In light of the recent US action against Ripple, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on Tuesday said it will suspend trading in XRP cryptocurrency from January 19, 2021. The value of XRP, worlds third largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum, crashed more than 40 per cent after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued both the founder and current CEO of its parent company Ripple for raising more than $1.3 billion through an "unregistered securities offering" after selling XRP. See Zee Business Live TV Streaming Below: Coinbase said in a statement that the trading suspension will not affect customers` access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension. "Further, customers will remain eligible for the previously announced Spark airdrop (subject to approval in certain jurisdictions), and we will continue to support XRP on Coinbase Custody and Coinbase Wallet," the company added. XRP trading will move into limit only starting December 28 and will be fully suspended on January 19. The SEC lawsuit which said that XRO is a security not currency, claimed that Ripple`s former CEO and founder Christian Larsen and its current CEO Bradley Garlinghouse violated securities laws by selling XRP over a seven-year period starting in 2013. According to the company, "The SEC is completely wrong on the facts and law and we are confident we will ultimately prevail before a neutral fact-finder". "XRP, the third largest virtual currency with billions of dollars in trading every day, is a currency like the SEC has deemed Bitcoin and Ether, and is not an investment contract," Ripple argued in a blog post. Ripple was recently valued at $10 billion following a $200 million funding round. Get Latest Business News, Stock Market Updates and Videos; Check your tax outgo through Income Tax Calculator and save money through our Personal Finance coverage. Check Business Breaking News Live on Zee Business Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe on YouTube.

With recommendations that are similar to – but more wide-ranging than – recommendations made to the European Commission in mid-May by an EU Parliament member, Denmark’s Rights Alliance responded to a Danish government request for recommendations on site blocking. Unlike the recommendations made to the EC, which set a goal of shutting down a specific genre of streaming piracy in a specified period of time (30 minutes), the Rights Alliance makes the more “abstract” and non-genre-specific recommendation to streamline the take-down process so live streams are terminated while the event is in progress. Rights Alliance also suggests monitoring by government-appointed informants, and recommends that these guidelines be added to Denmark’s “Growth Plan for Creative Industries.” Read Rights Alliance press release (Translated to English by Google Translate) Why it matters Currently, request-processing time interferes with timely implementation and limits mitigation to happen after-the-fact. Also, while the Growth Plan for Creative Industries recognizes ‘scam sites,’ it reportedly lacks a time interval component.

The sale, offer for sale, distribution and/or supply of television boxes or illicit streaming devices (ISDs) that can provide unauthorised access to copyrighted content has been declared as illegal by the Intellectual Property High Court in Kuala Lumpur. The Intellectual Property High Court ruled that the distribution of ISDs constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act 1987 and is punishable by law. Industry leaders in a joint statement hailed the judgment, which has been deemed as a landmark decision in the battle against digital piracy. Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) chief regulatory officer Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said in a statement that MCMC welcomed the court’s decision as it would further strengthen the legal battle against copyright infringement and piracy, “especially in digital and networked forms,” he added. The Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) deputy director general Zulkarnain Muhammad said MyIPO looks forward to seeing more cases related to ISDs brought to court. “Prevalent and widespread use of ISDs cause far more economic harm than physical copyright piracy. These devices are part of a wider network of online copyright piracy, which will in the long run disincentivize original creators from producing creative work. Copyright piracy in any form should be curbed and deterred," he added. The action in the Intellectual Property High Court was brought by Measat Broadcast Networks, the service provider for Astro, against a seller of ISDs preloaded with applications which act as gateways to websites or content servers streaming pirated content. Astro regulatory director Laila Saat said the declaration sets a precedent for future civil claims on copyright infringement against ISD sellers in the market, including those on e-commerce platforms. “This groundbreaking declaration will strengthen intellectual property protection in the country and ongoing anti-piracy efforts, which are pivotal to ensure continuous investment and job creation in Malaysia’s media and entertainment industry. We will continue to work with authorities and content partners to send a strong message that content piracy is theft, illegal and punishable by law,” she said. National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) Dr Ahmad Idham Ahmad Nadzri expressed full support for the legal action taken by Astro against ISD sellers, adding that the corporation has also introduced measures to protect content creators in the industry. “Finas has established the Digital Piracy Eradication Committee with the collective support and involvement of relevant law enforcement agencies to further empower and strengthen enforcement, regulations and the terms of distribution licences in line with the provisions under the FINAS Act 244 1981,” he said. Louis Boswell, CEO of the Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA), said the Intellectual Property High Court has made the correct decision: “Content is not made for free, and it is the right of creators and distributors to charge for it. To circumvent this and steal it is theft.” The estimated loss to the industry and Malaysian economy due to piracy is over RM3bil annually, with RM500mil in taxes and thousands of jobs at risk. In recent months, criminal cases have been successfully brought against ISD retailers. On Feb 16, a director of a mobile accessory company pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing TV media boxes that contains software to illegally stream Astro’s content online. She received a fine of RM30,000 under Section 232(2) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, making her the first ISD seller to be charged under the provision. Meanwhile on Feb 8, a company director of an IT company was charged at the Shah Alam Sessions Court under Section 41(1) of the Copyright Act 1987 with promoting Android boxes, which allow the bypassing of technological protection measures on copyright broadcast work.

In the ongoing struggle against content piracy, a global scourge that undermines and competes unfairly with legitimate content producers and distributors, blocking offshore web and streaming sites that distribute pirated content has proven to be an effective tool in many countries. It provides a remedy to deal with scofflaws that cannot be reached by domestic laws or regulation. Now the Philippines, an important market for domestic and international content, is about to join a growing international consensus by implementing its own site blocking regime. It was announced in mid-April that the major ISPs in the nation of over 100 million, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), the telecom sector regulator, have agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will institute a fast, efficient and effective site blocking regime. The targeted site blocking process has a robust framework that will guide IPOPHL’s consideration in determining what constitutes flagrant infringement and ensure that only egregious piracy websites are blocked. Upon receipt of a rights holder’s referral and supporting documentation, IPOPHL will conduct a further investigation to confirm that an identified site is indeed distributing infringing material before referring the case to the NTC for issuance of a blocking order. ISPs have agreed to comply with these orders. The Philippines has a vibrant domestic film and television industry but also one of the highest rates of piracy in Asia. In a YouGov survey dated September 2020, 49 percent of Philippine respondents admitted to accessing piracy streaming sites, with the total being over 50 percent in the 25 to 34 year age bracket. Almost half of these consumers indicated that, after accessing pirated content, they had cancelled subscriptions to local and international content services, an estimated annual loss of $120 million to the legitimate subscription OTT video industry alone, according to Media Partners Asia. This situation is in marked contrast to the situation in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, where site blocking measures instituted over the past couple of years have helped to reduce significantly what previously were similar levels of consumption of pirated content by local consumers and migrated many of those consumers to legal services. What has brought about this change in the Philippines? It is a combination of alignment of the interests of the key players, combined with strong local leadership and some external assistance, prompted by a realization that consistently high levels of piracy serve no-one’s interests. The lesson from last year’s Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) no doubt played a role as a catalyst. The Festival has been highlighting the best of Filipino talent since the 1970s. In 2020, because of COVID-19, it went virtual. COVID had already forced many theatres to close, thus leading to a surge in consumption of streaming content. Last year the MMFF tried to offset the loss of box office revenue through Video-on-Demand streaming but the result was a disaster. Because of widespread piracy, receipts totalled less than two percent of 2019 revenues. The Manila Times reported that: “MMFF 2020 Best Picture 'Fan Girl' executive producer Quark Henares revealed that his team closely monitored illegal online streaming and found 10 to 20 pirated links every hour.” Upstream executive, artists vow to go after those pirating MMFF movies FDCP Chair Liza Dino enjoins filmmakers to combat growing content piracy with Globe #PlayItRight Often the enemy of introducing new measures to fight piracy is inertia and bureaucratic process, sometimes combined with misguided arguments that any attempt to deal with pirated content through blocking orders amounts to “internet censorship”. While the experience of the MMFF may or may not have been the spark that lit the fire, the leadership of key local players in the Philippines to address the serious piracy issues was critical. Among these is Globe Telecom, the largest telecom company in the country and a major distributor of online content. Several years ago, Globe launched a public awareness campaign against piracy and illicit content on the internet called “#Play it Right”. The objectives of Globe’s campaign are to combat illicit content on its networks, including pirated content and online child exploitation, and to protect its customers from malware, ID theft and ransomware, often by-products that come with accessing pirate sites. AVIA, the regional video industry association based in Hong Kong and Singapore, has also played a constructive role. AVIA has signed a separate MOU with the Philippines Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL) to support the initiative and will be active in providing the Office with information on egregious piracy sites. AVIA has also worked on site blocking mechanisms with authorities in other Southeast Asian countries and has useful experience to share. The mechanism envisaged for the Philippines is an administrative process, with the major ISPs (Globe Telecom Inc., Smart Communications Inc., PLDT Inc., Sky Cable Corp., Converge ICT Solutions Inc. and DITO Telecommunity Corp.) participating voluntarily. IPOPHL under its proactive Director-General Rowel Barba–former Undersecretary at the Department of Trade and Industry—has played the lead role in formulating the site blocking mechanism. Administrative site blocking regimes have been instituted in a number of places, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, and some European countries while other countries (e.g. Australia, France) have required specific legislation to enable blocking. In yet others blocking orders have been issued by the courts applying existing legislation (UK, Canada). While the immediate priority in the Philippines is to put the MOU into action, a parallel legislative initiative is also underway in the Philippine Congress and Senate. Legislation, however, takes time and is subject to many pressures and uncertainties such as election cycles and legislative agenda in terms of eventual outcome, in the Philippines as elsewhere. In the meantime, the MOU between the ISPs, IPOPHL and the National Telecommunications Commission offers a widely supported way forward to deal effectively with the issue now. The piracy situation in the Philippines needs urgent action, a situation recognized by all the stakeholders. The first blocking orders should be issued soon and then the Philippines will join the more than fifty countries world-wide that have adopted site blocking mechanisms in one form or another. Philippine creators, cultural industries content distributors and consumers will all benefit from this long-overdue step. RELATED VIDEO: ABOUT THE AUTHOR: * Mr. Stephens has more than 35 years of government and business experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, he is currently Vice Chair of the Canadian Committee on Pacific Economic Cooperation (CANCPEC), Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Executive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, and an associate faculty member in the School of Business at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC. Before returning to Canada in December 2009, he was Senior Vice President (Public Policy) for Asia-Pacific for Time Warner for almost a decade, located at the company’s regional headquarters in Hong Kong. In this capacity he managed Time Warner’s public policy program in Asia Pacific for Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Warner Bros, Time Inc. and AOL. Disclaimer: The views in this blog are those of the blogger and do not necessarily reflect the views of ABS-CBN Corp. 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On May 19, European Commission adopted a statement of recommendations developed by Parliament members that recognizes the piracy of live sports streaming, and the need to stop illegal online redistribution quickly upon detection. It proposes that illegal streams be disbled by hosting platforms within 30 minutes of being alerted by a rights-holder or a certified agent, without making legal content inaccessible by accident. The statement recognizes that “injunction procedures are relatively long and usually come into effect after the broadcast has ended.” and to “assess the impact and appropriateness of introducing injunction procedures aimed at allowing real-time disabling of access to, or removal of, illegal online live sports event content, based on the model of “live” blocking orders and “dynamic injunctions.” Read the recommendation text, adopted by the European Commission Read the European Commission press release Why it matters Regulators can be excused for recommending a more careful framing of the issues and their potential remedies following an impact assessment, rather than immediately setting forth edicts. The EU must strike a balance between public interest, the interests of rights-holders, the unqual access to distribution-enabling and anti-piracy technologies from provider to provider and from country to country, cross-border enforcement, and the need to harmonize with regulations that already exist for some individual EU states – just to name a few. This announcement fits the broader trend by governments in the United States, where piracy has become a felony; in Indonesia and Malaysia, where site blocking laws have reduced piracy by half; to get actively involved in anti-piracy initiatives in support of upholding copyright law

Around 70-80% of key international markets have been penetrated by pirates. More than 400 Indian and numerous international channels are illegally streamed in these regions. Representational image New Delhi: In a recent development, a complaint was filed at the Cyber Crime Police Station Faridabad alleging that Rhysley Private Limited, a company that reportedly manufactures face masks and PPE kits, is also illegally stealing signals from various Indian and international broadcasters, running backend operations such as sales of boxes, tech support and activation of boxes, and causing crores of losses to the entire industry. Around 70-80% of key international markets have been penetrated by pirates. More than 400 Indian and numerous international channels are illegally streamed in these regions, without paying any fees to Indian broadcasters. If major pirates across the globe are shut down, it will open around USD 113 million for the industry. The identification of Rhysley Limited by YuppTV, one of the leading over-the-top (OTT) audio-visual South Asian content provider for Expats living abroad, is a positive step for the entire industry. Major private broadcasters, including Star, Colors are also in support of the crusade against Boss IPTV, the pirate cartel working under Rhysley, which is illegally streaming premium Indian content offering all the top broadcaster networks by selling the Boss IPTV service across the world. Pirates such as Boss IPTV intercept our legitimate domestic or international signals and illegally broadcast that signal to the public all over the world. As a result, legitimate licensees/rightsholders such as YuppTV that are authorized to carry programs from broadcasters suffer huge losses on account of these crimes whose operations are being conducted from India. For subscribers of such channels, this poses a grave risk to their personal data, as their credit cards and database can be hacked easily. Moreover, since such companies are illegal, they might even misuse consumer data. Boss IPTV is part of a group of pirates such as Tashan IPTV, Vois IPTV, Punjabi IPTV, Indian IPTV, Brampton IPTV, Boss Entertainment, and Guru IPTV who use the same chat provider, hosting provider, and IP address and illegally stream the broadcaster’s signal across the world. This company is registered under the name of Mr. Harpreet Randhawa who also has multiple companies registered under his name including Server Center Limited, Chakde TV, VOIS, Tipsy Time, Tashan Iptv, 2144644 Alberta Ltd and Rhysley Couture Pvt Ltd renamed as Rhysley Private Limited. Now, based on the complaint filed, cyber-crime police had conducted raids at locations including Rhysley India Manufacturing Unit and Rhysley India Sales Office in Faridabad. Systems consisting of email communication related to sales of illegal set top boxes and premium Indian channels were found at the manufacturing unit, while a 20+ seater office in the cellar and the ground floor, which appeared to have been specially used for sales, support and NOC of the above-mentioned illegal IPTV set top boxes was found at the office. More than 10 systems (laptops/desktops) were seized for forensic examination from the above two locations. Six people, including the business partner of the main accused and some key employees were arrested and are in police custody as the investigation is still at a nascent stage. Following this, an FIR was registered on 10th March 2021.The accused have moved a bail application before the Court at Faridabad and the Hon’ble Judge Ms. Kimmi Singla has heard arguments from both sides and reserved orders. All the 6 people accused were arrested on 11th March 2021 and were identified as Sumit Sharma, Harminder Singh Sandhu, Ganesh Nair, Anil Kumar Pal, Virender Kumar, Debovrat Rai and subsequently the bail application for all 6 people was dismissed by the court. Further investigation also found that the illegal set top box Boss IPTV uses various vendors such as DataCamp as the CDN provider, GoDaddy.com, Proxy, LLC, AllstreamCorp, Canada, and infomir.eu. Boss IPTV’s link to these vendors must also be investigated and stern action must be initiated against them for supporting piracy. Such pirates dilute the endeavours of the industry and must be wiped out. The court has already dismissed the bail order against the pirates in this case, which is a step in the right direction.

When Bill Liang realized that popular video download and streaming service Renren Yingshi might be gone for good his heart sank. The website, also known as YYeTs.com, was how the 24-year-old film school student was able to watch hundreds of episodes of pirated American TV shows when he was growing up in northern China. But the site — one of China's largest, longest-running and last-remaining destinations for pirated, subtitled foreign content — was shuttered on February 3 as part of a sweeping police clampdown on piracy. While the website is still live, none of its services work anymore. "I was heartbroken when I found out," Liang told CNN Business. "I feel like there is one place fewer in China through which we can expand our horizons." Police in Shanghai arrested 14 people they claim ran the website and app after a three-month investigation into suspected intellectual property infringement. At the time of its closure, Renren Yingshi had amassed over eight million registered users and was home to more than 20,000 pirated TV shows and movies. The site's operators made some 16 million yuan ($2.5 million) in the past couple of years from ads, subscription fees, and selling hard drives loaded with pirated content, according to police. Renren Yingshi did not respond to a request for comment from CNN Business. Enter your email to receive CNN's nightcap newsletter. "close dialog" We read all day so you don’t have to. Get our nightly newsletter for all the top business stories you need to know. Sign Me Up By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. The crackdown was lauded by state media and intellectual property experts as a sign of China's resolve to enforce copyright protection — criticism over which has dogged Beijing for years. But it also drew a wave of backlash from fans who, like Liang, had long relied on the site for uncensored foreign content. Renren Yingshi, also known as YYeTs.com, was one of China's largest and longest-running destinations for pirated foreign TV shows and movies. An outpouring of support for Renren Yingshi dominated China's Twitter-like Weibo platform in the days after the crackdown. Some thanked the site for "opening a door for us to the world." The public outcry came, at least in part, because of how tightly the Chinese government restricts access to foreign content. It is one of only four countries or regions, alongside North Korea, Syria and Crimea, that doesn't allow access to Netflix, the world's most-popular streaming platform, for example. China also strictly limits how many foreign films can be screened in cinemas each year. And of the content that is allowed to air in the country, much is heavily censored. For Chinese millennials, watching foreign shows and movies is not only a favorite pastime — it's an opportunity to learn about the world. And many of them say the roadblocks imposed by the Chinese government leave them with little choice but to turn to pirated websites, even though they are willing to pay for legitimate access to uncensored, foreign content. While the demise of Renren Yingshi and the country's censorship crackdown suggests the status quo might not change, the reaction to its closure and the popularity of uncensored work shows that there remains a huge appetite for such content within China. Strict censorship rules Founded in 2003 by a group of Chinese students in Canada, Renren Yingshi — a phrase that means "everyone's film and TV" — was born out of a desire to spread foreign TV shows and movies more widely within China. Young, internet-savvy Chinese were drawn to foreign content as China reformed its economy and opened up to the world. They found that such films and shows offered an edgier, more diverse alternative to the heavily censored content produced at home — as well as a way to learn about other cultures and societies. Netflix is doubling down on Asia with K-dramas and mobile-only deals. But China remains elusive Getting access to that kind of content through legitimate means, though, is difficult in China. Since the early 1990s, authorities have allowed just a few dozen foreign films to be screened in the country each year — only nine of the 26 Oscar best picture winners were screened publicly in China from 1994 to 2019, for example. International streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video, have also been unable to crack the market. Netflix, for example, told shareholders in 2016 that the "regulatory environment for foreign digital content services" was "challenging" in China. A subsequent attempt to partner with a local company to distribute content failed. The content that is allowed to air in China, meanwhile, needs to meet strict guidelines. Movies or shows with controversial themes — such as those that depict China in a bad light, portray taboo subjects like the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, or feature LGBTQ storylines — are kept out entirely. And since China lacks a film rating system, any content approved by Chinese regulators is heavily edited to remove certain scenes, such as graphic sex or violence. When the Oscar-winning Freddie Mercury biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" was released in China in 2019, for example, any mention of the Queen singer's sexuality — as well as his AIDS diagnosis — was edited out. "Game of Thrones" is heavily censored in China due to its graphic sex and violence. And the American blockbuster fantasy drama "Game of Thrones," which built its popularity on graphic sex and violence, was censored so heavily on Chinese streaming giant Tencent Video that some viewers complained that it was turned into a staid "medieval European castle documentary." "There were too many 'sensitive' scenes deleted that I could hardly understand the plot anymore -- it was so confusing," said a fan of the show who watched on Tencent Video. The fan asked to remain anonymous because she once helped translate shows for a website that featured pirated content, and she also spoke to CNN Business about that experience. There's little indication that these rules may change. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, tolerance for foreign ideas and values has declined drastically. Popular Western culture is seen by Beijing as a key risk for foreign infiltration that targets Chinese youth — making such content important for the government to control. A long history of legal issues The sweeping restrictions have motivated fans of shows and movies that run afoul of censorship rules to subtitle them in Chinese and upload unauthorized copies online. They operate in loose networks of volunteer translators known as fansub groups. Renren Yingshi was among the largest of these networks, exploding in popularity as American series like "Prison Break," "The Big Bang Theory" and "Gossip Girl" became smash hits in China. Long before the latest crackdown, Renren Yingshi was running into trouble with authorities. In 2009, it was one of more than 100 Chinese websites shut down for "rectification" after the government issued rules that banned the dissemination of unapproved movies and TV shows on the Chinese internet. CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" has become a smash hit in China. At the time, Renren Yingshi vowed to give up its video downloading service, and in 2010 pivoted to translating open online courses offered by American universities. The strategy won the blessing of Chinese state media, which heralded the website as "a knowledge evangelist in the internet age." That love-in didn't last. The website eventually resumed offering pirated shows, and its servers were shut down by Chinese regulators in 2014, not long after the Motion Picture Association of America included Renren Yingshi on a list of pirate sites. It eventually popped back up, and at one point even moved its servers to South Korea for a time as it continued to look for ways to stay operational. Ultimately, Renren Yingshi's interest in making money might have led to its downfall. While it began as a volunteer endeavor, Renren Yingshi eventually started accepting advertisements on videos, and charged members to view its content. "According to Chinese law, if copyright infringement was conducted for the purpose of making a profit, it is very easy to constitute a crime," said Xu Xinming, an intellectual property lawyer at Beijing Mingtai Law Firm. Xu noted that in China, a business needs to make just a few thousand dollars in order to run afoul of copyright crime laws — well short of the millions police claim Renren Yingshi raked in. It's not surprising, Xu says, that Beijing would want to go so hard against a platform with such a high profile. The government has worked harder over the last decade to address infringement, especially given Western accusations that copyright abuse runs rampant in the country. In 2020 alone, Chinese authorities shut down more than 2,800 websites and apps offering pirated content and deleted 3.2 million links, according to the most recent data available from the National Copyright Administration of China. 'Using my love to generate power' It's not clear when the case may be resolved, though copyright infringement results in a punishment of up to seven years in prison, depending on the severity of the violation. Police in Shanghai did not respond to a request from CNN Business for more information on the case. No matter what happens to Renren Yingshi, though, it leaves behind a vast legacy of cultural exchange. "Many friends around me have grown up watching American series. They gave us a lot of extra parameters in our way of thinking," said Lin, the Game of Thrones fan. She said she volunteered for a fansub group in high school called "Garden of Eden." "If you've had so much exposure to different cultures, races and people from different backgrounds since a young age ... it is easier for you to be able to see things from another perspective." She said she was "using my love to generate power" — a phrase commonly cited by volunteers who want to emphasize that they are motivated by their passion for the shows, and not money. The translation work wasn't easy, Lin said. "Every Friday, when the latest episode came out, the timer was on," said Lin, who translated episodes of the American supernatural teen drama "The Vampire Diaries," as well as sitcoms "The Big Bang Theory" and "Two Broke Girls." "Two Broke Girls," starring Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs, is a popular show among Chinese millennials. Someone in the United States or Canada would record the show and send it along with English subtitles. Teams would then divide the episode into 10-minute segments and assign them to translators. "There was a lot of stuff I needed to look up," said Lin, adding that it took her about two hours to translate 10 minutes of video. "Sometimes the characters would tell a joke that I couldn't get, and I had to search for it online." "It was difficult because I had to use [Chinese search engine] Baidu within the Great Firewall," she said, referring to the government's sprawling internet censorship apparatus. The work of fansub volunteers has effectively acted as a fourth wave of "translation activity that has had a huge impact on Chinese culture," wrote Yan Feng, a professor of Chinese language and literature at Fudan University in Shanghai, in a widely shared Weibo post on February 3. By comparison, Yan said the other three major waves included the translation of Buddhist texts in ancient China, the translation of Western literature and social science works during the late Qing dynasty, and the translation of modern works on humanities and social sciences after the Cultural Revolution. For many Chinese millennials, fansub work is also a way to learn about the world. Many groups don't just do translation work — they also add footnotes explaining background and context for certain dialogue to help Chinese audiences better understand historic, political or cultural references. "I think it's a good thing for a child to be exposed to different cultures and different ways of thinking growing up," said Joy Tian, a 23-year-old English teacher in Beijing. She said she was struck by the individualistic values at the center of many Western series and films, having grown up in a culture that emphasizes collectivism. "It helps promote diversity of thought," she added. Xu, the Beijing-based lawyer, said it is up to the public to "do some self-reflection" following the crackdown on Renren Yingshi. "There's no free lunch in this world, and they shouldn't download or stream pirate films and TV shows anymore," he said. But Tian stressed that she'd be willing to pay for the shows if they were uncensored. After all, she has paid for licensed American shows on legitimate Chinese streaming sites before — but she couldn't get past all of the editing. Even Xu said that Chinese fans will likely continue to be tempted to watch pirated shows. People who watch such content and don't profit off of it have not, traditionally, been punished in China. And if the government doesn't ease up on its rules on content, the demand won't go away. "This is indeed a problem. And as the government steps up its crackdown on copyright infringement, this problem will only become more acute," Xu said. "With pirated access cut off, [the government and companies] should compensate by broadening legal access."

A Michigan man has been charged with criminal copyright infringement related to his operation of websites that illegally streamed live sporting event telecasts and pay-per-view events over the Internet. In a related action, 16 websites were seized. These sites illegally distributed copyrighted sporting events – including nine of the 16 which were operated by this individual. This investigation is being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center). Yonjo Quiroa, 28, of Comstock Park, Mich., was arrested yesterday and operated nine of the 16 websites that were seized. The arrest and website seizures coincide with Operation Fake Sweep, which was announced earlier today in Indianapolis. This nationwide enforcement operation targeted stores, flea markets and street vendors selling counterfeit National Football League (NFL) game-related sportswear throughout the country. Special agents and officers also targeted illegal counterfeit imports into the United States, and seized hundreds of websites engaged in counterfeiting and piracy online. More information on this operation is available by clicking here. The streaming websites seized include: firstrow.tv xonesports.tv firstrowsports.tv firstrowsports.net firstrowsports.com hq-streams.tv robplay.tv soccertvlive.net sports95.net sports95.com sports95.org sportswwe.net sportswwe.tv sportswwe.com youwwe.net youwwe.com "This enforcement action by Homeland Security Investigations, in coordination with our partners at the IPR Center, sends a strong message to website operators who mistakenly believe it's worth the risk to take copyrighted programming and portray it as their own," said ICE Director John Morton. "Protecting legitimate business interests is a priority for our agency. We will continue to investigate illegal streaming of programming on the Internet in an effort to preserve legitimate and creative business interests and deter others from engaging in this online criminal activity." "Sports fans may be tempted by illegal streaming websites, but in the end, it is they who pay the price," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Southern District of New York. "These websites and their operators deprive sports leagues and networks of legitimate revenue, forcing spectators and viewers to bear the cost of this piracy down the line. Yonjo Quiroa's arrest and these 16 seizures underscore our commitment to stopping this virtual thievery." The website seizures during Operation Fake Sweep represent the 10th phase of Operation In Our Sites, a sustained law enforcement initiative targeting counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet. It is estimated that each year sports leagues and broadcasters lose millions of dollars from the illegal distribution of copyrighted, live sporting events over the Internet. Such piracy threatens the investment that broadcasters and digital media companies are willing to make to distribute live content; the league's ability to sell game tickets and secure local television and radio carriage; and the value of advertising revenue generated by broadcast, radio and new media partners. Sports fans are also victims, as the costs expended by sports leagues in an effort to address on-line piracy are passed on to fans when they purchase tickets or subscribe to sports networks. In 2010 and 2011, Quiroa registered nine of the 16 seized domain names, and he operated the websites out of his home in Michigan until his arrest. Quiroa received profits of at least $13,000 from online merchants who paid him, through Internet advertising brokers, to advertise on at least one of the linking sites that he operated. The 16 websites seized provided access to illegal, pirated telecasts of sporting events of the NFL, National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and TNA Impact Wrestling (TNA) – all of which hold copyrights to televised broadcasts of their respective sporting events. The seized sites were popular "linking" sites – a type of website that provides access, or links, to other websites that hosted pirated sporting and pay-per-view events. At such sites, users simply click on a link to begin the process of downloading or streaming an illegal broadcast of a sporting event to their own computer. These illegal broadcasts are from a third party website that is hosting the stream. Linking websites are popular because they allow users to quickly browse content and locate illegal streams that would otherwise be more difficult to find. As authorized by the warrant, all visitors to these websites are being redirected to a banner that advises them that the domain name has been seized in connection with criminal copyright violations. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York will seek to have the domain names for the seized websites forfeited. This operation was coordinated with the IPR Center. The IPR Center is one of the U.S. government's key weapons in the fight against criminal counterfeiting and piracy. The IPR Center uses the expertise of its 20 member agencies to share information, develop initiatives, coordinate enforcement actions and conduct investigations related to IP theft. Through this strategic interagency partnership, the IPR Center protects the public's health and safety, the U.S. economy and the war fighters. U.S. Attorney Bharara praised the work of HSI. He added that the investigation is continuing. The charges and allegations contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Surratt is in charge of the prosecution.

The scourge of IPTV Pirata continues to plague Europe and the World, but faces particularly harsh persecution in the Old Continent. In France, the authorities took strong measures that resulted in the banning of several large platforms. As in the neighboring nation of Spain, France follows suit and, according to the Lutte Association contre la Piraterie Audiovisuelle (ALPA), one of the largest operations in history to combat streaming illegal use of TV channels. France blocked the main Pirate IPTV platforms The action was announced by the aforementioned group (ALPA), which, Center national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC), have now blocked, by court order, eight large platforms operating in France and beyond its borders. The case reached the courts in mid-December, and is now taking effect. All French operators are therefore required to judicial obligation to block – prevent user access – to the various pirated IPTV platforms operating in the country. Among the services that illegally distributed paid channels are iptv-teli.com, king365-tv.com, king365-tv.cf, king365tv.com, ddnc.us, platinumiptv.pro, premium-itv.com, primeplus. tv, xtream.ws, and tvservice.pro. Among them, they had millions of users. Illegal streaming of films and series persists worldwide In view of this, some portals were quick to open new domains, thus feinting the blockade by the operators. In fact, above we see the promotional pricing plans for one of the Pirate IPTV platforms, teli.iptv.fr, which even offers two days of free use and three subscription modalities. From € 18.99 for three months, € 42.99 per year, or € 28.99 for six months. This platform is proud to offer access to more than 10,000 online television channels, as well as a gallery of films and series of the main services such as Netflix, AMC, HBO, Apple TV, with more content coming to it. In view of this subterfuge, ALPA and CNC promise to be vigilant, looking for and denouncing the new domains used by these services so that operators can block them. It is, from here, the game of cat and mouse. Message presented in UK when trying to access blocked domains. Like several other Pirate IPTV services, the targeted platforms provided inexpensive access to paid content, with hundreds of channels premium, as well as access to online movies and series, none of which operate legally. It should also be noted that several of the Pirate IPTV services were already installed, or rather, configured, in Android boxes that the user purchased. The software was programmed to give access to the contents by means of a cheap subscription compared to the legal alternatives. IPTV platforms continue to feign authorities and operators In UK a similar method is implemented by operators such as MEO, NOS and Vodafone with the main portals being blocked. However, these barriers do not prevent interested parties from using a virtual private network, commonly called VPN. It can also be said that the effort to combat pirated IPTV is led by several groups and audiovisual associations, as well as those responsible for the sports channels and paid content that have their revenue sources called into question. Finally, in France, the ALPA group and its allies will carry out similar actions against other illegal IPTV services. The fight will be long and aims to wear down the user, a strategy already made known by 4gnews. The ALPA communiqué is available online and can be consulted – in PDF format. 4gnews editors recommend: *The article has been translated based on the content of https://4gnews.pt/iptv-pirata-e-bloqueado-com-novo-vigor-em-franca/ by 4gnews.pt . If there is any problem regarding the content, copyright, please leave a report below the article. We will try to process as quickly as possible to protect the rights of the author. Thank you very much! *We just want readers to access information more quickly and easily with other multilingual content, instead of information only available in a certain language. *We always respect the copyright of the content of the author and always include the original link of the source article. If the author disagrees, just leave the report below the article, the article will be edited or deleted at the request of the author. Thanks very much! Best regards!

One and a half years after launch, Crypton (CRP), the privacy-focused digital currency of the Utopia Peer-to-Peer Ecosystem, is quietly shaping up to become one of the most explosive coins of the year. Crypton features anonymous transactions by default and does not reveal any identifying information to its blockchain, rendering its history completely untraceable. It also features staking rewards that are distributed to those who maintain minimum balances of CRP in their wallet, encouraging community participation along the way. Crypton is the currency that powers Utopia: a decentralized, peer-to-peer ecosystem composed of privacy-based utilities. As stated by its founders, the goal of Utopia is to provide a censorship-resistant, decentralized platform for secure communication, protecting free speech for users all over the world. The Utopia platform allows users to connect to the internet in a secure and untraceable fashion, and because there is no central point of failure, the network cannot be taken offline or even interrupted. Redefining the Internet in an Era of Surveillance Utopia takes the security of its network very seriously, employing high-end encryption that has been described as “uncrackable” without the use of quantum computers. Their vision is to reinvent the internet and finance in a way that empowers the individual, preventing them from being taken advantage of by advertisers, corporations and even governments. To bring this vision to reality, Utopia has worked to assure its platform is free of undue influence from establishment control. This means they do not employ KYC, advertisers, web tracking, artificial intelligence, data collection, or integration with social media sites. Instead, Utopia is creating a self-sustaining ecosystem that will attract like-minded individuals who will be rewarded for their contributions in the form of CRP. A Feature-Packed Platform for Privacy Enthusiasts In addition to end-to-end encrypted messaging and a totally private web browsing experience, some of Utopia’s other components include a decentralized form of DNS (domain registry), secure data storage, and even crypto cards with API for merchant acceptance of CRP. As network nodes are run in countless locations around the world, spanning numerous jurisdictions, it is impossible for Utopia to be taken down or go offline, and sensitive user information is always encrypted and stored client-side, meaning no third parties or central entities have access to it. Crypton (CRP) is currently trading against USDT at three regular exchanges, LAToken, ZG.com and Cryptex.net. It can also be traded at Crypton Exchange, which is an automated exchange built into the Utopia platform natively. Utopia was designed and launched by 1984 Group, a UK registered LP. For more information about Crypton and Utopia, how to buy CRP, and where to download Utopia to get started now, visit the project’s home page here.

The Spanish parliament has voted in favor of a controversial new law that will require citizens to report overseas crypto holdings, as the government appears ready to take “more control” over the crypto sector. Per an official government release, the new law will oblige Spaniards “to report on holdings and operations with cryptocurrencies,” on tokens “both located in Spain and abroad” if the transactions “affect Spanish taxpayers.” The government added that “information will be required on the balances and holders of the coins, as well as on all types of operations that have been carried out with them.” “Due to their proliferation and popularity among investors and savers, it is necessary to take greater control over cryptocurrencies,” they said. The new measures will make it “mandatory to inform” the tax body on annual declarations of assets and property – meaning individuals will have to complete forms detailing their “ownership of cryptocurrencies abroad.” The bill, named the 'Law on Fighting Tax Fraud', also contains other provisions intended to fight tax avoidance, and will give tax bodies the power to conduct spot checks on “homes and businesses,” El Economista reported. The bill still needs to be ratified after the senate voted in favor in a majority vote, but has been in the pipelines since last year, when the Council of Ministers gave it the green light. The proposal has since been championed by the Hacienda, Spain’s tax body. It will see “overseas” crypto integrated into the much-maligned Modelo 720 system, which has drawn the ire of political rivals and requires Spaniards to complete exhaustive declarations about overseas real estate holdings. Critics have claimed the system lacks fairness and have taken their complaints to an EU court in Brussels. Meanwhile, some of the biggest Spanish fund managers, including the likes of the commercial banking giants CaixiaBank and Santander, are refusing to invest in crypto, per a separate report from El Economista. The media outlet added that BBVA, Bankinter, Ibercaja, and the Unicaja Banco-run Unigest fund had also ruled out adding crypto to portfolios, and quoted Jaime Martínez, the global director of asset allocation at BBVA, as stating: “I am not saying that [adding crypto to our offerings] will never happen, I am just saying that right now we are not considering it. [...] We are not going to complicate the lives of our clients with things that we do not have good control of yet. […] Portfolio [managers] are not planning to make movements in that direction.” However, as reported, back in December 2020, BBVA said that starting in January 2021, its unit in Switzerland will progressively launch a new service for the trading and custody of digital assets.

Two major fintechs, PayPal and Robinhood are both looking set to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Revolut, with plans to allow crypto withdrawals to third-party wallets – a step that could see the platforms intensify their competition with crypto exchanges. Christine Brown, Robinhood Crypto’s recently appointed Chief Operating Officer, told Decrypt that the feature was forthcoming, but stopped short of “setting a deadline,” adding that it was “a difficult tool to implement.” Brown was also quoted as explaining that traders need to be “coddled into learning that crypto transactions are irreversible,” as well as educated about the risks of the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry and the price of gas fees. She said: “We want to make sure that we build an experience – not just the technical foundation of sending and receiving coins, but the user experience around it – that is intuitive, that makes sense, and that reduces risk for our users.” Brown went on to claim that the next steps could see the platform turn into “a kind of financial super app,” similar to Coinbase, with staking and lending functions also in the pipelines. Meanwhile, PayPal’s blockchain, crypto and digital currencies business unit lead Jose Fernandez da Ponte, said during Coindesk's Consensus event: “We want to make it as open as possible, and we want to give choice to our consumers, something that will let them pay in any way they want to pay. They want to bring their crypto to us so they can use it in commerce, and we want them to be able to take the crypto they acquired with us and take it to the destination of their choice.” Da Ponte, like Brown, did not specify exactly when this new feature would be made available. On Reddit, some users mused that the “good news” might “make PayPal a competitor to Binance and Coinbase” – particularly if the payments giant decided to add support for more altcoins. Revolut last month began allowing its UK-based premium account holders to withdraw bitcoin (BTC) to third-party wallets in a beta mode. Withdrawals were initially restricted to just over USD 700 per day.

Gary Gensler, Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), told US lawmakers that he wants to work with other regulatory agencies and the Congress to “fill in the gaps of investor protection in these crypto markets,” indicating that the SEC may soon develop tighter regulations for the sector. The regulatory tsar made the remarks in his recent testimony before the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government of the Appropriations Committee at the US House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament, where he reiterated his opinion that cryptocurrencies are a “highly volatile and speculative asset class,” and that many tokens are investment contracts that fall under the country’s securities law. “The SEC has been consistent in its communication to market participants that those who use initial coin offerings to raise capital or to engage in securities transactions must comply with the federal securities laws. Asset managers that invest in these assets may come under securities laws, too,” Gensler said, adding that there were many “challenges and gaps for investor protection in these markets.” Given that none of the crypto exchanges has to date registered as an exchange with the SEC, its Chair claimed that the regulation has resulted in "substantially less investor protection" than in the traditional securities markets, as well as to "correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation” - leading the SEC to prioritize “token-related cases involving fraud or other significant harm to investors.” There is another problem stemming from the coins being traded on unregistered crypto exchanges, he argued. Commenting on the value of the global crypto assets market, Gensler said that while the reported trading volume in recent weeks has ranged from USD 130bn to USD 330bn per day, these figures are not audited or reported to regulatory authorities because the exchanges are not registered with them. “That is just one of many regulatory gaps in these crypto asset markets,” he said. Decentralized finance (DeFi) has also found itself in the SEC’s regulatory crosshairs, as these types of platforms "raise a number of challenges for investors and the SEC staff trying to protect them,” he said. Gensler further added that the SEC is “seeking comment on crypto custody arrangements by broker-dealers.” The testimony would suggest that Gensler, who was sworn into office last April, aims to seek cooperation with other regulators and lawmakers to impose more stringent regulations of the crypto markets - contrary to what the Cryptoverse had hoped from the allegedly 'pro-crypto' new SEC leader - and is yet another indication of his distrust of cryptocurrencies. Earlier this month, Gensler said that bitcoin (BTC) was a speculative and volatile store of value, but that the cryptocurrency does not fall under the SEC’s authority, as it is considered a commodity and not a security. However, he also stated that "a lot of crypto tokens — I won’t call them cryptocurrencies for this moment — are indeed securities." One of the most famous, long, and ongoing battles with the SEC witnessed by the Cryptoworld is that between the regulator and blockchain company Ripple over the SEC’s claim that the Ripple-affiliated XRP coin is an unregistered security. Meanwhile, Gensler also noted an increase in private companies accessing public markets via direct listings, noting that the SEC has approved recently listing rules filed by exchanges for primary direct listings, where companies can sell shares directly on exchanges without a traditional underwritten public offering. "This may be an important mechanism that calls upon SEC resources," he said.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners did send more BTC to exchanges at the end of last week, but so did others, according to Phillip Gradwell, Chief Economist at on-chain analytics and intelligence firm Chainalysis, which suggests that miners did not drive further price declines. Meanwhile, most of the BTC and ethereum (ETH) sellers in the "awful" past week were recent investors. The announcement of tighter regulation on crypto mining and trading in China is one of the latest major entries to the list of possible causes of the most recent price fall. The announcement, however, has again raised questions in the industry about the importance of miners in the market, Gradwell wrote in his latest report. But while miners are relevant for securing the network, "they have a limited effect on the market in the short-term." 75% of BTC inflows to exchanges in May 2021 so far were from other exchanges, while miners were responsible for just 1% of exchange inflows. "Miners do not provide that much liquidity to the market [and] while miners did sell more bitcoin at the end of last week, switching to selling on fiat exchanges rather than purely crypto exchanges, other people sold more bitcoin as well, so the relative importance of miners remained low," the Chief Economist concluded. According to ByteTree, in the past week, miners have sold more coins than they've generated. This hasn't been the case in the past day though. Source: terminal.bytetree.com, 13:44 UTC Cryptoasset prices are recovering after the last week’s selloff but major losses were recorded during the dip, as more than USD 3.2bn were sent on-chain at a loss by new investors, constituting the largest one-week USD loss of all time. However, the percentage losses were still below those of 2017 and March 2020 crashes, according to Gradwell. Large amounts of BTC being sent at a loss suggest that "people are heading for the exit and losses are being realized," he said, adding that BTC 1.2 million was sent at a 5% to 25% loss, and BTC 120,000 was sent at a greater than 25% loss. Nevertheless, it had a smaller number of bitcoin sent on-chain at a loss compared to the late 2017 and mid-March 2020 crash, showing that it wasn’t the worst bitcoin holders capitulation in history. Still, it constitutes the largest realized loss when measured in USD terms, as at least USD 3.2bn worth of bitcoin was sold. Almost all of this loss was incurred by bitcoin held between 4 and 13 weeks prior to being sent, meaning that most of the sellers were recent investors. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) did experience the largest ETH holders capitulation ever recorded. According to Gradwell, ETH 22.6m was sent at a 5% to 25% loss, but there was a relatively small percentage of holders who sold at a 25% or greater loss. As such, realized ETH losses were not high in percentage terms. Looking at the average cost of bitcoin and ether acquired by investors who entered in the last 12 months, Gradwell said as BTC dipped well below its average USD 37,800 acquisition price, recent investors were doubting their purchases. “The price dipped below the current [USD] 37.8k average cost of bitcoin held by investors who entered in the last 12 months. If the price had remained below that level for a while it would suggest that recent investors were doubting their buy-and-hold valuations. However, the bitcoin price recovered to this price floor level and has closed at that level for most of the week.” As for ether, its price remained significantly above the USD 1,700 average cost held by investors who bought it during the last 12 months. “While the ethereum price fall was precipitous, it was from a recent and short-lived all-time high, which appears to be well above most people’s lower bound valuation for ethereum,” Gradwell wrote. As long as crypto does not enter another winter, the average cost of assets held by investors who entered in the last 12 months is likely to continue to provide a floor, he said, adding that another winter in the market is unlikely given the scale of investment at stake now. Despite the last week’s challenges, the industry appears to be responding and most investors remain confident, but it remains to be seen how investors who didn’t panic will act in the near future, he concluded. At 13:38 UTC, BTC is trading at USD 40,140 and is up by 2% in a day and 8% in a week.. ETH increased by 3% in a day and 14% in a week, trading at USD 2,877.

Chia Network, the developer of blockchain and "smart transaction" platform with a cryptocurrency branded as a “green” alternative to Bitcoin (BTC), has reportedly caused a global shortage of hard discs, whilst its president Gene Hoffman denies the cryptocurrencies’ bad impact on the environment. Chia Network uses proof-of-space (PoSp) consensus algorithm in a bid to consume less energy. Nevertheless, these discs still require energy to produce and run, and some reports indicate that hardware involved in PoSp mining could be rendered useless merely after a few weeks. According to New Scientist, some 12m terabytes of hard disc space was being used to mine Chia on May 26, seeing an exponential rise since its launch in March, with the figure being at just 3m terabytes two weeks prior. What’s more, the Chia network has grown by almost one exabyte (974 PiB) in the last 24 hours according to Rick Branson, engineer at PlanetScale. In his words, this is equivalent to burning a single 1 terabyte (TB) solid-state drive (SSD) every 3 seconds. “The scale of this is hard to comprehend,” he said. The increase in demand for SSDs has reportedly caused price rises, however, Hoffman argues that the increased demand driven by Chia will lower the cost of hard discs as manufacturers ramp up production in the future. "We’ve kind of destroyed the short-term supply chain," he's quoted as saying, but he also denied this will become an environmental drain. Nic Carter, Partner at Castle Island Ventures, opined that such an increase in hardware requirements is likely to cause yet another reprisal against the crypto industry. Earlier, Carter, a prominent Bitcoin’s energy use advocate, got into a Twitter feud with Chia’s Founder/CEO and creator of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen, with the argument revolving around the differences in fair coin issues regarding proof-of-work and PoSp chains. Also, some new miners are complaining about the lack of mining pools, resulting in relatively unfair initial coin distribution where only large miners are capable of producing new blocks and reaping block rewards. Andrew M. Bailey, Associate Professor at Yale-NUS College, suggested that Chia would have been taken more seriously if its coin distribution began as a fork of Bitcoin’s UTXO set. In either case, earlier this week, Chia Network announced another successful USD 61m round of funding, led by Richmond Global Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. The company is also looking to launch an initial public offering possibly even within this year. The mainnet of the network was launched this past March. At 13:08 UTC, Chia's XCH, ranked 119th by market capitalizatio, trades at USD 779. It's down 5% in a day and 22% in a week, as well as 53% from its all-time high of USD 1,645 hit less than two weeks ago, per CoinGecko.

There may be a glimmer of hope at last for the South Korean crypto exchanges fearing for their future, with the neobank K-Bank reportedly set to renew its contract with the market-leading trading platform Upbit – just days after three major commercial banks ruled out the prospect of doing businesses with exchanges. Trading platforms have been left to fear for their futures after landmark crypto regulation promulgated in March this year. The new law specifies that as of September 24 this year, all crypto exchanges in the country must abide by real name- and social security number-authenticated banking protocols on a six-month contractual basis. The government has told banks that they are at liberty to conduct their own risk-assessment tests on exchanges – in effect giving the banking industry the power of life and death over the nation’s crypto sector. The heads of the major banks met this month to hammer out a circa-90-point list of criteria exchanges will have to meet in order to prove they are trustworthy. However, it appears even that was not enough for many. Earlier this month, Woori, Kookmin, and KEB Hana all stated that dealing with crypto exchanges would be more trouble than it was worth. But, tellingly perhaps, there was no word from Nonghyup, which currently provides real name services for two exchanges. Shinhan, traditionally the most crypto keen of the “big five” commercial banks, also refrained from commenting. And K-Bank, whose partnership with Upbit has proven almost too successful for its own good, also held back comment. And in a new report from news agency YTN, K-Bank was quoted as saying that the prospects of renewing the existing contract between itself and Upbit, have “recently grown rapidly,” claiming that online account openings have helped spur on its business. Mira Kim, a South Korean blockchain consultant, told Cryptonews.com: “From what I hear, there’s now cautious positivity among some of the ‘big four’ exchanges [Upbit, as well as [B]Bithumb[/B], Coinone and Korbit]. Nobody wants to say anything as they don’t want to jinx it, but I have a feeling that at least the ‘big four’ will either renew with their existing banking contracts or find alternatives partners before September.” BNK Busan Bank has also previously expressed a desire to enter the arena. And in a further development, reported EDaily, K-Bank’s recent success, largely due to Crypto Fever 2.0 and new account openings at Upbit, has spurred it to a level whereby it could become the largest neobank in the country, overtaking its biggest rival, the Kakao-operated Kakao Bank.

Cox Communications has submitted its appeal brief, asking the court to reverse the $1 billion jury verdict handed down following a piracy liability lawsuit filed by several major record labels. The Internet provider argues that it's being incorrectly held liable for pirating subscribers. Cox says that the music industry is waging war on the internet, which will never be the same again if the verdict is upheld. Late 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels. Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages. Heavily disappointed by the decision, Cox later asked the court to set the jury verdict aside and decide the issue directly. In addition, the company argued that the “shockingly excessive” damages should be lowered. Both requests were denied by the court, which upheld the original damages award. Despite the setbacks, Cox isn’t giving up. The company believes that the district court’s ruling isn’t just a disaster for Internet providers. If it stands, the verdict will have dramatic consequences for the general public as well. Cox Files Appeal Brief This week the ISP submitted its opening brief at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, hoping to reverse the lower court’s judgment. The filing begins by placing the lawsuit in a historical context. “The music industry is waging war on the internet,” Cox’s lawyers write. First, the music companies went after thousands of file-sharers and software companies such as Napster. When those tactics didn’t deliver the desired result, Internet providers became a target. “So, 15 years after Napster, the music industry launched an aggressive new strategy: Attack the internet itself, suing the internet service providers — the cable and phone companies, like Defendant Cox Communications, that deliver the internet.” How to Handle Repeat Infringers The entire dispute revolves around the legal obligations Internet providers have when it comes to pirating subscribers. According to the law, ISPs must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that allows them to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. According to the music companies, this means that ISPs should terminate accounts after rightsholders send several infringement notices, regardless of the circumstances. However, Cox and other ISPs have historically been very hesitant to disconnect subscribers, in part because they believe it’s ‘not appropriate’ to disconnect entire companies or households from the Internet. Cox reiterates this stance in its appeal brief. Impossible Spot “The legal rules Plaintiffs advocate put ISPs in an impossible spot. ISPs will have to boot entire households or businesses off the internet— cutting their lifelines, their livelihoods, and their social connections— based on a few isolated and potentially inaccurate allegations. “Or they will have to invade our privacy by developing new capabilities to monitor our internet usage 24/7 to ferret out illegal activity. The internet will never be the same,” Cox adds. This doesn’t mean that Cox simply ignored piracy. The company was actually one of the first US ISPs to implement its own ‘graduated response’ system to address copyright infringers. According to the music companies, however, these warnings and temporary disconnections were not good enough. According to Cox, the district court and the jury were wrong to side with the record labels for a variety of reasons. Vicarious Infringement The first argument is that an ISP should not be held vicariously liable for pirating subscribers when it doesn’t directly profit from this activity. “Cox receives no ‘direct financial benefit’ from infringement. Its subscribers pay the same flat fee for internet services whether they infringe or not. Subscribers are in no sense acting in Cox’s financial interest by downloading songs,” Cox writes. Adding to that, the ISP stresses that it can’t control or supervise its six million subscribers. Blocking or policing infringing activity is impossible, which also weighs against vicarious liability. Contributory Infringement The contributory liability verdict should be overturned as well, according to Cox. The district court was wrong to conclude that past infringement notices gave Cox enough reason to believe that subscribers would pirate again in the future. Separately, Cox argues that the district court was wrong to conclude that the ISP ‘materially contributed’ to pirating activities simply because people can use Internet access that way. “That means Cox cannot be liable based on ‘generalized knowledge’ that people infringe on its network; instead, Plaintiffs had to prove Cox knew of the ‘specific instances of infringement’ for which it was being held liable.” Excessive Damages In addition to overturning the vicarious and contributory liability verdicts, Cox also argues that the $1 billion damages award was wrong. This figure covers thousands of works that should not have been counted and is many times higher than the actual harm. “The district court’s errors have resulted in an award of historic proportions. The $1 billion judgment is entirely untethered from both the harm it caused —$692,000 in displaced downloads — and Cox’s culpability.” Cox says it didn’t directly infringe any of the music tracks, nor did it encourage anyone to infringe. Its liability rests on the decision to keep subscribers connected longer than the music companies liked. The ISP hopes that the Court of Appeals will reverse or vacate the district court ruling. If not, the consequences will be devastating. “If sustained, this judgment would elevate the interests of the music industry over those of ordinary, and often blameless, people who depend on the internet. The consequences will be devastating,” Cox concludes.

An anti-piracy company cited as the sender of a DMCA notice targeting an entirely legal copy of Ubuntu says that its notice sending system was spoofed. The notice was reportedly sent via Comcast to warn a Reddit user that he'd breached copyright law but the explanation from OpSec Security only raises even more questions as to how something like this could possibly happen. Yesterday we reported that Reddit user NateNate60 had received a DMCA notice, apparently from Comcast, declaring that he’d breached copyright law by downloading and sharing a legal copy of Ubuntu. “We have received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works made on or over your Xfinity Internet service,” the posted notice reads. “The copyright owner has identified the IP address associated with your Xfinity Internet account at the time as the source of the infringing works,” it continues, adding that NateNate60 should search all of his devices connected to his network and delete the files mentioned in the complaint. According to the Xfinity notice, the sender was OpSec Security so to find out more we contacted the anti-piracy company for an explanation. That came in late last night and while it provides some answers, it also raises even more questions. OpSec: Our Anti-Piracy System Was “Spoofed” In a response from OpSec Marketing Communications Manager Amanda Hershey, the company explained that the notice was malicious and was sent to damage its reputation. “OpSec Security’s DCMA [sic] notice sending program was spoofed on Wednesday, May 26, 2021 by unknown parties across multiple streaming platforms,” Hershey explains. “The content in question all appears to be Ubuntu Linux ISO. We have incontrovertible evidence that proves these DMCA notices were not perpetrated by or originated with OpSec Security.” Why OpSec references “multiple streaming platforms” is unclear. People do not ‘stream’ Ubuntu packages, they download them – in this case via torrents distributed by Ubuntu’s own tracker. And while OpSec says it has “incontrovertible evidence” that shows the DMCA notices were not sent by the company, it is yet to reveal details in public. “OpSec’s enforcement efforts are occasionally spoofed by a third party in an attempt to damage OpSec’s reputation. These attempts are easily identifiable, and easily disproven,” the company explains. While the security company says that third parties are “spoofing” its system, it does not explain how that was possible. And, at least in this case, the bad DMCA notice was apparently not “easily identifiable”, since it clearly managed to cause confusion. So how did this happen? Inside Information Acquired? In our initial report we noted that it’s not impossible for someone to fake a DMCA notice. In this case, however, it is difficult to dovetail events on the ground and the statement from OpSec because a certain amount of more difficult-to-acquire information would be needed to be this targeted. Firstly, NateNate60 says he did download the content in question after obtaining a torrent directly from Ubuntu’s own tracker. That would, of course, expose his IP address both to the tracker and everyone else sharing the content. However, in order to send the DMCA notice via email (whether that was from Comcast or a spoofed email address purporting to be Comcast), anyone obtaining NateNate60’s IP address would necessarily need his email address too. This raises the question of how that email address was obtained. OpSec Security wouldn’t ordinarily have it, neither would the alleged malicious party, but Comcast clearly would. That’s how DMCA notices sent to ISPs work. The sender doesn’t know the contact details of the alleged infringer so they ask someone who does to forward the notice, in this case, Comcast. So, if we take OpSec’s statement at face value, at least in theory a third-party could’ve tricked Comcast into sending the notice after “spoofing” OpSec’s “notice sending program”. This raises more questions. If these allegedly malicious efforts to undermine OpSec’s reputation are “easily identifiable, and easily disproven”, how was Comcast not put on alert? And if this has happened before as the company claims, why hasn’t the loophole been closed? In any case, the allegedly malicious third-party would also need to know how to contact Comcast in a convincing manner, in order to masquerade as OpSec. It’s not easy to determine how that could be achieved without knowing how OpSec usually communicates with Comcast. This could be explained if OpSec’s system had been hacked or illegally accessed in some way, but the company does not use that terminology, instead going with the term “spoofed”, i.e imitated, not compromised. Furthermore, even if we adopt the scenario that Comcast didn’t send the email and it was a spoofed fake, how did the sender a) discover NateNate60’s IP address, b) the exact time he downloaded the torrent, and c) manage to match that IP address to his email address? It sounds like a lot of effort simply to tarnish OpSec’s name, especially since there was no guarantee that NateNate60 would ever publish the notice online. Both OpSec and Canonical Say They Are Taking Action While OpSec’s statement is helpful to an extent, it clearly raises even more questions. We have put these questions to the security company and will publish an update when it responds. In the meantime, OpSec says the matter is now being escalated. “We are notifying the appropriate authorities about this incident,” OpSec says. Ubuntu owner Canonical says it has launched its own investigation.

Cybersecurity and IP protection company, White Bullet, today announces a partnership with Peer39, the leading global provider of pre-bid keyword, contextual, and brand safety solutions for modern marketers. Peer39’s Contextual Data Marketplace allows advertisers to explore and discover innovative data providers with scalable, cookie-free categories, and is accessible through all buying and selling platforms. Meanwhile, White Bullet has already stopped millions of pounds of ad spend from funding piracy by collaborating with brands, advertisers, regulators and rights owners. Its recently launched Intellectual Property Infringement Platform (IPIP) – designed to make the job of detecting fraudulent content easier – helps to take the profit out of intellectual property crime. By connecting rights owners and the advertising industry with real-time data about piracy risk, White Bullet’s solutions allow clients to understand the universe of piracy and to stop it from generating revenue. This partnership, set within the rapidly shifting landscape of digital marketing, will mean that White Bullet and Peer39 can enable advertisers to reach their desired audiences with precision and scale, safely – unlocking the programmatic ecosystem and giving advertisers direct access to innovative cookie-free data sets from emerging contextual data providers. It will enable clients to elevate media performance whilst defunding pirated content, with White Bullet’s real-time data preventing ads served through Peer39’s integrated partners from going to pirate websites and apps. With Peer39 serving as the conduit for advertisers to access and utilise diverse contextual data sets, and White Bullet continuing its efforts to ensure that pirate content is defunded on an even larger scale, the partnership will go live in Q3. “We are delighted to help advertisers reach their audiences in the moments that matter, whilst continuing to help defund online piracy,” says Peter Szyszko, founder and CEO, White Bullet. “This is critical at a time when marketers are looking to explore cookie-free tactics, whilst moving to a modern, contextual approach. We all know that attention and alignment can dramatically increase ROI, yet the risks of pirated content remain – with unscrupulous players continuously attempting new tactics to undermine legitimate advertising and derail media spend into the pockets of criminals.” Alex White, chief operating officer at Peer39 adds: “We are excited about this partnership. With our goal being to make a large market of cookie-free data sets accessible to all advertisers through all buying and selling platforms, we are also extending our core infrastructure and technology – the tools that allow us to process and understand 1.5 billion web pages per day – whilst enabling our marketplace partners to maintain their proprietary models and IP.” White Bullet’s platform looks for IP-infringing content, examines each infringement’s context, and determines structural violation on a commercial scale – providing accurate piracy risk scores. It detects piracy across multiple digital ecosystems, remaining up-to-date in real-time, and tracking that all-important financial impact, with AI and machine learning taking the strain.

A piracy site called Discoverthisplace has been taken offline following legal action by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. The site seemingly provided users with links to tens of thousands of copyright infringing albums, movies, TV shows, e-books and magazines that were stored on cyber-lockers. The links were only available to members of the site, some of whom paid five euros a month for priority access to the latest files. BREIN identified three people involved in running the site and posting the links, although it actually sought an ex parte injunction against the operation, meaning the court would issue an order without the three specific defendants being present to defend themselves. The argument was that the site was clearly liable for copyright infringement – the link posting constituting a communication to the public of the infringing materials – and given the scale of the piracy operation a speedy injunction was required. The court concurred. According to Torrentfreak, the court’s injunction ordered the three named individuals to cease-and-desist their piracy operation, with the threat of a daily penalty of 2400 euros if they failed to do so. BRIEN itself subsequently reported that, after the court order was serviced, “the site was immediately taken offline. Those involved have pledged to cease the infringement and have reached a settlement of 20,000 euros”

The music industry has welcomed a number of polices and initiatives introduced by YouTube and Facebook to help in the fight against online piracy, most of which have stemmed from a series of roundtable discussions organised by the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office since 2018. Record industry trade group BPI – as well as other creative industry groups involved in those roundtables – have highlighted a number of changes made by YouTube and Facebook that should help rightsholders to better enforce their rights online. For example, both platforms have introduced new policies to stop the posting of content that specifically aims to help people access copyright infringing content online, for example by explaining how to access websites that have been blocked by internet service providers on copyright grounds. Both companies have also discussed their respective rights management systems – so YouTube’s Content ID and Facebook’s Rights Manager – and their repeat infringer policies, seeking to ensure that copyright owners know what is currently possible, and identifying areas where content companies would most like refinements. Meanwhile, Facebook has introduced new policies to try to stop links to piracy services appearing on its platform, and to ensure that suggestions in its search box don’t encourage people to search for infringing content. On a more technical front, YouTube has “agreed to a significant increase in API allowances to enable rightsholders to scale their IP enforcement activities and more quickly remove infringing links at scale” and “Facebook is in the process of beta-testing a similar API”. So that’s fun. Especially for fans of takedown notices. Of course, for the copyright owners involved in these roundtables there is still much work to be done by these and other internet companies in the never ending fight against piracy. The BPI et al nevertheless acknowledge that some progress has been made as a result of these voluntary measures introduced by Facebook and YouTube. BPI boss Geoff Taylor says: “There remains much work to do to reduce online infringement, which continues to hinder the growth of the UK’s world-beating creative industries, but I would like to thank Facebook and YouTube for their positive engagement and their efforts to address many of the issues brought forward in the roundtable”. As for what other internet companies might want to follow Facebook and YouTube’s lead, well, the initiatives outlined today stand in contrast, Taylor adds, to the fact that “no significant progress has been made with Twitter”, which “underlines the urgent need for government to ensure that all online platforms take a responsible approach to dealing with content”. And now some words from Facebook and YouTube, just for fun… Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA at Facebook: “The collaborative social media roundtable process facilitated by the IP Office has proven to be a powerful model for educating stakeholders on Facebook’s systems to address piracy and for developing new policies that meet all stakeholders’ needs. We are grateful to the IP Office for its leadership and the earnest and solution-oriented manner in which the creative rightsholders approached the roundtable discussions”. Dan Chalmers, Director of YouTube Music EMEA: “YouTube seeks to lead the industry in developing programmes, policies and technology to fight online piracy and we are very proud of receiving an Emmy for our cutting edge Content ID system. But as pirates switch tactics, it is important that we collaborate closely with rightsholders and experts like the IPO to ensure that our approach and investment are as effective as possible. We value the leadership taken in the UK to facilitate industry collaboration and look forward to continuing progress in this space”.

A Russian computer security researcher was sentenced by a federal judge in California to two-and-a-half years in prison Monday for his role in administering deer.io, a sprawling online marketplace for selling stolen account credentials, credit card information, and hacked accounts. Kirill Firsov, the 30-year-old operator of the now-defunct site, was arrested last March upon his arrival at New York City’s JFK Airport from Moscow. At the time of his arrest, the site hosted about 3,000 active shops with sales exceeding $17 million, according to Justice Department officials. Although Firsov argued that most of the sales on the site were of Russian accounts, at least $1.2 million of exchanges were tied to U.S. stolen data, including names, current addresses, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers. Deer.io operated like a Shopify for cybercrime, according to charging documents. It offered cybercriminals “a turnkey online storefront design and hosting platform,” which they used to advertise and sell a variety of products, such as hacked servers. The site claimed to have over 24,000 active shops. In an indictment for Firsov, prosecutors described how cybercriminals could use deer.io to sell their products. The crime that Firsov pled guilty to—unauthorized solicitation of access devices—carries with it a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine. But in the sentencing trial, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant said he had been incarcerated for more than a year during the COVID-19 pandemic, and would likely spend additional time behind bars as he goes through deportation proceedings back to Russia. However, Bashant “noted that without Firsov’s involvement, there would be no deer.io, and that facilitated the sale of stolen property on a large scale,” the Department of Justice said. The site was in operation since at least October 2013 and was maintained on Russian servers, which made it difficult for the FBI to investigate it, prosecutors said. Although it’s unclear how the FBI tied deer.io to Firsov, he maintained a Twitter account where he posted about vulnerabilities and exploits. In court documents, the FBI described how agents in San Diego were able to purchase approximately 1,100 gamer accounts for under $20 in bitcoin, and the personally identifiable information of about 3,650 individuals for a few hundred dollars in bitcoin from the marketplace. From those accounts, the FBI identified names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of multiple people who resided in San Diego. “This platform provided cybercriminals with easy access to the personal accounts and information of people around the world, including Americans,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman. “Stopping that flow of stolen information to criminals is critical to addressing the cybercrime threats facing our country, and we will prosecute those who are responsible.”

Spanish police have seized servers and arrested the operators of an Android app designed to broadcast pirate video streams, but which also secretly sold users’ personal data and ensnared smartphones into proxy and DDoS botnets. Named Mobdro, the app was downloaded more than 100 million times, according to Spanish National Police. Although on its official websites, the app used benign descriptions, once installed, it allowed users to access and view pirated video streams, usually for online sporting events. Spanish officials said they began an investigation into the app in 2018 after receiving complaints from the English Premier League, the Spanish Football League, and other creative associations. Starting last month, investigators began cracking down on the app’s authors, with the help of Europol, Interpol, Eurojust, and authorities in Andorra. These efforts targeted the operation’s leader, a former Spanish citizen relocated to Andorra, and three engineers, and included the following: Three house searches (2 in Spain and 1 in Andorra) Four arrests (3 in Spain and 1 in Andorra) Four court orders to take down domains 20 web domains and servers blocked Bank accounts frozen One server was taken down in Portugal, and another one under investigation in Czechia Investigators said the Spanish company behind the app and server infrastructure made more than €5 million, based on seized documents. The profits primarily came from showing ads inside the app and selling users’ personal data to online advertisers. But Spanish authorities said that “with the progress of the investigation,” their agents also identified another source of revenue that consisted of enrolling user devices into another company’s network. According to Spanish and Europol officials, this unnamed company used the devices as proxy bots in its anonymization offering and for DDoS attacks. However, industry experts to whom The Record spoke today were not surprised by these revelations. The app was always considered high-risk, as it was never submitted and distributed through the official Google Play Store, and a 2019 Digital Citizens report [PDF] firmly classified it as malware, even warning about features in its code that could be abused to ensnare devices into a botnet.

Google’s recent algorithm updates are reportedly reducing traffic to piracy websites, according to an analysis of year-over-year data. TorrentFreak, with help from piracy tracking company MUSO, published a report which shares insights into pirate site traffic from search engines in 2020. From December 2019 to November 2020, pirate sites lost nearly a third of their search traffic. Several interesting patters were also discovered. Here are key insights from TorrentFreak’s report on what may be a category of sites hit hardest by Google’s recent algorithm updates. Google Search Traffic Pillaged From Pirate Sites Search traffic to pirate sites hit a downward trend in January of last year, and went into freefall in May 2020 after a brief spike when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March. As TorrentFreak points out, these dates are not coincidental. They line up with Google’s first two core algorithm updates of last year. Google launched a core update on January 13th, 2020, and another one on May 4th, 2020. Google recently rolled out a core algorithm update in December 2020, though it’s too early to tell what effect it may have had on pirate sites. While the January update was mildly effective at thwarting traffic to pirate sites, the core update in May did the most damage with a 20% drop in search traffic during that month alone. Data reported by TorrentFreak and MUSO is similar to data from one of the largest torrent sites on the web, the report states: “To confirm our findings we spoke to the operator of one of the largest torrent sites, who prefers to remain anonymous. Without sharing our findings, he reported a 35% decline in Google traffic over the past year, which is in line with MUSO’s data.” Google’s core algorithm updates are designed to have a widespread impact on global search results, though certain categories of sites will invariably be hit harder than others. As it relates to the core updates of 2020, it appears torrent sites felt the brunt of the impact. Though it’s worth noting overall traffic to pirate sites dropped in 2020. Make sure you optimize for user experience metrics. Are you optimizing for user experience? Enhancing site speed, content stability and interactivity can boost organic rankings, brand awareness and sales. Between December 2019 and November 2020, excluding traffic from search engines, visits to pirate sites saw a gradual decline of roughly 10%. With that in mind, the reduction in search traffic to pirate sites could be the result of algorithm updates combined with decreased interest from users. There’s another factor to consider, which that 2020 offered less content for users to pirate. Compared to previous years, there were nowhere near as many major blockbuster movies to download. The music industry saw many projects getting delayed, and much of the year’s top trending TV programs aired on streaming sites. That’s a stark contrast from 2019 which had several multi-million dollar films from Marvel Studios, Game of Thrones on HBO, music leaks from popular artists, and so on. It’s easy to point the finger at Google, and it makes perfect sense that Google would downrank pirate sites, but it’s always important to consider external factors that could contribute to a loss in traffic.

Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) sued a pirate IPTV provider called Omniverse One World Television and its owner in a California court. The case seemed very simple, with a service that offered content without a license, and that therefore would have to pay damages to the owners of those rights. However, the case has taken a 180 degree turn. Omniverse, according to the ACE, offered royalty-free content to other pirated IPTV platforms that they resold to clients, such as Dragon Box, HDHomerun, Flixon TV, and SkyStream TV . However, the owner of Omniverse, Jason DeMeo, insisted that they did have the rights to resell the content after having signed an agreement with Hovsat, which in turn had an agreement with DirecTV, the main satellite platform in the United States. Omniverse, sentenced to pay 50 million to the ACE Soon the validity of the Omniverse deals began to be questioned, and in the end the platform gave up and paid $ 50 million in damages to ACE. However, Omniverse went on to ask for those $ 50 million in damages from Hovsat. The platform's argument is that they paid Hovsat $ 46,000 a month to license the content , believing that Hovsat paid them to DirecTV, and that DirecTV gave them the links to put them in IPTV apps with all the guarantees, when in reality they did not It was like that. Therefore, Omniverse was ultimately offering unlicensed content, and accused Omniverse of breaching the contract, which led to Omniverse being sued and fined $ 50 million despite not really being at fault, since they they believed they were offering content through legal channels. Hovsat, sentenced to pay 50 million to Omniverse Thus, this week, the judge who was handling the case has decided to convict Hovsat, who has not even bothered to appear at the trial to defend his position. Therefore, the resolution has been in favor of Omniverse and has condemned Hovsat to pay the 50 million dollars in fine to which Omniverse was sentenced. Now all that remains is for Hovsat to pay Omniverse, and for it to pass that money on to Hollywood studios and to the copyright owners of the content they broadcast. However, this may be difficult as Hovsat's complete lack of interest in the process could lengthen the situation and even create a problem if they do not decide to pay. Both convictions are final, but Hovsat's failure to come forward means he can ignore it if the authorities have no way to access his accounts. However, they do have Omniverse more under control, and they can generate serious money problems if they are forced to pay even though they do not receive money from Hovsat.