Tor is an anonymity tool and operating a relay or exit point basically means that the traffic of hundreds or thousands of users hit the Internet from your IP-address.

When pirates use Tor, it will then appear as if the traffic comes from this connection. This can lead to liability issues as Oregon resident John Huszar found out the hard way.

Back in 2015, the company behind the movie Dallas Buyers Club, which is known for its vigorous pursuit of online pirates, filed a federal lawsuit against the IP-address 173.11.1.241.

A few months later, this complaint was amended to list “Integrity Computer Services” as the defendant. As part of the proceedings, the filmmakers served a request for admissions, asking the defendant to respond to several statements.

This request remained unanswered, which turned out to be a crucial mistake. Not responding typically means that the court can assume the statements are true. In this case, it included an admission that Huszar unlawfully distributed a copy of Dallas Buyers Club, which seemingly opened the door to a substantial financial claim.

That John Huszar later repeatedly denied that he personally downloaded a pirated copy of the film in follow-up proceedings was irrelevant, according to the filmmakers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Backed by the admission, Dallas Buyers Club proceeded to file a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to confirm that Huszar did indeed willfully commit copyright infringement.

This issue went to U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta earlier this year who, in his report and recommendation, sided with the movie company.

“The court finds the admissions resulting from Huszar’s failure to deny allegations in the operative complaint or respond to requests for admissions clearly establish Huszar willfully infringed on Dallas’s copyrighted material in violation of the Act,” Acosta wrote.

In most cases, these recommendations are accepted by the district court judge. That was bad news for Huszar, as it would make him liable for thousands of dollars in potential damages.

However, the order that came out this week shows that a previously overlooked issue turned the tables in favor of Huszar.

United States District Judge Michael Simon reviewed the objections that were pointed out by the defense, which highlight a crucial issue. When the request for admissions was served back in 2016, Huszar was not named as a defendant. 

At the time the complaint listed his company Integrity Computer Services as the defendant. This was replaced by Huszar in an amended complaint a few months later. However, that meant that the request for admission (RFA) wasn’t directed at Huszar personally.

“The only defendant in the case at that time was simply “Integrity Computer Services,” (no ‘a/k/a’) and that is the only defendant named in the First Amended Complaint,” Judge Simon writes in his order.

“Huszar, therefore, was not the party served with the April 12, 2016 RFAs. The facts sought in those requests thus cannot be deemed admitted by Huszar for failure to respond, and the Court’s order finding such admission is withdrawn.”

As such, the court decided not to adopt the report and recommendation. 

The procedural issue was missed by the defense initially, likely because Huszar was defending himself at the time, but the oversight has saved him for now.

“It is a technical issue that no ‘pro-se’ would likely catch. But RFA’s can affect a case significantly as was clear from the Magistrate’s decision.  This is the error we brought up to the District Court’s attention that led to the ruling in our favor,” Huszar’s attorney J. Curtis Edmondson informs TorrentFreak.

While Huszar escapes a ruling of willful copyright infringement based on the admissions, the case is not over yet. The motion for summary judgment is now reverted back to Judge Acosta for consideration on the merits. 

Huszar’s cross-motion of non-infringement is still on the table. Among other things, Huszar has argued that the evidence gathering software used in this case is flawed and unreliable.

Both sides are now allowed to submit supplement pleadings. Huszar ultimately hopes to prove that he is not guilty and have his legal bills paid. The filmmakers, on the other hand, plan to prove that the Tor exit node operator is guilty and demand damages.

—

A copy of United States District Judge Michael Simon’s order 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.

HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) is today’s standard for transferring digital video and audio between compatible devices.

The standard variant comes as a male connector (plug) or female connector (socket). Chances are that most people will have many of these scattered around their homes, with TVs, monitors, set-top boxes, video games consoles, and dozens of other video-capable devices utilizing the interface.

It’s no surprise then that the list of companies that have adopted the HDMI standard for their products is huge, with founders including Maxell, Panasonic, Sanyo, Philips, and Sony leading the way.

Since its inception back in 2002, many versions of HDMI have been developed, each utilizing the same basic connector but with added features. While new functions aren’t available to users of pre-update hardware, the entire system is backward compatible.

These updates (which are given version numbers such as HDMI 1.0 (2002) right up to the latest HDMI 2.1 (2017)) are described in technical specifications documents. However, according to the HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc., the licensing agent for the HDMI product, these documents are not only copyrighted but also contain secret information.

Github user ‘Glenwing’ has been archiving these documents for the last few years in his personal “Display Industry Standards Archive” but was recently hit with a DMCA takedown notice after HDMI Licensing Administrator filed a complaint against him.

GitHub itself published details of the DMCA complaint which claims copyright over the documents and further states that they aren’t for public consumption.

“HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc. is the licensing Agent to the founders of the HDMI® Digital Interface. It has been brought to our attention that user Glenwing is publicly making confidential copyrighted content available on your hub without authorization,” the notice reads.

Since we’ve seen these documents available freely online before, we contacted Glenwing to find out what the problem was.

He told us that HDMI specification version 1.3a is available for public download from the HDMI website but considering copies of the other specifications can be found online elsewhere, he didn’t think there would be an issue putting them in one place.

“I just assumed it was something considered unimportant to them, considering there have been other hosted copies of ‘confidential’ HDMI versions that were widely linked, easily locatable by simply Googling ‘HDMI 1.4 pdf’ etc,” he explains.

“These documents have even been linked as a source on the HDMI Wikipedia page. You can’t get any more visible than that, and those copies remained online for years. But now that I’ve been revisiting my original sources I downloaded from, they’re mostly dead links. It seems HDMI Licensing may have started to clean house all over the web, not just targeting my page specifically.”

Glenwing confirmed that all copies of the specifications he uploaded to Github were just obtained from various sources on the Internet, such as Wikipedia citations or simple Google searches.

He’s clearly just a tech enthusiast with a great interest in the topic, who would like to share his knowledge with others. There’s certainly no malicious intent.

“I never really intended these documents for distribution anyway, and if I could hide the Github page from Google results with a robots.txt file or something, I would,” he says.

“I upload them primarily for my own reference, to have every version in one place, so that when I write guides trying to educate people about the capabilities of HDMI, DisplayPort, how to correctly calculate video bandwidth, how these standards have changed over time, etc., I can link these documents as sources.”

Interestingly, this takedown wasn’t the first received by Glenwing. He initially received a notice just a few days earlier from the Consumer Technology Association (of which HDMI Licensing Administrator is a member) which targeted half a dozen CTA standards documents.

“Six copyrighted CTA standards are posted in their entirety here:
https://glenwing.github.io/docs/,” the notice from CTA reads. “[T]he works are not licensed under an open source license…the best solution is removal,” it adds.

So are these documents sensitive too? Glenwing believes not.

“This notice I actually received first, and it was a bit puzzling at the time; I had six CTA documents, which are all different revisions of the same (public) standard, CTA-861 [A DTV Profile for Uncompressed High Speed Digital Interfaces]. The three latest revisions (G, F, and E) are available for free download from the CTA website, the older revisions are not, likely because they are simply outdated, not because anyone considers them secret information,” he says.

“It’s fairly common for standards organizations to only host the latest versions, and whenever a new revision is released, older versions often become difficult to find. That was sort of the point of my page, to preserve every version I could find for historical purposes.”

In the absence of his own archive on Github, Glenwing then began to link directly to pages on the Consumer Technology Association site that host the documents and offer them for download. Functionally, access to the documents should have been the same. Or at least that was the plan.

As this piece was being put together, CTA removed the copies of its own standards from its own website, leaving dead links in their place. It now appears that they can only be accessed via the CTA Store, albeit for the knockdown price of $0.00, following a registration process.

Bizarrely, there are other sources for the documents, such as this site which offers to sell one of the publicly available documents for a mere $278. People shouldn’t have to pay a penny of course, as per a May 2018 press release from the CTA which declared free document access to all….

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

With over 20 million subscribers of its main channel and over 30 million over its entire network, WatchMojo is one of the largest players on YouTube.

The Montreal-based video production company has been around for well over a decade and continues to expand its viewership, despite fierce competition.

While WatchMojo owes a lot of its success to YouTube, the company is also growing increasingly frustrated with rampant copyright abuse on the platform. We’re not talking about people who steal their content, but about companies that unlawfully claim their videos.

These complaints are far from new and we have highlighted these issues repeatedly over the years. However, when a channel the size of WatchMojo sounds the alarm bell, people should pay attention. This includes abusive rightsholders, which could be liable for millions of dollars in damages.

But let’s start with the basis for the recent uproar. Last weekend WatchMojo’s CEO Ashkan Karbasfrooshan published a video in which he exposed some of the worst Content-ID abusers. The video provides several examples of companies that claimed WatchMojo content which, according to the channel, is protected under fair use.

For example, when WatchMojo published a video commenting on an Avengers movie trailer, an outfit called Hexacorp (which does business as Orfium) claimed it, arguing that the trailer’s music was used without permission. Hexacorp represented Ramen Music, which licensed the track to Marvel, but apparently, WatchMojo wasn’t allowed to show it.

WatchMojo disagreed and protested the claim citing fair use. After all, the trailer and music were clearly used for commentary purposes. This worked and Hexacorp eventually let the claim go, but many other channels with less legal knowledge simply accepted the claim, allowing Hexacorp to monetize their videos.

What plays a major role here is that protesting Content-ID claims may eventually lead to copyright notices. These notices can result in “strikes” which can then cause people to lose all content in their YouTube channels. That’s not a risk many channels want to take.

<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%; }

TorrentFreak spoke to WatchMojo’s CEO who informed us that this is just one of the many examples. Every month they receive hundreds of Content-ID claims across their channels. However, WatchMojo vigorously fights back and prevails on nearly every occasion.

Karbasfrooshan notes that Content-ID abusers come in all shapes and sizes. Some stand out in terms of volume but are quick to let go of claims once a channel protests. Others send only a few complaints but protest when channels push back.

While there’s no doubt that rightsholders should be able to pursue legitimate claims, WatchMojo believes that many see the system as a revenue-generating opportunity. They simply issue thousands of frivolous claims, knowing that many won’t be protested, even though there are clear arguments for fair use.

This means that the rightsholders will scoop up extra revenue with very little expense. After all, most Content-ID claims are automated.

In addition, WatchMojo also signals a possible anti-competitive angle. The channel receives a lot of strikes for content from the music company BMG.  These, again, often target fair use videos and are sometimes issued globally, even though the rights can only be enforced in certain countries.

The full expose is explained in detail in WatchMojo’s video, where Karbasfrooshan highlights that BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann, also has a stake in ZergNet, which happens to be a direct competitor of WatchMojo on YouTube.

“Bertelsmann, through their investment arm BMDI, has invested in our direct competitor ZergNet, whose assets Looper, Nicky Swift and a bunch of others compete with us for the same audience, fighting for the same ad dollars, competing for the same eyeballs,” WatchMojo’s CEO notes.

Whether the behavior is anti-competitive or not, the overarching problem is that many rightsholders ‘abuse’ the Content-ID system, willingly or not. According to US case law, they are required to consider fair use when issuing takedown requests, something that doesn’t happen very often it seems.

Content-ID is a voluntary system that’s not rooted in law. However, WatchMojo believes that abusive rightsholders are opening themselves up to millions of dollars in potential damages from YouTube channels. One way this could happen is through a class action lawsuit.

Karbasfrooshan floated this idea in his initial video which triggered a lot of response from fellow channel operators. The basic idea is that a group of affected channels files a class action suit against an abusive rightsholder, with the goal of obtaining a settlement for unlawfully claimed and monetized videos.

In a follow-up video, WatchMojo explains in detail how this would work. What is clear, is that the potential damages are massive. According to a calculation made by the channel, rightsholders earned over $2 billion through unlawfully claimed videos over the past several years.

Whether the calculations hold up or not, it is clear that companies that send out a lot of claims against fair use content could theoretically face substantial damages. This, of course, has to be backed up in court, but according to WatchMojo’s CEO, who has plenty of legal experience, it’s a viable option.

“We are now actively exploring taking legal action against a couple of targets where we have built up a lot of evidence of wrongdoing, abuse, and received additional evidence from other channels too,” Karbasfrooshan tells TorrentFreak.

For now, WatchMojo is not ready to serve as a representative plaintiff in a class action suit. It hopes that by highlighting the potential risks for copyright holders, the associated companies will do the right thing and properly consider fair use.

WatchMojo has complained about Content-ID abuse for quite a while and it believes that some type of legal action against an abuser is inevitable. Whether that’s through a class action suit or not.

“It’s a matter of time, if not us, someone will come along and sue and win big,” Karbasfrooshan tells us.

WatchMojo’s CEO has spoken to lawyers who, once they were informed about what was going on, were also convinced that some type of legal action is inevitable.

“I assure you that once I explained how Content-ID worked vs. copyright law, and then how rightsholders abused it, the general consensus was: ok, these rightsholders are going to get sued,” Karbasfrooshan says.

“Now, whether that’s done via a class action suit or a direct lawsuit is a different matter. I think the former is interesting but the latter is practically more likely,” he adds.

Still, Karbasfrooshan hopes that lawsuits are not needed to address this. Ideally, copyright holders should change the way they operate and respect fair use, he says.

And there’s also a major role for YouTube here. They can make a simple change and whitelist channels that have good standing, so these are not harmed by frivolous claims.

“The answer is simple: it’s time for a separate class of channels for those who use the platform in a professional manner,” Karbasfrooshan notes.

The latter angle will be discussed in the third episode of WatchMojo’s four-part series on Content-ID abuse. In addition, the channel will also launch “The FU Show”, where it will break down and discuss fair use (FU) issues in regards to content claims. 

Needless to say, these videos are very informative, and there’s something in there for channel operators as well as copyright holders. 

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

With millions of takedown notices hitting Internet platforms and hosts every single week, content can often go inexplicably missing from sites and search engine indexes.

Thanks to projects like Google’s Transparency report, however, much-needed light can be shone on this murky area.

Users of Google’s service can see almost every detail of a copyright claim but when it comes to accurate research, it’s necessary to visit the Lumen Database, a research project that hosts millions of notices submitted by some of the biggest Internet companies.

The resource has become an essential tool for researchers and reporters interested in the cease-and-desist landscape. However, new changes at the resource will mean that the majority of users will now have less initial access to data.

In a nutshell, takedown notices presented in Lumen’s database will no longer list the precise URLs targeted by copyright holders. Instead, as the image below illustrates, the notices only list how many URLs were targeted at specific domains.

Lighter on detail

As is clear from the above, Lumen has removed the specific URL details, which are absolutely crucial if one is to even begin researching the effects of a particular takedown notice. However, on every redacted notice is a hyperlink which presents a system through which it is possible to get an unredacted copy.

Regular users wanting to properly research a notice now have to enter their email address to receive a single-use link to view it in full.

TorrentFreak learned that changes would be made to the system a few months ago after we discovered a development version of the platform. On a personal level, we were initially concerned at the restrictions since it is not uncommon for us to view dozens of takedown notices in preparation for a single article.

However, it now transpires that researchers and journalists will be able to obtain a special login to the Lumen Database that its operators hope will provide an experience that’s largely unchanged. That means we’ll continue to bring news on interesting takedowns and report on various trends.

That being said, the bigger question is why Lumen has taken this decision. Lumen project manager Adam Holland informs TorrentFreak that it’s all about expanding and improving the service.

“Lumen wants to remain a vibrant and valuable feature of the landscape with respect to research, journalism, and public awareness around takedown requests. We believe that we have been successful at doing this over the years and that some great work has come out of, or been predicated on, our data,” Holland says.

“But we also feel that it’s both possible and necessary for Lumen to continue to grow and improve. One obvious way in which to do so is to expand the number and type of notices we receive, as well as the range of institutions from which we receive them. We’ve heard from some companies that although they’d like to share notices with us, for a variety of idiosyncratic reasons, they don’t feel that they can do so under the current Lumen schema.”

Sensitivity over the amount of information made available by Lumen under default settings will also play an important role as the platform expands. Holland says that DMCA complaints will form just part of the project moving forward, with other forms of takedown notices from all over the world augmenting the database.

“We wish to be conscious of the concerns of those sending this broader variety of notices,” he says.

As readers will probably recall, the Lumen project has previously been subjected to criticism by copyright holders. We asked Holland if this had played a part in the decision to redact notices for more casual users of the resource, who some allege may have used it to obtain links to infringing content.

“Our traffic metrics simply don’t bear out any suggestion that the database is a viable tool for those seeking access to infringing or unauthorized content. But, we have always endeavored to strike a balance,” he explains.

“We think that the new framework allows the research community to stay informed while in no way compromising research done with the database. It also — importantly — reduces the significant workload associated with database maintenance, which will free up Lumen staff to do more productive things.”

We put it to Holland that there will probably be some members of the public who won’t enjoy jumping through additional hoops to gain full access to notices. However, he says that Lumen doesn’t really have a good sense from its traffic volumes how many people use the resource for specific reasons.

But while reduced access will probably be disappointing to some, there are those who see this development as a double-edged sword.

TorrentFreak spoke with a representative from an anti-piracy company who told us that less visibility for URLs will be welcomed by his clients.

“As a DMCA agent for copyright owners, I can say that Lumen and its predecessor Chilling Effects have long been seen as making a mockery of Google’s takedown procedure – why delist search results if those same results are all still listed in a notice linked at the bottom of the page?” he said.

“But I appreciate that the DMCA process can be and has been easily abused, so it’s important to have some kind of ability to check on potential censorship and/or erroneous takedowns.

“So while my clients will surely welcome a change that makes it trickier to access infringing material, I share the concerns of those who may feel that this places obstacles in the way of legitimate research and accountability.”

Finally, it’s worth noting the large effort expended by the Lumen team to keep the project going. The platform is currently receiving up to 70,000 notices per day (mostly filed under the DMCA) with many requiring redactions to preserve privacy.

These can be handled automatically but Holland explains that manual redactions take place frequently, with a single notice potentially taking 20 minutes or more to process.

Lumen kindly provided a list of companies and institutions that contribute (or have contributed) to the database. Any parties interesting in joining this group are invited to contact the project.

—

Automattic/Wordpress

Counterfeit Technology

Google

The Internet Archive

Kickstarter

Medium

Periscope

PGPSMedia [not currently sending]

Proxy.sh

Reddit [not currently sending]

Stack Exchange

Stripe [not currently sending]

Tucows

Tuebl [not currently sending]

Twitter

UC Berkeley – Infosec and policy

UC Berkeley – California Digital Library

UC Berkeley -Open Computing Facility

Vimeo

Wikia

Wikipedia/Wikimedia

YouTube

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

With a huge emphasis placed on the unlicensed distribution of music through platforms like YouTube, one might think that enforcement against other sources has taken a bit of a back seat.

However, traditional anti-piracy investigations are alive and well, carried out mostly in the shadows by teams of professionals. It’s relatively rare to hear about these roles in public but a new listing posted by the British Phonographic Industry gives a flavor of the kinds of skills one would need to hold such a job.

Titled ‘Evidence, Intelligence & Investigations Executive (Digital)’, the position currently waiting to be filled at the company is an important one. The BPI represents the interests of Sony, Universal and Warner in the UK, along with more than 400 independent labels.

“Collectively, all those members account for approximately 99 per cent of recorded music consumed legally within the UK each year,” the BPI notes.

The new addition to the BPI’s Content Protection team will have several key responsibilities, such as ensuring the industry group is in compliance with laws and regulations when evidence is collected in the pursuit of pirates.

He or she will also be responsible for investigating online infringement, and as such, will have previous experience of digital investigations and be fluent in the use of case management and forensic tools.

Given the nature of the work, candidates also require a good understanding of piracy and the tools used to carry it out. The same goes for web-hosting, Internet registries (domains etc), content delivery networks (Cloudflare etc) and advertising intermediaries, all of which can be leveraged to disrupt infringement.

Since it’s a primary tool to reduce infringement, enforcing content removal “across a variety of online platforms” will also be a key task. As detailed in our report last year, the BPI is a prolific DMCA notice sender but unlike many outfits operating with huge volumes, also appears to be one of the most accurate. This certainly fits the requirement for the lucky applicant to be “meticulous in work output.”

Another novel aspect is that the successful candidate will be required to manage test purchases, which could conceivably range from subscribing to an online pirate service through to buying a bunch of pirate karaoke DVDs from eBay. Interestingly, this will also entail managing “covert credit cards” and “covert drop addresses”.

But the undercover action doesn’t stop there. Also in the job description is the managing of “covert social media accounts”, which suggests a level of penetration into piracy circles that many believed existed but hadn’t yet seen written down in black and white.

At this point, there are probably quite a few readers thinking that not only does the job sound quite interesting, but they’re also qualified for the position. That might indeed be the case if one can also show expert use of Excel and PowerPoint and “good working knowledge” of IBM i2 and SQL databases. But from there the requirements go on and on.

Preferred candidates will have a background in law enforcement, criminal law, or cyber investigations. They will also be experienced in computer forensics and writing witness statements, utilizing their knowledge of copyright law, of course.

The reasons for this are made fairly clear in the listing. In addition to preparing intelligence and evidence that might be used in the prosecution of pirates, the lucky applicant will also spend one day a week working at PIPCU, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.

There’s little doubt that the BPI will find the right person for the job, but ticking all of the boxes in the listing will be a big ask. Especially when assisting the BPI with its lobbying activities with ISPs and other service providers is also one of the job’s requirements.

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