The Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment, the global anti-piracy coalition boasting the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, and dozens of other key entertainment players, is well known for taking down piracy-linked services.

In addition to several high-profile lawsuits, ACE also takes less well-publicized action behind the scenes, shutting down everything from IPTV providers to streaming services without any announcements at all. Today we can report on the strange behavior of a platform sending lots of traffic to ACE’s site.

HydraX.net was/is a service that allowed people to upload videos to the service, via a Google Drive account, for example. A recent posting by the platform on Facebook suggested that the platform offered unlimited free storage of video files up to 4.5GB and in return, users were given a direct link via an API and were able to embed videos on their own websites using an iFrame.

It seems pretty clear that the service has been utilized by webmasters to serve pirated movies and TV shows to the public.

Pricing schemes offered by HydraX in 2019 suggested that users could embed its player for free but would then be served ads on the embedded videos and wouldn’t have access to the API. The premium plan was touted at $1 for 30,000 plays.

Until recently and according to a Facebook posting, API access was charged at $0.02 per video view, up to a maximum charge of $500 per month. In early February there was another revision, with the API price adjusted to $1 per 5,000 video views. However, just a week later the premium service was reportedly withdrawn, with HydraX stating that its API wasn’t stable.

Noting that users could switch to its free iFrame embedding service instead, HydraX’s operators (who appear to be linked to Vietnam) also made an interesting statement in respect of copyright infringement.

“For keep Hydrax continue running, please accept DMCA request and take down all violation video [sic],” it read.

On May 2, 2020, HydraX told its users that it had updated its player, adding a new picture-in-picture option. However, at the time of writing, something strange is happening at the self-proclaimed “Proxy CDN Service” that says it hosts no content on its own servers.

People visiting HydraX links directly can no longer automatically expect to see movies or TV shows. While the main Hydrax.net domain appears to be functioning as normal, attempts to access content from hydrax.net/watchXXXXXXXXXXXX URLs are now greeted with a swift redirection to the website of the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment.

The familiar graphic, which counts down and advises that a website has been shut down for copyright infringement, isn’t present. Instead, the video links simply redirect to the ACE portal and, as the image from SimilarWeb shows, the effects are already pretty dramatic.

While we have no intimate knowledge of its behind-the-scenes operations, this seems to be a service designed, at least in part, to monetize Google Drive storage and protect pirated content from being taken down. Whether that’s the reason for the ACE redirections is up for debate though because several things don’t add up.

While there appear to be signs that ACE might be responsible for the bizarre behavior of the HydraX service, a source familiar with HydraX informs TF that when the links in question are embedded in a website (rather than visited directly), the videos (wherever they are hosted) appear as normal. That raises the possibility that HydraX has put this ‘system’ in place itself, perhaps to deter people from avoiding its ad-supported video player.

Unfortunately, ACE routinely ignores any request for comment on live investigations, so finding out more from them is impossible. HydraX hasn’t made any statement either and its email address bounces, which doesn’t help things. Nevertheless and all things considered, redirecting traffic to ACE by choice seems like a very strange course of action for any platform and is unlikely to go unnoticed.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

In August 2019, eight men were indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest” pirate streaming services in the United States.

Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Darryl Julius Polo, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edwards Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant, and Luis Angel Villarino were the alleged operators of Jetflicks, an unlicensed subscription-based TV show service with a library running to an alleged 183,000 episodes.

Polo, who also ran another service called iStreamitAll, pleaded guilty to copyright infringement and money laundering charges last year. Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement. The case against Dallmann, the alleged founder of Jetflicks, is proving less straightforward.

In a motion to suppress statements and evidence filed in April, Dallmann’s attorney describes the raids that targeted the Jetflicks founder and his husband, Jared Edwards, at neighboring properties in Las Vegas on November 16, 2017. The FBI removed Dallmann and Edwards at “gunpoint” and detained them as “agents ransacked the homes.”

“At no time was Mr. Dallmann informed that he was free to leave, nor was he provided a copy of the warrants granting the FBI authority to search his home and rental property. He feared for his own safety and the safety of his husband,” the motion reads.

After securing the suspects’ cell phones, an FBI agent reportedly asked Dallmann to unlock his, with an “armed SWAT officer” informing him he was not to touch the device but should write down the code for the FBI agents to use.

“At this point, considering that he felt threatened and obligated to comply with the FBI, and was unsure of his rights, Mr. Dallmann asked the FBI agents if he could call a lawyer. An FBI agent told Mr. Dallmann that a lawyer was ‘unnecessary’ and would just ‘complicate’ things,” the motion continues, adding this was a violation of Dallmann’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Reportedly feeling powerless and under duress, Dallmann handed over the code. The FBI then asked to interview Dallmann and Edwards separately, apparently putting them under pressure to cooperate or face potentially severe consequences later on. According to Dallmann’s attorney, the FBI then obtained an agreement from Dallmann and Edwards to sign away their Miranda rights.

Under interrogation, Dallmann reportedly felt he had no other choice than to answer the FBI’s questions and incriminate himself. This included a statement that he had been advised by counsel in 2008 on how to operate his streaming operation within the law. This document, which had been seized by the FBI during the raid, was labeled “privileged” and according to the motion was outside the scope of the warrant.

As a result of the above, Dallmann’s attorney argues that all of Dallmann’s statements were rendered involuntarily as part of a “coerced custodial interrogation” and should, along with the contents of his cell phone, be suppressed.

“Upon entering the house and removing Mr. Dallmann at gunpoint, Mr. Dallmann was effectively taken into custody and detained. Consequently, Mr. Dallmann’s subsequent interview was a custodial interrogation,” the motion states, adding that the “privileged” document Dallmann received from counsel in 2008 (and his discussion of it) should also be suppressed.

“[Th]e agents continued the interview without the presence of an attorney and grilled Mr. Dallmann to further discuss privileged information. Mr. Dallmann felt that his compliance was not optional. As Mr. Dallmann’s right to an attorney had been denied, this disclosure should never have been made, cannot constitute a waiver of the attorney-client privilege in the document, and should be suppressed,” Dallmann’s attorney adds.

But of course, there are two sides to every story and the US Government couldn’t disagree more.

“The search began with a number of FBI agents approaching the front door of the residence at which Dallmann and Jaurequi [aka Edwards] lived, knocking on the door, and announcing their presence. There was no SWAT team,” the Government’s response reads.

“Either Dallmann or Jaurequi answered the door. Ultimately, both men exited the house in their underwear and stood in the front yard for five to ten minutes with Special Agent Lynch, who never drew his gun or restrained them.”

According to the FBI, an agent told Dallmann and Jaurequi [Edwards] that they were not under arrest, not detained, and free to leave but both chose to stay at the house and “seemed eager” to tell their side of the story.

“Dallmann was not taken into custody, detained, or coerced, and his statements were plainly voluntary, and his assertions to the contrary contradict the evidence in the case and that which the government expects to adduce at any hearing,” the response notes.

“The agents did not put any pressure on Dallmann or Jaurequi and they seemed very cooperative. Special Agent Shakespear described the situation as cordial. According to Special Agent Shakespear, Dallmann held his dog on his lap for part of the interview and also showed agents the chickens that he kept outside the house.”

The Government denies the pair were denied their rights, noting that two blank forms with a Miranda warning were placed on a table for them to read and then sign, if they understood each Miranda right.

“At the end, Special Agent Lynch asked them if they waived each right, and, if they did, to sign the forms. Both Dallmann and Jaurequi signed the forms acknowledging and waiving each of the rights and consenting to the interview.” The image below shows the document signed by Dallmann.

The response then repeats previously reported information regarding the alleged creation of Jetflicks. It also covers the legal document Dallmann received in 2008 and was seized during the raid in 2017 – with his permission, according to the Government.

“Dallmann then said that he paid $3,000 to an attorney for legal advice on what he could and could not do to operate Jetflicks’ streaming services. According to Dallmann, the attorney gave him three categories within which he could operate,” the response reads.

“Dallmann described one category as covering the following situation: if you have content someone does not like, they will ask you to remove it; they can only sue if you do not remove it. Dallmann volunteered that the memorandum detailing the three categories would be among records seized by FBI that day.

“Dallmann consented to the search and seizure of the memorandum,” it continues.

“He volunteered information about the memorandum to the agents (who knew nothing about it before the search), described it in detail, said that he requested the memorandum and it was written for him, stated that agents would seize it, and even showed them where it was, namely, in a file cabinet in his home office.”

In respect of the cell phone issue, the Government insists that Dallmann didn’t ask for an attorney at the time he handed over its passcode and consented to a search, and didn’t ask for an attorney before or after he provided consent.

A 12-page reply from Dallmann’s attorney contests the Government’s assertions, noting that when Dallmann and Edwards spotted a line of FBI agents outside and were grabbed and forced to sit on a curb wearing nothing but their underwear, they were not free to leave. Equally so when Dallmann’s movements were restricted when back in the house, a visit that lasted 11 hours during which he never ate and his rights weren’t explained to him.

“He was never explained his rights, no officer read him any Miranda warnings, and he was not given adequate time to review the document he was forced to sign. A hearing and determination of credibility are clearly necessary for the Court to make a factual determination on this issue,” the reply adds.

Finally, a snippet from the interview with Dallmann published by the Government reveals that in 2008, when Netflix was still mailing DVDs to its customers, an apparently enthusiastic Dallmann approached the now-massive streaming service with his idea to stream content to its clients.

“Dallmann stated that he has an email from someone at Netflix stating they weren’t interested in his streaming idea,” it reads.

The documents filed by Dallmann’s attorney and the Government can be found here (1,2,3,4 pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

In March, popular hip-hop mixtape service Spinrilla filed a lawsuit against the RIAA.

Spinrilla accused the music industry group of sending inaccurate DMCA takedown notices that waste resources and harm the site’s goodwill and reputation.

The mixtape platform said the RIAA was using automated text-based searches instead of actually listening to tracks. As a result, the group allegedly reported non-infringing content. These inaccurate notices put Spinrilla users at risk of having their accounts terminated.

The RIAA swiftly responded to these allegations, assuring the court that it had the best intentions. The example of a ‘faulty’ takedown notice Spinrilla listed in the complaint was a legitimate claim and was sent in good faith, it countered.

On top of that, the music group said that Spinrilla had no case because the alleged DMCA abuse would only be relevant if the site removed the contested music track. That didn’t happen, as Spinrilla refused to take action. As such, the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the case.

This week, the mixtape site urged a federal court in Atlanta to prevent this from happening. It argues that the RIAA’s anti-piracy notices are “overzealous” as they and other service providers are asked “to remove content that is not infringing.”

“Defendant and its members’ dislike of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s takedown notice process is notorious,” Spinrilla adds. “They claim the process is unfair because it forces them into a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. But their dislike of the process doesn’t mean they can ignore or abuse the process.”

According to Spinrilla, the RIAA “brags” about sending tens of millions of takedown notices. However, the mixtape site believes many of these are grounded in error-prone text searches.

In its motion to dismiss, the RIAA argued that this case was about just one audio file. However, Spinrilla clarifies that the complaint applies to all takedown notices sent in 2019 and 2020, which identify numerous allegedly infringing audio files.

The music group’s defense that Spinrilla has no valid claim because it didn’t remove the contested music track is contested as well. According to the mixtape site, this argument relies on a too narrow interpretation of the DMCA.

“Under Defendant’s interpretation it can escape Section 512(f) liability because Spinrilla expends the time and monetary resources to investigate those notices and prudently decides not to remove clearly non-infringing files.”

This narrow interpretation would contradict the intention of lawmakers, who drafted the DMCA to deter false takedown claims as these would harm services providers and Internet users, Spinrilla argues.

“Congress would not have passed a law that could be so easily exploited by organizations such as the RIAA that as part of their ‘mission’ is to send millions of takedown notices to service providers such as Spinrilla,” the mixtape site informs the court.

And even if the narrow interpretation holds up, the case should continue as Spinrilla also requests an injunction to prevent future false takedown notices, it argues.

The matter is now in the hands of the court which will have to decide whether the case will move forward or not. Meanwhile, the separate copyright infringement lawsuit several RIAA labels filed against Spinrilla continues as well.

—

A copy of Spinrilla’s opposition brief is available here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

Every year the US Trade Representative publishes a new update of its Special 301 Report, highlighting countries that fail to live up to U.S copyright protection standards.

The annual overview is meant to urge foreign governments to improve policy and legislation in favor of US copyright holders.

This process has been an effective diplomatic tool and helped to kickstart copyright reforms around the globe. This was also the goal when the US added Switzerland to the Special 301 Watch List in 2016.

At the time, the US explained that it had decided to add Switzerland because of its lacking copyright protection and enforcement measures. Particularly problematic was the so-called Logistep decision, where the Supreme Court banned copyright holders from harvesting the IP addresses of file-sharers due to privacy concerns.

The Swiss Government was not deaf to these complaints. Over the past years, it worked hard on an updated version of its copyright law which went into effect this April. As requested, this also addresses the piracy tracking ban.

Under Switzerland’s revised copyright law, copyright holders are now allowed to process personal data, including IP-addresses, to prosecute alleged copyright infringers.

In addition, the new legislation also requires Internet services to remove infringing content from their platforms and prevent that same content from reappearing. Failure to comply will result in prosecution. This ‘stay down’ requirement aims to make it harder for rogue websites to host their services in Switzerland.

Earlier this year the Swiss Government sent an update on its progress to the USTR, urging the US to take the country off its piracy Watch List. While copyright holders argued that this would come too soon, the USTR honored the request, as became apparent a few days ago.

“Switzerland is removed from the Watch List due to long-awaited amendments to the Swiss Copyright Act,” the USTR writes in its latest 301 Report. “The amendments address specific difficulties in its system of online copyright protection and enforcement.”

The USTR notes that this is an important step forward. At the same time, however, it cautions Switzerland that the US will continue to monitor the European country for other potential copyright hurdles.

“This is an important step after many years of engagement, and the United States will carefully monitor the implementation, interpretation, and effectiveness of the newly enacted legislation,” the USTR writes, mentioning that some concerns remain.

Indeed, while the USTR ‘rewarded’ Switzerland for its progress, several copyright holder groups believe its removal from the list has come too soon. They asked for ISP blocking of pirate sites but the Swiss Government rejected the proposal after it failed to get enough support in Parliament.

In addition, downloading and streaming copyright-infringing movies and music for personal use will also remain unpunished in Switzerland. Copyright holders hoped that this would change, but it was not addressed in the amended copyright law.

The USTR says that it will keep an eye on these issues but for now Switzerland has been removed from the Watch List. The same is also true for Greece, Costa Rica and Jamaica, which all made considerable progress according to the US.

The same can’t be said for a host of other countries, including Canada. While the US and Canada signed a new trade agreement, the USTR remains “deeply troubled” about the policy of its northern neighbor, especially the education exception in its copyright law

—

A copy of the USTR’s full 2020 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.

As the organization heading up the major Hollywood studios and more recently Netflix, the Motion Picture Association is continually engaged in a battle to prevent infringing content reaching the masses.

The job is both massive and diverse, from filing lawsuits against allegedly-infringing sites and services to filing millions of DMCA notices to have content disappeared from search engines. Somewhere in the middle sits the latest effort to disrupt the activities of the world-famous Popcorn Time app.

As the so-called ‘Netflix For Pirates’, Popcorn Time needs little introduction. Starting out as a single project, it has now spread into multiple forks, each taking a variant of the project in a slightly different direction under various development teams. At least in some cases and to a certain extent, that development takes place on Github, the code repository owned by Microsoft.

Given its size, Github receives relatively few copyright complaints but when it does, they mostly target specific content that directly infringes someone’s copyrights, i.e an exact copy of someone’s code or leaked databases, for example. However, a notice just filed by the MPA takes a slightly different approach.

The complaint, filed under the DMCA, is dated May 1, 2020, begins by referencing an earlier complaint filed by the MPA on March 21, 2020, of which there is no obvious record on Github’s site. In this new and amended form, the MPA requests Github’s “assistance” to deal with the “extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television programs that is occurring by virtue of the operation and further development of the Popcorn Time repositories…”

The complaint targets two URLs, one containing a repository for the Popcorn desktop application and another concerned with its API. An exhibit, which hasn’t been published by Github, reportedly contains screenshots of “copyrighted works” (movies and TV shows) that are owned or controlled by the MPA and are “being infringed by the project.”

“Exhibit A is provided as a representative sample of the infringements being committed as a result of the operation of the Project and to demonstrate the readily apparent nature of the massive infringement occurring via the Project,” the complaint reads.

“The list is not intended to suggest that the identified infringements are the only ones occurring via the Project. Having been informed, through the representative examples, of the nature and scope of infringements occurring through the Project, we hope that you will act appropriately to address all infringement by the Project, not merely the identified representative examples.”

This is where things start to get a little more complex. The MPA isn’t claiming that the code carried on Github is their work and in direct breach of their copyright (the MPA didn’t write the code and has no direct claim over it in that sense) but that the code as developed enables people who download software that infringes the copyrights of its members.

Specifically, the MPA highlights four modules in the repositories (image below), which are designed to utilize the features of other third-party sites (including torrent platforms) thereby presenting links to infringing content in the Popcorn Time software, when it is run on a user’s machine.

“[T]he attached file tilted ‘GitHub-Code’ which shows code hosted on GitHub that provides links to pirate sites, pirate APIs, and pirate torrent trackers used to access infringing copies of motion pictures and television shows that are scraped by the Popcorn Time app to provide access to the infringing content that users are looking for.

“The identified files and code are preconfigured to find and provide infringing copies of our Members’ film and tv content to Popcorn Time users in violation of copyright law,” the MPA’s complaint reads.

Requesting Github’s “immediate assistance” in stopping its customer’s “unauthorized activity”, the MPA then cites a specific element of the DMCA, namely 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii). This is a reference to the requirement that for a complaint to be processed, the complainant should identify the copyrighted work that has been infringed or, in the case that multiple works have been infringed, provide a “representative list of such works at that site.”

This is interesting because not only does the MPA hold no copyrights in respect of the actual copyright code inside Popcorn Time, none of the movies or TV shows listed by the MPA are present in the Github repositories listed in the complaint. The MPA also asks Github to consider its repeat infringer policy in respect of Popcorn Time but then cites another area of law that can raise a sweat under the right circumstances.

“Moreover, the Project in question hosts software that is distributed and used to infringe on the MPA Member Studios’ copyrights. See Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., 545 U.S. 913, 940 n.13 (2005) (‘the distribution of a product can itself give rise to liability where evidence shows that the distributor intended and encouraged the product to be used to infringe’),” the group adds.

The Grokster decision was handed down in 2005 (pdf) by the United States Supreme Court and held that Grokster and Streamcast (the maker of the Morpheus P2P software) could be sued for inducing copyright infringement.

Whether Github (the distributor in this case) “intends or encourages” the use of Popcorn Time for infringing purposes could be a matter for intense debate but given that it’s now clearly on notice of what the software does and how it achieves its goals, Github has taken the decision (clearly after discussion with the MPA, given the ‘amended’ nature of the current complaint) to remove the Popcorn Time repositories in question.

The MPA previously filed a similar complaint with Github over the Popcorn-like software TeaTV, which resulted in that repository being taken down. That too was actioned following discussion with the MPA, with Github seemingly having offered the movie group “guidance” on how to structure its complaint.

But while TeaTV went down without a fight, Popcorn Time has already indicated a willingness to fight back. In a counter-complaint filed with Github last night, a Popcorn Time representative contests the notice on the grounds that the MPA owns none of the team’s code.

“Yes, I am the content owner. All code are owned by Popcorn Time Team as you can see commits,” it reads.

“[We want to] dispute the notice. The code is 100 % ours and do not contain any copyright material please check again [sic].”

As a result of this counter-complaint, the Popcorn Time team has now consented to the jurisdiction of either the Federal District Court for wherever they are located (unlikely to be in the United States) or the Northern District of California where GitHub is located, should the matter escalate.

For now, however, the repositories are down and it seems unlikely that Github will reinstate them, at least to their standing before the takedown.

The MPA’s complaint and the counter-complaint from Popcorn Time can be found here and here

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also help you to find the best anonymous VPN.