Copyright is a double-edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other.

Two weeks ago we reported that the new Healthcare.gov website had stripped the copyright notice from one of the scripts it used. This blatant act of ‘piracy’ prompted us to take a closer look at the websites of several anti-piracy organizations, and today we present our findings.

As it turns out the U.S. Government is not the only one violating copyright licenses. The websites of music industry groups RIAA and BPI also use infringing code.

On both sites we found open source JQuerys scripts that are released under the MIT license. This license permits any person or organization to use, copy, modify, merge, distribute, or even sell copies of the software. There’s only one condition users have to agree to; that the original copyright notice stays intact.

Ironically, the scripts used on the RIAA and BPI websites have the copyright licenses removed.

BPI uses the depreciated template script jQuery.tmpl.min.js, and as can be seen below, yesterday there was no reference to the MIT license or the copyright holder listed at the top of the file.

BPI violation

The image below shows what the 2011 copy of the script should look like, with the proper copyright credits and applicable licenses included.

Proper credits

The RIAA makes a similar mistake with the image slider plugin jquery.orbit.min.js. This software is copyrighted by the design firm ZURB but the version in use at the RIAA website yesterday fails to mention this, or the MIT license.

RIAA violation

Here is what a copy of ZURB’s plugin should look like when the copyright holder and MIT license are properly mentioned.

Proper credits

TorrentFreak asked both RIAA and BPI for a comment yesterday. RIAA said it was looking into the issue and appears to have added the copyright notice now (Internet archive copy). BPI has not responded to our question but clearly received our email as they also updated the file with proper credits (cf. Internet archive).

These type of violations are not unique, and can be found in many websites all over the Internet. Still, from outfits whose raison d’être is protecting copyrights, we have to expect that these issues are carefully checked.

The violations were probably caused by the web developers who coded the RIAA and BPI sites. We doubt that any of the higher ranked executives know about it, but next time they may want to instruct their coders to keep their site free from copyright infringements.

This is not the first time that an anti-piracy group has been accused of pirating software. A few years ago the MPAA removed the linkware license form Patrick Robin’s Forest Blog software. The movie industry group later said that this was a mistake, and it was only used for testing purposes.

Instant Update: A final check upon publication revealed that RIAA and BPI both fixed the infringements, probably more swiftly than the average website processes DMCA requests. Neither group provided a comment on the copyright violations.

Source: RIAA and BPI Use “Pirated” Code on Their Websites

Following in the footsteps of the RIAA, dozens of porn publishers and lesser-known movie studios, in 2011 John Wiley and Sons became the first book publisher to chase down alleged file-sharers in the United States.

The company has filed well over a dozen lawsuits in U.S. courts, together targeting hundreds of so-called John Doe defendants. Wiley is famous for its “For Dummies” series of books and the defendants in these actions are all accused of downloading or sharing the titles without permission.

Wiley attorney William Dunnegan previously told TorrentFreak that the company’s approach has three aims – to educate, obtain settlements, and prevent further infringement of the company’s products.

While it’s not possible to say how many of Wiley’s targets have chosen to settle, there are some that dig in their heels and refuse to pay up. As reported here in 2012, at least three Doe defendants were named by Wiley, with the company threatening to take their cases to jury trial.

One of those was the innocuous-sounding Ralph Mohr, but throw in a previously-unlisted middle initial, and one discovers that far from being just another defendant primed to be squeezed for a few thousand dollars, this one has public standing.

Ralph M. Mohr is a Republican commissioner on the Erie County Board of Elections. According to Wiley, the politician is also guilty of pirating one of their books, Essential Calculus For Dummies.

The dispute dates back to October 2011 when Wiley filed a case against 27 John Doe defendants. In November 2011 Judge William H. Pauley ordered the Does’ ISPs to hand over their personal details to Wiley.

The case progressed into 2012, with Wiley eventually naming four defendants, Mohr included. But by May 2012 cases against the other three defendants were all marked as ‘terminated’, leaving the politician as the only remaining defendant.

Mohr says he tried to explain to Wiley that his computer wasn’t working on the date of the alleged offense and that his children were either too young to be interested in calculus or away at school at the time.

“I thought it was a scam at first,” Mohr told Buffalo News. “I didn’t even have an operable computer when this happened.”

And this is where it gets really interesting. Mohr says he is determined to put up a fight to clear his name and protect his reputation, something that no other “copyright troll” defendant (RIAA targets aside) has yet done in a courtroom. A first time ever testing of BitTorrent-related evidence looks like it could be on the cards.

Adding to the excitement is that Mohr is a former county legislator and no stranger to the legal system. In 2012 he was described as “the most experienced election law attorney in New York State.”

Brushing up on copyright law may very well be his next goal.

Source: GOP Politician and Attorney Accused of Being a “For Dummies” Book Pirate

When it comes to online piracy Ukraine has a pretty bad reputation. Last year the country was placed on the top of the USTR’s priority watch-list, the worst category possible.

To counter this image a group of Ukrainian copyright holders has started the “Clear Sky” initiative. The coalition wants to emphasize that Ukraine is not the only country that has to take responsibility for piracy and says that U.S. companies must also do their part.

This week the group pointed the finger at Apple and Google, who are reportedly refusing to remove ‘infringing’ apps from their respective stores.

The copyright holders say that apps such as LazyEXua, EX.ua Cinema, Music.ex.ua, EX Plus, and Kartina TV give users access to a wide variety of copyrighted videos and music, without compensating the owners.

Music.ex.ua, for example, is available for free in the App Store. It lists millions of songs on the Ukrainian file-hosting site Ex.ua, which iOS users all over the world can stream for free.

One of The ‘Pirate’ apps copyright holders want removed

In an attempt to get several infringing apps removed, the online video portal Divan TV recently complained to both Apple and Google. Divan TV owns distribution rights to a wide variety of titles which makes them a rightsholder much like the original creator, but reportedly both Apple and Google were reluctant to take action.

“We’ve got an automated answer that only rightholders, not services, are entitled to approach them,” Divan TV’s Katerina Diachenko said commenting on the issue.

Apple’s press center in Russia and Google Ukraine both noted that they have policies in place to deal with copyright infringement but refused to comment on individual cases. Why Divan TV was not seen as a rightsholder remains a mystery for now.

TorrentFreak searched for the apps Divan complained about and it appears that some have since been removed. However, the Clear Sky coalition notes that many other ‘pirate’ apps remain available.

Pavel Mykolyuk, director of the law firm Vindex and a key member of the Clear Sky coalition, finds it unacceptable that two of the biggest technology brands are refusing to take action.

“It is obvious that certain Apple and Android mobile apps available for download are publishing pirated content. While Apple and Google take a strong stance on content considered inappropriate such as porn, both brands are unwilling to expand their remit to include content that breaches copyrights,” Mykolyuk informs TorrentFreak.

In part, Mykolyuk believes it’s because Ukrainian rightsholders are taken less seriously than their counterparts in the United States.

“Here in Ukraine, we are being made the scapegoat for online piracy and while we recognize and are acting on the problem within our country, we are increasingly fighting policy shortsightedness of Google and Apple regarding piracy enabling within their own marketplaces,” Mykolyuk adds.

By addressing these issues in public the alliance hopes to show that piracy is not just a Ukrainian problem, and that all countries have to take their responsibilities. Thus far, however, many of the apps in question remain available.

Source: Rightsholders Urge Apple and Google to Remove Pirate Apps

While anti-piracy actions take place all around the world on a daily basis, it is relatively rare to hear of targeted lawsuits against individual sites. But as the MPAA case against isoHunt closes, another large one is developing in its wake.

The story centers around two recently closed sites. The first is Watch The Simpsons Online, a site that had been around since 2008. The second, Watch Family Guy Online, had been online since 2009.

As their names suggest, the sites gave Internet users the opportunity to watch Fox TV shows The Simpsons and Family Guy online. This was achieved via embedded web players utilizing external video sources.

The sites did fairly well, with the later achieving around seven million visitors and the former around 80 million during their lifetimes. Due to unwanted attention from Fox, both had to employ domain switches to stay online, something which no doubt affected their traffic.

The first sign that Fox were sizing up Watch The Simpsons Online (WTSO) came in 2008. Sources inform TorrentFreak that Fox were “shutting the site down almost weekly” by threatening its hosts.

The domain being used at the time – WatchTheSimpsonsOnline.com – was eventually seized by Fox after the company won an uncontested WIPO dispute. As can be seen in the image below, it is now listed as belonging to Fox’s IP department.

WTSO returned under a new domain but in 2010 the MPAA sent a cease and desist, including a complaint for WFGO (Watch Family Guy Online) for good measure. The site admin complied and later transferred the domain to a new owner, who some time later appears to have transferred it back.

Fox, however, had certainly not forgotten about the sites.

Records show that on October 2, 2013, Fox paid $50 to file a copyright infringement complaint at the Federal Court in Toronto, Canada. On the same day requests were filed to keep court documents “confidential” pending the issuing of a court order.

On October 8, a so-called “Anton Piller” order was granted by a judge in the Federal Court. This order grants entities the right to carry out searches and seize evidence without prior warning with the aim of preventing evidence destruction. They are often used in copyright and trademark disputes.

Order in hand, Fox wasted no time. On October 9, two lawyers from Fox, two court appointed lawyers, two IT professionals and a forensics specialist turned up at an address in Canada looking for the alleged admin of WTSO. After gaining access to the property with the full permission of the court, they seized all of the defendant’s electronic devices and other related items.

The punchline was the handing over of a $10.5 million lawsuit alongside orders not to meddle with the sites.

The seized devices were returned within 72 hours, presumably having been cloned, but it soon became clear the matter would press on.

The alleged admin of the site was given an opportunity to settle the case for a cool $1 million, an “impossible amount” according to our sources. Despite the lack of a formal agreement, both Watch The Simpsons Online and Watch Family Guy Online were taken down and now display links to Hulu and Fox.com.

Nevertheless, the legal proceedings continued. On October 16 a review took place in the Federal Court which established that the Anton Piller order had been properly granted and executed. A date of October 22 was set for a court appearance by the defendant, but the hearing took place with no defendant present after he failed to appear.

Sources close to the case inform TorrentFreak that the likely outcome will be a $10m+ default judgment in favor of Fox, to be boosted by more than $600,000 to cover legal costs. We shouldn’t have to wait long to discover the full details.

Source: Fox Lawyers Doorstep Alleged Simpsons Pirate With $10.5m Lawsuit

The anti-piracy business is booming, with thousands of companies making a decent living by helping rightsholders to protect their work.

London-based MUSO is one of these outfits. The company has been around for a few years already and has evolved into one of the most active senders of DMCA requests to Google.

Earlier this month MUSO broke the one million URL barrier in respect of their DMCA takedown requests, while charging their clients between 8 and 24 cents per link. However, the company has bigger plans and is developing a new technology to convert pirates into paying customers.

To fund this new technology the company applied for a “Smart Award” grant from the Government’s Technology Strategy Board. After a careful review of MUSO’s proposal the Government awarded the anti-piracy outfit £250,000.

MUSO director Christopher Elkins is delighted with the news and says that the money will eventually benefit the UK tech sector and copyright holders.

“The grant award gives our R&D team an extremely robust financial position from which to develop this ambitious and forward-thinking product, to the benefit of the UK tech sector, and rights holders looking for new ways to further drive the online growth of great content,” Elkins says.

The question is, however, to what degree the UK will benefit from the investment. A quick look at MUSO’s top clients based on Google’s Transparency Report shows only foreign copyright holders.

The top five consists of the Indian movie studio “Eros International”, Canadian based “Entertainment One”, the Dutch publisher “Meulenhoff Boekerij”, “Nuclear Blast” from Germany, and Norway’s “Nordisk Film Distribution Norway.”

Another prominent associate of MUSO is the Russian social network VKontakte, who signed an agreement earlier this year allowing the UK company to monitor and report uploads of copyrighted material.

How the new technology will convert pirates into paying customers remains a mystery for now. The company is said to be starting a trial in the second quarter of next year but further details are lacking.

TorrentFreak contacted MUSO for more details on their plans but we have yet to receive a response. Previously the company announced a browser addon which will allow people to report infringing torrent and cyberlocker links to the company, but these have yet to be released to the public.

Source: UK Government Funds Anti-Piracy Outfit With Taxpayer Money