The seizing or suspension of file-sharing domains is a big issue at the moment. It’s a strategy being employed by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the UK (with varying results) after being trialled on thousands of domains in the United States.

Today we take a look at an interesting case that developed this week involving a movie anti-piracy company, a domain registrar and a torrent site.

Bittorrent.pm is a torrent index that doesn’t host any torrents itself but links to those to be found elsewhere. The site registered its domain with well-known registrar Internet.bs last year. The third player in the mix is a company called Rico Management, apparently acting in an anti-piracy capacity for the movie Cold in July.

During the past few days it became clear that Rico Management were trying to have some torrents removed from Bittorrent.pm. However, Bittorrent.pm only became aware of the complaint after being contacted by its registrar, Internet.bs. Since Bittorrent.pm hadn’t provided a formal tool or contact mechanism for facilitating removals, Rico complained directly to the registrar.

In emails seen by TorrentFreak, Internet BS responded to Rico assuring them that action of some type would definitely be taken.

“I added our customers in BCC of this email and they will get back to you shortly regarding this. If you do not get any answers within 48 hour please get back to us and we will investigate and suspend the domains,” the registrar told Rico.

When the operator of Bittorrent.pm questioned the potential suspension of his domain, Internet BS told him he needed to take action, since the registrar did not want to become liable for any infringements.

“We did not say we will suspend the domain but we will suspend it if you do not reply to the complainant,” Bittorrent.pm’s owner was told. “The difference is in the fact that, by answering to the complainant, you assume responsibility for the content on your website and we can also understand better what you are doing.”

“If you do not answer to the complainant we can be found liable for being informed
about illegal things and not taking any action. If we do not see any answer we have no choice but to assume the complaint is legitimate and then we have to suspend the domain.”

In the meantime, Bittorrent.pm protested that he had no torrents on his site to be removed, a comment that solicited the following response from a Jeffrey Moreira at Rico Management.

“You do not have any clear contact on your page to deal with any issues that a copyright holder has with you. I have had to jump through hoops to finally get a response directly from you about bittorent.pm,” Moreira wrote.

“You have multiple torrent files available for torrent download on your site.
You may simply claim that you do not have copyrighted material on your site but that is far from the truth.”

Eventually Internet.bs carried through with its threat to suspend the domain. It also received more complaints about Bittorrent.pm, something which further tested relations.

“As the complainant said you have absolutely no contact details on your website. We received about 15 new complaints regarding your website today. You need to have some contact details as we cannot act as your abuse department especially with the very low margin that we have on domain names,” the registrar wrote.

The operator of Internet BS argued back that there is nothing in his domain terms and conditions that obligates him to have such an abuse mechanism, but apparently that didn’t have the desired effect. His domain remains suspended and he’s currently working to transfer it to a new registrar.

The approach taken by Internet BS in response to the Bittorent.pm issue raises a number of questions, including whether a registrar should get involved in this kind of dispute and whether they are in the best position to play judge and jury. Obviously Internet BS wants to abide by the DMCA in this case, but as Bittorrent.pm points out, as a Barbados-based company it doesn’t necessarily have to. Bittorrent.pm is not based in the US either, although Rico Management appears to be.

Also, while it could be argued that Bittorrent.pm should have a contact form, it’s ironic that RicoManagement.com has no outward web presence at all to help show who they are or indicate that what they are doing is legitimate. At the moment all they have is a GoDaddy holding page, and Internet BS were apparently happy to act on that.

TorrentFreak requested comment from both Internet BS and Rico Management but we are yet to receive a response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This week many key figures in the copyright protection and enforcement industries gathered for the International IP Enforcement Summit, organized by the UK Government.

One of the main topics of discussion was Internet piracy, and how to prevent people from accessing and sharing copyrighted works without permission.

Website blocking is one of the anti-piracy tools that was mentioned frequently . In recent years the UK has become a leader on this front, with the High Court ordering local ISPs to block access to dozens of popular file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents.

MPAA chief Chris Dodd, who delivered a speech at the Summit, applauded the UK approach. The former U.S. Senator believes that these restrictions are helping to decrease the piracy problem.

“Here in the United Kingdom, the balanced and proportionate use of civil procedures has made tremendous progress in tackling infringing websites. To date, access to over 40 pirate sites focused on infringing copyright for commercial gain, have been blocked,” Dodd said.

According to Dodd these blockades have proven to be one of the most effective anti-piracy measures in the world, made possible by a provision in local copyright law.

“In particular, Section 97A of the Copyright Act allowing courts to issue injunctions against service providers who know their services are being utilized for infringing purposes, has been one of the most effective tools anywhere in the world,” Dodd says.

Despite the MPAA’s faith in website blockades, which is not shared by everyone, the movie group has never attempted to ask a U.S. court for a similar injunction. This is surprising since nearly all the sites that are blocked in the UK have far more users from the United States.

TorrentFreak asked the MPAA to explain this lack of action, but we have yet to hear back from them.

Previously we spoke to an insider who admitted that these type of ISP blockades are harder to get in place under United States law, which is one of the reasons why the copyright holders haven’t tried this yet.

The issue became even more complicated after the copyright holders’ push for SOPA failed early 2012. In part, SOPA was designed to give copyright holders a shortcut to request injunctions against pirate sites.

Putting the law aside, the MPAA has made it clear that it’s keen on maintaining good relationships with the Internet providers. ISPs and copyright holders are taking part in a voluntary agreement to “alert” pirates, which will undoubtedly be harmed if additional blocking demands appear on the table.

For now, it seems that the MPAA and other industry groups will continue to press for more voluntary deals in the U.S. Interestingly, Dodd specifically calls for a cooperation with search engines to indirectly block pirate sites, instead of asking for a more direct blockade from ISPs.

“If we convince these search engines to join our efforts to shut down illegal sites, it would be a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to protect creators,” he said.

Thus far Google and other search engines have refused to remove pirate sites from their search indexes. Also, one has to wonder how effective that would be. Thus far Google has removed more than two million pages from The Pirate Bay, but the site’s traffic continues to expand regardless.

But then again, even an ISP blockade is easy to circumvent, and perhaps not as effective as the MPAA claims.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

So-called Copyright trolls attempt to turn piracy into profit by setting their expensive lawyers loose on the man (or woman) in the street claimed to have downloaded or shared their works without permission. In many cases the strategies employed amount to classic bullying, with the victims either unable or too scared to defend themselves.

As a result, small groups of individuals have sprung up around the globe to assist the targets of trolls by keeping them informed and offering forums to share experiences. One of the most famous operations is FightCopyrightTrolls.com (FCT), a husband and wife team that have worked extremely hard to counter troll-like companies in the United States. One such company is now fighting back.

Due to its relentless pursuing of alleged BitTorrent users, Malibu Media is the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the whole of the United States. The video company has already filed a couple of thousands lawsuits in the hope of extracting a few thousand dollars in settlements from each of its targets. This week came yet more evidence that FCT gets under the skin of this litigious company.

In an 18-page motion revealed this week in a case against another alleged file-sharer, Malibu Media described FCT’s ‘Sophisticated Jane Doe” as not only a “self-admitted BitTorrent copyright infringer”, but one at the center of a campaign against the adult video company.

“[Malibu Media] is the target of a fanatical Internet hate group. The hate group is comprised of BitTorrent users, anti-copyright extremists, former BitTorrent copyright defendants and a few attorneys,” Malibu wrote in their motion.

“By administering and using the defamatory blog www.fightcopyrighttrolls.com,
‘Sophisticated Jane Doe’ (‘SJD’) leads the hate group.”

One of the key problems, the porn company explains, is that Jonathan Phillips, the lawyer for the defendant in the case, is part of that group.

“Opposing counsel communicates regularly with the hate group’s leader. Members of the hate group physically threaten, defame and cyber-stalk Plaintiff as well everyone associated with Plaintiff. Their psychopathy is criminal and scary,” Malibu explain.

So what is Phillips’ alleged contribution? Apparently he shares information about ongoing cases with FCT and its members and makes life difficult for Malibu – on Twitter.

“Opposing counsel regularly Tweets with the other members of the hate group. Further, his Tweets are often part of a series of Tweets intended to harass
Plaintiff and its counsel,” Malibu writes.

“Opposing counsel also Tweets about on-going litigation including this case and disparages Plaintiff. He even called Plaintiff a liar.”

The motion, which was originally filed under seal in February, calls on the court to gag both Phillips and the defendant in the case.

“To prevent the spoliation of evidence, Plaintiff respectfully requests that
the Court enter a sealed order preventing opposing counsel and Defendant from talking about the contents of this Motion or [REDACTED] with anyone. If Plaintiff’s intentions are revealed, there is a high probability of spoliation of evidence,” the motion reads.

While some information will remain under wraps, as far as the motion was concerned attempts at secrecy clearly failed.

“This filing was a result of an order from the Northern District of Illinois, which refused to allow Malibu Media to litigate this particular case in the shadows,” Philips told Ars.

“I am happy to practice in United States District Courts where the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has made it clear that litigation is to be open, accessible, and able to be reviewed and commented by the news media, the blogosphere, and the public at large.”

The big issue for Malibu going forward is that they appear to have learned little from the demise of other outfits conducting similar litigation in both the United States and Europe. Once opponents get motivated they can have extremely long memories and no amount of threats will make them stop. Hunting trolls effectively becomes a sport, and it rarely ends well.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

After coming under intense criticism, this year Italy was removed from the Watch List in the USTR’s Special 301 Report. Part of the formula for that achievement was to be found in telecoms regulator AGCOM.

Instead of legislating against piracy, the Italian government gave the watchdog the power to deal with infringement, up to and including the removal of infringing content and even the blocking of allegedly copyright-infringing domains.

In May and following complaints from the entertainment industry, AGCOM ordered the blocking of four torrent sites – LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me. Just over a month later and yet more sites have fallen victim to its blocking regime.

This time around it’s the turn of Torrent.cd, Torrentvia and TorrentRoom to land on the AGCOM blacklist. None of the sites are large, quite the opposite in fact, but a dig down into their traffic stats reveals why Italy is interested in them.

The largest of the trio, Torrent.cd, has the greatest proportion of its visitors arrive from India, closely followed by the United States. Just a fraction of a percent behind are Italian visitors, making Torrent.cd fairly popular with locals.

In mid 2012, TorrentRoom.com was among the top 5000 sites in the world, but traffic to the site diminished to a near all time low in mid 2013. A recovery in the early part of 2014 reversed the trend for a while, but traffic is currently the worst it has ever been. However, stats from Alexa show that Italian visitors to the site are only outnumbered by those from the United States, again making the site relatively popular with locals.

TorrentVia.com is a very small site indeed with a global Alexa rank of 178,400. Traffic is so low in fact that it’s difficult to obtain stats. That said, Google.it is the site’s second most-popular referrer, something which again reflects local interest.

For now it seems that AGCOM are going after sites that are enjoyed more locally, but that could very well change once the regulator runs out of targets.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In recent times the UK has become one of the most unfriendly countries in the world when it comes to operating a file-sharing site. Efforts by the movie industry and their local proxies have restricted opportunities, and the addition of government assistance since the summer of 2013 has only made things more claustrophobic.

The two main players on this front are FACT, the Hollywood-affiliated Federation Against Copyright Theft and PIPCU, the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. Both have been very active recently, with the latter doing most of its work in the past 10 months or so.

While there are few big announcements from either group, a new UK government report now provides updated statistics from both. The numbers in the just-published IP Crime Highlight Report 2013/2014 show considerable activity, for FACT over the past 12 months and for PIPCU since September last year.

PIPCU

The headline figure from PIPCU indicates that the unit is currently investigating ‘IP Crime’ to the value of £28,869,991, which in the overall scheme of things doesn’t seem big by industry standards. Music sales alone were worth more than £1 billion in the UK during 2013 and it’s not unusual for the industry to claim piracy rates in excess of 90%.

Still, the police unit is not only about investigation, but also about disruption, and their aim to have the domains of infringing sites suspended has reportedly enjoyed some success. According to the new stats, since September 2013 PIPCU have had a hand in the suspension of 2,359 .co.uk domain names. It’s a significant number, no doubt, but the disruption one might expect from such broad action has certainly not been reflected in the press.

Other figures presented by the government relate to the execution of 15 search warrants. No further details have been provided but the action against a local streaming link site accounted for at least one of them.

The final piece of information from PIPCU relates to the current “follow the money” approach employed by anti-piracy groups worldwide. The unit claims to have suspended the ability of 19 websites to process payments, although no detail is given on the nature of the sites from where the processors backed out. PIPCU do work with PayPal, MasterCard and VISA, so it’s likely they’ll be somewhere in the chain.

FACT

Without doubt, FACT are the busiest ‘boots on the ground’ anti-piracy group in the UK and the most likely to trouble UK-based file-sharing site operators.

According to the report, in the past 12 months alone FACT has managed to close down 117 ‘pirate’ websites. No further details are provided but the group works on a number of levels, from scaring operators via email to physically arriving at their home addresses. When site operators have been brave enough to talk we have reported on a few instances here at TF, but in nothing like the numbers suggested in the report.

FACT also claim to have targeted people higher up the food chain in the past 12 months, after having a hand in the arrest of seven “alleged” release group members. The inclusion of the word ‘alleged’ suggests ongoing cases, but it’s certainly possible that FACT are referring to individuals arrested in the West Midlands last year.

In addition to having another 10 websites blocked by UK ISPs following action in the High Court, FACT secured the first ever UK conviction of an individual streaming live football matches over the Internet. The case involved the operators of a website called FreeLiveFooty, both of which were arrested in 2010 following complaints from the Premier League.

“FACT’s successes in the past year show the benefits of intelligence led, targeted actions against criminal websites and the people behind them,” FACT’s Eddy Leviten told TorrentFreak. “We also help to guide consumers to legitimate entertainment sources online, in cinemas and on TV.”

News-shy

While both PIPCU and FACT do make the occasional announcement on achievements, there is a tendency for them to work under the radar.

For example, while FACT has on occasion pressed the big publicity button, such as when they took the BBC along to the home of a file-sharing site operator, often the only reports to surface are the ones published here on TF with the assistance of FACT targets (for example 1,2,3,4,5)

PIPCU also tend not to shout too loudly or too often about their achievements, action against counterfeit domain names and other sundries aside. Again, word often reaches TF of attempted domain seizures or threatening letters way before the police make any announcement, if they ever do. Why they take this approach isn’t clear, but the fact that some attempts fail, such as recently with torrent index Torrentz, is certainly a motivator to keep things low-key.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.