The Internet Archive (archive.org) is a nonprofit library of millions of free books, movies, software and music.

Founded back in 1996, it’s considered one of the most important sites on the entire Internet, not least for its Wayback Machine which provides an unrivaled history of pages published on the web.

Like all platforms of its type, the Internet Archive contains copyrighted material, some of it present without rightsholders’ permission. While the platform previously stated it has some reservations concerning the DMCA, it acknowledges that ‘safe harbor’ provisions are vital to the existence of libraries such as the one it offers via Archive.org.

Internet Archive is required to respond to properly presented DMCA takedown notices but over in Russia, where the site provides millions of visitors with an invaluable service, things are on the brink of going seriously wrong.

The issues stem from the Internet Copyright Protection Association (AZAPI), an anti-piracy group which in part represents the rights of authors.

According to AZAPI, Archive.org has been making available a pair of audiobooks – Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky and Third Eye Diamond by Daria Dontsova – without obtaining permission from rightsholders. It’s unclear whether AZAPI filed simple takedown notices with the Internet Archive to have the titles taken down but the matter eventually went to court.

Digital rights group Roskomsvoboda reports that on May 13, 2019, the Moscow City Court examined the case involving Metro 2033 and decided in AZAPI’s favor. It subsequently issued an order preventing the Internet Archive (Archive.org) from “creating technical conditions” that result in the audiobook detailed by the plaintiff being made available to the public.

According to Roskomsvoboda, whose lawyers are now representing Internet Archive, the digital library was not involved in the initial hearing and was not advised of the outcome. An appeal against that decision is now underway.

Nevertheless, AZAPI, still returned for another bite of the cherry, complaining that another audiobook, Third Eye Diamond by Daria Dontsova, was also being made available via Archive.org.

A hearing in that case took place August 16, with AZAPI stepping up its demands to have Internet Archive (Archive.org) permanently blocked by all ISPs in Russia. However, the case has hit a roadblock due to AZAPI failing to provide evidence that the company behind the audiobook actually has the rights to the work.

As a result, another hearing in the matter is set to take place mid-September. Whether or not the Moscow court will then order Internet Archive to be permanently blocked in Russia remains to be seen but it certainly hasn’t shied away from blocking other huge platforms in the past, Sci-Hub as a prime example.

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Like many other countries in the world, the Philippines are struggling with a relatively high piracy rate.

To counter this threat, lawmakers have started to propose new legislation.

For example, earlier this year we reported that a new bill proposes to strip the licenses of ISPs which fail to bar ‘pirate’ sites. While that goes quite far, it doesn’t address the root of the problem.

According to local Congressman Rufus Rodriguez, the law already makes it clear that piracy is illegal. However, many people simply ignore this position. Among other things, this has previously resulted in the United States adding the country to its annual ‘piracy’ watch list.

“In spite and despite of various laws and regulations in the Philippines on Intellectual Property, intellectual infringement and piracy of intellectual rights are rampant in the country,” Rodriguez writes.

“Due to these situations, the Philippines is under the watch list as one of the countries where intellectual property rights are ignored and piracy of intellectual creations is widespread,” he adds.

Interestingly, the Philippines were removed from the US watch list in 2014, but Rodriguez nonetheless believes that more has to be done. He’s therefore proposing to add ‘intellectual property’ to the country’s mandatory school curriculum. Not just for the older children, but starting at primary school.

According to the representative, it is crucial that the importance of copyright is taught at an early age as well as later in life. By doing so, the Philippine people may gain more respect for rightsholders as well as the law.

“With proper education, it is hoped that piracy will be curtailed and our laws will be strictly implemented,” Rodriguez writes.

The bill, which also proposes several other changes to the national curriculum, was adopted after the first reading in the House of Representatives and is now with the Committee on Basic Education and Culture.

The relevant copyright part of the proposal, which is included in House Bill 3749, reads as follows:

“The teaching of intellectual property ownership, particularly copyright law, is hereby required to be a part of the curriculum of all primary, secondary and tertiary schools in the country.”

While the bill is progressing through the legislative process, it still has a long way to go before being adopted. Rodriguez previously proposed similar copyright-related changes to the curriculum, but these didn’t pass, despite support form the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA).

While copyright classes are not something most people associate with a mandatory curriculum, this type of education is not new. A few years ago several California schools voluntarily added copyright lessons to the curriculum, starting at kindergarten.

This effort, which was backed by major copyright holder groups, was initially criticized for being one-sided and was later upgraded to include more examples of fair use.

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A copy of the bill and the associated exemplary note, received by the House of Representatives on August 8, is available here (pdf).

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Those involved in the sale of unlicensed IPTV services appear to be coming under attack from an increasing number of angles.

Just this week, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment confirmed that it was behind the closure of previously popular IPTV service Vader Streams.

Just days earlier, the UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft said it had served cease-and-desist notices in 16 locations to individuals involved in the supply of infringing sports streams, with at least some acting as resellers of ‘pirate’ IPTV services.

Today, another well-known provider is added to the growing list.

IPGuys is a recognized brand in the IPTV space. It has no website of its own, with subscribers to the service gaining access through a network of resellers. For how much longer that will be the case will remain to be seen, as the service is now being sued in the United States.

In a lawsuit filed by DISH Networks and NagraStar yesterday, the broadcaster names Ontario, Canada-based Tomasz Kaczmarek as the operator of IPGuys.

“Kaczmarek operates an illicit streaming service called IPGuys, where he acquires DISH’s satellite broadcasts of television programming and retransmits that programming without authorization to customers of his IPGuys service,” the complaint reads.

According to DISH, Brooklyn, New York-based husband and wife team John and Julia Defoe participate in the “rebroadcasting scheme” by creating and maintaining DISH subscription accounts that are used to supply the IPGuy’s service with DISH’s programming.

The additional Does 1-10 are described as “one or more persons” responsible for DISH subscription accounts that were created with false information and used to supply DISH content to the scheme.

DISH says the accounts were created through a former retailer in Brooklyn named Ratiann Enterprise Inc. and registered to addresses in the same area. The company hopes that the discovery process will enable it to identify the people behind those accounts.

The suit states that DISH used technical means to determine that the content being offered by IPGuys originated from its satellite broadcasts.

“During testing of the IPGuys service, encoded messages delivered as part of DISH’s satellite communications were detected on the DISH Programming retransmitted on the IPGuys service, confirming the DISH Programming provided by Kaczmarek is originating from DISH’s satellite communications and DISH subscriber accounts,” the complaint reads.

Seven of the so-called “seeder accounts” (the accounts that allegedly provided the content to IPGuys) shared one or more credit cards as the source of payment and all had either the same passwords or password hints, DISH adds.

Furthermore, the same credit cards were also used to pay for “at least twenty” additional subscriber accounts established with false information. One of the twenty accounts was held in the name of John Defoe, DISH claims, adding that Kaczmarek sent Julia Defoe “tens of thousands of dollars”, while specifically mentioning DISH.

From here, DISH begins to tackle some of the resellers of the IPGuys service, which offered the roughly $15 per month packages to the public. The primary sellers are named in the suit as Romie IPTV World, IPTV Bazaar, GetIPTVOnline and IPGuys-Live. Two secondary sellers are named as The Napster and Miracle Media Box Media.

DISH states that Kaczmarek and the Defoes were given notice by the company that their activities violated various aspects of the Federal Communications Act back in April 2019, but the IPGuys service continued to operate.

As a result, DISH is now demanding a broad permanent injunction against all defendants, plus actual or statutory damages of between $10,000 and $100,000 per violation, plus costs.

DISH’s complaint against the IPGuys operation can be found here (pdf)

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Week in and week out YouTube’s users upload millions of hours of videos. As with any user-generated content site, this also includes copyright-infringing content.

YouTube tackles this by processing takedown notices and using its Content-ID system to automatically remove allegedly infringing content. However, according to some prominent copyright holders, this is not good enough.

In Austria, this complaint is at the center of a lawsuit between the local television channel Puls 4 and YouTube. In an initial order last summer, the court ruled that the video platform can be held directly liable for users’ copyright infringements. YouTube was not seen as a neutral intermediary and should do more to prevent infringing uploads.

The court noted that YouTube takes several motivated actions to actively organize and optimize how videos are displayed. By doing so, it becomes more than a neutral hosting provider. Therefore, it can’t rely on a safe harbor defense.

This ruling was overturned by the Higher Regional Court of Vienna earlier this year. According to the appeal court, YouTube doesn’t have an “active role” as its search, categorization, and advertising service are seen as part of the normal business models of hosting platforms, which do not make the company liable.

Puls4 was disappointed with this ruling and immediately decided to take the case to the Supreme Court. This case is still pending but before it rules on the matter, the highest Austrian court is seeking input from the European Court of Justice (CJEU) on several crucial questions.

The questions haven’t been published publicly on CJEU’s website yet, but TorrentFreak obtained a copy of the Portuguese versions and IP KAT did the same with the German questions. These questions reveal, as expected, that the EU’s highest court will have to decide the boundaries of Europe’s safe harbors.

The first question, for example, asks if a video host, under Article 14 of the EU’s Electronic Commerce Directive 2000, takes on an “active role” that can make it liable for copyright infringements when it categorizes videos, makes suggestions by topic, and uses targeted advertising, among other things. 

The EU Court is further asked to clarify whether Articles 12 to 14 of the EU’s Electronic Commerce Directive mean that providers are shielded from liability, even when their activity is seen as a communication to the public.

In addition, the Austrian Supreme Court wants to know if a court-ordered injunction only applicable if a service provider has actual knowledge of infringements which have been confirmed by a court?

The latter appears to deal with the question of whether sites such as YouTube have to remove content merely based on metadata (to prevent repeated uploads), as opposed to pointing out specific infringing content. That’s important because, in the Puls4 case, YouTube was not aware of any the contested infringements.

The CJEU’s decision will be a crucial one in the ongoing legal debate about the potential liability of third-party intermediaries such as video hosting providers.

Puls4 previously stressed that it believes that EU law is on its side. Among other things, the company pointed out other relevant CJEU decisions, including the case regarding the infringing nature of The Pirate Bay. In addition, it believes that recent developments regarding liability under the proposed Article 17 of the new EU copyright directive will help its cause.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only YouTube-related case on CJEU’s agenda. A German court also referred various copyright infringement-related questions last year. The Austrian Supreme Court was aware of this referral but believes that its questions deserve to be handled separately.

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In February, several major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit against Omniverse One World Television.

Under the flag of anti-piracy group ACE, the companies accused Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo of supplying of pirate streaming channels to various IPTV services.

Omniverse sold live-streaming services to third-party distributors, such as Dragon Box and HDHomerun, which in turn offered live TV streaming packages to customers. According to ACE, the company was a pirate streaming TV supplier, offering these channels without permission from its members.

Omniverse disagreed with this characterization and countered that it did everything by the book. It relied on a deal from the licensed cable company Hovsat, which has a long-standing agreement with DirecTV to distribute a broad range of TV-channels with few restrictions.

As time went on, however, it transpired that the streaming provider was clearly worried about the legal threat. After several of its distributors distanced themselves from the service, Omniverse decided to wind down its business.

An earlier statement that the service was “fully licensed” was replaced by more reserved language. In a court filing in June, Omniverse said that if any infringement took place, it was without the company’s explicit knowledge.

“To the extent there was any infringement, such infringement was, on information and belief, without malice or bad intent by Omniverse or its management and was caused or contributed to by third-parties such as HovSat,” the company stated.

Fast forward a few weeks and the case remains unresolved. According to recent court records, Omniverse would like to settle the matter. It has made several offers to do so, but the Hollywood studios were not interested. Instead, ACE would like to know all the ins and outs of the alleged infringements.

To break this impasse, Omniverse asked the court to compel the Hollywood studios to engage in a mediation process yesterday. At the same time, the company would like to bring the ongoing discovery efforts to a halt.

According to the court filing, the ACE members were willing to agree to a stipulated judgment where the streaming provider would admit certain wrongdoings. However, this goes too far according to Omniverse, which fears that the rightsholders could use this to fuel a criminal investigation.

“The parties have exchanged drafts of a stipulated judgment, but the parties reached an impasse when Plaintiffs demanded that Defendants admit to what amounts to egregious conduct in exchange for settlement,” Omniverse writes.

“Defendants fear Plaintiffs intend to use such a stipulated judgment as part of a criminal investigation against Defendants. To resolve the impasse, Defendants proposed a mediation, which Plaintiffs have flatly refused,” the company adds.

The mention of a potential criminal investigation is new. While it’s not a secret that Hollywood studios have referred several streaming piracy cases to the Department of Justice, Omniverse was never mentioned in this regard. Whether the streaming provider has any concrete indication that it’s a criminal target is unknown.

The request to compel mediation was submitted “ex parte,” meaning that ACE’s members weren’t made aware of it beforehand. However, the rightsholders were quick to respond.

In a filing submitted a few hours ago they object to the request. Instead, the Hollywood studios want to complete the discovery process, so they can find out more about the infringing activity. When that’s done, they are open to mediation.

The rightsholders further point out that, while the Omniverse brand may have ceased operating, the company’s CEO appears to be involved in another potentially troublesome IPTV service, OSTV Now, which is set to launch next month.

“While Defendants represented to the Court that they have ceased operations, it appears that Defendant DeMeo is merely shifting from one infringing operation (Omniverse) to another (OSTV Now), advertised as a new ‘One-Stop For TV Entertainment’ to launch on September 1.

“Whatever the branding, Defendants appear to be continuing their infringing practices. These and other important facts are exactly why discovery needs to move forward,” the studios add.

The new “OSTV Now” service doesn’t mention Omniverse CEO Jason DeMeo by name. However, as Lightreading pointed out previously, the service is promoted on DeMeo’s personal website.

Given the potential threat and several outstanding questions the studios have, they ask the court to deny Omniverse’s request to compel mediation at this stage of the case.

“Only when the facts are known to both sides (not just Defendants) can the parties meaningfully engage in a mediation. Defendants’ ex parte is a transparent attempt to avoid the very discovery that would reveal those facts, seemingly so they can continue infringing in the meantime,” they write.

Unlike Omniverse, the rightsholders make no mention of a potential criminal case. Whether that threat is indeed warranted, has yet to be seen.

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A copy of Omniverse’s ex parte request to compel mediation is available here (pdf) and a copy of the Hollywood studios’ response can be found here (pdf).

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