With millions of users uploading huge quantities of content every day, YouTube is the largest video platform on the planet.

Of course, not all of this content is licensed for upload and as a result, YouTube regularly finds itself at the center of copyright holder disputes. Usually, complaints are handled with a Content ID match or a straightforward takedown process but some content creators prefer to take things a little further.

Creator of TV Show Cheaters Takes Legal Action

Controversial reality TV show Cheaters deploys its own ‘Cheaters Detective Agency’ to carry out investigations on behalf of individuals who suspect their partners are committing adultery and similar infidelities. Created by writer Bobby Goldstein, Cheaters launched in 2000 and has reached season 19, airing on various legal TV outlets around the world.

However, there are many hundreds of Cheaters episodes available on YouTube too, uploaded by users in breach of copyright. Collectively these videos have been viewed millions of times and for Bobby Goldstein Productions (BGP), the owner and rightsholder of more than 227 Cheaters episodes, enough is enough.

In an application for a DMCA subpoena filed against YouTube in a Texas court, BGP attorney Jeffrey R. Bragalone is now seeking to obtain the identities of more than two dozen YouTube account holders who uploaded Cheaters episodes to the video platform, so that the company may enforce its rights.

DMCA Takedown Notice

The application begins by reminding YouTube of its legal position, noting that since it displayed and reproduced infringing episodes, it may be liable to hand over all of the profits it generated from them. Alternatively, under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), YouTube may be liable for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringing work.

BGP’s attorney then issues a formal demand to YouTube, demanding that it immediately cease-and-desists from hosting and displaying the episodes in question, noting that failure to comply will be considered as evidence of willful intent in the event of a lawsuit.

At the time of writing and after testing a sample of the URLs listed by the company, the allegedly infringing videos (including the small selection in the image above) appear to remain live on YouTube but given the official nature of the complaint, that position is likely to change in the coming days. Nevertheless, a simple takedown won’t be enough to fulfill the requirements of the subpoena.

Disclose User Identities and Preserve Evidence

In the first instance, BGP is seeking to find out the identities behind the YouTube user accounts that uploaded the infringing videos. There are more than two dozen in total, some of which are dedicated to the show, some that offer various TV shows and movies, and others that appear to have uploaded episodes in a less organized fashion.

Regardless of type, BGP is demanding that YouTube provides documentation to show “all registration information, account information, billing information, payment information, or other identifying information associated with the YouTube accounts” including their “name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es), and account number(s) associated with each account, and the Internet Protocol addresses (including time stamps) used to create each account, access each account, or upload the material” for each of the supplied URLs.

In addition to user information, BGP is also seeking information that could be helpful should it file lawsuits against the listed YouTube users and potentially the platform itself in the unlikely event content isn’t taken down. The requested evidence includes the total page views and/or downloads of the infringing URLs/videos, plus an account of total revenues and gross profits relating to the display of the offending material, including all advertising and/or affiliate revenue.

“This information must be provided with accompanying documentation, including financial and other business records, supporting the responses given to these questions,” the DMCA subpoena application reads.

In addition, BGP is demanding that YouTube preserves all communications relating to the videos, including emails, voicemails and instant messaging, any and all related documents, network access and server activity logs, plus any other relevant information.

“Should you fail or refuse to take down the Subject Videos, our client will have no choice but to file a complaint against your company seeking immediate injunctive relief, as well as compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and costs,” BGP concludes.

After being filed earlier this week, the case was reviewed by Judge Rodney Gilstrap. In his order, he noted that BGP had complied with all of the components required to obtain a subpoena. So, in an order issued Wednesday, the Judge ordered YouTube to comply by supplying the information sought.

The related documents can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 . Judge’s order here )

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.

After numerous lawsuits around the world, The Pirate Bay is perhaps the most-blocked pirate site on the planet.

In many regions the site is blocked by local ISPs and, as a result, millions of users have sought to visit the site via alternative means. While these can include VPNs and Tor, for example, the rise of proxy and mirror sites has been notable, since these provide seamless access to the torrent index at zero cost.

Prolonged Legal Battle in The Netherlands

The fight to block The Pirate Bay and its mirrors and proxies in the Netherlands has been particularly notable. Legal action was initiated by BREIN in 2010 and after a tortuous path, that even involved the EU Court of Justice, local courts eventually sided with the anti-piracy group.

However, the battle to have Pirate Bay proxies and mirrors took longer and was only settled this October . However, BREIN still sees these platforms as a risk and as a result, embarked on a project to target a large provider of both.

Piratebay-proxylist.net Targeted By BREIN

With several million visitors per month, Piratebay-proxylist.net developed an audience not only with residents of the Netherlands but also those in other regions (such as the UK) where ISPs are required to block The Pirate Bay.

Offering a list of domains from where the notorious index can be accessed (and also rating them, ostensibly by speed), the platform was of course a popular haunt for pirates. However, the show is now over following legal action by BREIN.

BREIN Announces Domain ‘Seizure’ and Large Settlement

In an announcement Friday, BREIN said that while it does what it can to close down proxy and mirror sites, including by filing requests with hosting providers, the existence of ISP blocking doesn’t preclude direct legal action against those who persistently offer proxy and mirror sites.

As a result it targeted the people behind Piratebay-proxylist.net, an action that has now resulted in the closure of the platform and an agreement to pay BREIN a sizeable amount in damages and compensation.

“[Piratebay-proxylist.net], a large-scale provider of proxies and mirrors to bypass the blocking of The Pirate Bay, has arranged with copyright protection foundation BREIN to pay 250,000 euros as compensation for the damage suffered and more than 30,000 euros in full compensation of costs,” BREIN says.

Domain Also ‘Seized By BREIN

BREIN says that as part of the settlement it has taken control of the Piratebay-proxylist.net domain. Indeed, at the time of writing the domain presents a detailed anti-piracy warning , explaining why the domain is no longer functional while issuing a warning to others.

“The content of this site has been blocked by order of the court, at the request of Stichting BREIN. This site provided access to the website The Pirate Bay, which offers illegally protected works of the rights holders represented by Stichting BREIN. This is unlawful and causes great damage to the entitled parties to (in particular) films, TV series, music, games and books,” the cautionary message reads, adding:

“WARNING : Any site that provides direct or indirect access to The Pirate Bay runs the significant risk of being blocked. The operators of that site risk criminal and / or civil penalties, such as large fines and damages.”

Proxies/Mirrors Generate Large Revenues, Receive Large Penalties

In common with many similar platforms, Piratebay-proxylist.net generated revenue from advertising and affiliate schemes. According to BREIN, the scale of its business is reflected in the size of the settlement the service is now required to pay the anti-piracy group.

“Where we can identify the data subjects [site operators] and hold them accountable, we will do so. That a lot of money is involved in this kind of illegal business is proven by this settlement of more than a quarter of a million euros,” says BREIN director Tim Kuik.

BREIN Also Reaches Settlement With eBook Pirate

While BREIN expends much effort in dealing with larger infringing platforms, it doesn’t shy away from targeting smaller entities too.

The anti-piracy group says that since the beginning of 2019, it has been writing to the administrators of several email groups that were being used to share pirated copies of eBooks, audiobooks, and music. Several administrators agreed to shut down and declare their operations over. It appears, however, that at least one was more stubborn, even after settling with BREIN.

“She raised money from members to pay the fine and started a new group on the same day that the statement was signed. In that group, this time with the help of social media, the administrator and the members insisted on anonymity and illegal ebooks were again exchanged,” BREIN explains.

When BREIN approached the individual again, she took her group offline. However, she wasn’t interested in paying a fine and ignored BREIN’s letters. That resulted in BREIN going to court where the judge ruled in the anti-piracy group’s favor, ordering the woman to pay 7,500 euros in fines and 19,644 euros in legal costs.

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

The Pirate Bay’s main .org domain has been unreachable for nearly a day now.

For most people, the site currently displays a CloudFlare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider mentioning that a “gateway timeout” is causing the issue.

As usual, no further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. However, judging from past experience, it’s likely a small technical issue that needs fixing.

The Pirate Bay has had quite a few stints of downtime over the years. The popular torrent site usually returns after several hours, but outages of more than a day have occurred as well.

Despite the downtime, there are still some options left for people to access the notorious torrent site.

TPB is still available via its .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example. The site’s Tor traffic goes through a separate server and works just fine. Several dedicated TPB proxies are still up as well.

The Pirate Bay team has a status page in the forums where people can check to see if an outage is affecting everyone or not. This also shows that the Tor version of the site is working fine, and that new torrents are still coming through.

The main .org domain will probably be back in action soon enough, although there are no guarantees. Torrentz2 , for example, disappeared a few weeks ago and still hasn’t returned. The .onion domain remains active but that hasn’t been updated with new content in nearly a week.

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

In recent months Denmark has lost two of its most popular pirate sites following police investigations.

Both Danishbit and Nordicbits went offline after the alleged operators were caught . This was a big hit to Danish torrent users, who generally prefer private torrent trackers over public indexers such as The Pirate Bay.

As is often the case with shutdowns, other sites have stepped in to take up the slack. For example, following the closure of Danishbits, both ShareUniversity and Asgaard opened their doors to members who were looking for a new home.

While the people running these sites were initially thrilled, their perspective changed last week when police confirmed their involvement and the arrest of the Danishbits operator. Making matters worse, law enforcement didn’t rule out that users could be identified as well.

Meanwhile, anti-piracy group Rights Alliance increased the pressure on the remaining trackers. The group informed TorrentFreak that they are aware of the growth of these sites and urged them to give up their illegal activities. If not, they would get the same treatment as DanishBits and NordicBits.

This warning wasn’t in vain. Over the past week, the staff of Asgaard considered their options and ultimately decided to throw in the towel.

“We are in a situation where our cozy project has suddenly developed into a LARGE Nordic company. With that in mind, it also made us realize that several of the driving forces behind the site have to take a serious look at their involvement with the project,” staff wrote this week.

The warning from Rights Alliance played an important role in the site’s decision. That, combined with a potential for criminal prosecution of the people involved, proved to be too much pressure.

“The top of the volcano erupts, as the Rights Alliance very descriptively says that they already have an eye on ASGAARD ​​and can see the traffic that has been coming in. In addition, there is the scare campaign about the treatment that awaits us if we choose to continue the project.”

Instead of looking over their shoulders for the years to come, sacrificing sleep and potentially their futures, shutting down is seen as the best option.

“The thought of having to risk the doorbell ringing one day for a visit from the police overshadows the coziness of running this project. We will not expose you to that. Or ourselves. We have therefore chosen to close the ASGAARD project,” Asgaard’s staff concludes.

At the time of writing the site is still online but it will effectively close on December 31. While others may be interested in taking over the site, the Asgaard team prefers a hard stop and will let the domain name go as well.

The tracker operators, who relied on user donations, thank all members for their support and understanding and say they will refund all members who contributed to the site after December 2.

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

During October, the RIAA ignited a fierce debate and significant outrage when it filed a complaint that took down the open source software youtube-dl from Github.

The music industry group stated that the “clear purpose” of youtube-dl was to “circumvent the technological protection measures” used by YouTube to “reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use.”

Pre-Emptive Strike By YouTube-Ripper Yout

Just days later with public opinion swinging strongly in youtube-dl’s favor, YouTube-ripping platform Yout seized the opportunity to sue the RIAA . Yout had previously been targeted with similar allegations, including that Yout is an illegal tool that violates Section 1201 of the DMCA by circumventing YouTube’s “technical protection measures.”

Dismissing the RIAA’s claims as baseless, Yout’s complaint outlined various actions taken by the label group that ended up damaging its business. For example, Google took the RIAA’s copyright complaints at face value and delisted Yout from its search results. On top, the public takedown notices also devalued Yout’s business by tarnishing its reputation, the company explained.

Amended Complaint Highlights Additional Damage

In an amended complaint filed in a Connecticut court this week, Yout repeated many of the allegations contained in its original complaint. However, a new piece of information suggests that the RIAA also used its powers to attack Yout’s ability to make and receive money.

Yout says that in response to searches for its platform, Yout’s customers were informed by Google that due to copyright complaints received against Yout.com, results had been removed at the behest of the RIAA. This, the platform claims, ended up in Yout customers canceling their subscriptions.

Furthermore, Yout claims that the RIAA also used its powers to limit its ability to receive process payments.

“On information and belief, Defendants’ DMCA notices have caused PayPal to shut down Yout’s account, causing Yout further significant monetary and reputational damage,” the filing reads.

“The Defendants acted with intent and actual malice when they engaged in the foregoing conduct because they intended to harm the Plaintiffs.”

Enhanced Rejections of Anti-Circumvention Allegations

In Yout’s original complaint the platform described itself as a time-shifting service that, in the absence of any specific circumvention of technological copyright protection, cannot be in violation of the anti-circumvention measures of the DMCA.

Indeed, Yout flatly denied circumventing any of YouTube’s protection measures, including its so-called “rolling cipher”, the mechanism at the very heart of the RIAA’s complaint against youtube-dl. What is interesting in Yout’s amended complaint is that it now makes enhanced claims and denials, which show clear signs of benefiting from the EFF’s and Github’s legal stance in the youtube-dl matter.

“[T]he rolling cipher mechanism employed by YouTube does not prevent copying of videos or other digital media,” Yout’s amended complaint reads.

“Yout’s software platform works the same way as a browser when it encounters
the signature mechanism: it reads and interprets the JavaScript program sent by YouTube, derives a signature value [referred to by RIAA as a ‘rolling cipher’], and sends that value back to YouTube to initiate the video stream

“Yout’s software platform contains no password, key, or other secret knowledge that is required to access YouTube videos. It simply uses the same mechanism that YouTube presents to each and every user who views a video,” the company adds.

In a nutshell, Yout says that it cannot circumvent the rolling cipher (as defined in the DMCA) because YouTube itself provides the means to access video streams to anyone who asks for them.

“[O]ne cannot ‘circumvent’ an access control by using publicly available means,” the platform concludes.

Targeting YouTube-DL Proves Counterproductive

Whether the RIAA anticipated the backlash in response to its targeting of youtube-dl or not, it now faces a significantly more difficult struggle to suppress similar tools and services. With the EFF and Github now heavily involved, it’s no longer a simple case of sending takedown notices and watching tools disappear.

And, as Yout’s lawsuit shows, there could be additional legal repercussions too, including a potential effect on long-running cases that the RIAA is already embroiled in .

Yout’s amended complaint can be found here (pdf)

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

Millions of people around the world use torrent sites and forms of file-sharing to share copyrighted material on a regular basis. In most countries, this is against the law.

This restrictive stance toward ‘sharing’ is problematic according to a group of activists, who have launched the “ Freedom to Share ” initiative.

One Million Signatures

The campaign is a European Citizens’ Initiative . This is a form of direct democracy that allows the public to take part in the development of EU law and policies. With enough support across various EU member states and at least one million signatures, the EU Commission will have to officially consider the proposal.

This is certainly not the first time that activists have called for the legalization of file-sharing. However, this campaign has substantial backing . It has support from the Italian Wikimedia Foundation, for example, and various Pirate parties are taking part as well.

Current EU law restricts the freedom of access to science and culture, according to the organizers. It is overly restrictive as the interests of major rightsholders are often put before those of regular people.

Right to Share

“We see the legalization of file-sharing as part of the ‘right to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’ described in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Freedom to Share informs TorrentFreak.

“We also think that this approach would make some invasive laws obsolete. Examples of such laws span from the infamous ‘upload filters’ described in Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive, that monitor uploads for copyright infringements, to regulations in some countries that limit open WiFi hotspots on the same ground.”

The Italian attorney Marco Ciurcina acts as a spokesperson for the initiative. He believes that current laws hinder freedom of access to science and culture. Sharing files should not be illegal anywhere, whether that’s via P2P networks such as BitTorrent, email, or other sharing tools.

“The question is: is it fair for copyright, related rights, and sui generis database rights to prevent the sharing of works and other material?” Ciurcina asks.

What About Creators?

The Freedom To Share initiative answers this question with a resounding NO. However, fearing that revenues will plunge, some major copyright holders will see things differently. The group doesn’t believe that artists will be harmed by sharing though, quite the opposite.

“We believe modern technology is an opportunity for authors, not a problem. We also believe that it’s harmful for authors to depend on and support the very unfair and unpopular status quo of copyright laws. Some authors might be appreciated and known by people much more thanks to file-sharing.”

The proposal doesn’t come with any solutions for how creators should be compensated. However, file-sharers can and will still consume legally. Research has shown, for example, that ‘pirates’ spend more on legal entertainment than those who don’t share.

In addition, Freedom to Share suggests that there could be other options to bring in additional revenue. For example, through taxes, or through collecting societies that are dedicated to file-sharing.

The first priority, however, is to bring the legalization proposal into the EU spotlight. Freedom to Share hopes that it will be able to gather enough signatures in the coming weeks. And to reach that goal, it encourages all file-sharers to sign and share their initiative.

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

The US Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property is looking for better ways to tackle the ever-present threat of online piracy.

Specifically, it’s working with various stakeholders to see if the DMCA can be improved to better suit today’s online environment.

During a hearing yesterday , Senators received input from various stakeholders on the role of voluntary agreements and existing anti-piracy technologies. YouTube, for example, explained its Content-ID system and Facebook showed how its Rights Manager tool helps copyright holders.

Twitter Refused to Attend

Twitter was also invited to testify but the company refused to attend . This frustrated lawmakers, including Senator Thom Tillis, who repeatedly asked Twitter to join the discussion. When that didn’t happen Tillis sent a series of written questions, but the “non-answers” the company sent back only appear to have made things worse.

The lawmakers are not alone in their critique of Twitter. As expected, they were fully supported by the RIAA, which was present to represent the music industry. RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier specifically mentioned the social media platform in his opening statement.

Glazier argued that the current takedown system is highly ineffective and he used Twitter as an example. Over the past year, the RIAA has tried to keep a single music track off Twitter, but despite thousands of notices, it kept reappearing.

“As a result, over a 10-month period, RIAA had to send notices for nearly 9,000 infringements of that same track – let me repeat that. We had to send 9,000 notices over a 10-month period for the same exact track. Unfortunately, we must do this all the time for hundreds of tracks on many different services,” Glazier said.

Hiding Behind the Safe Harbor

The RIAA would like Twitter and other platforms to keep infringing files offline indefinitely. A so-called takedown and staydown policy. In addition, copyright holders should be allowed to effectively monitor and report infringements. However, companies such as Twitter prefer to do very little and hide behind their safe harbor protection, Glazier said.

“They could solve the piracy problem voluntarily tomorrow if they had the will and incentive to do so. Unfortunately, the DMCA safe harbors have been interpreted to apply so broadly that platforms do not have the business incentive to participate in a balanced system.”

The Twitter-bashing continued during the questioning round. Senator Mazie Hirono stressed that Twitter hasn’t shown to be a “willing partner” for copyright holders and asked Glazier to elaborate.

RIAA’s CEO gladly complied and said that the music industry has sent more than three million notices to Twitter over the past two years, identifying 20,000 works. That’s an average of 150 notices per track, and things aren’t improving.

Industrial Scale Piracy

“This is piracy on an industrial massive scale. This is not some small problem,” Glazier said. “Unlike Facebook and YouTube, they have done nothing to at least try to build tools, or to help prevent what is by its nature a viral system where piracy can spread literally in microseconds.”

The takedown efforts are complicated because the RIAA and its members don’t have an effective system to search Twitter for copyright infringements. The social media platform is willing to offer this, but not for free.

“They really don’t offer us the ability to search their universe for infringements. We have asked for it many many times and they want to charge us,” Glazier said.

“And then when we send them notices it can take anywhere between four hours and four days to take one thing down while we’ve got millions of pieces spreading at the same time. It’s a huge problem,” he adds.

Twitter was not the only company to be called out. Senator Mazie Hirono also asked RIAA’s CEO about the role of domain name registrars, which offer services to pirate sites. Again, Glazier said that this is a huge problem.

Domain Registrars Protect Pirates

“Domain name registrars and their role in allowing piracy to happen through their systems is a huge problem. Very few domain name registrars are doing very little. Both at the registrar and at the registry level.”

Glazier notes that there are voluntary agreements with a select group of domain registrars. However, most simply do nothing. They simply keep pirate domains online. And when copyright holders ask them to help identify bad actors, they refuse to cooperate.

“When we go to them and say: ‘help us to find the pirates’ so we can go against them directly, they won’t give the name of the pirate. They hide their identity and help them become anonymous and they say that it’s because of privacy laws. That they need to protect the criminals. Which is ridiculous.”

“Privacy laws are meant to protect consumers, they are not meant to protect criminals,” Glazier adds.

If Not Voluntary, Then…

The RIAA would like the law to make it clear that intermediaries, including domain registrars and registries, have to do more. The same is true for services that host content. The current takedown process simply doesn’t cut it, it’s a sham.

While the hearing was supposed to be about voluntary and private agreements to help fight piracy, the threat of stricter regulation may be needed.

The RIAA applauded the work of Facebook and YouTube but, reading between the lines, Glazier suggests that Twitter and other companies may need a bigger push from lawmakers to come to the table.

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

Just over six months ago UK-based anti-piracy company AudioLock announced The Music Mission, a new campaign to disrupt the activities of around 200 pay-piracy sites focused on music.

Unlike torrent or streaming sites, in many cases these platforms seek to emulate specialist legal portals such as Beatport, Traxsource and Juno, by offering the same tracks in similar polished interfaces. As a result, these paysites represent a more direct threat, since instead of attracting pirates who won’t pay, they attract customers who will.

Beatport v Pirate Platform

In this respect, it is believed that pirated downloads of this type are more likely to represent a lost sale. Indeed, investigations carried out by The Music Mission found that these sites were attracting significantly more traffic than their legal counterparts.

Multipronged Disruption Strategy

Headed by AudioLock and backed by music distributor Label Worx plus 800 additional supporters made up of labels and distributor platforms, The Music Mission has deployed a number of techniques to disrupt these pirate sites.

In November, for example, AudioLock CEO Ben Rush informed TorrentFreak that with the assistance of Traxsource, Beatport, Juno and Soundcloud, work was undertaken to remove API access from the targeted sites, with ongoing monitoring to ensure others didn’t take up the slack.

According to Rush, additional pressure placed on the sites (which included a search engine delisting campaign that removed close to 950,000 links in the early stages) meant that 61 domains offering music disappeared or suddenly began directing to non-music sites.

Others began to display fake error messages indicating they were down, while attempting to continue their business behind the scenes, but these weren’t missed by AudioLock.

Results From Early November

One of the early signs that the campaign was having a positive effect on sales was that older music, some of it released around four years ago, was beginning to reappear in the dance music charts, Rush explains.

“The most startling discovery has been content from as early as 2016 either recharting or more surprisingly charting for the first time during the period of the two phases of delisting carried out for the content being protected,” AudioLock’s CEO says.

“We think that it is possible there could be a lift on other releases at the same time as those protected by The Music Mission due to the legitimate stores being raised up in search, with many now in the first few results. This would, of course, increase traffic and thus music discovery and sales.”

Results After The Completion of Stage One

In an announcement this morning, AudioLock revealed additional details on the campaign and its achievements over the past several months. In total, 150,800 releases consisting of more than 0.5m tracks from 2,723 record labels were provided with protection.

After identifying and investigating more than 260 ‘pirate’ domains, connections between the sites, their owners, the content being made available, and supporting services (including hosting) were established.

As part of the project, AudioLock also sent requests to Google to delist 2.6 million URLs after crawling 20.4 million pages on the pirate download stores. The evidence data and audit logs for these links alone used a total of 2.8TB of storage.

At the time of writing, AudioLock says that 136 of the targeted domains are no longer acting as pirate download stores, taking access to 50TB of music with them. On top, 20 site operators have reportedly been identified.

AudioLock: Significant Effect in Global Dance Charts

According to data released by AudioLock, The Music Mission project has achieved some interesting results in respect of how long new tracks stay popular with fans.

This is reflected in the length of time the tracks remain in the global Top 100 dance music charts, with an average time of 26 days in September now boosted to more than 70 days for tracks protected during the campaign.

Meanwhile, unprotected music remained relatively stable by averaging around 30 days throughout, so with approximately 30,000 dance music releases every month, achieving over two months charted is significant, Rush says.

Data from the project suggests that tracks appearing in the top 10 best-selling releases initially comprised of around 30% protected by The Music Mission (TMM) but two weeks after the second phase of delistings, 80% of the tracks in the top 10 were covered by the project, with the majority appearing at the top of the charts.

A similar effect was also observed with older tracks in the Top 100 charts across other genres.

“Ordering the Global Top 100 Track chart by the age of the track showed that the density of TMM protected music reached 60% in the top 10 having started at just 10%. This shows that tracks are not only lasting considerably longer in the chart, but also from the TMM protection work, have grown to account for the majority of the oldest out of the whole top 100, benefiting from receiving that all-important increase in exposure to users,” the project announced today.

The Future of The Music Mission

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Ben Rush says that collaboration from the campaign’s supporters was the key to making the takedowns possible, something that will benefit the entire industry moving forward by making revenues from downloading a significant contributor to labels’ revenue.

“The work was focused on the pirate download stores however this is only one part of the pirate landscape,” he continues.

“For example, for dance music there are a great many DJ promo sites operating unlicensed yet charge subscriptions and for the wider industry, stream-ripping/click scam sites too, the latter we targeted through the delisting.

“We have early indications that stream plays have also seen growth, benefiting from The Music Mission which we are currently investigating further. There is clearly a lot more that can still be done here which benefits the industry as a whole, not just the dance music side.”

While the results of the campaign are certainly interesting, where the project will go from here remains unclear. Thus far, all work has been carried out by AudioLock at the company’s expense so although there appears to be a benefit to artists, labels, and distributors in terms of sales, outside funding will probably be needed if the intensity is to be maintained.

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

Back in June, Hurricane Electic, one of the major network providers and operator of the largest IPv6 backbone, took action to prevent damage to its business.

Hurricane provides services to large Internet-focused businesses, including ISPs, which in turn have thousands of customers, all of whom are free to use their connections as they wish. However, a group of movie companies, all of which are known for filing copyright complaints in pursuit of settlement, tried to argue that Hurricane is responsible for the actions of its customers.

After obtaining a subpoena, a law firm acting for the companies behind Rambo: Last Blood, London Has Fallen, Dallas Buyers Club, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, and many others demanded that Hurricane should hand over the personal details of its allegedly pirating customers.

In response to persistent demands, including to disconnect allegedly infringing customers and pay damages in excess of $500,000, Hurricane Electric filed two lawsuits , one in California and one in Nevada, seeking a declaratory judgment stating that it is not responsible for the infringements of its customers. Or those of their customers. Or their customers’ customers.

Amended Complaint Filed in August 2020

In August, Hurricane Electric (HE) filed an amended complaint which in part described the alleged business model of the movie companies targeting its business.

“HE is informed and believes and based thereon alleges that multiple Defendants, many of which share the same addresses, managing agents, and/or agents for service, are copyright assertion entities in the business of generating income primarily from threats of infringement lawsuits against legitimate technology companies that have nothing to do with any alleged infringements by unnamed end users of Internet connections,” HE wrote.

Describing the defendants as “mere shells” for generating income via threats of copyright infringement lawsuits, HE stated that the move companies have become frustrated by courts awarding limited damages against individual file-sharers so have adopted a new business model of suing entities, like HE, that are “higher up the food chain.”

With the main case still rumbling on, an interesting third-party complaint appeared on the docket this week. Featuring Killing Link Distribution LLC, one of the defendants in the HE case and the company behind the Nicholas Cage movie Kill Chain as plaintiff, it targets Sophidea Inc ., an Internet service provider.

Third Party Lawsuit Against a Hurriance Electric Customer

While the company was the subject of several headlines in 2014, little is known about Wyoming-based Sophidea. The third-party lawsuit (filed by Culpepper IP, the same law firm that obtained user data from YTS ) says that Sophidea is an ISP operating in California that buys Internet access, IP address and co-location services from Hurricane Electric.

The complaint further states that the ISP operates a VPN service through HE, enabling its customers to access the Internet via HE IP addresses. According to Killing Link, users of Sophidea’s VPN service accessed “illicit notorious piracy websites” to download and share pirated copies of movies.

“Particularly, Defendant’s users have used this VPN service to download torrent files of Plaintiff’s Work, and pirate Plaintiff’s Work on the Internet via the BitTorrent Protocol Client throughout the world,” the complaint notes.

Among the sites allegedly accessed by Sophidea’s customers are YTS, The Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x, Fmovies, Cimaclub, RuTracker, and Torrentz2. Interestingly, Killing Link further claims that users also accessed file-hosting sites Rapidgator and Uploaded, plus Russian social networking site VK “to engage in massive piracy”. How this information was obtained isn’t revealed.

“Defendant [Sophidea] continued to provide network connections to its users despite receiving notices indicating that Defendant’s users were using the network connection to engage in piracy via, for example, one or more of the above piracy websites,” the complaint reads.

The third-party complaint does not seek damages. Instead, the movie company requests preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent Sophidea from continuing to provide customer access to “infringing material or activity residing at particular online sites.”

Complaint Quickly Concludes With Proposed Stipulated Injunction

On the very same day that the complaint was filed at a California court, a new document appeared on the docket revealing that everything had been sorted out between the parties. A quick turn around, certainly. But it’s the details of the agreement that are likely to raise eyebrows.

According to the stipulated injunction and dismissal, Sophidea provides a VPN service, manned by volunteers, for the purposes of providing uncensored Internet access to people in closed societies.

“Many of Defendant’s users are citizens in countries with internet censorship such as Iran, China, Russia and Vietnam, etc. Defendant depends on donations to provide this VPN service and does not make any profit. Defendant has recently operated at a deficit,” it reads.

“To protect Defendant’s users from their own governments, Defendant does not require users to log in to use Defendant’s services. Rather, users can download Defendant’s software for free without providing any personal information. To further protect them, and also due to the volume of traffic, Defendant does not log their users’ access, i.e. their IP addresses and websites visited.”

Given the background, it seems likely that Sophidea operates its service as a fairly ‘dumb ‘pipe, which means that people are able to access content of their choice, including pirated movies. The company acknowledges that it has been unable to distinguish between “unacceptable and acceptable” usage due to the vast majority of traffic being encrypted.

However, since it has respect for US intellectual property rights, it has offered to assist.

Sophidea Agrees To Block Pirates Sites Under the DMCA

In an agreement with Killing Link to conclude the lawsuit, Sophidea says it denies liability but acknowledges that its customers ‘may’ have used its VPN to pirate copyrighted content. As a result it will implement site-blocking pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §512(j) , with details as per the image below.

According to the agreement, Sophidea will be considered in compliance with the order if it blocks site domains, IP addresses, URLs, or any other technical means agreed between the parties. Furthermore, Killing Link will be able to update the block list with any pirate sites mentioned in the USTR’s review of ‘notorious markets’ moving forward, or any site found liable for infringement in a US court.

As reported last month, various copyright holders and industry organizations have already nominated Amazon, Facebook, Namecheap, Cloudflare and Peter Sunde’s Njalla service for the next notorious markets list, so life could become even more challenging for Sophidea’s already restricted users.

The third party complaint can be found here . The stipulated injunction (signed by the judge Thursday) is here (pdf)

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