Several large live streaming sites sued by DISH Network for breaching the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have gone dark. SportsBay, the largest of the quartet, had around nine million visitors per month but an order issued by a Texas court requiring third-parties to hand over details of its operator may have set off alarm bells.

Most pirate IPTV services online today operate by accessing official broadcasts and streams, capturing them with dedicated equipment, and then restreaming video to the public from dedicated servers.

However, a US lawsuit filed late July shows that’s not the only way.

DISH Sues ‘SportsBay’ Sites

In an interesting complaint filed in a Texas court, DISH claimed that four sites doing business as SportsBay.org, SportsBay.tv, Live-NBA.stream, and Freefeds.com were offering sports broadcasts including the Olympics, NBA matches, NFL games, cricket and motorsports, we obtaining its content using a different method.

According to DISH, the SportsBay site operators are able to circumvent the DRM technologies deployed by subsidiary Sling TV’s streaming system in order to provide their users with Sling programming, directly from Sling’s servers, for free.

DISH went into some detail on how the operation works while alleging willful violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions for which it deserves compensation.

DISH Requests Subpoenas To Identify Defendants

A few days after the complaint was filed, DISH informed the court that the defendants use many third-party service providers to promote, manage, and operate their SportsBay sites. These include domain registrar Namecheap and WhoisGuard, Tucows, Cloudflare, Digital Ocean, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Since the identities of the SportsBay sites’ operators are unknown to DISH, the company asked permission to subpoena these companies to find out their true identities.

“These service providers are expected to have information that identifies the Defendants — those responsible for operating the Sportsbay Websites, circumventing and providing technologies and services that circumvent the security measures employed by Sling and provide DISH’s copyrighted television programming to Sportsbay users without authorization — and are thus the intended recipients of Plaintiffs’ subpoenas,” DISH told the court.

Court Grants Expedited Discovery

In an order handed down earlier this month, Judge Charles Eskridge at the District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted DISH’s request to serve subpoenas on the third-party service providers to obtain the identities of the SportsBay sites’ operators. The order also allowed DISH to serve subpoenas on other providers not listed in its earlier discovery motion.

According to a status report filed this week, DISH reports that it filed seven subpoenas to the defendants’ service providers in early September, seeking relevant documents that identify the SportsBay operators. At the time of writing, ‘most’ of the third-party companies have yet to respond to the DISH subpoenas.

This means that DISH still doesn’t know the defendants’ names, they have necessarily not been served, and none have responded to the lawsuit filed in the summer. At this stage DISH hopes to be able to amend its complaint with real names shortly but will probably need to file a request for an extension of time in order to properly serve the defendants.

In the meantime, however, the SportsBay sites have disappeared.

All Four Sites Go Dark, Millions of Users High and Dry

It’s unclear whether the downtime at all four of the ‘SportsBay’ platforms is directly linked to the DISH lawsuit but it’s certainly possible that the serving of the DISH subpoenas has caused some level of concern at the pirate sites.

There may also be some kind of unexpected technical issue but that seems less likely since other sites that appear to be using the same underlying infrastructure appear to be operating normally.

In any event, the sudden disappearance means that huge numbers of SportsBay users are now faced with the prospect of finding an alternative. There’s certainly no shortage of replacements but with around nine million monthly visits, it’s safe to say that some disruption may be felt in live sports streaming, at least for a short while.

Internet provider Wide Open West, better known as WOW!, has responded to a piracy liability lawsuit recently filed by several filmmakers. The Internet provider brands the movie companies as copyright trolls and asks the Colorado federal court to dismiss their complaint. According to Wow!, the rightsholders failed to back up their claims.

Over the past two decades, online piracy has proven a massive challenge for the entertainment industries.

Some copyright holders have tried to go after individual pirates in court but, increasingly, third-party intermediaries are targeted as well.

There are several lawsuits pending in US Courts, where rightsholders accused Internet providers of not doing enough to stop piracy. One of the main allegations is that ISPs fail to terminate accounts of repeat infringers in ‘appropriate circumstances’, as is required under the DMCA.

These lawsuits were pioneered by music companies, which had some success on this front, including a $1 billion verdict against Cox. More recently, however, a group of filmmakers adopted a similar strategy. These companies have already sued several Internet providers, including Wow!.

Filmmakers sue WoW!

Wow! is being sued by a group of smaller movie companies, including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures, which have built up an impressive anti-piracy track record in recent years. They’ve gone after individual pirates and targeted various pirate sites, including torrent index YTS.

The filmmakers now accuse the ISP of failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly accused of sharing copyrighted material. As such, they hold Wow! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages.

Wow! clearly disagrees with these accusations. In a motion to dismiss submitted this week, the ISP refutes the claim that it’s directly, contributorily, or even vicariously liable for subscribers’ alleged copyright infringements.

Motion to Dismiss

According to Wow! the evidence provided by the movie companies’ anti-piracy partner Maverickeye fails to prove any direct infringements. An IP address is not sufficient to prove that subscribers downloaded any infringing material, the ISP claims, pointing to the ‘Cobbler’ case.

In addition, the secondary liability claims fail too, as the filmmakers can’t show that Wow! benefited financially from the pirating activity. Wow! charges flat fees for its internet service, which are the same whether subscribers pirate or not.

“[T]he Complaint lacks plausible allegations detailing how WOW profited directly from the alleged infringement, which renders any financial benefit from the alleged infringement attenuated or incidental, and not ‘direct’,” the motion to dismiss reads.

Wow! further argues that there’s no evidence showing that its Internet service was particularly appealing to pirates. Finally, the ISP notes that it simply couldn’t control or supervise any of the alleged infringements, which is also required to prove liability.

Wow! Disconnected Hundreds of Subscribers

These and other arguments will be reviewed by the court, which will ultimately decide whether this case can move forward. Many of the defense arguments are in line with what we have seen in previous cases, but there are key differences too.

For example, Wow! points out that that it’s not ignoring piracy. In recent years, the company has terminated accounts of hundreds of subscribers for which it received multiple copyright infringement notices.

“WOW has a robust program under which it notifies account holders of infringement allegations, suspends their internet access if the allegations continue, and then permanently terminates the account upon receipt of additional complaints.”

On top of that, the Internet provider also puts the defendants, its anti-piracy partners, and the evidence in a different light.

Trolls, a Victicious Person, and Strange Logs

Wow!’s motion to dismiss characterizes the filmmakers and their anti-piracy partner Maverickeye as copyright trolls. These entities have previously sued individual file-sharers in various courts to extract easy settlements.

“Plaintiffs and Maverickeye are part of a well-known web of copyright trolls. Until now, Plaintiffs’ modus operandi has been to file John Doe lawsuits in the hope of securing quick settlements and to dismiss them at the slightest resistance.”

The ISP also points to several lawsuits where Maverickeye was accused of a wide variety of wrongdoings, including the use of expert testimony from a fictitious person.

“Additionally, courts and litigants in these cases have persuasively accused Maverickeye of serious wrongdoing, such as submitting fraudulent ‘expert’ declarations from fictitious persons, violating state law by engaging in unlicensed surveillance, and even conspiring with copyright owners to offer copyrighted content over BitTorrent and then sue anyone who tries to download it.”

These allegations will have to be tested in court, but it’s clear that Wow! is willing to ask tough questions. This also applies to the ‘testimony’ from YTS owner Senthil Segaran, which the filmmakers used as evidence.

The site operator provided information from YTS’s logs and user database as part of an earlier settlement with the filmmakers. However, Wow! is not immediately convinced that this information is credible.

All in all, Wow! believes that the complaint should be dismissed in its entirety. Whatever the court decides, this case will be interesting to watch, as the stakes are high.

Besides millions of dollars in potential piracy damages, the filmmakers want Wow! to block various pirate sites and disconnect subscribers whose accounts are targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

Chipper Cash, an African fintech start-up, has extended its peer-to-peer instant money service to South Africa. In addition to being able to use the remittance service, South African users will be able to buy, sell, and transfer cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and the USDC stablecoin.

South Africa Ripe for Disruption and Innovation

According to a report that quotes the start-up’s VP for strategy and partnerships in Africa, Pardon Mujakachi, Chipper Cash has made the foray into South Africa because it believes the country “is ripe for disruption and innovation in the financial services market.”

The report also quotes the VP revealing the fact that it takes “three days for a person in the U.S. to send money to South Africa” while on the other hand, it takes up to 48 hours to move funds from one bank to another.

It is such inefficiencies that often drive users to informal channels, argued Mujakachi. The VP also shared figures of the estimated number of users that are forced to use such informal channels. He said:

People end up using informal channels to send money. If you look at the outbound remittances from South Africa, 68% is going through informal channels. Even with the domestic remittances, a sizeable amount goes through the informal channel.

According to the Chipper Cash VP, it is such domestic remittances that will be the fintech firm’s starting point in South Africa. However, only verified users will be allowed to use this app.

Dominance of Legacy Money Transfer Organizations

Chipper Cash, just like other fintech start-ups before it, is attempting to claim a sizeable portion of the cross-border remittance market share from established money transfer organizations (MTO).

By offering lower transaction costs, Chipper Cash potentially stands a chance of eating into existing MTOs’ market share. However, it remains to be seen if this mobile app is going to win over South Africa’s financially excluded groups. This is because in addition to lacking the required verification documents, some in these financially excluded groups have no access to devices that are needed to use the mobile app.

A hamster that trades cryptocurrencies has been outperforming Bitcoin and the S&P 500 since June. The rodent, called Mr. Goxx, uses a device called the “goxx box,” to give signals and make purchases in front of the live streaming audience that follows him. Mr. Goxx has achieved an impressive current score of +24% and even got to +50% before the latest crypto selloff.

Crypto-Trading Hamster Performs Better Than S&P 500, Bitcoin

A cryptocurrency-trading hamster that streams trading signals through Twitch has been on a roll since June, outperforming fellow human traders and Bitcoin, with impressive gains of 24% over its starting portfolio. The rodent, called Mr. Goxx, uses a simple system built on top of an infrastructure called the goxx box, that allows him to pick a cryptocurrency and send a signal to the traders.

The system (devised by Mr. Goxx’s human caretaker) uses a hamster wheel to pick a cryptocurrency, and two tubes which the cute trader crawls through then indicate if the selected cryptocurrency must then be bought or sold. The cryptocurrency portfolio of Mr. Goxx includes tron, xrp, cardano, and ether, among 30 other cryptocurrencies. Its portfolio started with $390 back in June and has increased to $498. Also, Mr. Goxx uses Twitter to report his portfolio movements, informing fans about the sales and performance of every trading session that Mr. Goxx engages in via his “office.”

Impressive Following & Holding Tron

The trading hamster has an audience of more than 3K followers on Twitch, being one of the cryptocurrency-related channels that stands out in a gaming-dominated platform. Mr. Goxx reached peak earnings before the recent cryptocurrency selloff when he attained more than 50% of his initial portfolio.

However, even with all its positive returns, Mr. Goxx’s anonymous caretaker has still not gained the funds to pay for the initial investment that built the goxx box. The caretaker told Protos in an interview that:

Mr. Goxx is happy to see that some of his investments finally pay off.

Mr. Goxx has also shown an interesting preference for Justin Sun’s tron. It is currently the biggest bag held in the hamster’s portfolio. Mr. Goxx has never sold tron. Mr. Goxx’s current portfolio also includes stellar, ether, bitcoin, and xrp.

The makers of popular films including "Hunter Killer," "Automata," and “I Feel Pretty” are demanding over $10 million in piracy damages from VPN provider LiquidVPN. The movie companies ask the court to issue a default judgment since the VPN provider failed to show up in court. Meanwhile, LiquidVPN's website seems to have disappeared.

A few years ago piracy-related lawsuits were pretty straightforward. Copyright holders would either sue alleged file-sharers or the operators of pirate sites.

In recent months, we have seen a new breed of lawsuits filed on behalf of the makers of movies such as “Hunter Killer,” “Automata,” “Survivor,” and “I Feel Pretty.”

These lawsuits target VPN providers, which are generally seen as third-party intermediaries. This includes LiquidVPN. The company was taken to court in March, shortly after the former owner was sued in a separate lawsuit.

The current owner, Puerto Rico company 1701 Management, is allegedly linked to U.S. resident Mr. Muszynski, who continued operating the service. While running a VPN is not copyright infringing, the movie companies accuse the service of encouraging and facilitating piracy.

VPN-related Copyright Infringement

The complaint mentions a variety of other examples where the defendants directly or indirectly referenced copyright infringing activity. This includes a screenshot of Popcorn Time which shows the Millennium film Survivor. The movie companies argue that, through various public statements, LiquidVPN ‘encouraged’ users to use its service to pirate movies.

“The LiquidVPN Defendants describe their VPN service as a tool to ‘Watch Popcorn Time without being detected by your ISP and P2P tracking software’ and promote it as a tool that can be used to pirate copyright protected content ‘without the risk of getting caught by your ISP or anyone else’,” they wrote.

Default Judgment

Despite the serious allegations, 1701 Management and its alleged owner failed to respond in court. As such, the film companies are now requesting a default judgment in their favor.

The movie companies claim that Mr. Muszynski, a Florida resident, is the driving force behind the shelf company 1701 Management, which bought LiquidVPN from its former operator two years ago. According to the legal paperwork, there are still claims on outstanding payments for this deal, which the movie companies have taken over from the former owner.

The main allegations relate to copyright infringement, however. According to the plaintiffs, it is clear that LiquidVPN crossed a line and should be held liable for direct and contributory copyright infringement, among other things.

No Safe Harbor

The motion for default judgment argues that LiquidVPN isn’t entitled to a safe harbor defense because it failed to implement a repeat infringer policy. In addition, the company didn’t have a registered DMCA agent.

“The LiquidVPN Defendants have no safe harbor from liability because they fail to implement a policy for terminating repeat infringers and have not even registered a DMCA agent with the Copyright Office,” the movie companies write.

The repeat infringer angle is noteworthy because many other VPN services don’t take action against repeat infringers either. VPNs generally don’t log IP-address allocations, which makes it pretty much impossible to track repeat offenders.

No Logs, No Excuse

The movie companies argue that this isn’t a valid excuse, as LiquidVPN willingly chose not to keep logs.

“[T]he LiquidVPN Defendants cannot use their policy of not logging their subscribers’ access to provide anonymous IP addresses as an excuse for not terminating repeat infringers. A defendant who disables itself from doing anything to prevent infringement does not reasonably implement a repeat infringer policy.”

These and other claims are novel issues and there is little VPN-related jurisprudence. However, without a defense in court from LiquidVPN, these arguments won’t be actively contested in court.

Millions in Damages

All in all, the movie companies demand compensation on various grounds. This includes the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 66 works included in the complaint. This amounts to $9,900,000. In addition, the movie companies request $1,650,000 for DMCA violations.

The case comes with a trademark twist as well. The Hawaiian company 42 Ventures, which is operated by anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper, owns the “Popcorn Time” trademark and requests $100,000 for unauthorized use by LiquidVPN.

In addition to the damages, the movie companies also request an injunction that requires LiquidVPN to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. In addition, the service should block access to the pirate sites YTS.MX, Piratebay.org, rarbg.to, 1337x.tw, and popcorn-time.tw.

Interestingly, the mentioned Pirate Bay domain doesn’t point to the official site, but a Pirate Bay proxy. That said, it’s unsure whether any blocking action is actually needed at this point.

At the time of writing, the LiquidVPN website appears to have disappeared, as it’s currently returning a Cloudflare connection error. The client area of the website is still online.

Several U.S. lawmakers see China’s authoritarian crackdown on cryptocurrency, including bitcoin, as “a perfect opportunity for American leadership on cryptocurrency.” One senator noted that it is “a reminder of our huge structural advantage over China.”

US Lawmakers Comment on China’s Cryptocurrency Crackdown

Following the latest news of China’s crackdown on cryptocurrency, several U.S. lawmakers have shared their views on the situation.

Senator Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania said:

China’s authoritarian crackdown on crypto, including bitcoin, is a big opportunity for the U.S. It’s also a reminder of our huge structural advantage over China.

“Beijing is so hostile to economic freedom. They cannot even tolerate their people participating in what is arguably the most exciting innovation in finance in decades,” he added. “Economic liberty leads to faster growth, and ultimately, a higher standard of living for all.”

The pro-bitcoin senator from Wyoming, Cynthia Lummis, who has been trying to educate her colleagues in Congress that bitcoin is a great store of value, chimed in. Commenting on Toomey’s tweet, she wrote: “Gradually, then suddenly. Closer to the ‘suddenly’ phase by the day. Keep up the education on the Hill. It’s spreading.”

Congressman Tom Emmer from Minnesota opined: “Digital. Authoritarianism. China is forcing its citizens away from decentralized currency and onto the digital yuan so the CCP can track all money movements. You fear Big Brother? Then you should also fear what the Fed might be designing.” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell recently said that the Fed will soon publish a discussion paper on a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Emmer further stated:

Open. Permissionless. Private. If China bans it, you know it’s something worth fighting for.

U.S. Representative Warren Davidson from Ohio described: “America has an incredible opportunity to protect personal digital wallets, embrace true distributed ledger technology, and strengthen our advantage over China’s authoritarian Communist Party.”

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who is trying to make his city a bitcoin hub, stressed: “China banning bitcoin is a massive mistake with impacts that will be felt for generations. Their loss is our gain and America can and will lead the future by providing a clean power home for bitcoin miners and all who are building on/with/for bitcoin.”

Congressman Patrick McHenry from North Carolina concurred with the mayor of Miami. “You’re exactly right Mayor Francis Suarez,” he replied to the mayor’s tweet, emphasizing:

China’s decision to restrict access presents a perfect opportunity for American leadership on cryptocurrency.

Recently a student from the University of Kent in London was robbed at knifepoint for his bitcoin. After eight thugs stormed his dorm room and demanded that he reveal his crypto credentials and passwords, the student was forced to leave the campus and he moved back home.

Freshmen College Student Loses Bitcoin in an On-Campus Mugging

A recent report shows that a college student who started the year as a freshman was robbed at the University of Kent, a school located in the historic city of Canterbury. The student’s mother details that five days before starting his course, her son started to talk about cryptocurrencies with a friend from the school.

“They were just having lads’ talk. [Then] the conversation turned to [finance] and the friend started talking about cyber currency,” the student’s mother explained. After the discussion, the boy’s friend alleges that the student brought eight friends from East London to visit the student’s room and he instantly “knew he was in trouble,” his mother declared.

The student says that his bitcoin stash was worth around £6,000 ($8.2K) at the time he was robbed. But now that same stash of bitcoin is worth £68K ($93,000) and the gang of thugs stole £3,000 worth of his school grant money. The student then called the police and ran to the security hut and the student’s mother said the security guards didn’t go to the crime scene. The police never arrived because there were more important matters to attend to that evening. The student’s mother stressed:

The only action the university took was moving him to different accommodation. He was too traumatised so he moved back home even though he had safer and better accommodation.

Police Dropped the Case 8 Months Later, Mother Warns of London’s ‘Freshers’ Fishing Week’

To make matters worse, the money was never returned to the student. The Canterbury District Police Department dropped the case after eight months. The mother detailed that she was upset that the Kent security guards and police did nothing. She also warned other freshmen students that the same could happen to them.

“The police commonly call Freshers’ Week ‘fishing week’ because all the criminals come down,” she said. “They know the students have got grants, laptops, and new stuff. Attacks, assaults, and muggings are quite common across the country,” the student’s mother added.

The fact of the matter is, it is not wise to disclose crypto asset holdings to others, unless you truly trust them. Bitcoin muggings have been taking place for years, but there’s been an increase in crypto robberies that leverage violence to steal bitcoin or other digital assets, since the crypto economy’s massive rise in value during the latter half of 2020.

Authorities in Abkhazia have confiscated thousands of mining machines, closing down all large crypto farms, yet they have admittedly failed to put an end to illegal mining operations. The breakaway republic of Georgia has been struggling with power shortages blamed on underground miners.

30,000 Rigs Remain in the Hands of Miners, Government Says

In recent years, a growing number of people in Abkhazia, a partially-recognized de facto state in the South Caucasus, have turned to cryptocurrency mining as an alternative income source. However, the government of the Russia-backed republic has targeted the energy-intensive process as a major cause of the territory’s growing electricity deficit.

A temporary ban on mining activities and hardware imports was introduced back in 2018 and extended this spring until March 31, 2022. But officials in Sukhumi have recently admitted their efforts to impose the restrictions throughout the region have largely proved unsuccessful.

At a press conference this week, President Aslan Bzhania revealed that Abkhaz authorities have seized 6,000 units of coin minting equipment that are currently stored in a “special warehouse.” Quoted by Sputnik-Abkhazia, he noted that practically all large crypto farms have been shut down. Nevertheless, government estimates suggest that around 30,000 mining devices remain in the hands of people who build their business around the currently illegal activity.

Power engineer Pavel Maksimov told Sputnik that the main reasons why the ban on crypto mining is not being implemented properly have to do with difficulties in exerting control over unauthorized miners. Inspectors are rarely able to get in contact with them and then they are often dragged into conflicts, Maksimov explained. He also warned that when connecting to the power grid illegally, the operators of the underground farms are not protected in any way, legally or financially.

Crackdown on Crypto Mining in Abkhazia to Continue

Members of the central government, local authorities, and representatives of the republic’s power utility met recently to discuss these issues on a request from President Bzhania. During the meeting in Sukhumi, the officials concluded that their offensive against illegal cryptocurrency mining hasn’t radically changed the situation in Abkhazia.

Akhra Gagulia, head of the Gudauta branch of the region’s state-owned power distribution company, Chernomorenergo, announced that the joint raids with law enforcement agencies will continue but stressed the task requires a lot of work and constant monitoring. He also warned that the effort to prevent illegal connections of mining facilities to the grid is an endless one.

Earlier this year, reports came out that Abkhazia was holding talks with Russia to solve the problem with its electricity shortages. The Minister of Economy Christina Ozgan said at the time that Abkhaz authorities plan to organize additional supplies from the Russian Federation and even set up facilities where miners can install their equipment as the government wants crypto farms to be legally connected to the grid.