In 2019, Danish citizen Anni Pape posted a cry for help on Facebook.

Like thousands of other Danes, she had received a demand for cash settlement on the basis she had downloaded and shared pornographic content online using BitTorrent.

“HELP! Are there others who are being sued for having illegally downloaded and shared pornographic films and have to pay 7,500 (US$1,226) to the law firm Njord? And maybe 15,500 (US$2,535) in legal costs!” she wrote.

Pape explained that she had been summoned to appear at the court in Lyngby because the law firm claimed that her IP address had been observed sharing the movie “Big Tits Only”. Making matters worse, she said that her daughter, who lives somewhere else, had also received a similar demand, alongside claims that she had downloaded “Amazing Girls Orgasm” and must also pay the same amount.

“We do not download illegally – and not porn movies at all,” Pape wrote, horrified at the explicit nature of these movie titles.

NJORD Law and Cyprus-Based MIRCOM Strike Again

That these two companies are involved in yet another copyright troll lawsuit in Scandinavia is no surprise. Thousands of similar demands have been delivered through the mail to Internet bill payers right across the region but after a relatively trouble-free run, the authorities are now deeply involved.

As recently reported, NJORD Law and partner lawyer Jeppe Brogaard Clausen are now facing charges of serious fraud related to their work with both MIRCOM and Copyright Management Services (CMS), two copyright-troll middle-man companies that have targeted Internet users around Europe in similar schemes.

The prosecution of Clausen and his company is being carried out by the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic Crime (SØIK), which says that the entities fraudulently extracted 7.5 million kroner (US$1.22 million) from their targets. NJORD denies the claims but as the case against Pape shows, the campaign against Danish internet users is fundamentally flawed.

Case Thrown Out By The Court

As reported by Berlingske ( paywall ) , the court in Lyngby has now thrown out the case filed against Pape. In common with earlier rejected cases, the court found that yet again, NJORD’s client does not have the right to prosecute these cases on behalf of rightsholders.

In an EU opinion published last December, MIRCOM was described as a classic copyright-troll outfit, with a recommendation that entities like it should not gain access to Internet subscriber information.

The problem, according to the opinion, is that while MIRCOM claims to have obtained licenses to communicate certain copyright works on P2P networks, MIRCOM does not exploit those licenses in a way that a regular rightsholder usually does. Indeed, MIRCOM is not a copyright holder at all so this type of behavior falls under the definition of an abuse of rights, something prohibited under EU law.

Case Backfires, Pape’s Lawyer Contacts SØIK

The above points were also highlighted by Anni Pape’s lawyer, Henrik Hein, who has reported the decision to throw out the case against his client to SØIK. In comments to Berlingske, he also mentions another interesting finding. The piracy allegedly carried out by Pape took place on the very same day that “Big Tits Only” was published and in advance of being registered for copyright purposes in the United States.

Also of interest is that while other MIRCOM cases were withdrawn by NJORD, the case against Pape was not. According to Pape, this was done in an “act of revenge” for making the case public.

“I think it was a sheer punishment because I made the case play out in public. The punishment for that was they then got a sentence that was worse than anything they could have expected. Their entire business model is buried and declared illegal. I see it as a double victory,” she told the publication.

Finally, comments from lawyer Henrik Hein indicate that the authorities are on the right track by taking an interest in the business model underpinning these cases. He has dealt with around 90 of these cases and according to him, several of his clients were nursing home residents “who have never had computers and where the IP address was only used to connect the TV.”

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

Over the past three years, adult entertainment company Strike 3 Holdings has filed thousands of cases in US federal courts.

These lawsuits target people whose Internet connections were allegedly used to download and share copyright-infringing content via BitTorrent.

While many of these cases resulted in private settlements, Strike 3 has also experienced some setbacks in court. For example, not all judges are convinced that an IP-address is sufficient evidence for a viable case.

The Court as an ATM

Others are even more outspoken. A few years ago, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth accused Strike 3 of being a known “copyright troll” that was using his court “ as an ATM .” The company flooded the court with lawsuits “smacking of extortion”, he added.

Strike 3 Holdings sees things differently. And while a few judges are clearly upset with these targets, there are many who still play along. This allowed the company to collect millions of dollars in settlements over the years.

Even judges in the same District Court can handle these cases differently, which brings us to the topic at hand today.

The Southern District of Florida is one of the courts where Strike 3 is active. Over the last year, it filed roughly a dozen cases, and most judges signed off on a subpoena request. This is crucial, as it allows the company to ask ISPs for the personal information of subscribers.

Geolocation and IP-address Doubts

Not all judges are easy to convince though. District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro is particularly critical. Simply put, she doesn’t believe that the geolocation tools, which link IP-addresses to her district, are 100% accurate.

“Plaintiff’s assertions as to Defendant’s residency therefore seem to be in large part based upon the assumption that the geographic data results of IP address geolocation are valid and accurate,” she writes in a recent order.

“This strikes the Court as possibly problematic after reviewing technical literature which suggests otherwise,” Judge Ungaro adds.

The Internet doesn’t have an inherent mechanism to link IP-addresses to specific locations, the order adds, linking to research and various articles on the topic.

An IP-address Isn’t Enough

If Strike 3 wants to continues its case, it will have to come up with more conclusive evidence to show that the IP-address is linked to the Florida district. Not just that, but Strike 3 also has to provide evidence that shows that this IP-address is linked to a specific person

“Additionally, this Court recognizes that IP addresses are assigned to nodes connected to the Internet, but are not necessarily representative of individual end-node/end-system devices, and especially are not representative of individual people,” Judge Ungaro notes.

“This Court therefore requires that Plaintiff show that due diligence, as well as due care, have been employed in ascertaining that the IP address associated with the alleged tortfeasor is or was assigned to a system or node that can be used to reasonably calculate the identity of the alleged infringing party.”

Rinse and Repeat

Regular readers may recall that the “IP-address is not a person” argument has been brought up in the past. In fact, Judge Ungaro highlighted this last year in a similar order, also directed at Strike 3 Holdings.

While this may seem like a major stumbling block for the adult content producer, the reality is a bit different. When Judge Ursula issued her motion last year, Strike 3 simply dropped the case and moved on to the next . It wouldn’t be a surprise if we see that happening here as well.

Pragmatically speaking, it’s easier for the company to drop the case and file a new one, hoping for a ‘friendlier’ judge. That paid off after Judge Ungaro’s order last year, and it will likely work again. Rinse and repeat.

Or other words, if the ATM is not working, just try the one next door.

—

The motion to show cause, issued by Judge Ursula Ungaro, is available here (pdf)

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

The US Trade Representative (USTR) placed Bulgaria on the ‘Special 301 Watch List’ between 2013 until 2017, because its copyright policies and enforcement were reportedly lagging behind.

The USTR uses this annual report to motivate foreign countries to take action, which can often pay off.

This also appears to be the case in Bulgaria, where law enforcement agencies have actively pursued various piracy cases in recent years. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the USTR, which removed Bulgaria from its watch list in 2018, leading to both countries sharing their progress and goals ever since.

For example, last year Bulgaria mentioned that it planned to criminally prosecute torrent tracker Zamunda.net , the country’s most-visited pirate site. In addition, criminal prosecutions of other high-profile torrent sites such as ArenaBG.com, Zelka.org and RARBG.to were in the works as well.

When we highlighted these developments last year they were still in the planning phase. However, a new report sent by Bulgarian authorities to the USTR this week shows that progress has been made.

The report notes that the various recommendations from the US Government are being taken very seriously. This includes the explicit request to fight online piracy and take local torrent trackers offline.

Bulgaria writes that, last summer, Sofia Regional Prosecutor’s Office started four separate pre-trial proceedings against Zamunda.net, ArenaBG.com, Zelka.org and RARBG.to. All sites stand accused of criminal copyright infringement.

Last November the matter was discussed on the highest diplomatic level. In a telephone call, a high-level representative from the US State Department informed Bulgaria’s Ambassador to the United States that prosecuting Zamunda.net and Arenabg remains a key issue.

In the progress report, Bulgaria stresses that it takes these concerns very seriously. It mentions the pre-trial proceedings that were launched, and highlights several steps that have been taken thus far.

“Numerous investigative actions were carried out – interrogation of witnesses, website inspections, preparing and sending requests for legal aid to the competent authorities in the USA, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a request for information and termination of users’ access to the specified sites,” the report reads.

Despite these actions, Zamunda, ArenaBG, and the other torrent sites remain online today. However, law enforcement hasn’t given up.

In a separate message, Bulgaria’s Government notes that US law enforcement also has a role to play. Apparently, Zamunda.net has servers located in the US, and the Department of Justice was recently asked to help shut these down.

“[A]n important event we need to highlight is the submission on January 27th, 2021, of a Request for Mutual Legal Assistance from the Bulgarian Supreme Prosecutor Office to the DOJ for the seizure of illicit servers hosting vast amounts of entertainment and software content with breached IP on US territory, operated by the Bulgarian piracy torrent tracker entity Zamunda.

“The act follows the execution of a mutually agreed Action plan for the improvement of IP enforcement on Bulgarian territory presented by our partners at the USTR,” a representative from the Bulgarian Government adds.

While it’s uncertain if the prosecutions will turn out to be successful, Bulgaria hopes that these efforts will prove sufficient to keep the country off the ‘Special 301 Watch List’ in the coming year.

All in all, it is fascinating to see how these law enforcement actions are orchestrated at the highest political levels. This is not new by any means, however. We previously uncovered how similar tactics triggered Sweden’s criminal prosecution of The Pirate Bay.

—

A copy of the status report the Government of Bulgaria sent to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf)

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

When the Federation Against Copyright Theft and the Motion Picture Association teamed up in 2004 to create a new anti-piracy advert, neither could’ve believed it would still be getting press coverage close to two decades later.

Even today, the phrases “You Wouldn’t Steal a Car” and “Piracy. It’s a Crime” remain familiar to millions, largely because the ad’s original tone has spawned parody after hilarious parody .

Given that the original ad set the stage by coming across as a parody in itself, poking fun at it has never been difficult. Nevertheless, these little boosts have helped establish “You Wouldn’t Steal” as an enduring part of anti-piracy history that no other campaign has come close to matching. And the fun-poking isn’t over yet either.

In a move designed to deter people from meeting up illegally in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic, the UK government has released a public service announcement of its own, one that is a clear parody of “You Wouldn’t Steal”.

It was shared by the Home Office on Twitter, with the now-familiar message of “Stay Home. Protect The NHS. Save Lives.” The PSA consists of real video captured by police during raids on various locations recently including makeshift pubs , baby showers, and other illegal gatherings.

All gatherings are currently against the law.

Stay Home. Protect The NHS. Save Lives. pic.twitter.com/Bg7wyN7chF

— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) February 17, 2021

Not generally known (at least publicly) for its sense of humor, FACT weighed in on Twitter, congratulating the Home Office on its video message and then suggesting that it might like to use one of FACT’s other videos as inspiration for its next campaign.

As seen below, this anti-piracy PSA suggested by FACT is even more ridiculous than “You Wouldn’t Steal..” and we have a sneaking suspicion that they know that. But the unintentional comedy was only just warming up.

As highlighted by users on Twitter, the anti-piracy PSA shared by FACT with the Home Office was uploaded to YouTube by a random user, not the anti-piracy group itself. That effectively makes it a pirated copy of a video that was originally designed to stop people from pirating – shared by the people who originally made it, to prevent people from pirating.

Of course, that can only lead to one conclusion and a final message to pirates for which there can be no adequate comeback….

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL YOUR OWN ADVERT

— danny (@dannydarkspace_) February 18, 2021

Bravo…Bravo…

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

In 2019, a U.S. District Court in Minnesota sentenced Paul Hansmeier to 14 years in prison , to be followed by two years of supervised release.

Hansmeier was a key player at the Prenda Law firm, which pursued cases against people who were suspected of downloading pirated porn videos via BitTorrent.

While suing alleged pirates is not illegal, Prenda Law went much further. Over the years the firm faced negative court rulings over identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception.

The Original Prenda Honeypot

Most controversial were the shocking revelations that Prenda itself produced adult videos and uploaded its own torrents to The Pirate Bay . In doing so, the company created a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirate downloads.

The allegations were serious enough to appear on the radar of US law enforcement agencies which launched a criminal investigation, culminating in prison sentences for the two key players.

Today, Paul Hansmeier and his former colleague John Steele are both in prison. While the latter received a reduced sentence for his cooperative stance, Hansmeier continues to appeal his sentence to this day. To make a point, the lawyer even restarted his honeypot scheme from prison.

Hansmeier Doesn’t Want to Pay $1.5 Million

In addition to challenging his conviction, Hansmeier also appealed the $1,541,527.37 in restitution that he’s required to pay to victims. According to the former lawyer, this figure is too high because it also includes ‘legal’ settlements.

This case ended up at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Government opposed Hansmeier’s claim, arguing that the convicted lawyer waived his right to appeal by signing a plea agreement.

After a careful review, the Court of Appeal judges ruled that Hansmeier has the right to appeal the restitution amount. However, that doesn’t help the former lawyer much, as the judges also concluded that the district court correctly awarded $1,541,527.37 in restitution.

Evidence Shows that $1.5 Million is Correct

According to the Court of Appeal, the Government provided sufficient evidence to show that the restitution amount “was attributable solely to settlement payments from the fraud scheme.”

This evidence was collected by FBI agent Jared Kary who went over all settlement payments that came in from April 2011, which was when the Prenda lawyers started to upload their own movies to The Pirate Bay.

“Agent Kary further attempted to narrow his calculation to payments from fraud victims by excluding any payments that came in over this period that he could not tie to a specific person,” the Court adds, suggesting that the actual figure might be higher.

However, the most compelling statement may come from none other than Paul Hansmeier himself , who pretty much confirmed the amount in the plea agreement .

“Finally, Hansmeier himself acknowledged in his plea agreement that, between 2011 and 2014, he and Steele ‘received more than $3,000,000 in fraudulent proceeds’ from their lawsuits,” the Court writes.

More Setbacks for Hansmeier

The Court’s ruling also provides a detailed description of all the criminal wrongdoings. In a separate argument, Hansmeier also claimed that the district court incorrectly denied his motion to dismiss the indictment. However, the Court of Appeal disagrees with this as well.

“Because the facts in the indictment, accepted as true, describe a fraudulent scheme prohibited by federal law, Hansmeier cannot succeed in his claim that it is facially insufficient,” the Court notes.

While the order will certainly come as a setback for Hansmeier, the former attorney will likely continue to challenge his prison sentence. Among other things, the dispute about whether or not he can operate a piracy honeypot from prison remains ongoing.

—

A copy of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals order is available here (pdf)

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

Despite being branded ‘The Pirate Bay of Science’ for offering free access to millions of otherwise paywalled research papers, Sci-Hub is somewhat of an outlier in the piracy scene.

While sites like The Pirate Bay receive almost universal condemnation outside of piracy circles, Sci-Hub regularly receives praise from academics. Since the ultimate goal is to further knowledge and education, including among those who can least afford it, Sci-Hub is often considered to be doing valuable work.

Courts, on the other hand, have yet to rule in the site’s favor so publishers including Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley have been pursuing relentless legal action against Sci-Hub and founder Alexandra Elbakyan in an effort to bring the platform to its knees.

Site-Blocking Emerges As Major Strategy

Pioneered by the music and movies industries, site-blocking is seen by copyright holders as an effective tool to reduce traffic to pirate platforms of all types, Sci-Hub included.

The practice commonly involves heading off to a local court in an effort to persuade a judge that Sci-Hub’s behavior represents a breach of copyright law. When a consensus is reached, the court issues an injunction compelling local ISPs to block various domains and/or IP addresses so that subscribers cannot reach them by regular means.

Several publishers have been involved in numerous similar actions against Sci-Hub in a number of countries ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ), usually with quite a lot of fanfare before injunctions are handed down. However, it appears that another process in the UK has been flying under the radar.

UK ISP TalkTalk Quietly Announces New Injunction

TorrentFreak routinely monitors for new site-blocking activity in numerous countries but we were surprised to learn yesterday that Elsevier and Springer Nature have apparently teamed up to obtain an injunction in the UK, something that we believe is yet to become public knowledge.

At this stage, the news isn’t supported by lots of supporting detail but we have learned that UK ISP TalkTalk intends to block (or is perhaps already blocking) access to the Sci-Hub domain ‘sci-hub.se’. Additional information indicates that this was the result of an injunction handed down by a UK court on February 15, 2021.

Three Most Recent UK Blocking Orders as Per TalkTalk

The name of the court is not provided but if the pattern established over the past decade is maintained, the order will have been handed down by a judge at the High Court in London.

TorrentFreak contacted TalkTalk’s press office during Wednesday for additional information but, at the time of writing, we have yet to receive a response. Records on the UK’s BAILII system do not reveal a judgment either, so we are expecting that in due course.

TalkTalk Will Not Be The Only ISP Targeted

At the time of writing, TalkTalk’s rival ISPs including Virgin Media, BT, Sky, EE and O2 are not reporting the existence of a blocking order but it seems extremely unlikely that they won’t be required to act against Sci-Hub under the same order.

Again, the exact details of the injunction are not yet publicly available but if a similar format is maintained by the High Court, it seems probable that all of Sci-Hub’s current domains will be subjected to blocking, not just the one listed by TalkTalk.

Indeed, if the trend of so-called ‘dynamic injunctions’ is maintained in this case, any new domains deployed by Sci-Hub in an attempt to circumvent blocking will be targeted too.

When we have access to the full decision we’ll report the specifics in detail but in the meantime, Sci-Hub has its hands full elsewhere too.

Publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society are currently trying to have Sci-Hub blocked by ISPs in India. In that matter, the judge has agreed to accept interventions from interested parties who believe that any blocking of Sci-Hub would not be in the public interest.

Finally, Sci-Hub was banned from Twitter last month, something Alexandra Elbakyan believes was related to the widespread support the site received from Indian users, including scientists. Twitter informed TorrentFreak that Sci-Hub’s account was suspended for violating the counterfeit policy and it had nothing else to add.

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

In recent years, software applications that provide access to the latest movies, TV shows, live TV and premium sports events have become increasingly popular.

Most commonly available for Android, PC, and iOS platforms, these tools often come pre-configured for piracy meaning that when they installed, the latest content is just a few clicks away. This approach means that such apps can be quickly ejected from Apple’s App Store and Google Play on the basis they are self-contained piracy tools. However, there is another way.

Evading App Store and Google Play Removal

Exposure on official app stores is a tried-and-tested method to grow public awareness of an app but if they are quickly removed for infringement, that all falls apart. To prevent this from happening, apps have been appearing on both platforms that are capable of supplying infringing content but have crucial components missing at the point of download. These need to be added in at a later point to provide functionality.

One example is the ‘ Watched ‘ streaming app which at the time of writing is in the Top 30 most popular entertainment apps on Apple’s App Store. No content is presented in the app but after installation, users are prompted to supply a ‘bundle’ via a URL of their choosing. No information is provided as to what this URL should be but a little searching online reveals that certain URLs make ‘Watched’ much more useful.

‘Watched’ Bundle Available at Oha.to

One of the more popular ‘bundle’ URLs is Oha.to and when this is entered into ‘Watched’ it transforms the app in much the same way as adding a third-party repository/addon to Kodi might. The website at this URL contains the necessary components to fill ‘Watched’ with movies, TV shows and live TV channels, which are all accessible via the provided interface.

(Before adding ‘Oha.to on the left, after on the right)

While the ‘Watched’ app remains accessible on app stores and via the software’s homepage, there are moves by global entertainment industry companies to target bundle URLs, including Oha.to .

ACE Goes to Court in the United States

The Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is a global anti-piracy coalition that brings together dozens of the most powerful entertainment industry companies in the world. These include the major Hollywood studios plus Netflix and Amazon, all of which aim to disrupt the illegal streaming market to protect their businesses.

Yesterday, ACE members filed an application for a DMCA subpoena against Cloudflare in a California court and the complaint itself shows how convoluted these matters can become.

Cloudflare provides services to Oha.to but at least as far as we can tell (and like Cloudflare), Oha.to doesn’t carry any infringing content either. Instead, Oha.to provides a service that enables end-users of ‘Watched’ to find content to which ACE members hold the rights.

“We have determined that individuals operating and controlling Oha.to have infringed ACE Members’ Copyrighted Works by using Cloudflare servers, networks, and other services, to connect end users of the ‘Watched’ mobile application to websites containing infringing content,” explains MPA Executive Vice President & Chief of Global Content Protection, Jan van Hoorn.

“The Oha.to service receives requests for infringing content from the Watched application, scrapes various links to identify cyberlockers containing the requested infringing content, and returns a response containing the scraped links to the application, which allows users of the Watched application to stream infringing content.”

ACE Wants To Unmask The Operator(s) Of Oha.to

The purpose of the ACE legal action is to find out who is behind the Oha.to repository/bundle. In common with similar requests, it requires Cloudflare to hand over the personal identities of the people behind the website, including their names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, payment information and account histories.

Whether Cloudflare will have any useful information to hand over is unclear but this is not the first time that ACE has gone after component services that allow ‘Watched’ to function.

As reported last November, ACE previously filed an application for a similar DMCA subpoena against the Tonic domain registry in an effort to discover the identities of the individuals behind Huhu.to.

This domain operates in a similar if not identical manner to Oha.to, in that people who use the ‘Watched’ app can enter the domain when prompted to supply a ‘bundle’ URL, prompting the ‘Watched’ app to do something useful. It’s unknown whether Tonic was able to provide any useful information in this case but the domain is fully functional at the time of writing.

The ACE application for DMCA subpoena can be found here ( 1 , 2 )

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

CDN provider Cloudflare is one of the leading Internet companies, providing services to millions of customers large and small.

The service positions itself as a neutral intermediary that passes on traffic while making sure that customers remain secure. Its userbase includes billion-dollar companies such as IBM, Shopify, and L’Oreal, but also countless smaller outlets.

With a company of this size, it comes as no surprise that some Cloudflare customers are engaged in controversial activities. This includes some pirate sites and services, which have landed Cloudflare in court on several occasions.

Last year there were two prominent cases against Cloudflare in Italy. In the first one, football league Serie A and Sky Italy requested Cloudflare to block the unauthorized IPTV service “IPTV THE BEST” and in a similar case, rightsholders wanted “ENERGY IPTV” blocked.

Cloudflare Appeals Blocking Injunctions

Cloudflare lost both cases and was ordered to block the services in question. While the company hasn’t commented on the legal actions in detail, it decided to appeal the two injunctions at the Milan court.

Last Friday, the court ruled on the “IPTV THE BEST” case, confirming that Cloudflare is indeed required to block access.

In its defense, Cloudflare argued that it doesn’t provide hosting services but merely passes on bits and bytes. In addition, it pointed out that the IPTV service could still remain active even if its account was terminated.

Cloudflare Facilitates Access

The court was not convinced by these arguments and concluded that Cloudflare contributes to the infringements of its customer by optimizing and facilitating the site’s availability.

“It is in fact adequately confirmed that Cloudflare carries out support and optimization activities to showcase sites, which allow the visibility and advertising of illegal services,” the court concluded.

That the IPTV service could continue without using Cloudflare is irrelevant, the court stressed.

In addition, the court confirmed that copyright holders are entitled to these types of protective blocking measures, even if the activity of the online intermediary itself is not directly infringing.

Dynamic Orders

The Milan court reached the same conclusion in Cloudflare’s appeal against the “ENERGY IPTV” injunction, which was decided yesterday. In both cases, the court also confirmed that the injunctions are “dynamic”, which means that if the IPTV services switch to new domains or IP-addresses, these have to be blocked as well.

While the ruling is a setback for Cloudflare, copyright holders are pleased. Attorney Simona Lavagnini, who represented Sky Italy, informs TorrentFreak that it will now be easier to hold online services accountable for infringing customers.

“I am pleased to see the position taken by the Court, confirming that injunction orders can be addressed to all providers involved in the provision of services to those who offer illegal contents on the web.

“This principle is now general and includes telecoms as well as passive hosting providers and other services such as CDNs,” Lavagnini adds.

We also reached out to Cloudflare for a comment on these recent court orders but the company didn’t immediately reply. The CDN provider previously confirmed that it has been legally required to block several domains, without going into further detail.

With regard to earlier blocking orders, Cloudflare said that it complies with these in the relevant jurisdictions. In other words, the targeted services remain available in other countries. Whether that’s also the case here is unknown.

Update: The legal team representing the Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A (LNPA), which includes Bruno Ghirardi, Stefano Previti, Alessandro La Rosa, and Riccardo Traina Chiarini, is happy with the outcome and told us the following:

“Cloudflare participates in activities that allow the visibility of the illicit services IPTV THE BEST and ENERGY IPTV – also through the storage of data from these sites – and participates in the flow of data in violation of the rights of LNPA.”

“This implies the legitimacy of targeting Cloudflare as a passive subject of the precautionary order, despite the possibility that, in the absence of Cloudflare’s services, illicit access to the protected content would be also possible.”

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

With millions of daily users, Reddit is without a doubt one of the most visited sites on the Internet.

The community-oriented platform has “subreddits” dedicated to pretty much every topic one can think of, including several that are linked to online piracy and related issues.

A few years ago copyright holders paid little attention to these discussions. In 2017, the site ‘only’ removed 4,352 pieces of content in response to copyright holders’ complaints. Three years later, however, this number has skyrocketed to hundreds of thousands.

This surge in takedowns is highlighted in the social media platform’s latest transparency report, published just a few hours ago.

The company reports that it received a total of 86,866 takedown notices, which resulted in 375,774 pieces of content being removed. This is a 300% increase compared to the previous year.

While the number of takedown notices and removed content has skyrocketed, Reddit also rejected many complaints. Last year, the site decided not to remove roughly 27 percent of the 517,054 items that were flagged.

The reasons to reject takedown requests vary. The vast majority were duplicate requests, but Reddit also refused takedowns because an entire subreddit was targeted, the reported link wasn’t a Reddit URL, or simply because no infringement was found.

In addition to links and other content taken down, Reddit also reports how many users and subreddits were removed from the platform on copyright grounds. This typically happens when they are classified as repeat copyright infringers.

“We have a policy that includes the removal of any infringing material from the Services and for the termination, in appropriate circumstances, of users of our Services who are repeat infringers,” Reddit writes.

In 2020, Reddit removed 303 users following repeat copyright infringement complaints, which is a small increase compared to last year. The number of subreddits that were taken down under this policy saw nearly a fourfold increase, from 137 in 2019 to 514 last year.

In the past we have seen several instances of subreddits being removed for repeat copyright infringements, including /r/mmastreams . Other subreddits, such as /r/piracy, were repeatedly warned and had to clean house in order to survive.

Finally, Reddit also received several 143 counternotices from users who argued that their content had been removed without a proper reason. It’s not clear how many of these were reinstated.

All in all, copyright takedowns only result in a small fraction of all content that’s removed from the platform. In total, Reddit admins and moderators removed more than 225 million pieces of content for a variety of reasons.

—

The full 2020 transparent report, which also covers law enforcement requests, is available here

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