Movie and TV show content is widely available on the Internet for no cost but it seems that many thousands of individuals are prepared to pay for the privilege.

That has resulted in countless unlicensed subscription-based services appearing, some as part of live broadcast IPTV packages and others as standalone services.

Earlier this year it was revealed that the MPAA had made several referrals to the Department of Justice (DoJ), calling for some pirate streaming services to be criminally prosecuted. It now transpires that at least one of those referrals has come to fruition.

According to an announcement by the Department of Justice, eight individuals were indicted by a grand jury Tuesday for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.”

The indictment lists the following men as the defendants in the case;

Kristopher Lee Dallmann, 36; Darryl Julius Polo, aka djppimp, 36; Douglas M. Courson, 59; Felipe Garcia, 37; Jared Edward Jaurequi, aka Jared Edwards, 38; Peter H. Huber, 61; Yoany Vaillant, aka Yoany Vaillant Fajardo, 38; and Luis Angel Villarino, 40.

All are charged with running Jetflicks, a subscription-based TV show streaming service running out of Las Vegas, Nevada.

“The defendants reproduced tens of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization, and distributed the infringing programs to tens of thousands of paid subscribers located throughout the U.S. At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have more than 183,200 different television episodes,” the DoJ states.

It’s further claimed that one of the defendants, Darryl Julius Polo, who was allegedly part of the Jetflicks programming team, left Jetflicks in order to create his own service, known online as iStreamItAll. According to the DoJ, the service claimed to have 115,849 television episodes and 10,511 movies available for streaming.

“Polo allegedly used many of the same automated tools that Jetflicks employed to locate, download, process and store illegal content, and then quickly make those television programs and movies available on servers in Canada to ISIA subscribers for streaming and/or downloading,” the DoJ adds.

In addition to the conspiracy charges, Dallman was charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright by public performance and four counts of money laundering.

Polo was also charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, which usually refers to either then-unreleased movies or TV shows, or those that were yet to leave their theatrical window.

The alleged iStreamItAll operator was further charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by public performance and four counts of money laundering.

Unsurprisingly, both services are alleged to have obtained their content from other ‘pirate’ sources, including The Pirate Bay and RARBG. The indictment also claims that Usenet and Torrentz were used as sources. The inclusion of the latter is somewhat unusual given that the site closed down in 2016 and even then was only a meta-search engine that offered no direct links to infringing content.

Both services were available after paying a subscription, with iStreamItAll claiming it had a greater range of content than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime, accessible on a range of devices from desktop machines through to phones, tablets, smart TVs, games consoles, and set-top boxes.

However, neither platform appears to have learned lessons from the still ongoing Megaupload case, where servers containing allegedly infringing content were mainly hosted in the United States. The DoJ claims that content culled from torrent sites and Usenet was made available to Jetflicks and iStreamItAll subscribers via servers hosted in both the United States and Canada.

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

The so-called ‘Six-Strikes’ Copyright Alert System was once praised as an excellent tool to address online piracy.

Under the agreement, which involved the MPAA and RIAA, several large Internet providers in the US sent copyright infringement warnings to pirating customers.

After repeated alerts, these subscribers would face a variety of ‘mitigation’ measures but their accounts would not be terminated. Although rightsholders and ISPs appeared happy with the deal, it was shut down two years ago.

Instead of cooperating with ISPs, several RIAA labels then took another approach. They filed lawsuits against Internet providers for not doing enough to curb piracy. Specifically, companies such as Charter and Cox were sued for failing to disconnect repeat infringers.

The lawsuit between several music companies and Cox is ongoing and currently scheduled to go to trial later this year. Both parties are conducting discovery and the ISP has shown a keen interest in the aforementioned Copyright Alert System (CAS).

Cox itself didn’t take part in the voluntary anti-piracy scheme, but it believes that its existence can help the company’s defense. As such, it obtained a subpoena and repeatedly requested the RIAA to hand over relevant documents that show how effective it was.

However, the RIAA is not eager to cooperate. Thus far it has denied all of the requests, which prompted Cox to take the matter to court this week. The ISP asks the District of Columbia federal court to order the music industry group to comply with the subpoena and hand over the requested data.

“This motion to compel concerns the production of the reports and data generated by ISPs and sent to the RIAA regarding the number of copyright infringement notices forwarded to unique subscribers on a monthly basis that were intended to allow the RIAA to assess the effectiveness of CAS over time,” Cox writes.

Thus far the RIAA has refused to produce any documents concerning the Copyright Alert System, stating that these are irrelevant. However, Cox clearly disagrees and, in its motion, the company suggests that the data are crucial.

The ISP believes that its own measures could have been more effective than the CAS. Cox had, at least on paper, a twelve-strike policy which it said could lead to actual account terminations.

“Cox has taken the position that its graduated response was a more effective method for combating alleged copyright infringement than the CAS because, among other things, it provided for the termination of certain
‘repeat infringers’,” the ISP writes.

This would be at odds with the music labels claims in the lawsuit which state that Cox’s policy was insufficient, especially since the RIAA and other music industry insiders praised the CAS as ‘a model for success.’

With the requested documents, Cox likely wants to compare the effectiveness of the CAS with its own measures. If the company can show that its own policy was more effective than the music industry-backed scheme, it has an interesting point to make.

“The effectiveness of the measures detailed in the CAS and that the ISPs implemented for responding to the copyright infringement notices endorsed by the RIAA and the Sony plaintiffs—is therefore highly relevant to the Sony litigation,” Cox writes.

The ISP stresses that it’s crucial to get all the relevant information, not least because there’s $1.5 billion in possible copyright infringement damages hanging over its head. As such, it urges the Court to grant the motion.

—

Cox Communications’s motion to compel the RIAA to comply with the subpoena is available here (pdf).

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

Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act, which provides a mechanism for rightsholders to have ‘pirate’ sites blocked by ISPs, was long campaigned for as an essential tool to fight online infringement.

Since it came into force it has been used on a number of occasions, with the Federal Court handing down orders to restrict access to hundreds of sites said to provide access to entertainment content without permission from the rightsholders.

Back in June, media giant Foxtel filed a new statement of claim, the details of which were obtained by TorrentFreak from a third-party source. It revealed that the company was targeting 35 torrent, streaming and related proxy site domains for blocking by dozens of ISPs (full site list below).

This was the first time that a rightsholder had targeted proxy sites in Australia. A change in the law during 2018 allowed sites that have a “primary effect” of facilitating access to infringing content to be blocked, along with more direct sources such as regular pirate sites.

Following a case management hearing that took place in July, a hearing this morning resulted in Justice Nicholas handing down an injunction ordering 52 ISPs including TPG, Telstra, Optus, Vocus, Vodafone, plus their subsidiaries, to take “reasonable steps” to block the “online locations”.

A unique aspect of this application was that Foxtel had asked permission to add new domains and URLs to its orders, ones that in future might facilitate access to already-blocked sites, without having to return to court to detail them specifically.

Under legislative amendments put in place last year (Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018)), these kinds of “dynamic orders” are permissible, but only when the Internet service providers listed in the application don’t file an objection.

According to ComputerWorld, the hearing this morning had Foxtel counsel stating that it wasn’t seeking to block fresh additional “online locations”, but only proxy and mirror-type sites those that spring up to facilitate access to already blocked sites.

However, Foxtel acknowledged that getting all of the respondent ISPs to agree to such supplementary blocking raised issues since TPG tends not to respond to any of the blocking injunctions it’s named in. That meant that formal agreement between all ISPs might be difficult to obtain.

With Justice Nicholas’ permission, Foxtel said it would amend its proposed orders to include a provision allowing an ISP to positively deny that a proxy, mirror, or similar facilitating site, provides access to a blocked site. This would likely overcome that particular stumbling block, the Judge agreed.

The associated court documents can be found here and here (pdf)

The list of domains to be blocked by ISPs in 15 days are as follows:

Sharemovies.net, seriesonline8.co, seriesonline8.com, movie4u.live, movie4u.cc, movie4u.co, seehd.uno, seehd.biz, streamdreams.org, streamdreams.me, streamdreams.co, streamdreams.online, streamdreams.video, stream-dreams.com, moviesonline.mx, wsmmirror.info, watchsomuch.info, watchsomuch.com, seventorrentsmirror.info, seventorrentsproxy.com, 7tmirror.info, torrentken.site, skytorrents.lol, unblocked.lol, unblocked.is, unblocked.ms, unblocked.win, unblocked.gdn, unblocked.vet, unblocked,sh, unblocked.mx, unblockall.org, unblocker.cc, unblock.win, myunblock.com

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

The “repeat infringer” issue is a hot topic in US Courts that has resulted in several lawsuits already.

Under the DMCA, companies are required to implement a reasonable policy to deal with frequent offenders. Those who don’t, risk being held liable.

Thus far we have seen lawsuits targeting ISPs including Cox Communications, Charter, and Grande Communications. These companies were all sued by music industry companies and most cases remain ongoing.

In Hawaii, a new ISP was targeted a few days ago, this time by a movie outfit. In a complaint filed at a Hawaiian federal court, Bodyguard Productions accuses Internet provider Pacific DirectConnect of failing to terminate a repeat infringer.

The movie outfit, which is the copyright holder of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” is a familiar player in US courts. The company has previously sued many individual BitTorrent pirates. With the latest lawsuit, it breaks from this trend by going after the Internet provider itself.

Pacific DirectConnect is not a typical consumer ISP. It mainly targets hotels and resorts in Hawaii, offering integrated network solutions including Internet access. According to the complaint, one of these clients is Aston Waikiki Sunset, a large hotel in Honolulu.

According to the movie company, one of the hotel’s IP-addresses was repeatedly caught pirating. The ISP was made aware of this, both directly and through notices that were sent to its own bandwidth supplier, but apparently failed to take any meaningful action in response.

“Despite multiple notifications of infringements from Plaintiff, Hawaiian Telcom and third parties, Defendant has failed and steadfastly refused to terminate the account of subscriber Aston,” the complaint reads.

“Said infringements would have been stopped if Defendant merely terminated subscriber Aston’s service,” the movie company adds.

Bodyguard Productions argues that the ISP purposely failed to terminate the account of the Hawaiian hotel, despite knowing that it was a repeat
infringer. As such, the company is liable for the copyright infringements of its ‘subscriber.’

Through the lawsuit, the movie company requests an injunction requiring the ISP to terminate the account of the hotel. It accuses the company of both contributory and direct copyright infringement, asking the court to grant “any and all other relief” that’s appropriate in this case.

According to the complaint, Pacific DirectConnect is not protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor because it willingly failed to terminate the alleged repeat infringer. In addition, the ISP doesn’t have a registered DMCA agent, which is a requirement to enjoy safe harbor protection.

As far as we know, this is the first time that an ISP has been sued for providing Internet services to a hotel. This sets the case apart from the other repeat infringer cases that mostly deal with ordinary consumer providers.

Needless to say, the lawsuit has the potential to create another shockwave in the industry. If an Internet provider can indeed be liable for servicing hotels, resorts, or other large companies that have hundreds of users themselves, it will have to be much more careful.

The complaint doesn’t mention whether Bodyguard Productions reached out to the resort directly to address the repeat infringer issue.

—

A copy of the complaint filed by Bodyguard Productions against Pacific DirectConnect is available here (pdf).

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.

Men in Black: International 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	(…)	Men in Black: International	5.6 / trailer
2	(9)	John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum	7.8 / trailer
3	(1)	Aladdin	7.3 / trailer
4	(3)	Avengers: Endgame	8.7 / trailer
5	(2)	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	6.5 / trailer
6	(5)	The Secret Life of Pets 2	6.5 / trailer
7	(6)	Rocketman	7.6 / trailer
8	(8)	Ma	5.8 / trailer
9	(4)	The Hustle	5.3 / trailer
10	(back)	Avengers: Endgame	8.6 / trailer

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