It is a busy week for copyright proposals in the United States, one that will resound far into the year ahead.

A few hours after the ‘CASE Act’ and the ‘Protecting Lawful Streaming Act’ were approved as part of the spending bill , a discussion draft for a new and improved version of the DMCA was revealed.

The draft (pdf) was published by Senator Thom Tillis, who started a thorough review of the copyright law last year. After hearing dozens of experts and stakeholders, the Senator released what he considers to be a more modern version of the 20-year old DMCA.

“The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in 1998, and while it was revolutionary at the time, the law simply hasn’t kept pace with changes in technology. The DMCA is now antiquated and is past-due for modernization,” Senator Tillis said.

“This discussion draft is the result of a year-long series of hearings and months of feedback from creators, user groups, and technology companies.”

Titled the “Digital Copyright Act of 2021,” the proposal suggests various updates and changes that have ignited instant opposition from digital rights groups. We will provide a summary of some key proposals but there will be more to unpack in the future.

Notice and Staydown

The current DMCA requires online services to remove copyright-infringing links or files when they are alerted by copyright holders. This won’t change in the new proposal but simply taking down content is no longer sufficient.

When copyright holders inform services that ‘complete or near complete’ copies of their works are being shared online without permission, these platforms have to ensure that this content stays offline.

While the draft doesn’t mention filters specifically, the ‘staydown’ language indirectly requires online sites and services to monitor and filter uploaded content. This would be similar to Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive.

Copyright holders have argued in favor of a staydown requirement for years. They argue that this is essential to end the piracy ‘whack-a-mole’ where they have to send hundreds of takedown requests for the same content.

Disconnecting Repeat Infringers?

The existing DMCA already requires ISPs to disconnect repeat infringers, but it’s not clear when this should happen, and if notifications from rightsholders are sufficient as evidence.

This ambiguity has led to a series of lawsuits where ISPs are accused of failing to adhere to the DMCA. The new Digital Copyright Act should bring an end to this uncertainty.

The discussion draft proposes to get rid of the “repeat infringer” and replace it with “persons that, on multiple occasions, were the subject of notifications (…) that were not successfully challenged.”

More importantly, it requires the Copyright Office, together with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, to develop a policy model that specifies what a frequent offender is and how these persons should be handled.

This suggestion is in line with the Copyright Office’s own assessment from earlier this year, which called on Congress to clarify when a user’s account should be terminated .

Small Claims, Copyright Abuse, and More

The discussion draft also proposes using a small claims tribunal for smaller copyright offenses. This pretty much means incorporating the CASE Act in the new law but that seems unnecessary now that the proposal has already been passed.

A more novel suggestion in the ‘DMCA 2.0’ is to keep a list of companies and copyright holders that repeatedly send false takedown notices. These ‘flagged’ abusers are placed on a list maintained by the Copyright Office.

When online services receive takedown notices from blacklisted senders they are not required to act. In other words, they can ignore these takedowns without losing their safe harbor.

Praise and Outrage

As mentioned earlier, the above is just an initial rundown of the proposal, which by itself is merely a discussion draft. And based on the early responses, there is plenty to discuss, or not.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” The Electronic Frontier Foundation notes in an early response adding that “the bill, if passed, would absolutely devastate the Internet.”

Re:Create is equally offended by the draft stating that the proposed Digital Copyright Act “would fundamentally end online creativity as we know it.”

Public Knowledge, meanwhile , notes that the draft text “would significantly curtail online speech, subjecting every upload to mandatory content filtering while effectively eliminating fair use on the internet.”

As is often the case with copyright law proposals, the responses are mixed. Rightsholders are pleased with most of the suggestions, which is reflected in an early response from 22 music groups .

“Through a thoughtful, deliberative process, Senator Tillis has developed an important proposal. By digging deep into the substance, engaging a broad universe of stakeholders and experts, and confronting the issues, Senator Tillis and his team have started an important discussion about how best to provide incentives for success,” they say.

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

With millions of users uploading huge quantities of content every day, YouTube is the largest video platform on the planet.

Of course, not all of this content is licensed for upload and as a result, YouTube regularly finds itself at the center of copyright holder disputes. Usually, complaints are handled with a Content ID match or a straightforward takedown process but some content creators prefer to take things a little further.

Creator of TV Show Cheaters Takes Legal Action

Controversial reality TV show Cheaters deploys its own ‘Cheaters Detective Agency’ to carry out investigations on behalf of individuals who suspect their partners are committing adultery and similar infidelities. Created by writer Bobby Goldstein, Cheaters launched in 2000 and has reached season 19, airing on various legal TV outlets around the world.

However, there are many hundreds of Cheaters episodes available on YouTube too, uploaded by users in breach of copyright. Collectively these videos have been viewed millions of times and for Bobby Goldstein Productions (BGP), the owner and rightsholder of more than 227 Cheaters episodes, enough is enough.

In an application for a DMCA subpoena filed against YouTube in a Texas court, BGP attorney Jeffrey R. Bragalone is now seeking to obtain the identities of more than two dozen YouTube account holders who uploaded Cheaters episodes to the video platform, so that the company may enforce its rights.

DMCA Takedown Notice

The application begins by reminding YouTube of its legal position, noting that since it displayed and reproduced infringing episodes, it may be liable to hand over all of the profits it generated from them. Alternatively, under 17 U.S.C. § 504(c), YouTube may be liable for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringing work.

BGP’s attorney then issues a formal demand to YouTube, demanding that it immediately cease-and-desists from hosting and displaying the episodes in question, noting that failure to comply will be considered as evidence of willful intent in the event of a lawsuit.

At the time of writing and after testing a sample of the URLs listed by the company, the allegedly infringing videos (including the small selection in the image above) appear to remain live on YouTube but given the official nature of the complaint, that position is likely to change in the coming days. Nevertheless, a simple takedown won’t be enough to fulfill the requirements of the subpoena.

Disclose User Identities and Preserve Evidence

In the first instance, BGP is seeking to find out the identities behind the YouTube user accounts that uploaded the infringing videos. There are more than two dozen in total, some of which are dedicated to the show, some that offer various TV shows and movies, and others that appear to have uploaded episodes in a less organized fashion.

Regardless of type, BGP is demanding that YouTube provides documentation to show “all registration information, account information, billing information, payment information, or other identifying information associated with the YouTube accounts” including their “name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es), and account number(s) associated with each account, and the Internet Protocol addresses (including time stamps) used to create each account, access each account, or upload the material” for each of the supplied URLs.

In addition to user information, BGP is also seeking information that could be helpful should it file lawsuits against the listed YouTube users and potentially the platform itself in the unlikely event content isn’t taken down. The requested evidence includes the total page views and/or downloads of the infringing URLs/videos, plus an account of total revenues and gross profits relating to the display of the offending material, including all advertising and/or affiliate revenue.

“This information must be provided with accompanying documentation, including financial and other business records, supporting the responses given to these questions,” the DMCA subpoena application reads.

In addition, BGP is demanding that YouTube preserves all communications relating to the videos, including emails, voicemails and instant messaging, any and all related documents, network access and server activity logs, plus any other relevant information.

“Should you fail or refuse to take down the Subject Videos, our client will have no choice but to file a complaint against your company seeking immediate injunctive relief, as well as compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and costs,” BGP concludes.

After being filed earlier this week, the case was reviewed by Judge Rodney Gilstrap. In his order, he noted that BGP had complied with all of the components required to obtain a subpoena. So, in an order issued Wednesday, the Judge ordered YouTube to comply by supplying the information sought.

The related documents can be found here ( 1 , 2 , 3 . Judge’s order here )

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

Enlarge / Awkward Thanksgiving portrait, next-gen console edition. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

Kyle Wiens is the cofounder and CEO of iFixit , an online repair community and parts retailer internationally renowned for its open source repair manuals and product teardowns.

There aren't enough game consoles in the world for our upcoming locked-down holiday. Good luck finding a PS5 for Christmas. As Nintendo similarly struggles to keep up with demand, the number of people searching iFixit for Switch repair guides has more than tripled since last year. Traffic to our Joy-Con controller repair page started growing dramatically on March 14—the day after President Trump declared a national emergency. It’s been surging ever since. At a time when so many of us are turning to games for fun, stress relief, and social connection, it is imperative for our collective sanity that we press every game console into service.

But if you talk with expert repair technicians like Bryan Harwell, they’ll tell you that significant obstacles stand in the way.

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With more than 35 million students, 57,000 instructors, and 400 million courses available, Udemy is a huge player in the online learning space.

Accessing the company’s content obviously comes at a price too so when online learning group ShareLearn spotted an opportunity for students to access thousands of Udemy courses legally and for free, they decided to share the information with the world.

Tutorial Uploaded to YouTube To Help Students

ShareLearn’s four-minute video, which TorrentFreak was able to review on another platform, begins with a splash screen indicating that by using the techniques shown in the videos, thousands of courses can be accessed by students with the right credentials.

While it does display the Udemy logo, a disclaimer at the start of the video states that the tutorial is “not affiliated with Udemy”.

The purpose of the video was to spread the word that Udemy has a partnership with Gale to provide “more than 6,000 high-quality, on-demand video courses taught by world-class instructors across 75 categories for upskilling in the areas of business, technology, and design.”

As part of this arrangement, free courses are available under some library systems.

The System to Access Courses is Hosted By Gale

The video reveals that if students from certain cities in the United States visit gale.udemy.com , they are presented with a portal that operates in partnership with their libraries, universities, colleges and schools. With the library option selected, a list of participating libraries appears.

In the tutorial video, San Francisco library is used as an example. For authentication purposes, users are required to enter their library account credentials and from there they are passed to Udemy, which requires a Google or Microsoft account to proceed.

The people at ShareLearn showed a screenshot of this page to make their tutorial easier to understand, as we have done with the screenshot of the video below.

Udemy Files Copyright Complaint With YouTube

Given the obviously useful nature of the video, it’s perhaps reasonable to conclude that at least some students would’ve learned something from it. However, not too long after it was uploaded to YouTube, it was targeted by a Udemy copyright complaint which resulted in it being taken down.

“[Udemy] has claimed copyright infringement for use of their logo,” ShareLearn informs TorrentFreak.

“We believe it is covered under fair use and they want to hold us from promoting this option to avoid people from using this library service paid by taxpayers. I have sent them a few emails, but they have given a standard reply that we violated their copyright,” ShareLearn add.

Udemy’s Legal Department Refuses to Reconsider

From correspondence reviewed by TF, ShareLearn told Udemy that they “appreciate what Udemy is doing for society” and were excited to see the Udemy/Gale/libraries partnership, noting that the project seemed like a good use of taxpayers’ money.

“In this video, we have used udemy logo as a reference to udemy, which is covered under fair use. We used screenshots from gale.udemy.com website to help library patterns sign up for your service via public library, which is covered under fair use [sic],” the correspondence reads.

ShareLearn then presented Udemy’s legal team with a list of questions requesting additional information on why the inclusion of screenshots bearing Udemy’s logo can’t be considered fair use. The group also asked where Udemy itself advertises the availability of the free service to students.

In its response, Udemy ignored the questions and reiterated its key objection.

“When material posted on other platforms infringes Udemy’s intellectual property rights, or on the rights of our instructors, we have an obligation to protect those works,” the company said.

“We have reviewed the takedown notice in question, and confirmed the infringement therein. If you have questions about intellectual property matters such as trademark, copyright, fair use, etc. you may wish to consult an attorney. Udemy cannot provide you with any legal advice on these matters.”

ShareLearn Files YouTube Counternotice

ShareLearn has filed a counternotice with YouTube in an effort to have the video restored but at the time of writing, that is still pending and the content remains down. What will happen next is unclear.

The takedown from YouTube was filed under copyright law, clearly referencing Udemy’s “copyrighted logo”. Whether any fair use defense is applicable in this case will be for lawyers to argue over but aside from the 20-second intro page (shown in the screenshot above, which includes a disclaimer), the only use of the Udemy logo thereafter is when screenshots/screen recordings of the Udemy/Gale website/system are displayed.

Given that the idea of the video was to promote Udemy products and services developed alongside Gale and libraries for the benefit of students, the copyright complaint and subsequent removal seem somewhat overzealous, if not counterproductive too.

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

When the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was introduced in 1998, file-sharing was a fringe activity, and online streaming a futuristic idea.

The developments over the past two decades have transformed the way people consume media, both legally and illegally.

Calls for DMCA Reform

Despite these drastic changes, the DMCA still dictates how many online services respond to copyright-infringing content. While most service providers are relatively happy with it, copyright holders demand change.

These discussions have been ongoing for a few years now. The US Copyright Office has heard many stakeholders and recently summarized its recommendations in an advisory report, which suggests several ‘tweaks’ to the current law.

In addition to this effort, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis launched a separate DMCA review process through the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. In several hearings, it heard input from key players including copyright holders, legal experts, service providers, and digital rights groups.

Senator Tillis Questions Stakeholders

As the review process nears its conclusion, Senator Tillis also asked various parties to submit written submissions. These are not posted publicly, as far as we know, but Re:Create published its response and those of several members, including digital rights groups EFF and Public Knowledge.

These submissions provide a clear counterweight to the ‘stricter’ rules and enhanced enforcement options the major copyright holder groups have called for. This includes website blocking and a proposed notice-and-staydown regime.

The site-blocking push came as a surprise as it’s been a no-go topic in the US after the SOPA and PIPA bills were rejected in 2012. Technically speaking, site-blocking injunctions are already possible under the DMCA. However, so-called ‘no fault’ injunctions, issued against ISPs, are not.

Site Blocking Questions

Senator Tillis questions whether the DMCA should be updated to make these site-blocking injunctions more accessible for copyright holders. And if so, if these should be issued by federal courts or a special tribunal.

EFF answered this question negatively, warning against overblocking, which will ultimately chill free speech.

“Injunctions to restrain the forums and conduits of speech are treated with extreme skepticism in the U.S. free speech tradition,” the digitals right group writes, adding that “website blocking is a blunt instrument that inevitably risks over-blocking of lawful and non-infringing speech.”

Site blocking will require technological and organizational censorship systems, much like the ones Chinese companies are required to use. The risk is that once these are in place, more and more content will be censored.

“Once created, the use of these systems is unlikely to be confined to copyright enforcement, nor to U.S. court orders. They risk being used to censor all manner of speech that violates foreign laws or offends powerful interests,” EFF adds.

SOPA/PIPA

EFF also references the SOPA and PIPA bills, which is a common theme in the answers from all opponents including Public Knowledge .

The non-profit organization points out that technology experts warned that site blocking interferes with the domain name system, which carries security and privacy risks. In addition, civil libertarians cautioned that it can be abused to increase censorship.

“SOPA/PIPA was roundly condemned by people from different political backgrounds for a reason, and accomplishing the same objective of site-blocking through injunctions against third parties is subject to the same critiques,” Public Knowledge writes.

These potential threats are not worth the risk, especially because site blocking isn’t effective, the group adds. Targeted sites can simply move to new domains as their servers remain online.

“It is ineffective because it is trivially easy for sites dedicated to infringement to simply switch to alternate domains. It’s misdirected because ISP- and DNS-level blocking fails to actually take sites offline,” Public Knowledge writes.

This sentiment is shared by Re:Create, which stresses that if such a far-reaching measure is ever handed down, it should be done by a jury.

“Website blocking is not only a ​technological nightmare to implement​ (if it can even be implemented), but widely unpopular. Copyright infringement does not rise to the level of relief that should be ordered without a trial by jury under the 7th Amendment protections of the Constitution for copyright infringement,” Re:Create notes.

Notice-and-Staydown Questions

The three groups are clearly against the site blocking proposal and they have similar thoughts on the notice-and-staydown proposal as well.

Senator Tillis asked whether it’s a good idea to ease the burden on copyright holders by requiring service providers to ensure that infringing content stays offline. This is similar to the EU proposal, which opened the door to automated filtering of uploaded content.

This ‘staydown’ requirement would end the current takedown whack-a-mole where copyright holders have to ask services over and over again to remove the same files. However, the three groups warn that this is a horrible idea.

One obvious problem, according to Re:Create, is that automated systems don’t know whether a person has the right to post something. Similarly, it can’t see whether an upload is a fair use.

“Notice-and-staydown by its very nature would presume copyrighted material is automatically infringed, without considering cases where the use of this content is permissible,” Re:Create writes.

The group adds that there are already enough problems with the current takedown system, where fair use or legal content is incorrectly taken down. A staydown requirement would only make this problem worse.

“A notice-and-staydown regime would further impair legal uses and reshape copyright policy and law as it has been understood for centuries – chilling expression and creativity. This is because there is no way to design such a system without filtering technology.”

Copyright Office Rejected Staydown Proposal

Public Knowledge shares this concern and points out that even the Copyright Office advised against implementing such a scheme in its recent recommendations. Instead, the Office advised Congress to evaluate how this will work in the EU.

“Notice-and-staydown is an idea so far removed from feasibility that even the Copyright Office, after years of study, declined to endorse it,” Public Knowledge notes.

“[T]he European Union provides a historically rare opportunity for lawmakers to study, in real time, the effects of such a system on the online ecosystem and its 447 million European users. Attempting to leapfrog this transition before it’s even returned initial results would be policy malpractice.”

The EFF also opposes a staydown requirement. The group highlights that the current system was carefully drafted to balance the interests of copyright holders on the one hand, while preserving free expression and innovation.

Requiring online services to police their users and filter content will lead to overblocking, it warns.

“Conditioning liability limitations on a service provider’s ability to actively police potential infringement would likely lead to over-blocking and/or aggressive filtering of user-generated content. That would make the Internet a much less hospitable place for free speech and innovation,” EFF warns.

Disagreement Remains

The full answers from all three groups, as well as several others, are available on Re:Create’s website . The group encourages all stakeholders to make their responses public, but thus far we haven’t seen any from the major copyright holder groups.

We did spot a copy of the answers from the Artists Rights Alliance which, as expected, supports broad DMCA reform. Ideally, it would like to limit the current safe harbor system and require infringing content to stay offline once it’s reported.

“At a minimum, where an artist does identify unlicensed uses of their music on these new platforms, they should not be further burdened with mapping unfamiliar networks and finding every other instance of such unlicensed use,” ARA writes .

These responses show that Senator Tillis and his colleagues will have a really hard time coming up with a proposal that will keep both sides happy. But after several years of DMCA reviews, that doesn’t really come as a surprise.

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

Nintendo’s ongoing battle to prevent people from playing pirated content on Switch consoles is showing no signs of slowing down .

Its main targets thus far have been distributors and sellers of products offered by the infamous Team-Xecutor but a new lawsuit filed in the United States yesterday targets a seller of another jailbreak-style device.

Circumvention of Technological Protection Measures

As detailed in a number of earlier and similar lawsuits , Nintendo is determined to take action against any product that undermines the security features baked into consoles such as the Switch. These features are designed to prevent unauthorized access to the console and its games with the aim of preventing people from playing pirated content.

According to the latest lawsuit, a defendant identified as Le Hoang Minh, who on Amazon does business under the name ‘Winmart’, sold a device known as RCM Loader. The dongle/device, which operates via a USB-C connector, is marketed as a plug-and-play solution for injecting payload files that allow booting into custom firmware (CFW), including Team-Xecutor’s SX OS.

“Once this circumvention has occurred, the unauthorized CFW modifies the authorized Nintendo Switch operating system, thereby allowing users to obtain and play virtually any pirated game made for the Nintendo Switch. All of this happens without authorization or compensation to Nintendo or to any authorized game publishers,” the company’s complaint reads.

Another feature of the system criticized by Nintendo is the ability for owners of legal copies of games to copy and share those games with others who are also using unauthorized custom firmware. Nintendo says it has been working hard to reduce the availability of SX OS and similar custom firmware but due to the trafficking of devices like RCM Loader, that battle continues.

Defendant Sold RCM Loader Via Amazon

According to the lawsuit, Vietnam-resident Le Hoang Minh, sold RCM Loader devices on Amazon so, to counter this distribution, Nintendo filed a DMCA takedown notice on October 21, 2020, citing 17 U.S.C. § 512(c) and requesting that the listing be removed.

While Amazon did take the listing down, the removal was only temporary.

This short-lived takedown was due to the seller submitting a DMCA counter-notice to Amazon on November 4, 2020, under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3) , claiming that the listing was non-infringing and had been taken down in error.

Defenses Listed in the DMCA Counter Notice

Attempting to cover most available defenses, relevant or not, the counter-notice from Le Hoang Minh is comprehensive if nothing else.

In addition to claiming that the devices are not copyrighted and are therefore in the public domain, the Amazon seller advised the platform that Nintendo’s claim is faulty due to the company failing to provide any copyright registration information in its takedown notice.

“The complainant does not hold the copyright to the material in question, is not the designated representative of the copyright holder, and therefore lacks standing to assert that my use of the material is a violation of any of the owner’s rights,” it added.

In addition to a laundry list of alleged technical failings in Nintendo’s takedown notice, Amazon was advised by the defendant that the use of “the material” was legally protected “because it falls within the ‘fair use’ provision of the copyright regulations” and if Nintendo disagrees with that assertion, it “must” work with the seller to solve the dispute.

“This communication to you is a DMCA counter notification letter as defined in 17 USC 512(g)(3). I declare, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the complaint of copyright violation is based on mistaken information, misidentification of the material in question, or deliberate misreading of the law,” the counter-notice reads.

Importantly, the declaration adds that Le Hoang Minh submits to the jurisdiction of any appropriate US district court in case of a legal dispute with Nintendo.

Nintendo: Challenge Accepted

The lawsuit filed yesterday is a clear indication that Nintendo believes it has the law on its side, in respect of the illegal nature of RCM Loader and the validity of the DMCA counter-notice that attempted to reinstate the listing.

“Defendant manufactures, imports, offers to the public, provides, and otherwise traffics in a circumvention device and software that circumvents the technological measures on the Nintendo Switch — specifically, the RCM Loader,” the company states.

“On information and belief, the only purpose of Defendant’s circumvention device is to circumvent Nintendo’s technological protection measures.”

Demanding maximum statutory damages for each violation of the relevant sections of the DMCA, Nintendo also demands a permanent injunction preventing the defendant from offering to the public or otherwise trafficking in circumvention devices in the future.

On top, Nintendo is demanding relief for the defendant’s alleged abuse of the DMCA counter-notification system by misrepresenting material facts to Amazon, crafted to have the listing restored on the platform, in violation of Nintendo’s rights.

Finally, the gaming giant asks the court to issue an order that will allow for the seizure, impoundment and destruction of all RCM Loader devices in the defendant’s possession, including any related software.

The complaint can be found here (pdf)

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

Enlarge / A sign featuring the YouTube logo, outside the YouTube Space studios in London on June 4, 2019. (credit: Olly Curtis | Future | Getty Images )

GitHub has reversed its decision to boot YouTube-dl, a popular tool for archiving YouTube videos, from its platform. The company restored repositories this week after "additional information" convinced it that an archiving tool is not in and of itself a copyright violation—no matter what the music industry says.

The repositories in question got shut down in late October, before coming back yesterday. "We share developers' frustration with this takedown—especially since this project has many legitimate purposes," GitHub explained in a corporate blog post . "Our actions were driven by processes required to comply with laws like the DMCA that put platforms like GitHub and developers in a difficult spot. And our reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM), was inline with our values of putting developers first."

The initial takedown occurred after the Recording Industry Association of America filed a claim with Microsoft-owned GitHub arguing that the code in those repositories was inherently illegal under US copyright law. At a high level, the law in question basically makes it illegal to crack or bypass DRM in any way, except for a handful of enumerated exemptions .

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Last month, the RIAA pulled the popular open source tool youtube-mp3 from GitHub.

The music group sent a takedown notice arguing that the software violated section 1201 of the DMCA, which prevents people from bypassing technical protection measures.

This enforcement action wasn’t well-received by the developer community . This included GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, who was ‘annoyed’ and personally offered his help to get the repository reinstated. This wasn’t a false promise, as youtube-dl returned today.

GitHub Reinstates Youtube-dl

“We are taking a stand for developers and have reinstated the youtube-dl repo. Section 1201 of the DMCA is broken and needs to be fixed. Developers should have the freedom to tinker. That’s how you get great tools like youtube-dl,” Friedman says .

GitHub has reinstated the repository after some changes were made. These changes include referrals to copyrighted music, which RIAA pointed out in its claim. However, the software still allows people to download files, including music tracks, from YouTube.

After a careful look at the “circumvention” allegations, GitHub now concludes that they are not valid. The company explains that it “received additional information” that allowed it “to reverse” the takedown.

No DMCA Anti-Circumvention Violations

“[O]ur reinstatement, based on new information that showed the project was not circumventing a technical protection measure (TPM), was inline with our values of putting developers first,” GitHub notes.

This new information comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which responded to the RIAA’s takedown request on behalf of the youtube-dl developers. The EFF’s letter explains in detail how the software works and stresses that there is no advanced decryption involved, as we highlighted earlier .

“Youtube-dl stands in place of a Web browser and performs a similar function with respect to user-uploaded videos. Importantly, youtube-dl does not decrypt video streams that are encrypted with commercial DRM technologies, such as Widevine, that are used by subscription video sites, such as Netflix,” the letter reads.

The letter helped to convince GitHub that it wrongly granted the takedown request. And since other copyright issues pointed out by the RIAA were addressed as well, the company decided to reinstate the repository.

Developers First

In addition, the revolt from the developer community was a clear reminder that developers should come first. As such, GitHub also announced that it will overhaul the way it handles DMCA section 1201 claims. One key change is that content won’t always be removed right away.

This change doesn’t apply to regular DMCA takedown notices but to ‘circumvention’ claims specifically. From now on, these will all be manually reviewed and scrutinized by experts.

“When we see it is possible to modify a project to remove allegedly infringing content, we give the owners a chance to fix problems before we take content down. If not, they can always respond to the notification disabling the repository and offer to make changes, or file a counter notice,” GitHub explains.

$1M in Defense Fund

The developer platform will aid developers financially as well. The company announced that it will put $1 million into a defense fund to help open source developers on GitHub protect themselves from overbroad or unwarranted DMCA Section 1201 takedown requests.

In addition, it will also get more involved in the political side of things. Every three years the US Copyright Office reviews its DMCA anti-circumvention exceptions and GitHub will have its voice heard there as well.

“We are also advocating specifically on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to promote developers’ freedom to build socially beneficial tools like youtube-dl,” the company notes.

All in all, it’s safe to say that the RIAA’s takedown attempt has completely backfired. We previously reached out to the music group for comment on related youtube-dl issues, but this request remains unanswered.

The RIAA continues to issue similar DMCA circumvention requests to other companies, including Google. These argue that YouTube rippers violate the DMCA as they bypass YouTube’s “rolling cipher.” At GitHub, those won’t work anymore.

Youtube-dl Devs Are Happy

Sergey, one of the youtube-dl developers, tells us that he is happy with all the support they have received from the EFF, GitHub, as well as the public at large.

“EFF’s help was invaluable. We’d like to thank EFF and Mitch Stoltz personally for their incredible support and dedication. We’d also like to thank GitHub for standing up for youtube-dl and taking potential legal risks by allowing youtube-dl to keep the rolling cipher code,” he says.

“We’re also grateful to all the tremendous amount of support and offers received lately (we physically were not able to respond to everyone) and all youtube-dl users,” Sergey adds.

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

Every year the MPA and RIAA respond to a request from the Office of the US Trade Representative to submit their recommendations for the annual “notorious markets” list.

In many cases, the industry groups choose to nominate the world’s most popular pirate sites and services for a mention, including but not limited to The Pirate Bay, YTS, RarBG, 1337x, and Popcorn Time, for example.

More recently, however, the MPA and RIAA have begun mentioning ancillary companies that in their judgment are not necessarily pirate services in themselves but due to their provision of systems and infrastructure, are in a position to act affirmatively to reduce the effectiveness of pirate sites.

As reported this week, the MPA and RIAA has now chosen to nominate domain name companies and services including the Njalla privacy service associated with Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and the Tonic domain registry that is often favored by pirate services.

Pressure Has Been Building on Tonic Domain Registry

In September, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the global anti-piracy coalition made up of the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and dozens of other companies, obtained a DMCA subpoena compelling Tonic to hand over information held on major pirate sites including The Pirate Bay, YTS, 1337x, EZTV, Seasonvar, Tamilrockers, Lordfilms, and many others.

A month later, ACE was back in court again, this time obtaining a DMCA subpoena requiring Tonic to hand over information held on massive Germany-focused streaming site S.to.

The dust had barely settled when ACE returned to court once again, obtaining another subpoena forcing Tonic to give up the identities of the people behind torrent giant 1337x.to (again), streaming site BS.to, Kimcartoon.to, Vumoo.to, Ololo.to, Seriesflix.to, Kinox.to, Movie4k.to plus many more.

Back Once Again With Yet Another Demand For Information

It’s unclear exactly how many pirate sites utilize .to domains for their operations but ACE clearly sees the registry’s involvement as part of their infrastructure as a problem when it comes to its enforcement actions. As a result, a DMCA subpoena ACE obtained in recent days from a California court lists two dozen problematic platforms for which it seeks additional information.

The majority of the domains are focused on streaming movies and TV shows, with sites including Lordfilm, Ymovies, Pelis24, Series24, HDGo, HDSS, Flixtor, Soap2Day and Solarmovie all getting a prominent mention.

Also present in the demand for information is a selection of popular torrent indexes such as TorrentGalaxy, Monova, and Glodls. These make an appearance alongside sites operating in different niches such as popular Germany-focused piracy forum Boerse and proxy-centric platform Unblocked. DDL-Warez is also featured in the subpoena but at the time of writing appears to be down.

Sites Infringe Copyrights in Popular Movies and TV Shows

Along with each site is a claim that they infringed rights in a specific movie or TV show. These include the movies Frozen II, Dolittle, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Beautiful Boy, Bird Box, Triple Frontier, and Scoob! In the cases of Series 24 and Flixtor, both stand accused of illegally offering the first episode in the TV series Watchmen.

The application was filed by Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association.

“The ACE Members (via the Motion Picture Association, Inc.) are requesting issuance of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Tonic Domains Corporation to disclose the identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories of the users operating the websites [listed below],” it reads.

A letter to Tonic Domains attached to the subpoena repeats a similar message.

At the same time, ACE also obtained a second DMCA subpoena claiming that the linking site Huho.to infringed its members’ copyrights in the movies Beauty and the Beast and It Chapter Two. The claim is that Huhu.to connects users of the popular ‘ Watched ‘ mobile application to cyberlockers containing infringing content so, as a result, its operator’s details should be handed over.

The anti-piracy coalition lists a number of sites where the movies were hosted including Clipboard.cc, GoUnlimited.to, Mixdrop.to, Upstream.to, Vivo.sx, Vidlox.me, and Clipwatching.com, but these sites don’t appear to be direct targets in the subpoena.

Documents supporting the DMCA subpoenas can be found here 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 (pdf)

List of Domains and Main Use (Both Subpoenas)

lordfilm.to – streaming
ddl-warez.to – down
boerse.to – piracy forum
pepecine.to – streaming
ymovies.to – streaming
pelis24.to – streaming
kinoz.to – streaming (kinox.to alternate)
monova.to – torrents
unblocked.to – proxy site
glodls.to – torrents
byte.to – DDL/streaming
enstream.to – streaming
series24.to – streaming
hdgo.to – streaming
ilgeniodellostreaming.to – streaming
movie-blog.to – DDL index
torrentgalaxy.to – torrents
goojara.to – streaming
supernova.to – streaming
levidia.to – streaming
flixtor.to – streaming
hdss.to – streaming
solarmovie.to – streaming
soap2day.to – streaming
huhu.to (subpoena 2)

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