TorrentFreak https://torrentfreak.com/ Breaking File-sharing, Copyright and Privacy News Thu, 28 Mar 2024 18:23:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 Hollywood Studios, Amazon & Netflix Sue ‘Evasive’ Pirate IPTV Operator From Texas https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-studios-amazon-and-netflix-sue-evasive-pirate-iptv-operator-from-texas-240328/ https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-studios-amazon-and-netflix-sue-evasive-pirate-iptv-operator-from-texas-240328/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 18:23:11 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=249134 A Dallas resident is being sued by several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix for operating a pirate IPTV operation. In a complaint filed at a federal court in Texas, they accuse the defendant of widespread copyright infringement dating back to 2016. After cautioning the alleged (re)seller of 'TV Nitro', 'Streaming TV Now', and other services, the companies are taking the matter to court.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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tvnitroOperating a pirate IPTV service can be a dangerous endeavor, no matter where one’s located. In the United States, home to Hollywood and other major entertainment outfits, the risks are arguably even higher.

In the past, we have seen several pirate IPTV businesses being taken to court, with rightsholders almost always on the winning side. These cases can result in million-dollar damages awards or even multi-year prison sentences, if the feds get involved.

Despite this backdrop, some people are still willing to take a gamble. According to a new lawsuit filed at a Texan federal court, Dallas resident William Freemon and his company Freemon Technology Industries, are a prime example.

Hollywood Lawsuit Against IPTV Operator

The complaint, filed by Hollywood majors including Disney and Warner Bros, as well as streaming giants Amazon and Netflix, accuses the defendant of widespread copyright infringement.

This alleged illegal activity involves selling presumed pirate IPTV subscriptions through domains such as instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com,streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd, some of which remain online today.

“Freemon operates an extensive and commercially scaled network of illegal streaming services that offers unauthorized access to live channels and video-on-demand streams of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted movies and TV shows,” the complaint reads.

iptv

The defendant is a familiar name for the entertainment companies, who have followed his actions for years.

“Freemon has a long history of brazen disregard for copyright laws, and his early foray into internet piracy is the first link in the chain leading to his current web of illegal services,” they write.

“Beginning in 2016 and continuing through 2019, Freemon sold illegally modified Fire TV Stick devices. These devices connect to a regular TV and allow customers to access unauthorized content.”

Firesticks Lead to IPTV

The ‘loaded’ Firestick business was promoted on X and Facebook and the complaint includes two dated screenshots from this activity. At the time, these devices were sold through firesticksloaded.com and firesticksloaded.biz, and Freemon was listed as the registrant for the latter domain.

ads old

These sites are long gone now but they offered a fruitful lead to other, potentially illegal, activities. The Firesticks domains were hosted on the same IP address as several other domain names and ultimately formed a trail to the controversial IPTV operations.

Those IPTV services include ‘Streaming TV Now’, ‘Instant IPTV’, ‘Cash App IPTV’, and ‘TV Nitro’. Some of these were subsequently advertised through the YouTube channel @williamfreemon3378, which the plaintiffs believe belongs to the defendant.

The YouTube videos are no longer online today as they were taken down following complaints from rightsholders, but they’re used as additional evidence to support the current lawsuit.

“These YouTube videos —and their subsequent removal— nonetheless provide further evidence that Freemon is behind this web of services and that he knows he is committing infringement,” the complaint reads.

freemon youtube

TV Nitro and Other IPTV Endeavors

According to the plaintiffs, ‘TV Nitro’ was the first IPTV service that Freemon was linked to. This service originally operated as ‘Nitro TV’ between 2019 and 2021. After subsequently going offline for two years, it recently reappeared.

‘Streaming TV Now’ is the most popular IPTV service according to the complaint. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series.

“Freemon offers customer subscription packages for Streaming TV Now at prices ranging from $20 per month to $150 per year—depending on the package and billing cycle selected. The money goes to Freemon.”

oppen

In addition to offering IPTV packages to the public, the defendant is also accused of recruiting resellers through livetvresellers.com, presumably to expand the reach of his IPTV business.

Warning Leads to Lawsuit

Before taking the matter to court, Amazon, Netflix, and the Hollywood studios sent a letter to the defendant, asking him to stop all infringing activities. However, that didn’t yield the desired response. Instead of taking action, the defendant said he no longer controls the domains.

“Freemon was not cooperative. He did not take down the Infringing Services and instead offered unsubstantiated claims that he transferred the associated domains,” the complaint reads.

“Plaintiffs spent months negotiating with Freemon. Based on the lack of substantial change to the Infringing Services in the intervening times, including that the respective main domains are still hosted with the same hosting provider [Amarutu], Freemon is likely still controlling the Infringing Domains.

“Freemon’s evasiveness is particularly concerning in light of his long history of willful infringement,” the plaintiffs add.

The rightsholders allege that the defendant is liable for copyright infringement, either directly or indirectly. They therefore request a jury trial and appropriate damages.

With 125 movies and TV shows listed in the complaint, maximum statutory damages can be as high as $18 million. The figure could increase further still, as the plaintiffs reserve the right to add more titles.

For now, however, the priority seems to be to end the infringing activity. To that end, Amazon and the other plaintiffs request injunctive relief, including the handover of all infringing domain names and the destruction of all ‘pirate’ hardware.

A copy of the complaint, filed yesterday at the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas, is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Ukraine Commits to Piracy Crackdown, Draws Up Blacklist, Joins WIPO ALERT https://torrentfreak.com/ukraine-commits-to-piracy-crackdown-draws-up-blacklist-joins-wipo-alert-240328/ https://torrentfreak.com/ukraine-commits-to-piracy-crackdown-draws-up-blacklist-joins-wipo-alert-240328/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:46:47 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=249123 Following an announcement by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine in February, the Ministry of Justice has registered an order that will see Ukraine become a full participant in the World Intellectual Property Organization's WIPO ALERT initiative. In common with its counterparts, Ukraine will maintain a list of pirate sites that advertisers will be required to boycott. The order also provides for administrative liability for companies that fail to adhere to the rules.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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ukraineAfter more than two years of incalculable losses following Russia’s full-blown invasion in 2022, Ukraine continues to defy the odds as it fights for the right to exist as an independent state.

With no obvious end in sight and politics in the United States undermining offensive capability, Ukrainian gains are being reversed in several front line regions, a situation predicted to further deteriorate later this year.

Yet for a country being consumed by war, Ukraine is still taking time to plan for a future in the EU. In that respect, matters related to intellectual property require the closest attention.

Ukraine Pushes Ahead With Copyright Reforms

After progress was reported in 2023, Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy issued an order dated February 1, 2024, titled: “On Approval of the Procedure for Formation and Maintenance of the National List of Websites Raising Concerns Regarding the Observance of Intellectual Property Rights.”

On March 11, 2024, the Ministry of Justice registered order 357/41702 and on March 21, 2024, it was adopted by the Ministry of Economy.

Order (translated)ukraine order

This will see Ukraine become a full participant in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s WIPO ALERT program, which operates around a centrally-maintained database of piracy platforms nominated by rightsholders in participating countries.

Ukraine Sees Future in Europe, WIPO Invests in Russia

Sites and services listed on WIPO ALERT should in theory find it much more difficult to fund their activities through advertising revenue. Ukraine views its participation in the program as a positive step in its bid for closer ties with the EU.

“Despite the challenges of a full-scale war, we are making every effort to protect copyright and related rights on the Internet for Ukrainian and foreign intellectual property rights holders,” says Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Economy.

“Ukraine has become one of the first countries in the world to comprehensively implement a relevant mechanism based on a secure online platform where authorized member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization can upload information about websites and applications that infringe copyright from the point of view of national norms. This is also a confident step towards Ukraine’s European integration.”

Yet despite its invasion of Ukraine and threats to Western intellectual property, WIPO continues to operate an office in Moscow and provide funding for projects in Russia.

That drew a fiery response from Ukraine last summer, which criticized the allocation of significant funds to a country “which blatantly violates WIPO principles and its statutory obligations” and does not “deserve the privilege to host a WIPO Office.”

Ukraine is the 15th country to join the WIPO ALERT program, following recent additions Uzbekistan and the Philippines. Currently just seven countries allow searching of their databases. They include Italy, Russia, Spain, Peru, Ecuador, Lithuania and Greece.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Z-Library Scammers Use Email Campaigns to Lure Users and Extract Payments https://torrentfreak.com/z-library-scammers-use-email-campaigns-to-lure-users-and-extract-payments-240327/ https://torrentfreak.com/z-library-scammers-use-email-campaigns-to-lure-users-and-extract-payments-240327/#respond Wed, 27 Mar 2024 21:02:24 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248454 Popular pirate ebook repository Z-Library remains online despite a criminal prosecution by the United States. The site continues to release new features with support from users who appear happy to chip-in as part of a new fundraising campaign. At the same time, however, scammers are trying to 'steal' the site's traffic and money, through targeted email campaigns.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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zlibraryZ-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and articles that can be downloaded for free.

The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of two alleged operators in Argentina.

According to the latest available information, these two defendants are still fighting their extradition. Meanwhile, the Z-Library site has continued to operate as if nothing ever happened, serving books to millions of people all over the world.

Z-Library Fundraising

A few days ago, the shadow library announced a new fundraising campaign to generate revenue. While users can buy premium access all year round to obtain access to additional features and downloads, Z-Library regularly hosts additional donation drives to fund project maintenance and development.

“Although the last 2 years have been challenging for the project and the team, we are not giving up and are continuing to work on the development of the library,” the team writes, asking users to contribute.

As last time, thousands of dollars are quickly pouring in from all over the world. Despite the legal challenges and the ongoing criminal investigation, many people seem happy to chip-in through various payment options, including cryptocurrencies.

Donation Options

donate zlibrary

This type of generosity from users is rarely seen on ‘pirate’ sites. While the shadow library’s operators are undoubtedly happy with the support, popularity also comes with a major downside; scammers.

Soon after Z-Library lost its main domain names following U.S.-orchestrated seizures, outsiders stepped in to hijack the traffic. The site has repeatedly warned against these “fraudulent” and “unsafe” copycats but the problem never went away. On the contrary, it’s getting worse.

Email Scams

Over the past several weeks, there have been dozens of reports from Z-Library users who received emails, purported to be from the Z-Library team, alerting them to a new domain name. One of the early versions included the following message:

“It is with a heavy heart yet hopeful spirit that we reach out to you. We’re entering a period of significant change at Z-Library.

As an integral part of our community we believe it’s important you’re among the first to learn of our transition to a new domain: z-lib.id. This change, though challenging, paves the way for an enhanced, more robust Z-Library experience.

Your steadfast support has been a beacon during our journey. As we navigate these new waters, your continued presence and advocacy are more important than ever. We hope you’ll join us in embracing this change and help in sharing our new address, z-lib.id, within your circles.”

These emails were received by actual Z-Library users but the domain being promoted has nothing to do with the original Z-Library project. On the contrary, it appears to be linked to a popular copycat site that’s been around for a while.

In recent weeks these ‘scammy’ emails have continued, but the messaging has changed somewhat. An email sent to many people this month is more to the point, urging people to visit and bookmark the new domain.

“Good news! Z-Library has a new web address: z-lib.id. You can simply type “z-lib.id” in Google or put it in your browser to visit us. We appreciate your support.”

Scam Email

zlibmail

Needless to say, these emails are not being sent by the Z-Library team but by scammers attempting to drive traffic to their site. There’s a clear profit motive, as “premium” access is currently required to download anything.

‘Not Compromised’

Of course, it’s no surprise that outsiders are trying to profit from the popularity of an existing piracy brand. We have seen variations of this theme for several decades. However, the email campaigns are rather novel.

At this point, it’s not clear how the scammers obtained the emails. In an email to TorrentFreak, the real Z-Library team acknowledges the scam problems but says that there’s no sign that their systems were compromised in any way.

“Unfortunately, the situation with fraudulent mailings is getting worse. Since our domains were blocked in November 2022, there have been at least a few independent scam sites posing as z-library. They use our name, design, and highly similar domain names.

“[W]e are confident that there have been no incidents of user data leakage. However, we strongly recommend that you change the password for your account,” a Z-Library spokesperson writes.

The team suggests that recipients of the scam emails may have tried to sign into one of the scam sites in the past. That would have exposed their email address and password to these people, which is why Z-Library believes it’s important to update this information.

Scam Connection

It’s not clear who is behind these misleading email campaigns, but there are some interesting patterns to observe. The .id domain name promoted in the emails uses the same Cloudflare nameservers as z-lib.is did in the past.

The identical nameservers are not solid proof, however, as there are thousands of sites using the same ones. However, there’s an additional traffic pattern that links the two domains as well.

zlib domains

As seen above, traffic to the .is domain tanked in February, around the time when the emails started coming in, while traffic to the new .id domain surged. This suggests a link between the two domains. Perhaps the scammers somehow lost control over their old domain, triggering them to launch the email campaign.

Seizures and other Troubles

Whatever the reason, the official Z-Library team continues to caution users to be on the lookout for copycats, including via an updated warning banner that mentions the new domain name.

Scam Banner

scams

The Z-Library team believes that scammers and copycats are regularly DDoSing its servers too. At the same time, they have tried to add their links to the official Wikipedia page and hijack the top positions in search engines.

Of course, scammers are only part of the challenge. The U.S. Government has also repeatedly seized the site’s domain names, which creates an opportunity for copycats to increase their traffic. The latest seizure round was last November, but that may not be the last.

On the legal front, there hasn’t been any movement in the U.S. criminal case recently. The two alleged operators filed a motion to dismiss the criminal complaint last summer, but news has been quiet since then.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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‘Operation 404’ Results in First Prison Sentence for Pirate IPTV Operator https://torrentfreak.com/operation-404-results-in-first-prison-sentence-for-pirate-iptv-operator-240327/ https://torrentfreak.com/operation-404-results-in-first-prison-sentence-for-pirate-iptv-operator-240327/#respond Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:05:31 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=249063 Brazilian anti-piracy campaign 'Operation 404' has taken down many pirate sites and services over the past five years, but criminal prosecutions have been scarce. This week, anti-piracy group ALIANZA announced a "historic" victory: The operator of pirate IPTV service "Flash IPTV" was sentenced to more than five years in prison, marking the first criminal conviction of this kind in Brazil.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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operation 404In the fall of 2019, Brazilian law enforcement agencies launched the first wave of anti-piracy campaign ‘Operation 404,’ referring to the well-known HTTP error code.

With help from law enforcement in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Argentina, the authorities took down more than a hundred sites and services, while several suspects were arrested.

Following its initial successes, several new waves ‘Operation 404’ were initiated over the ensuing years. Each wave led to raids and takedowns across the country, with assistance from international law enforcement partners. It was clear that Brazil had its enforcement apparatus in order, but the outcomes of these efforts in terms of follow-up actions were largely unknown.

This week, anti-piracy group ALIANZA booked its first ‘404’ related victory in court. Following a criminal complaint from the group, Judge Marina Figueiredo Coelho of the Fifth Criminal Court of Campinas, Sao Paolo, convicted the operator of a pirate IPTV service that was taken down in 2020.

Prison for Flash IPTV Operator

The operator of Flash IPTV, who is referred to by the initials A.W.A.P., was found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced to five years and four months in prison.

Flash IPTV was a relatively large IPTV service with 13,547 active users at its peak. According to local news reports, the service generated R$4,542,034 ($912,000) in revenue over twelve months, before it was taken offline in 2020 as part of the second ‘Operation 404’ campaign.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, ALIANZA says that this is a historic verdict, as it’s the first criminal IPTV prosecution linked to ‘Operation 404’ in Brazil.

“We appreciate the commitment of the police and judicial authorities in resolving this important case. The conviction of A.W.A.P. is a milestone that reinforces our commitment to defending the rights of creators and fighting against illegal practices that harm the creative economy,” says Víctor Roldán, ALIANZA’s executive director.

More to Come?

A copy of the verdict wasn’t released to the public, as is common with these types of convictions, so further details are scarce.

While Operation 404 resulted in many arrests over the years, follow-up prosecutions have been rare in Brazil. Previously, ALIANZA did score a similar victory in Ecuador, where the operator of the pirate IPTV service IPTVlisto.com was sentenced to a year in prison.

Last fall, Brazilian authorities conducted the sixth wave of Operation 404 and more are expected to follow in the future. These enforcement initiatives are broadly praised by rightsholders and the recent conviction will only strengthen their support.

There’s always room for improvement, of course. A few weeks ago, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) recommended Brazil to remain on the US ‘Special 301‘ Watch List of countries with IP-related challenges.

IIPA saw various positive developments, especially regarding Operation 404. However, disagreement between rightsholders over enforcement action could still improve.

“Brazil still suffers from a lack of specific norms and regulations regarding the enforcement of copyrighted works over the Internet and a lack of resources and staff to support enforcement actions considering the reach and amount of content piracy in the region,” IIPA wrote.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Piracy Shield Source Code & Internal Documentation Leak Online https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-shield-source-code-internal-documentation-leak-online-240326/ https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-shield-source-code-internal-documentation-leak-online-240326/#respond Tue, 26 Mar 2024 21:30:54 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=249073 The source code of Italian anti-piracy platform Piracy Shield appears to have been leaked online. Nine repositories claim to contain everything from the front end, data models, storage and filesystem, through to the platform's API and internal documentation. Presented with a manifesto of sorts, the unknown leaker claims that Piracy Shield "isn't just a failed attempt to combat online piracy," it's a "dangerous gateway" to censorship "disguised as a solution to piracy."

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Logo piracy shieldEver since Italian authorities announced their intent to introduce an even more aggressive anti-piracy blocking system than the one already in place, controversy has rarely been far behind.

Recent reports of avoidable overblocking, a reluctance to admit that the Piracy Shield system is fallible, and new reports that telecoms regulator AGCOM is now rejecting complaints from wrongfully blocked Cloudflare customers, are just some of the ingredients in a volatile mix that has always threatened to boil over.

Piracy Shield: Source Code Leaked Online

In what could develop into the biggest crisis yet for the Piracy Shield system and those who operate it, nine repositories of source code, internal documentation, and other related data, claiming to be the various components of the Piracy Shield system, appear to have leaked online.

An announcement in Italian and English, posted on GitHub a few hours ago, criticizes AGCOM and SP Tech Legal, the law firm-linked developer behind Piracy Shield, for creating a “tool of censorship disguised as a solution to piracy.”

Piracy Shield Leak Announcement

The main ‘fuckpiracyshield’ repository on GitHub was created by a user of the same name; they appear to have joined the site for the purposes of leaking the code online and, after signing up at 15:55 on Tuesday, by 16:50 they were gone. Aside from the leaked material, a message was left behind.

“This is not the way to stop piracy. This is a gateway to censorship,” the bio message reads.

Content Allegedly Leaked

The apparently leaked collection spans nine repositories; they are named and described as follows:

frontend (The frontend of Piracy Shield), data (Guides for the ISPs and reporters that use Piracy Shield), variations (Some code that was probably used for testing for Piracy Shield?), service (Services and main logic of the Piracy Shield API), data-storage (Storage and filesystem management for the Piracy Shield API), data-model (Data models of objects used by the Piracy Shield code), component (Components needed by other Piracy Shield packages), api (This is the API for Piracy Shield)

piracy-shield-leak

For those unfamiliar with Python or no interest in code, period, the ‘data’ repository probably offers the most interesting information. It contains what appears to be up-to-date operations manuals for Piracy Shield, with the ‘ISP TECHNICAL MANUAL – PIRACY SHIELD’ described as v2.4.1, current on February 2nd when Piracy Shield made its full debut.

All documents are named and presented in Italian and the titles suggest that there are two versions of two distinct manuals: ‘Piracy Shield Manual’ and ‘Piracy Shield Error Codes’. One version seems to be directed at those reporting domains and IP addresses for blocking and the other toward the ISPs expected to carry out the blocking.

Unusual Feature of the Leak

When browsing the source code and attempting to work out its purpose, on some repositories something immediately stands out. With no assumptions as to who the name refers, a contributor to the Piracy Shield project appears to be someone called Daniele Maglie. Their name appears time and again throughout the code, which in itself isn’t especially unusual.

However, when looking more closely at the leaker’s bio, which includes an image of AGCOM’s president apparently deep in thought, leaving the mouse pointer in place for a moment produces a piece of popup text, as highlighted in the image below.

piracy shield popup

What the text means, if indeed it means anything at all, will be just one of the questions being asked in the days to come. In the meantime, AGCOM has yet another blocking target to contend with, although a DMCA notice will be much more effective.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Live ‘Piracy Shield’ Data Exposed By New Platform Reveals Akamai IP Blocking https://torrentfreak.com/live-piracy-shield-data-exposed-by-new-platform-reveals-akamai-blocking-240326/ https://torrentfreak.com/live-piracy-shield-data-exposed-by-new-platform-reveals-akamai-blocking-240326/#respond Tue, 26 Mar 2024 14:01:06 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=249043 Following at least two major blocking blunders at Italy's Piracy Shield system that were initially denied, it was hoped that authorities would take the opportunity to be more transparent. While that has failed to emerge, live data from the Piracy Shield platform is now being made available via an unofficial third-party service. That has revealed yet more blocking blunders, this time involving Akamai IPs.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Logo piracy shieldAfter initially denying that Italy’s new Piracy Shield anti-piracy platform had been responsible for any over-blocking, last week telecoms regulator AGCOM conceded that an IP address belonging to Cloudflare had been blocked in error.

While that might be considered progress of sorts, the incident was downplayed as minor on the basis it was rectified a few hours later. No consolation for the many Cloudflare customers affected, of course, but that particular problem isn’t going away. Cloudflare is encouraging its customers to file complaints to draw attention to the perils of widespread blocking measures.

Yet despite calls for more transparency, not to mention an obvious need, AGCOM is still not reporting the IP addresses subjected to blocking, instead preferring to report the volume of IP addresses blocked instead. While the latter is not unimportant information, only the former can shine light on cases where IP addresses are blocked in error. Or when IP addresses are blocked despite the legal provision that prohibits blocking when IPs are not exclusively used for piracy.

New Third-Party Service Imposes Transparency

Official providers of all types of content have understood for some time that if they don’t meet demand, someone else will do it for them. After calls for transparency appeared to fall on deaf ears, transparency has been imposed on the Piracy Shield system thanks to a new, unofficial third-party system: Piracy Shield Search.

The most important feature of the service is the ability to enter an IP address or a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) to find out whether they’re on the Piracy Shield system.

piracyshield-search

The image below consists of an original blocking order (translated from Italian) issued in response to a blocking application by Sky Italia. To protect Sky’s broadcasting rights for FIM MotoGP World Championship and the Motul FIM Superbike World Championship, the domain http://live.vitocatozzo.eu was added to the Piracy Shield system.

piracy-shield-search-ticket

The response from Piracy Shield Search added by us directly underneath the relevant section in the application confirms that the domain was indeed placed on the blocklist. The response also provides the time the rightsholder or its representative added the ticket to the system, which acts as the instruction for ISPs to go ahead and start blocking.

Rightsholder Tickets and Top AS By IP Address

The Piracy Shield Search system shows data relating to currently active blocking, not the total number of requests made or IP addresses/domains blocked to date.

In the image below we can see that 662 rightsholder tickets are currently live, and together they target 2,849 IPv4 IP addresses, zero IPv6 IP addresses, and 6,601 fully qualified domain names. The panel on the right shows the top AS (autonomous systems) ranked by the total number of IP addresses allocated to the AS that are currently subject to blocking.

tickets-ip blocks

The ticket panel on the left shows that the system deployed in Italy operates similarly to the blocking system operated in the UK.

Much is made in the media about the requirement to block IP addresses and domains within 30 minutes, possibly to imply that blocking takes place mostly during live matches. However, the two items at the top of the list show that IP addresses and domains are typically added in bulk, long after matches finish or, alternatively, long before they actually start.

Tickets Reveal More Blocking Blunders

The people behind Piracy Shield Search have decided to partially redact IP addresses requested for blocking in rightsholder tickets. Since the search facility on the front page responds to requests for specific IP addresses, there’s no need to expose the IP addresses in full here.

However, since the names of the hosts are displayed in full, it’s possible to determine whether the IP addresses that appear on the left are likely to be operated by CDN companies. More importantly, there may also be enough information to determine whether multiple services potentially share the IP address.

piracy-shield-tickets

In a post to X, developer and researcher Matteo Contrini confirms what many people had suspected; Cloudflare isn’t the only major CDN provider whose IP addresses have ended up on the Piracy Shield system.

akamai piracy shield blocks

“The platform #PiracyShield is blocking 15 Akamai IP addresses! Not only Cloudflare but also the largest CDN in the world…,” Contrini notes.

The data suggests that transparency is a double-edged sword. Without transparency, there’s no scrutiny, and no specific fuel for criticism. When transparency exists, whether voluntarily or by imposition, scrutiny ensures that criticism can be backed up by data provided by the system itself.

What transparency offers that opacity never does, however, is a powerful incentive to do better. Whether the addition of these IP addresses is due to blunder after uncorrected blunder isn’t clear, but the alternative is unquestionably much worse.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Publishers Secure Widespread Support in Landmark Copyright Battle With Internet Archive https://torrentfreak.com/publishers-secure-widespread-support-in-landmark-copyright-battle-with-internet-archive-240324/ https://torrentfreak.com/publishers-secure-widespread-support-in-landmark-copyright-battle-with-internet-archive-240324/#respond Mon, 25 Mar 2024 20:20:04 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248972 Major book publishers continue their legal crusade against Internet Archive's scan-and-lend library, hoping to shut it down for good. IA's appeal previously received support from authors and copyright scholars. The publishers, however, have some heavyweight backers too. New amicus briefs are signed by former U.S. politicians, former judges, and legal scholars. Industry groups such as the MPA and RIAA also rally behind the publishers.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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internet archiveThe Internet Archive (IA) is a non-profit organization that aims to preserve digital history for generations to come.

The digital library is a staunch supporter of a free and open Internet and began meticulously archiving the web over a quarter century ago.

In addition to archiving the web, IA also operates a library that offers a broad collection of digital media, including books. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, IA patrons can also borrow books that are scanned and digitized in-house.

Publishers vs. Internet Archive

The self-scanning service offered by the Internet Archive (IA) differs from the licensing agreements entered into by other libraries. Not all publishers are happy with IA’s approach, resulting in a major legal battle two years ago.

Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit, equating IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) operation to copyright infringement. Earlier this year a New York federal court concluded that the library is indeed liable for copyright infringement.

The court’s decision effectively put an end to IA’s self-scanning library, at least for books from the publishers in suit. However, IA is not letting this go without a fight and in December the non-profit filed its opening brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hoping to reverse the judgment.

High Profile Support

The importance of this legal battle is illustrated by the large number of amicus briefs that are filed by third parties. Previously, IA received support from copyright scholars and the Authors Alliance, among others.

A few days ago, another round of amicus came in at the Court of Appeals, this time to back the publishers who filed their reply last week. In more than a handful of filings, prominent individuals and organizations urge the Appeals Court not to reverse the district court ruling, arguing that this would severely hamper the interests of copyright holders.

The briefs include positions from industry groups such as the MPA, RIAA, IFPI, Copyright Alliance, the Authors Guild, various writers unions, and many others. Legal scholars, professors, and former government officials, also chimed in.

RIAA, MPA, et al.

The RIAA and MPA submitted an amicus brief together with the NMPA and the News Media Alliance. These industry groups draw a parallel between the impact Napster and BitTorrent had on music and movie sales, and the threat IA’s self-scanning library poses today.

“Digital piracy has inflicted a huge economic toll on those industries and, by extension, on their ability to invest in new creative works and the artists who make them. Internet Archive’s theory of fair use represents a threat just as grave.”

napster amici

Industry groups fear that if the Internet Archive is allowed to digitize and lend books, it could set a precedent for other forms of media. For instance, if services were able to lend music, movies, or news media to the general public, these industries might face similar challenges.

“Deeming Internet Archive’s mass reproduction and distribution program to be fair use would no doubt embolden not only Internet Archive itself but also other online platforms to freely ‘lend’ all types of copyrighted works to the public in digital formats,” they write.

“That would catastrophically harm the digital markets on which the music industry, the movie and television industry, the news industry, and similar industries depend to profitably create and distribute their works—and would thereby undermine the incentive for the creation of new works that copyright law exists to protect.”

According to the amici, there is nothing fair about IA’s digital library; instead, they see it as “unambiguous copyright infringement.”

Copyright Experts, Professors, and Lawmakers

A second amicus brief is submitted by more than a dozen professors and scholars of copyright and intellectual property law. They stress that IA’s practice should not be seen as “transformative” fair use, arguing that the library offers a “substitution” for books that are legally offered by the publishers.

This sets the case apart from current legal precedents including the Google Books case, where Google’s mass use of copyrighted books was deemed fair use.

“IA’s exploitation of copyrighted books is thus the polar opposite of the copying that was found to be transformative in Google Books and HathiTrust. IA offers no ‘utility-expanding’ searchable database to its subscribers. What it does offer is access to full-text books as a clearly competing substitute for the versions licensed by book publishers,” the legal scholars write.

Another amicus brief adds more heavyweight support for the publishers. This includes former judges and two dozen government officials and lawmakers, including Lamar Smith, former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and Bob Goodlatte, former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

This brief also rejects the Internet Archive’s fair use arguments, framing the library as a threat instead.

“IA does not further the public interest, but rather undermines incentives to create and disseminate books that benefit society. Thus, its actions are decidedly not protected by fair use,” their brief reads.

IA and AI

The final amicus brief we want to highlight comes from a broad collection international and regional trade groups from outside the United States. These include the International Publishers Association, the International Video Federation, and the Association of Canadian Publishers.

These groups also reject the fair use arguments. They stress that in addition to directly competing with the interests of publishers, IA’s library is also an indirect ‘artificial intelligence’ threat as the digitized books can be used as AI training material.

“The Internet Archive is an obvious source of high-quality works for AI training since these works have been professionally edited and improved by publishers. Entering the terms ‘Internet Archive DRM’ into any search engine results in a number of links to software tools that remove the Internet Archive’s DRM technology along with instructions on how to use it.

“Even if AI training is ultimately determined by U.S. courts to not be a fair use, Amici fear that the Internet Archive’s CDL collection has already been used as an AI training tool,” the international trade groups add.

In summary, the book publishers have plenty of external support for their legal battle. However, it remains to be seen whether any of these amici, including those in favor of IA, will influence the eventual outcome of the appeal.

Below is an overview of the amicus briefs that were filed over the past few days, all in support of the publishers.

RIAA, MPA, NMPA, News Media Alliance.
Former government officials, former judges, and intellectual property scholars.
Copyright Alliance.
Various organizations that represent the interests of writers and other creators.
Professors and scholars of copyright and intellectual property law.
International and regional trade bodies.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Judge Blocks 8M Telegram Users After Platform Failed to Help Identify Pirates (Updated) https://torrentfreak.com/judge-blocks-8m-telegram-users-platform-failed-to-help-identify-pirates-240325/ https://torrentfreak.com/judge-blocks-8m-telegram-users-platform-failed-to-help-identify-pirates-240325/#respond Mon, 25 Mar 2024 10:58:03 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248946 A copyright complaint filed by Mediaset España, EGEDA, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus, escalated Friday when a judge ordered ISPs to prevent eight million Telegram users from accessing the service in Spain. Expected imminently, the blockade is Telegram's punishment for not helping to identify IPTV pirates. Described as “necessary” and “proportional” by the judge, the order was made on behalf of rightsholders pursuing a private criminal prosecution.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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telegram -2-2024Sports leagues and their broadcasting partners across Europe believe that their piracy problems begin with the existence of illicit suppliers.

It follows that if those illicit suppliers can be prevented from reaching their subscribers, reasons for buying TV packages from the black market will be mostly eliminated and legal subscription sales will ensue.

As the legal owners of the rights in question, these corporate giants have the luxury to frame the issue however they choose. However, when the war on piracy begins to take a toll on those not even remotely involved, it raises the question of who has the authority to step in and where the threshold for intervention lies.

On Friday, a judge handling a copyright case concluded that since messaging platform Telegram had failed to help rightsholders identify the operators of certain Telegram channels, something needed to be done. Insisting that there was no other option available, the judge issued an order for Telegram to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

The judge described the measure as “necessary” and “proportional” and in a few hours’ time, if not already, around eight million users of Telegram in Spain will have a chance to chime in with their opinions, but not via Telegram, obviously.

Update: March 25, 2024: Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. See update below.

Media Giants Want to Unmask Telegram Channel Operators

Existence of the order and some general details were revealed by Telecinco on Friday.

The publication reported that as part of a copyright complaint previously filed by anti-piracy group EGEDA, Mediaset España, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus, the rightsholders had demanded information from Telegram that could help them identify the operators of piracy-linked Telegram channels.

Despite the involvement of the court, Telegram failed to respond; Judge Pedraz concluded that since the investigation would now take more time, in the interim Telegram would have to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

Telegram has previously been blocked by Iran, China, and Pakistan, among others, but the addition of Spain came as a surprise. Expecting to find considerable unreported nuance, TorrentFreak tracked down the order; issued by Juzgado Central de Instrucción Número 5 and dated March 22, 2024, it begins with a section marked “Factual Background.”

Case Background as Reported in the Order

The order describes the present proceedings in connection with the “continued infringement of intellectual property rights,” carried out by “owners of various channels created on the Telegram social network,” and an ongoing investigation involving the prosecutor’s office.

In a report dated March 8, 2024, the prosecutor’s office requested a six-month extension of the investigation period. This followed an EGEDA request and a writ filed on behalf of rightsholders Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD), Movistar+, and Movistar Plus+.

After detailing the rules concerning investigations and time limits, the Judge notes in the absence of an extension, the current investigation is set to expire on March 29, 2024, having run for the maximum 12 months allowed under Article 324.1 LECrim.

Request for Judicial Assistance

The order then turns to the corporate entity operated by Telegram in the British Virgin Islands and the letters rogatory (letters of request) sent by the Spanish court to the Virgin Islands seeking judicial assistance.

“For the successful completion of the investigation, it is necessary to carry out the proceedings contained in the rogatory commission sent to the Virgin Islands, but so far there has been no news of compliance with the aforementioned instrument of cooperation,” the order reads.

“Numerous diligence of investigation will be pending depending on the information that will be provided by the execution of the above-mentioned international rogatory commission. Therefore, the period of investigation should be extended for six months in order to carry out the pending proceedings.”

Information Required For a Private Criminal Prosecution

The order reveals that non-compliance with the international rogatory commission sent by the Judge to the Virgin Islands on July 28, 2023, has effectively brought the investigation to a halt. The information sought by Judge Pedraz is required to support a private criminal prosecution brought by the media companies, not the state.

Private prosecutions in criminal cases are favored by sports rightsholders in the UK; as the alleged victim, rightsholders conduct their own investigations, harvest their own evidence, then act as the prosecution in the same case. There are no restrictions on the amount of legal firepower they’re permitted to deploy, meaning that in most cases defendants face the best lawyers money can buy.

Lack of Cooperation from Virgin Islands

Whether this aspect of the request is known to Telegram isn’t clear from the order. Indeed, the order makes no comment on whether Virgin Islands authorities even passed on the request, raising the question of what Telegram knows, or even if it knows anything at all.

“Telegram was requested to inform about certain technical data that would allow the identification of the holders of the accounts used for the infringement of the intellectual property rights of the entities appearing as Private Prosecutor. The lack of collaboration of the authorities of the Virgin Islands, who are only requested to communicate with the managers of the social network TELEGRAM, leads to the adoption of the precautionary measures requested by the private prosecutors,” the order reads.

“This repeated commission of the crime against intellectual property rights justifies the adoption of the requested precautionary measures, since the principles of necessity, suitability, and proportionality are met. The requested precautionary measures are the only possible measures in view of the lack of collaboration of the Virgin Islands authorities. There is no other type of measure that could stop the reiteration of the facts denounced.”

From this statement it’s clear that the rightsholders requested a complete block of Telegram in Spain and the Judge considered that a reasonable request.

Blocking Millions of Telegram Users is Acceptable

“The measure is suitable because its execution could put an end to the infringement of intellectual property rights denounced to prevent access through the TELEGRAM network to the contents of the aforementioned rights. The measure is proportional to the seriousness of the conduct denounced and in this analysis is related to the necessity of the measure,” the order continues, with the legal justification (translated from Spanish) as presented below.

judge-telegram

The ISPs instructed to carry out the blocks within three hours of receiving the order are: Vodafone España, Orange Espagne, Orange España Virtual, MASMOVIL IBERCOM, Digi Spain Telecom, Telefónica España, Telefónica Móviles España, AVATEL TELECOM, ADAMO TELECOM IBERIA, AIRE NETWORKS DEL MEDITERRÁNEO, and PROCONO.

The Telegram assets to be blocked are: Telegram Web (https://web.telegram.org/k/), Telegram Messenger (https://telegram.org/), and Telegram Apps for Android and iOS. It appears the rightsholders were well-prepared since they mandate the following:

Apps: disable and block the connection [IP addresses, protocols, ports and any other connection element], to suspend the operation of the ‘Telegram’ application (app) of the connections from Smartphone and/or Tablet of the Operators’ users who have the “Telegram” “app” installed on their devices, operated from any operating system (Android, iOs).

Blocking Telegram or Denying Access to Non-Infringing Users

Judge Pedraz frames these measures as the blocking of Telegram but the mechanism chosen clearly shows that Telegram can still reach Spanish ISPs but the blocks they’re required to put in place prevent Telegram users from accessing the platform. That’s especially the case in respect of the apps where interference is directed towards functionality of apps on users’ devices.

While some may dismiss this as semantics on the basis that blocking pirate sites operates similarly, Telegram is not a pirate site and most Spanish users of Telegram are not pirates.

Whereas it might be reasonable to assert that most Spanish visitors to The Pirate Bay do so to infringe and therefore have no legal basis to visit the site, most visitors to Telegram do not visit the platform to infringe. Even of those that do, only a tiny minority will visit the channels in question. Nevertheless, millions of innocent Telegram users will soon be prevented from going about their entirely legal business.

That raises the fundamental question of the nature of the scales used to weigh the competing interests in this case and, more fundamentally, who is actually being punished here; Telegram as claimed, or non-infringing Spanish users?

Three Days to Appeal, Including Weekend

“An appeal for reform may be filed against this order, within a period of three days, before this Central Preliminary Examining Court, and/or, if applicable, an appeal, in a single effect, before the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court,” the order concludes.

As far as we’re aware there’s no recent news to indicate an appeal. These types of cases have traditionally seen ISPs step in but since the major ISPs in Spain are either rightsholders in their own right or have a commercial interest in blocking going ahead, an appeal from that direction seems unlikely.

We’re currently unaware of any comment from Telegram but given the scale of the response versus the problem to be solved, this matter is likely to attract international attention and scrutiny. Common wisdom suggests that when an adversary is making a mistake, he should be allowed to do so without being interrupted, so we may hear from Telegram in due course.

Update: March 25, 2024: Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz has requested a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office (Comisaría General de Información) to provide data on the characteristics of Telegram and an assessment of the impact the measure could have if implemented.

A statement from the Podomos party criticized the government for failing to act in the face of “genuine censorship” at the hands of the “oligopoly of complainant communication companies” whose interests are “taking precedence” over the “freedoms of many citizens.”

Update: Official statement from the communications office of the National Court (translated from Spanish)

The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz issued an order this Monday in which he agreed, prior to the temporary suspension of the resources associated with Telegram, to request a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office on the Telegram platform. The magistrate requests information about its characteristics as well as the impact that the temporary suspension, that he agreed to in an order last Friday and whose execution remains suspended, may have on users.

In the aforementioned order, the magistrate ordered the telecommunications and Internet access operators to temporarily suspend Telegram in the framework of a procedure against the owners of various channels created on the social network, for continued violations of intellectual property rights.

In his resolution, Pedraz explained that the measure has legal support contemplated in article 13.2 of the LECrim: “In the investigation of crimes committed through the internet, telephone or any other information or communication technology, the court may agree, as first steps, ex officio or at the request of a party, precautionary measures consisting of the provisional removal of illicit content, the provisional interruption of the services offered by said content, or the provisional blocking of both when they are located in a foreign country.”

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 03/25/2024 https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-torrented-pirated-movies/ https://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-torrented-pirated-movies/#respond Sun, 24 Mar 2024 23:09:40 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=186926 Every week we take a close look at the most pirated movies on torrent sites. What are pirates downloading? 'Road House' tops the chart, followed by 'Madame Web'. ‘'Oppenheimer' completes the top three.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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road houseThe data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have one newcomer on the list. “Road House” is the most downloaded title. The first Dune film also made it back in the top 10.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on March 25 are:

Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrent sites
1 (…) Road House 6.2 / trailer
2 (1) Madame Web 3.8 / trailer
3 (2) Oppenheimer 8.5 / trailer
4 (…) Bob Marley: One Love 6.4 / trailer
5 (4) Damsel 6.3 / trailer
6 (3) Poor Things 8.2 / trailer
7 (6) The Beekeeper 6.5 / trailer
8 (5) Argylle 5.8 / trailer
9 (…) Dune 8.0 / trailer
10 (7) Dune: Part Two 9.0 / trailer

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Football Boss Praises ‘Historical’ Blocking Order as Initial Anti-Piracy Push Backfires https://torrentfreak.com/football-boss-praises-historical-blocking-order-as-initial-anti-piracy-push-backfires-240324/ https://torrentfreak.com/football-boss-praises-historical-blocking-order-as-initial-anti-piracy-push-backfires-240324/#respond Sun, 24 Mar 2024 20:12:01 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248817 Pirate sites and services are popular around the world and Ecuador is no exception. The boss of football league LigaPro has been very vocal on the anti-piracy front and recently announced a 'historical' site-blocking order. While these new measures are likely to have some effect, the decision to out a popular pirate IPTV service backfired recently.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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ball oldPirate sites are frustrating rightsholders across all continent and many of them see website blocking as the solution.

In Ecuador, blocking measures are not new. Five years ago, the country’s National Intellectual Property Service was the first to order local Internet providers to block several domains of sports streaming site “Rojadirecta”.

These blockades were issued following a complaint from the local football league LigaPro. How effective the measure was is unknown, but the piracy problem didn’t disappear. On the contrary, pirate streaming services only appeared to gain more traction.

LigaPro Boss Celebrates Site Blocking Win

In recent months, LigaPro’s boss Miguel Angel Loor repeatedly drew attention to the ongoing problems. In common with his counterpart in Spain, Loor is determined to make progress on the anti-piracy front and, a few days ago, he reported a notable victory.

“HISTORICAL. For the first time in the history of Ecuador, LigaPro achieves an URGENT ACT that orders the imminent blocking of websites used for unauthorized broadcasting of [LigaPro] matches,” Loor writes.

historico

The recent order targets 22 sports streaming domains, including sinfutboltv.com, librefutboltv.com, futbollibre.com, intergoles.co and jokerlivestream.co. The associated IP-addresses, many of which are shared Cloudflare addresses, are also listed. Blocking these outright can lead to trouble though, as we’ve seen in Italy.

eciador block

Site blocking isn’t an entirely new concept in Ecuador, but this is the first time that the football league has obtained a court order of this kind. And it’s not going to be the last either, as LigaPro and its partners are determined to keep up the pressure.

“This fight has just begun and we are going to act with the full weight of the law to protect the most popular sport in Ecuador, from which thousands of families live,” Loor says.

Target: MagisTV

In recent weeks, the football league has taken a stand against various piracy services. In addition to the now-blocked sites, it singled out one major target that has yet to be addressed: pirate IPTV service MagisTV.

MagisTV is a popular IPTV service in Latin America, well-known for providing access to premium content for a small subscription fee. The platform has previously been branded a notorious piracy market by Hollywood’s MPA, who suggests that its operators are in China.

“MagisTV has become not just a distributor of infringing content, but also a brand: resellers can purchase credits from magistv.net for MagisTV-branded IPTV services, which they then resell in the form of monthly, quarterly, or yearly
subscriptions,” MPA wrote last October.

In addition to being featured by resellers, these brands typically rely on word-of-mouth promotion by their users. However, last month, a whole new audience was reached when MagisTV became the poster child of a new anti-piracy campaign.

Anti-Piracy Push Backfires?

Earlier this month, the BARCELONA S.C’s football team posed in front of a banner urging fans to ‘say no to MagisTV’, hoping to make an impact.

magistv

The plan on display here is that once fans learned about this illegal operation, they would stop using it. In reality, it also served as indirect promotion, making people aware of a ‘cheap’ piracy service they’d never previously heard of.

It’s hard to say what the net effect of the campaign was, but in response to LigaPro’s latest site-blocking announcement on X, several people replied with screenshots of their MagisTV setup.

“Thank you for the recommendation to use MagisTv, excellent service,” said one.

magis

This example shows that simply telling people to stop using a service isn’t always the best strategy, and may even backfire. Nevertheless, Loor and his colleagues are determined to push on, promising a radical fight against pirate sites and services.

“The fight against piracy by the authorities against those who distribute or buy illegal content is going to be radical. Step by step we are going to go against all these Magis TV and other IPTV or signals that provide our content illegally,” Loor said earlier this month.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Premier League IPTV Piracy Clickbait Reaches New Low, But Will Go Lower https://torrentfreak.com/premier-league-iptv-piracy-clickbait-reaches-new-low-but-will-go-lower-240323/ https://torrentfreak.com/premier-league-iptv-piracy-clickbait-reaches-new-low-but-will-go-lower-240323/#respond Sat, 23 Mar 2024 13:37:26 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248914 As elements of the UK media continue to stomp on reality in exchange for piracy-related clicks, a new story doing the rounds has managed to reach a new low. Accompanied by the usual dire warnings, the stories claim that a new overseas anti-piracy system has Brits "braced for a crackdown" because it could "stop Brits watching illegal streams for good." Perhaps the Premier League should buy this system right now? Yeah, about that.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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clown-dmcaBeing able to receive and impart knowledge and ideas with other people is one of the most important things any human will ever do.

The information shared or received won’t always be accurate, even if we believe it is. It might not be accurate even if it appears in several widely read online newspapers. All anyone really expects is a tiny effort to ensure that they aren’t being fed fabricated nonsense made up on the spot.

Apparently, even that’s too much to ask; illegal streaming detector cars, really?

Something Something PIRACY SHIELD WARNING

The image below shows how Google responds to a search for a very specific term. The search term ‘piracy shield’ relates to an anti-piracy system that enjoyed its full launch in Italy on February 2, 2024. We’ve written about Piracy Shield and the legislation supporting it on dozens of occasions, including numerous times in the last few weeks.

piracy shield news

Of the available ‘Top Stories’ space, we get a quarter while the remaining 75% is allocated to three extremely popular, UK-focused publications, all of which expend considerable resources on SEO and here, tell exactly the same ‘story’.

While TorrentFreak’s regular readers will already know what Piracy Shield is, who built it and why, exactly how it functions from a technical perspective, and all of its ‘secret’ targets thus far, it’s likely that readers of the publications above were less aware of it.

After reading the articles, not much would’ve improved.

Stand By Brits, This Will End Illegal Streaming, FOREVER

The Piracy Shield system was donated by Italian football league Serie A to Italian telecoms regulator, AGCOM. The technical section of an Italian law firm worked on development, the system was accredited for use in Italy under Italian law, and is currently hard at work trying to block access to Italian content, in Italy.

That obviously leads seamlessly and not at all unnaturally to headlines like these.

piracy-brain

Given these end-of-days headlines, some may have been comforted that the doom portrayed at the start of the articles had completely disappeared by the end.

From “the crackdown may stop games being streamed illegally for good” at the start, to variations on “there are no plans for a similar procedure to be adopted in the UK” at the end. That’s either the most miraculous recovery seen recently, or the textbook definition of clickbait.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter, because it’s still not entirely true. Or indeed true at all.

Anyone Remember The Premier League?

The Piracy Shield system in Italy exists in the main to block pirate sports streams, delivered by premium IPTV piracy platforms or those accessed via web-based streaming portals. To ensure the legality of blocking under Italian law, so-called ‘precautionary measures’ with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, i.e evasive action by pirates, are issued against pirate sites.

If these ‘dynamic injunctions’ and a Piracy Shield-type system turned up in the UK tomorrow, the scenarios outlined in the articles above definitely would not happen, and for very good reason.

Always Credit The Source

Dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports piracy were actually pioneered and developed in the UK, by none other than the Premier League.

In fact, in Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc & Ors. (2017/2018), the High Court of England and Wales issued the first ever dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports in favor of the Premier League. Since then, such injunctions have been in constant force at ISPs around the country, season in, season out, controlled and executed by the by Premier League’s own system.

That’s six/seven years of experience for the Premier League. Piracy Shield launched four weeks ago.

Think of it like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur tries to use the Holy Grail as leverage over the master of a French castle, but is informed that the master probably won’t be interested since “he’s already got one.”

Or just make something up.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Dutch Court Orders ISP to Block ‘Anna’s Archive’ and ‘LibGen’ https://torrentfreak.com/dutch-court-orders-isp-to-block-annas-archive-and-libgen-240322/ https://torrentfreak.com/dutch-court-orders-isp-to-block-annas-archive-and-libgen-240322/#respond Fri, 22 Mar 2024 15:35:51 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248847 The Dutch pirate site blocklist has expanded with two new targets, shadow libraries Anna's Archive and Library Genesis. The court order was obtained by local anti-piracy group BREIN, acting on behalf of major publishers. Interestingly, Z-Library isn't listed in the blocking order, despite explicit warnings previously issued by BREIN.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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stopPirate site blocking is one of the entertainment industry’s favorite enforcement tools. In recent years, it’s become a common practice in many countries around the world.

In the Netherlands, it took over a decade for the first order to be approved. After detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice, the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay.

With all the legal paperwork in order, the doors were open to more blocking requests, especially after rightsholders and local ISPs signed a covenant to streamline the process. If a court orders one company to block pirate sites, by agreement the other ISPs will follow suit.

After the initial Pirate Bay blockade, a follow-up order targeted YTS, EZTV and other torrent sites in 2022. Last year, Lookmovie and Flixtor were singled out in yet another case, despite a challenge to the ‘dynamic’ nature of these orders, which allows new domains to be added continuously.

Blocking Shadow Libraries

All blocking requests were submitted by local anti-piracy group BREIN, which acts on behalf of rightsholders. These include the major Hollywood studios but BREIN’s purview is much broader. Last week, it obtained the latest blocking order, this time on behalf of the publishing industry.

Issued by the Rotterdam District Court, the order requires a local Internet provider to block two well-known shadow libraries; “Anna’s Archive” and “Library Genesis” (LibGen).

News of this new court order was shared by BREIN which notes that both sites were found to make copyright infringing works available on a large scale. At the time of writing, a published copy is not available but, based on the covenant, all large Internet providers are expected to implement the blockades.

“These types of illegal shadow libraries are very harmful. The only ones who benefit are the anonymous owners of these illegal services. Authors and publishers see no return on their efforts and investments,” BREIN comments.

“Copyright holders deserve an honest living. There are numerous legal ways to obtain ebooks. If desired, this can also be done very cheaply; through the library for example.”

Dynamic Order

The Rotterdam court issued a so-called ‘dynamic’ blocking order, meaning that rightsholders can update the targeted domains and IP addresses if the sites switch to new ones in the future. This also applies to mirrors and increases the blockades’ effectiveness, as there is no need to return to court.

Previously, Internet provider KPN challenged these ‘dynamic’ orders, suggesting that they are too broad. The court rejected this argument, however, noting that the process hasn’t led to any major problems thus far.

BREIN further reports that Google is voluntarily offering a helping hand. As reported in detail previously, the search engine removes blocked domains from its local search results after being notified about an ISP blocking order.

“The effectiveness of the blocking measure is increased because Google cooperates in combating these infringements and, at the request of BREIN, completely removes all references to websites that are blocked by order of the Dutch court from the search results,” BREIN writes.

Elephant in the Room

The blockade of the two shadow libraries is a key victory for BREIN; Anna’s Archive and LibGen are the largest sites of their kind along with a similar platform, Z-Library. Interestingly, however, the latter is not part of this blocking order.

Z-Library is the target of an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Government, an enforcement effort in which BREIN also played a role. It is not clear why the site isn’t part of the blocking request, however.

This ‘omission’ is notable considering the anti-piracy group’s earlier stance. After Z-Library’s initial shutdown, BREIN explicitly warned that it would obtain a court order to block Z-Library if it came back online.

Instead of going after Z-Library, BREIN’s latest blocking request targets two other shadow libraries. BREIN must have its reasons not to include Z-Library in this legal effort but the group didn’t immediately respond to our request for clarification.

Update: After publication BREIN explained that it focused on these two domains as they are seen as more popular than Z-Library. Z-Library is targeted by the U.S. but BREIN is planning to request a blockade in the future if the site stays online.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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DoodStream: Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon & Apple Sue “Rogue Cyberlocker” https://torrentfreak.com/doodstream-hollywood-netflix-amazon-apple-sue-rogue-cyberlocker-240322/ https://torrentfreak.com/doodstream-hollywood-netflix-amazon-apple-sue-rogue-cyberlocker-240322/#respond Fri, 22 Mar 2024 10:02:41 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248872 With the benefit of hindsight, the MPA's 'notorious markets' submission to the USTR last year may have also sent a message to the operators of video hosting service DoodStream. The platform was featured unusually prominently and the studios seemed confident of the operators' whereabouts. Whatever the intent, DoodStream's operators are now being sued by Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon and Apple, who apparently identified them as long ago as last summer.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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doodstreamThe Motion Picture Association’s interest in file-hosting platform DoodStream first came to light in a submission to the USTR in October 2022.

The MPA described DoodStream as a video hosting service offering free storage and premium services including priority encoding and an ad-free experience. Videos uploaded to the platform were embedded on many other streaming sites, the MPA reported, and as a result, traffic was booming.

The MPA estimated the site received 82.7 million visits in August 2022, while using the services of DDoS-Guard in Russia and OVH in France.

“DoodStream operates a partner program that offers financial remuneration, either per download or stream depending on the country of origin,” the MPA informed the USTR in its ‘notorious markets’ submission.

DoodStream ratesdoodstream-partner

A year later in a new submission to the USTR, the MPA described DoodStream as a ‘top priority’ for its anti-piracy efforts.

DoodStream in the Spotlight

In its October 2023 submission to the USTR’s notorious markets report, the MPA’s cyberlocker and video streaming category listed DoodStream front and center as the priority problem. The MPA still believed the site was operating from OVH in France but also listed other companies as hosts, including Online S.A.S., Hetzner Online GmbH, and Interkvm Host10 SRL.

The MPA noted that the Delhi High Court had ordered ISPs to block DoodStream in 2023, a measure also handed down by a French court during the same year. The Paris court noted that the site “encouraged the infringement of copyright and related rights by setting up tools specifically designed for the mass and illicit sharing of protected content.”

“The operators are located in India,” the MPA informed the USTR.

Entertainment Giants Team Up Against DoodStream

Two months later, Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and MPA Global General Counsel referenced DoodStream before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet (pdf). DoodStream continued, business as usual, until now.

In a lawsuit being heard at the High Court of Delhi, eight plaintiffs are listed as follows: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Amazon Content Services LLC, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Netflix US, LLC, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Universal City Studios Productions LLP and Apple Video Programming.

A total of six defendants include the domains doodstream.com, doodstream.co, dood.stream and their underlying websites (defendants 1-3), plus a server (defendant 4) used by defendants 1 to 3 which allegedly facilitates storing and dissemination of illegal content. Defendants 5 and 6, neither of whom have been named, are reportedly site operators.

According to counsel for the plaintiffs, “rogue cyberlocker websites provide an infrastructure specifically designed to incentivize hosting, uploading, storing, sharing, streaming, and authorize the downloading of copyrighted material without obtaining authorization from the plaintiffs.

Claims Against The DoodStream Defendants

The plaintiffs allege that a massive amount of infringing content to which they have exclusive rights, is uploaded by users on the defendants’ websites.

“Counsel for plaintiffs say the studios approached defendants upon noticing this infringing content, first in June, 2023, after they discovered the identity as to who was operating these websites, who happen to be individuals based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, arrayed as defendants nos. 5 and 6,” an order from the court reads.

“This, according to plaintiffs’ counsel, was achieved after some effort since the WHOIS details of defendant nos. 1 to 3 were masked.”

The court notes that the plaintiffs continuously pursued the defendants to take the infringing content down. However, despite promises to comply, a mechanism built in to the site simply generated new links whenever content was supposedly removed.

“Further, uploaded content would also generate a link which could be disseminated by the uploader and therefore, potentially could be disseminated through parallel websites. Thus, as per counsel for plaintiffs, the takedown itself was elusive and of no effect, since the system immediately permitted generation of a new link.”

The court notes that through this mechanism, DoodStream becomes a “hydra-headed monster” that is difficult to police through takedowns alone.

Plaintiffs Want DoodStream Shut Down

The plaintiffs submit that DoodStream should either be comprehensively blocked or a Local Commissioner should be appointed to take over the administration of the sites. However, counsel for the defendants told the court that their clients are prepared to “exhaustively and completely” remove the plaintiffs’ content from the platform.

Due to the link generation mechanism in operation on the site, the plaintiffs expressed concern that content taken down would nnot stay down. The defendants offered assurances that they would “change the features on their websites’ architecture” to ensure that once the process of takedown is complete, regeneration would not be allowed.

In view of this undertaking, the court ordered (pdf) all content belonging to the plaintiffs to be taken down within 24 hours, and ordered the defendants to hire a chartered accountant to disclose all revenue generated by the sites since their launch.

The case is listed for hearing on April 8, 2024.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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AGCOM Admits ‘Piracy Shield’ Blunder, Cloudflare Urges Users to Complain https://torrentfreak.com/agcom-admits-piracy-shield-blunder-cloudflare-urges-users-to-complain-240321/ https://torrentfreak.com/agcom-admits-piracy-shield-blunder-cloudflare-urges-users-to-complain-240321/#respond Thu, 21 Mar 2024 16:17:39 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248811 It may have taken almost a month but Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM has finally admitted that Cloudflare was wrongfully blocked by its fledgling anti-piracy system, Piracy Shield. There was no apology for the journalists accused of reporting 'fake news', or an apology for Cloudflare after disrupting its business. Meanwhile, Cloudflare will draw attention to overblocking by urging customers affected by the blunder to file official complaints.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Logo piracy shieldIn a little over a week’s time, Italy’s Piracy Shield system will have been fully operational for two whole months.

Claims that IPTV piracy would be eliminated almost overnight helped to convince lawmakers that without Piracy Shield and the legislation that underpins it, Italian football could die.

In reality, the system was never capable of eliminating piracy and football in Italy was never on life support; the big question now is whether it’s performing close to predictions, or even having any effect at all.

Two Months of Dynamic Blocking

During a hearing Wednesday to review Piracy Shield’s performance after almost eight weeks in the trenches, AGCOM President Giacomo Lasorella provided data to show participation in the Piracy Shield platform, specifically the number of entities that filed applications and received accreditation.

Lasorella revealed that 314 requests have been received to date, including five relating to the main users of the platform; broadcasters DAZN, Sky (Comcast) and RTI (Mediaset Group), Serie A, and Serie B. The remaining 309 applications were received from the ISPs required by law to implement blocking instructions issued by Piracy Shield.

In its first full month of operations, the platform handled blocking instructions related to 11 precautionary measures, all of them issued to protect live sports: football from Serie A and Serie B, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Europa Conference League, plus Formula 1, MotoGP, Eurocup Basketball, ATP and WTA tennis.

“In total from February 2 to March 3, 3,127 fully qualified domain names and 2,176 IP addresses were blocked,” Lasorella said, noting that figures are available to show IPs blocked each day.

“Obviously these blocks mainly appear when there are sporting events; they are definitely encouraging results which we say testify to the incisiveness of AGCOM’s action.”

The Measure of Success

Whether the nature of AGCOM’s reporting will change as blocking matures is unknown, but in common with other countries, success in Italy is expressed through the use of blocking data; essentially the number of IP addresses and domains blocked. That’s not entirely unexpected but as a measure of success, it’s almost completely meaningless.

The true measure of success isn’t the number of IP addresses blocked or domains rendered inaccessible, but the rate at which new customers sign up and/or remain loyal to legal broadcasting services.

The broadcasters, DAZN and Sky, for example, will already have the data for February, most likely accurate to a single subscriber. Without sight of that all-important data, AGCOM could block the entire internet and those figures would still mean nothing. The unlikely prospect of actually blocking the entire internet took a step closer in February, however.

AGCOM Addresses Over-Blocking Allegations

Following a blunder mid-February that saw an IP address belonging to Zenlayer CDN blocked in error, someone with accreditation to input IP addresses on behalf of rightsholders added one belonging to Cloudflare, with predictably disastrous results.

Those who expected an explanation or perhaps an apology, received something else entirely. During a TV appearance helpfully facilitated by TG24, a channel operated by key Piracy Shield user Sky, AGCOM’s commissioner stated categorically that there had been no blunders. Reports published by journalists at Wired and DDaY were described as “absolutely false” and the whole debacle found itself dismissed as “fake news”.

During the hearing Wednesday, AGCOM’s president conceded that there had indeed been some “critical operational issues” and even went on to explain what had happened.

“The problems we encountered essentially concern the need to discriminate the legal contents from the illicit ones that exist on the same platform. That is, there are platforms where there are legitimate sites and illicit sites together, and the law prescribes that the sites must be uniquely dedicated to, let’s say, the illicit contents.”

Pirates Using Devious Methods? Impossible, surely

The issue of shared IP addresses and the likelihood of overblocking was repeatedly raised by tech experts in the run-up to the new legislation being passed last year. Assurances that blocking ‘dual use’ IP addresses would be explicitly forbidden in the text, which would be strictly adhered to, eventually led to a prediction that was only 50% accurate.

According to Lasorella, however, this is a trap being laid by pirates.

“Subjects addicted to piracy are increasingly using so-called Content Delivery Networks, CDNs. Content Delivery Networks by their nature may not be uniquely intended for activities therefore licit and illicit appear together,” Lasorella said.

“On the same IP address used for the violation of copyright can exist a perhaps fictitious domain that spreads legitimate content and this evidently prevents this address from being obscured.”

Or in Cloudflare’s case last month, evidently not.

Lasorella confirmed that one of the accredited reporters uploaded a ticket to the Piracy Shield platform which contained a Cloudflare IP address. Since legitimate and illegitimate sites shared the same IP, all found themselves blocked. AGCOM’s president said everything was sorted out “in a couple of hours” but from online reports, a minimum of four hours seems closer to events on the ground.

Potential Showdown With Cloudflare, Google

While describing events of that Saturday a few weeks ago, Lasorella mentioned that a Cloudflare IP address had been blocked and then took the opportunity to state that Cloudflare is “always more involved in these proceedings” due to its provision of DNS and VPN services “that actually facilitate online copyright violations.”

Google also received a mention; the company seems prepared to work with AGCOM to deindex pirate sites that appear in reports uploaded to Piracy Shield, but at the moment has not “considered being accredited” to the platform.

“Google has confirmed its intention not to intervene on its DNS through a local block,” Lasorella said.

It’s a little early to predict how this situation will play out but after blocking Cloudflare last month, following repeated warnings, even from Cloudflare itself, AGCOM has a side order of “we told you so” to contend with. That’s in advance of a starter being prepared right now.

In an email sent out to all customers affected by the erroneous blocking last month, Cloudflare is now encouraging users to file an official complaint with AGCOM. The stated aim is to “expand government awareness” of the collateral damage caused by IP blocking in the hope that will prevent overblocking in the future.

AGCOM already seems fully aware of the risks but, as a completely impartial regulator, must also weigh the interests of football against the interests of everyone else. Its response to these letters may prove informative.

Blocking of [website redacted] via the Piracy Shield Platform

On Saturday, February 24, 2024, a Cloudflare IP address was blocked in Italy through the Italian government’s Piracy Shield system. As a result of this action, Internet users in Italy were unable to access tens of thousands of websites. Although the block was removed within hours because of the number of innocent sites affected, we have identified your website as one that appears to have been temporarily blocked.

The Italian Media Regulator (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, AGCOM) provides interested parties, including the managers of websites and pages, the right to lodge a complaint about blocks implemented through the Piracy Shield Program. Cloudflare believes it is important to document the collateral damage caused by IP blocking in order to expand government awareness of the risks of the practice and hopefully prevent future overblocking. If you would like to submit a complaint, you can submit your own complaint to tavoloantipirateria@agcom.it and agcom@cert.agcom.it, as laid out on the AGCOM website.

To assist you, we have prepared the below template email, in both English and Italian, that may be used to submit your complaint to AGCOM:

Template email to AGCOM:

Re: Blocking of [website] via the Piracy Shield platform

We write to file a complaint regarding the blocking action ordered by the Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM) of IP address 188.114.97.7 on Saturday, February 24, which rendered our website [redacted] inaccessible to Internet users in Italy. While we understand that the blocking order under AGCOM’s Piracy Shield was intended to prevent copyright infringement, our website does not infringe copyright and has never been accused of copyright infringement.

We formally complain about this action and request that AGCOM take immediate steps to prevent any future blocking of our website and other innocent websites.

Re: Provvedimenti di blocco Piracy Shield / blocco del sito [website redacted]

Scriviamo per presentare un reclamo in merito al blocco ordinato dall’Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, sabato 24 febbraio 2024, dell’indirizzo IP 188.114.97.7 24, che ha reso il nostro sito web [redacted] inaccessibile agli utenti Internet in Italia. Pur comprendendo che l’ordine di blocco previsto da “Piracy Shield” di AGCOM era finalizzato a prevenire la violazione del diritto d’autore, segnaliamo che il nostro sito web non viola il diritto d’autore e non è mai stato accusato di simili illeciti.

Ci doliamo formalmente di questa iniziativa e chiediamo che AGCOM voglia prendere provvedimenti immediati per prevenire qualsiasi futuro blocco del nostro sito e di altri siti web conformi alla legge.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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EU Commission Encourages Use of New Anti-Piracy Toolbox https://torrentfreak.com/european-commission-encourages-use-of-new-anti-piracy-toolbox-240321/ https://torrentfreak.com/european-commission-encourages-use-of-new-anti-piracy-toolbox-240321/#respond Thu, 21 Mar 2024 08:11:22 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248737 The European Commission has published its 'Recommendation on measures to combat counterfeiting and enhance the enforcement of intellectual property rights'. Produced in response to rising levels of IP-infringing activities, the EC says its 'toolbox' of measures also apply to those fighting online piracy. Let's take a look inside.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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ec-toolboxMost anti-piracy tools and mechanisms, whether dedicated online platforms or legislation crafted to achieve a particular goal, have issues that affect their performance.

No matter how tough, legislation could be of date when finally implemented, or reveal itself to be unwieldy in practice, too costly, or simply ineffective. Technical solutions may face compliance and regulatory issues, while pirate adversaries remain light on their feet by ignoring them all.

One key to success for rightsholders is to exploit pirates where they’re most vulnerable, i.e anywhere where they’re reliant on services operated by businesses that already comply with the law and are more likely to take action.

The European Commission’s Recommendation (Toolbox) published on Tuesday, focuses on just that by providing guidance on enforcement, suggesting priority actions, and encouraging use of existing anti-counterfeit/anti-piracy tools.

Cooperation, Coordination and Information Sharing

The Commission says a key aim of the Toolbox is to promote and facilitate effective cooperation between rightsholders, providers of intermediary services, and competent authorities, by promoting good practice and use of appropriate tools and new technologies.

The headline focus is anti-counterfeiting but within the text the EC notes that “most guiding principles, good practices and tools” developed under the recommendation can also be relevant when tackling pirated content online. In particular, voluntary actions taken by online intermediaries, “enhanced cooperation among competent national authorities,” and the sharing of information and data.

Cooperation and increased information sharing are essential and should be further promoted, at all levels, in accordance with Union law, the protection of personal data and the freedom to conduct business under Article 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’). Good practices should be identified, and recommended to all actors, including e-commerce marketplaces, transport and logistic service providers, payment services providers, social media providers, providers of domain name services, etc. Secondly, further cooperation and information sharing should be encouraged. This relates to all competent authorities, including market surveillance authorities that currently may not have competences for IP-infringing activities, and promoting further the use of dedicated tools such as the IP Enforcement Portal (‘IPEP’)…

Payment Services, Social Media Platforms

The EC highlights payment services as an area where more can be done. On one hand, these companies are central to rightsholders’ activities. On the other, they can also be used to support IP-infringing activities. The EC says that to prevent misuse of their services for IP-infringing activities, payment services should be encouraged to implement the following good practices:

(a) to clearly state in their terms and conditions, as a ground for suspension or termination of their contract with sellers, any finding, including by the competent authority, of the use of their payment services for IP-infringing activities;
(b) to set up notification mechanisms allowing rightsholders using their payment services to notify any IP-infringing activity;
(c) where technically and economically feasible, to have an information system in place to enable the identification of operators engaging in IP-infringing activities, across different payment services, when one payment service provider has terminated its services with such operators on the grounds of IP-infringing activities;
(d) to exchange information with other payment service providers on trends regarding IP-infringing activities and to put in place specific measures against repeated misuse of their services, particularly where there has been a finding by a competent authority that their services have been used for IP-infringing activities.

Social media providers should similarly prevent misuse of their services, including by having systems in place to identify and take action against those misusing their services for IP-infringing activities.

Domain Name Registries/Registrars

The Commission’s Recommendation naturally assumes that where the law compels intermediaries or service providers to take action, that should be the standard minimum response. However, when entities are asked to go above and beyond, which appears to underpin almost every proposal in the Toolbox, service providers find themselves “encouraged to implement” various measures.

In respect of domain names, Directive (EU) 2022/2555 obliges “TLD name registries and entities providing domain name registration services” to “collect and guarantee the integrity and availability of domain name registration data.” EU Member States should further require these entities to “respond without undue delay” to requests for the disclosure of registration data following requests from “legitimate access seekers.”

Legitimate access seekers include those considered competent under EU or national law for the prevention, investigation, detection, or prosecution of criminal offenses. However, the definition can also encompass anyone with a legitimate reason to access the information, which includes rightsholders and their agents.

When access to domain name registration data that is personal data is sought, TLD-name registries and entities providing domain name registration services established in the EU and/or offering services in the EU are encouraged to recognize as legitimate access seekers any natural or legal persons who make a request for a right to information pursuant to Directive 2004/48/EC.

Member States are further encouraged to share intelligence and data on emerging piracy trends, including lists of websites that have been held by competent authorities to have carried out IP-infringing activities, the tactics and behaviors of alleged infringers, and to explore news ways to share information on those who “repeatedly engage in IP-infringing activities.”

Dynamic Injunctions, Unmasking Petty Infringers

Several EU Member States already have mechanisms in place that allow rightsholders to obtain injunctions against infringers and intermediaries, but the Commission would like to see more.

Specifically, Member States are encouraged to provide for the possibility of dynamic injunctions that can be applied to IP-infringing activities that are similar to those already identified, but are yet to be identified, such as the use of mirror sites.

The Commission also encourages Member States to ensure that petty infringers can’t escape simply because their activities are not commercial in scale or even commercial at all.

“Member States are encouraged to provide for the possibility for the competent judicial authorities to order disclosure of the relevant information to effectively fight IP infringements which are not on a commercial scale, in response to a justified and proportionate request of the claimant in proceedings,” the Commission writes.

“For these purposes, the relevant information could consist of the same information which may be requested in accordance with Article 8(2) of Directive 2004/48/EC, including the email address, telephone number and IP addresses relating to alleged infringers or participants to alleged infringing activities.”

The European Commission’s Recommendation (Toolbox) can be found here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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Music Industry Threatens ‘Deepfake AI Music’ Service With Legal Action https://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-threatens-deepfake-ai-music-service-with-legal-action-240320/ https://torrentfreak.com/music-industry-threatens-deepfake-ai-music-service-with-legal-action-240320/#respond Wed, 20 Mar 2024 16:10:19 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248765 BPI, the UK's leading music industry group, views Voicify as one of the world’s largest and most egregious 'deepfake' AI music sites. The group is now threatening to sue the vocal cloning service if it continues to operate in its current form. While the site hasn't commented on the allegations directly, it recently rebranded to "Jammable" citing legal troubles.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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jammableOver the past year, new artificial intelligence tools and services have been surfacing everywhere.

The same can be said for AI-related lawsuits and complaints, which have been piling up by the dozen.

In the UK, music industry group BPI has enetered the mix, targeting AI-generated voice models and cover tracks. This technology, which partly relies on copyrighted recordings, has been controversial for a while.

Voicify Faces Legal Pressure

AI vocal-cloning service Voicify was previously called out by the RIAA. In a recommendation to the U.S. Trade Representative, the recording label group asked the USTR to put the site on its list of notorious piracy sites. The USTR did not include the site in its report, however, and Voicify continued its operations as usual.

After the RIAA put a spotlight on Voicify, the BPI maintained the pressure in a letter to the site’s operators, urging them to stop all copyright-infringing activity. If not, the BPI would consider follow-up steps, implying a full-blown lawsuit.

The letter was sent privately on February 26th but aside from the legal threat, its contents remain unknown. While Voicify failed to respond appropriately according to the BPI, the service did announce a major change soon after by rebranding its website to “Jammable“.

jammable

Rebrand Can’t Escape Lawsuit Threat

According to the website, the brand change was motivated by the service’s move away from just being an ‘AI Voice Platform’. However, a source familiar with the situation informs TorrentFreak that a ‘legal matter’ played a yet role in the decision. That could very well be related to BPI’s letter.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the news about BPI’s legal threat against Voicify/Jammable broke in The Times, just days after the rebrand. As ‘a matter of policy’, BPI can’t say whether it reached out to The Times first, or vice versa, but the added pressure helps its case.

An accompanying message released by BPI’s General Counsel Kiaron Whitehead is also crystal clear.

“The music industry has long embraced new technology to innovate and grow, but Voicify (now known as Jammable), and a growing number of others like them, are misusing AI technology by taking other people’s creativity without permission and making fake content. In so doing, they are endangering the future success of British musicians and their music.”

Massive music ‘Deepfake’ Service

With a library featuring thousands of voice models, the BPI considers Jammable one of the world’s largest and most egregious deepfake AI music sites. In its letter the BPI gave the voice cloning site the option to respond and avoid legal action but thus far the BPI remains dissatisfied.

While AI-related copyright issues are still rather novel and mostly unexplored from a legal perspective, the music group is convinced it has the law on its side. The BPI’s complaint centers around Jammable’s purported use of copyrighted music recordings to create voice models and AI covers.

In theory, these types of services could enable people to create a cover of a Frank Sinatra song using the voice of Homer Simpson, if they’d like to hear that.

This use of copyrighted music, combined with the commercial nature of Jammable, is not allowed according to BPI.

Thus far, music-related AI lawsuits haven’t appeared in UK courts so if the BPI decides to follow up on its threat, this would be the first. For now, however, there is no sign of legal action.

Several other music industry entities including the Musicians’ Union and UK MUSIC support the efforts to protect rightsholders against AI troubles.

“Jammable is just one worrying example of AI developers encroaching on the personal rights of music creators for their own financial gain,” Musicians’ Union General Secretary Naomi Pohl says.

“It can’t be right that a commercial enterprise can just steal someone’s voice in order to generate unlimited soundalike tracks with no labelling to clarify to the public the output tracks are not genuine recordings by the original artist, no permission from the original artist and no share of the money paid to them either.” 

Speaking with TorrentFreak, a BPI spokesperson says that it has only sent a letter to Voicify/Jammable, not to any similar services. We also asked Jammable for a comment on the legal threat but, at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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ISP’s Landmark Piracy Liability Case Doesn’t Get a Do-Over in Appeals Court https://torrentfreak.com/isps-landmark-piracy-liability-case-doesnt-get-a-do-over-in-appeals-court-240320/ https://torrentfreak.com/isps-landmark-piracy-liability-case-doesnt-get-a-do-over-in-appeals-court-240320/#respond Wed, 20 Mar 2024 11:52:26 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248746 The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied rehearing requests filed by Internet provider Cox and several record labels, who are engaged in a landmark piracy liability battle. The ISP warned that the current precedent threatens the Internet connectivity of millions of people, but the court sees no reason to reconsider its earlier findings.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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pirate flagsLate 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels, including Sony and Universal.

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.

That wasn’t the end of it. Following the initial verdict Cox launched several challenges, including an appeal that delivered a mixed result earlier this year. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit kept the contributory copyright infringement ruling intact but reversed a finding of vicarious copyright infringement.

The latter was good news for the ISP, especially since the appeals court concluded that the scale of the damages award should be redetermined in the district court.

Both Parties Request a Rehearing

Neither Cox nor the labels were satisfied by this outcome so both requested a rehearing. The music companies want the $1 billion damages award to remain and noted that Cox already waived its right to appeal. Cox, in turn, would like the contributory copyright infringement ruling to be reversed.

The ISP argued that the landmark liability ruling results in more terminations of Internet connections, based on piracy accusations from third parties. This shapes a “draconian regime” that threatens the Internet connectivity of millions of people.

Cox’s request received support from several amici, including the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge. The latter detailed the stakes in a blog post recently, stressing that courts shouldn’t turn ISPs into the Internet police.

“The root of the problem is that the court failed to recognize that ISPs are infrastructure providers, not content police. Like other common carriers such as phone companies, broadband providers should not be liable for how their subscribers use their services,” Public Knowledge wrote.

“In today’s world, where broadband is essential infrastructure more akin to electricity or water than a luxury, an ISP’s role is to provide reliable internet access – not to work on behalf of the music industry. We urge the Fourth Circuit to rehear this case en banc and correct its erroneous decision on contributory liability.”

Request Denied

Despite fierce opposition from both sides, the court of appeals won’t reconsider its earlier decision. A few hours ago, it ruled on the rehearing requests, denying both without providing further detail.

“The court denies the petition for rehearing en banc and the petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc. No judge requested a poll […] on the petition for rehearing en banc,” the order reads.

denied

This means that Cox will remain contributorily liable for the pirating activities of its users. Given what’s at stake, it wouldn’t be a surprise if this matter eventually ends up at the Supreme Court.

The $1 billion damages award remains vacated and a new trial will have to determine the scale of the damages, taking into account that Cox is no longer liable for vicarious copyright infringement.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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16-Year-Old Pirate Site Prosecution Resurrected Despite Four Acquittals https://torrentfreak.com/16-year-old-pirate-site-prosecution-resurrected-despite-four-acquittals-240319/ https://torrentfreak.com/16-year-old-pirate-site-prosecution-resurrected-despite-four-acquittals-240319/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 19:23:38 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248680 After its launch in 2007, the popularity of streaming links platform SeriesYonkis exploded and within a year it was among the most-visited sites in Spain. From a local law enforcement operation against one of the site's operators in 2009, a full trial demanding 550 million euros from four men in 2019, to their complete acquittal in 2021, the journey was eventful. Yet suddenly, following an appeal by the movie companies' anti-piracy outfit, the case will be resurrected.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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In 2007, Netflix shifted from distributing optical media via the mail to streaming content online. Apple released the first iPhone in the same year, but neither were quite ready to start squeezing the modern equivalent of the silver screen onto a 320×480 LCD panel.

From a standing start alongside these innovative products in 2007, within a year SeriesYonkis would establish itself as one of Spain’s most-visited sites. Soon after, as the discontinued iPhone collapsed in the rear-view mirror in the summer of 2018, SeriesYonkis powered on to become one of the most popular ‘pirate’ sites in mainland Europe. That didn’t go unnoticed.

Hyperlinks vs. Hosting

Providing links to TV shows hosted on sites such as Megaupload may have been exciting for fans, but SeriesYonkis and movie-focused sister site PeliculasYonkis would soon feel the heat. When a black and white movie produced in Argentina was spotted by the rightsholder, a criminal complaint escalated into Spanish law enforcement action in 2009, and a search at the home of one of the site’s operators.

The search turned up nothing useful, at least when viewed through the eyes of Spanish law and how it was perceived at the time. SeriesYonkis was fueled by links to content hosted elsewhere, posted by users. There was no evidence to show that the site’s operators uploaded any content, or even checked the links to see if they actually worked.

The big struggle for rightsholders was a lack of clarity in Spanish law; specifically whether the mere provision of links amounted to a ‘communication to the public’, a regular feature of many copyright cases that have ended up at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

Between 2007 and 2014, Spain’s Criminal Code had no definition for ‘communication to the public’ and when efforts were made to utilize provisions in the country’s Intellectual Property law, courts looked at other cases involving hyperlinks. All determined that linking did not amount to a communication to the public.

Court of Justice of the European Union on Hyperlinks

In February 2014, when dealing with the landmark case Svensson v Retriever Sverige AB, the CJEU set out the criteria for a communication to the public. Communication was defined as making works available in a way the public can access them. The term ‘public’ was clarified to mean a large number of people, who were not the original audience rightsholders had envisioned when they made the content available.

Importantly, the CJEU clarified that the provision of hyperlinks to protected content amounts to making content available.

Since making content available constitutes an act of communication, the people behind SeriesYonkis understood that this case, which didn’t directly involve them, certainly did now. Rightsholders did not envision their content reaching the users of SeriesYonkis via file-hosting sites for free, so that qualified as a ‘new public’ as defined by Europe’s highest court.

SeriesYonkis’ fate was sealed; Spain updated its laws with explicit reference to hyperlinks and before that came into force, SeriesYonkis shut itself down. Yet four years later, the men behind the site were on trial, facing years in prison and a claim for over half a billion euros in damages.

Not Guilty and Still Not Guilty

Following relentless legal pressure by several major Hollywood studios and their local proxies EGEDA and the Spanish Anti-Piracy Federation, four men went on trial in April 2019 for their work on SeriesYonkis, PeliculasYonkis and VideosYonkis (Series, Film, and Video Junkies).

Founder and original owner Alberto García and subsequent owners Alexis Hoepfner, Jordi Tamargo and David Martínez, faced a damages claim of 550 million euros and calls from Hollywood for prison sentences of up to four years each. The local prosecutor felt that two years would be sufficient.

For reasons directly linked to the CJEU ruling in Svensson, and the fact that the site’s operators shut everything down before Spain updated its law, Judge Isabel María Carrillo Sáez of Murcia’s Criminal Court said the men would not be going to prison, because they had committed no crimes.

The inevitable appeal, filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and EGEDA, was subsequently rejected by the Murcia Provincial Court. Three magistrates ratified the decision handed down by the Murcia Criminal Court in 2019; still not guilty, all four remain acquitted.

Yet Another Appeal….

seriesyonkis-11According to a new report by elDiario.es, anti-piracy group EGEDA has filed an ‘amparo claim’ at the Constitutional Court against the acquittal of the men in 2021.

Amparo is one of the main powers conferred by the Constitution to the Constitutional Court. The object of this process is the protection against breaches of the rights and freedoms enshrined in Articles 14 to 29 and 30.2 of the Constitution originated by provisions, legal acts, omissions or simple actions of the government of the State, the Autonomous Communities and other public bodies of territorial, corporate or institutional nature, as well as their staff.

The only claim that can be enforced through the amparo is the restoration or preservation of the rights or freedoms for which the appeal is lodged.

EGEDA’s claim, access to which was obtained by elDiario.es, states that by finding the operators of SeriesYonkis innocent on the basis detailed above, the Provincial Court of Murcia’s decision violated “their right to enjoy effective judicial protection.”

As a result they want the case examined again; the Constitutional Court has accepted.

Carlos Sánchez Almeida, a lawyer for one of the men behind SeriesYonkis, expressed the opinion that if anyone needs protection, his client is a prime candidate.

“Whoever needs effective judicial protection and all the rights of Article 24 of the Constitution is our client,” Almeida says.,

“He designed [SeriesYonkis] when he was a student, and for which he has suffered, is suffering and will suffer a 16-year bench sentence,” his response to the Constitutional Court reads.

“Basically, practically the entirety of his work and family life has been spent dealing with a lawsuit constantly threatening present and future plans, with media, mental, family and economic expenses that would wear down any person. And in the face of such suffering, an accusation puts an imaginary 550 million euros on the scales of justice, invoking the right to effective judicial protection of legal entities that produce cinematographic works.”

It could be several years before the Constitutional Court issues its verdict.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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New York Times: Microsoft’s AI Tools Are Nothing Like The VCR https://torrentfreak.com/new-york-times-microsofts-ai-tools-are-nothing-like-the-vcr-240319/ https://torrentfreak.com/new-york-times-microsofts-ai-tools-are-nothing-like-the-vcr-240319/#respond Tue, 19 Mar 2024 11:26:37 +0000 https://torrentfreak.com/?p=248033 The New York Times has responded to Microsoft's motion to dismiss key claims in the highly publicized 'GPT' copyright infringement lawsuit. After Microsoft compared the lawsuit to the VCR scaremongering of the early 1980s, The Times stresses that generative AI is nothing like the VCR, before doubling down on its copyright infringement allegations.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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betamax“The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

The quote above comes from the late Jack Valenti, who was the Motion Picture Association’s boss in 1982, when he warned the House of Representatives of the looming video recorder threat.

With the benefit of hindsight, the VCR wasn’t all that scary for Hollywood. The movie industry continued to flourish in the decades that followed, while technology continued along the path of progress too. New inventions have come along and for many rightsholders, generative AI (GenAI) is today’s growing concern.

The VCR threat cemented itself in legal history through the Betamax decision which still plays a role today, for various reasons. As reported yesterday, the decision was cited in the ongoing legal battle between book publishers and the Internet Archive. Simultaneously, the VCR is also starring in a legal dispute between the New York Times and Microsoft.

NYT vs. OpenAI/Microsoft

Late last year The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that its generative AI models were trained on copyrighted news articles. The news publication also suggested that, when prompted the right way, ChatGPT could recite content from these articles.

OpenAI previously asked the court to dismiss these claims, alleging that the New York Times ‘hacked’ its service to produce the ‘highly anomalous’ outputs. The Times’ DMCA violation claim, misappropriation claim, and contributory infringement claim either fail or fall short, OpenAI added.

Microsoft filed a separate motion to dismiss. Instead of focusing on alleged hacking practices, the company led with Jack Valenti’s ‘Boston Strangler’ analogy, part of an all-out effort by television and movie producers to stop a groundbreaking new technology.

Hollywood was ultimately unable to stop the VCR. The ‘scaremongering’ didn’t convince the Supreme Court in ‘Sony (Betamax) v. Universal City Studios’ and the VCR was declared legal. The rest is history.

Microsoft Cites VCR Scaremongering

According to Microsoft, the legal crusade against AI models should be seen similarly. Instead of alleging concrete copyright infringement by end users, the technology itself is framed as copyright-infringing. That’s incorrect, the tech giant countered in its motion to dismiss earlier this month.

“At most, The Times’s allegations establish Microsoft’s awareness that someone could use a GPT-based product to infringe. Of course, the same was true of the VCR — as it is of word processors, hard drives, social media feeds, internet connections, and so forth.

“Fortunately, the Supreme Court long ago rejected liability merely based on offering a multi-use product,” Microsoft added.

Microsoft asked the court to dismiss several key claims, including contributory copyright infringement. The claim fails because there’s no evidence that the tech company knew of any third-party copyright infringements or contributed to them, Microsoft argued.

NYT: AI is Nothing Like the VCR

Yesterday, The Times responded to the motion to dismiss, starting with a VCR analogy. According to the news outlet, the VCR is nothing like the GenAI threat they’re facing today.

“Defendants’ generative AI models are nothing like VCRs. Sony didn’t copy movies and television shows to build VCRs; Defendants built their AI models by copying millions of Times articles and other copyrighted works without permission or payment.”

Unlike the VCR, GPT services are trained on copyrighted content without permission and can reproduce these in part, The Times argues.

“Defendants are using their AI models to copy and summarize even breaking news articles that users would otherwise seek on a publisher’s website. If VCRs had been built with movies to make movies that compete with movies, or if Sony oversaw the VCR’s infringing users, Sony would have gone the other way.”

Microsoft’s defense is largely predicated on its conclusion that the use of copyrighted content for AI training is fair use. The Times sees this as an “absurd argument” but doesn’t respond to it in detail. Instead, it mostly sticks to its original claims.

‘Using AI to Bypass Paywalls’

One of the key claims in the complaint is contributory copyright infringement. According to legal precedents, a party can be found liable for copyright infringement if it induces, causes, or materially contributes to it. This is particularly true when a service has few non-infringing uses.

This claim was also used against Sony’s VCR but that ultimately failed. The Times hasn’t listed any concrete infringements in its complaint but notes that its pleadings against Microsoft are sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss at this stage.

“Although Microsoft argues that copyright infringement by users of its GenAI products is just a ‘theoretical possibility’, the question at this stage is whether The Times has plausibly alleged that such infringement has taken place. The answer is yes,” Microsoft notes.

To illustrate, The Times references a Gizmodo article that suggested ChatGPT’s ‘Browse with Bing’ was paused after people used it to bypass paywalls. Microsoft wasn’t blind to these copyright infringement issues, The Times notes, stressing that it previously alerted the company to its concerns.

All in all, the Times wants the case to move forward in its entirety while Microsoft would like it to end here. It’s now up to the court to decide if the case can go forward, and on what claims. Alternatively, the parties can choose to settle their disagreements outside of court but, thus far, there’s no evidence to show either side prefers that option.

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A copy of Microsoft’s motion to dismiss, submitted at a New York federal court, can be found here (pdf) and The Times’ response is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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