After beginning with the obligatory statement that Kodi is an entirely legal platform until people augment it with third-party ‘pirate’ add-ons, not every complaint in this area is straightforward.

This week, Kodi add-on resource TVAddons received a relatively unusual complaint about a page on its site that detailed a BT Sport-related add-on called BT Sport Video. According to a cache copy of the page (Google cache) TVAddons didn’t host the software or even link to it but did detail how to find and install it.

At first view, this could’ve been any other ‘pirate’ tool offering illegal streams but the ‘BT Sport Video’ add-on simply gave viewers a way to access officially-supplied and/or paid-for BT Sport content inside Kodi, without any piracy involved.

The complaint from BT Sport, however, wasn’t just about the add-on. The TVAddons installation guide included a BT Sport logo and referenced the add-on as BT Sport Video, the name given to the add-on by its developer. This appears to have prompted the broadcaster’s agent to issue a takedown notice covering both copyright and trademark law.

“Our client has recently become aware that on the web site, published in correspondence of the domain name https://www.tvaddons.co/kodi-addons/show/plugin.video.btsportvideo/, an Internet user is publishing, absent any authorization of the legitimate IP Rights owner, contents taken from our client’s official sites and protected by copyrights. See, for instance, at the URL http://sport.bt.com,” the complaint reads.

“This website is breaching IP Rights by offering illegal preloaded apps that enable unauthorized viewing of the BT Sport content. Please either remove all BT Sport content or suspend this website.”

In addition, the BT Sport complaint included copies of its trademark registration certificate, which was effective from September 2016 and details, among other things, rights in respect of computer software and computer services.

A response email sent by TVAddons to BT Sport’s representatives indicates that the site responded quickly to the complaint by taking down the entire installation guide. However, the add-on itself appears to be long-abandoned after being discontinued by its developer last year.

According to a thread on the official Kodi forums, the BT Sport Video add-on was initially available via the official Kodi repository, another sign that the add-on was initially viewed as non-problematic. However, it was subsequently hit with a DMCA notice and as of last summer, is no longer available.

It seems that even with a legitimate BT Sports subscription or content made freely available via its site, the broadcaster doesn’t want its content seen inside the Kodi application. Some will consider this an opportunity lost but BT Sport has its own business model and has probably had its fill of people using Kodi to access its streams illegally via the software.

Driving more users to the Kodi platform probably isn’t high on BT Sport’s list of priorities and when people use the BT Sport name to promote third-party software, it has the potential to imply an official endorsement, obviously a step too far for the company’s brand protection team.

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Every year the US Trade Representative (USTR) asks interested stakeholders to identify ‘notorious’ foreign piracy markets.

The responses that come in list the Pirate Bay’s of this world, but also sites and services that don’t see themselves as pirate markets.

The Polish video-on-demand (VOD) platform CDA.pl falls in the latter category. Last year the video service was already branded a pirate site by MPA America (formerly the MPAA), and this year the movie industry group submitted pretty much the same remarks.

“Cda.pl is Poland’s most popular piracy website, eclipsing several legitimate VOD services in the country,” MPA wrote in its submission.

The movie and video industry group further informed the USTR that the “notorious” site is operated by “Comedian S.A.” and uses the services of Cloudflare to mask its IP-address, making it harder for copyright holders to identify the hosting location.

This is all nonsense, according to CDA.pl. The company that owns the VOD service makes this clear in a rebuttal sent to the USTR late last week. For starters, it points out that the site is not managed by Comedian S.A., which may not even exist, but by another Polish company aptly named CDA S.A.

This is not some shady website that’s run from someone’s basement, but a tax-paying joint-stock company.

“CDA S.A. is a public joint-stock company, with its business seat in Wroclaw (Poland), operating in full transparency, fulfilling all of its legal obligations and publishing all relevant information in the way determined by the law and internal stock exchange regulations,” the rebuttal reads.

The company accuses MPA of spreading false information. It assures the US government that it is not a piracy website, adding that it operates in full accordance with the Polish and European legal regulations.

CDA.pl says that it shares its profits directly with rightsholders. They pay commissions that are based on subscription revenues, which make up over 90% of the site’s income.

The site also has a subscription-free section where users can upload files. This part is monetized through advertisements. MPA’s complaints are likely related to the latter, but CDA.pl stresses that ads are only displayed on content uploaded by verified users and partners.

The rebuttal also stresses that the VOD platform has a fully functional notice and takedown system that allows rightsholders to remove infringing content. Some companies, including Warner Bros. and Fox, are even permitted to remove content directly, without CDA getting in the way.

According to CDA, the pirate label is grossly inaccurate. The company is a fully-functional legal entity that’s even listed on the NewConnect stock exchange. This means that, in addition to tax reporting obligations, it’s also subject to various EU stock exchanges and financial regulations.

That the MPA persists in branding the site as a notorious market, hurts the company’s image and causes financial damage, CDA notes. Among other things, CDA’s listing on the New Connect stock exchange was delayed earlier this year.

This year’s renewed allegations are bound to cause trouble as well, the company predicts.

“The MPAA’s letter which indicates CDA.pl website as a pirate site and unfairly lists it along with other websites widely known for their notoriety in copyright violations […] negatively affect the image of the Company and thus negatively influence the interest of potential investors which may lead to occurring significant financial losses by my Client,” the rebuttal reads.

According to CDA, it was never approached directly by the MPA(A), nor did the industry group respond to a letter the company sent in response to last year’s allegations.

The Polish VOD service makes it clear that it wants the false accusations to stop. It believes that this may not even be about piracy per se, but more an attempt to quash the competition. Several MPA members have their own VOD platforms, CDA mentions.

“lt is also worth noting that some of the members of the MPAA can be considered as competitors of the Company and its services, who develop their own VOD services on the Polish market, where CDA.pl currently has the biggest share (sVOD section). Therefore, MPAA’s opinion re. CDA.pl presented to this Office cannot be treated as objective but rather as a means of pressure on competition.”

The full rebuttal sent by CDA is available here (pdf). Last year the USTR decided not to include the service in its final overview of notorious markets and the company hopes to achieve the same result again.

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Last month, Nintendo filed a lawsuit against the game download portal RomUniverse.

The website, which also allows users to download movies and books, stands accused of massive copyright infringement, including that relating to many Nintendo titles.

“The Website is among the most visited and notorious online hubs for pirated Nintendo video games. Through the Website, Defendants reproduce, distribute, monetize, and offer for download thousands of unauthorized copies of Nintendo’s video games,” the Japanese gaming giant wrote.

According to the game company, “hundreds of thousands of copies” have been illegally downloaded through RomUniverse. The site, meanwhile, profits from this by offering premium memberships that allow users to download as many games as they want.

This week, the operator of RomUniverse, California resident Matthew Storman, responded to Nintendo’s claims. Instead of hiring an attorney, he is defending himself in court, starting with a detailed motion to dismiss the complaint.

Storman doesn’t deny that he is involved in the operation of RomUniverse. However, he sees himself as a Service Provider, who is not part of the ‘forum’ itself. On the contrary, the admin argues that he’s protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions.

“Since DMCA protects SP from any liability, and only limits Plaintiff to only injunctive relief, the Plaintiff complaints are without basis and potentially an abuse of process,” the motion to dismiss reads.

The motion doesn’t clearly name who is responsible for the files that are uploaded to the site, but it suggests that they are copies of games from people who obtained them legally.

Taking matters a step further, RomUniverse’s operator argues that Nintendo is not the owner of the files and therefore has no standing in this case. Citing the First Sale Doctrine, Storman argues that those who buy games have the right to sell, destroy, or give them away.

“The First Sale Doctrine permits non-copyright or trademark owner to dispose of their copies as they see fit. The Plaintiff does not own copies on websites,” the motion reads.

As mentioned before, Storman further argues that he is protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor. In the motion, he explains that takedown requests that were sent on behalf of Nintendo were honored in the past.

Some of the takedown notices that were sent suggested that this was enough to prevent any legal action. This includes the following passage from a Nintendo DMCA notice.

“Therefore I request you to take immediate action to remove or disable access to unauthorised copies of the Nintendo Game listed at the URLs below and in order to prevent further legal actions against your company.”

According to Storman, this is an implied contract suggesting that any potentially infringing copies that were removed will not result in further legal action.

Based on these and many other arguments, the RomUniverse operator (/service provider) asks the US District Court for the Central District of California to dismiss the complaint.

While Storman makes several interesting arguments, the question is whether any of these will hold up in court. On top of that, waging a legal battle against a billion-dollar gaming empire is already a challenge with a good lawyer. Doing so without any legal representation will be even harder.

Nintendo will likely file its response during the coming weeks, and after that, it will be up to the court to make a decision. In the meantime, RomUniverse remains online.

—

A copy of the memorandum in support of the motion to dismiss, filed pro se by Matthew Storman, is available here (pdf).

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Right up until early this month, IPTV Smarters, one of the most popular and impressive IPTV players, was available from Google’s Play Store.

The software, which is available for Android and iOS, allows people to watch IPTV streams but, at the time of delivery, carries no content. If users want to view anything, they have to add login details for their service of choice.

While the software can be used for legitimate means in the same manner as a torrent client, for example, some IPTV Smarters users utilize the software to access infringing content. As a result, on October 7, 2019, the developer of the software received a copyright complaint which led to Google removing it from Google Play.

At the time, the company behind the software, New Spark Technology, told TorrentFreak that this was the third time it had received a complaint about its player and that its legal team would sort out the issue. That has now resulted in the software being reinstated by Google.

Speaking with TF, Amanpreet Singh declined to mention the name of the company behind the complaint but did reveal that it was based on copyright law and alleged breaches of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

“Our lawyer has handled this case with Google and the company that claimed. We have clarified to them that we are not offering content and not infringing copyright. As all know, we are not offering any kind of media content – streams, subscriptions, channels, etc. The user must have their own content,” Singh said.

The outcome of the claim, according to Singh, is that this should never happen again, at least when it comes to any future complaints from the unnamed company.

“I have discussed with my lawyer, they will work on it to prevent it from happening again. But the same group/company can’t complain anymore I assure you,” he added.

“In the end, we have got our application back as we promised. There was no evidence so it was a false complaint.”

While many app developers are small teams without the resources to fight back against dubious claims, that’s not the case with the company behind IPTV Smarters. Singh says it’s a pretty big development operation with 67 staff members.

Meanwhile, an apparently similar complaint, against the IPTV player Perfect Player, is still ongoing. That tool was removed from Google Play just a few days ago and remains unavailable via the platform.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

On December 9, 2014, The Pirate Bay went dark after Swedish police raided a nuclear-proof datacenter built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

The hosting facility reportedly offered services to The Pirate Bay, EZTV and several other torrent related sites, which were pulled offline as a result.

The authorities later announced that 50 servers were seized during the raid. And not without success, it seemed. The raid resulted in the longest ever period of continuous downtime for The Pirate Bay, nearly two months.

The raid also triggered a new criminal investigation into the notorious torrent site and its alleged operators. One person with alleged ties to TPB was arrested, but the police eventually dropped this investigation, citing a lack of resources to properly investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij remained a suspect. He had officially cut his ties with the site years earlier, but apparently the authorities were not convinced.

To some, the new investigation into the TPB co-founder came as a surprise, especially since Neij was in prison for his earlier Pirate Bay activities at the time of the raid. However, the enforcement authorities seemed determined and decided to dig in.

Today, nearly five years have passed without any significant progress in the investigation. At least, none that the public is aware of. On the contrary, the entire case appears to have fallen apart.

This week Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, informed TorrentFreak that the investigation into his involvement was dropped on October 18, 2019. The prosecutor and police informed Neij through his attorney, who forwarded the good news. After all these years, Neij is happy that he can finally put the issue to rest.

“It took them long enough to realize that I’m not running The Pirate Bay anymore,” Neij tells us.

Pirate Bay’s co-founder now hopes that he will be properly compensated for the seizure of his possessions, which resulted in no tangible claims.

“Now that the investigation is closed, I’m looking forward to being compensated for them unnecessarily holding all my computer equipment for four years and ten months,” Neij adds.

At this point, it is unclear if there are any remaining suspects in the 2014 raid investigation, or if the case is closed. We reached out to the police and the prosecutor’s office, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.

The information that has been made public thus far suggests that the 2014 raid has yielded no substantial results. For the TPB team, this might not come as a surprise, as someone connected to the site previously said that the police didn’t have much on them.

According to the TPB team, only one of their servers was confiscated in 2014. That server was operated by the moderators and used as a communication channel for TPB matters. The team said the site was pulled offline as a precaution and took longer than expected to return as migrating to a new home proved to be a challenge.

Regardless of the progress in the case, Fredrik Neij is no longer being investigated. He is still listed as the official registrant for the official thepiratebay.org domain, but that is obviously not enough to build a case.

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