China is well known for its piracy problems. The country is awash with counterfeit media but in recent years authorities there have displayed a new enthusiasm to deal with the issue.

That includes tackling online platforms that distribute or facilitate access to infringing movies, including torrent sites, steaming portals, and infringing apps.

During a press conference held on Monday, China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said that during the week-long Spring Festival in February, authorities had conducted a major piracy crackdown targeting those involved in movie piracy.

The figures are impressive, to say the least. The MPS revealed that in the process of investigating 25 cases, police had shuttered 361 movie piracy sites, 57 apps. A total of 251 suspects were arrested.

While the United States would like China to do more to protect international content, the press conference heard that following the release of local hit movies including Wandering Earth ($557m box office in two weeks), Flying Life, and Crazy Alien ($292m in 13 days), large-scale piracy of the titles became evident. This alarmed Chinese authorities who took immediate action.

“Concerned about the problem, the rapid deployment and deployment of local public security organs carried out a series of project investigations against…film infringement and piracy in the Spring Festival and quickly identified and resolutely destroyed the production source and online communication network of the HD pirated films,” the conference heard.

In one region alone, 59 suspects were arrested and more than 13,600 pieces of equipment were seized, including playback and encryption hardware and servers.

The ‘Twist Film’ app, which was blamed for the greatest illegal transmission of pirated films, was reportedly “destroyed”. It’s claimed the app had more than 100 million users and offered in excess of 150,000 films. Suspects were arrested in China and “overseas”.

The Ministry of Public Security said it deployed local authorities to Beijing and several other areas to “smash a number of pirated websites and apps” that had outstanding infringement issues, including the popular ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Film and TV Alliance’ apps.

Also among the site casualties was a 170,000-member platform called ‘BTBus’, a platform known as ‘Qiu Xia’, and ‘BT Movie Paradise’, a site that’s claimed to have had 3.7 million visitors every day. The full list is lengthy so the above is just a sample.

In comments to China’s National Copyright Administration, Wandering Earth producer Gong Geer said that after being released on February 5th, an illegal HD version appeared online on the 7th. This was immediately reported to the government and the response during the first week of the Spring Festival was described as “an anti-piracy war.”

“As a creator, we must believe that the relevant departments can support us in law and policy. The only thing we can do is to create works with all sincerity,” he said.

“No matter how much we are pirated, we believe that only the best works can attract the audience. As long as we do well, the audience will definitely go to the cinema to watch movies. This is a mutual trust between our filmmakers and the audience. I believe the audience will give us this opportunity.”

The next round of trade war negotiations between China and the United States begin today in Beijing. China’s handling of intellectual property issues are a particularly hot topic.

In March, the National Copyright Administration added US movies Green Room and Captain Marvel to a list of productions that should receive special protection, ordering online content providers not to host them and requiring online storage providers to prevent uploads. The US will want much more.

Last week, as first reported here on TF, Avengers: Endgame appeared online after being filmed in a Chinese cinema, two days before its official US release date. The copies that appeared certainly weren’t in high-quality HD but the illegal appearance of this huge production won’t have gone unnoticed.

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Every year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes its Special 301 Report highlighting countries that aren’t doing enough to protect US intellectual property rights.

The format remains the same as in previous years and lists three dozen countries that, for different reasons, threaten the intellectual property rights of US companies.

“The identification of the countries and IP-related market access barriers in the Report and of steps necessary to address those barriers are a critical component of the Administration’s aggressive efforts to defend Americans from harmful IP-related trade barriers,” USTR writes. 

The topics reported in the yearly overview are much broader than online piracy. They also cover counterfeiting and other IP related issues, including patents and protection of trade secrets. Our coverage is limited to piracy, however, which remains one of the key issues. 

The USTR highlights stream-ripping as a significant problem, as well as pirate IPTV services and “illicit streaming devices” in general. The latter are sold throughout the world but are often manufactured in China, which is listed on the USTR’s Priority Watch List. 

“Stakeholders continue to report rampant piracy through ISDs, including in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, the UAE, and Vietnam. China, in particular, is a manufacturing hub for these devices,” the USTR writes. 

Camcording piracy, where people record films at movie theaters, remains a significant problem as well. Russia, India, Mexico, and China are called out as frequent sources, but the problem applies to other countries as well. 

The USTR notes that countries including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Taiwan do not effectively criminalize unauthorized camcording, and hopes that this will soon change. 

“The United States urges countries to adopt laws and enforcement practices
designed to prevent unauthorized camcording, such as laws that have been adopted in Canada, Japan, and the Philippines,” the USTR writes.

Most of these observations and comments are not new. They are made year after year in some cases. Apparently, it’s a strategy that has some effect. For example, India recently updated is camcording legislation to allow a three-year prison sentence for those who get caught.

The full list of countries which lack proper IP protection totals 36. Eleven are listed on the most severe Priority Watch List with the rest placed on the regular Watch List.

Canada has been downgraded from the Priority to the regular Watch List this year. The most important step forward taken by Canada, according to the US, is signing the provisions in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will extend the local copyright term to 70-years + life.

However, problems remain as well. Among other things, the US sees Canada’s copyright exception for educational purposes as a grave concern.

“The United States remains deeply troubled by the ambiguous education-related exception added to the copyright law in 2012, which has significantly damaged the market for educational publishers and authors,” the office writes.

Switzerland also remains on the Watch List. While the country generally has strong intellectual property protection, the U.S. remains concerned about its online copyright protection and enforcement, as we’ve highlighted previously. This appears to be the only remaining barrier at this point.

If countries fail to address the issues the USTR has highlighted, the U.S. says it will take appropriate actions in response. No concrete measures are mentioned, but they can include enforcement actions under Section 301 of the Trade Act or pursuant to World Trade Organization rules, for example. 

—

A copy of USTR’s full 2019 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf).

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Back in 2007, a new online service appeared in the UK. Originally touted as a personal DVR service, TVCatchup quickly gained traction.

Later, however, TVCatchup became an almost live (there was a short delay) streaming service, offering many channels to the public, including those offered by the BBC, ITV, and other broadcasters.

But trouble was never far away for the popular service. Following a legal battle with broadcasters that stretched back more than seven years and traversed UK and EU Courts, in 2017 the European Court of Justice delivered a considerable blow.

The ECJ said that the platform, which claimed to operate legally when it streamed TV content broadcasted by ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, could not rely on legislation that was designed to assist in the development of cable infrastructure decades ago.

That meant that when TVCatchup streamed copyrighted content without permission, that amounted to an unlicensed communication to the public. However, a year earlier TVCatchup Limited had already been dissolved, as confirmed by an October 2016 filing at Companies House.

Many expected the service to immediately shut down but TVCatchup continued via its website and apps downloadable from Google Play and Apple’s App Store. That changed recently when the service appeared to drastically degrade with no announcement from those in charge.

The TVCatchup website currently displays a “Whoops, looks like something went wrong” message but it can still be accessed by adding “8080” to its URL. However, anyone clicking any of the links will be disappointed, as no channels are forthcoming. The same goes for both Apple and Android apps.

The Android app (here) is published by a company listed as Spaceshifting LLC. However, that entity was dissolved back in February 2018. The App Store variant (here) is published by Toyon Investments Ltd, a UK company formed in January 2017.

In December 2018, Toyon Investments was advised that “unless cause is shown to the contrary”, under the Companies Act 2006 it would be struck off the register of companies. On February 26, 2019, Toyon Investments was dissolved.

The last time TVCatchup corresponded with a customer on Twitter was on March 5, 2019. Since then it has posted one tweet, unrelated to the business.

According to traffic stats provided by SimilarWeb, until the end of March 2019 TVCatchup.com was receiving around two million hits a day. Given the current situation, that isn’t likely to persist for long. However, UK users won’t be left completely high and dry.

Between BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, TVPlayer and other legal streaming apps and services, TVCatchup can be replaced. That wasn’t the case when TVCatchup initially gained traction but times have certainly changed over the past decade.

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This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Avengers: Endgame is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

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When the pirate streaming box hype reached new heights early 2017, the third-party Kodi add-on “Exodus” was at the center of the action.

Exodus was widely praised as one of the most useful add-ons to access streaming video. This included many pirated movies and TV-shows.

The open source software was maintained by “Lambda,” one of the most prolific developers in the community. However, this meant that when rightsholders started to tighten the screws, Exodus became one of the main targets.

It all started when the popular add-on repository TVAddons mysteriously disappeared. Since Exodus was distributed through the repository, many people experienced trouble updating it.

Initially, it was unknown what was going on with TVAddons but when the site returned more than a month later, it became clear that it was being sued by Bell Canada, TVA, Videotron, and Rogers. This complaint also listed Exodus, alongside 17 other add-ons.

Not much later, development of the Exodus add-on was discontinued. This meant that from one day to another, millions of users found out that their pirate streaming boxes had become useless. At least, in their more recent configuration.

It didn’t take long before others stepped up to fill this void. Interestingly, many of the Exodus alternatives were based on the original Exodus code, which was open source. Even today, nearly two years after the add-on was discontinued, its code lives on.

TVAddons recently published an overview of the various Exodus ‘forks’ that are still online today.

The top one appears to be the aptly named “Exodus Redux,” which is available through GitHub and maintained by a developer known as I-A-C.

However, there are many more add-ons based on the same code. This includes “Yoda,” “Exodus 8,” “Overeasy,” and “13Clowns,” to name a few. All of these allow users to stream video through an easy-to-use interface.

While the open source code is easy to fork, these add-ons can’t operate with complete impunity, of course. Several other Exodus based add-ons have already been discontinued, often following pressure from groups such as anti-piracy group ACE.

The Covenant add-on, developed by Team Colossus, threw in the towel after one of the main developers received a house visit, for example,. The Placenta add-on was discontinued following a cease and desist letter.

This begs the question: if new forks keep appearing, does it mean that rightsholders’ actions are futile?

According to TVAddons, which has banned these forks from its own platform, takedown efforts may help in the short term. However, when open source software is taken down, many alternate versions usually pop-up.

“The Rights holders efforts to destroy dual-use technologies seem to be effective in the very short-term. However, those enforcements only result in software and tools being spread out in a way that becomes uncontrollable in the long term, as we’ve seen with Kodi addons,” a TVAddons spokesperson told us.

In theory, this is indeed true. TVAddons listed just seven active Exodus forks, but there are many more out there. It’s a problem that’s hard to eradicate. 

However, the continued efforts from rightsholders to shut down these add-ons may have a more subtle effect. While hardcore pirates will always find a new fork, there’s also a group of people who will get frustrated by the repeated shutdowns, and give up eventually. 

If we take a look at the popularity of the Google search term “Kodi add-ons” we see that interest started to drop after the major enforcement efforts started. This may be a coincidence of course, but it could also be a sign of people giving up. 

Google searches for “Kodi add-ons”

It’s hard to deny that open source software can’t be easily eradicated, but the ease of access also play a role. 

We’ve also seen that with other popular open source applications, such as Popcorn Time. When one of the most popular forks was taken out following pressure from Hollywood, others remained available. Still, as time went on, interest began to wane. 

Similarly, when Limewire shut down years ago, the Frostwire fork remained available. However, this never reached the same audience as its predecessor. 

All in all, it’s safe to conclude that, while Exodus has left the scene a long time ago, its code still thrives. Whether the total audience is still as large as it once was, remains a question.

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