uTorrent for Windows first came out in September 2005. Soon after, it became the most widely used torrent client, which it still is today.

Initially, Apple users were left out, but after three years BitTorrent Inc. released their long-awaited version for Mac OS.

While official numbers are not available, uTorrent likely never gained the impressive market share it enjoyed on Windows. This is, in part, was due to the fact that there were already several established Mac torrent clients around, including Transmission and Vuze.

In recent years there’s been very little progress on the Mac development front. The last client update dates back to last year, and there is virtually no discussion going on in the official Mac forums. It was also excluded from the recent BitTorrent Speed release, which is Windows only.

That said, something big is expected next month. BitTorrent Inc. just announced that the desktop versions of uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline won’t be available on the new Mac OS Catalina (version 10.15 and up). Instead, all users will be updated to the browser-based web clients.

The reason for this is fairly simple. uTorrent Mac is only available as a 32-bit application, while Apple’s upcoming release of Mac OS Catalina is only compatible with 64-bit apps.

“Therefore, in early September, we will automatically update µTorrent Classic for Mac to our newest torrent downloader and player, µTorrent Web for Mac. This is necessary to ensure that our torrent downloading software continues to work seamlessly with Catalina when millions of users update to the new version,” BitTorrent Inc announces.

“We will start updating users in early September. If you are using µTorrent Classic for Mac version 1.87 or earlier version, you will automatically get upgraded to µTorrent Web for Mac.”

It’s no surprise that support for 32-bit applications will end on the newer Mac OS. This has been known for a while and, for this reason, a 64-bit version of uTorrent was put on the feature request list last year. However, that request didn’t receive an official response.

As a result, all users of the new Mac OS Catalina will have to move their torrenting activity to the browser, or find an alternative client. Users who haven’t updated Mac OS to Catalina can continue to use the desktop version

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Mindgeek owns some of the most popular porn brands on the Internet. ‘Tube’ sites Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn are all company-owned, as are adult production companies Brazzers and Digital Playground, to name just two.

One of its subsidiaries, MG Premium Ltd, operates the latter two brands and many more like them. As content producers, they also get involved in sending takedown requests to Google. In fact, MG Premium is one of the most prolific senders of DMCA notices on the Internet today, after sending notices targeting more than 215 million URLs on Google search alone.

Despite all the takedowns targeting various domains, MG Premium appears particularly interested in the activities of several adult-focused ‘tube’ sites.

Via applications filed in a federal court in Washington last week, the company says it is attempting to obtain the identities of people who illegally uploaded its content to Waxtube.com, Vivud.com, Veporns.com, Tubezx.com, Siska.tv, Redwap.me, and Pornbraze.com. It says it can do this by issuing a subpoena to Cloudflare, which all of the sites use.

“MG is the owner of numerous copyrighted audiovisual works. In the course of protecting its works, MG has determined that infringing copies of these works, posted at the direction of individual users and without authorization from MG, appear on Cloudflare’s website, Waxtube.com,” the subpoenas read, substituting the site name at the end as appropriate.

“Such infringements have been ongoing and MG has issued DMCA notifications to Clouflare’s DMCA Agent. All notifications have met the requirements of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) by setting forth, inter alia, a representative list of the copyrighted works that have been infringed and the identification and location on Cloudflare’s website of the infringing material. MG now seeks to obtain a DMCA Subpoena to learn the identity of the individuals who are posting the infringing content.”

The list and descriptions of allegedly-infringing URLs on Waxtube (which are detailed at the rate of roughly five per page in Waxtube’s case) run to six pages. The second site, Vivud.com, is backed up with more than 580 pages of URLs, with Tubezx.com and Redwap.com weighing in at close to 400 pages and 190 respectively.

The existence of the subpoenas raises a number of questions, not least how useful Cloudflare can be in these cases. The subpoenas specifically state that MG Premium wants to “identify alleged infringers who, without authorization from MG, posted material to..” the sites in question.

It’s not clear whether Cloudflare will be in a position to do that but it should be able to provide the details of the operators of the various sites, which may or may not provide a useful stepping stone for MG Premium to achieve its stated aim. Whether the adult company has further but as yet unstated plans will remain to be seen.

All of the Waxtube subpoena documents can be found here 1,2,3,4 (pdf)

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Every year so-called copyright trolls sue thousands of BitTorrent users in the US. While most cases don’t make the news, every now and then one stands out.

This is true for the lawsuit adult content producer ‘Strike 3 Holdings’ filed against a John Doe, known by the IP-address 73.225.38.130, two years ago.

Strike 3 is the most active copyright litigant in the US at the moment. While the company has managed to obtain many settlements against accused pirates, this case was different. The defendant, a retired police officer in his 70s, decided to fight back.

The defendant submitted a counterclaim accusing Strike 3 of abuse of process and “extortion through sham litigation.” The man accused the rightsholder of going on a “fishing expedition,” while knowing that it couldn’t link the subscriber of the IP-address to any specific infringement.

While this counterclaim was denied by the Court, Strike 3 previously said that it was willing to declare that the defendant didn’t infringe its works. As such, the Court encouraged both parties to file a proposed judgment, which would also cover what costs and fees the copyright holder must pay, if any.

Over the past weeks, the parties tried to reach an agreement, but they failed to do so. As a result, this week the accused pirate submitted a motion for summary judgment to set in stone that he’s not a copyright infringer and to have his costs compensated.

The defendant’s attorney, J. Curtis Edmondson, notes that this case made his client potentially liable for an astronomical figure of $13,050,000.00, the maximum statutory damages for the 87 works his client supposedly shared.

However, the attorney points out that there is no evidence that this is the case. On the contrary, the defense argued that the tracking software used by Strike 3 is clearly flawed, as an expert report shows.

“This is the first case that has investigated the technical underpinnings of Strike 3’s dubious claims of infringement that have been replicated nationwide,” Edmondson writes.

“Strike 3 may have an interest in protecting its copyrights, but that interest should be counterweighed against the high false positive rate and the fact the software used to detect the infringements is not ‘forensic software’,” the attorney adds.

Apparently, one of Strike 3’s own experts, Patrick Paige, stated in a deposition that Strike 3 has no actual knowledge that the evidence tracking software (IPP) ‘works’. On top of that, an expert who analyzed the hard drive of the defendant found no evidence that any of the pirated files were stored on his computer.

Based on this, and various other arguments, the defendant asks the Court to grant summary judgment, confirming that he didn’t infringe any copyrights. In addition, the retired police officer asks the Court to award attorney fees and costs, totaling $48,773.13.

In summary, the defendant’s attorney equates the current case to the controversial dealings of Elizabeth Holmes and her now-defunct company Theranos. The young entrepreneur, a Stanford dropout, was lauded as the next Steve Jobs for inventing a revolutionary blood testing machine.

However, after several years of convincing many Silicon Valley investors, as well as the public at large, it turned out that there was no evidence that her machines actually worked.

“This is the first case where a ‘John Doe’ has had to expose the Potemkin village known as the ‘IPP Software.’. Like Theranos, there has been no independent validation studies and no evidence that the IPP Software is ‘forensic software’,” Edmondson writes.

The case is now back in the hands of the Court which will determine whether the defendant is indeed entitled to summary judgment and the requested compensation.

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A copy of the motion for summary judgment of noninfringement of copyrights and award attorney fees and costs is available here (pdf).

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Threats of legal action backed up by litigation was once regular news in the torrent site arena but as streaming has begun to take over, particularly among more casual pirates, it’s IPTV grabbing most of the headlines.

DISH Networks is rapidly becoming one of the most litigious companies around and this week, in collaboration with partner NagraStar – a joint venture between Dish Network and Kudelski – it added yet another anti-IPTV lawsuit to its growing roster.

Filed in a New Jersey federal court, the suit targets individuals and companies said to be behind what appears to be at least six IPTV providers and/or brands.

“Defendant [Wilmey] Jimenez created and operates and/or operated unauthorized pirate television streaming services under various brand names including BimoTV, TVStreamsNow, OneStepTV, IbexTV, and MagnumStreams,” the complaint reads.

“Defendant [Fernandez Manuel] DaRocha created and operates and/or operated unauthorized pirate television streaming services under the brand name SolTV, and Defendant DaRocha also uses SoITV to provide unauthorized and pirated programming content to Defendant Jimenez, which Defendant Jimenez then retransmits.”

The heart of the complaint centers around the unlicensed distribution of DISH’s programming. The company says that it believes that the defendants worked in concert with others with similar aims and this is where things begin to get a little tangled.

DISH claims that Jimenez and DaRocha “have a history in trafficking in similar piracy streaming services”, claiming that they sold access to the now-defunct SetTV, the IPTV provider that was ordered to settle with DISH for an eye-watering $90 million.

Previously, SetTV was also sued by the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a case that ended in a $7.6m default judgment just this week. There are some interesting ACE cross-overs in this case too.

While the domain of BimoTV appears to have disappeared out of use, the same cannot be said about those previously linked to TVStreamsNow and OneStepTV. As reported here in May and July, those domains are already in the hands of the MPAA. They display a copyright infringement warning before diverting to ACE’s website, which is also operated by the MPAA.

While unconfirmed by any official sources, this type of domain ‘seizure’ behavior usually points to some kind of settlement, in this case potentially with ACE and/or the MPAA. DISH is not a member of ACE, however, which suggests that settling with one group doesn’t grant immunity from another.

Unlike other cases involving IPTV providers, the DISH lawsuit isn’t based in copyright law. The company alleges violations of the Federal Communications Act (FCA) while demanding a permanent injunction to prevent the defendants from receiving and redistributing DISH content, and selling/distributing subscriptions and any associated reception devices.

DISH also requests an order to have the defendants’ social media pages removed, along with any advertising for the ‘pirate’ IPTV services. DISH further demands that their websites are handed over to the broadcaster. Of course, the company wants damages on top, which could reach $100,000 for each violation of the FCA. Very big numbers indeed.

The complaint can be obtained here (pdf)

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Last year the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership forged between Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and others, sued Florida-based SET Broadcast, LLC.

At the time, the company offered a popular software-based IPTV service and also sold pre-loaded set-top boxes.

While it was marketed as a legal service, according to ACE members SET TV’s software was little more than a pirate tool, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content.

“Defendants market and sell subscriptions to ‘Setvnow,’ a software application that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the complaint read.

Initially, SET TV hired an attorney who informed the court that it had stopped offering its service and subscriptions. At the same time, it denied the copyright infringement allegations. After this initial response, however, things went quiet.

SET TV stopped responding, even to requests for payments from its own lawyer, who eventually withdrew from the case. This lack of progress eventually prompted the copyright holders to request a default judgment.

According to Netflix, Amazon and the Hollywood studios, SET TV is guilty of willful copyright infringement. The service caused their entire business model “immense damage” and to compensate these losses, they requested the maximum statutory damages for a total of 51 works.

After a careful review of the paperwork, US District Judge Michael Fitzgerald sided with the copyright holders.

In a default judgment released this week, the court orders SET TV to pay $7,650,000. This reflects the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 51 works that were infringed by the defunct IPTV provider.

The Judge notes that awarding the maximum amount of damages is appropriate in this case, as the 51 works are just a small fraction of the actual number works that were infringed.

“Thus, the actual damages in this case would likely be astronomically higher than the measure provided by the maximum statutory damages for the furnished representative works,” Judge Fitzgerald writes.

In addition to the damages, the Court also issued a permanent injunction to prevent any future copyright infringement. Among other things, SET TV is prohibited from operating its Settv now service, as well as any website, system, software, or service that is substantially similar.

Karen Thorland, Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel at the MPAA, which is also part of ACE, is happy with the outcome.

“SetTVNow and other piracy outfits threaten millions of creators, damage economic growth, and hurt consumers,” Thorland says.

“The victory over SetTVNow is a great step forward to reducing the piracy of movies and television shows, including the theft of live TV. It also continues ACE’s legal and operational victories, which continue to protect the legitimate market for creative content,” she adds.

Whether SET TV, which is incorporated as Set Broadcast LLC, can pay the full damages is unknown. The company previously reached a settlement with Dish last November, agreeing to pay more than $90 million in damages. Considering this, it’s doubtful that there is much money left.

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A copy of the default judgment against Set Broadcast LLC is available here (pdf).

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