The worldwide music industry is making no secret of its disdain for so-called stream-ripping sites.

Utilizing content culled mainly from YouTube but also other streaming platforms, these services convert streams into downloads, allowing users to permanently store content – usually music – on a local machine.

Earlier this year the fight to curtail the growth of such platforms landed in Australia. Music labels Sony, Universal, and Warner, with assistance from Music Rights Australia and the Australasian Performing Right Association, eventually appeared in Federal Court during April, asking for action against four key players.

2conv, Flv2mp3, FLVto, and Convert2mp3 (full list of domains below) are considered some of the most significant stream-ripping sites. The music industry asked the Court to prevent users of local ISPs from accessing them. None are located in Australia but that’s convenient from a blocking perspective – Australian law requires them to be based overseas.

Lawyers for the music entities argued that the services are all unlicensed and that while some of the platforms indicate that users themselves should obtain licensing to rip content, that was a “meaningless warranty.”

This morning, ComputerWorld reported what observers believed to be the inevitable outcome. Justice Perram of the Federal Court has sided with the record companies and ordered local ISPs to block access to the sites. The order covers Telstra, Foxtel, Optus, TPG and Vodafone, plus subsidiaries, the publication reports.

Before last year’s amendments to Australia’s Copyright Act, obtaining an order to have these sites blocked would have been more difficult.

Previously, in order for a platform to be rendered inaccessible by ISPs, it would need to have a “primary purpose of infringing”. Last November’s changes lowered the bar so that sites “with the primary effect” of infringing or facilitating infringement can also be blocked.

Another element that would’ve helped the Court side with the music companies is the fact that all of the targeted platforms have been involved in legal action in other countries.

Convert2mp3 is Germany-based and was previously declared illegal and blocked in a first-of-its-kind case in Denmark. The other three services are all based in Russia, with FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com embroiled in legal action with labels in the United States.

In that action, the platforms have thus far come out on top but from the labels’ perspective (1,2) this is unacceptable. Tofig Kurbanov, the Russian operator of the stream-ripping sites, says that if the record labels want a legal battle, they should have that fight in Russia.

In a reply brief filed at the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit earlier this month, Universal, Warner Bros, and Sony argued that the confrontation should take place in the United States. Previously, US District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton dismissed the case due to a lack of jurisdiction.

It’s clear that the labels in the US and elsewhere are determined to stamp out the stream-ripping threat, wherever it may appear.

As reported here on TF yesterday, the RIAA recently obtained a DMCA subpoena to unmask the operator of stream-ripping site YouTubNow, a platform with an estimated 15 million monthly visits.

The domains to be blocked by ISPs in Australia are as follows:

2conv.com
Flv2mp3.by
Flv2mp3.com
Flv2mp3.org
Convert2mp3.net
Flvto.biz
Flvto.com

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Stream-ripping tools have become a big deal for the music industry over the past several years.

Instead of having to revisit platforms like YouTube, Spotify or Deezer, users of ripping tools or sites are able to download content to their own machines. The labels argue this deprives artists and indeed platforms of revenue while breaching music licensing conditions.

Perhaps the biggest problem is presented by sites that allow people to rip content from YouTube, whether that’s video or audio, or audio alone. While this can be for legitimate purposes, millions use stream-ripping platforms to obtain copyrighted content for free.

One such site is YouTube-ripping service YouTubNow.com. According to SimilarWeb stats, the site currently receives around 15 million visits per month, with the highest share of its visitors hailing from the U.S.

“YouTubNow is a powerful service that allows you to find and download your favorite YouTube videos as well as music tracks quickly, easily and absolutely for free,” the site’s promo material reads.

“It’s an excellent YouTube to MP3 downloader as it makes any soundtrack a separate audio file tailored especially for you!”

This clearly isn’t something the RIAA appreciates. The music industry group targeted YouTubNow last week via a DMCA subpoena directed at the site’s domain name registrar, NameCheap.

In common with a similar process aimed at file-hosting platform NoFile and first reported here on TF, the RIAA filed its request at a federal court in Columbia, demanding that NameCheap hands over the personal details of its client. The Court was happy to oblige.

“We believe your service is hosting [YouTubNow.com] on its network,” a subsequent RIAA letter to NameCheap reads.

“The website associated with this domain name offers files containing sound recordings which are owned by one or more of our member companies and have not been authorized for this kind of use, including without limitation those referenced at the URL below.”

It isn’t clear whether the RIAA has already filed any DMCA takedown notices with YouTubNow via the email address published on the site. Nevertheless, from the ‘copyright notice’ published on the site itself, YouTubNow claims no responsibility for what users do with the service.

From the wording of the letter sent to NameCheap and the subpoena itself, the RIAA appears more concerned about the entire YouTubNow service, rather than just a few seemingly random URLs.

“The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identity of the individual assigned to this website who has induced the infringement of, and has directly engaged in the infringement of, our members’ copyrighted sound recordings without their authorization,” the RIAA writes.

In addition to demanding the operator’s name, physical address, IP address, telephone number, email address, payment information, account updates and account history, the RIAA suggests a termination of the service’s domain might also be in order.

“We also ask that you consider the widespread and repeated infringing nature of the site operator(s)’ conduct, and whether the site(s)’ activities violate your terms of service and/or your company’s repeat infringer policy,” the RIAA writes.

This is at least the third DMCA subpoena the RIAA has obtained against allegedly-infringing sites in recent weeks. TF previously reported that the group is targeting several ‘pirate’ sites that use Cloudflare and file-hosting platform NoFile.

A copy of the RIAA’s letter, obtained by TF, is available here (pdf)

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While Kim Dotcom remains embroiled in the largest copyright battle New Zealand has ever seen, the country’s National Party has been facing ‘infringement’ problems of its own.

In 2014 Eminem’s publisher took the National Party to court over alleged copyright infringement of the rapper’s track ‘Lose Yourself’ in an election campaign video.

At the time, the party was led by then Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key, who’s seen as Dotcom’s nemesis. In common with the Megaupload case, the dispute between the National Party and Eminem’s publisher continued to drag on.

The National Party didn’t simply use the track without paying for it. They actually sought professional advice before starting the campaign and licensed a track called Eminem Esque, which is the one they used in the ad.

The party hoped to avoid more expensive licensing fees by using the knock-off song, but the High Court previously ruled that the similarities between Lose Yourself and Eminem Esque are so significant that it breached copyright.

In 2017 the Court ordered the National Party to pay $600,000 for the copyright infringement, an amount neither side was satisfied with. In a subsequent ruling a year later, the Court of Appeal sided with the National Party, reducing the damages to $225,000.

Eminem’s publisher, Eight Mile Style, wasn’t pleased with the outcome and asked the Supreme Court to take it on.

During a hearing two weeks ago the publisher’s lawyer, Gary Williams, told the Court that the damages amount was too low. The rightsholders would have demanded a premium for the song, especially since it was used for political advertising, he argued before the court.

This week the New Zealand Supreme Court decided that it will not allow the appeal, Stuff reports. There is no doubt that the National Party’s use of the track was not permitted, but the Court doesn’t believe an extended legal fight over the damages amount is warranted.

“Given the concurrent findings of fact in the courts below rejecting the contention that the National Party turned a blind eye to the risk of infringement or was reckless, we do not see sufficient prospect of success in an argument that additional damages should have been awarded in this case to justify the grant of leave for a further appeal,” the Court wrote.

This effectively ends the legal battle after five years. The National Party will be happy to move on from this copyright infringement row. For Kim Dotcom, however, the battle continues.

—

For those wondering if the music used in the National Party’s ad campaign is indeed similar to the original Eminem track, a copy is available below.

<style>.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }

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There are hundreds of file-hosting services on the Internet, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. 

Nofile is generally known as a no-nonsense service that’s free to everyone. The site launched two years ago and has been building a steady userbase ever since.

Recently, however, the site suddenly stopped working (it came back just hours ago). Checking the domain records revealed that the NS records had been removed, which made it impossible to access the site. The question was, why?

A search through U.S. court records provided some possibly relevant context. It revealed that the music industry group RIAA targeted the site through a DMCA subpoena, directed at Nofile’s domain name registrar Namecheap.

The RIAA requested the subpoena at a federal court in Columbia, which was swiftly signed off by a clerk. The paperwork includes a letter addressed to Namecheap, in which the music group demands detailed information on the customer associated with the file-hosting service’s domain.

“We have determined that a user of your system or network has infringed our member record companies’ copyrighted sound recordings,” the RIAA’s letter reads.

“The website associated with this domain name offers files containing sound recordings which are owned by one or more of our member companies and have not been authorized for this kind of use, including without limitation those referenced at the URL below.”

The URL in question is not just some random piece of music. It points to the upload of a leaked track by rapper ‘Tyler, the Creator,’ titled ‘Earfquake.’

The track has been circulating online for roughly a week. It was uploaded to hosting services such as Nofile.io and shared online through Leakth.is, 4Chan, Reddit, and other platforms. Whether Nofile.io played a significant role in the distribution is unknown, but it could be the site where it first appeared.

In any case, the RIAA would like to find out who’s running the site. The music group requests all electronic information that may help to identify the account holder, including IP-addresses, email, and payment information.

“As is stated in the attached subpoena, you are required to disclose to the RIAA information sufficient to identify the infringer. This would include the individual’s name, physical address, IP address, telephone number, e-mail address, payment information, account updates and account history,” the RIAA writes.

Shortly after the subpoena was granted Nofile.io became unreachable. When we started writing this article it was still offline but just before publication, it returned. The leaked file the RIAA referenced is still hosted there as well.

Interestingly, this is the second DMCA subpoena the RIAA has obtained in a short period of time. Little over a week ago we reported that the group is also going after several ‘pirate’ sites that use Cloudflare.

Both requests use boilerplate language and only require a clerk’s signature to become enforceable. This makes it a rather cheap and effective option to find out more about site owners so it would be no surprise if we see these more often going forward.

Whether it’s the RIAA’s main goal to shut down the site is questionable though. In this case, the music group will likely be more interested in finding out who uploaded the leaked file, if that’s the source.

—

A copy of the RIAA’s letter to Namecheap is available here (pdf).

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Significant legal action against alleged operators of pirate sites have traditionally been carried out with great fanfare.

However, a case underway in federal court in Oregon is a very different beast, particularly given its scale and form.

The case filed in the district court May 6, 2019, reveals the United States government seeking forfeiture of around $4 million dollars worth of cash and cryptocurrency seized on the basis that the owner of the property was involved in a conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and money laundering.

The investigation reportedly began in October 2013 when Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents received information from PayPal concerning two websites, Noobroom.com and Noobroom7.com, that allowed subscribers to stream movies and TV shows.

HSI reported these sites to the MPAA which conducted an investigation, concluding that the sites and associated domains Noobroom and Noobroom9 distributed works in breach of its members’ copyrights. Revenue was reportedly generated by subscriptions processed through Stripe and via adverts placed by a company called Lanista Concepts.

In July 2014, the MPAA sent a cease-and-desist notice to Noobroom. Five days later a covert Noobroom user account operated by the Hollywood group received a message advising users that their accounts had been moved to a new website at SuperChillin.com.

After downloading movies from SuperChillin, the MPAA was able to link an IP address to an individual identified as Talon White. The suspect was subsequently linked to two additional sites – movietv.co and Sit2Play.com – which were deemed to be near identical copies of each other. The registrant of Sit2Play was listed as Talon White and an associated email address was determined as belonging to him.

HSI’s investigation continued from 2016 to November 2018 when search and seizure warrants were executed. A declaration by Keith Druffel, a Special Agent of the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigations, reads as follows;

“Based on financial records obtained during the investigation, I determined that White received substantial revenue from the above-listed websites,” Druffel writes.

“In 2018, he was averaging revenue over $500,000 per month. In 2017, White received over $2.2 million. In 2016, White received over $1 million in revenue, and in 2014 and 2015, White received on average about $400,000 a year in revenue.”

According to Druffel, subscribers of the sites paid via PayPal or Stripe, payments that were deposited into bank accounts controlled by White. Information provided by Stripe matched White’s personal information and the account was labeled as “Selling stock tip subscriptions via email.” The IRS claims there is no evidence of any such sales.

78,985 payments of $9.99 were received into the Stripe account between October 2015 and December 2016, amounting to $789,060. A further 7,611 payments of $25.49 ($194,004.39) and 5,348 payments of $44.99 ($240,606.52) made a grand total of $1,223,671.24.

“The above-listed amounts correspond to the listed subscription costs on Sit2Play and Movietv. Therefore, I believe the payments received by Stripe are the subscription fees for the websites,” Druffel adds.

Further analysis of transactions on White’s Stripe account dated between October 2017 and September 2018 revealed a further 396,843 payments of between $9.99 and $44.99 to a value of $6,373,816.57.

“The above listed amounts correspond to the cost of subscriptions to the websites and represent proceeds from the violation of 18 USC § 2319, Criminal Copyright Infringement,” the statement reads.

The investigation found that through August 2018, more than $3m was transferred from the Stripe account to a Wells Fargo account in White’s name and a JP Morgan Chase account held in the name of Viral Sensations, Inc. (VSI), a Nevada entity.

White is alleged to have opened three checking accounts in the name of VSI, over which he had sole signature authority. Through August 31, 2019, one VSI account received payments of more than $5.9 million. The accounts were linked to White and subscriptions from the pirate sites. Funds from one of the Chase accounts were used to buy $1m in cryptocurrency through virtual currency exchange Coinbase.

On November 13, 2018, Mustafa Kasubhai, United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Oregon, approved a search and seizure warrant authorizing a search of White’s residence and seizure of various assets. The warrant was executed two days later, yielding the following;

• $2,457,790.72 seized from JPMorgan Chase Bank account #1
• $1,266,650.00 seized from JPMorgan Chase Bank account #2
• $1,383.68 seized from JPMorgan Chase Bank account #3
• $200,653.71 seized from JPMorgan Chase Bank account #4
• $32,921.00 seized in US currency (cash)
• $1,940.77 seized in US currency (Stripe account)
• 31.53810677 in BTC (Coinbase account)
• 1,022.39066800 in ETH (Coinbase account)
• 5.74017141 in BCH (Coinbase account)

“[I] have probable cause to believe, and I do believe, that White and others known and unknown were involved in a conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1957 and 2319 from at least 2013 through November 2018,” Druffel’s statement adds.

On May 7, 2019, District Judge Anna J. Brown issued an order to the IRS to hold the assets until further notice.

“You are hereby commanded to arrest and take into your possession until further order of the Court, defendants, in rem, Assorted Funds,” the Judge wrote.

From a copyright infringement perspective, this case is pretty unusual.

Most civil and criminal cases against pirate sites and their operators involve detailed descriptions of their workings along with finely-tuned claims of various types of infringement. But the focus here appears to be a financial one, for now at least.

A report from Koin.com suggests that the man hasn’t been charged with a crime yet. In an effort to find ou more, TF approached White’s lawyer Rain Minns. At the time of publication we were yet to receive a response.

Related court documents obtained by TF can be found here (1,2,3)

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