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

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

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

Multiple Defendants Targeted in a Utah Court

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Courts have Awarded Substantially Less Than $10,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Millions of Internet users around the world use a VPN to protect their privacy online.

Another key benefit is that VPNs hide users’ true IP-address, making them more anonymous . This prevents third-party monitoring outfits from carrying out unwanted snooping.

This is one of the reasons why many torrent users have a VPN installed. Instead of displaying their own IP-address in torrent swarms, the VPN IP-address will show up. And when the provider doesn’t keep any logs, that address can’t be traced back to a single user.

Lawsuit Targets Pirating VPN Users

Such a setup seems secure, but it hasn’t prevented the makers of the action movie ‘Angel Has Fallen’ from suing several anonymous VPN users. In a recent lawsuit filed at a federal court in Colorado, the company lists fourteen alleged pirates that used an IP-address of the VPN service Private Internet Access, also known as PIA .

“Upon information and belief, Defendants DOES 3-5, 7-10 and 12-17 registered for paid accounts for Virtual Private Network (‘VPN’) service with the Colorado Internet Service Provider Private Internet Access,” the complaint reads.

The lawsuit in question lists the defendants as Does, which means that their true identities are unknown. However, attorney Kerry Culpepper, who represents Fallen Productions in this matter, hopes to find out more through third-party subpoenas.

Info From YTS User Database

The case relies in part on information from the YTS user database that was shared by the operator of the site earlier this year, as part of a settlement. This includes download details of several users, as well as their IP-addresses and email addresses.

The attorney has requested subpoenas to compel email providers, Internet providers, and Private Internet Access for more personal information. In the past, we have seen that Microsoft and ISPs such as Comcast will hand over what they have, but with a VPN this isn’t as straightforward.

PIA’s Confirmed No-Log Policy

PIA has a so-called ‘no logs’ policy which means that it can’t link a VPN IP-address and a timestamp to a unique user. This policy has been repeatedly tested and confirmed in courts.

Culpepper informs TorrentFreak that he will request a subpoena regardless. He argues that the use of a VPN shows that people were aware of their illegal activity.

“It is relevant because it shows they tried to hide their activities. It shows consciousness of the illegal activities,” Culpepper says, while pointing out an article where PIA warned YTS users that they were at risk.

PIA’s Jurisdiction Angle

In addition, by signing the terms of service, PIA users also subject themselves to the jurisdiction of Courts in Colorado. This is relevant in this case because not all defendants are from the western U.S. state.

“Most importantly, if they signed up for an account with PIA they agreed to jurisdiction in Colorado no matter where they are. Most of the PIA users were not in Colorado,” Culpepper notes.

All defendants are accused of downloading a torrent titled “Angel Has Fallen (2019) [BluRay] [720p] [YTS.LT],” as well as other copyright-infringing content that isn’t specified.

Defendants Still at Risk

According to the complaint all defendants have received at least one DMCA notice. Fifteen of them were also contacted repeatedly on their known email address with cease and desist notices and settlement offers, but these were ignored.

With this lawsuit Fallen Productions hopes to uncover the identities of the people behind these IP- and email addresses.

TorrentFreak contacted PIA for a comment on the lawsuit. The company said that it hasn’t received a subpoena yet and reiterated that it can’t identify individual users.

“Private Internet Access has not received a subpoena in regards to this case. Even if we do, our response will be the same as always: PIA does not log VPN user activity,” a PIA spokesperson informed us.

That was also confirmed in more detail earlier this year in our annual VPN overview.

“There are no logs kept for any person or entity to match an IP address and a timestamp to a current or former user of our service,” PIA said at the time .

That said, defendants are still at risk, as their email addresses are known as well. That doesn’t prove anything, as YTS allowed members to sign up with a fake email, but it could lead to people being identified eventually, without PIA’s involvement.

If anything, this case shows that using a VPN only offers limited anonymity. When people use a VPN irregularly and leave other information behind, such as email addresses, they may eventually be exposed anyway.

—

A copy of Fallen Production’s complaint, filed as the US District Court in Colorado, is available here (pdf)

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

Piracy warnings come in all shapes and sizes. While some notices have no teeth, others should be handled with extreme caution.

Typically, alarm bells should go off when a letter is sent by a lawyer who knows who you are.

One such warning was sent to Mrs. Parks in early June, both by first class mail and e-mail. The Arizona woman is one of the people whose personal details were shared by the torrent site YTS, an issue we addressed in detail earlier.

Exposed by YTS Database Info

This YTS database ended up in the hands of anti-piracy attorney Kerry Culpepper, who’s actively exploiting it. The lawyer represents several movie companies and has used the information in the database to request out of court settlements from pirates.

Mrs. Parks, who allegedly downloaded the film “ Lost Child ,” was given the chance to resolve her case for $1,000 in four separate payments. If the first three payments arrived on time, the final $250 would be waived.

This same tactic is being used on dozens if not hundreds of alleged YTS users. It’s not clear how many people settle, but Mrs. Parks and her husband Mr. Dabney initially seemed willing to take the deal, which was confirmed over the phone and via email on June 8.

Agreement to Settle for $1,000

After this initial agreement, communications stopped for a while. Parks and Dabney never sent back the signed settlement agreement and a reminder on August 31 remained unanswered.

This course of events was written up in a complaint filed at a federal court in Arizona yesterday. The plan was to resolve the matter outside of court, even after the same IP-address shared another movie last week.

“On or about September 21, 2020, after still having received no communication from Defendants, Plaintiffs’ counsel determined that the same IP address Defendants used to download the torrent file for Lost Child (47.216.212.227) was used to download and share copies of the motion picture Saving Christmas,” Culpepper informs the court.

The complaint lists both Mrs. Parks and Mr. Dabney as the defendants. They are accused of using one and the same YTS account and allegedly downloaded the film “Lost Child” last year and “Saving Christmas” a few days ago, after which the attorney sent another settlement request.

“On September 21, 2020, Plaintiffs’ counsel sent Defendant Dabney a demand by email for the full $1000 of the settlement agreement and an additional $750 as damages for infringing the motion picture Saving Christmas,” the complaint reads.

Husband Responds With Tirade

After weeks of silence, Mr. Dabney responded to that request. He was not open to any settlements, however, and accused the lawyer of being “a fraud and a scam,” threatening to take action against the lawyer and his “fake law firm.”

The movie companies’ attorney responded by confirming that he would indeed file a lawsuit, reminding the alleged pirate that he wouldn’t get far in court with such scandalous language. That didn’t change the man’s tone, however, on the contrary.

“Look here. You will NOT get a dime out out [sic] me. You think that language was bad you ain’t seen sh*t fa**ot. That’s not a threat that’s a f*ckin promise. Put that in your records f*ckin bitch ni**a. Dude with a girls [sic] name. Get the f*ck out here and leave me family alone,” he replied.

In a follow-up email, Mr. Dabney further urged the attorney to “…stop looking at [his] IP address…” while accusing him of “…watching [his] 3 year old through the camera…”

Case Goes to Court

Instead of backing off, the attorney quoted these emails in the complaint he filed at the US District Court of Arizona. Representing the owners of the films “Lost Child” and “Saving Christmas,” he accuses the two defendants of both direct and contributory copyright infringement.

In addition, the complaint also includes a “breach of contract” allegation against Mrs. Parks, who allegedly failed to honor the settlement agreement that was agreed on earlier.

In court, the husband and wife now face damages claims that may end up being substantially higher than the original settlement. In addition to the damages claim, the complaint also requests compensation for legal costs and attorneys’ fees.

—

A copy of the complaint, filed on behalf of Santa Files Productions LLC, and Laundry Films Inc is available here (pdf)

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

Mass lawsuits targeting Internet subscribers who allegedly downloaded and/or shared copyrighted material have been a common tactic for content companies over more than 15 years.

The targets are nearly always BitTorrent users since without using a decent VPN , they are easy prey for anti-piracy companies.

The practice is widespread in the United States and in many countries across Europe but Canada is also popular with mass litigants, who are often labeled ‘copyright trolls’ due to their tactics.

Statement of Claim Filed in Federal Court of Toronto

Filed on September 23 by Outpost Productions, Inc., the action targets 841 IP addresses allocated to the same number of ‘Doe’ defendants, none of whom are currently known by name to the plaintiffs. It’s alleged that each person downloaded and/or uploaded the 2020 war drama movie ‘The Outpost’ in breach of copyright law.

According to the claim, the defendants shouldn’t be surprised that they are being targeted. After their infringement was detected on BitTorrent networks, they were each sent a notice via their ISPs informing them that they had been observed online sharing the movie. If they stopped at that point, no further action would be taken, they were told.

No Defendants Responded or Took the Advice to Stop

After the first notices were sent out, an anti-piracy company working on behalf of Outpost Productions continued to monitor BitTorrent swarms sharing the movie. During this period, it was possible to determine that the 841 IP addresses listed in the claim were still downloading and/or sharing the content days and in some cases weeks later.

As a result, they were sent a second notice, again via their ISP.

“As a result of each Defendant’s failure to respond to the First Notice and his or her continuation of the Unlawful Acts, a second notice..was sent to the Defendant by Counsel for the Plaintiff after the forensic software detected that the same IP address was offering for upload the same work,” the plaintiffs write.

“This Second Notice indicated that the work had not been removed and that legal action may be taken as against such Defendant. The Defendant failed or refused to respond to the Second Notice and continued his or her Unlawful Acts.”

The claim notes that it is illegal under the Copyright Act to make content available for download, advertise a work for download, and illegal not to take “reasonable, or any, steps” to ensure that the person downloading the work is authorized to do so by law.

ISPs Log IP Addresses By Time and Date

At this stage the true identities of the Does are not known by the plaintiffs but the claim notes that their respective ISPs carry time and date logs that allow them to correlate an IP address to the identity of a specific customer.

“The ‘customer’ may be the infringer of copyright, in particular if the assigned IP address is only used by a single device,” the claim adds, cautiously. However, even if the IP address is shared with multiple devices, the customer “should have, and ought to have, the knowledge of who was using the customer’s internet account at the specifically identified date and time.”

While the plaintiffs believe that it will be possible to trace an IP address to an ISP customer, they further note that “further examination of the customer” may be necessary.

Identifying Who Actually Infringed is More Difficult

Households with an ISP connection often have several users, each doing their own thing on their own devices. This can cause problems when trying to pin a specific act on an individual using the same IP address as everyone else. This eventuality is tackled in the claim by holding the person who pays the bill responsible for the actions of everyone else.

“[S]ome of the Defendants may not be the direct infringer, but through negligence or wilful blindness has authorized others to do the foregoing acts, including the Unlawful Acts. In this regard, the Plaintiff pleads that each Defendant possessed sufficient control over the use of his or her internet account and associated computers and internet devices such that he or she authorized, sanctioned, approved or countenanced the infringements…,” the claim adds.

There are 841 IP addresses listed in the lawsuit and while we haven’t researched every single one, a random sample of around 100 reveals that the addresses are registered to well known Canadian ISPs including Bell, Eastlink, Rogers, SaskTel, TekSavvy, and Telus Communications.

Claim for Injunction and Damages

The main goal in this and all similar claims is for the plaintiffs to receive financial compensation for the alleged actions of the infringers while preventing any infringement from continuing. In respect of the former, that can only be achieved once alleged infringers have been identified by their ISPs.

That is usually achieved via a so-called Norwich Order, which allows plaintiffs to bring an action against an innocent third-party (in this case ISPs) tied up in some wrongdoing to compel them to participate in a discovery process, i.e matching IP addresses to names and addresses, before handing those lists to the plaintiff.

Historically, TekSavvy is the most obvious ISP when it comes to the possibility of protecting its customers from being identified but whether it will put up a fight in this matter is currently unknown.

While the plaintiffs urge the court to prevent the defendants from continuing to infringe, the Doe defendants are being sent a copy of the case by the court, advising them that if they do want to put up a defense, they must do so within 30 days of receiving the claim.

This and Earlier Cases Linked to Millenium Media

As reported in February, more than 3,300 defendants are being targeted in similar actions brought by companies behind the movies Angel Has Fallen and Rambo: Last Blood.

In common with The Outpost, all entities are directly connected to Millenium Media, whose affiliates sued and then reached a settlement with torrent site YTS.

Part of that settlement involved YTS handing over user data to the companies in question, something that is now resulting in alleged pirates being sued in the United States. There is currently no suggestion that YTS data is being used in the present action.

A copy of the Statement of Claim can be found here (pdf, via Excess Copyright )

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 a 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 a few months ago we learned that having an account also comes with risks.

Movie Companies Target YTS site and Users

At the start of the year, a group of movie companies filed lawsuits against alleged YTS users . In doing so, they relied on information that appeared to come directly from the YTS user database, including email addresses.

The timing of these lawsuits was interesting. The complaints were filed around the same time the alleged operator of YTS signed a settlement deal with the same movie companies, agreeing to pay a substantial settlement fee.

We later learned that, in order to resolve the matter, YTS had shared information from its database with the movie outfits. While it was a one-time handover, there was enough information to go after a long list of users. Today we can report on the latest development in this saga.

Shared User Data Triggers Settlement Demands

As reported earlier, the YTS user data ended up at the makers of films such as “Hellboy” and “Rambo: Last Blood,” and “London has Fallen,” who used it to their advantage. In addition to filing lawsuits, they also approached alleged file-sharers with settlement demands directly.

With the threat of potential legal action, several users are likely to pay up. However, not everyone does. A few days ago, a dozen movie companies sued three alleged YTS users who failed to respond to these out-of-court settlement demands.

In a complaint filed at a federal court in Colorado, the copyright holders accuse the defendants of sharing pirated copies of titles including Hunter Killer, Rambo V: Last Blood, London Has Fallen, Hellboy, and Mechanic: Resurrection.

The legal paperwork identifies the three, who are all Colorado residents, as Stephen Moody, William Nelson, and Ty Tidwell. They all signed up with YTS using email addresses linked to Microsoft, which presumably shared information with the movie companies through a subpoena.

“Defendant William Nelson entered the name ‘William Nelson’ and the state ‘Colorado’ when initially registering for his email address ‘[redacted]@hotmail.com’ on September 26, 2000,” the complaint reads, adding that he registered for an account with the YTS website using that same email.

The same defendant also used a VPN on several occasions. According to the copyright holders he did so “to conceal his illicit activities,” however, that offered little help.

Sued YTS Users Ignored Settlement Demands

With the IP-addresses, email addresses, and download records from YTS, paired with information gathered from public torrent trackers, the movie companies reached out to the three men with a settlement offer. We believe that this is similar to the letters we reported on in the past, where a settlement of around $1,000 was proposed.

The three defendants didn’t respond to the offer, according to the complaint.

“Defendant [name] has ignored repeated communications from Plaintiffs’ counsel requesting him to cease and desist his unlawful activity and pay a portion of Plaintiffs’ damages,” it reads.

The three defendants are all accused of direct and contributory copyright infringement by sharing the various films. The movie companies request actual or statutory damages as compensation for the losses they suffered.

In addition, the three men also allegedly violated the DMCA by distributing content with altered copyright management information. According to the complaint, distributing files with words like “YTS” added to the title could induce others to pirate these films. For this, the movie companies want to be compensated too.

—

A copy of the full complaint, filed on behalf of Plaintiffs: Fallen Productions, Hunter Killer Productions, Rambo V Productions, LHF Productions, Millennium Funding, HB Productions, Stoic Productions, Voltage Holdings, Gunfighter Productions, SF Film, Definition Delaware, and After Productions, is available here (pdf)

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

It’s public knowledge that sites like The Pirate Bay store IP addresses and other data relating to its users.

Users hope that this data will be handled with care but in 2013, when the site effectively did the unthinkable, many users cheered the site on instead.

In order to assist the criminal prosecution of the infamous lawyers behind the now-defunct Prenda Law copyright troll outfit, The Pirate Bay released user logs that identified the company as the uploader of several movies. This and other evidence put two lawyers behind bars, where both remain today .

Seven years later, users of YTS – which is currently the second most-visited torrent site in the world – have an entirely more worrying scenario to consider because this time around, they are on the receiving end.

FACT: YTS is Handing Over User Data to a Law Firm

This saga has been running for some time but this week we were able to confirm what we’ve long suspected. The operator of YTS is actively handing over personal information about his own users to a law firm in Hawaii, which is acting on behalf of companies behind movies including Hellboy and Rambo: Last Blood.

The background to this ‘partnership’ appears to have its roots in cases where YTS itself was sued by attorney Kerry Culpepper for copyright infringement .

Since or around that time, YTS operator Senthal Vijay Segaran seems to have started cooperating with Culpepper, giving up email and IP addresses to the attorney in support of lawsuits against alleged pirates in the United States.

What we are seeing now, however, is that user data handed over to the attorney by YTS’s operator is being used in emailed threats to alleged users of YTS, demanding cash settlements to make potential lawsuits disappear.

Emailed Pay-Up-Or-Else Threats

TorrentFreak recently obtained an email sent by Culpepper IP to an alleged user of YTS. It begins with three pieces of information; the email and IP address of the recipient, plus the date (but not the precise time) of the alleged infringement. (Note: We have redacted some information to protect the privacy of our source)

It continues by stating that the law firm previously filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in Hawaii on behalf of its clients and “subsequently obtained identifying contact information for many of these users from the YTS website operator, including yours.”

The point of the email, it adds, is one of “courtesy” before legal action is taken that may result in additional costs.

With there being no doubt whatsoever that YTS data is helping to power this campaign, the email claims that the recipient “logged into the website YTS using the email address [redacted] from the IP address [redacted] and illegally downloaded a torrent file for copying our clients’ motion picture…”

In isolation, this claim is interesting. Torrent files contain no copyrighted content and it isn’t illegal to download them as they contain only metadata, i.e data that describes other data. No one has ever been prosecuted for downloading a .torrent file – anywhere, ever. That’s because it does not necessarily follow that the .torrent file downloader subsequently loaded it into a torrent client to download and/or share the work it references.

It is possible for the IP address of a user to be observed sharing the actual content in a torrent swarm if they later chose to do that, but the emailed letter offers no indication that is the case.

To be clear: downloading a torrent file is not illegal, sharing copyrighted content is. And there is a big difference as far as the courts are concerned. That being said, evidence showing the downloading of a torrent file on a specific date via a torrent site account attached to an email address, could also be accompanied by IP address evidence from a torrent swarm. That could be much more compelling in court.

The Options on Offer According to the Emailed Letter

In common with most settlement schemes, the letter seeks a cash payment from the recipient. For privacy reasons, we aren’t detailing the exact amount but it’s around the $1,000 mark. In exchange for paying this amount quickly, the law firm offers a “comprehensive release of all legal claims”, including the recipient not becoming a named defendant in a lawsuit.

Somewhat unusually and for reasons that are not immediately clear, it also demands additional information.

This includes a signed declaration indicating the BitTorrent client used to carry out the alleged infringement, the name of the site or business that promoted that BitTorrent client, and whether the letter recipient has ever received a copyright warning notice from his or her Internet service provider.

One can only speculate as to how this information might be put to use in the future but it certainly sounds like a bigger picture is being formed. Recall, the same law firm – Culpepper IP – is also trying to hold Internet backbone company Hurricane Electric responsible for piracy carried out by BitTorrent users.

Why This Approach is So Unusual

Apart from the operator of one of the world’s largest torrent sites giving up the personal information of his users, it’s worth looking at the structure of how this is taking place.

A $1 million consent judgment from earlier this year between movie companies affiliated with Millennium Media (under the legal guidance of Culpepper IP) and YTS, positively identified India-resident Senthil Vijay Segaran and the UK company Techmodo Limited as the operators of YTS.

So, a UK company runs YTS? Perhaps we should let that sink in for a moment.

Techmodo Limited is officially registered with the government in the UK, with Segaran listed as the sole director. It hasn’t yet filed any meaningful accounts and the same is true for the company of the same name , also operated by Segaran, that was dissolved following a via compulsory strike-off just months earlier.

So, what we appear to have here is an official UK-registered company, which is subject to all relevant local law (both civil and criminal), being identified by plaintiffs in a US-lawsuit as the operator of an illegal site. We use the term ‘illegal’ here as guided by the High Court of England and Wales, which previously determined that YTS and hundreds of similar sites act illegally under civil law (at least) in the UK and should be blocked by local ISPs.

So the big questions must follow. If Techmodo Limited is the operator of YTS and YTS is a site that operates illegally, it seems highly unlikely that Techmodo Limited can legally operate the YTS site in the UK. What charges or challenges it might face are matters for HMRC and possibly even the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit because, when infringement is carried out in the course of business, it becomes a criminal offense.

Big Questions to Be Answered in Murky and Unchartered Waters

In summary, what we appear to have here is a verifiably illegal site, run through an ostensibly legal entity, collecting and processing private user information, then handing that data over to third-party overseas attorneys/media companies, ones that appear to know the legal status of the site and the company behind it. This, so that people can be approached for payments for alleged offenses that took place utilizing that illegal site.

We can only presume that Culpepper IP and its associates have done their homework, they’re lawyers after all, but this business and/or legal arrangement is unorthodox, to say the very least. If a UK precedent exists determining the legality of the transfer of this kind of user data in these circumstances, we’re completely unaware of it.

If nothing else, the bar seems to be set particularly low when a legal entity, Techmodo Limited, is stated to be the operator of an illegal site, one that’s also supplying private information on alleged infringers that were only able to infringe because the YTS site supplied the torrent files in the first place. Quite remarkable.

Copyright experts, privacy buffs, and company law lawyers on both sides of the pond are invited to write in with an opinion on the implications of this massive conundrum because this goes way, way beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.

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

Lawsuits against pirating Internet subscribers are far from new. In the US, they first appeared more than a decade ago.

Over the years, the evidence in these lawsuits was regularly contested. In some cases this led to success, with courts concluding that an IP-address alone is not enough . After all, an IP-address doesn’t identify a person.

Most prominent was a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales case , where the court ruled the copyright holders needed “ something more ” than just an IP-address. This ruling has been cited in dozens of cases since.

In response, some rightsholders have become more creative, fishing for piracy clues on social media accounts of alleged pirates. That already goes quite far. However, in a recent case in Hawaii, a group of movie companies took things up a notch after obtaining evidence directly from YTS, the most-visited torrent site.

Lawsuit Against YTS User and Army Veteran

The movie companies, including the makers of films such as “Hellboy” and “Rambo: Last Blood,” filed a lawsuit against US Army veteran Mical Mesot . As we revealed earlier, their claim was backed up with evidence that appeared to come directly from the database of YTS.mx.

We have spotted similar lawsuits in the past and speculated that YTS could have handed over this information. YTS’s operator previously signed several settlement agreements with the same movie companies, so both parties were in contact.

At the same time, it would be unprecedented for an operational torrent site to share user information with copyright holders.

Our initial suspicions couldn’t be backed up and neither YTS nor the movie companies’ lawyer was willing to share further details. However, a recent court filing confirms what happened.

A few days ago, the movie companies submitted a motion for a default judgment against the army veteran, who failed to respond in court. This motion again mentions the evidence from YTS’s database.

“Defendant registered for an account with the YTS website using a specific email address ‘angelwarcry@gmail.com’ and logged into the YTS website using this email address from IP address 72.130.106.50 to download torrent files of Plaintiffs’ Works,” the motion reads.

Data Verified by YTS Operator

In addition, the rightsholders’ lawyer adds that this data was ‘verified’ by the same YTS operator who previously settled copyright infringement lawsuits with movie companies.

“The data showing this activity was verified by Senthil Segaran – the operator of the YTS website,” he writes.

The lawyer references an exhibit where the YTS operator, who’s also the director of the UK company Techmodo Limited , declares under penalty of perjury that the database evidence is “the original or a duplicate of an original record.”

The database information on its own doesn’t prove much. However, tied with other information, such as the IP-address that was tracked in the BitTorrent swarm and data gathered from Facebook, a pattern emerges. In any case, it’s certainly “something more.”

Movie Companies Demand $97,704.79

The movie companies inform the court that it is highly unlikely that a third party is responsible for the alleged copyright infringements. As such, they hold the army veteran liable and demand $97,704.79 in statutory damages.

This is a substantial amount, but according to the movie companies’ lawyer, it’s only a fraction of the number of downloads in the torrent swarm multiplied by the retail price of the films. That would be nearly $3 million.

“Thus, despite Defendant being liable for $2,995,916.28 for the infringements in the World and his, profits, Plaintiff Fallen is only requesting damages of $97,704.79, which is merely 15 percent of the actual damages ($651,365.26) caused by his infringements in the United States and less than 3.3 percent of the actual damages Worldwide,” the motion reads.

Privacy Concerns

What stands out most, in this case, is the involvement of YTS’ operator in a lawsuit against a user of the site. We don’t know how much data YTS has shared but it’s something users of the site must now keep in mind.

YTS previously informed us that users have the option to use fake email addresses and can also prevent their download histories from being tracked in the future by changing a setting. However, for army veteran Mical Mesot, that advice comes too late.

The odds appear to be stacked against the defendant in this case but it’s still up to the court to decide if statutory damages are justified, and if so, the suggested amount is appropriate.

—

A copy of the movie companies’ motion for a default judgment against Mical Mesot is available here (pdf)

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