Yogurt

Yahoo

In January, Riot Games and Bungie sued the operator of GatorCheats in a US court, claiming that the cheat maker provided copyright-infringing tools designed to disrupt the gaming environments of Valorant and Destiny 2. According to a new filing in the case, the parties have agreed to settle, with GatorCheats required to pay $2 million and abide by the terms of an injunction. Cheating in video games has become big business. Just yesterday, the BBC reported that police in China had busted the “world’s largest” operation of its type, supplying cheats for games including Overwatch and Call of Duty. The operation was called “Chicken Drumstick” and reportedly generated around $76m in subscription revenues. However, there are plenty of similar businesses still in action, with others targeted by videogame makers in various legal actions, sometimes centering on violations of copyright law. In January we reported that a pair of companies behind two of the most popular online multiplayer games had sued a cheat maker in the United States for copyright infringement offenses, among other things. Riot Games and Bungie claimed that through the supply of tools designed to enable cheating in Valorant and Destiny 2, GatorCheats trafficked in malicious software contrary to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Lawsuit Alleged Supply of “Malicious Software” Filed in a California district court, the lawsuit targeted Albuquerque, New Mexico resident Cameron Santos, the alleged operator of GatorCheats. It also targeted 10 ‘Doe’ defendants, some of whom (“Hal,” “Matt” and “Megan”) were alleged to have provided customer support to cheat users. Riot and Bungie alleged that while GatorCheats was the largest of Santos’s cheating ventures, others including “Honeyhacks” and “Voidcheaters” were also infringing the gaming companies’ rights. GatorCheats had been served with a cease-and-desist notice by Bungie in November 2020 but the gaming outfit was not convinced that the operation would be shut down. Trafficking in Circumvention Devices, Other Issues According to the complaint, the tools and services offered by Santos were compromised of technologies, products, services, devices and components that were designed to circumvent “technological measures that effectively control access” to the companies’ games. As a result, the defendants were accused of offering to the public, providing, importing, or otherwise trafficking in technology that violates 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2), i.e the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. In addition to the claimed breaches of copyright, Riot and Bungie further alleged that GatorCheats intentionally encouraged its customers to breach the licensing conditions they had agreed with the gaming companies, which disallow modification and cheating. The defendants were also accused of engaging in unfair competition under California law. Case Progresses With Response On March 24, 2021, Santos filed his response to the Riot/Bungie complaint and for the most part, it didn’t provide a particularly useful indication of how the case would progress. In its final paragraphs, the response suggests that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim for which relief may be granted, that any contracts referenced in the complaint are unenforceable, and that Santos is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of the court. Requesting a trial by jury, Santos also stated that the plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the First Amendment and the doctrine of Fair Use. Less than a week later, however, a different picture is emerging, with the parties informing the court that they have agreed to a permanent injunction and the payment of a considerable amount to settle the case. Settlement Including Permanent Injunction The injunction is comprehensive and prevents Santos from taking any steps (including assisting others) to create, distribute, advertise, market or otherwise make available any cheating software listed in the complaint (and any unnamed software), when that breaches the intellectual property rights of Riot and/or Bungie. Santos is not allowed to obtain, possess or access cheating software when it infringes the plaintiffs’ rights, including by circumventing technological measures as prohibited under the DMCA. He is also barred from selling, reselling, or processing payments for cheats, and/or sharing, transferring or distributing cheats to third-parties, when they infringe the plaintiffs’ rights. The defendant is further prohibited from operating or linking to any site providing information to assist others to access or develop cheats, investing in a cheating business, and/or reverse engineering or otherwise manipulating any game owned by the plaintiffs. All social media accounts used to promote cheats must be shut down and all related software destroyed. That leaves the direct financial cost to Santos. “Judgment shall be entered against Defendant in the amount of two million dollars ($2,000,000), due and payable solely pursuant to the terms set forth in the Parties’ Confidential Settlement Agreement and Release,” the joint stipulation reads. The agreement to settle the case is yet to be signed off by the court but given the consent of the parties, that is likely to be a formality in the days to come.

Venice

California's Franchise Tax Board has suspended the corporate status of adult entertainment company Malibu Media. The Los Angeles company, which is known for suing alleged BitTorrent pirates, failed to meet its tax obligations. In light of this development, an accused file-sharer now wants the company's CEO Colette Pelissier to be added to a pending countersuit. Just two years ago, Malibu Media was one of the most active ‘copyright trolls’ in the United States. The Los Angeles-based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies filed thousands of lawsuits targeting Internet subscribers whose accounts were allegedly used to share Malibu’s films via BitTorrent. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the lawsuits stopped. For more than a year there haven’t been any new John Doe complaints. In fact, the only notable case dates back to January 2020, when Malibu’s former law firm sued the company over breach of contract and unpaid bills. This doesn’t mean that all outstanding “John Doe” cases have been resolved. At the time of writing, there are a few still pending. This includes one where Malibu Media has to defend itself against a counterclaim of abuse of process, among other things. Malibu Media Suspended over Tax Troubles In a recent filing, this case brought an interesting finding to the forefront. As it turns out, the California Secretary of State has suspended Malibu Media LLC’s corporate status because the company failed to meet its tax obligations. The “John Doe” sees the suspension as a problem because, under California law, a suspended company may not prosecute or defend a legal action. That could spell trouble for the ongoing case. Adding Malibu’s CEO to the Countersuit To fix this issue, John Doe now asks the court if he can add Malibu Media CEO Colette Pelissier as a counter-defendant. This allows the case to be resolved, even if Malibu can’t defend itself. That is important, as Doe hopes to make the company or its CEO pay for his attorney’s fees and damages. “Not only does Doe have a right to add a defense and counterclaim allegations based on his recent discovery about Malibu, but he also should have a chance to protect his request for attorney’s fees and damages if Malibu goes defunct. “Joining Pelissier affords this. She has always pulled the company’s strings including in this dispute, making her a proper counterclaim defendant even at this stage,” the Doe adds. Assets Being Transferred? The accused file-sharer isn’t convinced that Malibu Media is able to resolve the suspension. In fact, he questions whether the company is preparing to transfer its intellectual property and other assets to then go bankrupt. This week, Malibu Media responded in court. The company notes that its suspension is not much of an issue, accusing John Doe of wasting the court’s time. “In essence, Defendant is using a small, technical irregularity to attempt another bite at the abuse of process apple, to multiply the proceedings unnecessarily,” the company writes. ‘Inadvertently Missed Payment’ Malibu admits that it “inadvertently” missed a California Franchise Tax Board payment. However, the company stresses that this can be resolved, after which the case should be able to continue as usual. “A suspended corporation can revive itself […] by simply paying its back taxes and filing the appropriate paperwork. Further, once a corporation has been revived, its tax delinquencies, upon correction, are viewed as mere irregularities,” the company writes. Interestingly, Malibu Media doesn’t mention whether it’s actively resolving these tax issues. At the moment, it also remains unclear when the company’s corporate status was suspended. According to OpenCorporates this happened somewhere between July last year and January 2021. In any case, Malibu Media’s CEO is no stranger to this type of suspension. One of her other companies, Colette Productions, has been suspended in California over tax troubles since 2019. In addition, Colette Holdings and Colette Properties were suspended by the California Secretary of State. Meanwhile, a new corporation named Malibu Media Holdings LLC has become active in Nevada, listing Pelissier as the director.

Wavy

Denver

Oasis

The Academy Awards ceremony is just a few weeks away but several of the top movie contenders are not available in many countries around the world. These release delays indirectly drive people to pirate sites. UK piracy tracking firm MUSO warns Hollywood that this may trigger a costly piracy boom that could have been avoided. The Oscars is the most watched award show of the year, closely followed by hundreds of millions of movie fans around the world. The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony was originally scheduled to take place on February 28, but due to the Covid pandemic, it was postponed to late April. After the nominations were announced earlier this month to movie press has been buzzing. There’s a clear absence of blockbuster titles in the best picture category, so various options are considered. The bookies currently have “Nomadland” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” as the top favorites. Legal Availability of Oscar Contenders Unfortunately, however, not all movie fans are able to join this discussion. While all contenders have premiered in the United States, not all countries are that lucky. For example, Nomadland has yet to premiere in the UK, Canada, France, and many other countries. This is a problem for fans who are eager to watch the film. They have no other option than to wait or resort to unauthorized sources. This is what the UK piracy tracking firm MUSO noted as well this week. “When a title is not available in a country or region, the audience will find it via piracy because piracy is often driven by access; this is evident in social-media commentary,” MUSO writes, sharing various examples. MUSO looked at the popularity of all best picture nominees on pirate sites until mid-February. It found that, until then, “Promising Young Woman” was pirated the most while “Judas and the Black Messiah” had the highest peak on a single day. Needless to say, these numbers are in part boosted by lacking legal availability. Piracy Peak Has Yet to Come While piracy is already widespread, history tells us that the real piracy boom has yet to come. Looking at last year’s best picture winner “Parasite,” we see that the demand on pirate sites skyrocketed right after it won an Oscar on February 10th. This isn’t a new phenomenon as we have previously shown how Oscar winners see rising interest from pirates. That said, this massive peak could have been much lower if people from all over the world were able to watch the film legally. With this in mind, the piracy interest for this year’s winner is expected to be significant as well, MUSO predicts. “If Parasite, which was widely released prior to the Oscar ceremony on February 10th, experienced significant piracy after its nomination, MUSO data suggests that 2021’s nominees will experience similar piracy demand. This demand will be magnified by the lack of availability in some countries.” Window of Missed Revenue Opportunity Overall, the lacking availability may lead to dozens of millions of extra downloads and streams on pirate sites. While these don’t translate to direct losses, it’s easy to see how release delays can cost many millions of dollars. “This is a lot of lost revenue due to a windowing decision,” MUSO notes. Based on its own data, MUSO predicts that the best picture Oscar will go to either “Judas and the Black Messiah” or “Promising Young Women.” However, that’s purely based on the demand from pirates, which is far from an ideal predictor. The overall takeaway message from the data is that Hollywood may seriously want to consider whether release delays do more harm than good.

The piracy liability lawsuit between ISP Charter and several major record labels continues. In a new filing this week, Charter requests permission to conduct new testimonies. The ISP plans to show that record labels falsely take credit for individual artist’s works by incorrectly registering the works as "made for hire" at the Copyright Office. Charter Communications, one of the largest Internet providers in the US, stands accused of deliberately turning a blind eye to its pirating subscribers. Several music companies including Capitol Records, Warner Bros. and Sony Music filed a lawsuit against the ISP, arguing that it failed to terminate or otherwise take meaningful action against the accounts of repeat infringers. Over the past years, both parties have fought this case tooth and nail. Charter went on the offensive and filed a counterclaim accusing the labels of sending inaccurate, false, deceptive, or even fraudulent DMCA takedown notices. This effort failed, but the disputes are far from settled. Work For Hire In addition to criticizing the notices, the ISP also questions whether the record companies actually have ‘work for hire’ agreements with all artists, as is claimed in the Copyright Office registrations. The ISP would like to get to the bottom of this issue, However, a recent order from the Court’s Special Master doesn’t allow the company to question record company witnesses on the matter. In an objection filed this week, Charter asks the Colorado Federal Court to change that. “Charter has identified several dozen artists whose works the [record companies] have registered with the U.S. Copyright Office as WFH [work for hire] but for which the agreements produced contain no such provision. For other artists, Charter has been unable to identify any artist agreements,” Charter explains. False Copyright Registrations? The ISP wants to depose the record label witnesses to obtain evidence proving that the music companies knowingly provided false information to the U.S. Copyright Office. If that’s the case, these copyright registrations are not valid. “If the [record companies] lack such agreements but nevertheless knowingly filed applications with the U.S. Copyright Office that these works were ‘made for hire,’ Charter can seek to invalidate the registration,” the ISP notes. This is a crucial matter as the labels request sizable damages for many of these ‘works’. And with millions of dollars in potential damages at stake, Charter wants to make sure that these registrations are correct. Skeletons in the Closet? There is another issue that may be just as important. When a sound recording is registered as work “made for hire” the music company essentially becomes the owner, which can lead to all sorts of conflicts with the artists who created the works. Last year, Hollywood Reporter already hinted that this case could help “resolving the big issue over whether record labels have skeletons in the closet.” Charter quotes this statement in its filing. Best Interest of Artists The ISP expects that, in this case, the music companies will state that they act in the best interest of artists. However, the additional testimonies could shed a different light on this claim. “Here, Plaintiffs will argue, as they did in Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. v. Cox Communications […] that they act in the best interests of their artists,” Charter writes. “Charter should thus be entitled to present limited testimony related to rebutting that argument, including showing that Plaintiffs falsely take credit for individual artist’s works by incorrectly registering the works as made for hire.” The ISP filed its objections (pdf) to the Special Master’s order earlier this week. At the time of writing, the court has yet to rule on the matter.

The number of leaked pirate screeners has dropped to an all-time low. Thus far, only three screeners of Oscar contenders have been released, which slashes the previous low in half. While it may be tempting to conclude that Hollywood finally has the screener problem under control, shortening release windows and online streaming premieres appear to be the main driver. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world over the past year and Hollywood is no exception. Movies theaters had to close around the world, so studios started experimenting with shorter release windows or got rid of them entirely. This change was noticeable on pirate sites as well where high content started to appear quicker and camcorded films became a rarity. The latter is true for copies of pirated awards screeners, which dropped to an all-time low as well. Promising Young Woman, Nomadland & Minari Late December we covered what appeared to be the start of the yearly pirate screeners season, with leaks from Promising Young Woman, Nomadland & Minari. However, in hindsight, that was pretty much the end as well. Relying on data released by Oscar piracy watcher Andy Baio, we see that for all Oscar-nominated films only three screeners leaked. Indeed, those are the three that were pirated late last year. All-Time Low Three leaked screeners is an all-time low. The previous low was two years ago when only seven screeners leaked, or 23% of all nominated movies. This year that dropped to just 9%. For comparison, in the early 2000s pirated screeners came out for nearly 90% of all nominated films. It may be tempting to conclude that Hollywood finally has the screener problem under control. While it’s true that security precautions have increased over the years, there may be a simpler explanation. In the chart below, the red line shows the number of Oscar contenders for which a high-quality leak was released before the Oscars ceremony. The blue line represents the percentage of screeners that leaked. This chart shows that while the number of screener leaks dropped, there was no shortage of pirated alternatives. At the time of writing, “The Father” is the only Oscar contender that hasn’t leaked on pirate sites yet. Screeners Lose Relevance Generally speaking, screeners are only of interest to pirates when there is no high-quality leak available yet. After all, there is no point in taking all that risk when there are already superior releases out there. In fact, that’s usually frowned upon. With the above in mind, it’s easy to see how changes in the movie industry have made screeners less relevant. In recent years we have seen titles from Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services contend for Oscar awards. You won’t see any screener leaks for these films, as they are available in high quality on pirate sites soon after they are released. Coronavirus This year another factor played a major role as well. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many films had limited theatrical runs and digital releases were brought forward. As a result, high-quality piracy leaks were available sooner than usual. This means that while there are fewer screeners leaks than ever, there’s certainly not less availability on pirate sites. There’s just no point in pirating screeners when there are already ‘better’ leaks out there. Time will tell whether this trend will reverse in the years to come. Warner Bros. already decided to end their experiment with simultaneous HBO Max and cinema releases next year, so that may change things. However, with the growing dominance of streaming services, the screener heydays are unlikely to return.

Easyjet

Bristol

The British copyright collective "PRS for Music" has shared some intriguing statistics on its anti-piracy efforts over the past few years. Through its in-house anti-piracy system, the group reported millions of pirated URLs, most of which were removed. Sites that failed to comply were referred to the police. According to PRS, its efforts helped to shut down 1,346 infringing sites, although it's unclear which ones. The organization also takes an active stance against piracy. Five years ago it rolled out the Member Anti-Piracy System (MAPS) which tracks down infringing content on the web and sends takedown notices to associated sites. Reporting Millions of URLs This week PRS is looking back at the performance of its system thus far. According to the organization, MAPS has reported 6.7 million URLs to sites that host or link to pirated content. In addition, search engines Google and Bing were asked to delist an additional 424,000 links. These are big numbers but in the grander scheme of things they are relatively modest. Google alone processes over a million takedown requests per day and the volume of PRS requests represent only a tiny fraction of the total. That said, the music group did share some additional details that caught our eye. Of the 6.7 million takedown requests that were sent to hosting or linking sites, 76% were indeed removed. That’s a decent result, given that many pirate sites ignore takedown notices. Reporting Sites to the Police PRS further notes that the sites that ignored its notices did not necessarily get away with that. The group writes that “non-compliant sites” are referred to the City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit. These referrals reportedly had quite an effect as well. “We are pleased that MAPS has allowed us to protect the value of our members’ music. It has also led to the demise of hundreds of illegitimate services,” PRS for Music’s Simon Bourn says. 1,346 Pirate Sites Shuttered In their press release, the music group is even more specific, noting that its efforts were “instrumental in forcing 1,346 infringing sites to cease operating completely.” Unfortunately, PRS doesn’t share any further details on the types of sites it helped to take offline. We are not aware of any sites that have shut down as a result of PRS-related pressure. PRS told us that they would try to get additional details on this issue but, at the time of publication, they not available yet. Sharan Ghuman, Rights Protection Manager at PRS for Music, is happy with what MAPS has achieved over the years. It has helped members to tackle millions of copyright infringements and also provided important data for law enforcement. “The tool was built to empower our members to carry out enforcement action on their chosen repertoire and their dedicated commitment and usage of the system has been key in MAPS’ success,” Ghuman says. “MAPS is not only a notice and takedown tool, it has proven to be a great information source, providing valuable data in other areas of rights protection work, specifically in relation to our work with the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit,” he adds.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the victory of a retired police officer against Strike 3 Holdings. The man, who was incorrectly accused of downloading porn videos, is one of the few defendants who fought back. The Court also affirmed the attorneys' fees and costs award of $47,777, dismissing Strike 3's objections. Strike 3 Holdings, one of the most active copyright trolls in the United States, has filed cases against thousands of alleged BitTorrent pirates in recent years. The company has earned millions of dollars in settlements and default judgments and continues to file new lawsuits pretty much every week. It’s a lucrative business, but the strategy doesn’t always pay off. While it’s relatively rare, some accused Internet subscribers choose to fight back. This is also what a ‘John Doe’ known by the IP-address 73.225.38.130 did when he was sued in a federal court in Seattle, Washington. Retired Police Officer Fights Back This John Doe turned out to be a retired police officer in his 70s. Instead of settling, he lawyered up and submitted a counterclaim accusing Strike 3 of abuse of process and “extortion through sham litigation.” Following this pushback, Strike 3 decided to dismiss its copyright infringement claim but the defendant wasn’t willing to let the case go. The retired police officer pushed on and requested summary judgment to set in stone that he’s not a copyright infringer. And just as importantly, the man wanted to be compensated for his legal bills too. The compensation is crucial as the lawyers already spent tens of thousands of dollars working on the case. This is more than settling the case with Strike 3 would have cost the retired officer. Strike 3 Must Pay Retired Cop’s Legal Fees After both parties had their say in court, U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly ruled on the matter, deciding in favor of the falsely accused ‘pirate.’ According to the evidence presented before the court, Strike 3 couldn’t prove that the man copied any of the company’s movies. On top of that, Judge Zilly ordered Strike 3 to pay the requested $40,501.63 in attorney’s fees and $7,275.63 in additional costs, totaling $47,777.26. A clear win. Appeals Court Strike 3 clearly disagreed, however, and filed an appeal. At a hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month, attorney Lincoln Bandlow argued that the defendant lacked standing to pursue his counterclaims because Strike 3 had already dismissed its copyright infringement claim without prejudice. In addition, Bandlow argued that the attorneys’ fees award wasn’t properly justified by Judge Zilly, as he only considered the compensation and deterrence “Fogerty” factors, nothing else. ‘Biased Judge’ During the hearing, Strike 3’s attorney said that District Court Judge Zilly was biased. For example, Zilly repeatedly mentioned an earlier ruling from Judge Lamberth that was very critical. “He clearly had a bias against us,” Bandlow told the Court of Appeals. “He didn’t mention the Lamberth ruling from the District Court of DC for no reason. He mentioned it over and over and over. He called us a troll about a thousand times.” The retired police officer’s attorney clearly disagreed and argued that the District Court ruled correctly. Court of Appeals Affirms $47,777 Win After weighing the arguments from both sides, the Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. The police officer had the right to pursue a counterclaim, in part because Strike 3 Holdings dismissed its claim “with prejudice.” This essentially means that it can refile the case later on. This ‘threat’ of a future lawsuit was realistic, as Strike 3 was convinced that the son of the retired police officer downloaded the videos. This would expose the father to a contributory infringement claim. “Doe’s fear of future prosecution, based on the very real prosecution to that point and the thinly veiled threats of future contributory-infringement claims, was concrete and imminent,” the Ninth Circuit Court concluded. The Court of Appeals also affirmed the attorneys’ fees and costs award. While it agrees that the lower court didn’t consider all possible factors that can come into play, it didn’t have to, so no concrete errors were made. “We admit that the district court’s analysis of the Fogerty factors could have been more robust as it merely considered the factors it deemed relevant and applied them to this case. But the factors are, by definition, non-exclusive […] and the district court was not required to discuss each one in depth.” This means that the legal victory of the retired police officer stands. The same is true for the $47,777 that Strike 3 now has to pay. Ironically, during this appeal, more legal costs were incurred. To recoup these extra costs the retired cop’s legal team could file a separate motion to have these paid by Strike 3 as well.

Felicitous

District 9

Chaotic

Xuzhou

Texas

World War Z

Ubiquitous

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is working on a public awareness campaign to combat online piracy and counterfeiting. This plan is welcomed by copyright holders, who offer several suggestions for its implementation. According to the Copyright Alliance, online services should play a key role in educating and warning users about the costs and risks of piracy. Early last year, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report with several suggestions on how to combat online piracy and counterfeiting. These recommendations were made in response to a memorandum from former President Trump, which called for concrete action on this front. One of the key suggestions was to establish a National Consumer Awareness Campaign. This should aim to make the general public aware of the risks of copyright infringement, with the goal to reduce it in the long run. National Consumer Awareness Campaign The plan was picked up by US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which is now working on making it a reality. Ideally, this would happen with help from various stakeholders including copyright holders and online services, which were asked to provide input. At the moment, no concrete plans are published, but the USPTO hinted at several awareness campaign options. This includes curricula at schools and public service announcements specifically targeted at social media users. This week, several stakeholders submitted their comments and suggestions for the public awareness campaign. One of the most detailed submissions comes from the Copyright Alliance, which wholeheartedly supports the plan. Copyright Alliance Offers Suggestions The Copyright Alliance notes that it’s important to educate the general public about the risks and costs of online piracy and counterfeiting. At the same time, people should learn how to distinguish between legal and illegal activity online. While rightsholders will be eager to help, the Alliance stresses that online services should have a prominent role too, since they can easily reach a broad audience. “Importantly, we urge the USPTO to engage with copyright owners and online service providers (OSPs), especially social media companies, which are often in the best position to engage with their users, to develop agreed-upon, straightforward, and uniform education materials.” Malware Risks… The educational curricula and messages should inform people that piracy is not a victimless crime, the Copyright Alliance suggests. It impacts millions of people in the creative industries. In addition, users of pirate devices and sites put themselves at serious risk too. “In addition to threats to the greater copyright community, consumers often do not appreciate the risks to their own personal safety and privacy that come with consuming pirated content over the internet until it is too late,” the Copyright Alliance writes. The group points to the malware research reports from the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA). While these reports are not always backed up by hard evidence, at least not in public, they could form the basis of an educational campaign according to the group. Concrete Tips The Copyright Alliance sums up various suggestions and plans and also provides some concrete tips for the public. For example, when an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. “Beware of services, especially IPTV providers, that advertise by using slogans like ‘never pay for cable again’ or ‘watch the latest movies for free’,” the Alliance writes. In addition, the group also notes that “if you download an app through a third-party source, there’s a good chance it may be infected with malware — particularly video streaming apps.” ‘Online Platforms Should Take Responsibility’ The overall message is that the public should be made aware of the costs and risks of piracy and counterfeiting. Perhaps just as importantly, the Copyright Alliance believes that online services should play a key role in this, and not just because they have a broad audience. They have a responsibility to do more, as their platforms are exploited by pirates. “In light of increases in piracy and threats to consumers during the pandemic, we believe that more work must be done by internet platforms and service providers who earn massive profits through online commerce and content delivery and whose networks are exploited by those who traffic in pirated works,” the Copyright Alliance writes. The USPTO will review these and other suggestions to see how they fit into a National Public Awareness Campaign. For now, we haven’t seen any responses from online service providers, but that may change if they are indeed asked to take an active role. Balanced Information is Required While educating the public is a good thing, we expect that all claims and reports will be properly vetted if they are to be publicly repeated to millions of people, possibly even in schools. The last time copyright holders were heavily involved in a copyright curriculum, it wasn’t without controversy. A pilot in California which aimed to teach copyright lessons to children from kindergarten through sixth grade had to be revised because it completely ignored fair use.

Popular BitTorrent client uTorrent is again being flagged as problematic by anti-virus vendors. This includes Microsoft's Windows Defender, which simply removes the application from the operating system. According to reports, the software is categorized as 'riskware,' 'malware,' and 'potentially unwanted software.' In addition to uTorrent, rival client qBitTorrent is also facing similar problems. Research last year showed that roughly two-thirds of all BitTorrent users prefer it over the many available alternatives. In 2018, the uTorrent team released a “Web” version of the software. For now, however, most users still prefer the standalone client. That is, if they manage to run it without anti-virus vendors getting in the way. uTorrent Malicious? Over the past few years, uTorrent has been repeatedly flagged as ‘malicious’ software. This issue flared up again recently and at the time of writing several anti-virus tools, including Windows Defender and Malwarebytes, label the torrent client as dangerous. We ran the latest installer through a Virustotal scan which shows that uTorrent is flagged by 19 separate companies. The reasons differ from “riskware,” through “Trojan.BtcMine,” to “bundled installer.” Microsoft, for example, categorizes uTorrent as a “Potentially Unwanted Application” (PUA). In fact, the company has had a dedicated uTorrent page in its malware database for years, labeling the software as a severe threat. Potentially Unwanted Software While the exact nature of the problem may vary, “potentially unwanted software” is a recurring theme. The term unwanted is broad can range from changing browser settings to installing third-party tools without permission. According to Microsoft, this is not the same as malware. That doesn’t mean that the impact isn’t real. We have heard from several people who had uTorrent removed from their systems recently, and are unable to re-install it. Several of these complaints appear on social media as well, with people looking for advice. qBitTorrent is Unwanted Too Interestingly, uTorrent isn’t the only torrent client being flagged as potentially unwanted software. Earlier this month qBitTorrent was added to Microsoft’s malware database as well. While it’s not malware, but a PUA, Windows Defender actively blocks and removes the software. This has resulted in numerous complaints on Reddit as well as the qBitTorrent GitHub page, with people sharing similar experiences. “Windows Defender keeps silently removing the software despite being explicitly allowed on the machine,” athelas64 writes. “After allowing the quarantined software, qBittorrent works…. until the next restart.” Another commenter wonders whether this is an organized action against torrent clients. This is not unlikely as many other torrent clients are being flagged as unwanted software as well. In fact, Microsoft itself suggests as much. All Torrent Clients Are Unwanted? In a background article on what’s considered unwanted software, torrent clients are specifically mentioned, along with advertising software and cryptominers. The article suggests that it applies to “enterprise” only, but the complaints we have seen apply to other Windows versions as well. Microsoft’s article stresses that unwanted software isn’t the same as malware, but that isn’t mentioned in its own malware encyclopedia. Also, Windows Defender classifies PUAs as a ‘severe threat’. When we ran uTorrent through the Virustotal scan many red flags appeared but qBitTorrent is pretty much clean. This suggests that Microsoft’s blocking could simply be due to the fact that it’s a torrent client, nothing else. Although we do not recommend ignoring anti-virus warnings, there are ways to install uTorrent and qBitTorrent without running into trouble. One option is to disable the PUA protection in Windows, which can be done in a few clicks. Alternatively, users can simply switch to third-party anti-virus protection, which disables Windows Defender. We have asked the uTorrent and qBitTorrent teams for a comment on our findings but, at the time of writing, they have yet to respond. Microsoft informed TorrentFreak that torrent clients are indeed blocked as PUA’s on enterprise machines. However, there are other PUA criteria that may block the applications in other environments. “We detect torrent applications for enterprise machines per our PUA criteria. Other criteria may trigger the detection of these applications on a consumer platform or the environment in which the detection is happening may be considered an enterprise environment,” a Microsoft spokesperson informed us.

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