Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN aims to tackle all kinds of piracy, wherever and however it takes place online.

From popular P2P technologies such as BitTorrent through to streaming portals and the well-established protocols of Usenet, BREIN can be found working in the background to prevent people from distributing and obtaining content without permission.

This week, however, the company revealed it has been targeting one of the oldest and most basic file-sharing methods still in existence today.

BREIN Targets Open Directories

In an announcement Thursday, BREIN said it had been successful in shutting down several dozen ‘open directories’ which offered tens of thousands of eBooks to the public without permission from rights holders. As is often the case, BREIN contacted hosting providers with copyright takedown notices, taking the directories offline.

In some instances, where BREIN was able to identify those responsible, directory operators were given the opportunity to settle the complaint by taking their offering down, paying BREIN’s costs, and agreeing not to infringe copyright in the future.

So what are ‘open directories’ and how do they work?

An Ancient, Basic, Yet Intriguing Way to Offer Files

In a nutshell, ‘open directories’ are just that – directories (or folders, to use Windows terminology) filled with content that is easily accessible to users via the web.

Most of these directories are put in place by someone in charge of a website and/or server. With some free hard drive space available, the individual might choose to upload a bunch of family photographs, documents (or indeed an entire media collection) so that they can be accessed from anywhere or used to serve content to a website.

Neglecting to protect directories with a username and password, for example, renders them ‘open’ but, in many cases, these folders are left unsecured on purpose, placed on a regular server for sharing with others, or in some instances, on an unsecured third-party’s server which then acts as an unauthorized file ‘dump’.

None of this is particularly glamorous or technologically advanced but what open directories offer is a huge quantity of media accessible to anyone for downloading directly to their machines, using only a web browser.

Since by their very nature they don’t require a login, password, or special tools, the only obstacle is how to find these directories in the first instance. However, since they are a part of the web itself, the majority are discoverable using Google or a similar search engine.

Finding Open Directories is Easy

One of the most basic ways to find open directories is to Google the search term index / (or intitle:\”index.of\” ) followed by the type of content sought. The image below reveals Google’s results following the most basic of searches for directories referencing the image format JPG.

The very top result is indicative of the kind of unusual content one is likely to find with such an unsophisticated search. Found at ‘ e-hand.com/jpg/ ‘, the directory appears to consist of an image library showing deformed, injured, or otherwise non-regular hands.

Of course, images of wonky hands is a fairly niche topic so it’s likely that people will want to stretch their legs a little, using more sophisticated techniques to find content of interest. Again, Google is a great starting point and for those with the right skillset, elaborate search parameters can be combined to produce the required results.

For those who don’t have the necessary ‘Google-fu’ or simply can’t be bothered, there are tools that do all of the heavy lifting, such as the Google Open Directory Search , the Open Directory Search Tool , or more flashy examples such as File Pursuit . There are even communities dedicated to revealing what other searchers have found.

Warning: Open Directories Can Contain Anything

Finally, it’s worth pointing out while some open directories are goldmines of popular movies, music, TV shows plus rare and sometimes unusual personal content, they are also home to mountains of ‘junk’ that are only of interest to the person who put them there. In some cases, they can also contain material that some may find offensive due to its adult nature but there are other risks too.

Unlike some other indexes, these directories are totally unmoderated, meaning that the ‘game’ or ‘app’ you’re about to download could be infested with malware, have been maliciously mislabeled, or may take days to download only to yield nothing of interest. Importantly, open directories are not inherently ‘pirate’ either, they’re just shared folders that can and do contain just about anything.

The same can be said about open Google Drives, which can be found by pasting the search phrase site:drive.google.com +”drive/folders” into Google. These are not open directories in the pure sense of the term but still yield similar results, with the exception that all files are actually hosted (rather than just indexed) by Google.

In any event, the content on offer in many of these directories is often interesting to users despite it being potentially risky to offer, especially when entities like BREIN are on the prowl.

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

Every year the MPA and RIAA respond to a request from the Office of the US Trade Representative to submit their recommendations for the annual “notorious markets” list.

In many cases, the industry groups choose to nominate the world’s most popular pirate sites and services for a mention, including but not limited to The Pirate Bay, YTS, RarBG, 1337x, and Popcorn Time, for example.

More recently, however, the MPA and RIAA have begun mentioning ancillary companies that in their judgment are not necessarily pirate services in themselves but due to their provision of systems and infrastructure, are in a position to act affirmatively to reduce the effectiveness of pirate sites.

As reported this week, the MPA and RIAA has now chosen to nominate domain name companies and services including the Njalla privacy service associated with Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and the Tonic domain registry that is often favored by pirate services.

Pressure Has Been Building on Tonic Domain Registry

In September, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the global anti-piracy coalition made up of the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and dozens of other companies, obtained a DMCA subpoena compelling Tonic to hand over information held on major pirate sites including The Pirate Bay, YTS, 1337x, EZTV, Seasonvar, Tamilrockers, Lordfilms, and many others.

A month later, ACE was back in court again, this time obtaining a DMCA subpoena requiring Tonic to hand over information held on massive Germany-focused streaming site S.to.

The dust had barely settled when ACE returned to court once again, obtaining another subpoena forcing Tonic to give up the identities of the people behind torrent giant 1337x.to (again), streaming site BS.to, Kimcartoon.to, Vumoo.to, Ololo.to, Seriesflix.to, Kinox.to, Movie4k.to plus many more.

Back Once Again With Yet Another Demand For Information

It’s unclear exactly how many pirate sites utilize .to domains for their operations but ACE clearly sees the registry’s involvement as part of their infrastructure as a problem when it comes to its enforcement actions. As a result, a DMCA subpoena ACE obtained in recent days from a California court lists two dozen problematic platforms for which it seeks additional information.

The majority of the domains are focused on streaming movies and TV shows, with sites including Lordfilm, Ymovies, Pelis24, Series24, HDGo, HDSS, Flixtor, Soap2Day and Solarmovie all getting a prominent mention.

Also present in the demand for information is a selection of popular torrent indexes such as TorrentGalaxy, Monova, and Glodls. These make an appearance alongside sites operating in different niches such as popular Germany-focused piracy forum Boerse and proxy-centric platform Unblocked. DDL-Warez is also featured in the subpoena but at the time of writing appears to be down.

Sites Infringe Copyrights in Popular Movies and TV Shows

Along with each site is a claim that they infringed rights in a specific movie or TV show. These include the movies Frozen II, Dolittle, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Beautiful Boy, Bird Box, Triple Frontier, and Scoob! In the cases of Series 24 and Flixtor, both stand accused of illegally offering the first episode in the TV series Watchmen.

The application was filed by Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association.

“The ACE Members (via the Motion Picture Association, Inc.) are requesting issuance of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Tonic Domains Corporation 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 below],” it reads.

A letter to Tonic Domains attached to the subpoena repeats a similar message.

At the same time, ACE also obtained a second DMCA subpoena claiming that the linking site Huho.to infringed its members’ copyrights in the movies Beauty and the Beast and It Chapter Two. The claim is that Huhu.to connects users of the popular ‘ Watched ‘ mobile application to cyberlockers containing infringing content so, as a result, its operator’s details should be handed over.

The anti-piracy coalition lists a number of sites where the movies were hosted including Clipboard.cc, GoUnlimited.to, Mixdrop.to, Upstream.to, Vivo.sx, Vidlox.me, and Clipwatching.com, but these sites don’t appear to be direct targets in the subpoena.

Documents supporting the DMCA subpoenas can be found here 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 (pdf)

List of Domains and Main Use (Both Subpoenas)

lordfilm.to – streaming
ddl-warez.to – down
boerse.to – piracy forum
pepecine.to – streaming
ymovies.to – streaming
pelis24.to – streaming
kinoz.to – streaming (kinox.to alternate)
monova.to – torrents
unblocked.to – proxy site
glodls.to – torrents
byte.to – DDL/streaming
enstream.to – streaming
series24.to – streaming
hdgo.to – streaming
ilgeniodellostreaming.to – streaming
movie-blog.to – DDL index
torrentgalaxy.to – torrents
goojara.to – streaming
supernova.to – streaming
levidia.to – streaming
flixtor.to – streaming
hdss.to – streaming
solarmovie.to – streaming
soap2day.to – streaming
huhu.to (subpoena 2)

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

Most developers can only dream of creating software that’s used by hundreds of millions of people across the globe.

Swedish programmer Ludvig Strigeus is one of the lucky few to have reached this milestone. Not once, but twice.

File-sharing veterans will remember Strigeus, who’s known online by his nickname Ludde, as the creator of uTorrent. However, he also singlehandedly laid the groundwork for the backend and frontend of Spotify, where he still works today.

Both applications reached an audience of hundreds of millions of users, albeit with different reputations in the music industry. The torrent client, while perfectly legal, is often associated with piracy, while Spotify now generates billions of dollars in revenue for music companies.

That said, the history of both pieces of software are intertwined. Both were originally coded by Strigeus and Spotify even owned the uTorrent client briefly, before it was sold to BitTorrent Inc. Spotify didn’t acquire uTorrent because of the technology, they wanted its developer .

This was the right move, as history has shown. Also for Strigeus, who is now worth hundreds of millions because of his stake in Spotify. And the developer’s achievements haven’t gone unnoticed among his peers either.

This week Strigeus was awarded the prestigious Polhem Prize by the Swedish Association of Graduate Engineers . The prize is awarded for high-level technological innovations.

The association mentions both Spotify and uTorrent and praises Ludde’s exemplary coding skills and excellence.

“With effective program code, Ludvig Strigeus has pushed the boundaries of what we expect from software in general. His ability to develop advanced applications with surprisingly little computing power is enormously impressive,” says Ulrika Lindstrand, President of the Swedish Engineers union.

This is a remarkable achievement by the 39-year-old developer, who is pleased with the recognition and the award.

“It is a fantastic honor for me to receive the Polhem Prize. I have always been driven to delve into technical details, learn new things and find smart solutions to difficult problems, rather than building something primarily to get many users,” Strigeus says.

“It feels really good that the programs I developed have spread enormously all over the world.”

The Polhem Prize is one of the oldest technology awards and was first issued in 1878 . Previous winners include Baltzar von Platen and Carl Munthers for their refrigerator invention (1925) and Håkan Lans who invented the GPS-based STDMA tracking system (1995).

In addition to the prestige, Strigeus also wins a golden Polhem medal and roughly $25,000. We doubt, however, that money is a major issue for the developer. Ludde is still very much preoccupied with coding and also did well in the brutal but prestigious Flareon challenge earlier this year.

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

Back in August, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy coalition featuring the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, filed a lawsuit against US company TTKN Enterprises, LLC.

Better known online as IPTV service Crystal Clear Media (CCM), TTKN and owners Todd and Tori Smith of Florida were accused by Disney, Paramount, Amazon, Warner, Universal, Netflix, Columbia and StudioCanal of operating a pirate service providing access to thousands of live and title-curated television channels in breach of their copyrights.

“Blatantly Infringing Service”

Citing blockbusters including Disney’s Frozen II, Warner Bros’ Harry Potter collection, Columbia Picture’s Bad Boys for Life, and Universal’s Mr. Robot, the companies alleged that TTKN/CCM’s operators had gone to great lengths to hide their roles in an operation that had illegally streamed these titles and more to the public. Domains including mediahosting.one, crystalcleariptv.com, ccmedia.one, ccbilling.org, cciptv.us, ccreborn.one, ccultimate.one, superstreamz.com, and webplayer.us, were mentioned as supporting the operation.

Describing CCM as a “blatantly infringing service”, the entertainment companies noted that despite being acutely aware that rival service Vaders had previously come to an untimely end for similar actions at the hands of the same plaintiffs, CCM continued to provide an illegal VOD service to the public. Furthermore, the service also continued to expand its reach via a network of resellers.

“Defendants’ reseller program plays a pivotal role in their infringing enterprise. Defendants’ resellers market and promote CCM as a substitute for authorized and licensed distributors,” the lawsuit claimed.

Alleging willful direct copyright infringement, the plaintiffs demanded the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work plus the same amount per work as a result of CCM inducing others by “encouraging, and promoting” the use of CCM for copyright infringement purposes.

Parties Reach Settlement Agreement

While these kinds of cases have the potential to roll on for some time, it transpires the plaintiffs and TTKN/CCM plus named defendants Todd and Tori Smith have agreed to settle their dispute. The agreement was reached on November 2, 2020, and as a result, they are together asking the court to sign off on a judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding a permanent injunction and damages.

In respect of the injunction, the defendants comprehensively agree not to distribute any copyrighted content owned by the plaintiffs or their subsidiaries in any manner, including via streaming. All operations of Crystal Clear Media must be completely shut down within five days of any injunction and its operators are barred from distributing or otherwise releasing any of its source code, domain names, trademarks and other assets.

“Defendants irrevocably and fully waive notice of entry of the Permanent Injunction, and understand and agree that violation of the Permanent Injunction will expose Defendant to all penalties provided by law, including contempt of Court,” it reads.

“Defendants consent to the continuing jurisdiction of the Court for purposes of enforcement of the Permanent Injunction, and irrevocably and fully waive and relinquish any argument that venue or jurisdiction by this Court is improper or inconvenient.”

Proposed Judgment Includes a Massive Damages Award

The original complaint included references to the now-defunct Vaders IPTV service that was also targeted by the same plaintiffs in a largely secret lawsuit in Canada. However, while the Vaders/Vader Streams matter ended in a $10 million damages award in favor of the studios, TTKN/CCM has agreed to pay substantially more than its former rival.

“Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendant TTKN Enterprises, LLC d/b/a Crystal Clear Media, in the total amount of forty million dollars ($40 million),” the proposed judgment reads.

While the proposed consent judgment and permanent injunction are yet to be signed off by Judge George H. Wu in a California court, the nature of the agreement means that is likely to be a formality in the days to come.

The proposed orders can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 pdf)

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

With more ways to stream online video than ever before, protecting video continues to be a key issue for copyright holders.

This is often achieved through Digital Rights Management, which is often referred to by the initials DRM. In a nutshell, DRM is an anti-piracy tool that dictates when and where digital content can be accessed.

Google is an important player in this area. The company owns the Widevine DRM technology which is used by many of the largest streaming services including Amazon, Netflix and Disney+. As such, keeping it secure is vital.

Widevine DRM

Widevine DRM comes in different levels. The L1 variant is the most secure, followed by L2 and L3. While the latter still protects content from being easily downloaded, it’s certainly not impossible to bypass, as pirates have repeatedly shown.

Despite its vulnerabilities, Google doesn’t want to make it too easy for the public at large. This became apparent a few hours ago when the company asked the developer platform GitHub to remove dozens of “Widevine L3 Decryptor” repositories.

The code, originally published by security researcher Tomer Hadad, is a proof-of-concept code Chrome extension that shows how easy it is to bypass the low-security DRM. Google was aware of this vulnerability and previously informed Krebs Security that it would address the issue.

Google Targets Widevine L3 Decryptor Code

One option would be to patch the security flaw but, for now, Google appears to be focusing on the takedown route. In a DMCA notice sent to GitHub, the company requests the immediate takedown of dozens of “Widevine L3 Decryptor” copies.

“The following git repository [sic] contain circumvention technology that enables users to illegally access video and audio works protected by copyright,” Google writes .

“This Chrome extension demonstrates how it’s possible to bypass Widevine DRM by hijacking calls to the browser’s Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and decrypting all Widevine content keys transferred – effectively turning it into a clearkey DRM,” Google adds.

Google sees the code, which was explicitly published for educational purposes only, as a circumvention tool. As such, it allegedly violates section 1201 of the DMCA, an allegation that was also made against the youtube-dl code last month.

The takedown notice includes a long list of repositories that were all made unavailable by GitHub. This doesn’t cover the original code from Tomer Hadad, who already removed his version in late October, citing “ legal reasons .”

Google views this vulnerability as a serious matter and the company says that it has also filed a Sensitive Data takedown request to prevent the Widevine’s ‘secret’ private key from being publicly shared.

Sensitive Data Request

“In addition to this request, we have filed a separate Sensitive Data takedown request of this file: /widevine-l3-decryptor as it contains the secret Widevine RSA private key, which was extracted from the Widevine CDM and can be used in other circumvention technologies.”

That last mention is interesting as private keys, which are simply a string of characters, are not seen as copyrighted or private content by everyone.

“If you distribute your key with the software, then whatever form it is in, I would not consider it “private” at all,” a commenter on Hacker News points out.

Googling the AACS Key

This ‘key controversy’ is reminiscent of an issue that was widely debated thirteen years ago. At the time, a hacker leaked the AACS cryptographic key “09 F9” online which prompted the MPAA and AACS LA to issue DMCA takedown requests to sites where it surfaced.

This escalated into a censorship debate when sites started removing articles that referenced the leak, triggering a massive backlash.

At the time, the controversial AACS key was still readily available through Google’s search engine. In that regard very little has changed. Despite Google’s sensitive data takedown request, the Widevine RSA key is easy to find through its own search engine.

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

A recent survey commission by the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy ( CAP ) and conducted by YouGov revealed that around 53% of online consumers in Thailand use illegal streaming platforms or torrent sites to access otherwise premium content.

The survey also found that of those who admitted using such platforms, around 66% claimed to have canceled some or even all of their legal subscriptions as a result. This and other similar reports helped sound alarm bells in the country so, last month, authorities carried out a series of actions to shut down pirate sites.

Raids During October, Resurrected Sites Hit Again in November

On October 22, the Department of Special Investigation carried out raids targeting a number of illegal sites, shutting several down while seizing computer equipment. Among them were Kingiptv.cc, Doohdbox.com, and Hdplay.tv but it appears that the operators of these platforms weren’t immediately ready to throw in the towel.

According to local media reports , the three sites switched to new domains – Kingiptv.cc to Kingiptv.info, doohdbox.com to skyhdbox.com, and hdplay.tv to hdlive.site. This prompted further action by the authorities.

Lieutenant Colonel Wichai Suwanprasert, head of the DSI’s Bureau of Technology and Cyber Crime, says that his unit traced the whereabouts of the resurrected sites and subsequently raided four locations in Bangkok, Nakhon Pathom, and two areas in the central province of Samut Prakan.

In addition to shutting down the four streaming platforms, which together generated an alleged seven million baht per month (US$229,357), officers also seized computer hardware, mobile phones, bank books and ATM cards.

“These websites were streaming copyright material belonging to True Visions Group Co and the Motion Picture Association without permission,” said Police Lieutenant Col Wichai.

Earlier Collaboration Between the MPA and DSI

TrueVisions is a cable and satellite television operator in Thailand and as the group representing the major Hollywood studios and Netflix, the Motion Picture Association needs little introduction.

The MPA and DSI already have an operational relationship. Following an MPA request late 2019, the DSI shut down streaming portal Movie2free.com, arresting a 22-year-old man.

At the time, Movie2free.com was Thailand’s most popular pirate site and one of the most popular on the Internet, period. It had previously appeared in the MPA’s overview of “notorious pirate sites”, which was submitted to the United States Trade Representative.

Site-Blocking in Thailand

Back in August, the Department of Intellectual Property (DIP), the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES), and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) announced new site-blocking provisions to deal more efficiently with the threat posed by pirate sites.

After a court hands down a blocking injunction, Internet service providers now have just 15 days to block domains, including new domains that are used by pirate site operators to circumvent blocking orders. Failing to do so so means an ISP can be fined under the Computer Crimes Act.

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

With millions of regular users per day, The Pirate Bay is arguably the most visited torrent site on the web.

TPB officially operates from the domain thepiratebay.org which has been in use for more than seventeen years now.

Just in case something happens to the original domain, the site also owns several alternatives. Until recently, this included prominent domains such as Piratebay.org and Thepiratebay.com.

Piratebay.org Sold For $50,000

These backup domains have been linked to the official Pirate Bay team for years. However, this summer the owner ‘forgot’ to renew them. As a result, they ended up at auctions where Piratebay.org sold for $50,000 and Thepiratebay.com brought in $35,150.

This money didn’t go to The Pirate Bay team, obviously, but to the professional ‘drop catch‘ service Dropcatch.com, which scooped them up.

These types of sales are not unusual. There’s a whole industry of traders who buy high traffic domains, which are usually monetized through ad feeds. This is exactly what happened to Thepiratebay.com.

That said, the $50,000 price tag of Piratebay.org was higher than usual. According to a domain expert who participated in the bidding, it’s not worth that much for regular brokers. That begged the question, who bought it, and what are the plans?

Pirate Bay Pictures

A few days after the sale the buyer appeared to uncover the ‘masterplan’. The domain was put up for sale again by an unknown entity called “PirateBay Pictures” who said they are crowdfunding a new film; The Torrent Man .

We were highlyy skeptical of this claim and asked the domain owner some questions, which remain unanswered today. As it turns out, the skepticism was warranted as the “Torrent Man” pitch disappeared recently. Instead, Piratebay.org now redirects to a TPB proxy.

A quick look at the Whois data shows that the domain wasn’t sold again, which makes sense, as the $2 million asking price was a bit high.

Recoup The Investment

It seems more likely that the whole “Torrent Man” announcement was simply a trick to generate more press attention, which we hinted at before. More backlinks raise the value of a domain name after all.

It’s possible that the redirect, which currently points to pirate-bay-proxy.org, will change again in the future. The goal will likely remain the same though, recoup the $50,000 investment.

At the time of writing, pirate-bay-proxy.org displays prominent popups for NordVPN. Those can be easily closed, after which it operates as a regular proxy, which loads another proxy (tpb.party) through an iframe.

The pirate-bay-proxy.org homepage itself is littered with keywords that are meant to draw search engine traffic. This also reveals that the person operating it isn’t really in tune with the true Pirate Bay attitude, as the page ends with the following statement…

“ Copyright ©2020 Pirate Bay .”

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

Lawsuits against alleged movie pirates are nothing new. We have reported on many dozens over the years.

More recently, Hawaii-based attorney Kerry Culpepper added a new element to these cases when he singled out YTS users .

The lawyer was able to do this because YTS handed over database information as part of a private settlement. A rather concerning development, which caused quite a stir among torrent users and site owners.

This tactic is interesting from a few perspectives. For one, the database information is additional evidence and provides valuable information such as email addresses. In addition, calling a torrent site by name may deter some people from using it in the future. It’s a win-win.

Lawsuit Against Alleged RARBG Users

That last argument may be why a new lawsuit, filed on behalf of the makers of the films Rambo V: Last Blood and Ava, singles out the torrent site RARBG.

In a complaint filed at a federal court in Hawaii, the movie companies accuse 16 “John Doe” defendants who are only known by their IP-addresses. These people were tracked by the company Maverickeye, which provides evidence for many related cases.

In this case, the IP-addresses are linked to torrents for the movies ‘Ava’ and ‘Rambo V,’ which are shared on many pirate sites. However, the movie companies specifically call out RARBG.

“Upon information and belief, each of the Defendants registered for an account on the movie piracy website ‘RARBG’ using an email address or installed a BitTorrent Client application on their device that retrieved torrent files from the movie piracy website ‘RARBG’,” they write.

What Evidence is There?

The RARBG mention is unusual because there’s no evidence to back up the claim that the defendants actually used this site. RARBG didn’t share any user data, as opposed to YTS.

The only link to RARBG we can spot is that the torrents “Ava.2020.WEBDL.x264-FGT” and “Rambo.Last.Blood.2019.1080p.KORSUB.HDRip.x264.AAC2.0-STUTTERSHIT” are shared on the popular torrent site. That said, the same files, linking to the same swarms, are available elsewhere too.

Nonetheless, RARBG is prominently mentioned throughout the complaint. The “notorious” pirate site “promotes and distributes” pirated content, the companies say.

“As shown in the screenshot below, the movie piracy website ‘RARBG’ promotes and distributes the infringing torrent file ‘Ava.2020.WEBDL.x264-FGT’ which Defendants downloaded and used to display, reproduce and distribute the Work Ava.”

Whether the defendants used RARBG or another site doesn’t change the copyright infringement allegations. These are totally independent of the site from which the torrents were downloaded.

TorrentFreak reached out to the plaintiffs’ attorney who refused to comment on the issue. One possibility we could think of is that the site is mentioned to signal to users that they are vulnerable. But that would equally apply to other sites.

Copyright Infringements and DMCA Violation

Looking at the actual allegations, a familiar theme appears. All 16 ‘Does’ are accused of direct and contributory copyright infringement for allegedly sharing copies of the movie Ava, and one defendant also shared the Rambo film.

In addition, the defendants are further accused of violating the DMCA by altering copyright management information (CMI). In this case, that means distributing the movies with an edited title, which references pirate groups such as “FGT” and “STUTTERSHIT”.

“Defendants knew that neither ‘FGT’ nor ‘STUTTERSH*T’ were the authors of Plaintiffs’ Works,” the complaint reads.

As is common in these types of cases, the movie companies requested a subpoena to compel the ISP, Verizon Wireless, to hand over the personal details of the associated subscribers. If granted, the accused will likely be offered a settlement of a few hundred dollars or more.

Update: RARBG issued the following statement to us: “We do not log ip addresses on downloads or any registered user IP addresses. It is our strong belief that these ip addresses were collected by p2p monitoring on torrent swarms.”

—

A copy of the complaint filed on behalf of Eve Nevada, LLC and Rambo V Productions, Inc, is available here (pdf)

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

After roughly two decades of pirated movies being shared online, movie companies are still trying to find a way to stem the flow.

Despite its aggressive actions elsewhere, most Hollywood studios have largely shied away from targeting individual pirates with lawsuits. The same cannot be said about a relatively small subset of companies, who are very happy to target thousands of them worldwide, demanding cash settlements in lieu of a drawn-out court battle.

LHF Productions, one of the companies behind the blockbuster movie ‘London Has Fallen’ is one such company and over the years has filed lawsuits against alleged pirates in both the United States and Europe. In the former, the company has enjoyed some success but a case that has just gone all the way in the US, without the defendant mounting even a basic defense, hasn’t gone exactly to plan.

Multiple Defendants Targeted in a Utah Court

Early 2017, LHF Productions filed a lawsuit against 30 alleged pirates in a Utah court, claiming they downloaded and shared London Has Fallen using BitTorrent. The case has rolled on for more than three years, with various defendants removed from the action after appearing to reach settlement agreements with LHF.

The details of these settlements are private but one defendant, named as Amanda Steel, hasn’t played ball from the start. Mounting no defense, the alleged pirate could have faced a huge damages award but this week, in an order handed down by District Judge David Nuffer, Steel got off quite lightly.

Plaintiffs Demanded $10,000 in Damages, Judge Says No

After failing to respond to the lawsuit, Steel could’ve been on the hook for $150,000 in statutory damages, in theory at least. In the event, LHF put in a demand for a default judgment of $10,000 as well as a permanent injunction but the Judge wasn’t happy with that lowered figure either.

The judgment reveals that the Judge was satisfied that a default was warranted in this case and accepted the plaintiff’s allegations that the infringement was willful. This meant that Steel was facing a potential damages award of between $750 and $150,000, at the Judge’s discretion.

LHF argued that its $10,000 demand was reasonable and at a level that would deter future infringement. The company also cited five cases from other jurisdictions where that amount was deemed acceptable to the courts.

For example, one case dating back to 2012 saw the defendant hit with $1.5m in damages for pirating 10 movies. However, Judge Nuffer said that in that matter, no findings or conclusions were officially entered on file, other than the allegations and default. Another case two years later, where a default judgment of $10,000 was awarded for infringement of a single movie, was deficient in the same regard.

The Judge went to state that in the cited cases, the courts were willing to grant the requested amount in statutory damages, provided they did not reach the statutory maximum. He concluded that was likely due to the plaintiffs being unchallenged by the defaulted defendants. Describing the cases as lacking in “meaningful analysis”, the Judge concluded that along with several other similar cases between 2012 and 2017, they were “not persuasive.”

Other Courts have Awarded Substantially Less Than $10,000

Outside of the cases cited by LHF, the Judge noted that some courts had developed and applied factors that led to greater consistency in statutory damages awards against defaulted defendants. A Malibu Media case in 2014, for example, awarded $750 on the basis that the plaintiff provided very little factual detail regarding the defendant’s actions. Other cases shared similar traits.

In his decision, Judge Nuffer decided to apply six factors previously outlined in a 2016 case involving Malibu Media; whether the defendant was the original seeder, whether the defendant profited or saved money from the infringement, the plaintiff’s actual losses, whether the damages amount would result in a “windfall” for the plaintiff, the deterrent effect of the damages, and the defendant’s willfulness and intent.

The Judge in this case weighed those same factors and determined that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the request for $10,000 in statutory damages was over the top.

Judge Nuffer found that there was no evidence that Steel was an original seeder, no evidence relating to the number of users in the BitTorrent swarm, and no evidence showing how many people downloaded the file from the defendant’s computer. On top, the Judge said it was reasonable to conclude that the only monetary gain made by the defendant was the money saved on renting or buying a copy of the movie and the losses for the plaintiff would’ve been the same amount.

Given the above, $10,000 in damages would result in a windfall for the plaintiffs and at around 25 times the amount it would cost to rent or buy the movie, $750 would act as a deterrent. In respect of the defendant’s intent, LHF provided inadequate evidence.

“Ultimately, considering the relevant factors collectively, along with all the circumstances of this case, an award of the $750 statutory damages against Defendant is just,” the Judge wrote in his order.

“This award adequately serves the compensatory and punitive purposes of statutory damages to sanction Defendant and vindicates the statutory policy of discouraging future infringement. This award is also consistent with the nationwide trend in awarding minimum statutory damages against defaulted defendants.”

While the damages award is indeed relatively low, it is worth pointing out that the defendant is liable to pay LHF’s costs and reasonable attorney’s fees, which are yet to be decided.

The memorandum decision and default judgment can be found here (pdf)

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