Mass-piracy lawsuits have been dragging on for years in the US, involving hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.

All of these cases are initiated with an IP address as the main piece of evidence. This address is usually collected by a file-sharing monitoring company using software to connect to the BitTorrent swarm where the infringing files are shared.

A common problem with this evidence is that it generally can’t identify a movie pirate. In fact, some evidence gathering techniques are so sloppy that it’s not even possible to confirm whether the ISP account connected to the IP-address was actively sharing the pirated file in question.

This issue has also been brought to the attention of the court in the ongoing case between the “Elf-Man” movie studio and Ryan Lamberson. The counsel of Lamberson has been trying to get more information on how the “investigators” gathered their evidence, but thus far without result.

This week the attorney submitted a motion to compel, hoping that the court would order the movie studio to have the German-based Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek testify in Spokane, Washington, so they can answer crucial questions about evidence collection.

Among other things, the defendant would like to know how the tracking outfit can be so sure that the IP-address wasn’t spoofed, and how they know that the defendant was the one who used the IP-address to share the film. The defendant’s attorneys doubt that the tracking software is capable of doing this.

“Apparently, Mr. Patzer’s software does not account for the numerous ‘false positive’ possibilities, including the accuracy of the harvested IP addresses, even though the person in the swarm may be ‘spoofing’ his or her IP address, since certain bit torrent software allows for IP address spoofing,” defendant’s attorneys write.

“Apparently, the software has no way to verify the actual person who might be in the swarm, even if the IP address is accurate. The software does not engage the person in the swarm to inquire as to the reason for the activity, including fair use reasons for being in the swarm. Indeed, there are no corroborating witnesses at all…”

In addition, the defendant’s legal team doubts that the “investigators,” who are closely involved with numerous lawsuits in the United States, have a proper license.

“The investigators are engaged in activity which is covered by the Washington State Private Investigator statutory provisions, but there is no evidence that Messrs. Patzer or Macek are licensed or bonded [under theState’s regulatory scheme governing private investigators],” they write.

The Washington State legislature defines a “private investigator agency” as an entity “engaged in the business of detecting, discovering, or revealing” “evidence to be used before a court,” which appears to be exactly what they are doing.

It wouldn’t be the first time that the PI angle has caused trouble for a file-sharing monitoring firm. Several years ago the RIAA’s technology partner MediaSentry was found to have acted illegally in several states because it operated without the appropriate and required paperwork.

It will be interesting to see how this angle is played out in the current case. Generally speaking these tracking outfits, which are often the main drivers of these types of lawsuits, are not too eager to talk.

Whether they have something to hide remains to be seen. A recent presentation from the “Anti-Piracy Management Company,” which is believed to be spinoff of the same tracking outfit Michael Patzer and Daniel Macek are connected to, is telling.

“Paragraph 2 in regards to software consultant (i.e., he can talk about software issues), & we’re hoping the judge won’t question his qualifications too much,” the leaked presentation reads, seemingly referring to Macek.

To be continued.

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

Following in the footsteps of copyright groups around Europe, last year representatives of the music and movie industry in Iceland decided to take action against The Pirate Bay.

Several copyright groups, including the local RIAA equivalent ‘STEF’ and MPAA equivalent ‘SMAIS’, filed a complaint with the police last October. Their aim was to obtain an injunction compelling local Internet service providers to block not only TPB, but also the largest Iceland-focused private BitTorrent tracker, Deildu.net.

“Blocking access to websites that offer a wide range of entertainment without permission of the copyright holders has been proven effective in neighboring countries, and has a strong foundation in EU legislation,” the groups said.

The request for an injunction, filed by four entertainment industry groups against five local ISPs including Vodafone, was initially rejected by a Reykjavík magistrate. As a result the case ended up in the District Court of Reykjavik in March but was dismissed when the Court decided that only music group STEF had the rights to claim injunctive relief.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court which handed down its decision this week. Affirming the decision of the District Court, the Supreme Court highlighted problems in two key areas.

Firstly, it appears that once the district magistrate rejected the original blocking request, the matter should have been referred to the District Court within a week. It took the entertainment groups twelve days, well outside the requirements prescribed by law.

Furthermore, while the complaint was filed in the names of four organizations, only one was recognized by the Supreme Court as having the right to bring this kind of complaint. While it was agreed that music group STEF has lawful standing to fight in court, the others had only local distribution rights.

“The fact remains that STEF can make these injunction requests. But not all of these groups together,” lawyer Tómas Jónsson told local media.

After the Supreme Court’s rejection the case can now return to the District Court where it’s likely that STEF will continue the process alone. If it succeeds the net result will be no different than if all parties had obtained an injunction.

Whether the Court will subsequently grant a blockade of The Pirate Bay remains to be seen though, as this type of injunction is yet to be tested under Icelandic copyright law.

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

Game of Thrones is without a doubt the most pirated TV-show on the Internet.

The popular series entered its fourth season early April and broke the record of most people sharing a pirated copy simultaneously. While several people connected to Game of Thrones have noted that piracy might actually benefit the show, HBO executives are clamping down on widespread piracy nonetheless.

Over the past few weeks the TV-network has sent dozens of takedown requests to Google, listing thousands of allegedly pirated copies of their work. Many of these are links to torrent sites and streaming portals where recent episodes can be downloaded for free.

With these takedown requests HBO hopes to make it harder for people to find unauthorized copies. However, a careful inspection of the notices by TorrentFreak reveals that promotional material such as trailers are also being censored.

Unfortunately for HBO, Google happily processed these requests and removed the “infringing” trailers from their search results. As can be seen below, a search for “Game of Thrones trailer torrent” includes a notice that several results have been removed on copyright grounds.

GoT trailer torrent search results

Looking at the individual notices, it becomes clear that these are indeed links to promotional trailers which should be freely available to the public. The DMCA notice pictured in the screenshot below lists several of these URLs, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

GoT trailer takedowns

The current crackdown on Game of Thrones runs counter to comments from director David Petrarca who said that piracy generates much-needed “cultural buzz.” These dubious takedowns may create a buzz as well, but probably not the kind HBO is hoping for.

As for the trailer takedowns, we expect that these have been taken down in error. That wouldn’t be HBO’s first mistake either, as the company previously tried to censor their own website HBO.com because it apparently contained infringing content.

Perhaps their automated takedown tools need some further adjustments?

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

Earlier this month, news publication Gawker and Quentin Tarantino traded early blows in their dispute over the the leak of a screenplay to Tarantino’s potential upcoming movie The Hateful Eight.

The background is relatively straightforward. Someone leaked the script “within Hollywood circles” without Tarantino’s permission, Gawker asked its readers for a link to a copy and was told where to find it on a file-hosting site. The publication grabbed a copy itself to ensure it was the real deal, and then wrote an article titled “Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script” which contained links to the infringing file.

Tarantino’s legal team asked Gawker to take down the links so that others wouldn’t be tempted to download the script, Gawker refused, and an enraged Tarantino launched legal action. Last week, however, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter kicked out Tarantino’s lawsuit which alleged contributory infringement against Gawker after the director failed to allege a supporting and necessary claim for direct infringement.

Now Tarantino is back with an amended complaint that supplements allegations of contributory infringement by going straight after Gawker as a direct infringer, claiming that the publication made use of Tarantino’s script after illegally downloading it from a file-hosting site.

“Gawker…utilized the unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay to disseminate portions of and/or content from the unpublished work. Accordingly, Gawker is liable to Tarantino for direct copyright infringement,” it reads.

The complaint also reiterates claims that having heard of the initial leak (apparently at this point restricted to Hollywood insiders), Gawker called out to its “47 million monthly United States readers” in an attempt to find someone willing “to infringe Tarantino’s copyright” by “asking and inducing anyone to leak and provide Gawker with an unauthorized infringing copy of the Screenplay.”

Tarantino’s legal team adds that “Gawker’s solicitation and direct inducement for copyright infringement worked, as, by the next day, Gawker itself obtained a PDF of the Screenplay” which had been stored on the Anonfiles.com site. The new claims of direct infringement in this amended complaint rest on the moment Gawker accessed this file and confirmed its authenticity.

“Gawker itself illegally downloaded to its computers an unauthorized infringing PDF copy of the Screenplay — read it and learned that the PDF download document was 146 pages — directly infringing Tarantino’s copyright,” the complaint reads.

Interestingly, Tarantino’s legal team also suggest that the while the script had been stored “privately” on Anonfiles by another direct infringer, Gawker went on to make up a story claiming that the file had already been made public.

Gawker “…fabricated a ‘story’ that the script had been made publicly available online so that Gawker could then trumpet to the world and begin promoting itself as the very first source for the public to be able to obtain the entire Screenplay,” the complaint reads.

As a direct result of Gawker’s actions several other people illegally downloaded the script, Tarantino’s legal team claim, adding that even after the file had been removed from Anonfiles after a DMCA complaint (rendering the link in the Gawker article useless), the publication re-published links to the same script that had been uploaded elsewhere.

In their prayer for relief Tarantino’s legal team seek damages in excess of $1m plus statutory damages, plus an injunction against Gawker forbidding the unauthorized use of the leaked script.

Gawker is yet to comment on the amended complaint.

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