Last year Cox settled its piracy liability lawsuit with music rights company BMG.

The ink on this agreement was barely dry when the ISP faced a similar and additional complaint. This time, it was up against 53 music companies, including Capitol Records, Warner Bros, and Sony Music.

The rightsholders complained that Cox categorically failed to terminate repeat copyright infringers and that it substantially profited from this ongoing ‘piracy’ activity. All at the expense of the record labels and other rightsholders.

A year later, thousands of pages of legal paperwork have been processed and the case is gearing up to a trial. However, if it’s up to Cox, there is little left to discuss there because the music companies’ evidence is fatally flawed.

A few days ago, the ISP submitted a motion for summary judgment, requesting summary judgment on several key elements. Among other things, Cox argues that it’s not vicariously liable or directly liable for any copyright-infringing activity carried out by its users.

Cox’s arguments are in large part directed at the proof the music companies have. Or to be more specific, the lack thereof. The company points out that the infringement notices, which were sent on behalf of the RIAA, are far from solid. In addition, the ISP says it never received any proper notices for more of the allegedly-infringed works.

“Plaintiffs’ claims suffer from a fundamental and fatal flaw: a distinct paucity of proof. They simply cannot prove their case,” Cox writes.

“In short, Plaintiffs seek damages for works they cannot prove were infringed, based on notices that did not identify fully 80% of those works. Moreover, they have no evidence that Cox knew about the infringement, obtained any direct financial benefit from it, or had the practical ability to prevent it, such that it could be secondarily liable.”

Cox’s arguments can be quite technical at times, and some pages are completely redacted, but there are some interesting observations.

For example, the company argues that the file-sharing evidence from BitTorrent users can’t prove that any subscriber actually distributed the infringing files. The evidence, provided by BitTorrent tracking outfit MarkMonitor, only ‘shows’ the metadata of a file in possession of a subscriber, matches that of a copyrighted track.

“Here, Plaintiffs cannot prove ‘actual dissemination’ of any work to anyone—including their agent, MarkMonitor,” Cox notes.

Another issue Cox raises is that for many of the claimed infringements in the suit, Cox never received a single notice.

“Although Plaintiffs seek damages for alleged direct infringements of 7,057 sound recordings and 3,421 compositions, the RIAA Notices for recordings sent during the Claims Period contain only 1,998 unique Title and Artist combinations.”

Based on these and a variety of other arguments, the ISP requests summary judgment. This means that, if granted, these will no longer be contested at trial.

However, the pendulum, in this case, can swing the other way as well. The 53 music companies also filed a request for summary judgment. They ask the court to rule that Cox is contributory and vicariously liable for its pirating subscribers.

The companies wave away any concerns and say that Cox willingly kept pirates on board to increase its profits.

“[T]he record is clear that Cox had knowledge of its subscribers’ blatant infringement of Plaintiffs’ works and nonetheless assisted them with it. By consciously continuing to provide Internet service to known infringers, while ignoring its own copyright policies as written, Cox materially contributed to that infringing activity, and reaped substantial financial benefits as a result,” their request reads.

“Accordingly, summary judgment should be granted holding Cox liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement, and the Court should reject its frivolous defenses.”

Both sides’ arguments directly oppose each other and it will be up to the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to determine if it grants any of the motions. If the Court grants neither motion, it will be up to a jury to decide during trial.

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A copy of Cox’s motion for summary judgment is available here (pdf) and the music companies’ motion can be found here (pdf).

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Last month Creative Content UK (CCUK) switched up a gear with its Get it Right (From a Genuine Site) anti-piracy campaign.

After declaring that copyright-infringement notices sent to mainly BitTorrent users via ISPs had “served their purpose“, the BPI and MPA-led initiative turned to ‘social influencers‘ to send the message that content should be consumed via official channels, in order to support creators.

Popular YouTuber Caspar Lee featured in the first video, a move that was clearly aimed at younger consumers. That led us to consider whether future videos in the series, which are yet to be planned, would target a broader range of pirates – particularly older ones with whom Lee may not immediately resonate.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, CCUK confirms that its own research has looked at pirates aged between 16 and 50 years old. However, those who fall into the lower age bracket appear to be a prime target, since they are the most prolific consumers of content, on both sides of the legality fence.

“Our own research continues to show that 16 to 24-year-olds both consume and enjoy the most content of all types (film, TV, music, games, books, sport etc) – and that they also use unauthorized sources more than any other group – i.e. they use both genuine and dodgy sources,” the spokesperson notes.

That’s not to say older consumers aren’t a problem, however.

Those in the 25 to 34-year-old bracket still do their fair of pirating, as do those between 35 and 44. Even those crumbling away in the twilight years of 45+ pose infringement issues. However, these groups present sequentially diminishing patterns of infringing behavior, an indicator of why CCUK are looking to target those at the younger end of the scale.

“Looking across all of the data, in addition to the key 16-24-year-olds, we think that it is particularly important to address young males (16-35 years of age), ABC1’s and parents/other influencers of children (especially in the 25-34 year old group) as all are more likely to use unauthorised sources and services than other groups,” CCUK adds.

Targeting these age groups makes perfect sense for CCUK. Not only do they reach the most prolific infringers and consumers of legal content at the same time, those in the 25 to 34-year-old bracket – according to the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics – are the most likely to have children, meaning any educational effect can be passed down.

“Other industry research shows that the problematic behavior often begins when children are between 11 and 15 years of age,” CCUK notes.

Given the scope of the campaign, the likes of Paul McCartney and Robert De Niro probably won’t feature in future videos, because despite being superstars in their own right, they are much less likely to resonate with younger people. Instead, CCUK seem likely to encourage more popular YouTubers and Instagram stars to take part, people to whom those of less advanced years can relate.

“So, as we continue this phase of the Get it Right initiative, we will be working hard to use voices and messages around the content that they love – that will reach and speak directly to those groups,” CCUK adds.

“Our work so far has shown clearly that this approach can get people’s attention and drive both behavior change and changes in attitude towards infringement. This is why we have such strong support from Government and industry to continue the work.”

While CCUK and its backers BPI and MPA will have their own thoughts about using more aggressive tactics to deter piracy, campaigns like these tend to be much less offensive to the general public than “You Wouldn’t Download…” type messages.

Time will tell if this one will prove any more effective in terms of legitimate content consumption but there doesn’t currently seem to be many voices in opposition, which on the Internet today is a great start.

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

After being founded in 2016, ‘pirate’ manga-focused site Mangamura was blamed for facilitating huge volumes of pirate downloads.

Previously, local anti-piracy group CODA estimated damages to the manga industry of around $2.91 billion. That all came to an end last year, however, after the site mysteriously shut down.

For those who contributed to the platform, the past is proving more difficult to leave behind. In July, alleded site mastermind Romi Hoshino, 28, was arrested in the Philippines when attempting to board a plane to Hong Kong. This morning, two alleged upoaders appeared in a Japan court facing charges of copyright infringement.

The first, a 26-year-old man called Kota Fujisaki, pleaded guilty at Fukuoka District Court to uploading copyrighted images to Mangamura in violation of Japan’s copyright law.

However, 24-year-old woman Shiho Ito pleaded not guilty to the same charges, Jiji reports.

According to the prosecution, Fjisaki and Ito uploaded images from the 866th episode of blockbuster manga series One Piece to Mangamura. The infringement was reportedly actioned from Fujisaki’s home in May 2017, an address where Ito also lived at the time.

The prosecution alleges the pair conspired with former site operator Hoshino to upload content to the site for the public to view without permission. It’s further alleged that Ito received payment for the uploads, cash that was used to cover the living expenses of the pair.

The manga series ‘One Piece’ is proving somewhat of a magnet for police and prosecutors in the Mangamura case. Last month, police in Fukuoka arrested a 37-year-old man under suspicion of uploading images of the hit series to the same site, again in May 2017.

Anime New Network reports that a man believed to be Adachi previously contacted the police trying to turn himself in for questioning. He was arrested at Fukuoka airport, after he arrived there from the Philippines via Taiwan.

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

This week we have one newcomer in our chart.

Dark Phoenix is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(1)	Dark Phoenix	6.0 / trailer
2	(2)	John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum	7.8 / trailer
3	(5)	Aladdin	7.3 / trailer
4	(3)	Men in Black: International	5.6 / trailer
5	(4)	Avengers: Endgame	8.7 / trailer
6	(6)	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	6.5 / trailer
7	(8)	The Secret Life of Pets 2	6.5 / trailer
8	(7)	The Dead Don’t Die	5.9 / trailer
9	(10)	Dumbo	8.6 / trailer
10	(…)	A.I. Rising	6.1 / trailer

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In many parts of the world, football – or soccer as some prefer to call it – is the number one spectator sport.

The English Premier League, widely regarded as one of the top competitions, draws hundreds of millions of viewers per year. Many of these pay for access to the matches, but there’s also a massive circuit of unauthorized streams.

In recent years the League has worked hard to decrease the availability of these live streams, which isn’t an easy feat. It has been a driving force behind criminal prosecutions, pursued dynamic blocking orders in court, and issued many takedown notices.

In the latest IP Crime and Enforcement Report, published by the UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office, the Premier League provides an overview of some of its key achievements over the past 12 months. These are the results of what the organization describes as a “multi-faceted” anti-piracy approach.

One of the key pillars of the anti-piracy drive is to reduce the availability of online streams and clips. This worked quite well, apparently, with the League reporting hundreds of thousands of removed or blocked live streams and other video content.

“In Season 2018/19 the Premier League removed or blocked over 210,000 live streams and over 360,000 clips of its matches that would otherwise have been available to view in the UK,” the report reads.

The dynamic blocking injunctions issued against UK ISPs are also listed as successes. With these, the Premier League can provide Internet providers with continuously updated lists of live streaming sources that need to be blocked during Premier League matches.

Another major achievement, which thus far hasn’t been publicized, is the Premier League’s involvement in the demise of the popular live stream subreddit ‘Soccerstreams’, which had over 420,000 subscribers. This subreddit was effectively shut down by its operators in January due to an increasing number of complaints.

Initially, the operators banned all user submissions, planning to use the subreddit for news announcements. However, not much later Reddit pulled it offline permanently for violating its repeat infringer policy.

Apparently, the Premier League was one of the main complainants, as the Soccerstreams ‘shutdown’ is listed among the organization’s largest successes of the past year. According to the report, the football league worked “with Reddit to close its ‘soccerstreams’ thread”

A similar victory was booked against another popular streaming site, Ronaldo7.net. While the site is still up and running, the Premier League notes that it previously secured the removal of all its content.

Offline there was progress made as well. According to the League, it conducted over 6,000 investigative visits to pubs, clubs, and other commercial venues where its content was displayed. This helped to prevent an unspecified number of illegal broadcasts.

The biggest success in court this year came from a criminal prosecution. Together with FACT, the Premier League went after three men who sold pirate IPTV subscriptions to more than 1,000 pubs, clubs and homes throughout England and Wales.

Following a four-week trial against the “Dreambox” defendants, the private prosecution resulted in prison sentences ranging from three years and three months to seven years and four months.

The same prosecution is also highlighted in a FACT case study in the same ‘IP Crime and Enforcement Report’. This overview ends with a strong focus on press coverage and the associated “advertising” value of the prosecutions.

“This result gathered worldwide media interest. It was mentioned in a total of 51 articles in no less than 16 countries worldwide, reaching a potential worldwide audience of over 165 million people. A BBC News article (pictured) had the largest reach, with a potential 35 million readers.

“The advertising value equivalent for the press received is estimated at over £1.5 million,” the FACT case study adds.

The comparison with advertising value may seem odd in this context, but it makes sense. The goal of prosecutions of this nature is not just to stop the infringing activities. FACT and the Premier League also want to send a clear message to other people participating in similar businesses, hoping they will stop.

While there are still plenty of pirate streaming operations online, the Premier League’s overview shows that the organization is taking the issue rather seriously. As such, it will likely continue in the same steps in the new season.

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