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      Google Play keeps banning the same web browser due to vague DMCA notices

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 27 November - 23:10

    Screenshot of the Google home page displayed on Downloader, an Android app with a built-in browser.

    Enlarge / The Downloader app that was suspended from Google Play. (credit: Elias Saba )

    App developer Elias Saba has had some bad luck with Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns. His Android TV app Downloader, which combines a web browser with a file manager, was suspended by Google Play in May after several Israeli TV companies complained that the app could be used to load a pirate website.

    Google reversed that suspension after three weeks. But Downloader has been suspended by Google Play again, and this time the reason is even harder to understand. Based on a vague DMCA notice, it appears that Downloader was suspended simply because it can load the Warner Bros. website .

    Downloader is similar to standard web browsers in that it lets users access both legal and illegally shared content. The app can be used for general web surfing and can download files from a website when a user inputs the desired URL. According to Saba, the app itself contains no infringing content, nor does it direct users to infringing content.

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      Nintendo, ticked by Zelda leaks, does a DMCA run on Switch emulation tools

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 8 May, 2023 - 17:18 · 1 minute

    Princess Zelda holding a Master Sword

    Enlarge / Tools with great potential often require great effort to unlock. In Zelda games, that usually means a number of Heart Containers. In the emulation underground, you need title keys, shader caches, hotfixes, and a willingness to download from some sketchy sites. (credit: Nintendo/YouTube)

    Perhaps woken by news of its next premier first-party title already looking really impressive on emulators , Nintendo has moved to take down key tools for emulating and unlocking Switch consoles, including one that lets Switch owners grab keys from their own device.

    Simon Aarons maintained a forked repository of Lockpick , a tool (along with Lockpick_RCM ) that grabbed the encryption keys from a Nintendo Switch and allowed it to run officially licensed games. Aarons tweeted on Thursday night that Nintendo had issued DMCA takedown requests to GitHub, asking Lockpick, Lockpick_RCM, and nearly 80 forks and derivations to be taken down under section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , which largely makes illegal the circumvention of technological protection measures that safeguard copyrighted material.

    Nintendo's takedown request (RTF file) notes that the Switch contains "multiple technological protection measures" that allow the Switch to play only "legitimate Nintendo video game files." Lockpick tools, combined with a modified Switch, let users grab the cryptographic keys from their own Switch and use them on "systems without Nintendo's Console TPMs" to play "pirated versions of Nintendo's copyright-protected game software." GitHub typically allows repositories with DMCA strikes filed against them to remain open while their maintainers argue their case.

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      Book publishers with surging profits struggle to prove Internet Archive hurt sales

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 20 March, 2023 - 21:08 · 1 minute

    Book publishers with surging profits struggle to prove Internet Archive hurt sales

    Enlarge (credit: feellife | iStock / Getty Images Plus )

    Today, the Internet Archive (IA) defended its practice of digitizing books and lending those e-books for free to users of its Open Library . In 2020, four of the wealthiest book publishers sued IA, alleging this kind of digital lending was actually “willful digital piracy” causing them “massive harm.” But IA’s lawyer, Joseph Gratz, argued that the Open Library’s digitization of physical books is fair use, and publishers have yet to show they’ve been harmed by IA’s digital lending.

    “There’s no evidence that the publishers have lost a dime,” Gratz said during oral arguments at a New York district court.

    It’s up to a federal judge, John Koeltl, to decide if IA’s digital lending constitutes copyright infringement. During oral arguments, Koeltl’s tough questioning of both Gratz and the plaintiff’s attorney, Elizabeth McNamara, suggested that resolving this matter is a less straightforward task than either side has so far indicated. Koeltl pointed out that because publishers have a right to control the reproduction of their books, the “heart of the case,” was figuring out whether IA’s book scanning violates copyrights by reproducing an already licensed physical book and lending it without paying more licensing fees to publishers.

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      Musk suspends “overzealous” rightsholders for “weaponizing” DMCA on Twitter

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 7 March, 2023 - 21:04 · 1 minute

    Musk suspends “overzealous” rightsholders for “weaponizing” DMCA on Twitter

    Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto )

    Yesterday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk declared that Twitter will now be temporarily suspending any accounts found to be “engaging in repeated, egregious weaponization” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Musk’s tweet came at the same time that an intense copyright dispute was unfolding that resulted in the suspension of a rightsholder’s Twitter account. The suspension came after a professional photographer and Twitter user, @NightLights_AM, submitted a takedown notice to a hobbyist Twitter user, @Rainmaker1973, who posted one of the photographer’s videos without permission.

    It’s difficult to track down the full story here because the suspended account’s tweets are unavailable, and some of the hobbyist account’s tweets have been deleted. And it’s unclear if Musk was aware of this particular dispute or the subsequent account suspension of the rightsholder. But TorrentFreak documented the DMCA Twitter saga in great detail, gathering archived and cached tweets to piece together what happened.

    According to TorrentFreak, @NightLights_AM is run by Norway-based nature and astrophotographer Adrien Mauduit, whose Twitter feed was full of colorful videos and photos that he took as an “Aurora chasing specialist.” In early March, Mauduit uploaded a video of a geomagnetic storm that was then embedded in a tweet sent by @Rainmaker1973, which is run by an Italy-based Twitter user named Massimo.

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      Github reverses takedown of reverse-engineered GTA source code

      Kyle Orland · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 11 May, 2021 - 19:55

    The reverse-engineered source code for the PC versions of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City is back online today , months after it was originally posted and then quickly taken down via a DMCA request from publisher Take-Two.

    TorrentFreak reports on the restored version of the project, which was posted as a seemingly identical fork of the original by a New Zealand-based developer named Theo. While the original GitHub poster (who goes by the handle aac) has not contested Take-Two's original takedown, Theo told TorrentFreak he filed a counterclaim to restore his copy of the project, saying it "contained no code owned by Take Two."

    A question of law

    We've previously looked in-depth at how video game fan coders use reverse-engineering techniques to deconstruct the packaged executable files distributed by a game's original developers. This painstaking, function-by-function process creates raw programming code that can generate exactly the same binary file when compiled (though the code as distributed on GitHub still requires external, copyrighted art and sound assets from a legitimate copy of the games).

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      GitHub Reinstated YouTube-DL But Restoring Forks is Apparently a Problem

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 17 April, 2021 - 21:37 · 3 minutes

    hithub Last October the RIAA infuriated many players in the open source community by targeting YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl in a DMCA takedown notice filed at GitHub .

    What followed was a broad backlash against the RIAA, the likes of which hadn’t been seen for many years. The music industry group’s claims of DMCA violations due to the software allegedly bypassing technological protection measures were met with intense criticism, including from the EFF.

    In a surprise move several weeks later, GitHub reinstated the youtube-dl repository after concluding that the code doesn’t violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions. In addition, GitHub sought to boost its standing with developers by placing $1m into a takedown defense fund.

    “We are taking a stand for developers and have reinstated the youtube-dl repo. Section 1201 of the DMCA is broken and needs to be fixed. Developers should have the freedom to tinker. That’s how you get great tools like youtube-dl,” GitHub CEO Nat Friedman explained .

    Dust Settles But The Fix Was Incomplete, Dev Says

    When the RIAA took down GitHub, its DMCA notice affected many developers who had forked the youtube-dl code. Many repositories were listed in the RIAA’s complaint so those were disabled too, replaced with the familiar GitHub page indicating they had been removed for alleged copyright infringement.

    However, despite youtube-dl being reinstated, these forks remain down following the RIAA’s complaint and according to one developer, GitHub isn’t responding to calls to reinstate them.

    In a DMCA counternotice filed this week, the operator of the ‘spookyahell’ repo describes the situation, noting that his previous requests to have his repository restored are being ignored by GitHub.

    youtube-dl fork

    In supporting evidence detailing why the repo should be restored, the developer covers earlier ground noting that the RIAA’s notice was “way too broad”, is believed to be “wildly invalid”, failed to correctly interpret the law, and cited anti-circumvention methods that “do not apply.”

    The dev also points out that when the RIAA cited a German legal process that determined that youtube-dl is illegal, that should be considered irrelevant to the United States since European law has “no place in a DMCA takedown”. The RIAA, for its part, insists that the relevant German law is “materially identical to Title 17 U.S.C. §1201 of the United States Code.”

    This Dev is Clearly Irritated

    While the developer appears to accept that GitHub eventually stood up to the RIAA, he isn’t entirely convinced of the coding platform’s overall support.

    “[I]t seems like GitHub is still kinda ‘the bitch of the RIAA’ because they side with RIAA rather than developers who wish to reinstate the repos (unchanged) which according to the EFF would be perfectly legal,” his notice reads.

    “The issues that raised from this takedown have lead to a major statement from github and change of already in-place policies and it seems they had to re-convince the developers that they actually support developers. The action they are taking with the actual forks however is unconvincing of their so-called principals [sic].”

    The dev continues by stating that in addition to restoring the original project, GitHub should’ve reinstated all the forks as well, while notifying the RIAA that its claims were wrong. However, there are some important issues that the counternotice doesn’t address.

    While youtube-dl was indeed reinstated, that didn’t take place before the original code was tweaked. Its functionality doesn’t appear to have been degraded but an examination of the code reveals that before it was put back, modifications took place to remove references to copyright works, including a song by Taylor Swift.

    If we work on the premise that GitHub believed that these changes were enough to ease youtube-dl back onto the non-infringing side of the fence, then any original forks would still relate to the unmodified code, meaning that the RIAA’s original takedown notice would carry more weight.

    This probably explains why GitHub hasn’t reinstated this developer’s repository on request, despite the filing of a counternotice.

    Technically speaking, GitHub still has a number of days left before it needs to reinstate the fork under the DMCA, pending the filing of a lawsuit by the RIAA. However, since the music group has had since October to take action against youtube-dl itself, that doesn’t seem likely.

    To learn more about how Github views the situation, TorrentFreak contacted CEO Nat Friedman for additional information, including whether youtube-dl forks will be restored automatically or if devs need to file an official DMCA counternotice. Friedman did not immediately respond to our request for comment but it seems likely that devs will have to let their original forks go and fork the modified project instead.

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

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      Reckless DMCA Takedown Purges Legitimate Websites from Google Search

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 17 April, 2021 - 15:24 · 2 minutes

    Over the past few years, copyright holders have asked Google to remove billions of links to allegedly pirated content.

    Most of these DMCA notices are pretty accurate but occasionally mistakes are made as well, which can do serious harm.

    This week our eye was drawn to a request that RightsHero filed on behalf of the company Vuclip Middle East, which offers on-demand entertainment to emerging markets.

    The DMCA notice identifies more than 7,000 URLs that allegedly infringe the copyrights of several movies, including the United Arab Emirates series عود حي, which translates to “Live Oud.”

    Error After Error

    When we took a closer look, we soon noticed that the takedown notice is nothing short of a trainwreck that involves some high-profile names.

    For example, NASA’s live streaming and multimedia pages are targeted. The same is true for Al Jazeera’s live streaming site, as well as the BBC’s page that allows people to stream Radio One.

    NASA down

    None of these pages are infringing. In fact, the only thing that ties them to the “Live Oud” series is the word ‘live’, which comes back in other reported URLs as well.

    BBC and other takedowns

    In fact, the takedown notice is filled with these ‘live’ errors. It lists a page from the UK Government which gives advice on living in Austria, a page where Apple provides information on Live Photos, and the ‘Live’ entry in the Cambridge dictionary.

    We can go on for a while but the point is clear. This DMCA notice should have never been sent. The good news is that Google caught all the errors we pointed out above. This means that these were not removed from search results.

    Homepages Removed

    Unfortunately, not all targeted sites were that lucky. We spotted several legitimate websites that had their homepages removed from Google simply because they somehow reference the word “live” or “living.”

    This includes the homepage of Live Nation Asia , the Living Architecture website, as well as the homepage of the UK technology company Living Map .

    living takedowns

    All have been purged from Google, which shows the following message at the bottom of the search results . “In response to a complaint that we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 12 result(s) from this page.”

    removed

    Needless to say, these are all obvious errors that should have been avoided if there was some human oversight. It also shows how risky relying on ‘automated filters’ and ‘takedown bots’ can be.

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

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      Nintendo Wins US-Wide Injunction Against Seller of RCM Loader ‘Piracy’ Device

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Friday, 16 April, 2021 - 20:19 · 4 minutes

    RCM Loader Nintendo is currently engaged in a war of attrition against individuals and groups who help people to pirate and play unlicensed Switch games.

    Products and individuals involved with the infamous Team-Xecutor became targets last summer and alongside, Nintendo has been chipping away at other sellers of similar circumvention devices.

    Lawsuit Filed Against Amazon Vendor

    Last November, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against Le Hoang Minh, an Amazon vendor doing business under the name ‘Winmart’. According to the gaming giant, the trader was selling RCM Loader, a Switch device marketed as a plug-and-play solution for injecting payload files to allow booting into custom firmware (CFW), including Team-Xecutor’s SX OS.

    “Once this circumvention has occurred, the unauthorized CFW modifies the authorized Nintendo Switch operating system, thereby allowing users to obtain and play virtually any pirated game made for the Nintendo Switch. All of this happens without authorization or compensation to Nintendo or to any authorized game publishers,” the company explained.

    Le Hoang Minh, who according to Nintendo is a resident of Vietnam, was sent a DMCA notice by Nintendo via Amazon, citing the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. As a result, a specific listing was taken down by Amazon but the defendant subsequently filed a counternotice stating that Nintendo had made an error. As a result, the listing was restored.

    In its lawsuit, Amazon claimed that Le Hoang Minh was not only a seller of RCM Loader devices but also the manufacturer too, going on to demand the maximum statutory damages available under the DMCA and a broad injunction preventing any future sales. Nintendo also demanded relief for the defendant’s alleged abuse of the DMCA’s counternotification system.

    Defendant Fails to Respond, Nintendo Moves For Default

    In a motion for default judgment filed this week, Nintendo says that it filed its lawsuit in response to the defendant’s counternotice, in order to keep the Amazon listing down. However, the defendant failed to respond to the lawsuit or enter into discussions with Nintendo.

    As a result, Nintendo demanded a default judgment on each of its claims, arguing that since the defendant is in Vietnam, only a ruling from a US court would allow it to prevent sales of RCM Loader taking place in the United States.

    To promote what Nintendo describes as “an efficient resolution” of the matter, the gaming giant reduced its damages claims to just $2,500 for all actions carried out by the defendant in breach of the anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA.

    “This request for a $2,500 award is intended to be very conservative and does not reflect anything close to the full amount of damages Nintendo could reasonably seek from Defendant,” the company writes.

    “Nintendo could…credibly seek a separate award for every device Defendant sold — almost certainly many devices, given that Defendant’s RCM Loader device was available online for many months. However, rather than attempt to quantify Defendant’s total sales, Nintendo seeks to facilitate an efficient resolution of this case through entry of judgment awarding damages for a single § 1201 violation.”

    Nintendo also informed the court that it had incurred considerable costs pursuing the case but was not seeking to have those reimbursed. However, the company still demanded a judgment in its favor in respect of the DMCA violations, the misrepresentations made by the defendant in his DMCA counternotice, and the request for a permanent injunction.

    Court Sides With Nintendo

    After considering Nintendo’s motion for default, the court ruled that should be granted. In a final judgment issued Thursday, the court laid down the terms.

    A permanent injunction was granted against Le Hoang Minh and all other individuals and entities acting in concert, restraining all from circumventing or assisting in circumventing any technological security measures that effectively control access to Nintendo’s copyrighted works.

    The same are also restrained from manufacturing, offering for sale, distributing, exporting or otherwise trafficking into the United States “any and all products, services, devices, components or parts thereof” that are designed or produced for circumventing security measures in Nintendo’s consoles, products and protected works.

    Turning to RCM Loader and any product with identical function, the court restrained the defendant from carrying out sales, distribution, imports and/or shipping to any person or entity in the United States. Le Hoang Minh is also banned from indirectly infringing, facilitating, encouraging, promoting or inducing the infringement of Nintendo’s copyrights, whether in existence now or in the future.

    In an effort to prevent sales on platforms such as Amazon, the defendant was restrained from offering RCM Loader or any similar product for sale or distribution. Any seller or online marketplace who receives notice of the order must also “immediately cease and permanently refrain” from offering any such products in the United States.

    The court also authorized Nintendo to seize and destroy all circumvention devices and software that violate its copyrights or exclusive licenses. It further granted the $2,500 in statutory damages requested by Nintendo and reminded the defendant that any violation of the order may be punishable as contempt of court.

    Nintendo’s Motion for Default Judgment can be found here (pdf)

    The Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction can be found here (pdf)

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

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      MPA Targets Pirate Streaming Sites With More Than Half a Billion Visits

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 12 April, 2021 - 18:42 · 5 minutes

    MPA The world’s major movie and TV show studios are in fierce competition, aiming to release the next blockbuster or series to capture the imaginations of the public and generate much needed revenue.

    Industry counterparts are rivals in that respect but when it comes to dealing with piracy, especially when that propagates from hundreds if not thousands of unlicensed streaming platforms, teamwork is the key.

    Through their global coalition, Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), rivalries become partnerships, with resources shared to disrupt and destroy sites that dare to offer free movies and TV shows to the public.

    ACE Homes in On Several Major Streaming Platforms

    Investigations into pirate sites take place in the shadows, with little outward sign that a streaming platform is under investigation until it’s too late. However, there is a “canary in the coal mine” that can reveal early signs that legal or other enforcement action might not be far away.

    In legal terms, the DMCA subpoena application is a straightforward and cheap-to-file legal document yet it has the power to yield crucial information when building a case against pirate site operators. Late last week ACE and the MPA went to court in the United States with such a request, one that targets several streaming platforms with well over half a billion views per year.

    Cloudflare: Weak Link or Useful Proxy?

    With so many pirate platforms using Cloudflare, the company has become a go-to point of contact for ACE and the MPA. An application for a DMCA subpoena filed by the groups late Friday in a California court shows that at least in theory, Cloudflare could be in a position to give up valuable information.

    Listing sample infringements of movies including Almost Christmas, 47 Ronin, Varsity Blues, Forrest Gump and Flashdance, ACE and the MPA are now seeking to identify the operators of Lookmovie, Watchmovie, YesMovies, Himovies and Adfah.

    Say them quickly and the domains don’t sound like they would amount to much but together they account for well over half a billion ‘pirate’ views every year.

    The Targeted Domains

    Lookmovie.io is by far the most popular domain on the list. From a standing start last October, the platform captured a million visits in just a month. By December, that figure had risen to just shy of 15 million.

    Lookmovie.io

    By March 2021 the site was pulling in 18m visits per month – a potential 216 million per year – with around 30% of its traffic hailing from the United States. Interestingly, Lookmovie.io is not blocked by ISPs in the United Kingdom as similar platforms usually are, meaning that almost 14% of its traffic now comes from the region.

    Lookmovie.io appears to be an alternative domain for Lookmovie.ag, a domain blocked in Australia due to legal action in 2019 .

    In traffic terms, Watchmovie.movie has also been on the rise. Last October the domain was good for around five million visits per month but by last month, that had risen to just short of 12.5 million, around 150 million visits per year. The domain has seen traffic increase from all major regions recently, with the United States accounting for around 19% of views.

    WatchMovie

    In common with Lookmovie.io, Watchmovie.movie is doing well in the UK, where traffic share is as high as the United States after recently receiving a 35% boost. The site, which is branded on-site as WatchSeries, is not blocked by ISPs so until that situation changes, UK visitors are likely to increase.

    Interestingly, data available from SimilarWeb relating to the site’s display advertising lists several ad companies but one in particular stands out. While potentially very small, Netflix.com – a prominent ACE and MPA member – is listed as a publisher.

    watchmovie-netflix

    Generating around 9.2 million visits per month, YesMovies.ag is another streaming platform being eyed by MPA and ACE for some kind of legal or enforcement action.

    Its traffic has see-sawed for the past six months but in most regions traffic is on the increase, including in the United Kingdom where the site is not blocked by ISPs.

    yesmovies-ag

    Since there have been so many sites using YesMovies branding, it’s not straightforward to link this domain to the many others previously and currently in operation. However, YesMovies domains have been targeted in numerous earlier actions, including in the United States and Australia .

    The final sites listed on the MPA and ACE subpoena are HiMovies.to and Afdah.info. The former is currently enjoying around 6.25 million visits per month according to SimilarWeb, with the latter pulling in close to 6.2 million. Both are most popular in the United States but also in the United Kingdom too, where are neither are currently subjected to ISP blocking.

    ACE and MPA Subpoena Demands Action From Cloudflare

    “The ACE Members (via the Motion Picture Association, Inc.) are requesting issuance of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Cloudflare, Inc. to disclose the identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users operating the websites listed [above],” the DMCA subpoena application reads.

    Precisely what the applicants want to do with the information is unclear at this stage but we have seen in the past that in addition to direct legal action, sites listed in DMCA subpoenas can later appear in applications for ISP blocking in the UK.

    After previously demanding in a similar DMCA subpoena that Cloudflare should hand over the personal details behind several 123Movies-branded sites, the domains appeared in a High Court injunction and were subsequently blocked by the UK’s leading ISPs in February .

    Over the past several years Cloudflare has been heavily criticized for allowing its services to be used by pirate sites, particularly operations such as The Pirate Bay. The argument is that the CDN service should part company with infringing sites but to date, Cloudflare has dismissed its role as that of a simple intermediary.

    The ACE/MPA DMCA subpoena documents can be found here and here (pdf)

    Photo Credit: Chris Yang

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