. companies producing and distributing materials protected by copyright laws throughout the world, among those engaged in piracy, Canada has had a ‘long-standing reputation as a safe haven for some of the most massive and flagrant Internet sites dedicated to the online theft of copyright material’.”

While the same footnote also states that Canada “has made some progress” in recent years, it’s obvious that hosting Jetflicks in Canada didn’t save its operators from prosecution or from having their data seized and handed to US authorities.

The related court filings can be found here and here (pdf)

Source: torrentfreak.com

Kim Dotcom’s under-development file-sharing project K.im received a setback recently when its K.im domain fell into third-party hands.

As reported here on TF last Sunday, communication issues with the registry led to the domain expiring and it was quickly snapped up by Bulgarian expired domain specialist Kalin Karakehayov.

“[T]he domain k.im was registered by me, Kalin Karakehayov for personal use while it was in an available status. I intend to put nice, non-commercial stuff there like my Google awareness campaign,” Karakehayov informed TF.

Kim Dotcom, on the other hand, was less pleased with the acquisition. Describing Karakehayov as a “domain squatter”, he told us that a dispute was underway to reclaim the domain since “fraudulent behavior” had been displayed by its new owner. Having a trademark for the term ‘K.im’ would work in the project’s favor, he predicted.

Now, just a few days later, the K.im project has cause to celebrate. Documents shared with TorrentFreak by Kim Dotcom reveal that following a dispute process filed with the Isle of Man registry in charge of the domain, it has been ordered to be returned to the company behind the K.im project.

To get to this stage hasn’t been straightforward, however. The decision reviewed by TF reveals that the ‘Listed Correspondent’ for the K.im domain wasn’t initially Kalin Karakehayov himself but a third-party identified only as Max Guerin.

This individual reportedly entered into ‘negotiations’ with BitCache, the company behind the K.im project, to return the domain and during a December 9, 2019 conference call, set a price of $100,000 to sell it back. During a Telegram conversation a day later, the price was reportedly switched to $50,000 upfront followed by payments of $5,000 per month or the same value in BitCache stock.

Whether the K.im project had any real intention of buying the domain back is unclear but ultimately its operating companies decided to file a complaint to have the domain returned.

As part of the process, the .im registry contacted “Listed Correspondent” Max Guerin but received no response. However, on January 6, 2020, Kalin Karakehayov (since designated as the ‘Actual Correspondent’) provided evidence that he is the owner of the domain.

“The Actual Respondent states that the Listed Correspondent is not the proper party to the dispute and that he has had no personal contact with the Listed Correspondent in any shape or form,” the decision notes.

Karakehayov told the registry that the domain was registered for his personal, non-commercial use “with the idea to benefit humanity” and was not intended to breach K.im’s trademarks. In the end, however, the registry determined that the domain should be returned to BitCache’s holding company on the basis that the registration after expiry had been abusive.

“I conclude that the Domain Name k.im should be transferred to the Complainant immediately upon the expiry of the appeal period,” the registry’s designated official writes.

That appeal period is 10 days from January 15, 2020, and according to Karakehayov, he intends to put it to use by contesting the decision.

“[The decision] does not seem fair to me and I intend to appeal it,” Karakehayov informs TorrentFreak.

Source: torrentfreak.com

Last year, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the game download portal RomUniverse.

The website, which also allows users to download movies and books, was accused of massive copyright infringement, including that relating to many Nintendo titles.

“The Website contains and offers to the public an immense library of unauthorized copies of video games, primarily Nintendo video games designed for nearly every video game system Nintendo has ever produced,” the complaint read.

The game company argued that the site’s users downloaded hundreds of thousands of copyrighted works. RomUniverse profited from these infringements by offering premium accounts that allow users to download as many games as they want, Nintendo further alleged.

Despite these harsh allegations the site’s operator, California resident Matthew Storman, wasn’t giving up. He decided to defend himself in court and responded to Nintendo’s claims last October through a detailed motion to dismiss.

Storman didn’t deny that he is involved in the operation of RomUniverse. However, he sees himself as a Service Provider, who is not part of the ‘forum’ itself. On the contrary, the admin argued that he’s protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

Nintendo disregarded this defense as improper, untimely, and wholly inadequate. In a detailed response, the game company requested the court to deny Storman’s motion to dismiss the case.

After considering the arguments from both sides, US District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall has sided with Nintendo. In a ruling released yesterday, she denies the various arguments presented by Storman.

RomUniverse’s operator wanted the case dismissed based on failure to state a claim, lack of jurisdiction, improper venue, insufficient service of process, and failure to join a party. None of these arguments convinced the court.

Storman, for example, argued that Nintendo is not the owner of previously purchased games because consumers have the right to sell, destroy, or give them away. The Judge didn’t address this in detail but concluded that Nintendo’s copyright registrations are sufficient at this stage.

Many of the defenses were linked to Storman’s notion that he is shielded by the DMCA’s safe harbor protections. Nintendo previously said that a motion to dismiss isn’t the proper stage to invoke this defense and the court agrees.

‘The Court cannot determine whether the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions apply to Defendant at this stage because there is no evidence before the Court regarding whether Defendant is a service provider who satisfies the statutory requirements for protection pursuant to the DMCA’s safe harbors,” Judge Marshall writes.

Even if Storman has the right to safe harbor under the DMCA, that wouldn’t make the trademark infringement and unfair competition claims go away.

“Even assuming the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions apply to Defendant, those safe harbors would not protect Defendant from liability as to Plaintiff’s trademark infringement and unfair competition claims,” Judge Marshall adds.

All in all, the court denied RomUniverse’s motion to dismiss. Judge Marshall further requests the site’s operator to file a formal response to the complaint, which is due in two weeks. Whether Storman will continue this fight on his own or will retain an attorney is unknown.

—

A copy of US District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall’s order is available here (pdf).

Source: torrentfreak.com

Earlier this week we reported that the number of leaked screeners was on the rise again after an all-time low last year.

Over the past 24-hours, this number went up significantly with six new leaks bringing the total to 16.

A pirated screener dump of this magnitude in such a short timeframe is something we haven’t seen before.

What’s also new is that the release group ‘TOPKEK’ is one of the driving forces. Although TOPKEK is not new to releasing pirated movies, they haven’t gotten involved in leaking screeners in the past.

The most prominent release is ‘1917,’ which won the Golden Globe for best film and received ten Academy Award nominations earlier this week. A screener copy of the movie was released by both TOPKEK and Hive-CM8.

It’s likely that both groups obtained their screener copy from a separate source. The file sizes of the releases vary and, according to reports from users, the quality is not the same either.

In their release notes, Hive-CM8 mentions that the movie has already generated enough revenue for it to be released in the open. “Gross is doing ok, so it’s ready to go,” the group writes.

Both TOPKEK and Hive-CM8 also released a copy of the biographical drama ‘Richard Jewell,’ another contender for the Oscars.

The other four screeners that leaked all came from TOPKEK. These include ‘A hidden Life,’ ‘Color Out of Space,’ Dark Waters,’ and ‘Queen and Slim.’ The latter comes with the unusual ‘QuerySCR’ tag which suggests that the source of the screener copy may not be known.

The Dark Waters release also stands out. It’s tagged as a 1080p release and is 33.7 gigabytes in size, considerably larger than the rest.

Seeing this many leaks in the span of a few hours is quite unique. As far as we know, it has never happened before. This certainly makes it newsworthy and may also draw the attention of Hollywood and law enforcement.

Source: torrentfreak.com