While the vast majority of videogames players are happy to enjoy games within the parameters set by their developers, there are millions who prefer to cheat their way to victory.

As a result, an industry has appeared ready to service people looking to gain an unfair advantage, offering cheating products often at a premium price. This disruption is frowned upon by developers and regular players alike, who argue that when the gaming experience becomes unfair, the fun associated with playing collapses.

In an effort to reduce the number of players cheating online, various videogame companies have filed lawsuits in the United States. Yesterday another one was added to the growing list when Riot Games and Bungie filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against GatorCheats for offering tools enabling cheating in Valorant, Destiny 2, and other titles.

“Malicious” Software Products “Destroy” plaintiffs’ Games

Filed in a California district court, the lawsuit targets Albuquerque, New Mexico resident Cameron Santos (the alleged operator of GatorCheats), plus an additional 10 ‘Doe’ defendants, some of whom (“Hal,” “Matt” and “Megan”) are alleged to provide customer support to cheat users.

“By this lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek to put a stop to the unlawful, for-profit sale and distribution of malicious software products designed to enable members of the public to gain unfair competitive advantages (i.e., to cheat) in the Games, and, thereby, to impair and destroy Plaintiffs’ Games, Plaintiffs’ overall business, and the experience of Plaintiffs’ player community,” the complaint reads.

According to Riot and Bungie, Santos owns several online ventures engaged in the development and sale of “malicious cheats” targeting the companies’ games. “Honeyhacks” and “Voidcheaters” get a mention but GatorCheats is the largest, selling a cheat known as “Gatorant” and several tools for Destiny 2.

“The Cheating Software enables players to manipulate Valorant and Destiny 2 to their personal advantage, such as by automatically aiming weapons, revealing the locations of opponents, and allowing the player to see a vast array of information that otherwise would be obscured,” the companies note.

Cheat Makers Undermine Business Models

This undermining of the gaming experience for ordinary players comes at an enormous reputational and financial cost according to the complaint. As gamers leave their respective arenas in the face of cheating opponents, Riot and Bungie are reportedly losing goodwill along with millions of dollars in revenue.

The key issue is that the popularity of both Valorant and Destiny 2 lies not only in their gaming experiences but also in the business models selected by the plaintiffs. Since both games are available to play for free, the companies rely on gamers staying online for as long as possible while buying virtual goods such as characters, weapons, skins and clothing. When the experience is diminished by cheaters, the whole plan begins to come apart at the seams.

“If players perceive that others are cheating or have an unfair advantage, they will grow frustrated with the Games and stop playing. That, in turn, could disrupt and/or destroy the Games’ player communities and severely harm Plaintiffs’ ability to generate revenue and to maintain, improve, and expand the Games,” the complaint reads.

Bungie Issued Cease-and-Desist Notice in 2020

In an effort to protect their game, in November 2020 legal counsel for Bungie served GatorCheats with a cease-and-desist notice. GatorCheats subsequently informed users that the Destiny 2 cheats would be removed from sale but Santos reportedly assured those who had purchased a lifetime license they would continue to receive customer support.

However, the plaintiffs aren’t convinced that GatorCheats will discontinue the Destiny 2 cheats, alleging that the cheat maker will probably sell the software to users in a more discreet manner, including via a private section of the GatorCheats site.

The uncertainty surrounding compliance with the cease-and-desist notice appears to have triggered the lawsuit, which majors on breaches of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions plus violations of contract and unfair competition laws.

Trafficking in Circumvention Devices

The plaintiffs state that their games are protected by anti-cheat technologies designed to detect and thwart cheating tools. These technologies must be installed on users’ machines if they want to play the games. This means that if a cheat maker is to have a successful product, it must either conceal its existence from the developers’ anti-cheat technologies or disable them altogether. This is illegal under the DMCA, the plaintiffs claim.

“The Cheating Software is comprised of or contains technologies, products, services, devices, components, or parts thereof that primarily are designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing technological measures that effectively control access to the Games,” the complaint reads, noting that the cheats have no commercially significant purpose other than to circumvent technological measures.

“As a result of the foregoing, Defendants are offering to the public, providing, importing, or otherwise trafficking in technology that violates 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2) .”

As a result of these alleged infringements, the plaintiffs are demanding either the profits attributable to the sales of the cheats or the maximum statutory damages of $2,500 per violation of the DMCA. In respect of the former, the complaint estimates sales in the “tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars” for both sets of cheats. In the case of the latter, both cheats are said to have been downloaded “thousands of times” which easily supports a claim in the millions of dollars.

Interference With Contractual Relations, Unfair Competition

In addition to the claims under the DMCA, Riot and Bungie allege that though the provision of the cheats, GatorCheats intentionally encouraged its customers to breach the licensing contracts they had agreed with the companies when they installed the games. As a result, the cheat maker is guilty of “oppression, fraud, or malice” allowing the plaintiffs to recover exemplary and punitive damages.

In their final claim, Riot and Bungie state that GatorCheats engaged in unfair competition under California law, an act that again requires the cheat maker to pay compensation for damages caused to their businesses.

In the interim, the plaintiffs request injunctions to prevent GatorCheats from continuing to violate their rights, demanding that the cheat maker shuts down its software and removes it from the Internet. The gaming companies are also seeking access to financial records showing GatorCheats’ sales and how much money was made. That amount could be substantial.

According to the videogame companies, the Valorant cheat costs users $90 per month, $350 for three months, and $500 for lifetime access. The Destiny 2 cheats are slightly less pricey at $100 per month or $200 for a lifetime license.

The complaint can be found here (pdf)

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

In 2002, when Megaupload was a mere twinkle in the eye of Kim Dotcom, Swiss-based file-hosting site was already on its way to becoming an Internet giant.

The platform provided a simple way to store and share files with others and as a result, soon became popular with people looking to distribute copyright-infringing content. This attracted the negative attention of numerous copyright holders.

As an Internet services platform, RapidShare always insisted that it was not in control over the material being uploaded by its users, an assertion that sometimes had courts in agreement . Nevertheless, RapidShare continued to draw the ire of copyright holder groups and eventually found itself labeled by the USTR as a “notorious market”.

As pressure built, RapidShare made efforts to restrict the ability of users to share infringing content but this change of model took its toll on the site. Visitor numbers quickly decreased as customers chose to frequent more liberal platforms. In March 2015, the file-hoster decided to close its doors leaving dozens of former employees without jobs.

Criminal Lawsuit Filed in Switzerland

More than three years after the site shut itself down, it became clear that RapidShare’s operators were still facing an uncertain future. The service’s founder, Christian Schmid, his wife Alexandra, and one of their former lawyers, were put on trial in a criminal court. The public prosecutor of the court in Zug accused the trio of assisting in mass copyright infringement, demanding financial penalties on behalf of copyright holders.

Given the huge profits made by RapidShare (in 2009 alone, RapidShare’s gross dividend was almost $53m at today’s rates), the prosecutor argued that the enterprise benefited at the expense of content companies. The site’s operators were in a position to stop infringement but chose not to do so, placing revenue above everything else. As a result, the site’s founder alone should pay more than 700,000 Swiss francs, it was argued.

Zug Court: RapidShare Defendants Found Not Guilty

The Swiss court certainly took its time in issuing its judgment but after a two-and-a-half-year wait, the verdict is now in. The full judgment is not yet available to the public but a summary from Tagblatt reveals that Christian and Alexandra Schmid (now 40 and 42) and their former lawyer have all been found not guilty.

Zurich lawyer Andreas Meili, who defended Alexandra Schimd in the case, described the result as a “great satisfaction” but expressed concern at the expenses incurred by his client when defending the case.

“If you are acquitted, you are entitled to compensation, not the other way around,” he told Tablatt.

Whether there will be an opportunity to address the issue of costs is currently unclear but in any event, the matter may not be over just yet. The public prosecutor and copyright holders may not accept the judgment of the Zug court and could take the case to appeal.

In any event, the trial doesn’t seem to be having a huge effect on the living standards of the Schmids. In 2019 the couple paid the Thurgau bankruptcy office around 36 million Swiss francs ($40.5 million) to acquire Eugensberg Castle . The 18th-century castle was previously owned by entrepreneur and convicted fraudster Rolf Erb and sports eleven bedrooms and five bathrooms.

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

Providing tools and services enabling players to cheat in video games is big business but after years of relative freedom, cheat facilitators are increasingly being targeted by developers for undermining gaming experiences and business models.

In June 2019, development group Global++, which had provided cheats for Pokémon Go and other titles, was targeted by Francisco-based Niantic, the game’s original developer. The original lawsuit , filed in a California federal court targeted “unincorporated entity” Global++, two individuals named as Ryan Hunt (aka ELLIOTROBOT) and Alen Hundur (aka IOS NOOB), plus 20 ‘John Does’.

According to Niantic’s complaint, the only permissible way to play its augmented reality games (Pokémon Go, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, and Ingress) is via its original apps installable on mobile devices. These have permission to access Niantic’s servers and contain protected proprietary code, code which Global++ was alleged to have copied. Indeed, according to the developer, the Global++ software consisted of up to 99% of Niantic’s original code.

Predictably, this led to a broad range of copyright infringement allegations in the lawsuit but also included claims under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, broadly due to Global++ and its users accessing Niantic’s servers via hacked apps.

Parties Agree to Settle Case

As the case progressed, several parties’ names were added to the case while others were removed. Ultimately, Global++, IT Haven Inc., HLP Tech LLC, Ryan Hunt, Matthew Johnson and Alen Hunder remained as defendants, all of which have now agreed to settle their dispute with Niantic.

In a stipulation and proposed order filed Thursday, the parties agree that the defendants profited from unauthorized derivative versions of Niantic’s mobile apps (the “Cheating Programs”) that used “substantial portions of Niantic’s copyrighted computer code without Niantic’s permission.” These include Potter++ (a hacked version of the Harry Potter game), PokeGo++ (hacked version of Pokémon Go) and Ingress++ (hacked version of Ingress).

“All the Cheating Programs allow the Global++ Defendants and their customers to perform unauthorized actions while playing Niantic’s games, and allowed the Global++ Defendants to scrape Niantic’s valuable and proprietary map data. In other words, the Cheating Programs enable cheating,” the agreement reads.

Cheating Programs Undermined Gaming Experience

Since all of the above Niantic titles are multiplayer games, Niantic and Global++ agree that the hacked versions gave cheaters an unfair advantage over regular players, something which undermined the overall gaming experience. Furthermore, since Niantic sold subscriptions and collected payments via Patreon from “hundreds of thousands of users”, there was a profit motive underpinning the entire business.

The success of Niantic’s model also came at the expense of Niantic, the agreement reads, noting that the Cheating Programs “diminished enthusiasm” for the official products and in some cases drove players away from Niantic’s games altogether. As a result, the actions of the Global++ defendants damaged Niantic’s reputation and its business.

Agreed Breaches of Federal Law

The stipulation has the Global++ defendants admitting to a number of breaches of federal law, including violations of the Copyright Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The parties also agreed that the cheat makers’ conduct breached the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, California’s unfair competition laws, Niantic’s terms of service (breach of contract), while interfering with Niantic’s contractual relations with its customers.

As a result, Global++, Ryan Hunt, and IT Haven Inc. now admit to the offenses of direct copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. Matthew Johnson and HLP Tech LLC admit to contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement, while Alun Hundur admits to contributory copyright infringement.

All defendants further admit to violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, California’s unfair competition law, breach of contract, and interfering with Niantic’s business relations.

$5,000,000 Settlement and Injunction

To settle the matter, the defendants have agreed to pay Niantic $5,000,000 in damages and subject themselves to an injunction permanently restraining them from developing, marketing, or receiving payment for the Cheating Programs or substantially similar products.

They also agree not to offer or receive payment for products utilizing Niantic data or intellectual property and to refrain from reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling Niantic products. “Cracking or tweaking” any tools that are able to interfere with Niantic server protocols is also barred, along with a wide range of associated activities.

The agreement is yet to be signed off by the judge but given the agreement between the parties, that is likely to be a formality in the days to come.

The associated documents can be found here ( 1 , 2 pdf)

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

On December 21, 2020, academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society filed a lawsuit demanding that Indian ISPs block access to Sci-Hub and Libgen.

The companies accuse the platforms of engaging in large-scale copyright infringement and note that preventing citizens of India from accessing the platforms is the only real option available to prevent their rights from being further abused.

In similar blocking applications, there has been relatively little difficulty in getting the court onside. All have targeted torrent and streaming sites offering movies, TV shows, and similar content without permission. However, while the case against Sci-Hub and Libgen is materially similar, there are additional factors that make the case more complex.

Protests By Scientists, Academics, Teachers and Students

As reported this week, scientists, academics, teachers and students have been applying pressure to have their voices heard in the case. According to them, any blocking of Sci-Hub and Libgen would amount to a denial of access to information crucial to the wellbeing of not only the scientific and research communities but also of India as a whole.

During a hearing yesterday at the Delhi High Court, the publishers hoped to obtain an order to have the platforms and their many domains blocked. However, the presiding judge listened to the calls of the scientific community and agreed that a delay to allow more detailed consideration would be appropriate in this case.

“It is an issue of public importance. It’s very important to the scientific community,” said Justice JR Midha.

Representations of Scientific Community Will Be Heard

The Court’s decision to delay the hearing for around six weeks came following intervention applications filed by nineteen scientists , including a virologist and several physicists specializing in multiple research areas, plus the Delhi Science Forum and Knowledge Commons .

Arguing that open access to scientific research is absolutely vital for the advancement of scientific knowledge, the scientists believe that the publishers are making excessive profits while effectively restricting access only to the “elite institutions” that can afford their prices.

“Unfortunately, scientific publication is controlled by an oligopoly of publishers who charge exorbitant fees and practice anti-competitive business models that seriously hamper the ability of the scientific community to access and share research,” they write.

According to Bar and Bench , Senior Advocate Amit Sibal appeared for the publishing houses and Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan appeared for Sci-Hub. The scientists were represented by Advocate Jawahar Raja and Advocate Rohit Sharma appeared for Delhi Science Forum.

After consideration, the Court rejected pleas for the sites to blocked immediately and instead ordered pleadings to be completed within the next six weeks.

According to SpicyIP , Sci-Hub received a two-week extension to fulfill its procedural obligations and was granted permission to file an application for exemption from formal compliances. This is due to the unusual nature of the case and Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan currently living in Russia.

Interestingly, the publication further notes that while there is an arrangement to prevent any of the publishers’ content from appearing on Sci-Hub while the matter is under consideration, a request to have this ‘ban’ extended to Libgen was rejected by the Court. Libgen is reportedly yet to be properly served by the publishers, excluding it from the interim direction.

The case will now be heard on February 23, 2021 (link to order here )

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

More than thirteen years after the first pirate site was blocked following a court order in Denmark, movie, music and sports companies in dozens of countries have sought similar action.

More recently, publishing giants including Elsevier have also sought to protect their rights by targeting Sci-Hub (‘The Pirate Bay of Science’) and Libgen (Library Genesis), platforms that help to distribute scientific and academic papers to the masses, but without charging readers a penny.

New Complaint Filed at High Court in Delhi

In a new complaint dated December 21, 2020, Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society, aim to compel Indian ISPs to block both Sci-Hub and Libgen.

Naming Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan personally and the sites themselves, the complaint alleges that all “substantially indulge in online piracy by making available for viewing and download, providing access to, and communicating to the public, Plaintiffs’ literary works” via the Internet.

The companies acknowledge that Elbakyan has never hidden her connection to Sci-Hub but note that the sites themselves, accessible via multiple domains, have their WHOIS details hidden behind privacy services in many cases.

“Therefore, it is virtually impossible to bring the owners of the websites before this Honorable Court in order to ensure that the Orders of this Court are complied with,” the complaint reads.

To solve this accountability hurdle, the publishers have included Internet service providers as defendants in the complaint. Also named are the Department of Communications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, to ensure they play their part in having the pirate platforms blocked in India.

Complaint is Voluminous But Relies on Tested Theories

At 2,169 pages long, the publishers’ complaint is huge by any standards. However, it appears to tread little new ground and instead bases itself on previously tried and tested procedures.

In particular, it leans heavily on complaints previously filed by Twentieth Century Fox and local Disney-owned media giant UTV Software Communications, which resulted in some of the largest torrent and streaming sites on the Internet being permanently blocked in India.

In the current complaint against Sci-Hub and Libgen, which is similar to the UTV case, the aim is to categorize the platforms as “rogue sites” worthy of the special actions available under a so-called “dynamic injunction”. In practical terms, this means that the plaintiffs’ won’t have to keep returning to court for additional injunctions when Sci-Hub and Libgen predictably launch new domains and mirror sites to avoid blocking.

According to Sci-Hub, the case was to be heard Thursday in the High Court of Delhi. In the same tweet , the platform also shared a full copy of the complaint, available here .

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

Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider and Virgin Islands-based Pirate Monitor Ltd teamed up in the summer to file a class-action lawsuit against YouTube.

In an effort to gain access to YouTube’s Content ID system, the complaint stated that YouTube has an allegedly lax attitude to takedown notices and repeat infringers, and discriminates against smaller creators.

Schneider told the court that a number of her songs had been posted to YouTube without her permission. Pirate Monitor Ltd argued similarly, stating that pirated copies of its works had been uploaded to the site. Both further said they had been denied access to Content ID.

In its response, YouTube focused on Pirate Monitor, alleging that the company or its agents uploaded the ‘pirate’ movies and then claimed mass infringement, something which disqualified them from accessing Content ID.

“YouTube Failed to Provide Evidence”

In a motion to dismiss filed in November, Pirate Monitor said YouTube had provided no “hard evidence” to back up these damaging claims, demanding that the court disregard the allegations and reject calls for the right to an injunction to prevent Pirate Monitor from submitting wrongful DMCA notices in the future.

At the time we noted that it was unlikely that YouTube had simply pulled its claims out of thin air and in an opposition to dismiss Pirate Monitor’s counterclaims, YouTube now provides a taster of some of the supporting evidence it has on file.

Motion to Dismiss Counterclaims

“Pirate Monitor devised an elaborate scheme to prove itself sufficiently trustworthy to use YouTube’s advanced copyright management tools,” YouTube begins.

“Through agents using pseudonyms to hide their identities, Pirate Monitor uploaded some two thousand videos to YouTube, each time representing that the content did not infringe anyone’s copyright. Shortly thereafter, Pirate Monitor invoked the notice-and-takedown provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to demand that YouTube remove the same videos its agents had just uploaded.”

YouTube notes that Pirate Monitor has still not disputed these claims but has nevertheless moved to dismiss, arguing that YouTube should provide detailed evidence to support its allegations. According to YouTube, it does not have to do that at this early stage but nevertheless highlights some key evidence to show foul play.

Suspicious Uploads

In all, YouTube processed nearly 2,000 DMCA notices it received by Pirate Monitor in the fall of 2019. All of the targeted videos had a uniform length, around 30 seconds each, generated from “obscure Hungarian movies”. They had been uploaded in bulk from users with IP addresses allocated to Pakistan.

“That alone was suspicious, there is no obvious reason why short clips from relatively unknown Hungarian-language movies should be uploaded to YouTube from accounts and devices in Pakistan,” YouTube writes.

Furthermore, YouTube notes that the videos were uploaded by users with similar names, such as RansomNova11 and RansomNova12, who gave the clips nondescript titles. Perhaps even more telling, the takedown notices were sent soon after the videos were uploaded, sometimes before the videos had been seen by anyone.

While the nature of the uploads is indeed suspicious, YouTube says that it also found what it describes as a “smoking gun”, i.e evidence that the uploads and DMCA notices were being sent by the same entity.

The Smoking Gun

“After considerable digging, YouTube found a smoking gun. In November 2019, amidst a raft of takedown notices from Pirate Monitor, one of the ‘RansomNova’ users that had been uploading clips via IP addresses in Pakistan logged into their YouTube account from a computer connected to the Internet via an IP address in Hungary,” YouTube explains.

“Pirate Monitor had been sending YouTube its takedown notices from a computer assigned that very same unique numeric address in Hungary. Simply put, whoever RansomNova is, he or she was sharing Pirate Monitor’s computer and/or Internet connection, and doing so at the same time Pirate Monitor was using the same computer and/or connection to send YouTube takedown notices.”

To counter Pirate Monitor’s claims that not enough evidence has been provided, YouTube says that a party is not required to prove its entire case in its complaint and the relevant rules do not allow Pirate Monitor to escape any accounting for fraudulent and illegal conduct by “concealing the identity of its agents and obscuring its connection to them.”

Specifically, however, YouTube says it has already answered the “who, what, where and when?” questions Pirate Monitor claims YouTube has not answered. The “who” is Pirate Monitor, the “what” is Pirate Monitor’s allegedly fraudulent representations, the “where” is YouTube’s website, and the “when” is from August 2019 to November 2019.

“For these reasons, Pirate Monitor’s motion to dismiss should be denied,” YouTube’s legal team writes.

The opposition to Pirate Monitor’s motion to dismiss can be found here (pdf)

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

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

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

Pre-Emptive Strike By YouTube-Ripper Yout

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

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

Amended Complaint Highlights Additional Damage

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

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

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

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

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

Enhanced Rejections of Anti-Circumvention Allegations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Targeting YouTube-DL Proves Counterproductive

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

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

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

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

Hacking group Team-Xecuter has long been a thorn in the side of major gaming companies.

The group offers hardware and software solutions that allow people to install and play unofficial games – including pirated copies – on various consoles, including the popular Nintendo Switch.

Team-Xecuter often defended its work by pointing out that their products are not necessarily pirate tools. They are supporters of the ‘right to repair’ movement and back people who want to play homebrew games on their devices for personal use.

The affected game companies disagree, with Nintendo front and center. The Japanese gaming company has been chasing down Team-Xecuter for years and a few months ago the company took several online stores to court for selling Team-Xecuter products .

In October, these enforcement efforts reached a new level when the US Government launched a criminal prosecution of three of the group’s members.

Bowser aka ‘GaryOPA’

One of the defendants is Canadian Gary Bowser. He was arrested in the Dominican Republic in September and was deported to the US soon after. Bowser was allegedly responsible for the development of circumvention devices and maintained regular contact with resellers.

Bowser is perhaps best known through his nickname GaryOPA, the supposed operator and a frequent writer on the website “MaxConsole,” which regularly reviewed Team-Xecuter hardware and other hacking tools.

Flight Risk

In a ‘Zoom’ hearing held last week, a federal court in Seattle reviewed a request for pretrial detention, submitted by the US prosecution. It is not uncommon for criminal defendants to be released on bail pending their trial, but the US argues against this in Bowser’s case, as he’s considered a ‘flight risk.’ The court agrees.

“Defendant poses a risk of nonappearance due to his lack of ties to this district, ties to Canada and the Dominican Republic, ownership of a Canadian passport, history of international travel, unstable living situation, and an uncorroborated personal history,” US Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson writes.

“Based on these findings, and for the reasons stated on the record, there does not appear to be any condition or combination of conditions that will reasonably assure the Defendant’s appearance at future court hearings,” she adds.

Bowser was not interviewed by the court, which currently has no information on his family ties, personal history, or employment. That leaves the door open to reopening the detention hearing at a future date, which may change things.

The Other Defendants

There is no update on the other defendants at this point. Based on the information in the court dockets, Yuanning Chen from China is still at large. According to the indictment, Chen managed a manufacturing and distribution company where Team-Xecuter’s hardware was made.

The third defendant, French national Max Louarn, was arrested in Canada where a U.S. extradition request was launched. The US Government sees Louarn, who’s hacking track record goes back to the early nineties, as the leader of Team-Xecuter.

Louarn allegedly made Team-Xecuter’s important business decisions, arranged investors and financing, and oversaw product development and the wholesale distribution chains.

Nintendo Takes Over Domains

The US criminal prosecution is not the only legal pressure on Team-Xecuter. Nintendo has also seen very active on the legal front. One of the stores it sued earlier this year, Axiogame.com, was allegedly operated by Team-Xecuter . That has been shut down through Nintendo’s lawsuit.

The Axiogame.com domain is now owned by Nintendo and over recent days the gaming company took over several other domains of former piracy hack stores, assisted by an updated court order .

Flashcarda.com switched to the new Materpl.com domain and both are owned by Nintendo now. The same is true for Txswitch.com that switched to Stxwitch.com, Usachipss.com that moved to Nerged.com, and several other domains.

Team-Xecuter Continues

Despite the mounting legal pressure, Team-Xecuter is far from defeated. In fact, the site’s main website remains online . The forum remains active as well, with people privately offering help to install or buy mods.

Team-Xecuter’s dedicated page for the SX product line is also still intact. This links to a list of authorized resellers. While many of these stores are offline now, a few are still actively selling.

—

A copy of the detention order issued by US Magistrate Judge Michelle Peterson is available here (pdf) . Nintendo’s filing, pointing out the newly targeted shop domains can be found here (pdf)

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

Operating a mixtape site is not without risk. By definition, mixes include multiple sound recordings that are often protected by copyright.

Popular hip-hop mixtape site and app Spinrilla , which has millions of users, is well aware of these risks. In 2017, the company was sued by several record labels, backed by the RIAA, that accused the company of massive copyright infringement.

“Spinrilla specializes in ripping off music creators by offering thousands of unlicensed sound recordings for free,” the RIAA commented at the time.

Spinrilla Fights Piracy Accusations

The hip-hop site countered the allegations by pointing out that it installed an RIAA-approved anti-piracy filter and actively worked with major record labels to promote their tracks . In addition, Spinrilla stressed that the DMCA’s safe harbor protects the company.

As the case progressed both parties filed motions for summary judgment. The music companies requested rulings to establish, before trial, that Spinrilla is liable for direct copyright infringement and that the DMCA safe harbor doesn’t apply.

Spinrilla countered this with cross-motions, filed under seal, in which they argued the opposite.

Court: Spinrilla is Liable

This week, US District Court Judge Amy Totenberg ruled on the requests. The 47-page order is good news for the music companies, as the court agrees that Spinrilla is liable for direct copyright infringement.

In her ruling, Judge Totenberg writes that Spinrilla admitted that 4,082 copyrighted sound recordings were streamed at least once through its website or app. The mixtape service failed, however, to offer a usable counterargument to this claim.

Spinrilla’s legal team brought up several cases in the company’s defense, but these all deal with uploading and downloading of infringing content, not streaming. Also, the cited cases are not about infringements of the public performance right, contrary to the present lawsuit.

Streaming vs. Downloading

This is a problem because the record labels highlighted cases where courts held that streaming can be a direct infringement of exclusive performance rights, even when the streaming occurs at the request of the user. That’s what happened at Spinrilla.

“Here, Plaintiffs do not rely solely on uploads and downloads of their music to and from Spinrilla. Defendants have created an interactive internet player that streams copyrighted content directly from its website and mobile app,” Judge Totenberg writes.

As a result, Spinrilla is held liable for directly infringing the copyrights of the 4,082 sound recordings that were listed in the complaint.

“Defendants have infringed Plaintiffs’ exclusive right ‘to perform’ their copyrighted sound recordings ‘publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.’ Therefore, Plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment on their claim of direct infringement of the 4,082 works in suit.”

With the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work, this opens the door to an astronomical award of more than $600 million dollars. And that’s not the end of the bad news for Spinrilla.

Limited Safe Harbor

The court also ruled that the mixtape service is not eligible for a DMCA safe harbor defense before July 2017. While the site and app have accepted takedown notices for many years, they didn’t register a DMCA agent with the Copyright Office, which is a requirement.

Spinrilla first registered a DMCA agent in 2017, five months after the lawsuit started. In addition, it didn’t have a repeat infringer policy before July that year, another requirement for safe harbor protection.

“Consequently, the undisputed facts demonstrate that Defendants did not satisfy all of the required elements to be eligible for safe harbor defense until July 29, 2017, which is when they first designated an agent with the U.S. Copyright Office and had adopted a repeat infringer policy,” Judge Totenberg writes.

This means that Spinrilla can only invoke the safe harbor defense for infringement that occurred after that date.

The record labels asked the court to go even further, arguing that Spinrilla’s repeat infringer policy wasn’t “reasonably implemented,” because not all repeat infringers were terminated. However, the court rejected this, as the 4,082 sound recordings didn’t include any tracks that were uploaded by known repeat infringers.

Record Labels are Happy

Overall, however, the record labels are very pleased with this significant win. With streaming becoming the norm today, this case is crucial.

“We are gratified by the court’s decision, which sends a message that online streaming providers cannot hide behind the actions of their users to avoid their own liability for copyright infringement that occurs through their systems,” Kenneth Doroshow, RIAA Chief Legal Officer says.

“The court got it exactly right on several key points of copyright law in the digital streaming context, and we hope that it serves as a lodestar for other courts and service providers alike.”

The RIAA, which represents the major record labels, is also happy that the ruling confirms that mistakes can be just as infringing as posting full sound recordings.

While the ruling is an early win for the music companies, the case isn’t over just yet. There are still matters that have to be decided at trial, including the scale of the damages, if these are awarded. Alternatively, the parties can try to resolve the matter through a mediation process.

At the same time, Spinrilla is also involved in a legal battle with the RIAA directly. The mixtape site sued the industry group earlier this year, accusing it of sending false DMCA takedown notices . That case remains pending.

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A copy of the order issued yesterday by US District Court Judge Amy Totenberg is available here (pdf)

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