Peter Sunde was one of the key people behind The Pirate Bay in the early years, a role for which he was eventually convicted in Sweden .

While Sunde cut his ties with the notorious torrent site many years ago, he remains an active and vocal personality on the Internet.

In recent years Sunde has focused on several other projects. His links to the domain registration service Njalla and the Ipredator VPN are well known, and he also hosted the documentary series “ Activisten ” on Finnish television.

Sunde’s Domain Name Business

Sunde is also involved with the domain registrar Sarek , which caters to technology enthusiasts and people who are interested in a fair and balanced Internet, promising low prices for domain registrations

As a business, everything was going well for Sarek. The company made several deals with domain registries to offer cheap domains but there is one element that’s missing. To resell the most popular domains, including .com and .org, it has to be accredited by ICANN .

ICANN is the main oversight body for the Internet’s global domain name system. Among other things, it develops policies for accredited registrars to prevent abuse and illegal use of domain names. Without this accreditation, reselling several popular domains simply isn’t an option.

ICANN Denies Accreditation

Sunde and the Sarek team hoped to overcome this hurdle and started the ICANN accreditation process in 2019. After a long period of waiting, the organization recently informed Sunde that his application was denied.

Needless to say, Sunde was disappointed with the decision and he took his frustration to Twitter a few days ago . Initially, he assumed that the application was denied because ICANN concluded that he ‘lied’ about his background.

The accreditation form requires applicants to tick a box if they have been convicted for fraud or something similar. Sunde didn’t tick this box, as he was convicted for criminal copyright infringement. This ‘error’ was swiftly noticed by ICANN, which is also uneasy with other parts of the Pirate Bay founder’s history.

Ticking Boxes

“After the background check I get a reply that I’ve checked the wrong boxes,” Sunde wrote. “Not only that, but they’re also upset I was wanted by Interpol.”

The Twitter thread didn’t go unnoticed by ICANN who contacted Sunde over the phone to offer clarification. As it turns out, the ‘wrong box’ issue isn’t the main problem, as he explains in a follow-up Twitter thread.

“I got some sort of semi-excuse regarding their claim that I lied on my application. They also said that they agreed it wasn’t fraud or similar really. So both of the points they made regarding the denial were not really the reason,” Sunde clarifies.

ICANN is Not Comfortable With Sunde

Over the phone, ICANN explained that the matter was discussed internally. This unnamed group of people concluded that the organization is ‘not comfortable’ doing business with him.

“They basically admitted that they don’t like me. They’ve banned me for nothing else than my political views. This is typical discrimination. Considering I have no one to appeal to except them, it’s concerning, since they control the actual fucking center of the internet.”

ICANN hasn’t commented publicly on the matter and the organization didn’t immediately respond to our request for further information. However, Sunde tells us that his ‘background’ is obviously the reason for the denial. And copyright plays a role in this as well.

“They said it outright in the phone call, it’s me they don’t feel comfortable with. They said they take Intellectual Property rights so seriously that I can’t join,” Sunde tells us.

Making matters worse, ICANN will also keep the registration fee, so this whole ordeal is costing money as well.

What’s the Real Issue?

While Sunde understands that there are people who don’t agree with his views on certain things, that shouldn’t be a problem here. After all, ICANN is heavily regulated and it could easily revoke accreditation should its policies be violated.

Without an on-the-record statement from ICANN, we can only speculate on what ‘background issues’ the organization is concerned with. There are a few to choose from.

Needless to say, The Pirate Bay has caused ICANN quite a few headaches. Over the years copyright industry groups such as the MPA and RIAA have repeatedly asked ICANN to step in and ban these domains.

Thus far, ICANN has always said that it doesn’t want to ‘police the Internet’ and that courts can deal with this issue. However, the pressure from rightsholders may indirectly play a role here.

Sunde may have upset ICANN in other ways as well. Roughly a decade ago, he promoted a P2P-based DNS system to compete with ICANN’s root-server and bypass its control over the Internet.

Notorious Market?

And then there’s the privacy-oriented domain registration service Njalla, where Sunde is involved as well. Njalla is a legitimate company that helps people maintain their privacy, but copyright holders don’t like it, as it frustrates their enforcement efforts.

Just a few months ago, several rightsholder groups nominated Njalla for the US Trade Representative annual overview of “ notorious markets ,” which may have factored into ICANN’s decision as well.

Whatever the reason, Sunde is clearly disappointed and he has already filed a complaint at ICANN. In addition, he reached out to digital and human rights groups to see if there are more options to appeal.

“I’m talking with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ARTICLE 19 right now,” Sunde tells us. “And I’ve left a complaint with the ICANN complaints team, but that will likely lead to nothing.”

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

In September 2019, Super Channel owner Allarco Entertainment filed a lawsuit in Canada’s Federal Court targeting Staples Canada, Best Buy Canada, London Drugs, Canada Computers, several related companies and up to 50,000 ‘John Doe’ customers.

The controversial legal action saw Allarco accuse the retailers and their staff of promoting, encouraging and instructing in the use of set-top boxes that could enable buyers to access copyright-infringing content.

The complaint was supported by 100 hours of undercover recordings that purported to show retailers’ staff showing prospective customers how to use software such as Kodi, or offering advice on where to get devices configured for piracy.

Allarco demanded an injunction to prevent the defendants from “communicating or facilitating the communication” of its works without permission, including by “configuring, advertising, offering for sale or selling Pirate Devices.”

Allarco Ends Federal Court Lawsuit, Launches Another

A month after the lawsuit was filed, Canadian lawyer Howard Knopf wrote that in nearly four decades of being an intellectual property lawyer, he had never seen a more unusual Statement of Claim.

He noted that it claimed copyright infringement in unspecified works, circumvention, making available, unspecified “pirate devices”, trademark infringement, the Criminal Code, through to theft, stealing, interference with the economic and business relations of the Plaintiff, and conspiracy.

After the retailers fought back, Allarco discontinued its Federal Court lawsuit on January 6, 2020. However, Allarco had already filed another similar lawsuit on December 6, 2019, this time at the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta (Alberta’s superior court). The complaint added unknown suppliers of ‘pirate’ devices as defendants and demanded CAD$50m in damages.

“It’s too early to speculate about what Allarco will attempt to do and what the Court might let it do about the 50,000 John Doe Customers or the now added John Doe Suppliers and how their interests will be represented if things ever get anywhere near that far,” Knopf wrote at the time.

However, several months later, a new report indicates that matters are now progressing.

Allarco Demands ‘Pirate’ Set-Top Device Ban

Doubling down on its allegations of wrongdoing at the retailers, Allarco is now demanding an injunction from the Court that would prevent them from offering the set-top boxes for sale.

Whether the Court will find such a request reasonable in respect of devices that are used by millions to access entirely legal services such as Netflix is yet to be determined. Allarco, meanwhile, believes that people buy them for only one thing – piracy.

“The only reason why people buy these boxes is to steal content,” says Allarco president and chief executive officer Donald McDonald, as quoted by Globe and Mail.

Interestingly, in common with his counterparts right across the streaming industry, McDonald says that the ‘pirate’ devices – which are largely Android-based and imported from China – are often preloaded with malware that targets consumers and puts their security at risk.

“These devices are dangerous to your home network, dangerous to your personal data and could end up costing you a lot more money in the end,” he says, showing concern for the people his company is hoping to sue.

Retailers Deny The Allegations

Ever since the first lawsuit was filed in 2019, Staples Canada, Best Buy Canada, London Drugs, and Canada Computers have vigorously denied the Allarco/Super Channel allegations. All were reportedly sent cease-and-desist notices before the actions were filed but all claim to have acted within the law.

“We offer technology from reputable manufacturers and leading brands. We take claims of intellectual property infringement seriously, but we believe that Super Channel’s claims are without merit, and intend to defend this action vigorously,” an earlier Best Buy statement reads.

While Staples and Best Buy are opting not to comment at this stage, London Drugs said it would “never intentionally take or condone” any action that would infringe intellectual property rights.

“London Drugs has always respected the rights of content creators and holders of copyright in all forms. We sell products and provide services for many parties engaged in content creation and distribution and recognize and fully support their right to fair compensation,” the company says.

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

The US Government regularly cautions foreign countries for their lacking copyright policies. However, it has its own issues as well.

Five years ago the US Navy was sued for mass copyright infringement and accused of causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Software Company Sues US Navy

The lawsuit was filed by the German company Bitmanagement . It’s not a typical piracy case in the sense that software was downloaded from shady sources. However, the end result is the same.

It all started in 2011, when the US Navy began testing the company’s 3D virtual reality application ‘BS Contact’. After some testing, the Navy installed the software across its network, assuming that it had permission to do so.

This turned out to be a crucial misunderstanding. Bitmanagement said it never authorized this type of use and when it heard that the Navy had installed the software on 558,466 computers, the company took legal action.

Hundreds of Millions in Damages

In a complaint filed at the United States Court of Federal Claims in 2016, the German company accused the US Navy of mass copyright infringement and demanded damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The dispute started when the US Navy decided that it would like to run the software across its entire network. This meant that it would be installed on hundreds of thousands of computers, with “Flexera” software keeping track of the number of simultaneous users.

Bitmanagement didn’t offer such a license by default, so the Navy requested this option separately. These requests took place through a reseller, Planet 9 Studios, which complicated matters. After several back and forths, the Navy was convinced that it had permission, but Bitmanagement later disagreed.

The problem for the Court was that the Navy and Bitmanagement didn’t sign a contract, so there was no direct permission given. This meant that the Court had to review the conversations and exchanges that took place, to determine which side was right.

After reviewing all evidence, the Federal Claims court eventually sided with the US Navy, dismissing the copyright infringement claim .

Bitmanagement Appeals

However, this wasn’t the end of it. Bitmanagement maintained that the Navy clearly committed mass copyright infringement and the company took the matter to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, with success.

In an order issued a few days ago, the Appeals Court agrees with pretty much all conclusions of the Federal Claims Court.

The evidence indeed shows that Bitmanagement ‘authorized’ the U.S. Navy’s copying of BS Contact Geo across its network. While this wasn’t formalized in an official contract, the Navy had an “implied license.”

Navy Failed to Track Usage

Based on this reasoning, the lower court dismissed the case. However, the Appeals Court notes that the evidence doesn’t stop there. The implied license also required the Navy to “Flexwrap” the software to track simultaneous users. That never happened.

“We do not disturb the Claims Court’s findings. The Claims Court ended its analysis of this case prematurely, however, by failing to consider whether the Navy complied with the terms of the implied license,” the Appeals Court writes.

“The implied license was conditioned on the Navy using a license-tracking software, Flexera, to ‘FlexWrap’ the program and monitor the number of simultaneous users. It is undisputed that the Navy failed to effectively FlexWrap the copies it made,” the Court adds.

Liable For Copyright Infringement

This failure on the Navy’s part makes the US Government liable for copyright infringement. The Navy simply wasn’t allowed to copy the software on hundreds of thousands of computers without tracking its use.

“Such unauthorized copying is copyright infringement. We therefore vacate the Claims Court’s judgment and remand for a determination of damages,” the Appeals Court clarifies.

This means that the dismissal is off the table and the Navy is liable for copyright infringement after all. The matter will now go back to the Federal Claims court, to determine the appropriate damages amount.

In the original complaint, Bitmanagement argued that it is entitled to at least $596,308,103 in unpaid licensing fees, so this could turn out to be an expensive error.

—

A copy of the order issued by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is available here (pdf)

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

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

“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.

In November 2019, US broadcaster DISH Network filed a lawsuit in a Texas district court targeting the operators of 15 domains used to illegally stream DISH content to the public.

The domains – Freetvall.net, Freetvall.xyz, Freetvall.me, Freetvall.live, Livetvcafe.com, Livetvcafe.net, Livetvcafe.me, Time4tv.com, Time4tv.net, Time4tv.me, Cricket-tv.net, Crickettv.me, Tv4embed.com, and A1livetv.com – offered a wide range of embedded TV channels, not only from DISH but other broadcasters including Sky and ESPN.

DISH’s Exclusive License to Broadcast in the United States

In its complaint , DISH listed around two dozen channels offered by the network of sites. Through licensing agreements, DISH holds the exclusive rights to distribute and publicly perform the channels in the United States. The sites had no such permission.

As the lawsuit progressed, DISH concluded that all of the sites were operated by one person, who was subsequently named as Nauman Khalid.

DISH claimed that the defendant provided users in the United States with links to unauthorized streams of its protected channels by collecting them from other locations on the Internet and organizing them on his websites. The whole operation was monetized with advertising.

DISH Notified Defendant of Infringement Dozens of Times

During a period spanning several years, DISH notified Khalid “at least” 49 times that he was infringing the company’s rights by providing infringing links to a US audience. DISH backed up this effort by sending similar notifications to Internet services utilized by the sites but Khalid “intentionally interfered” with these by changing providers or using new links.

DISH alleged that Khalid “induced and materially contributed” to offenses carried out in breach of US copyright law. Khalid was served in Pakistan but chose not to participate in the legal action against him in the US. As a result, DISH sought to obtain a default judgment from the court.

Court’s Decision – Direct and Contributory Infringement

In a memorandum opinion and order signed last week, the court found that the works at issue in the suit were authored in countries outside the United States but because those countries are all signatories to the Berne Convention , all are protected under US copyright law. In any event, all works were registered with the US Copyright Office.

In respect of the allegations of direct infringement, the court found that when Khalid provided links that enabled the retransmission of DISH content, that infringed the company’s rights to publicly perform those works. The court further found that Khalid had knowledge of these infringements since he had received at least some of the takedown notices sent by DISH.

Moving to DISH’s allegations of contributory copyright infringement, the court found that by selecting infringing links to channels and by organizing and maintaining them, Khalid “created the audience” to complete the direct infringement carried out by the unlicensed provider of the channels. As such, the allegations of inducement and material contribution were found to valid.

Question of Damages

When claiming damages, DISH had the option to choose actual damages and profits or statutory damages – the company settle on the latter. That meant the broadcaster could obtain $30,000 per infringed work and up to $150,000 if the infringement was committed willfully.

DISH elected to pursue statutory damages for 112 works registered with the US Copyright Office, to the maximum of $150,000 per infringement. The company alleged that even after sending takedown notices, Khalid continued to provide access to the broadcaster’s channels.

In support of its claim for maximum statutory damages, DISH told the court that Khalid had been infringing its rights for between five and nine years, claiming that its channels were viewed over 5.5 million times. The court agreed that the websites had caused DISH to incur substantial losses, adding that the offending was considerable.

“Because of the sheer breadth and duration of the infringement, the failure of Khalid to participate in this proceeding, his willingness to defy almost 50 notices of infringement and to evade service providers’ attempts to halt the infringement, and the likelihood that he profited from the infringement and caused substantial losses of revenue to DISH, the court finds that an award of maximum statutory damages — $150,000 per registered work — is appropriate,” the decision reads.

“Therefore, the total amount of damages that Khalid must pay DISH for the infringement of the 112 registered works is $16,800,000.”

Permanent Injunction

In addition to damages, DISH demanded a permanent injunction and the court was happy to comply. First turning to Khalid and anyone acting in concert with him, the court issued an injunction enjoining all parties from transmitting, streaming, distributing, linking, hosting, promoting or advertising any of DISH’s protected channels in the United States.

Moving to non-parties, such as those providing any kind of technical service enabling the defendant to infringe, the court permanently enjoined all entities providing servers, hosting (including data centers), domain hosting/registration/proxy services, CDNs, advertising and social media, from doing business with Khalid that involves breaching DISH’s rights.

Specifically, the court ordered VeriSign and any other registry or registrar of the listed domains to transfer them to DISH within 48 hours so that the broadcaster may “fully control and use” them. Additionally, registries and registrars were ordered to restrict any future domain names used by Khalid to provide access to DISH works by disabling them within 48 hours of receiving a complaint from DISH.

“Such domain names shall remain disabled so that the websites and content located at the domain names are inaccessible to the public until further order of this Court, or until DISH provides written notice to the registry or registrar that the domain names shall be reenabled,” the order concludes.

The memorandum opinion and order and final judgment can be found here and here (pdf)

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

Changes in power often present opportunities, including in the US where a new President and Congress were recently sworn in.

Last week, we reported how a pro-copyright coalition took this opportunity to ask President Biden for help in their battle against online piracy .

The copyright holders were particularly critical of big tech companies such as Google and Facebook, accusing them of hiding behind the DMCA’s safe harbor. That should stop, they argued, calling for stricter copyright policies.

Re:Create Wants a Balanced Copyright Law

Not everyone agrees with this stance. In fact, the Re:Create Coalition , which includes members such as the Consumer Technology Association, the American Library Association, the CCIA, and EFF, is in favor of more ‘balanced’ copyright policies.

The coalition sent a letter to the 117th Congress last week, warning that copyright laws and regulations have a downside too. When they go too far, it can harm creativity and stifle free speech.

“Attempts to increase the protections provided by U.S. copyright law may serve an important purpose, but in doing so we must remain mindful that a heavy-handed approach will only stifle free speech, creativity and the economy writ large,” Re:Create writes.

“The U.S. government should seek the appropriate balance in copyright law to unlock the full potential of all people’s innovative and creative spirit,” the group adds.

Unlike many copyright industry groups, Re:Create believes that the DMCA is already balanced and working properly. The notice-and-takedown system is seen as an international standard that protects online services while allowing copyright holders to protect their content.

Protecting the Public by Punishing Abuse

However, the coalition sees some developments of concern. For example, companies such as YouTube allow rightsholders to de-monetize or block content that could be fair use. This stifles free speech.

To prevent these types of ‘abuse’ it should be easier to contest these takedown requests. In addition, there should be penalties for people and companies that abuse the takedown process.

“We recommend that the DMCA’s notice and takedown regime largely be left alone, although there is a need to strengthen the penalties for abusive and fraudulent notices, and to make it easier to file counter-notices on non-infringing content,” Re:Create writes.

The letter also highlights another DMCA-related concern. In recent years several Internet providers have been sued because they failed to terminate “repeat infringers.” As a result, ISPs have implemented stricter termination policies.

Disconnecting Internet Users Isn’t Right

This is a problem, Re:Create warns, as Internet access is a fundamental part of people’s lives. Cutting Internet access to entire households simply based on copyright infringement accusations goes too far.

“Internet access is a necessity in today’s society – being cut off from the internet could mean losing a job or not being able to participate in school fully,” Re:Create writes.

“Just because one household member has had multiple allegations of copyright infringement against them, the whole household should not lose internet access. Copyright law should be amended to ensure that no one loses access to the internet based on allegations of copyright infringement.”

The letter highlights several other issues that Congress may want to reconsider as well. These include broadening DMCA exceptions that allow people to break DRM. In addition, Re:Create warns that the newly adopted Small Claims Act should become ‘opt-in’, instead of ‘opt-out’.

Progress Without Restrictions

All in all, the letter reminds Congress that copyright law isn’t about restrictions. It was originally implemented to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” This means that fewer restrictions can actually prove beneficial.

“Copyright law, by its very nature, needs to focus on how to best allow this progress to occur. Restrictive rules that strengthen gatekeepers to the creative world and prevent new and different types of creativity go against this Constitutional purpose,” the coalition writes.

—

A copy of the letter Re:Create sent to the 117th US Congress is available here (pdf)

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

In the early nineties, software companies already realized that piracy posed a major threat to their business.

Computers became more popular and millions of people broke the law by copying floppies, without the permission of copyright holders.

Don’t Copy That Floppy

This illicit activity was a thorn in the side of the Software Publishers Association. In an attempt to educate the masses, it released the “Don’t Copy That Floppy” anti-piracy campaign that’s still known to this day.

The iconic video features ME Hart, starring as “MC Double Def DP,” and two teenagers who are about to tread on the piracy path. For a variety of reasons, the video struck a nerve with an entire generation.

Today, almost thirty years later, people still refer to the campaign. The PSA has its own Wikipedia entry and became a meme by itself. It has generated millions of views on YouTube and the number is still rising.

It’s safe to say that lot has changed since “Don’t Copy That Floppy” first came out. The software industry has long abandoned floppies and nowadays most piracy takes place on the Internet. However, unauthorized copying remains a problem.

Current Anti-Piracy Focus

Despite the ‘success’ of their anti-piracy campaign three decades ago, we haven’t heard much from the Software Publishers Association recently. The industry group, currently known as the Software and Information Industry Association ( SIIA ), hasn’t taken any pirates or pirate services to court, as far as we know.

However, this doesn’t mean that SIIA is no longer concerned with copyright infringements. Instead of fighting casual users or pirate sites, it now focuses on corporate copyright infringement.

This week we stumbled upon the group’s rather generous “rewards” program. While this has been in place for a while, it is worth highlighting.

Report Piracy

The industry group has a special section on its website that’s dedicated to reporting piracy. According to SIIA, unauthorized copying results in an estimated $8 billion in lost sales. To address this issue, they ask the public for help.

“Piracy is stealing. We need your help to combat this crime. If you see something, say something. Report issues of piracy here. SIIA advocates for the industry and protects intellectual property from theft,” SIIA writes.

While not everyone likes the idea of ‘snitching’ on pirates, SIIA has an offer that many will find hard to refuse.

$1 Million Reward

“By reporting software piracy to SIIA you could earn up to $1,000,000,” they promise. At the same time, they offer strict confidentiality to whistleblowers.

Needless to say, this approach is quite different from the “Don’t Copy That Floppy” campaign. While rewards for reporting piracy are not new, $1,000,000 is a substantial sum of money that pales in comparison to the few hundred dollars or pounds theater employees can get .

That being said, when we look at SIIA’s fine print it becomes clear that one has to get very lucky to hit this jackpot.

For one, the reward only applies to situations where corporations use pirated software. If someone reports an issue at his or her employer, SIIA may choose to follow this up, which could ultimately lead to a settlement. The scale of this settlement will determine the award.

“If all the eligibility requirements are met and the settlement amount paid to SIIA is at least $10,000, the source will be considered for a reward of $500. SIIA may increase the reward to as much as $1,000,000 depending on the amount of piracy reported by the source and the settlement amount collected by SIIA.”

In other words, $500 is much more likely than $1,000,000, according to the terms and conditions.

More Caveats

There are several other caveats as well. For example, the rewards only apply to cases where SIIA reaches a settlement outside of court. If it goes to court, SIIA may still choose to “reimburse” the whistleblower for his or her time, but that’s not guaranteed.

In fact, even when all requirements are met, SIIA may still choose not to pay anything.

“The decision whether to pay a reward and the amount of that award shall be within SIIA’s sole discretion. SIIA reserves its right to deny the payment of a reward or to revoke the source reward program at any time and without notice and for any reason,” the terms read.

We reached out to SIIA to find out more about this program and how often the organization pays out rewards but after a few days we still haven’t heard back.

These settlements don’t reach the news very often but they are relatively common. Over the years there have been various reports of successes and several years ago, the group settled nearly a dozen cases on one month, recouping $1 million in lost revenue.

In the midst of all this serious business, SIIA didn’t completely ignore its roots. In 2009, it released a sequel to the “Don’t Copy That Floppy” campaign, titled: “Don’t Copy That 2.” Perhaps we’ll see the third installment of the PSA in the years to come?

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

Thousands of torrent sites have come and gone over the years but only a handful of large public sites have stood the test of time.

The Pirate Bay is an obvious example but in Russia and surrounding countries, RuTracker is king. This massive torrent site and tracker has endured many storms but has still managed to stay afloat for more than 16 years.

Like all torrent sites, to a great extent, RuTracker relies on its users to seed and share content, whether that’s movies and TV shows or games, music or eBooks. As long as these human parts of the ecosystem play their crucial role in distribution, content should in theory remain available forever. In reality, though, it rarely works that way for long periods of time.

To the detriment of the sites they frequent and other file-sharers, only a small number of BitTorrent users share significantly more data than they take. Fewer still seed for prolonged periods of time. This means that torrents with initially large seed and leech counts can diminish quickly and when the number of seeders on a torrent reaches zero, people hoping to obtain that content have their options severely restricted.

To mitigate this type of problem, a group on RuTracker known as ‘The Guardians / The Keepers’ have been storing huge volumes of content and seeding it to the masses, with a reported focus on older and rare content. In a community post late December, a RuTracker admin revealed that the group had been doing its work for more than 10 years, helping to distribute 1.52 million poorly-seeded torrents referencing around 2,470TB of data, to the tune of 100 to 150TB of transfers per day.

Given that court-ordered blocking is preventing the free flow of regular users into the site to replace those that inevitably leave, RuTracker said that extreme pressure is being placed on The Guardians’ resources, particularly in respect of sheer lack of hard drive space. So, in an effort to boost their output, the site launched a crowdfunding campaign hoping to buy enough new hard drives to store and seed an additional 600 and 800TB of old and rare content.

“First of all, these are distributions that are in low demand by the general public due to their age, narrow focus or volume, but are still of historical and practical value,” the admin explained .

“Specialized software, old versions of software, images of games for now redundant consoles, alternative distributions of media files, etc. If you watch movies, listen to music, download games or software that were released more than a year ago, then each of you may be faced with a situation where there is no way to download the desired distribution due to the lack of distributors. This fundraiser is intended to minimize such incidents.”

After being launched early January, the crowdfunding campaign has now reached its target. According to a report from Meduza , two million rubles (around US$26,870) was raised in just a few weeks, meaning that The Guardians will now get the hard drives they need to ensure that older, rare and historically significant torrents are kept alive.

While the site and its users will be no doubt pleased that their target has been reached quite quickly, it still took weeks to raise a fairly modest amount, something which reflects the general nature of the BitTorrent ecosystem when sharing quotas aren’t enforced.

According to SimilarWeb stats, RuTracker.org receives around 40 million visits per month, yet only a relatively small number of visitors in January contributed to the fundraiser. In the same way, millions of people regularly jump on torrents offered by dozens of trackers, yet only a tiny proportion go the extra mile to make sure content remains available.

BitTorrent is an extremely powerful protocol but without high-levels of human altruism, interventions like this will always be required if niche content isn’t to fall by the wayside.

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

A few years ago I reached out to an academic researcher, asking for a copy of a paper that was just published in a prominent journal.

We regularly report on piracy-related research and many of these papers are hidden behind paywalls. Researchers are often willing to share a review copy, but not always.

Giving Up Copyrights

In this case, the author was very reluctant to share the article. While he would like to see the work covered by a news site, he feared repercussions from the publisher. Why? Because like most researchers, the author had to give up his copyrights in order to be published.

To outsiders, this may sound bizarre. Why would the person who came up with the idea, did the research, and wrote up the results, have to give up the copyrights? Welcome to the world of academic publishing.

While there may be some exceptions, the majority of the “high impact” academic journals are owned by for-profit publishers. These earn billions of dollars, in part by charging academic institutions for access. Yes, the same institutions that pay the researchers.

Paywall Barriers

To make matters worse, the paywalls prevent less fortunate academics from accessing the work of their colleagues. In some cases, researchers even find their own articles behind a paywall.

These billion-dollar companies essentially have a stranglehold on science. While copyright is supposed to “ promote the progress of science ,” the major publishers restrict access to millions of people, mostly in developing countries.

This system has led to a situation where academic researchers actively use ‘pirate’ sites to access research literature. For many academics, Sci-Hub has become the go-to site for unrestricted access to scientific papers.

The Sci-Hub ‘Threat’

Needless to say, the publishers are not happy. Companies such as Elsevier, Wiley and Springer Nature are taking countermeasures. US Courts have ordered Sci-Hub to pay millions of dollars in damages and publishers are actively trying to have the site blocked by ISPs.

The most recent blocking attempt is currently taking place in India. Despite the mounting pressure, Elkabyan refuses to give up what she stands for and continues to push back.

Sci-Hub Founder Highlights Publisher Problems

In a recent interview with the Indian news site The Wire , Elbakyan neatly summarizes the “exploitive” business model of the publishers.

“The careers of researchers depend on journal publications. To receive funding or secure positions at the university, a scientist must have publications in ‘high-impact’ academic journals,” she notes.

In other words, the research only ‘counts’ if it’s published in high-profile journals, which are often controlled by large corporations. Putting exactly the same paper on a university site is pointless.

The publishers essentially have a monopoly on science. A pretty healthy one as well, because all the hard work is done by people they don’t have to pay.

Publishers are Organizers, Not Creators

“Researchers do the actual work: they invent the hypothesis, do the experiments and write the articles describing the results of these experiments. Then they publish this article in an academic journal,” says Sci-Hub’s founder.

“Publishers send articles they have received to other scientists for peer-review. Reviewers give their opinion on whether the work should be accepted in a journal or not, or if some additional work must be done. Based on these reviews, the article is published or rejected.

“Both reviewers and scientists work for free. They do not earn any compensation from the academic publisher. Here, academic publishers work as organizers of the academic community, but not as creators. The work of the academic publisher is organizational and not creative.”

Progress of Science

That last comment hits the nail on the head. While there are probably many nuances, most people would agree that the researchers are the real creators here. They are the definition of the “progress of science.” Paywalls certainly aren’t.

That brings us back to the author I requested a paper from a few years ago. After repeated requests, also to the publisher, I never managed to get a copy. The paywall worked, but does that help science?

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