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      Hollywood Studios, Amazon & Netflix Sue ‘Evasive’ Pirate IPTV Operator From Texas

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Yesterday - 18:23 · 4 minutes

    tvnitro Operating 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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      Z-Library Scammers Use Email Campaigns to Lure Users and Extract Payments

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · 2 days ago - 21:02 · 5 minutes

    zlibrary Z-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

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · 2 days ago - 10:05 · 2 minutes

    operation 404 In 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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      EU Commission Encourages Use of New Anti-Piracy Toolbox

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 21 March - 08:11 · 5 minutes

    ec-toolbox Most 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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      Denuvo wants to convince you its DRM isn’t “evil”

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 7 July, 2023 - 19:54

    You have nothing to lose but your chains.

    Enlarge / You have nothing to lose but your chains. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

    Simply mentioning the name "Denuvo" among some gamers is pretty much guaranteed to get you an instant, strong reaction. Just look at the comment threads underneath any Ars article covering Denuvo and you'll see plenty of complaints about the DRM-enhancing anti-piracy technology.

    Irdeto, the company that acquired Denuvo in a 2018 purchase , doesn't generally make a habit of commenting at length on this reputation (or its secretive DRM schemes) in the public press. So when Irdeto Chief Operating Officer of Video Games Steeve Huin agreed to defend his company publicly in an exclusive interview with Ars Technica, I jumped at the chance to talk to him.

    Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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      Plex Plans To Place All Legal Streaming Options (and Piracy) Into One Interface

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 15 April, 2021 - 16:04 · 5 minutes

    Plex Since being founded in 2009, the Plex media server and service has grown from strength to strength and with 25 million users worldwide, is now a force to be reckoned with.

    Early adopters know Plex as a powerful media server capable of transforming local movie, TV show, and other libraries into a beautiful Netflix-style entertainment experience. Playable on a wide range of devices including PCs, smart TVs and even smartphones, Plex has a strong cult following but in recent years has begun to spread its wings.

    While the company would prefer not to acknowledge it, Plex is the playback weapon of choice for millions of pirates. So-called “ Plex for Share ” services aside, direct piracy isn’t strictly possible within the system but when it is fed with movies and TV shows previously obtained from pirate sites, consumption of such media is transformed. The problem then, is how to tempt these users away from the ‘dark’ side.

    Plex Spreads its Wings

    In 2019, it was revealed that Plex had struck licensing deals with Warner Bros to supply free, ad-supported movies and TV shows to Plex users. Since then, Plex has added free live TV channels and secured more than 240 additional content deals with the likes of Lionsgate, MGM, Sony, AMC and more. This means that when ‘pirate’ users fire up Plex, they are not only presented with their own unlicensed content libraries but also official content too.

    This blurring of ‘markets’ is an intriguing proposition that hasn’t been strongly tested before. Legal movie and TV show content from major providers isn’t seen on pirate streaming sites, for example, meaning that users can’t be easily tempted away during their visits. However, by putting licensed content inside Plex, no external navigation is needed, making the switch to revenue-generating content a breeze.

    However, this innovation was only the beginning and according to an announcement Wednesday, Plex has an even bigger plan on the horizon, one that could transform the market.

    $50m in Funding Secured: One-Stop Shop For Movies and TV

    Yesterday, Plex revealed it had completed a growth equity round of $50 million from existing investor Intercap. The financing includes approximately $15 million in new capital for Plex, which the company intends to invest in its mission to become a one-stop-shop for movies and TV. It aims to do this by addressing one of the most frustrating aspects of today’s legal streaming market – fragmentation.

    “As the industry grows so does the media chaos, creating a more fractured consumer experience with a dizzying array of services and subscriptions – all served up through a multitude of platforms and apps that the consumer has to keep track of,” Plex explains.

    “This experience is painful for consumers who just want to find and easily navigate to movies and TV shows that they like.”

    What Plex has in mind is to present users with a “single pane of glass”, a window to access their entire content libraries from within Plex, enabling them to find what they want quickly and easily.

    “Everybody knows it’s a pain to sift through all the streaming services to find what you want to watch, and our goal at Plex is to manage your media life for you,” says Keith Valory, CEO at Plex.

    “Our job is to understand where everything is, whether it’s from our free library of movies and shows, a subscription service, live on TV, or something you can purchase, and for Plex to be the trusted go-to service to help you find what you want, when you want it.”

    One Interface, Endless Options

    At the moment, Plex users are presented with their local content libraries and Plex’s movies, TV shows and live TV streams. The plan as described thus far suggests that Plex also hopes to partner with platforms such as Netflix, Prime, and maybe even Disney, so that all content libraries are searchable from one place – a legal content metasearch engine of sorts.

    Whether these giants will have any interest in this proposal remains a question but it’s not difficult to see how such a system could be attractive to regular users while also becoming a valuable tool to leverage additional revenue from pirates. These days, only a minority of pirates are ‘hard core’, i.e they only consume content from pirate sources. The majority also consume legitimate content too and it’s not hard to find plenty who also have Netflix and Disney subscriptions, for example.

    However, instead of having pirates sit completely isolated in their own ecosystems, with no immediate opportunity to convert them (or more fully convert them) into paying customers, the Plex proposal appears to welcome them to the fold, making all content searchable from one location and potentially negating the need to switch in and out of numerous apps.

    That being said, there are problems to overcome.

    Subscription and Privacy Concerns Remain

    As things stand, even if users can easily search and discover content across multiple legal platforms in one interface, they’ll still be required to subscribe to those platforms to access the content.

    For Plex, this could provide a source of affiliate revenue when users choose to sign up but there are limits to how much consumers are prepared to spend. A nice option would be to offer a package of subscriptions at a significantly reduced rate (a Plex Pass Plus option, if you like) but in the current environment, there doesn’t appear to be much of an appetite among providers to consider that.

    Also, there are privacy concerns, particularly if Plex wants to assure its pirate and partially-pirate consumers to step onboard and begin the journey.

    “Plex will help users discover new things to enjoy based on everything they already watch, with smart recommendations such as ‘you watched this movie, so you might enjoy this podcast, or this musical artist.’ It’s all about creating a custom multi-media entertainment experience that’s easy and enjoyable for each individual’s unique tastes,” the company explains.

    While subscribers to Netflix and Disney are already used to these types of recommendations, it will remain to be seen how this is welcomed by pirate users. At this stage, it’s unknown whether Plex intends to start harvesting and/or sharing pirates’ viewing habits with their commercial partners. Also, things could get a little bit awkward if messages appear noting that “Since you watched yet-to-be-released-on-streaming-platforms ‘movie X’, then you might like to watch Y.”

    That problem is probably a long way off but nevertheless, Plex’s momentum towards official content partnerships is absolutely clear. Becoming a focal point for lawful content consumption could also mean it faces pressure to do something about piracy too, but only time will tell how that plays out. There are clear opportunities ahead though, including millions of chances to convert pirates while cleaning up the legal streaming market into something cohesive.

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

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      Nigerian ‘Scam Artist’ Used Apple, Amazon and Tidal to Cash in on Pirated Music

      Ernesto Van der Sar · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 10 April, 2021 - 11:20 · 3 minutes

    wisekid Legal streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music have been the music industry’s most effective weapon against piracy.

    Many people don’t even bother ripping or downloading albums of tracks nowadays. The legal alternatives are just more convenient.

    Despite this success, legal streaming platforms have their challenges as well. For years, artists have complained about low payouts. And to make things worse, ‘pirates’ are starting to abuse legal services as well now.

    Pirated Music on Legal Streaming Services

    A few weeks ago we reported that the RIAA was sending DMCA takedown notices that targeted Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, and various other legal music outlets . Apparently, some artists were using the works of others without permission.

    At the time we weren’t sure if this was intentional or a mere licensing dispute. The RIAA didn’t respond to our questions on the matter. However, this week we spotted yet another takedown notice and, this time, there is more of a backstory.

    On Wednesday the RIAA sent a takedown notice to Google identifying several infringing URLs on the legal streaming service Tidal. The links point to tracks that were published by Nigerian artist Wisekid but, according to the takedown request, they are from the local music star Wizkid .

    Wisekid Rips Off Wizkid

    Looking more closely at the matter, we quickly noticed that Wisekid appeared to have uploaded an entire album from Wizkid, passing it off as his own.

    The album in question, titled “Lasgidi Made” is the same as Wizkid’s “Made in Lagos,” but the track order and titles have been changed, apparently to make the similarity less obvious.

    wisekid amazon

    This ‘pirated’ album made its way onto popular music services including Apple Music, Amazon, and Tidal, and reportedly generated substantial revenue for the scam artist.

    Millions of Streams

    Apparently, Wisekid was quite proud of his accomplishments as he posted a screenshot on Twitter showing off that he had millions of streams and more than a thousand digital sales on Apple’s service. This is when things started to go downhill.

    wisekid revenue

    Several commenters on social media noticed the similarities between Wizkid and Wisekid, accusing the latter of running a scam and ripping off a hard-working musician.

    Wisekid, however, claimed to be innocent. Instead, he indirectly blamed his distribution company “Freeme Digital” for being responsible. Or in his own words (edited for readability);

    “I don’t know who did that. I just accessed my apple artist name I saw streams. I just wanted to get people to check me out nothing more,” he wrote.

    “Freeme Digital is the company that distributes all my songs. I’m just an upcoming artist and I know nothing about this. Please, I am not the one distributing Wizkid’s album on apple music.”

    Deny and Delete

    Soon after, the news was picked up by the Nigerian press while Wisekid removed his Twitter profile. Around the same time, the distribution company responded to the controversy, denying any involvement.

    While Freeme Digital indeed worked with Wisekid, the company said that the ‘Lasgidi Made’ album was not distributed via their platform. The company also decided to cut its ties with the artist.

    “We will be deleting the rest of Wisekid’s content on our platform and we have informed our legal team to immediately commence investigation on the issue and prosecute the matter to the full extent of the law.”

    Removing Pirated music (and More)

    Meanwhile, Wizkid’s management said it was working hard to take down the illegal uploads across all digital platforms. The RIAA helped out as well, which brings us back to the takedown notice we spotted on Wednesday.

    In addition to the RIAA, UK-based industry group BPI also sent a takedown notice identifying Wisekid’s infringing upload. Sadly, this notice also flagged several news reports as copyright infringement, but that’s a different rabbit hole.

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

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      Games Publisher “Cracked & Pirated” ‘The Sinking City’, Developer Alleges

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Tuesday, 2 March, 2021 - 10:54 · 5 minutes

    Over the past few days a drama has been developing around the videogame The Sinking City .

    Created by Ukrainian development team Frogwares, the company made the unusual step of taking to Twitter to warn consumers NOT to buy the version of its game that appeared on Steam.

    In its tweet , Frogwares wrote that it had “not created the version of @thesinkingcity that is today on sale on @Steam. We do not recommend the purchase of this version. More news soon.”

    Background: History of Legal Issues

    After being released in 2019, The Sinking City was pulled from Steam and other platforms in 2020, with Frogwares stating that it had been forced to end its contract with French publisher Nacon. Frogwares cited breaches of its licensing agreement and according to various reports, Nacon was still collecting revenue from sales of The Sinking City, something which prompted Frogware to pull the plug.

    The background is available in an open letter that was published on the Frogwares site in August last year. It stated that in return for a “financial contribution” to the development of the game, publisher Bigben/Nacon were given the rights to commercialize the game on Xbox One, PS4, Steam and Epic Games Store.

    “The intellectual property would still belong to Frogwares, which has always been the only producer and owner of its games, including The Sinking City,” the developer wrote.

    Frogwares launched legal action against Bigben/Nacon during August 2019 but in October 2020, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled that Frogwares should not have pulled The Sinking City from sale, adding that no further action should be taken until the dispute between the parties had been resolved.

    Game Appears on Steam, Disappears, Reappears

    In January 2021, Frogwares released The Sinking City on Steam but it was soon pulled , only to be replaced by Nacon last week. That move was met with disappointment from fans, who complained that the version being offered by Nacon was old and incomplete , with “no DLC, no cloud saves, no achievements.”

    This reappearance prompted Frogwares to deter fans from buying the version of the game uploaded by Nacon to Steam. Then, in an announcement made yesterday, Frogwares put some additional meat on the bones, stating in a blog post that Nacon had “Cracked and Pirated” The Sinking City.

    Frogwares notes that the final decision on whether it is required to deliver a Steam version of The Sinking City is set to be decided by the court “in the next months or even years”. However, it alleges that after giving Frogwares an ultimatum in December to upload a “new Steam master”, Nacon bought a copy of The Sinking City from Gamesplanet and uploaded it to Steam.

    Frogwares says it managed to stop this from being distributed but then last week, Nacon uploaded the game to Steam once again.

    “So on February 26th 2021 to our great surprise, we found a new version of The Sinking City was uploaded to Steam and launched. But Frogwares didn’t deliver such a version,” the company writes.

    “Nacon under the management of its president Alain Falc asked some of their employees, who we even identified, to crack, hack and pirate our game, change its content in order to commercialize it under their own name.”

    Frogwares’ Explanation of How ‘Crack’ Took Place Nacon Hacking

    “In order to make changes Nacon had only one way: to decompile or hack the game using a secret key created by Frogwares since the totality of the game’s content is archived with an Epic Unreal Engine encryption system,” the developer continues.

    “To be clear this is hacking and when hacking has the purpose to steal a product and make money with it, it’s called piracy or counterfeiting. In order to achieve this goal, programmers with serious skills need to be involved. This is not DIY work by inexperienced people, this is done by programmers who know Unreal engine well.”

    Nacon Obtained Encryption Key

    Frogwares says that in order to ‘crack’ its game, Nacon needed to obtain the encryption key. The developer says it knows how that was achieved and will inform the French court dealing with the dispute. Frogwares says it carried out its own checks by downloading the version Nacon uploaded to Steam and testing its own key, which worked.

    “The hackers didn’t even care to use a different encryption key than the one we created when recompiling,” the company says.

    “We therefore opened the packages and we identified immediately in the config files the version that was stolen and hacked: it is a commercial version coming from the site Gamesplanet that was purchased by Nacon like any other player.”

    Using information obtained from Steam, Frogwares argues that the ‘crack’ was carried out by someone at Belgian studio Neopica, which was acquired by Nacon in October 2020.

    “There are long term damages we need to take care of, Nacon unpacked our data, stole our source code and used it. Nacon can create a new version of The Sinking City using our assets; they can resell, reuse, recycle our content and our tools etc,” Frogwares writes.

    “We have to take the measure of what happened now and follow the best path on the legal side to prevent anything like this happening again. The owner of Nacon, Alain Falc will have to face the legal consequences of the decision of pirating and stealing Frogwares property,” the developer concludes.

    In a statement, Nacon said it regrets that Frogwares “persists in disrupting the release of The Sinking City” but puts the blame at the developer’s door.

    “It was Frogwares who came to Nacon to request financing for the development of the game, and to date, more than 10 million euros have been paid to Frogwares by Nacon. It was Frogwares that relied on our marketing and promotion teams, representing thousands of hours of work and several million euros worth of investment,” the statement reads.

    “Now that the game has been fully developed, and published, largely thanks to Nacon’s money and work, Frogwares would like to revise the terms of the contract to their sole advantage. It’s easy to play the victim, but all we seek is that Frogwares respect its commitments both in the contract and as demanded by the courts.”

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

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      Police Around Asia Crack Down on Pirate IPTV With Raids & Arrests

      Andy Maxwell · news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Saturday, 13 February, 2021 - 11:47 · 3 minutes

    Streaming Key While pirate streaming operations around the United States and Europe attract the most headlines, unlicensed IPTV and similar platforms are now mainstream in most parts of the world.

    Authorities in the West are tackling this problem using quiet ‘behind-the-scenes’ agreements through to civil litigation and criminal enforcement. The situation in Asia is similar and over the past couple of weeks a number of cases have been made public.

    Police in Taiwan Arrest Nine

    As reported by Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA , authorities in Taiwan carried out an operation through the latter part of January and early February targeting what is described as a “criminal organization” involved in the supply of illegal streams. With assistance from the prosecutor’s office, police, and detective agencies, officers arrested nine people.

    Taiwan IPTV Raids

    Taiwan established a dedicated team in early 2020 to tackle the illegal streaming of TV shows to pirate devices and since then 18 locations have been searched, resulting in the seizure of hundreds of set-top devices and computer servers. After analysis, it was found that some of the devices provided illegal access to broadcasts from Taiwan and Japan.

    “It is believed that the criminal organization deciphered the broadcast signals of each major TV station through network servers installed in domestic telecommunications equipment rooms and sent them to infringing set-top devices via the Internet,” CODA reports.

    Thai Police Raid Five Premises Linked to Illegal Streaming

    Over the past several years Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has carried out numerous actions against individuals involved in the supply of pirate IPTV and similar streaming services.

    Two Brits and a local were arrested in 2017 under suspicion of violating the rights of the Premier League and in 2019, DSI shut down the country’s most popular pirate site, Movie2free.com, following a request from the Motion Picture Association.

    Last weekend, the DSI unit was in action again, raiding five premises linked to the illegal movie streaming. According to Pol Lt Col Korawat, among the items seized were 100 receivers, decoders, satellite dishes, computers, notebooks, hard disks and mobile phones. It’s believed that the equipment was used to supply pirated movies and TV content to the website fwiptv.cc. That site is currently down.

    According to the Bangkok Post , the main players behind the streaming operation were not discovered during the raids and the authorities were only able to arrest technicians hired to run the operation.

    Fwiptv.cc was reportedly founded in 2012 and was Thailand’s largest broadcaster of pirated movies and sport, including content owned by the Premier League.

    Prosecution in Malaysia

    Over in Malaysia, a company director behind the operation to supply ‘Long TV’ pirate TV devices to the public pleaded guilty on Monday. According to local reports, the individual was charged with selling the devices and breaching intellectual property rights last September.

    “The company, located at I-City, Persiaran Multimedia, Section 7, Shah Alam, Selangor has violated Section 41(1)(ha) of the Copyright Act 1987 for selling any technology or device for the purpose of bypassing any effective technological measures stated under subsection 36A(3) of the same Act,” a statement from the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs reads.

    According to the Ministry, the yet-to-be-named individual faces a fine of up to RM40,000 (around US$9,900) and a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

    Educational Initiatives in Japan

    Last August, Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, a body of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, hired Hello Kitty to become its Copyright Ambassador. Since then, local anti-piracy group CODA has been releasing educational content featuring the famous character in an effort to keep people away from sources of pirated content.

    Masaharu Ina, CODA’s Director of Overseas Copyright Protection, recently sent TorrentFreak a new video to promote compliance with Japan’s brand new anti-piracy law along with a Hello Kitty quiz designed to test people’s knowledge of copyright.

    The video is embedded below and the quiz can be found here .

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