The anti-piracy advocacy group ACE (The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) announced the shut-down of several illegal streaming sites in rapid succession. All of these domains redirect to ACE’s Watch It Legally Web page. In a May 10 ACE press release, a spokesperson for the pirate (!), called the NTG Release Group – the NTG meaning ‘not the Grinch’ – acknowledged that its activities had damaged the livelihoods of creative professionals and ‘agreed to shut down.’ NTG ripped video titles and made them available online ‘within minutes’ of release – 4,600 titles in 2020 alone. A pirate site called 123movies.com is still active at the time of this writing. If 123movies.la was associated with it, the site’s days may be numbered Read ACE’s NTG press release (May 10, 2021) On May 7, ACE annoounced the shutdown of a Tunisia-based operation called 123movies.la, a site that averaged more than 30 million visits per month. Read ACE’s 123movies.la press release (May 7, 2021) On April 29, ACE announced the transfer of 30 Internet domains previously held by Cuevana, an Chile-based pirate operation. Read ACE’s Cuevana press release (April 29, 2021) Why it matters Stream rippers like NTG are part of a piracy business ecosystem in which rippers host content for distribution by others. If suppliers like NTG are taken out of service, the distributors ‘downstream’ from them are also impacted. Countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have instituted laws that allow take-down notifications to follow the pirate – a practice that organizations like ACE, the Copyright Alliance and CreativeFuture have requested of regulators charged with updating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Before being shut down by law enforcement, Jetflicks and iStreamitAll were said to be two of the largest pirate streaming services in the United States. Darryl Julius Polo, who founded iStreamitAll and programmed for Jetflicks, has now been sentenced to 57-months in prison and will forfeit $1 million. But that's just the beginning. In 2019, eight men were indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running two of the largest pirate streaming services in the United States. According to the US Government, Jetflicks and iStreamitAll were a pair of subscription-based pirate services headquartered in Las Vegas. iStreamitAll reportedly made available more than 118,479 television shows and 10,980 movies, at the time more content than was on offer at Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. Jetflicks, which was disguised as an aviation service, offered around 183,285 pirated TV episodes to customers. In December 2019, Darryl Julius Polo (aka djppimp) subsequently pleaded guilty to charges of copyright infringement and money laundering for helping to program Jetflicks and for founding and operating iStreamitAll. Plea For Low Sentence Earlier this month, the US Government told the court that Polo was “deeply embedded” in the piracy scene, with a previous judgment against him for multiple violations of the DMCA. Additionally, Polo continued to run iStreamitAll after the FBI raided him in 2017 and carried on until the site’s domain names were seized in September 2019. As a result, the government demanded a sentence of almost six years in prison but Polo felt this was too long. Pointing to a pair of previous decisions involving NinjaVideo and Megaupload, where the defendants were handed below-guidelines sentences, Polo asked for a more lenient 36 months in prison. Judge Hands Down a Prison Sentence of 57 Months Following a motion from the US Government, the Court dismissed six counts from the indictment but that still left several charges including conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, misdemeanor copyright infringement, misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement by public performance, and money laundering. On counts 1,6 and 16, Polo was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and on counts 8 and 11, he was handed 12 months in prison, with all sentences to run concurrently. The court did, however, make a recommendation that Polo should serve his sentence in the Las Vegas area so that he can be near to his family. The US was also granted a forfeiture order against Polo for $1 million, an amount that represents the illegal proceeds from his offenses. Supervised Release Restrictions Upon his release, Polo will be placed under supervision for a period of three years. He will have to report to the probation office within 72 hours and will be subjected to many conditions, such as committing no more crimes including unlawfully possessing or using any controlled substances. Polo is also banned from possessing any firearms, ammunition or any other “dangerous weapon”. Additionally, Polo must not leave the judicial district without permission from the authorities, must meet all of his family responsibilities, and also work regularly at a “lawful occupation” unless excused by his probation officer. Excessive use of alcohol is also barred and Polo must refrain from associating with any convicted felon or others engaged in criminal activity. Furthermore, Polo will be required to have special software installed on any computer he gains access to, which will restrict and/or record “any and all activity” on the device. All monitoring costs will be borne by Polo. If, by any chance, Polo gets lucky on his release and wins the lottery or lands an inheritance, that money must be applied (at the court’s discretion) to paying off the $1m owed. He will also be required to pay restitution but that amount is yet to be determined since six other defendants (Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant) are awaiting trial. Previously, 40-year-old Luis Angel Villarino from Las Vegas pleaded guilty. He admitted his involvement as a programmer for Jetflicks from December 2016 to at least June 2017.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a global anti-piracy coalition that includes the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon and others, has claimed a major victory. The group reports that it shut down Cuevana, one of the most popular pirate streaming operations in Latin America. Confusingly, however, the most popular Cuevana domain remains online. For more than a decade, Cuevana has been a dominant piracy streaming brand in Latin America. The name first came onto our radar in 2012 when the alleged operator of Cuevana.tv, a Chilean student, was arrested following a complaint from HBO. That didn’t stop the site though. Piracy Brand ‘Cuevana’ In the years that followed Cuevana remained online, frustrating many of the major copyright holders. As a result, the site was featured in the U.S. Government’s list of most notorious pirate sites. Today the Cuevana.tv domain is no longer active, but the brand remained popular under new domains. For a while, Cuevana2.com became the prime pirate streaming destination in Latin America, which was logically followed up by Cuevana3. It’s unclear to what degree the new sites are linked to the old ones but the design remained similar. No matter what enforcement actions rightsholder took, as a brand, Cuevana seemed impossible to shut down. Until last week? ACE Claims a Major Victory A few days ago the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) reported that it successfully shut down Cuevana. With backing from prominent members including major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and other entertainment giants, ACE is a force to be reckoned with, and this latest achievement should be another testament to that. “After a successful cease and desist communication with the operators of Cuevana in Santiago, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment today announced the official transfer of 30 domains previously used by Cuevana. “In January 2021, these 30 domains received over seven million visits, making Cuevana one of the most popular illegal streaming websites in LATAM,” the group added. ACE notes that it received assistance from local authorities, who carried out raids and arrested the alleged operators of Cuevana. This should serve as an important warning for pirate site operators in the region. ACE Keeps Domains Secret This press release sounds like a major victory but we’re not sure whether that’s justified. The affected domain names are not mentioned and ACE is not willing to share these with us. Similarly, the group was not able to share further information on the raids and arrests either. “ACE currently controls a large number of Cuevana domains, but for strategic reasons we are not sharing specifics,” the anti-piracy coalition said. Most Popular Cuevana Domain is Still Online We couldn’t help but notice, however, that the most popular Cuevana site, Cuevana3.io, is still online. According to SimilarWeb, Cuevana3 had more than 60 million visitors in January, which is twice as much as the combined traffic of the 30 domains ACE took down. Cuevana3.io isn’t a new domain either. The site has been the leading Cuevana site for roughly a year and is known as the most-used pirate streaming portal in Latin America. The site receives the most traffic from Mexico but is also popular in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. We’re not sure how ACE can claim that it has shut down Cuevana when this site is still the dominant piracy force in the region. You’d almost think that the site slipped by ACE, but that’s certainly not the case. In fact, in April 2020 several ACE members obtained a site-blocking injunction in Australia that targeted Cuevana3.io. And a few months later, ACE obtained a subpoena in US courts that required Cloudflare to share information it has on Cuevana3.io‘s operators. The War is Not Over In our quest to find out which domains ACE has taken down, we found many more Cuevana sites that are still online, including Cuevana2.io. Eventually, we also found one domain that redirects to ACE, Cuevana2.li. However, that one looked different than the original Cuevana when it was still online. Just to be clear, we have little doubt that ACE has indeed taken over 30 Cuevana-related domain names. We also understand that every ‘seized’ domain can be celebrated as a victory. However, claiming that Cuevana has been successfully shut down, as ACE did, might be a bit much.

Several users are reporting the inaccessibility of The Pirate Bay main domain, which has been down for over two days. While this is unknown, this should be considered a normal technical issue rather than a shutdown since we haven’t heard about any law enforcement raids. Although, the Tor version and several other proxy sites of The Pirate Bay are up and running. Unknown Downtime of The Pirate Bay As The Pirate Bay is one of the prominent torrent sites globally, it’s no wonder that law enforcement is often targeted. While they’re unsuccessful yet, the main domain of The Pirate Bay site has been down for over two days. The exact reason was unknown, but it’s mostly sure that this isn’t the result of any police action. As TorrentFreak checked, the issue should most likely be from The Pirate Bay’s end since it has happened numerous times earlier. There should be some technical issue with the site-blocking its Cloudflare CDN from reaching the servers. This caused the page to show a gateway timeout error when visited. There’s no official response from the site’s operators, but the several proxies and Tor versions of The Pirate Bay are still up and running. TPB even has a status page to let users check the working status of each of their sites, which also showed the same. Regarding the content, the Tor version of The Pirate Bay isn’t updated with the new stuff yet, but the general proxies have the latest torrents loaded. This shows the upload bots and user uploads are working just fine and hinting at some technical issue only with the main domain of The Pirate Bay.

Illegal streaming is… well, illegal. It takes no genius to work out that free live streams of sports events are at least slightly fishy. But when fans see the world’s biggest football stars enjoying sketchy streams with sub par quality – questions are asked. And from the business point of view – how big of an obstacle is the piracy underground for investing in OTT? Neymar, the world’s most expensive footballer, a 36.8 million-a-year earner, has lately been “caught red-handed” watching an illegal football stream. Having fueled a dramatic public outcry led by those who “fail to believe Neymar doesn’t pay for football”, the Brazilian has unintentionally raised another key matter. Is it even possible to watch football legally? FLIS – Illegal Streaming Background FLIS (Free Live Streaming) is a term coined by a research group led by Muhammad Zubair Rafique. They define it as follows: “FLIS services enable free viewership of video content, albeit typically without the consent of a content owner, of TV channels and live events for Internet users. These services manage infrastructure to facilitate costless anonymous broadcasting of live streams, and maintain websites to index links for free live streams” The football streaming websites we have all most likely stumbled upon, in this ecosystem, are called aggregators. They collect, catalog and share links and/or embedding codes to live streams. The “original” content comes from channel providers – they maintain media servers and broadcast (most commonly) stolen content as a third party. And what’s the business model? Ads, obviously. A 2014 study by Digital Citizens Alliance showed that the “industry” projected a 227 million dollar annual ad revenue. And to add to that – the costs of operation are almost non-existent, resulting in FLIS providers turning up to 94% profit! Where There’s a Need, There’s a Market You most likely know the picture – an extremely sketchy website with even more sketchy ads. A true monstrosity that looks like someone’s very first HTML coding experiment. Ads overlapping ads, convincing you both to open your account at the bookies (all at once) and get to know ladies from your local area. The whole aura of such websites is anything but inviting. User experience design is unheard of. Yet users willingly expose themselves to behaviours which would be more than enough for them to exit any other website. Why? Because they’re saving money, simple as that. They accept and experience far beyond their standard range of tolerance, as they are provided with profit, albeit intangible. Flipping the coin – we’re observing an absolute phenomenon in web design terms. FLIS owners can afford to neglect every single principle of pleasurable user experience, not worrying about losing income. Ampere Analysis identified 4 key triggers driving sports fans to FLIS websites: Lack of installations and long-term contracts Ease of use Cross-platform availability Low (or no) cost The Fans of the EPL report, published by OLBG showed that as many as 42% of surveyed Brits have watched football via illegal streams. And to even further twist the knife – 22% have done so with full awareness of illegality. It’s not just about having a rough experience – FLIS users are exposed to much more serious threats. Research has shown that football streaming sites benefit from user tracking, potentially also selling on collected data to third parties. Furthermore, the most prevalent threat coming from FLIS environments is exposure to malware. The aforementioned research led by Zubair Rafique shows that clicking on ads (which is often impossible to avoid, due to the usage of hidden <iframe> elements) leads users to malware-hosting web pages every second time! Is Streaming Football Illegal? The question we all end up asking ourselves – is (illegal) streaming illegal (oh, the irony)? In fact, it’s not all that straightforward. While it’s unsurprisingly obvious that providing streams is against the law (especially when copyright infringement generates profit for the streamer), being on the other side is different. The story takes us back to 2016, where an anti-piracy organisation, BREIN, filed a complaint against a Dutch dealer selling multimedia players with a KODI plugin. Long story short – the European Commission sided against distribution of such piracy-facilitating hardware, yet ruled out the illegality of consuming third party streamings. The reason behind such a statement is the nature of a viewer’s activities – both absence of download and possible unawareness of copyright infringement. However, the law differs from country to country – in the US being caught red-handed on streaming from illegal sources may equal a $750 fine. It is highly unlikely that legal actions will be taken against a FLIS user – the authorities target those who provide the material (especially if they turn profit from copyright infringement), with jail time being a likely consequence. “Casual users” should worry more about the aforementioned malware and data tracking. Illegal Streams and Piracy or Romanticism and Egalitarianism? As it’s no secret that today’s internet society is accustomed to receiving free content (or holds awareness of consuming in dispense of ad targeting), illegal streaming has another motive. A Yahoo article on the matter quotes a FLIS owner, who claims to be driven by rising fees of subscriptions and broadcasters who “don’t think of people without money.” Even though this Robin Hood-esque anti-capitalistic mask for blatant fraud seems mostly grotesque and pretentious, paying a small dose of attention to FLIS user motivations uncovers a major problem of today’s broadcasting. It’s barely possible to watch legal football. Neymar illegally watching the Campeonato Brasileiro in his Paris-based home sparked controversy, but when digging a little deeper, it turns out there is no French broadcaster for the Brazilian league. But sometimes, even despite paid availability, it costs an arm and a leg to be a righteous and noble viewer. We took the trouble to count the annual cost of subscriptions a UK citizen has to pay to watch what every football fan would consider a “starter pack” – the top 5 leagues and UEFA Champions League. And we’re speaking of truly mind-blowing numbers. One thousand, one hundred and eighty-eight pounds. For many people, that’s a downright unreachable amount to spend on just football streaming. And even if one can fork out over a thousand pounds for sports coverage, switching around between a number of subscriptions is painfully inconvenient. Things got ugly when the Premier League, after taking a strong hit from the coronavirus outbreak, introduced a PPV service, asking £14,95 for a single game. The sheer fact that viewing each game in this system translated to a fee almost 45 times bigger than the same service costed in Australia, caused absolute turmoil. A study by Finder.com found out that 24% of those who admit to watching illegal football streams do so because of overwhelming TV package prices. Furthermore, the rate of illegal streaming had increased during lockdown, potentially due to the proposed fee for VOD. How To Fight Against Illegal Football Streaming? Premier League clubs estimate to take an approximately £1 million hit in broadcast revenue each game due to football streaming websites. Although it does seem to be a drop in the ocean (especially in the context of the league’s £9 billion broadcasting deal), the hit is much stronger. Money from selling television rights is shared over lower divisions, hence a hit at the tip of the iceberg resonates to the very grassroots. Decrease in broadcast revenue indirectly influences the holistic level of football. One of the most popular aggregators (top 4k websites in the United States via Alexa Traffic Rank) has accumulated over 7000 requests for delisting from Google’s search results. Having infringed the rights of 4 out the top 5 leagues, and also such entities as NBA, MLB or even Disney, they have seen almost 6000 of their URLs delisted. Among the most active reporting organisations in this particular case is the Belgian Jupiler Pro League, responsible for almost 150 reports. The Belgians teamed up with La Liga, gaining access to powerful technology confronting piracy. The alliance’s resources allow them to both detect and identify the FLIS culprit. But even then, it’s still up to other parties to take action – Google responds to reports by delisting fraudulent URLs. The more reports – the less ways to reach illegal streams. Organisations such as Rivendell offer commercial service based on tracking and reporting URLs that contain copyright breach. A case that could prove to be a turning point is the Premier League’s (paired with the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) triumph over Mobdro. A 2-year investigation resulted in shutting down the world’s largest illegal streaming app, which accumulated over €5 million profit. Conclusion It’s worth the hassle – according to Ampere Analysis, OTT platforms could be looking to gain 5,4 billion dollars on neutralising piracy. Taking part in the battle against FLIS is not quite about defending the ideals of copyright and intellectual property, but an investment with tangible return. 74% of FLIS watchers are reported to be open to turning to legitimate (paid) solutions if those become available. The market is currently overwhelmed by the cheap and easy route, but the potential for conversion stands.

Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary have taken the unprecedented step of issuing individual warning notices to thousands of consumers believed to have been using an illegal TV streaming service. The warning, which was issued by Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary Cyber, Intelligence and Serious Organised Crime Directorate, has been issued to subscribers of a service called GE Hosting and states that subscribing to these services is a crime which carries a maximum sentence of up to five years imprisonment and/or a fine, and consequently results in a criminal record. The notice, believed to be one of the first of its kind to be aimed at consumers of illegal streaming services, also makes clear that Police will continue to monitor subscribers’ behaviour and that should recipients ignore the instruction to cease illegal streaming it could lead to further investigation and even prosecution. Police are believed to have obtained the list of subscribers to the service after having carried out a warrant earlier this year. On June 30 officers arrested a man in connection with suspected illegal streaming of premium TV channels and other copyrighted material. The service was allegedly being distributed to tens of thousands of customers before being shut down by officers. Kieron Sharp, CEO of FACT, said: “This is a hugely significant step by Norfolk and Suffolk Constabulary and one that has our full support. It sends a really clear message to those facilitating this illegal activity and additionally to those choosing to consume content in this way – users of illegal services are accountable for their actions and they will be pursued. This will be an alarming wake-up call for people who use illegal streams. No one wants the police knocking on their door. The running of illegal streaming services is a serious crime and by paying for these services consumers are giving their money directly to criminals. This is not a grey area. Piracy is illegal and you run the risk of prosecution and a criminal conviction.” The action is the latest in a series of raids and subsequent prosecutions designed to crackdown on illegal streaming and those profiting from it. Last week, Paul Jaques, 44, from Pontefract was sentenced to two years in prison for selling illicit streaming devices. In June this year, Mark Schofield, 49, from Radcliffe was sentenced to 24 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years for selling devices that provided access to paid-for content including sport and films via his Facebook page. This followed the conviction of Daniel Aimson, 39, from Astley who was sentenced to 12 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud. Aimson sold illegal devices that bypassed paid-for TV content – costing legitimate service providers more than £2million. There have also been numerous raids up and down the country as Police tackle the sources of this illegal activity.

The International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP), working with Nagra, announced the end of multiple piracy operations across several US states; resulting from anti-piracy operations. IBCAP Executive Director Chris Kuelling exclaimed “Not only (were) they selling unauthorized channels, they (were) also deceiving customers. It’s like selling someone a faulty product. You pay $300 dollars or more for a set top box and then the unauthorized service gets shut down, and the consumer is left without their favorite channels and without any recourse to get their $300 dollars back. Cases include: An award of nearly $17 million to a broadcaster by a Texas court, against the owner of of 15 domains distributing content illegally, extending to Web hosts and CDNs that they were using. A $2.1 million Federal court judgement against East IPTV and an additional $600,000 against its CDN provider; plus the shutdown and transfer of its domains A $23 million award against Shava and Cres IPTV, and an additional $1.6 million award against one of Shava’s retailers An award of $4.4 million against a Florida retailer of illicit services that was not collectable because the retailer was forced into bankruptcy IBCAP’s Kuelling also implored consumers “to make informed decisions and make sure that they are buying from an authorized source who will be able to deliver a reliable service.” This was the second hit against at least one of the pirates: a February 2021 decision against East IPTV, for illegal redistribution of 17 Arabic language channels, resulted in the award of $2.7 million to DISH Network. Why it matters Broadcasters are just as susceptible to piracy as movie studios and TV programmers. All three create high-value original content for distribution and for that reason, are the most concerned about the interception and illegal redistribution of their property. According to a statement released by Nagra, IBCAP represents more than 140 television channels from Europe, Brazil, the Middle East and South Asia, IBCAP, and has been proactively monitoring and identifying unauthorized video services, collecting evidence and assisting with legal actions. It’s puzzling that pay TV distributors continue to be less concerned; that they generally see piracy as “the problem of our content suppliers, not ours.” But that tune is changing. Also, broadcasters are increasingly hesitant to sign exclusive distribution agreements, as is the case with Deutsche Bundesliga and Italy’s Lega Serie A, whose ability to protect against piracy is questioned by beIN Media.

Telestream has announced its acquisition of Masstech. Telestream, a portfolio company of Genstar Capital, is a vertical market software business focused on the video space and is a global player in media workflow orchestration, media streaming and delivery technologies. The company’s 10th acquisition comes shortly after Telestream’s purchase of EcoDigital – another specialist in content management system technology. Telestream says the combination of these two entities within the company make it a leading supplier to the content storage / management segment of the M&E market with over 1,000 active customer systems in operation worldwide. Masstech creates intelligent, hybrid cloud-based storage and asset lifecycle management solutions for the M&E industry. “Telestream has effectively rolled-up the archive management sector in less than six months through the acquisitions of DIVA and Masstech. The real winners are the customers since a company of Telestream’s scale is likely to bring stability to the archive management sector through greater investments in both R&D and enhanced service and support,” commented Joe Zaller, Founder of Devoncroft Partners. “Devoncroft’s 2020 Big Broadcast Survey (BBS) shows that Telestream is ranked in the top-5 globally for Net Promoter Score and ‘great customer service’ among media technology software brands. Further, buyers of archive management solutions ranked Telestream among the most trustworthy brands in the broadcast technology sector.

Those of us following the long saga of piracy against beIN Media by an entity called beoutQ may be surprised to see Saudi authorities cracking down on piracy. According to World IPR Review, “the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) announced on Friday, January 22, that it had launched inspection campaigns across the country, seizing a total of 11,620 items found to have ‘violated creative rights.'” and the shut-down of “more than 70 infringing Web sites.” Read the entire story in World IP Review Further background about SAIP by WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization) Why it matters The beoutQ piracy case was widely seen as an operation between nation-state actors, as content stolen from beIN Media was distributed across the Arab world and beyond. With the many twists and turns of this case, any positive outcome that has the blessings of Saudi authorities is welcome. These IP enforcement moves by Saudi Arabia could ease the way toward future alliances between Saudi Arabia and global sports leagues. A Saudi sovereign fund was in the process of acquiring an English Premier League club, which was called off last year, out of concerns that beoutQ had been illegally redistributing EPL programming.

There has been some confusion over the IP ownership of the Switch action game, with Japanese companies typically hesitant to discuss such details. Previously, Platinum had stated that Astral Chain was co-owned by itself and publisher Nintendo, in addition to the Switch maker holding the game’s publishing rights. In a February 2020 interview with VGC, Platinum wouldn’t even rule out the possibility of Astral Chain one day coming to non-Nintendo platforms, similar to The Wonderful 101 remastered. However, earlier this year fans noticed that Astral Chain’s copyright notice had been modified to remove mention of PlatinumGames. Asked if anything should be read into the change, studio head Atsushi Inaba told VGC this week, “it’s as it looks.” Astral Chain’s copyright notice has changed since October 2020 (top). He added: “It’s as it is written on the website: Astral Chain is their IP and as such there are limitations on how much we feel we should talk about.” When asked for further clarification on Inaba’s comments regarding the Astral Chain IP ownership, a PlatinumGames spokesperson said the company was “not in a position to answer this question.” Another IP previously co-owned by Nintendo and Platinum, The Wonderful 101, is understood to have changed ownership in advance of last year’s remaster, but in Platinum’s direction. Astral Chain was the directorial debut of NieR: Automata designer Takahisa Taura. Hideki Kamiya, director of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, provided supervision. Since its release in August 2019, the game has sold more than one million copies, making it one of Platinum’s most successful original game launches. If Platinum has willingly transferred ownership of Astral Chain, it would represent a surprising move for a developer that’s increasingly determined to own its own IP and self-publish some of its releases. Despite creating countless critically-lauded IPs during its first decade, Platinum has been heavily reliant on partnerships with other companies. The Bayonetta and Vanquish IPs are owned by Sega, while it’s also worked on Nintendo’s Star Fox series and Square Enix‘s Nier. Asked about Astral Chain director Takahisa Taura’s next steps, Inaba told VGC the designer was “young and full of promise”.

The Canadian Government is exploring different options to tackle online piracy through new legislation. One of the proposals is to make it easier for copyright holders to obtain injunctions to block pirate sites and have these deindexed by search engines. Through a newly launched public consultation, lawmakers ask for input on these and other anti-piracy measures. The Canadian Government is exploring if and how current copyright law should be amended to better fit the present landscape. To this end, Canada’s Innovation, Science and Economic Development department launched a consultation asking for feedback on a wide range of proposals. The ultimate goal is to deter piracy by helping copyright holders better protect their content. At the same time, the Government wants to safeguard the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. This isn’t a new topic in Canada where there have been similar consultations in the past. Just two years ago, this resulted in a thorough review of the Copyright Act, which advised against implementing a broad site-blocking scheme. Today, however, the site-blocking proposal is again being considered, albeit in a different form. New Plan to Block and Deindex Pirate Sites The proposal notes that any new blocking legislation would be primarily focused on commercial-scale infringement. It shouldn’t target individuals directly, although they ultimately are the ones whose access is blocked. The general idea would be to change the law to ‘expressly’ allow courts to require ISPs to block sites and services. Similarly, courts should also be able to order search engines such as Google to remove these pirate sources from search results. These orders can be issued without assuming any liability on the part of Internet providers or search engines, who can keep their roles as neutral service providers. “The Act could be amended to provide expressly for injunctions against intermediaries to prevent or stop online copyright infringement facilitated by their services even where they are not themselves liable for it, such as where they may be protected by the safe harbors,” the proposal reads. The Government adds that these injunctions should be issued by courts that are expected to guarantee the highest standards of procedural fairness. Staydown and Termination Injunctions In addition to site-blocking and search engine de-indexing, courts should also be able to order online service providers to prevent infringing content from being re-uploaded, or to suspend or terminate access to infringing customers. Cementing these options into law is warranted, according to the Government, as courts have already issued site blocking and de-indexing injunctions in the past. This includes the GoldTV case, which is currently being appealed by Internet provider TekSavvy. This begs the question; if these injunctions are already an option under current law, why would anything need to change? Fewer Court Cases? According to the proposal, clearer legal guidelines could help to bring copyright holders and intermediaries together, which may ultimately lead to fewer court cases. “This legislative scheme could moreover deter litigation by encouraging intermediaries, rights holders and others to work together to establish a suitable framework for dealing with alleged infringements facilitated by the intermediaries’ services,” the proposal reads. This indirectly suggests that the Government hopes that the end result will be more voluntary agreements. While some ISPs may be open to the idea of blocking pirate sites without a court order, we doubt that all are. What About the Copyright Act Review? To some people, it may come as a surprise that the Government is proposing a site-blocking scheme now as an earlier review of the Copyright Act dismissed this idea. However, the wording of the proposal appears to be carefully crafted to fit the outcome of the earlier review. For example, the review dismissed the idea of a “non-judicial” site-blocking scheme or “narrowing the safe harbor” of online service providers. Instead, it argued that new legislation should be focused on “commercial-scale infringers.” The new proposal suggests a “judicial” site-blocking scheme that keeps safe harbors intact and is primarily aimed at commercial-scale infringers. This ticks all the right boxes, although that will undoubtedly be contested. A full overview of all the proposals, which also includes new measures against repeat infringers and plans for compulsory licensing agreements, is available on the public consultation page published by the Innovation, Science and Economic Development department.

If you try to openly pirate movies on SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink, be prepared to receive a warning from the company demanding that you stop. One Starlink subscriber was curious if SpaceX enforces its policy against downloading copyrighted content. And turns out, it does. The subscriber, “substrate-97,” posted the piracy warning notice he received from SpaceX on Reddit this past weekend. “We must insist that you and/or others using your Starlink service refrain from illegal downloads of copyrighted content,” the notice says. “Downloading copyrighted materials without a license may lead to suspension or termination of your service, and put you at risk of legal action by the content owner.” Credit: Substrate-97 Substrate-97, who is based in the US, said on Reddit they were deliberately torrenting over Starlink to see what would happen. A file download for a "CBS show" ended up triggering the warning. “Been doing it since I got Starlink, so like two months,” substrate-97 added. “It's been pretty low key stuff though. Finally downloaded something from a Fortune 500 company and my assumption was that it was specifically that.” The notice also reveals that Starlink tries to stop piracy like other ground-based internet service providers: If the ISP becomes aware you're downloading a bootleg movie, the company can automatically send out a warning to the offending subscriber. This can occur if the copyright holder is tracking torrent downloads for a movie file. The copyright holder can supply the ISP a list of IP addresses associated with the pirated movie file, demanding it take action. Still, it’s not exactly hard to mask your real IP address. Although we don’t condone piracy, it’s well-known you can prevent a broadband provider from logging your internet traffic by using a VPN, which can encrypt the connection. A VPN can also change your computer's IP address. Hence, a Starlink user can still theoretically pirate content on the service—as long as they don’t do it openly. RECOMMENDED BY OUR EDITORS SpaceX Cleared to Use Starlink Satellite Internet on Starship Rocket Growing Pains: Starlink Is Fast, But Don't Expect 200Mbps All the Time Who Needs Starlink Internet? These Rural US Counties Top the List While Starlink operates over 1,300 satellites in orbit, the internet itself comes from ground stations on Earth connected to local fiber networks. Editor's Note: This story has been updated to say a download for a CBS show apparently caused substrate-97 to receive the warning from Starlink. It's also been corrected to point out the copyright holders will usually alert an ISP to whether a user's IP address has been spotted pirating content.

Nintendo appears to be fed up with Bowser and has decided to take some action. No, this isn't about Mario's archenemy or the current Nintendo of America president, Doug - we're talking about Gary Bowser, one of the supposed leaders of the "notorious" piracy group, Team Xecuter. As you might recall, Bowser - a 51-year-old Canadian - was arrested and charged with 11 felony counts last year and now Nintendo is suing him. According to Polygon, the new lawsuit filed in Seattle alleges Bowser's "international pirate ring" operations, which involved creating and selling hacks, infringed on Nintendo's copyright. Team Nintendo is looking to charge him with two trafficking counts and one copyright violation. Bowser has apparently been in the business of creating and selling hacking devices since "at least" 2013. Nintendo's lawyers say hacking and piracy is a "serious, [and] worsening international problem" and that Bowser's wares put more than 79 million Switch consoles "at risk" from piracy. Nintendo is seeking $2,500 for each trafficked device, $150,000 for each copyright violation and wants to put a stop to Bowser's operations once and for all. You can see the full court documents here.

Lawsuit seeks damages and ban on ports commonly used by torrents (Image credit: Pixabay) A group of movie producers have filed lawsuits against the owners of a VPN service alleging the service encourages its users to pirate movies. According to reports, the makers of popular films such as Hunter Killer, and Automata have dragged LiquidVPN's former and current owners to court accusing them of using the service to promote and facilitate piracy. While file hosting and sharing services are the usual targets of piracy lawsuits, this is the first instance of filmmakers going after a VPN itself. We’ve also rounded up the best business VPN services These are the best Windows 10 VPN services Use Linux? These are the best Linux VPN providers Thin end of the wedge The plaintiffs include Voltage Pictures and Millennium Funding, who have pursued similar legal action against several piracy players in the past including apps such as Popcorn Time and Showbox, and sites such as YTS. It’s being reported that the group has now trained its weapons on an individual, David Cox, as well as his hosting company SMR Hosting, which allegedly operated LiquidVPN until early 2019. They've also filed another lawsuit against the current owners of the service, which is Puerto Rican company 1701 Management and its sole shareholder Charles Muszynsky. According to court documents, the filmmakers allege that “the LiquidVPN Defendants state their LiquidVPN service can be used to “Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software.” The complaint notes several other references of the service promoting copyright infringing activities. The plaintiffs appeal to the court to focus on this aspect of the service, over the fact that LiquidVPN itself doesn't host any copyrighted material. In addition to monetary damages, the producers want LiquidVPN to prevent users from accessing piracy-promoting websites and to block ports 6881-6889, which it claims are usually used for torrent traffic.

123Movies and its variants have come under pressure from copyright holders as they have grown to become one of the go-to “alternative” web portals for content distribution. Pirated content, it is understood, since they did not have permission to distribute it. 123Movies links were well known and were also moving apace on major torrent sites despite the push from legal streaming services. But nothing lasts forever and these great portals are in the crosshairs of copyright organizations . If you access one of their main domains with 30 million monthly users, 123Movies.la, you will see that the domain is in the hands of the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). Everything indicates that the administrators of the site have reached an agreement with ACE for the closure . And it's not the first. Already in 2016, 123Movies.to was denounced for piracy when Hollywood saw its growth. As early as 2018, the site was rated the world's largest pirate streaming site before being shut down as part of a criminal investigation. 123Movies.la seizure The Alliance For Creativity requested a subpoena from the DMCA in September 2020 that required Cloudflare to provide them with personal details and accounts from sites like The Pirate Bay, YTS, 1337x, EZTV, and 123Movies.la. With this he managed to identify the site operator and filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement. The result is the commented one. "Since its debut at the end of 2017, 123movies.la received an average of almost 30 million visits per month, making the site one of the most popular pirate services in the world," read a statement from the global anti-piracy group accessed by TorrentFreak . The Whois command details show that the domain registrant is now MarkMonitor Inc, the company used by the MPA to manage its domains. The DNS servers are now located at Films.org, a domain owned and operated by the MPA that has confirmed the seizure : “After ceasing and desisting communication and an agreement with the operator, the popular streaming website was shut down and the domain was transferred to ACE. Visitors to the domain are now redirected to legal offer platforms . ' The closure of 123Movies.la is clearly an important step for the organizations behind copyright, but removing all domains under this march will take longer because there are still others online.

An individual who created a series of stop-motion Lego animations is being sued by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the supervising body and publisher for the Jehovah’s Witness religious group. 'Kevin McFree' was first targeted in 2018 via a DMCA subpoena but with that legal process stalled, Watch Tower has now filed a full-blown copyright infringement lawsuit. The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the supervising body and publisher for the Jehovah’s Witness religious group, is known to go to extreme lengths to clamp down on those believed to be undermining the faith. While much of this takes place in the background, Watch Tower’s practices can become public when the group takes legal action against people alleged to have breached its intellectual property rights. Watch Tower holds registered copyrights for many works so when these are republished, oftentimes by detractors, critics and/or former members, the group is happy to take matters to court. Stop-Motion Lego Animator ‘Kevin McFree’ First Targeted in 2018 In the summer of 2018, Watch Tower filed an application for a DMCA subpoena at a New York court, as it has done many times before. The aim was to have YouTube/Google hand over the personal details of a user known online as Kevin McFree who operates a YouTube channel of the same name. “This channel is not intended for children, but rather seeks to provide some light hearted humor for adults who finally see the high control group known as Jehovah’s Witnesses for what they are!” the channel’s description reads. “Content on this channel is primarily EX-JW Stop motion animation stories set in a fictional Jehovah’s Witness town known as DubTown.” According to Watch Tower, one of McFree’s videos (DUBTOWN – Family Worship July Broadcast) contained around seven and a half minutes of footage leaked from Jehovah’s Witness videos. The video was removed by YouTube but McFree also mounted a defense, challenging the subpoena. Arguments centered around the fair use provisions of the DMCA but after almost three years, the matter is still not settled. Seemingly in response, Watch Tower has now filed a full-blown lawsuit against McFree. Defendant Allegedly Used Unpublished Works in Breach of Copyright Filed this week in the same New York court as the DMCA subpoena, Watch Tower’s complaint alleges that John Doe (aka Kevin McFree) obtained “purloined copies” of four then-unpublished copyrighted audiovisual works and used significant portions in his ‘DUBTOWN – Family Worship July Broadcast video’ published to YouTube. According to Watch Tower, these four videos were created between August 2017 and January 2018 and were registered with the Copyright Office in August 2018. Precautions were reportedly taken to prevent “premature disclosure to the public”, including requiring production team members to sign legal agreements. However, it’s claimed that Kevin McFree managed to obtain leaked copies of the video from inside the religious group. WT: Defendant Cannot Rely On Fair Use Defense Watch Tower says that McFree cannot rely on a fair use defense in this matter. He allegedly “reproduced significant portions” of the original videos including 90% of the visual aspects and more than 50% of the audio aspects of one particular video (‘Never Alone’) and the “heart” and “creative aspects” of the others. All in, Watch Tower claims that its videos made up over half of the DubTown video. The religious group also claims that the use of the videos was “generally” unaccompanied by criticism or comment, barring the ridiculing of the Watch Tower’s production techniques, which the group suggests was a result of the videos being unfinished. On another aspect of fair use – whether the DubTown video was produced for profit – Watch Tower claims McFree had a commercial motive. According to the complaint, McFree solicited donations on his YouTube page while promoting a for-profit t-shirt business. “Upon information and belief, by virtue of his unlawful conduct described above, Defendant has made or will make substantial profits and gains to which he is not in law or equity entitled, including without limitation in the form of Google ad revenue, as well as ‘donations’ and revenue streams from advertised merchandise,” the complaint adds. References to Earlier DMCA Subpoena Watch Tower says that when it initially learned of the video’s existence on YouTube, it sent a DMCA takedown notice demanding its removal. YouTube removed the video and Watch Tower filed for a DMCA subpoena to have Google/YouTube hand over McFree’s personal details. McFree filed a motion to quash and as mentioned earlier, the matter is still outstanding. Watch Tower makes further references to that case, noting that McFree claimed he had obtained the portions of the copyrighted videos from another video (the ‘Cedars Video’) which was posted to YouTube in April 2018. However, Watch Tower says this is demonstrably false as “certain portions” of their videos that were present in the ‘DubTown’ video were not present in the ‘Cedars’ video. According to the group, McFree later clarified his position by stating that he had obtained copies of the videos before they were completed. Claim For Relief – Copyright Infringement and Injunctions Watch Tower says that since it is the author and sole owner of all rights to the four videos, Kevin McFree has committed copyright infringement under Section 501 of the Copyright Act. Watch Tower doesn’t mention any specific monetary value in respect of its claim but if the infringement is deemed to be willful, damages can reach $150,000 per violation. In addition, the religious group demands preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining McFree from any further reproduction, copying, performance or exploitation of the copyright works, including via the DubTown video.

WordPress parent company Automattic reports that the number of DMCA takedown notices it received increased by more than 50% last year. What stands out most, however, is the fact that 83% of all notices were rejected, often as a result of inaccurate automated takedown processes. Automattic, the company behind the popular blogging platform WordPress.com, receives thousands of takedown requests from copyright holders. Compared to other online services such as Google and Reddit, the numbers are relatively low. That said, there are some figures that clearly stand out. 50% Increase This week Automattic published its latest transparency report, revealing that it had processed 18,594 DMCA takedown notices during 2020. That is more than a 50% increase compared to last year. Unlike other services, the company doesn’t report how many URLs are targeted. A single notice can include dozens or hundreds of links, which means that the number of targeted WordPress pages is much higher. 83% Rejected That said, there is one figure that immediately caught our eye – the rejection rate. Last year, Automattic rejected 83% of all DMCA notices in their entirety. This rejection rate clearly stands out, when compared to other online services. For example, last year Reddit rejected 27% of all takedown requests, for Google this number is roughly 10%, while Bing rejects less than 0.5% of all requests. Commenting on the data, Stephen Blythe, Community Guardian at Automattic, informs TorrentFreak that they have seen a significant bump in rejections last year. This is mainly due to an increase in automated takedown notices. “Many of these are duplicates, target content which has already been removed, content which we do not host, or content which the notices haven’t accurately identified,” Blythe says. Manual Reviews of Automated Notices Unlike the name of the company suggests, Automattic doesn’t process these requests automatically. In fact, all DMCA notices are reviewed by humans, who spot plenty of errors. This leads to a relatively high rejection rate. “Our team manually scrutinizes takedown reports and rejects any which we identify as failing to meet the requirements of the DMCA – rather than simply processing takedowns automatically. By its nature, that will result in a higher rate of rejection,” Blythe confirms. Automattic is trying to get a number of prolific takedown senders to change their practices to reduce these kinds of notices. They have booked some success on this front. For example, the Spanish anti-piracy company ‘3ants’ adjusted its takedown process, which benefited both parties. Not All Senders are Open to Change However, other companies are not as open to change and continue to send automated takedown notices in bulk. “Unfortunately not every complainant is as cooperative as 3ants. For years we’ve been speaking out against abuses of the DMCA such as the use of automated systems which flood platforms with takedown notices regardless of context,” Automattic previously noted. “These methods are often prone to error and make it difficult for platforms to prioritize valid notices submitted by individual rights holders.” In 2021 Automattic is expected to reach the 100,000 takedown notice milestone. Since the company began counting complaints in 2014, it has processed 93,430 DMCA takedown requests, of which 70% were rejected.

Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan reports that she has received a worrying email, ostensibly from Apple, revealing that law enforcement has demanded and gained access to her account data. The email indicates an FBI investigation although the precise nature of any inquiry remains unclear. As the world’s leading distributor of millions of otherwise ‘paywalled’ research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as “The Pirate Bay of Science”. At the same time as being loved by many academics and students, Sci-Hub has become public enemy #1 in publishing circles, with the major academic publishers doing everything in their power to shut the platform down, hinder access to it, and prevent its operator from communicating with the world. A large proportion of that action has taken place via various lawsuits, including one currently pending in India, but other platforms have taken action too. In the UK, for example, a new blocking injunction was quietly passed early this year at the behest of Elsevier and Springer Nature and, in January, it was revealed that Twitter had suspended the official Sci-Hub account. Sci-Hub Under Fire From Law Enforcement Too In March, law enforcement in the UK also took the unusual step of warning students not to use Sci-Hub, “as doing so could pose a threat to their personal information and devices.” Now, however, it is Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan herself who may be having her personal data compromised. In a message posted to her personal Twitter account, which is not currently subject to a suspension, Elbakyan draws attention to an email she received to one of her accounts operated by Google. “At first I thought it was spam and was about to delete the email, but it turned out to be about FBI requesting my data from Apple,” she writes. As the email reveals, the apparent request to access the data from Elbakyan’s account dates back more than two years but due to its nature, Apple has only just been able to reveal its existence to the Sci-Hub founder. What this is about, however, remains unclear but perhaps the more pressing question is whether it is a genuine email from Apple. Genuine or Elaborate Fake? The email’s authenticity (or otherwise) has indeed been considered by Elbakyan who says that after examining the metadata, has concluded that “it is too complicated and useless to be a spoof.” Indeed, the Sci-Hub founder also posted the email’s headers which at first blush do suggest that the email is genuine. Of course, nothing is really cast in stone as far as faked emails go and scammers are known to go to extreme lengths to masquerade as a third party. That being said, if the email is a fake it makes no effort to phish or indeed do anything else other than advise Elbakyan that her account data has been accessed by the FBI. As scam emails go, the damage rating is relatively low. Also, the email appears in exactly the same format as others of the same nature reportedly sent by Apple to advise users of law enforcement activity on their accounts (1,2). Cut and pasting is trivial, of course, but given that the email makes no attempt at being anything other than advisory, the balance does shift a little more towards authenticity. According to the Sci-Hub founder, the Gmail account associated with her Apple account (and from where she received the email) was registered by her a “long time ago” when she “was at school perhaps.” However, a cursory Google search reveals that the address is public knowledge and has been associated with Elbakyan for many years, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone is having ‘fun’ at her expense. Justice Department is Investigating Elbakyan In December 2019, the Washington Post reported that Elbakyan was being investigated by the US Justice Department on suspicion that she “may” be working with Russian intelligence to “steal U.S. military secrets from defense contractors.” No evidence to support that claim was published beyond allegations that she has been involved in collecting log-in credentials from journal subscribers in order to access academic literature, presumably so that it can be offered on Sci-Hub. For her part, Elbakyan denied the more sinister allegations. “I know there are some reasons to suspect me: after all, I have education in computer security and was a hobby hacker in teenage years,” Elbakyan told The Washington Post. “But hacking is not my occupation, and I do not have any job within any intelligence, either Russian or some another,” she added, noting that while the connections to Russia are “logical”, Sci-Hub has always been her personal project and is not associated with anything more nefarious.

The popular anti-piracy group ACE claims to have shut down Cuevana by capturing its operators and seizing 30 of its domains. Cuevana is a popular piracy site, or say a brand in Latin America. All of its domains combined draw tens of millions of visitors every month. Though ACE claims to have taken over, some of the popular domains of Cuevana are still online. ACE Claims to Have Shutdown Cuevana Every nation has its own local pirate sites that are popular and targeted by enforcement agencies to shut down. In Latin America, it’s Cuevana. Cuevana is first seen in 2012 when a Chilen student was arrested for allegedly operating Cuevana after a complaint from HBO. Yet, the craze for Cuevana hasn’t stopped. A number of Cuevana branded sites popped up with similar pirate content and have been serving millions of users every month. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a coalition of popular media houses like Netflix, Amazon, etc., claims a victory over Cuevana. As ACE mentioned, “After a successful cease and desist communication with the operators of Cuevana in Santiago, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment today announced the official transfer of 30 domains previously used by Cuevana.“ With the help of local authorities, this comes after ACE has searched and captured the operators of Cuevana. While it’s a rejoicing moment for the rights holders, it’s actually not. As we have seen, some of the popular domains of Cuevana, like cuevana3.io and cuevana2.io, are still online and serving their purpose. According to statistics, the cuevana3.io has over 60 million visitors per month and is undoubtedly the big fish that has to be caught. But, they’re still online, raising doubts about ACE’s victory. Also, when asked by TorrentFreak, ACE declined to share the details of operators and domains that it has captured.

A 'pirate' IPTV provider and reseller are being targeted in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by DISH Network in the United States. The broadcaster claims that ChitramTV, which says it is located in Germany, the UK and US, obtains and distributes its channels online via a network of resellers, managed by a Canadian resident. DISH wants more than $31m in damages. US broadcaster DISH Network has built a reputation for going in hard against companies and individuals who offer unlicensed access to its channels. Over the years the company has gone after card-sharing (IKS) operations but more recently its focus has been on ‘pirate’ IPTV providers that offer DISH programming to the public at a cheap price. These cases rarely end well for the entities targeted by DISH, with courts happy to hand down large damages awards alongside broad, prohibitive injunctions. A new case filed in the United States this week sees DISH target yet another ‘pirate’ IPTV provider and the alleged manager of a reselling network, demanding considerable damages. Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Filed in Texas DISH’s lawsuit targets IPTV provider ChitramTV, which does business from the Chitram.tv domain. It also names Dinesh Vigneswaran, the alleged owner of ChitramTV Canada, who allegedly does business from the Chitram.ca website. According to DISH, ChitramTV obtains its broadcasts and streams, transfers them to its own servers, and then rebroadcasts them to subscribers of the Chitram service. ChitramTV distributes, sells and promotes ‘Chitram’ set-top boxes and subscription packages to users directly and through a network of resellers, including Vigneswaran. The IPTV service allegedly offers more than 500 live TV channels and 10,000 movies, with an offer to keep the public entertained “during quarantine”. Chitram also offers catchup and timeshifting services, which according to DISH means that it must be saving copies of its copyrighted content on its own servers. DISH says it has identified various content delivery networks (CDNs) being utilized by the Chitram service, which is offered via a set-top box and one-year subscription package for approximately $149, with renewals costing between $70 and $115, depending on duration. Investigation Has Been Running For Years DISH says it sent at least 134 copyright infringement notices to Chitram between July 2014 and November 2015, with instructions to cease-and-desist. In December 2015, Chitram “temporarily ceased” transmitting DISH content but by December 2017, it was back in business. Since then, DISH says it has sent at least 30 additional notices of infringement but the complaints were ignored. From April 2018, DISH also sent copyright notices to several CDNs associated with the Chitram service but according to the broadcaster, Chitram took evasive action by transmitting DISH content from other CDNs or locations. Precisely where the Chitram IPTV service operates from is unclear but the provider appears to have connections to Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In October 2020, a DISH investigator contacted the reseller behind the Chitram.co.uk domain to ask about becoming a reseller in the United States. The inquiry was referred to Chitram in Germany, where the IPTV provider claims to have its headquarters. Focus on Dinesh Vigneswaran When Chitram in Germany responded to DISH, the provider said its “US manager” would call to provide all of the information. On the same day, the DISH investigator received a call from Vigneswaran who offered a deal to supply Chitram devices at $109 each and an instruction for them to be sold at a minimum of $149. Vigneswaran allegedly told DISH that he was in Toronto (ChitramTV Canada) but had 60 resellers and a warehouse of devices in the United States. Early November 2020, the DISH investigator bought four Chitram boxes and six subscriptions from Vigneswaran and paid the money into his PayPal account. Later that month and in January 2921, several similar purchases were made. After testing the boxes, it was found that they infringed DISH’s exclusive rights. According to the complaint, DISH sent notices of infringement to Vigneswaran in November and December 2020, and in January 2021, demanding that he stop “distributing, selling, and promoting” the Chitram service in the United States. DISH received no response to the complaints. Copyright Infringement Claims DISH says that the Chitram IPTV service is responsible for direct infringement of its copyrights in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 501. “The copyrighted programs were transmitted from computer servers controlled by Chitram to Service Users who accessed the programs using the Chitram Service,” the lawsuit reads. “Chitram’s actions are willful, malicious, intentional, purposeful, and in disregard of and with indifference to the rights of DISH.” DISH adds that the defendants, including Vigneswaran, materially contribute to the infringements carried out by the Chitram service’s users by providing access to the protected channels and content, despite having the ability to prevent access to it. “Defendants also induce the infringement of DISH’s exclusive distribution and public performance rights by, among other things, creating the audience for that infringement in the United States,” the complaint adds. Claim for Damages, Permanent Injunction, Domain Seizures As a result of the above, DISH demands a permanent injunction against all defendants plus statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work. DISH lists 207 registered works, leading to a claim in excess of $31 million, should the court see fit. On top, the broadcaster wants permission to seize all infringing devices under 17 U.S.C. § 503, an order to take control of all domains used to infringe its rights, plus attorneys’ fees and costs.

Last week was the deadline for comments on the draft of the so-called “Digital Copyright Act,” a proposal which would fundamentally change how creativity functions online. We asked for creators to add their voices to the many groups opposing this draft, and you did it. Ultimately, over 900 of you signed a letter expressing your concern. The “Digital Copyright Act” was the result of a year of hearings in the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Many of the hearings dismissed or marginalized the voices of civil society, Internet users, and Internet creators. Often, it was assumed that the majority of copyrighted work worth protecting is the content made by major media conglomerates or controlled by traditional gatekeepers. We know better. We know there is a whole new generation of creators whose work is shared online. Some of that work makes fair use of other copyrighted material. Some work is entirely original or based on a work in the public domain. All of it can run afoul of ranking and promotion algorithms, terms of service, and takedowns. The “Digital Copyright Act” would put all of that creativity at risk, entrenching the power of major studios, big tech companies, and major labels. Along with your signatures and letter, EFF submitted our own comments on the DCA. We urged Congress to set aside the proposal entirely, as many of the policies it contained would cause deep and lasting damage to online speech, creativity, and innovation. We do not only want this particular draft to be put in the bin where it belongs, we want to be clear that even watered-down versions of the policies it contains would further tip the balance away from individuals or small creators and towards large, well-resourced corporations. One of our concerns remains a call from many a large corporate rightsholder for Internet services to take down more speech, prevent more from being uploaded, and monitor everything on their services for copyrighted material. The “Digital Copyright Act” proposal does just that, in many places and in many ways. Any one of those provisions would result in a requirement for services to use filters or copyright bots. Filters alone do not work. They simply cannot do the necessary contextual analysis to determine if something is copyright infringement or not. But many of them are used this way, resulting in legal speech being blocked or demonetized. As bad as the current filter use is, it would be much worse if it became legally mandated. Imagine YouTube’s Content ID being the best case scenario for uploading video to the Internet. So we want to thank you for speaking up and letting Congress know this issue is not simply academic. And letting them know this is not simply Big Tech versus Big Content. For our part, EFF will continue keeping an eye out and helping you be heard.

Julius is an avid Netflix viewer. Whether it’s old movies, anime, or hit releases such as The Queen’s Gambit, the 28-year-old banker from Manila, who gives only his first name, is glued to his laptop. He just doesn’t pay for any of the content. The moment a show starts trending on Netflix’s Top 10, he catches it on an unlicensed streaming website or downloads an illegal copy from a file-sharing app. “It’s always available somewhere,” he says. “If I can save a few hundred pesos a month, I’ll take it.” Julius and millions like him across Southeast Asia are becoming a headache for Netflix, Disney+, and Chinese streaming giants Tencent and IQiyi, which are waging an intense contest for subscribers in the region. Thousands of illegal websites streaming the latest hit shows and movies—content cribbed from legitimate services—cater to viewers from Vietnam to the Philippines, while other operators sell cheap hardware that allows access to pirated content. Shutting them down is a cat-and-mouse game made harder by governments that don’t consider the theft a high priority, according to the industry. Share of Respondents in 2019 Who Reported Using Pirate Streaming Sites Data: Asia Video Industry Association/YouGov surveys conducted in August and September of 2019 “Before, piracy was seen as a nuisance, a cost of doing business,” says Neil Gane, head of the Coalition Against Piracy in Hong Kong, which includes foreign and local industry members. “Now pirated content is in direct competition with legal services. Piracy has evolved—it’s international, sophisticated, and it’s high on the list of challenges for streaming services.” Piracy will cost TV and movie providers almost $52 billion in revenue worldwide in 2022, according to Statisa.com. It remains a daunting problem in big markets such as China and Russia, the sites of prolonged battles to curb digital theft. But it’s the rising demand in Southeast Asia, home to more than twice the population of the U.S., that’s raising warning flags. In the past two years, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other countries have been added to the U.S. trade representative’s “notorious markets” list, an annual compilation of the worst intellectual-property abusers and counterfeiters. Even before the pandemic, piracy was taking over. In five out of six Southeast Asian nations, more than half the respondents to a survey sponsored by the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) said they accessed illegal streaming sites in 2019. It was highest in the Philippines, where 66% admitted doing so. In Indonesia, 62% of those who accessed the sites said they’d canceled subscriptions to paid services. Visits to pirated sites increased by a third globally when lockdowns began last March, according to Muso TNT Ltd., which tracks piracy; in India, access to pirated movies jumped 63%, according to one of its surveys. By the end of this year only 6.5% of households in Southeast Asia will have the streaming services of Netflix Inc. or Walt Disney Co., according to consultant Media Partners Asia. So countering piracy before it becomes further entrenched could be key to their long-term growth in the region. “It’s still early days,” says Vivek Couto, who runs Media Partners Asia. “The industry needs government policy that criminalizes the act and cracks down on operators.” For now, viewers in Vietnam can watch hits such as Netflix’s Bling Empire and Disney’s WandaVision almost as soon as episodes come out. One popular pirate site even uses Netflix’s distinctive red typeface for its own logo. Consumers can also use illegal streaming apps and devices, available at local electronics marts, to view premium content. Fan Girl COURTESY: GLOBE STUDIOS At the Metro Manila Film Festival in December, officials at Globe Studios, a local production company, were hoping to get a few days of sales for their entry, Fan Girl, before the pirates caught up. The studio, which makes movies bought by Netflix, charged viewers 250 pesos ($5.15) per download during the virtual festival. But by the second day pirated sites were screening the romantic comedy, with some charging just 10 pesos a view. “We were glued to our computers, watching 10 links pop up every hour—giving the movie away. Some had 45,000 views,” says Quark Henares, head of the studio, a unit of Globe Telecom Inc. “We were supposed to lean back and enjoy the box-office success. Instead, we were tracking down websites and couldn’t shut them down.” Henares says Globe lost millions of pesos of festival revenue. Theft is making it impossible to produce content profitably in the Philippines, he says. Where Hollywood and Silicon Valley collideGet a front-row seat with the Screentime newsletter. Email Sign Up Bloomberg may send me offers and promotions. By submitting my information, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Pirate sites in Asia often have links to illicit online gambling, says Gane, whose antipiracy group is part of AVIA. Offering free entertainment allows pirates to draw customers to gambling sites and gain revenue from other questionable advertising there. Some websites offering pirated movies have ties to organized crime groups who use the proceeds to fund serious crimes and engage in money laundering, according to Interpol. Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. To hinder illegal distribution, streaming services employ technologies such as watermarks, either visible to deter piracy or invisible. Digital fingerprinting helps broadcast platforms such as YouTube identify if material is copyrighted. But the most popular weapon against video piracy is to block websites, and that requires government cooperation. In most Asian countries a site can be shut down by law enforcement only if there’s a criminal case against its operators, according to AVIA. Even in nations that have passed laws to allow courts or government agencies to block offending sites, the process is often slow. In Indonesia the association sends a list every 10 days of 50 illicit websites identified by its automated software to the government for rapid blocking. AVIA says more than 3,000 illegal sites have been shuttered since mid-2019. But a follow-up survey the group sponsored last year showed that, while the number of Indonesians accessing illicit websites fell 55%, only 16% of those who formerly accessed the pirate sites went on to subscribe to a paid service. “It’s a whack-a-mole game,” says Chand Parwez Servia, head of the Indonesian Film Board. “The problem is they are faster. What we need is enforcement and court action to go after the operators.” Indonesia’s minister for communications and information technology didn’t respond to requests for comment. The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines recommended provisions for speedy site-blocking at a congressional committee hearing in February, according to Director General Rowel Barba, who says the agency currently has neither enforcement mechanisms nor the legal authority to take down websites. The heart of the problem, though, is the attitude of viewers, many of whom see nothing wrong in downloading movies. “A lot of users believe that since they’re paying for internet access, whatever is on the internet should be free,” says Maria Yolanda Crisanto, chief sustainability officer at Globe Telecom. “Changing that mindset has been slow.” —With Shirley Zhao

For the longest time, it was an insurmountable challenge for those in the developing world to be able to afford to legally consume multimedia products. Prices originally set in Dollars, Euros or Yen often received insufficient adjustments to compensate for lower incomes, something that was compounded by local import or manufacture taxes that did little to alleviate matters. Markets starving to consume modern-day products were faced with an unrealistic pricing structure that was a bad fit for most citizens, especially for young people growing up without access to much capital in an increasingly digital world. In the 1990s and 2000s, piracy thrived in regions such as LAC, CIS, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, among several others. In countries such as Brazil, it was often more usual to pirate than to purchase official goods when it came to products such as music, films, software, and video games. City centers were (and to a smaller extent still are) overtaken by street vendors selling piles of CDs and DVDs with photocopied covers housed in plastic envelopes and sold at a fraction of the cost found in legitimate stores. The industry was, by and large, occupied waging intellectual property battles against developed world university students and upholding advantageous sales models such as that of the music CD, never quite looking into the issues of the developing world with a special lens. Solutions in developing countries were mostly focused on extensive police action against those selling the pirated goods, which amounted to little in the way of results, seeing as the demand side of the equation remained unaffected. In the 2010s, developing markets observed a significant shift towards the consumption of legal goods as the young people grew into productive adults with access to more capital, and two factors can be seen as decisive in this shift: first, digital storefronts with price differentiation for countries with lesser purchasing power were established; second, streaming platforms offering flat fees for a relatively extensive catalogue of multimedia became available. This provided the correct incentives for many consumers not to want to be bothered by the hurdles of consuming pirated content. In early 2021, the European Commission made a decision that is a subversion of proven best practices that convert informal consumers into legitimate purchasers, and if this act is a sign of their broader intentions, the only possible result is the increase in piracy rates in the developing world. Steam (the largest digital storefront for video games globally) and five major game publishers were fined to the tune of 7.8 million Euros for alleged "geo-blocking" practices. According to the official press release: "The Commission has concluded that the illegal practices of Valve [Steam's parent company] and the five publishers partitioned the EEA market in violation of EU antitrust rules." In the same press release, the complaint is said to be rooted in: "bilateral agreements and/or concerted practices between Valve and each of the five PC video game publisher implemented by means of geo-blocked Steam activation keys which prevented the activation of certain of these publishers' PC video games outside Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania." In other words, price differentiation meant to account for different market realities has been equated to geo-blocking, and thus deemed illegal within the EU. There are several reasons why this argument is inconsistent, but foremost is the stretching of the meaning of geo-blocking, which is normally understood to be the practice of stopping a user from being able to view specific content if they are accessing a certain service from a given region or their account is tied to a given region. In this case, users from different regions are able to see the same products in the storefront, but if the user is purchasing the game from Poland, they will be offered a significantly reduced price in relation to a purchase originating from Germany. Since Steam's activation keys can be gifted and traded between users, this system ensures that a key bought within a lower priced region cannot be activated in one where the product costs more. While this method is not fool-proof, it works well enough for publishers to adjust prices in a way that makes sense for their audience. This is a widespread tactic adopted on the Steam storefront by almost all publishers, being not limited to the 5 that were cherry-picked by the EC to serve as examples. There is clear correlation between the region cited as having lower prices and reduced local purchasing power. According to the World Bank, the GDP per capita/PPP Int$ in Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Latvia is within the 32-35.000 range, in comparison to Germany's 56.000 or Ireland's 88.000. Forcing the games to be sold at a flat price across the EU fails to acknowledge these disparities. It does not promote fairness, as the bloc does not have a homogenous economic reality. On the aftermath of the ruling, a statement from the EC's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, is of particular note: "The videogame industry in Europe is thriving, and it is now worth over € 17 billion. Today's sanctions against the 'geo-blocking' practices of Valve and five PC video game publishers serve as a reminder that under EU competition law, companies are prohibited from contractually restricting cross-border sales. Such practices deprive European consumers of the benefits of the EU Digital Single Market and of the opportunity to shop around for the most suitable offer in the EU." The question that follows from Vestager's statement is: shop around how? Users can go to a different storefront altogether if they so desire, but how is this supposed to take place within the system of a single storefront in a manner that, as described by Vestager, would create more consumer choice? That proposition does not add up. What is being forced into practice is that users in the developing world will need to pay the same price for digital goods as those in the developed world, without sensitivity to their local reality. This is a significant step back from decades of progress in terms of creating a fair market where users can make legitimate purchases. With the EU's growing appetite for the regulation of digital goods and several new regulations in the horizon, it is important to observe this event as an example of what is to come. Under the name of standardization of laws within the bloc, regions where there is less purchasing power will be more often forced into making choices between not having access to unreasonably priced goods or pirating that content. Many will choose the piracy route, and no amount of digital rights management will be able to stop it. Hopefully, other nations and blocs will not follow the EU's example, or we might be headed yet again for very difficult times in the commerce of digital goods.

Malmö residents have been arrested since Monday and questioned but were released late in the afternoon. He is suspected of copyright infringement and file sharing. - We had an attack yesterday at a place in Malmö at a retailer of IPTV. It's about what we think are thousands of users. But the investigation must show that, says Johanna Kolga. Pirate TV means that users pay for a subscription with a company that illegally encodes TV channels and then broadcasts via the internet. In this way, a subscriber can illegally watch coded channels but also movies at a considerably lower price. On the internet, there are ads from a large number of providers of pirate TV that offer Swedish viewers, including all Swedish TV channels and pay channels such as Netflix, Viasat and C more. A provider writes on its website that subscribers get access to 6,000 movies. Subscribers risk prosecution Similar raids have previously been made in Sweden, including Malmö. Since 2014, it is a criminal offense to use subscriptions to pirate television. Companies that illegally distribute copyrighted material in this way usually place their servers in countries where, among other things, they claim that customers' information is protected. Pirate TV distributors make extensive use of resellers to gain new customers. Retailers can make money by getting the commission. Malmö residents are not suspected of having decoded channels. - My client denies the crime. By the way, I have no comment, says lawyer Andreas Björkman who is the representative of the suspected Malmö resident

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are the latest cryptocurrency craze. These one-of-a-kind-collectibles have dramatically risen in popularity and have penetrated mainstream marketplaces. Since NFTs are often associated with images, videos, music, and other content, the relevance of copyright law is critical to this evolving marketplace, and it likely will take time to learn exactly how copyright law will apply to this new technology under different circumstances. Recently, an NFT of artwork by the digital artist Beeple sold at Christie’s Auction House for $69,346,250. Many other interesting examples are in the news, spanning from tweets to sports cards to memes. The financial backing to support this fledgling form of cryptocurrency has the attention of investors as well. Forbes reported on March 23, 2021, that sports card marketplace Dibbs raised $2.8 million in seed funding to be used to support its collectables marketplace platform. WHAT IS AN NFT? An NFT is a digitized, authenticated token linked to a digital asset, and the NFT is recorded on a blockchain, most commonly the Ethereum blockchain. Typically, the blockchain does not store the actual work that is tokenized because it is too large. Ethereum is often used because it is both a cryptocurrency that can be used for payments and a programming language that can support “smart contracts” that facilitate blockchain transactions. (“Smart contracts” is a bit of a misnomer; a more accurate description in our view would be “blockchain applications.”) NFTs are traceable and, its supporters emphasize, incapable of duplication because each NFT contains a unique serial number or “fingerprint” (also known as a hash) that cannot be reproduced. A hash will match only one specific copy of content because the hash is a cryptographic key literally generated from a specific digital file. Owners of NFTs can use hashes to establish that they own a copy of the linked content from which the NFT was generated. In other words, the NFT is an ownership record of this match that is stored on the blockchain, which can be transferred to someone else whose ownership will also be stored on the blockchain. The complete record of title, payment history, and information about the underlying asset is maintained, likely securely, on this new form of decentralized database known as the blockchain. The value of the NFT turns on the “nonfungible” aspect because the purchaser is buying an authenticated digital asset, similar to a certified nondigital asset, such as an autographed painting or a signed baseball card. Rarely when one acquires a painting or a baseball card do any copyright rights convey, and it is generally the same with an NFT. The first-ever published tweet was recently sold as an NFT for $2.9 million. Jack Dorsey, who wrote the tweet, was able to both verify its authenticity and avoid any claim of copyright infringement because he was the author. It is not always that straightforward. We highlight below a few copyright issues that purchasers and sellers of NFTs should consider when contemplating NFT transactions. TRANSFER OF AN NFT ALONE DOES NOT TRANSFER COPYRIGHT OF THE LINKED WORK Generally, the creator of a copyrightable work owns the copyright to that work upon fixation. If it is a work for hire, the employer or commissioning party owns the copyright on creation. Outside of a work-for-hire situation, if you are not the creator of a work and you wish to own the copyright for that work, you must have the rights transferred to you by the copyright owner. The transfer must be express and in writing.[1] It appears that in many NFT transactions, currently, copyright is not mentioned at all, so in those cases there is no possibility that copyright rights transfer upon the acquisition of an NFT. If the seller of an NFT does say expressly in the written description of the NFT for sale that all, or certain, copyright rights will transfer with the NFT, then the question may be whether such a transfer is express and “in writing.” Courts have upheld copyright transfers set out entirely in an electronic writing with an esignature, so long as they meet the other requirements of a valid bargain. Recently, even the US Copyright Office, traditionally a major proponent of original signed documents, has held that the recordation of transfers can be accomplished by submitting a transfer with any legally binding signature, including electronic signatures, as defined by the E-Sign Act. We still expect disputes over whether any copyright rights convey in an NFT transaction even when the word “copyright” is mentioned. If a purchaser is paying, in part, for a copyright right, this issue should be carefully considered. COPYRIGHTS IN NFTS ARE SEPARATE FROM THE LINKED CONTENT Is there any copyright in the NFT itself? The software that creates the NFT is likely copyrightable. To the extent a content owner engages someone to create an NFT, the copyright owner in the content would not own any rights in the NFT software unless it were a work made for hire or acquired by assignment. We suspect most content owners creating NFTs at this time are using third-party services that claim to own the copyrights associated with their services, which are then licensed to the content owner through the terms of service. Interestingly, to the extent the NFT is just a link to content, and is primarily a hash, the NFT may have no copyrightable content itself. If the NFT is authorized, is it a derivative work? A derivative work is a work of authorship based on modifications or adaptations of a copyrightable work. Creation of derivative works is an exclusive right of the copyright owner. But an automated cryptographic key arguably does not have sufficient authorship (i.e., creative spark) to constitute a derivative work. Accordingly, the NFT itself, separate and apart from the linked asset, may not be copyrightable subject matter. FIRST SALE DOCTRINE AND THE NFT MARKETPLACE A well-established principle of copyright law is the first sale doctrine which, pursuant to 17 USC § 109, permits the owner of a lawful copy to sell or otherwise dispose of its copy notwithstanding the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. The first sale doctrine makes secondary markets like used bookstores possible. Interestingly, ownership of a lawful copy is not necessarily what one might expect for digital assets. You might think you own a copy of a digital book or an MP3, but in most cases you have a license to access those digital products and no ownership interest.[2] In such cases, you cannot rely on the first sale doctrine to sell your ebook or MP3. Arguably, the primary value of an NFT is the ability to resell it. So a key difference between an NFT that is linked to copyrightable subject matter and the lawful possession of an ebook would need to be that the NFT represents ownership of a specific lawful copy of something as opposed to a nonexclusive right access it. This is an example of where the nonfungible aspect of NFTs becomes relevant. Ebooks and MP3s should be considered fungible—everyone gets the same download. NFTs are closer to the actual book or CD that you buy (of which there is only one) because the NFT represents ownership of a specific copy that is cryptographically linked to the NFT. If NFTs are construed this way, that one copy can be resold over and over like a physical book. One may also argue that an NFT is nothing more than a digital code and, therefore, the first sale doctrine is completely inapplicable.[3] In either case, as a practical matter, as long as the NFT creation and first sale have been authorized by a copyright owner of the linked asset, resale of the NFT is not likely to be challenged by the copyright owner. Indeed, the copyright owner may benefit from the resale of the NFTs, as discussed below. UNAUTHORIZED CREATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF NFTS An NFT is created by generating a hash that corresponds to a specific content file. That file will contain whatever work is being tokenized, such as art or a tweet, and that file can exist anywhere in cyberspace. The software that generates the hash for the NFT arguably makes a copy of the content file in the process. Currently, some services that create NFTs have the user upload the content file to create the NFT. Further, display of the linked content is generally included in marketing the NFT. For these and other reasons, creation of an NFT should generally require consent of the copyright owner. But when NFTs are made without authorization of the copyright owner, does the resale of such an NFT constitute copyright infringement? Such a sale may be considered analogous to reselling a counterfeit book or song. If the NFT represents ownership of a specific copy of a work, the ownership of the copy must be lawful; otherwise, further distribution of that work could constitute copyright infringement. Further, linking to infringing content has been the subject of infringement claims.[4] Copyright owners of works linked to NFTs without authorization likely will send Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices to sites that host that content and to marketplaces that promote the sale of such NFTs. If the underlying work is taken down for this reason, or if the relevant copy is deleted for any reason, the link to the NFT can be broken, and the NFT may represent proof of ownership of a copy that no longer exists. For all of these reasons, understanding the connection, if any, between the seller of an NFT and the copyright owner of the linked content should be part of an NFT buyer’s diligence. The creation and marketing of NFTs of memes has risen in popularity. Some have suggested that NFTs provide meme creators with more protection. If the meme is lawfully made and initially distributed that way, perhaps that is true, as the source of the meme should be clear and there will be an authorized copy of it that may rise in value. But the overarching issue of whether creating a meme based on a third party’s photograph without consent is lawful does not change. There is certainly an argument that an unauthorized meme infringes the copyright in the photo, and in some cases there will be a possible defense that the meme is a fair use. So far, the enthusiasm for NFTs and memes seems to have sidestepped this important issue, but like any NFT of copyrightable work without consent, we expect challenges to some NFT memes to arise. In connection with copyright challenges to the marketing of NFTs, accused infringers will likely argue that an NFT is just a record of ownership, and not a copy of anything itself, and therefore, its subsequent resale cannot constitute copyright infringement, comparable to reselling a receipt or deed. This is a key issue that courts will almost certainly need to decide. DIVISIBILITY OF COPYRIGHTS Copyrights are divisible by contract in an almost an unlimited manner. The various exclusive rights of a copyright owner can be transferred and divided by geographic location, among multiple parties, in various media, etc., and each divisible right can have its own duration, pricing, and payment terms. Artists could sell a fractional ownership of any one of their exclusive rights. Keeping track of these divided rights once granted, each of which may then be subsequently conveyed, can be very complex and challenging. NFTs may provide an opportunity to automate this process, allowing the copyright owner of the original work, or of a divided right, to keep track of what they have sold and collect payments. But again, this assumes that an NFT is used to convey any copyright right at all, and currently, for the most part, they do not. If and when NFTs are used to transfer copyrights, blockchain accounting will likely be very helpful in keeping track of all of these divided interests. Currently, NFTs are considered indivisible in that they cannot be split into smaller values, as cryptocurrencies can. But our guess is that will change. An NFT could represent not just ownership of a complete specific copy of a work but someday a divided ownership of a copy. In this way the purchaser of an expensive NFT of digital art could sell fractional shares of his NFT via the blockchain. In addition, the creator of an NFT could receive a percentage of the resale not only of the NFT he sold, but of each subsequent individual interest in that NFT.[5] This is an example of how NFTs may indeed follow and improve on traditional complex, multiparty ownership of divisible copyright rights. CONCLUSION How long the current fascination and valuations of NFTs will last is unknown, and how copyright law will apply to them in various instances is yet to be clarified. But the ability to maintain accurate (decentralized) records and to trace every authorized copy of a digital work should enhance efforts to protect, distribute, and share revenue from copyrightable works. We expect to see both enforcement efforts and greater diligence after this initial rush of excitement in the NFT marketplace. [1] See 17 USC § 204 (“A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner’s duly authorized agent.”). [2] See Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., 910 F.3d 649, 657 (2d Cir. 2018) (holding that a service that allowed for the “owner” of an MP3 to sell it to another was infringement because “each transfer of a digital music file to ReDigi’s server and each new purchaser’s download of a digital music file to his device creates new phonorecords”). [3] See Redbox Automated Retail, LLC v. Buena Vista Home Entm’t, Inc., 399 F. Supp. 3d 1018, 1032-33 (C.D. Cal. 2019) (“[T]he first sale doctrine is inapplicable to digital codes. The first sale doctrine applies to ‘particular’ copies that exist in the material world. See 17 U.S.C. § 101; Redbox I, Dkt. 74 at 19-24. Here, no such physical object exists when a standalone code is transferred, or prior to the time that that code is redeemed and the copyrighted work is fixed onto the downloader's physical hard drive.”). [4] See Intellectual Reserve, Inc. v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry, Inc., 75 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 1293, 53 U.S.P.Q.2d 1425 (D. Utah 1999) (defendant ordered to remove from website addresses to websites that defendants knew, or had reason to know, contained material alleged to infringe copyright), and Universal City Studios Prods. LLP v. TickBox TV LLC, Case No. 2:17-cv-07496-MWF(AS) (C.D. Cal. Sept. 12, 2018) (issuing a preliminary injunction “compelling TickBox to maintain the current iteration of the Device's user interface, which seemingly no longer contains links to the themes and addons . . . that provided access to unauthorized streaming versions of Plaintiffs copyrighted works”). [5] We must point out that if NFTs become divisible, and if divisible copyright rights do transfer with some NFTs, then the blockchain will need to keep track of a mind-boggling number of possible rights, payments, and ownership interests. But technology has surprised us before. Also, when multiple rights holders hold interests in the same copyright rights for the same work, courts sometimes impose limits on the transfer and exercise of those rights, especially when only a subset of rights holders take action—another reason that accurate tracking of ownership will be essential.