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

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

Beatport v Pirate Platform

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

Multipronged Disruption Strategy

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

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

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

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

Results From Early November

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

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

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

Results After The Completion of Stage One

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

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

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

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

AudioLock: Significant Effect in Global Dance Charts

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Future of The Music Mission

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

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

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

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

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

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

The European Union Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO ) regularly conducts studies to see how piracy develops over time.

These studies help the public to understand local piracy trends and can be used as input for future policy decisions.

Last month, for example, EUIPO research showed that EU citizens increasingly pay to access content legally. However, a group of stubborn pirates , who often pay for legal content too, remains.

This week, EUIPO released another in-depth piracy report titled “Online Copyright Infringement in the European Union.” The research is a follow-up to a report published last year which found that access to pirated content across Europe dropped by more than 15 percent.

Last year’s study revealed some broader effects as well. For example, it found that people from lower-income countries tend to pirate more and that awareness of legal options doesn’t always decrease piracy.

Most Popular Pirated Titles

The new research is partly based on the same data, which was purchased from the piracy tracking firm MUSO. Instead of looking at the broader piracy effect, this time the research zooms in on the most pirated movies, TV-shows, and artists.

These data are estimated from public BitTorrent tracker data which were extrapolated to other piracy services, such as streaming and direct download sites. While this method is far from exact, it should give a good indication of the broader piracy demand.

The 123-page report is in large part made up of tables with the most pirated titles in the EU as a whole and in individual member states. It’s based on data that covers only part of 2018, which means that it’s limited in scope and a bit dated. Still, it’s worth scanning over the results.

Justice League, Walking Dead, and Ed Sheeran

With over 42 million estimated downloads, Justice League was the most downloaded movie in the EU. The Walking Dead was the most pirated TV-show, with over 435 million downloads, and with nearly 7.5 million downloads, Ed Sheeran was the most pirated musician.

The most popular titles and artists show a lot of overlap between EU countries. That said, there are some local outliers as well.

Local Favorites

For example, the Norwegian metal band Immortal tops the music piracy chart in Norway, and the Swedish metal band HammerFall takes the top spot in Sweden. In Spain, American singer Luis Fonsi is pirated more than any other artist, and in Germany Bob Dylan managed to beat Ed Sheeran by a few thousand downloads.

There are similar outliers for movies and TV-shows. For example, The Mummy was disproportionately popular in Spain, taking the top spot in the film category. In the TV category, South Park does surprisingly well in Finland, beating all other shows.

These local trends are intriguing, but they don’t necessarily lead to broader conclusions. However, a more analytical approach shows that there is something to learn.

Film Piracy Findings

The findings show that there isn’t that much difference in film tastes between various countries. There is a lot of overlap between the 30 most pirated films per country and for the EU as a whole. Also, piracy is mostly affecting newer and commercially successful mainstream films.

This leads to the perhaps obvious conclusion that commercial success is linked to piracy. In other words, when more people see a movie in the theater, it’s pirated more frequently as well.

“This analysis shows that commercial success is associated with higher levels of piracy: when the number of tickets sold increases by 10 %, the number of illegal downloads increases by 3.7 %,” the findings read.

The second film piracy effect is more intriguing. Films from Canada, Australia, China, Finland, Germany, India and Russia take a bigger share of the total pirate downloads, compared to the total box office numbers.

“Piracy of films from these seven countries represents 2.8 % of film piracy and 1.8 % of admissions in EU cinemas. Although the total cumulated piracy of the last group is low, they suffer a relatively higher piracy rate than the more widely distributed films.”

This can be partially explained due to the fact that these films are not always available legally due to limited availability in movie theaters. Piracy is then a convenient alternative.

TV and Music Piracy

TV-shows are by far the most popular content on pirate sites. Obviously, more recent TV-shows are pirated more frequently but the link with legal consumption is less clear than with music and films.

While there’s a bit more variety in taste between EU countries, on average, 19 of the 30 most popular series are also on the EU’s top 30 list.

Local differences are most apparent when it comes to music, as our examples earlier already illustrated. On average, 16 of the most popular artists in a country also appear in the EU’s top 30.

In terms of volume, music is the least popular category of the three. The most popular artist, Ed Sheeran, was downloaded 7.5 million times while The Walking Dead topped 435 million downloads.

In addition, it appears that piracy preferences are lagging behind actual sales a little.

“In music, there is also a relationship between commercial success and piracy, although with a delay: many of the best-selling musicians of 2017 were the most pirated artists in 2018,” the report reads.

Conclusions and Future Research

The EUIPO study concludes that piracy seems to be driven by demand. Consumers want to watch the content that’s most appealing to them, legally or illegally. When it becomes harder to access something through legal channels, piracy tends to increase.

“These results underscore the importance of legal accessibility as one of the ways in which consumption of pirated content can be reduced,” the report concludes.

With the constantly evolving media landscape, EUIPO’s Audiovisual Observatory plans to follow up the current findings with more in-depth research. This includes the effects of movies that skip cinema releases and are made available on-demand immediately, by Netflix and Amazon for example.

And with Warner Bros’ recent decision to premiere all 2021 movie titles on HBO Max and in cinema simultaneously, another area of research just popped up.

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A copy of the “Online Copyright Infringement in the European union title-level study: Film, Music and TV”, is available here

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

Preventing the general public from accessing movies and TV shows without paying for them is a monumental task that, if anything, feels even more difficult than it was 15 years ago.

In addition to hundreds, perhaps thousands of torrent and streaming sites, copyright holders also have to deal with the growing threat of premium IPTV, which grants access to every type of live TV under the sun for comparatively low prices.

Somewhere in the middle of this organized chaos, movie and TV show companies are trying to tackle pirate apps. Mostly Android and iOS-based, these consumer-friendly tools present content in easy-to-navigate interfaces, pulling content from not just their own sources but in many cases third-party file-hosting and IPTV/streaming suppliers, much as other pirate sites do too.

MediaBox HD Targeted By The MPA

One of the more popular tools in this growing niche is MediaBox HD. Available for both Android and iOS, the app is in demand by those looking to access premium content on their phones or, as is increasingly the case, a tablet or Android-based set-top box.

MediaBox HD’s popularity lies in its many features. Aside from a large free library of movies and TV shows, it supports services such as Real-Debrid for more reliable streaming, has Chromecast support, can offer subtitles and even allows for offline viewing. For groups like the MPA, however, these are all reasons to take the app down.

MPA Sends Copyright Complaint to Github

While MediaBox HD has its own site , at the time of writing it’s impossible to access the Android variant of its app from there. Rather than hosting the APK in the same location, the app’s developers chose to host the software on Github instead, meaning it was vulnerable to an easy takedown.

Teaming up under the banner of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner, Disney and Netflix, sent a copyright complaint to Github, calling on the platform to remove the piracy-facilitating software.

“We are writing to notify you of, and request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the APK software Mediabox HD, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository Github.com,” it reads.

“Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the APK, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows.”

MPA Demands Removal of MediaBox HD Under the DMCA

Attached to the MPA’s complaint but unpublished by Github, the movie and TV show group provides screenshots that claim to show that MedaBox HD streams copyrighted content to the masses resulting in “massive infringement.”

While providing various examples of alleged infringement, the MPA says that these are just the tip of the iceberg since the software goes much further by blatantly infringing other content owned by its members and copyrights held by others.

On this basis, the MPA states that infringement is “plainly is its predominant use and purpose”, citing case law including the MGM v Grokster litigation (2005), the Arista Records v Usenet dispute from 2005, and the 2009 lawsuit between Columbia Pictures and former isoHunt operator Gary Fung.

The MPA suggests that it doesn’t really mind on which basis Github removes the app, whether that’s under the DMCA’s takedown provisions, repeat infringer rules, or Github’s acceptable use policy. Interestingly, however, it does note that it is not trying to claim that the app’s code is copyright-infringing, merely that its sole purpose is to infringe.

“Please note that, by this notice, the MPA Members are not addressing copyright ownership of the APK’s specific lines of code; rather, they are addressing the use of the APK as a whole to provide unauthorized, infringing access to streaming video content, and requesting that you remove or disable access to the APK as a whole on your Repository,” the notice adds.

Github Complied With the Request

Unlike the dispute currently engulfing youtube-dl, which has put Github at odds with the RIAA , there appears to be no such confusion here. Following the request from the MPA, Github removed the MediaBox HD app and, as a result, the software is no longer available from official sources.

While MediaBox HD will likely solve this problem in due course, the attention from the MPA comes after the streaming software was featured in two earlier legal matters.

In September 2019, following a subpoena from the makers of the movie Hellboy, third-party app-store TweakBox took the decision to remove MediaBox HD (plus Popcorn Time and CotoMovies) from its platform.

A month earlier, a Pakistani man who operated a site that offered MediaBox HD, Showbox, Popcorn Time and similar software, agreed to pay a settlement of $150,000 to companies behind the movies The Hitman’s Bodyguard, London Has Fallen and Hunter Killer.

His site, the now-defunct latestshowboxapp.com, was forced to remove MediaBox HD and similar tools, despite not being their developer. The MPA hasn’t yet shown any public signs of seeking a settlement from the developers of MediaBox HD but given past history, that might only be a matter of time.

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

In recent years, YTS.mx has become one of the most-used torrent sites, serving millions of visitors every day.

The site can be used without registering an account. However, those who sign up get some extra features, such as an option to bookmark titles. These added benefits can be handy but we learned that having an account also comes with risks.

Movie Companies Target YTS Users

In recent months, a group of movie companies filed several lawsuits against alleged YTS users . In several of these cases, they relied on information that came directly from the YTS user database , including email addresses and download histories.

The information was shared by the YTS operator as part of a confidential settlement agreement. This revelation came as a shock to the affected users and was harshly criticized by other torrent sites, several of which decided to ban YTS torrents .

Pirate Release Warns Downloaders

Today, we can add another episode to this unfolding drama after a torrent for the documentary “ Rise of the Trolls ” appeared online with the addition of a rather unusual message. Roughly three minutes into the video, the following warning appears.

“If you have downloaded this from either YTS or Extratorrent you can expect problems with the authorities. They cooperate with the film industry, more information can be found on Torrentfreak,” it reads.

The shorturl suggests that the link might point to more information but when we tried to access it this morning it redirected to the shorturl homepage. However, we assume that it’s supposed to provide more detail on the YTS database sharing issue.

The torrent, shared by SimplyTheBOSS, was uploaded to various torrent sites and copied by even more. This includes the popular ‘ExtraTorrent’ site extratorrents.it, that was formerly operating as Extratorrent.ag.

This, understandably, raised questions among the site’s users as the comment below illustrates.

TorrentFreak wasn’t in any way involved or consulted on the matter and the warning itself deserves some nuance.

Nuance Required

ExtraTorrent has frequently been linked to YTS and some believe that it is operated by the same ‘group’ of people. However, we’re not aware of any ExtraTorrent database info that was shared with film companies. Such information hasn’t been brought up in lawsuits either.

Also, the warning in the video references problems with the authorities. This is not necessarily the case as the YTS-related lawsuits are all civil cases between film companies and the alleged pirates. There is no law enforcement agency involved, yet.

The warning is correct by stating that YTS cooperated with film companies but whether they still share database information is unknown. We previously learned that it was a one-time arrangement, but details about the ‘deal’ were never officially made public.

That said, many people have lost trust in the site, no matter what happens in the future, and this warning notice underlines that.

The Troll Threat

To find out more, TorrentFreak reached out to the uploader of one of the torrents but he or she preferred not to comment publicly on the matter. The same warning may also appear in other releases, but we have only seen it in the “Ride of the Trolls” torrent so far.

The makers of the documentary have nothing to do with the lawsuits but their title was likely chosen for a reason. The film companies that go after individual pirates are often referred to as “copyright trolls,” after all. Also, the documentary discusses topics such as online anonymity and freedom on the internet.

Finally, it is worth noting that anyone who downloads content via BitTorrent can potentially be tracked, no matter what site they use. Without a VPN, one’s public IP-address is visible to anyone, including copyright holders.

The YTS database information gave filmmakers extra evidence though. They used this in various lawsuits but also sent settlement offers to YTS users directly , using the listed email address.

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

In recent months we have reported in detail how users of the popular torrent site YTS were sued in US courts .

In several of these cases, information shared by the site’s operator was brought in as evidence. The user info was obtained by anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper, as part of an undisclosed settlement agreement.

This week the same attorney is back in court representing ‘Eve Nevada LLC,’ the company behind the film Ava , which is shared widely on various pirate sites. Again, YTS is prominently mentioned, but this time things are different.

The complaint, filed at a Hawaii federal court, lists 19 ‘John Doe’ defendants who are only known by their IP-addresses. These addresses were caught sharing the film via public torrent trackers. Specifically, the complaint mentions a file titled “ Ava (2020) [1080p] [WEBRip] [5.1] [YTS.MX] .”

This title leads the filmmakers to the conclusion that the defendant must have been users of the YTS site. Or as the complaint puts it:

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

This same conclusion, in addition to the fact that defendants downloaded the same file, is also used as an argument to join the 19 defendants in one case. However, based on the information presented, it’s far from clear that at all of these people were indeed YTS users.

Unlike in the other cases, the copyright holder didn’t present any information from the YTS user base, likely because it doesn’t have any. The data-sharing was a one-time arrangement several months ago, long before YTS released the movie Ava.

While it’s possible that the defendants indeed used YTS, they could have easily downloaded the .torrent file from other sites where the same file was made available. Although several torrent sites banned YTS torrents , many haven’t, including the illustrious Pirate Bay.

Whether the defendants are actually YTS users or not may not make much of a difference. At least not for the copyright infringement allegations.

In addition to direct and contributory copyright infringement, the complaint also accuses the defendant of violating the DMCA by altering copyright management information (CMI). In this case, that means distributing the movie Ava with an edited title, which references YTS.

“Particularly, the Defendants distributed the file names that included CMI that had been altered to include the wording ‘YTS’. Defendants knew that the wording “YTS” originated from the notorious movie piracy website for which each had registered accounts and/or actively used,” the complaint reads.

It’s doubtful that any of these cases will be fought on the merits. When the defendant’s personal information is exposed it’s likely that they will receive a settlement request, which is usually around $1,000. Those who refuse to settle can argue their case in court, but that’s going to cost as well. They can eventually win the case, but not without investing in a legal defense first.

As far as we know this is the first time people have been sued for downloading the film Ava. The company Eve Nevada is a new name as well, but one with familiar connections. It’s connected to the broader Voltage Pictures family, which has sued tens of thousands of people over the years.

—

A copy of the complaint filed at the US District Court of Hawaii is available here (pdf)

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

Anonymity is a great good on the Internet but increasingly there are calls for stricter identity checks.

Such requirements are not new. In daily life many people have encountered situations where they had to prove their identity. When opening a bank account, for example. But online it is rare.

If it’s up to a large group of organizations with ties to copyright industries, this should change. They call for stricter policies so that hosting companies, domain registrars, and advertisers must properly check who their customers are.

This message was sent in a letter to the European Commission this week. The signatories include anti-piracy outfits such as MPA, BREIN, BPI, IFPI, and RettighedsAlliancen, as well as the international brands Heineken, Nike, and Philips. Together, they call for thorough “know your customer” requirements.

Europe’s Digital Services Act

The letter was sent in response to a public inquiry on Europe’s proposed Digital Service Act, which will determine how online services and platforms are regulated. The senders zoom in on one element, namely, the “Know Your Business Customer” requirements for online platforms.

In the impact assessment published by the European Commission, such a requirement is highlighted. However, that ‘online’ applies to online marketplaces only. This is a missed opportunity and should be broadened, the letter notes.

Online Intermediaries Should Properly Identify Business Customers

According to European law, online businesses are already required to identify themselves based on Article 5 of the e-Commerce Directive. However, this is often ignored by bad actors. This is where the new requirements could prove helpful.

“The DSA represents a real opportunity to rectify the situation that allows bad actors to ignore Article 5 of the ECD with impunity,” the letter explains.

“A business cannot go online without a domain name, without being hosted, or without advertisement or payment services. These intermediary services, having a direct relationship with the business, are therefore best placed to make sure that only businesses that are willing to comply with the law have access to their services.”

The copyright holders and anti-piracy groups state that these checks won’t involve any active monitoring. Some simple due diligence checks based on information that’s publicly verifiable is already sufficient.

Identification Helps to Tackle Online Piracy

At the moment, scammers, counterfeiters, plus pirate sites and services can operate relatively easily in the dark. They often provide false information, when registering a domain name for example. More detailed checks could make this harder.

Knowing who’s behind a pirate site or service obviously makes enforcement efforts much easier. And when the provided information turns out to be false, the customers should be disconnected.

“Should the information provided prove to be manifestly wrong, or the intermediary be notified that the business customer isn’t who it claims to be, the intermediary should stop providing services until the business customer remedies the situation.”

Bad actors have been flaunting the law for years and the Digital Service Act provides an opportunity to fix this, the letter notes. Implementing stricter checks facilitates a “safe and trustworthy online environment” and will make it harder to “distribute illegal content,” the senders add.

Intermediaries Should (be forced) to Take Responsibility

TorrentFreak spoke to Tim Kuik, director of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, which is one of the letter’s signatories. He says that it’s no surprise that criminals use fake identities online. However, that intermediaries are not properly verifying the identities of customers is surprising.

“On the one hand, we see upstream providers that are reluctant to disclose customer identity to injured parties who then can not hold the perpetrators liable. On the other hand, we see that when customer identity is disclosed – ultimately providers have to in case of illegal activity – it is fake, either completely made up or of unsuspecting people and their addresses.”

“This frustrates enforcement against all kinds of illegal activity while intermediaries – unknowingly or not – indirectly earn income from it,” Kuik adds.

BREIN has repeatedly emphasized the importance of proper customer identification. Earlier this year it sued several hosting providers that worked with the pirate streaming CDN Moonwalk, to require these companies to verify the identity of customers and require resellers to do the same.

“The latter is necessary because we see a tendency of upstream providers using foreign parties either offshore or to sell in their respective countries, who then do not have true identity information and refuse to provide other identifying information,” Kuik tells us.

The idea to use stricter ‘know your customer’ regulations as a tool to thwart piracy is a hot topic. Just a few weeks ago, a group of prominent anti-piracy groups discussed the same matter in a webinar , which also involved Europol and the Italian Financial Police

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A copy of the letter sent to Brussels earlier this week is available here (pdf)

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

USTVNow brands itself as a legal video streaming service providing TV for “US Military and US citizens abroad.”

The platform is also popular with viewers outside these groups, many of whom access the service using the convenience of third-party Kodi add-ons designed for the task.

However, in recent weeks there has been a considerable amount of confusion over the use of Kodi add-ons with the USTVNow service.

A dedicated USTVNow add-on has been promoted by or made available from at least two official/semi-official locations – the actual Kodi team repository (where it remains today) and a page on unofficial Kodi add-on resource TVAddons. That has now been removed for reasons we’ll explain shortly but first some background.

USTVNow Kodi Add-ons Have Been Flaky For a While

For many months, users of USTVNow who use a Kodi add-on to access the service have been complaining loudly via Twitter that compatibility is poor and errors are widespread.

Back in February, for example, a user based at an electronics store (Hydra Electronics) complained that after filing a complaint with USTVNow, the streaming service sent him back to the Kodi team to fix the problem, since they’re supplying the add-on.

Since then there have been many other complaints but on July 30, USTVNow responded, clearly recommending the add-on located at Kodi.tv but noting that it doesn’t provide any support for it, which is fair enough.

On August 4, however, everything changed, with USTVNow changing its position on Kodi altogether by not recommending the use of it at all.

Our apologies for the confusion. Kodi is no longer recommended or supported by ustvnow. Kindly check this link for compatible devices: https://t.co/sJWyBjDCIp

— USTVNow (@ustvnow) August 2, 2020

What prompted this sudden turnaround isn’t clear but one obvious explanation could be that having Kodi add-ons maintained by a third-party is just too much trouble.

However, activity behind the scenes also indicated that when third-party groups offer and promote Kodi add-ons for USTVNow, that might also present legal problems – at least for them.

For many years, third-party Kodi add-on site TVAddons not only offered or linked to a free add-on for the USTVNow service (which required an official USTVNow account) but has continually encouraged users to become customers of USTVNow.

On August 12, however, USTVNow operator Dutch Phone Holdings Inc. sent TVAddons an aggressive email titled “USTVNOW Enforcement”.

USTVNow Accuses TVAddons of Trademark Infringement and Piracy

“It has come to our attention that you are promoting your services through your website using our trademark USTVNOW and our official logo,” the email begins.

“USTVnow doesn’t have or support any app. Our customer [sic] can watch live TV streams directly from our website. This fake app is misguiding our 1.6 million customers. You are also pirating our content from our website, ustvnow.com, and directing consumers to apps that appear to be DutchPhone’s USTVNOW apps.”

According to the email, TVAddons ‘use’ of USTVNow’s “trademark and content” is grounds for numerous legal claims including (but not limited to), trademark infringement, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

“DutchPhone takes this matter seriously and will take all measures necessary to enforce its intellectual property rights. We demand that you take down your page mentioned above and all other pages on your website talking about USTVnow within seven (7) days of this letter. Otherwise, DutchPhone will have no choice but to take further action,” the communications concludes.

A response to USTVNow, shared by TVAddons with TF, shows the Kodi add-on repository immediately complying with the request, within hours. Nevertheless, the site also had its say, including by pointing out that for “several years”, USTVNow’s official documentation actually linked to TVAddons and promoted the add-on for its customers to use.

“We also sent you thousands of paying subscribers, for which we never asked for nor received a dollar,” the response reads.

“That being said, we will stop promoting you immediately, and instead send our users to your competitors. You could have asked us nicely, instead of sending us a threatening legal letter.”

Only making matters worse, instead of contacting TVAddons directly, USTVNow sent its legal threats to Cloudflare, which also forwarded the complaint to TVAddons’ hosting provider.

That doesn’t appear to have had an immediate negative effect on its relationships with those companies but certainly won’t have helped TVAddons remain visibly squeaky clean in light of its historical legal problems with rightsholders.

Same USTVNow Add-On Still Available on the Official Kodi Site

In the early days, TVAddons promoted a USTVNow Kodi add-on created by a developer known as Mhancor7 but according to the third-party platform, that was discontinued long ago and hasn’t been distributed for years.

Instead, the site has been promoting the same add-on as recommended via the official Kodi team at Kodi.tv. Curiously, that add-on can still be found here .

Whether the developers of Kodi will also stand accused of trademark infringement and piracy in due course remains to be seen but it’s clear that without a semi-official option to watch USTVNow via Kodi, that platform’s users will be left worse off for choice, or may even choose to migrate elsewhere, perhaps even to illegal options.

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

Earlier this year we reported on a brand new anti-piracy initiative with an aim to shut down 200 professionally-operated music piracy sites.

Headed up by anti-piracy company AudioLock, music distributor Label Worx, and supported by hundreds of distributors, labels, and other industry players, The Music Mission has a focus on sites that give the impression of being legitimate competition for digital portals such as Beatport, Juno, and Traxsource.

After many weeks of investigations the project has now begun to release some of its initial findings. They are extremely surprising and tend to suggest that parts of the music industry may have allowed the foxes into the hen house. But first, an idea of the scale of just one of these pay-piracy sites.

Almost Eight Years’ Worth of Music on Just One Site

According to information just released by The Music Mission, an analysis of a single ‘pirate’ store has revealed a database of 780,000 unique tracks available for download in MP3 format. All told, the offer totals 10,050 GBs of music or, as the project puts it, more music than anyone could get through in the next decade.

“If all are 320kbps mp3 files, [it] would amount to a shocking 69,791 hours of music or put another way, 7.96 years of music! If you listened to all that whilst walking then you would have got to the moon before having to listen to anything twice,” the coalition says.

Seemingly Legitimate Companies Running Pirate Sites

One surprising revelation is that a company supplying what would normally be viewed as an anti-piracy service is reportedly running a pay-piracy site. Somewhat ironically claiming that its “legal team will make sure that the leaks of your files will be eliminated from illegal sharing websites”, the company appears to be playing for the other side too.

“One particular pirate store owner conveniently have their own anti-virus software company as well as a music watermarking company. Both good partners to an anti-piracy company,” The Music Mission reveals.

The project, which has some heavyweight label supporters plus music licensing group PRS for Music, is currently withholding the name of this company for legal reasons, according to documentation made available to TorrentFreak. However, the allegations against other supposedly industry-supporting entities don’t stop there.

Record Labels and Pro DJs Implicated in Running Pirate Sites

“Several site owners also run/own record labels – at a glimpse, it appears that music from these labels does not appear to be available through the pirate stores, which will be a big help for their chart positions because the other releases in those charts will be losing a large proportion of sales when copies are purchased through the many pirate stores,” The Music Mission continues.

Again, the names of these labels haven’t yet been revealed but given the hundreds of well-known labels supporting this project, it seems unlikely that this conclusion has been pulled out of thin air. The Music Mission says its investigations are continuing so more detail is expected in due course.

On top of this specific threat, there also appears to be another interesting angle.

According to the project, it has identified a number of site owners that are “moonlighting as pro DJs” who have established sizeable fan bases across social media with “gig lists that include international festivals and world-famous nightclubs of which they have graced the decks.”

Somewhat disappointingly, no DJ names have been released, with legal reasons cited once again for the omission.

Pirates Were Aware They Were Being Monitored

One of the aims of The Music Mission is to have a delisting program aimed at reducing the visibility of the sites targeting by its campaign. This appears to have suffered some delays, partly because the true scale of the pirate operations wasn’t immediately apparent and partly because the pirates may have realized they were being watched.

According to the people behind the project, the pirates went to some lengths to prevent the investigation taking place, for both the delisting program and the collection of broader forensic evidence. These “hurdles” have reportedly been overcome now but what exactly has been found remains a question.

So Who Are the Foxes in the Hen House?

Despite asking this question, TorrentFreak was unable to gain any additional information on the players involved in this alleged behavior. That being said, the list of music watermarking companies who also have an anti-virus product can’t be particularly long so if the allegations stand up to scrutiny, they will now be on notice that their adversaries are homing in.

Labels themselves will be harder to identify due to their sheer numbers but the fact that The Music Mission is prepared for this information to be heard in public may affect how these entities behave in the weeks and months ahead.

The only other surprising thing is why The Music Mission hasn’t turned this into a criminal referral, given the alleged scale and organization.

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