Earlier today Congress approved the 5,593-page spending bill.

In addition to the necessary paperwork to keep the Government running, the bill also included COVID-19 relief measures and other last-minute additions.

Copyright Proposals Passed

These late additions include two controversial pieces of copyright legislation: the CASE Act and a new felony streaming proposal . Both were passed as part of the package with little to no discussion.

The spending bill will now be sent to President Trump for a signature, after which it becomes law. This means that the two controversial copyright proposals are set to change how certain copyright infringement issues are handled.

The CASE ACT

The CASE Act, short for “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement,” establishes a copyright claim tribunal within the United States Copyright Office. This new board will provide an option to resolve copyright disputes outside the federal courts, which significantly reduces the associated costs.

The tribunal aims to make it easier for smaller creators, such as photographers and songwriters, to address copyright infringements without starting an expensive lawsuit at a federal court. If targeted ‘infringers’ don’t want to participate, they have the choice to opt-out.

Opponents fear that the new tribunal will trigger an avalanche of claims against ordinary Internet users. It would be an open invitation to copyright trolls as it allows them to file cases cheaply. Defendants risk potential damages of $15,000 per infringement, up to $30,000 per case.

Trolls

The public interest group Public Knowledge is disappointed with the passage of the bill, which it fiercely opposed. It was “forced into passage”, according to Legal Director John Bergmayer, and exposes ordinary citizens to steep fines.

“The bill creates an opportunity for copyright trolls, who can file claims against small-time artists and individual internet users, and sets up a process that can deny defendants their usual rights. It is deeply problematic, and we will fight for its repeal,” Bergmayer says.

It is worth stressing that the copyright trolls who go after file-sharers in court can’t easily exploit the new tribunal, as it has no subpoena power. This means that rightsholders can’t start a case against a “John Doe” who’s only known by an IP-address.

Supporters of the bill have argued it will greatly benefit smaller creators and may also help people who are subject to copyright abuse. For example, by taking a DMCA takedown dispute to the tribunal instead of the federal court.

Felony Streaming Proposal

In addition to the CASE ACT, the felony streaming proposal was also passed with the spending bill. The foundations of this proposal date back to the SOPA and PIPA bills, but the most recent version, announced by Senator Thom Tillis last week, is much smaller in scope.

The felony streaming legislation, titled the ‘ Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 ’, will allow law enforcement to prosecute pirate streaming services. This was complicated under current US copyright law, as streaming can only be charged as a misdemeanor, not a felony.

The new proposal amends US copyright law by adding a section that allows commercial streaming piracy services to be targeted while leaving individual streamers out of the crosshairs.

Specifically, the bill makes it unlawful to provide a service that’s primarily designed to show copyright-infringing content, has no significant commercial purpose other than piracy, or is intentionally marketed to promote streaming piracy.

Twitch and YouTube

The streaming felony legislation targets people or organizations that provide a “digital transmission service.” This means that it doesn’t apply to ordinary users who stream something on YouTube, Twitch, or any other streaming platform.

This distinction between services and individual streamers is crucial as the opposition to previous bills focused on the fear that new legislation would send ordinary people to jail for accidentally streaming a copyrighted video or music track.

The passage of the felony streaming proposal is an early Christmas present for major copyright holders who have complained about this gap in the law for years .

The music industry is also pleased, both with the CASE Act and the felony streaming legislation.

“The Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act and Protect Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA) will strengthen creators’ ability to protect their works against infringement online, and promote a safer, fairer digital environment, which are particularly needed as the arts struggle to survive the pandemic,” RIAA and other music groups commented.

Going Forward

If President Trump signs the spending bill, which he is expected to do, wheels will be set in motion to create the small claims copyright tribunal. Details of when it can be used and how it will work will be announced at a later date.

Time will tell how both pieces of copyright legislation will affect copyright enforcement. That applies to the small claims cases, but also to the streaming legislation, which could be the start of a broader crackdown on streaming services in US Courts.

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

Millions of people around the world use torrent sites and forms of file-sharing to share copyrighted material on a regular basis. In most countries, this is against the law.

This restrictive stance toward ‘sharing’ is problematic according to a group of activists, who have launched the “ Freedom to Share ” initiative.

One Million Signatures

The campaign is a European Citizens’ Initiative . This is a form of direct democracy that allows the public to take part in the development of EU law and policies. With enough support across various EU member states and at least one million signatures, the EU Commission will have to officially consider the proposal.

This is certainly not the first time that activists have called for the legalization of file-sharing. However, this campaign has substantial backing . It has support from the Italian Wikimedia Foundation, for example, and various Pirate parties are taking part as well.

Current EU law restricts the freedom of access to science and culture, according to the organizers. It is overly restrictive as the interests of major rightsholders are often put before those of regular people.

Right to Share

“We see the legalization of file-sharing as part of the ‘right to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits’ described in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Freedom to Share informs TorrentFreak.

“We also think that this approach would make some invasive laws obsolete. Examples of such laws span from the infamous ‘upload filters’ described in Article 17 of the EU Copyright Directive, that monitor uploads for copyright infringements, to regulations in some countries that limit open WiFi hotspots on the same ground.”

The Italian attorney Marco Ciurcina acts as a spokesperson for the initiative. He believes that current laws hinder freedom of access to science and culture. Sharing files should not be illegal anywhere, whether that’s via P2P networks such as BitTorrent, email, or other sharing tools.

“The question is: is it fair for copyright, related rights, and sui generis database rights to prevent the sharing of works and other material?” Ciurcina asks.

What About Creators?

The Freedom To Share initiative answers this question with a resounding NO. However, fearing that revenues will plunge, some major copyright holders will see things differently. The group doesn’t believe that artists will be harmed by sharing though, quite the opposite.

“We believe modern technology is an opportunity for authors, not a problem. We also believe that it’s harmful for authors to depend on and support the very unfair and unpopular status quo of copyright laws. Some authors might be appreciated and known by people much more thanks to file-sharing.”

The proposal doesn’t come with any solutions for how creators should be compensated. However, file-sharers can and will still consume legally. Research has shown, for example, that ‘pirates’ spend more on legal entertainment than those who don’t share.

In addition, Freedom to Share suggests that there could be other options to bring in additional revenue. For example, through taxes, or through collecting societies that are dedicated to file-sharing.

The first priority, however, is to bring the legalization proposal into the EU spotlight. Freedom to Share hopes that it will be able to gather enough signatures in the coming weeks. And to reach that goal, it encourages all file-sharers to sign and share their initiative.

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

The US Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property is looking for better ways to tackle the ever-present threat of online piracy.

Specifically, it’s working with various stakeholders to see if the DMCA can be improved to better suit today’s online environment.

During a hearing yesterday , Senators received input from various stakeholders on the role of voluntary agreements and existing anti-piracy technologies. YouTube, for example, explained its Content-ID system and Facebook showed how its Rights Manager tool helps copyright holders.

Twitter Refused to Attend

Twitter was also invited to testify but the company refused to attend . This frustrated lawmakers, including Senator Thom Tillis, who repeatedly asked Twitter to join the discussion. When that didn’t happen Tillis sent a series of written questions, but the “non-answers” the company sent back only appear to have made things worse.

The lawmakers are not alone in their critique of Twitter. As expected, they were fully supported by the RIAA, which was present to represent the music industry. RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier specifically mentioned the social media platform in his opening statement.

Glazier argued that the current takedown system is highly ineffective and he used Twitter as an example. Over the past year, the RIAA has tried to keep a single music track off Twitter, but despite thousands of notices, it kept reappearing.

“As a result, over a 10-month period, RIAA had to send notices for nearly 9,000 infringements of that same track – let me repeat that. We had to send 9,000 notices over a 10-month period for the same exact track. Unfortunately, we must do this all the time for hundreds of tracks on many different services,” Glazier said.

Hiding Behind the Safe Harbor

The RIAA would like Twitter and other platforms to keep infringing files offline indefinitely. A so-called takedown and staydown policy. In addition, copyright holders should be allowed to effectively monitor and report infringements. However, companies such as Twitter prefer to do very little and hide behind their safe harbor protection, Glazier said.

“They could solve the piracy problem voluntarily tomorrow if they had the will and incentive to do so. Unfortunately, the DMCA safe harbors have been interpreted to apply so broadly that platforms do not have the business incentive to participate in a balanced system.”

The Twitter-bashing continued during the questioning round. Senator Mazie Hirono stressed that Twitter hasn’t shown to be a “willing partner” for copyright holders and asked Glazier to elaborate.

RIAA’s CEO gladly complied and said that the music industry has sent more than three million notices to Twitter over the past two years, identifying 20,000 works. That’s an average of 150 notices per track, and things aren’t improving.

Industrial Scale Piracy

“This is piracy on an industrial massive scale. This is not some small problem,” Glazier said. “Unlike Facebook and YouTube, they have done nothing to at least try to build tools, or to help prevent what is by its nature a viral system where piracy can spread literally in microseconds.”

The takedown efforts are complicated because the RIAA and its members don’t have an effective system to search Twitter for copyright infringements. The social media platform is willing to offer this, but not for free.

“They really don’t offer us the ability to search their universe for infringements. We have asked for it many many times and they want to charge us,” Glazier said.

“And then when we send them notices it can take anywhere between four hours and four days to take one thing down while we’ve got millions of pieces spreading at the same time. It’s a huge problem,” he adds.

Twitter was not the only company to be called out. Senator Mazie Hirono also asked RIAA’s CEO about the role of domain name registrars, which offer services to pirate sites. Again, Glazier said that this is a huge problem.

Domain Registrars Protect Pirates

“Domain name registrars and their role in allowing piracy to happen through their systems is a huge problem. Very few domain name registrars are doing very little. Both at the registrar and at the registry level.”

Glazier notes that there are voluntary agreements with a select group of domain registrars. However, most simply do nothing. They simply keep pirate domains online. And when copyright holders ask them to help identify bad actors, they refuse to cooperate.

“When we go to them and say: ‘help us to find the pirates’ so we can go against them directly, they won’t give the name of the pirate. They hide their identity and help them become anonymous and they say that it’s because of privacy laws. That they need to protect the criminals. Which is ridiculous.”

“Privacy laws are meant to protect consumers, they are not meant to protect criminals,” Glazier adds.

If Not Voluntary, Then…

The RIAA would like the law to make it clear that intermediaries, including domain registrars and registries, have to do more. The same is true for services that host content. The current takedown process simply doesn’t cut it, it’s a sham.

While the hearing was supposed to be about voluntary and private agreements to help fight piracy, the threat of stricter regulation may be needed.

The RIAA applauded the work of Facebook and YouTube but, reading between the lines, Glazier suggests that Twitter and other companies may need a bigger push from lawmakers to come to the table.

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

Under U.S. law, streaming and file-sharing are seen as two different offenses. Not just from a technical point of view, but also in the way they are punished.

Streaming is categorized as a public performance instead of distribution, which can only be charged as a misdemeanor, not a felony.

Lawmakers tried to change this with the Commercial Felony Streaming Act in 2011 , and later with the SOPA and PIPA bills. These bills were shelved after public outrage, with many people fearing that uploading copyrighted YouTube videos could possibly land them in jail.

As a result the gap between streaming and traditional file-sharing still remains today. This makes it hard to prosecute pirate streaming services. However, a new bill introduced by Senator Thom Tillis aims to change this.

The bill, titled the ‘Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020’, has bipartisan support and was drafted based on input from copyright holders, tech companies, and public rights experts. This resulted in a final draft that is less broad than previously proposed bills.

In short, the bill proposes to amend US copyright law by adding a section that allows streaming piracy services to be targeted. It is tailored towards services that exploit streaming piracy for commercial gain, leaving individual streamers out of the crosshairs.

Specifically, the bill makes it unlawful to provide a service that’s primarily designed to show copyright-infringing content, has no significant commercial purpose other than piracy, or is intentionally marketed to promote streaming piracy.

The bill is targeting people or organizations that provide a “digital transmission service.” This means that it doesn’t apply to ordinary users who stream something on YouTube, Twitch, or any other streaming platform.

This distinction is crucial as the opposition to previous bills focused on the fear that new legislation would send ordinary people to jail for accidentally streaming a copyrighted video or music track.

Instead, the ‘Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020’ intends to criminalize commercial streaming piracy services. Those who are caught face fines and a prison sentence, which for repeat offenders can extend to ten years.

Commenting on the bill, Senator Tillis notes that pirate streaming services are costing the US economy billions of dollars every year. The new legislation should help to change this without criminalizing regular streamers.

“This commonsense legislation was drafted with the input of creators, user groups, and technology companies and is narrowly targeted so that only criminal organizations are punished and that no individual streamer has to worry about the fear of prosecution,” Tillis said.

Lawmakers received input from rightsholders as well as the CCIA, which includes prominent members such as Amazon, Cloudflare, Facebook, and Google. The CCIA has previously been critical of streaming felony bills, but it will now remain neutral.

The same applies to the civil rights group Public Knowledge, which also helped in shaping the new bill. While Public Knowledge isn’t in favor of adding criminal penalties for copyright infringement, it sees the new proposal as a reasonable solution.

“[T]his bill is narrowly tailored and avoids criminalizing users, who may do nothing more than click on a link, or upload a file. It also does not criminalize streamers who may include unlicensed works as part of their streams,” says Meredith Rose, Public Knowledge’s Senior Policy Counsel.

With a more limited scope, the latest streaming piracy bill has a greater chance of passing than its predecessors. However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no opposition.

Aside from its contents, which not everyone will agree with, there is fierce critique on the process. Instead of letting the bill pass through the regular process, it will be added to the must-pass spending bill , together with other copyright proposals. That is not how copyright law should be created, opponents warn.

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A copy of the text of the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act of 2020 can be found here . The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), and David Perdue (R-GA)

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

Next week, US lawmakers are expected to present the spending bill that keeps the government running.

This ‘must pass’ legislation, also known as the appropriations bill, is often padded in order to get unrelated proposals passed before the end of the year.

While the official content remains unknown at the time of writing, several groups and organizations are already sounding the alarm bell. Based on sources, there is fear that several controversial pieces of copyright legislation will be tagged on.

The CASE Act

The CASE Act is one of the bills that may be added. Short for “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement,” it proposes to establish a copyright claim tribunal within the United States Copyright Office.

If adopted, the new board will provide an option to resolve copyright disputes outside the federal courts, which significantly reduces the associated costs. As such, it aims to make it easier for smaller creators, such as photographers, to address copyright infringements.

Opponents fear that the new tribunal will trigger an avalanche of claims against ordinary Internet users, with potential damages of up to $30,000 per case. While targeted people have the choice to opt-out, many simply have no clue what to do, they argue.

Despite fierce protests, the CASE Act passed the House with an overwhelming majority last year. And now it is possibly being added to the spending bill, Techdirt reports , which means that it could soon become law.

Streaming Piracy Felony Proposal

Another controversial proposal that may end up in the spending bill should sound familiar too. Protocol writes that Senator Thom Tillis will, once again, is trying to make streaming piracy a felony.

Under current law, unauthorized streaming is categorized as a public performance instead of distribution, which is punishable as a misdemeanor, not a felony. Lawmakers tried to change this with the SOPA and PIPA bills but these didn’t pass. The plan never completely disappeared, however.

Earlier this year it gained momentum again in Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property. Senator Tillis, who chairs the subcommittee, has reportedly picked up the baton and added the proposal to the spending bill.

Opposition

In addition to the two aforementioned pieces of legislation, the Trademark Modernization Act is also on the list of additions. Together, these bills present a volatile mix of copyright-related plans that should not be rushed through, opponents warn.

A group of civil rights groups, tech companies, libraries and educators recently shared their concerns in a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Senate.

“We write to you today regarding recently reported efforts to include a package of intellectual property bills in the year-end spending bill that includes the CASE Act, the Trademark Modernization Act and a felony streaming proposal,” it begins.

Unintended Consequences

The signatories, including the CCIA, the Internet Archive, the Internet Association, the Library Copyright Alliance, and the Center for Democracy & Technology, warn that these proposals will have negative impacts on many organizations and Internet users in general.

“All signatories have serious concerns with at least some aspect of the bills slated to be included in their current state, and we stand ready to work with Congress to avoid their unintended consequences,” the letter reads.

“In order to allow that process to take place, we ask that you decline to include this package of bills in any must-pass government funding bill, and instead allow these bills to be considered through the regular order process.”

While the addition of the controversial plans have yet to be confirmed, the opposition is already in full swing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example, is calling on the public to urge senators not to pass the CASE Act.

“The CASE Act could mean Internet users facing $30,000 penalties for sharing a meme or making a video. It has no place in must-pass legislation,” EFF writes .

If these three proposals are indeed added to the spending bill, more opposition is likely to follow. That said, the bills also have substantial support in the creative industries, so there will be plenty of backing as well.

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.

Every year copyright holder groups get the chance to share their list of “notorious” piracy actors to the US Trade Representative .

These recommendations serve as the basis for USTR’s annual report, which is a diplomatic tool to pressure companies and countries to take action.

In recent years this list has slowly expanded to include not only pirate sites and counterfeit markets, but also third-party intermediaries.

Focus on Intermediaries

The USTR follows this trend and has made online intermediaries a ‘focus issue’ this year. This was illustrated earlier this week when the RIAA and MPA ‘nominated’ several hosting services, domain registries, and advertisers.

These two groups are not alone as many other rightsholders have chimed in as well. This includes Spain’s top football league ‘ La Liga ‘ which submitted several recommendations that, for the public at large, are not typically associated with piracy.

“Our biggest concern consists of the illegal streaming of live sports competitions by people or companies that are not authorized to do so,” La Liga writes.

IPTV and Streaming Threats

The organization starts by highlighting several illegal IPTV services such as Megaplay, Seko IPTV, VolkaIPTV, ATN and King 365 TV, as well as IPTV playlist forums including IPTV URLs and IPTV SAT. These are the usual suspects one would expect.

The second category includes illegal streaming sites like Pirlo TV, BeIN Match and Yalla Shoot, as well as streaming link sites, such as Cable Gratis TV, Hulk Sport and Hulk Sport. Most of these are clearly infringing as well.

La Liga then moves into the intermediary area by highlighting hosting providers. According to the sports organization, these companies can help to prevent infringements but, in most cases, they don’t.

Uncooperative Hosting Companies

Rightsholders often complain about abuse by pirate sites and services but these complaints don’t have any effect.

“It should be noted that most of the Hosting Providers Companies ignore e-mails and letters referred to IPR infringements,” La Liga writes, after which it sums up the most relevant companies.

This list includes Namecheap, which is located in the US, as well as the Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify. US-based CDN provider Cloudflare gets a mention as well, together with the Russia-based Offshore-Servers and BlueAngelHost from Pakistan.

“Preventive actions are needed to avoid that IPR infringers can host illegal content so easily on the Hosting Provider Companies’ servers,” La Liga notes, while demanding “quick responses and effective solutions” from these intermediaries.

The sports league provides no details on what infringing content these companies host or what action they fail to take. However, it clearly demands a more active and aggressive anti-piracy stance.

eBay and Alibaba

The latter also applies to eBay and Alibaba. These companies are listed in the e-commerce category and reportedly offer illegal set-top boxes and IPTV deals.

While these are “somewhat cooperative” in terms of enforcement, according to La Liga, they can do more.

The list of notorious piracy markets continues with ‘cyberlockers’ such as Mega, MediaFire, and Uptobox. These can be used legally, the recommendation notes, but are often used to share pirated content as well.

Telegram

The latter also applies to social media and communication apps. La Liga calls out Telegram specifically in this regard, noting that it’s “extremely complicated and slow” to remove illegal content from the platform.

“We have detected that Telegram is increasingly being used to illegally share copyright-protected contents through certain channels. Those channels have significantly increased their users, La Liga writes.

These and other recommendations will be taken into account by the USTR which will issue its final list of “notorious markets” in a few months. Whether Namecheap, eBay, Telegram, and Shopify will be called out, has yet to be seen.

Over the past several years, copyright holders have repeatedly called on third-party intermediaries to increase their anti-piracy efforts. The USTR now follows this lead by making it a focus issue and these recommendations are part of the strategy.

However, it’s still an odd sight to see eBay and Namecheap being mentioned alongside The Pirate Bays of this world.

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A copy of La Liga’s submission to the US Trade Representative is available here (pdf)

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

Prominent tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google, all respond to takedown notices, as they are legally required to do.

Major copyright holder groups believe this is not enough. They have repeatedly called on these platforms to do more to curb online piracy.

This is a controversial issue, as the EU Copyright Directive negotiations highlighted last year. The public at large fears that proactive measures such as automated upload filters will result in overblocking and restrictions of free speech.

The leading Internet companies have been critical of upload filters as well but they are not against further action. Earlier this year industry group EDiMA , which represents Twitter, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Mozilla, and others, proposed a landmark Online Responsibility framework.

Tackling Piracy With Proactive Algorithms

With this framework, the tech giants propose to use algorithms to tackle illegal content including piracy, beyond what’s currently required by law. The word ‘filter’ isn’t mentioned specifically, but that’s pretty much what you get when using algorithms proactively.

The proposed framework refers to ‘illegal’ content and avoids the term copyright, but we have confirmed that anti-piracy measures are certainly covered.

“The Online Responsibility Framework would facilitate proactive action by service providers against any and all illegal content, including copyrighted content,” Siada El Ramly, Director General of EDiMA tells TorrentFreak.

This week, EDiMA released a new paper as part of the plan. The group highlights that its members want to do more to tackle illegal content but stress that this is tricky under current EU law.

“Online service providers want to do more to voluntarily and proactively remove illegal content from their services, and society wants the same. However, there are important barriers under the current regime which prevent them from doing so.”

Existing EU law requires online service providers to remove illegal content if they have actual knowledge of its presence. They are, however, not obliged to find and police all illegal content uploaded by users, which helps to prevent overblocking that can harm free speech.

While the tech companies generally value free speech, this ‘protection’ of user rights now finds itself in the way. It makes it harder for online services to proactively remove pirated content, which they are eager to do.

Safeguard Paves Way For Proactive Measures

EDiMA, therefore, calls for a new legal safeguard that allows tech companies to use proactive measures, such as upload filters, without the risk of being held liable for having ‘actual knowledge’ of illegal content.

“The association is calling for the introduction of a legal safeguard which would allow companies to take proactive actions to remove illegal content and activity from their services, without the risk of additional liability for those attempts to tackle illegal content,” the group says.

“Current EU rules lack this crucial provision, which has a chilling effect on service providers who want to do more to tackle illegal activity online.”

Actual Knowledge

The term ‘actual knowledge’ is key here. The tech companies want to use algorithms to detect and remove illegal material, but they don’t want this to constitute having ‘actual knowledge,’ which means that they can be held liable afterward.

In the US this is not an issue because of the “good samaritan” principle and EDiMA now calls for a liability safeguard in the EU as well.

“The Framework and the legal safeguards would complement the existing copyright directive by facilitating service providers making ‘best efforts’ to ensure that copyrighted material, for which no license was agreed, would not be available on their service,” El Ramly tells us.

“It would remove the disincentive that exists for service providers to find and remove this material, and instead encourage it.”

Automated Filters Are (not) a Problem

EDiMA positions its framework as a great solution for all involved, including users, but the tone of their message is completely different from what we’ve seen in the past.

Just a few months ago, many of the same companies that are part of EDiMA warned against the EU Copyright Directive as algorithms and upload filters may harm free speech .

The EU proposal, however, makes clear that companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok see proactive algorithmic actions – which can be translated to automated filters – as a good solution.

Keeping User Rights in Mind

EDiMA’s proposal does keep the rights of users in mind as well. It stresses that its proposed framework still prohibits the requirement for a general monitoring obligation. In addition, people should have the right to appeal removals of their content.

This appeals process should be transparent. Users have the right to know why something was removed and additional human reviews may be required. Also, while an appeal is pending, it should be possible to reinstate flagged material.

“These specific safeguards will ensure that users have a meaningful way to get an explanation as to why their content was removed and to contest removals should they wish to do so,” the proposal reads.

“They will also ensure that service providers have clear and proactive policies in place when it comes to which content is allowed on their services, while fostering transparent dialogue with their users.”

Easing into The Copyright Directive?

All in all, it is safe to say that the major tech companies do see a future for automated filters. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, as companies already widely use these today, including YouTube’s Content-ID system.

It appears that with EDiMA’s Online Responsibility Framework and the extra “safeguards” the tech companies try to pave the way for a smooth implementation of the EU Copyright Directive, on their terms.

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

The American copyright industry generates billions of dollars in annual revenue and is generally seen as one of the primary export products.

Whether it’s movies, music, software or other goods, US companies are among the market leaders.

This position has also made the US a leader when it comes to international copyright law and regulations. All around the world, laws have been tweaked and altered to accommodate the interests of major copyright holders.

These changes are usually the result of diplomatic pressure where major US companies get help from the US Government to protect their interests. For example, last year the USTR launched a review of South Africa’s copyright protection policies, with the threat of potential trade sanctions .

At the moment, the USTR is working on its annual review of China to see whether the country complies with its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. This triggered a response from various stakeholders, including several of the leading copyright groups.

One of the most detailed submissions comes from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which counts copyright groups including the MPA, RIAA, and ESA among its members. Their submission highlights that China has made some progress in recent years on various copyright issues, but more can be done.

Earlier this year China’s National People’s Congress released a draft bill to amend the country’s copyright law. This includes a wide variety of changes that are positive, IIPA notes, but there’s a detailed list of shortcomings too.

“While there are other positive aspects of the draft amendments—including enhanced remedies against infringement, increased damages, and the addition of punitive damages—the draft amendments do not address a number of deficiencies in China’s legal framework,” IIPA writes.

The key demands related to the copyright law amendments are summarized in the bulleted list below, which the IIPA handily provided.

For example, the US copyright groups would like China’s copyright law to support “no-fault” injunctions, so Chinese ISPs can be ordered to block pirate sites that are hosted overseas or operated by unknown persons.

This is an interesting demand, as these same “no-fault” injunctions don’t exist under US law. This is one of the main reasons why pirate sites are not blocked in the United States.

IIPA also suggests updating China’s law to extend the copyright term, which is currently the life of the author plus 50 years. According to the copyright holders, this should be extended by a minimum of 20 years.

Changes to China’s copyright law should further allow for stronger enforcement options to tackle pirate apps and websites, which remain a problem.

The submission calls out a long list of pirate sites and services, including 3dmgame.com, zimuzu.tv,25 btbtdy.net trix360.com, 92flac.com, sq688.com, 51ape.com dygod.net, ygdy8.com, gaoqing.la, mp4ba.com, btbtt.co, piahua.com, vodxc.com, lbdly.com, yymp3.com, musicool.cn, xh127.com, b9good.com, dygang.com, and many others.

The liability of online service providers is another topic IIPA would like China to address. Current law already covers secondary liability for ISPs, but IIPA suggests that the law should be clarified to “ensure more predictable liability decisions by Chinese judges.”

Some service providers are called out specifically by the copyright groups. They include Chinese technology giant Baidu, and specifically, its the cloud-storage service Baidu Pan.

According to IIPA, Baido Pan is regularly used by pirates and the notice and takedown system hasn’t been effective in deterring this problem. The Chinese Government should step up and convince the company to use rigorous filtering technology to deal with this.

“China’s government should encourage Baidu to do more, including improving implementation of its takedown tools, applying rigorous filtering technology to identify infringing content, and taking more effective action to suspend or terminate repeat infringers to ensure infringing content and links are removed expeditiously,” IIPA writes.

IIPA’s wishlist doesn’t come as a surprise. Also, since it’s merely a submission to the USTR, these demands may never reach the Chinese Government. And even if they do, China may not be very receptive.

Generally speaking, China is very cautious when it comes to outside influence within its borders. This is also reflected in IIPA’s own submission, which notes that foreign anti-piracy groups are prohibited from investigating piracy in China.

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A copy of IIPA’s submission to the US Trade Representative, which overed a wide range of other IP-issues, is available here (pdf)

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