Dealing with the flood of infringing content placed on the Internet for public consumption is a key aim of rightsholders around the world.

In both the United States and Europe, this is largely tackled via a notice-and-takedown regime, whereby copyright holders file complaints and hosts, search engines, and other platforms respond by removing content.

Under huge pressure from rightsholders, last year a ground-breaking agreement was reached in Moscow, one that would see much tougher measures to deal with the problem in Russia.

The voluntary agreement – signed by major rightsholders, Internet platforms, and search providers – aims to create an ever-growing centralized database of infringing content to enable web companies to take down media and links both quickly and efficiently.

Signatories who host and index content are expected to query the database regularly for designated content and links while deleting the same from their sites within hours.

It isn’t yet clear how complete the database is, or which companies are already interfacing with it, but it’s understood that the participants are now conducting takedowns broadly in line with the agreement.

The memorandum is valid until September 1, 2019 but the plan from the beginning was to make the arrangement a legal obligation by writing its terms into law. Plans for that are now underway.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor reports that an “extended meeting” was held on March 6 with rights holders, search engines, and video hosting site operators in attendance. Also present was Roscomnadzor deputy head, Vadim Subbotin.

“The meeting discussed the most optimal version of the concept for the bill. Thus, the basis for the new legislation will be the provisions of the Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of protection of exclusive rights in the era of the development of digital technologies,” Roscomnadzor’s press office confirmed.

The plan is for the terms of the currently voluntary memorandum to be written into law before it expires on September 1, 2019. However, if an agreement cannot be reached before the anniversary of its signing, it’s suggested that the memorandum could be extended beyond its initial one-year term.

Channel One, the National Media Group, Gazprom-Media, the Internet Video Association, the Association of Film and Television Producers, Yandex, Rambler Group, Mail.Ru Group, vKontakte, and RuTube, are all signatories of the current memorandum.

“The memorandum lays the foundations for sectoral self-regulation within the framework of the execution of the ‘anti-piracy’ law. The document introduces a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes between copyright holders and search engines regarding the illegal placement of links to pirated content,” Roscomnadzor re-emphasized this week.

Google did not sign up last year and there has been no clear indication that it intends to participate moving forward. However, there have been multiple suggestions that other companies and groups may be allowed to join the voluntary agreement, such as publishers, for example.

Should the memorandum be written into law as planned, it’s likely to be the toughest – if not the toughest – anti-piracy regime seen anywhere in the world. Add Russia’s site-blocking regime into the mix, and the country is on course to become a world leader in online infringement mitigation.

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

Later this month, Members of the European Parliament will cast their final vote on the EU Copyright Directive.

This includes the controversial Article 13 which is praised or condemned, depending on which side you’re on.

With just days to go, both camps are doing all they can to have their voices heard. Various rightsholder groups are calling on the public to support the livelihoods of artists and creators, for example. On the other hand, opponents are organizing protests, both on and offline.

Interestingly, the European Commission and Parliament also got involved, both with a clear pro Article 13 stance. The Commission started mid-February by referring to opponents of the proposed legislation as a “Mob.” This article was later deleted, as it was apparently “misunderstood” by the public at large.

Then last week, the European Parliament chimed in by publishing a pro Article 13 and Article 11 video. This was an odd move, as it’s clear that not all Members of the European Parliament are in favor of the proposals. There still is a final vote, after all.

Making matters worse, the video includes all kinds of misleading or plain false information, as Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda highlighted.

“The video says a lighter regime applies to platforms that have a turnover below 10 Million *or* less than 5 million unique visitors. This is just wrong. Actually, the lighter regime only applies if both criteria are met, and platforms are also younger than 3 years old.”

Your memes are safe ?
Freedom of expression is not affected ?
It's all about fair payment to content creators ?

Watch to learn more about the #copyrightdirective ? pic.twitter.com/ztYzrl4sdH

— European Parliament (@Europarl_EN) February 27, 2019

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

These errors only served to rile up the “mob” of opponents, instead of convincing them that all was fine. While that was enough reason for concern already, things took a turn for the worse yesterday. At least, from a PR perspective.

Reda decided to use her privileges as an MEP to look into the origin of the video. She found out that it wasn’t created by the European Parliament itself but was outsourced to a third-party contractor, Agence France-Presse (AFP).

This isn’t unusual in itself. External contractors are used all the time and AFP is a reputable news agency. However, in this case, it certainly looks bad, as the same organization was the driving force behind a pro Article 11 lobbying campaign last September.

“The video by the European Parliament to inform the public about the Copyright Directive was made by an organization which has a massive conflict of interest,” says Reda, summarizing her findings.

Even if all the wording in the video came directly from Parliament, involving a third-party stakeholder doesn’t look good PR-wise. Especially when the video itself is highly controversial and in part misleading.

In all fairness, there has also been plenty of misinformation from some opponents of Article 13. There are always extremes on both sides. Ideally, however, the European Parliament should remain as objective as possible, at least until the final votes are cast.

With its video, the European Parliament only riled up the opposition, something which runs completely counter to its intentions.

Something similar also happened when Volker Rieck, managing director of the anti-piracy firm File Defense Service, released ‘evidence’ of a smoking gun recently.

In the past Rieck has frequently accused US tech companies of funding Article 13 opposition, describing it as an assault on politics.  This belief was strengthened by a study which looked at the location of people who Tweeted in opposition of the Copyright Directive, including the  #saveyourinternet tag.

The research, which used the social media analytics tool Talkwalker, revealed that a disproportionate amount of all tweets came from the United States, mostly from Washington DC. In some cases, more tweets came from the US than the EU.

From the report (now removed)

These findings, which led to the suggestion that US corporate interests are influencing EU politics, were shared in a letter to Members of the EU Parliament. However, soon after it was sent it became apparent that the data is far from perfect.

It turns out that Talkwalker attributes tweets to Washington DC when the user doesn’t share his or her location. This explains why the tweets of Julia Reda and others ‘appeared’ to come from the US, when they were clearly not.

While there is no sign of any deliberate intent to mislead in this instance, the whole episode was rather unfortunate. And again, it only added fuel to the fire for those who are staunchly against Article 13. After being branded a ‘mob’ they were now branded as ‘bots.’

This inspired some people to take their protests to the streets. In Berlin, Germany, people protested at the headquarters of the CDU party this week, shouting  “We are no bots!” And they certainly didn’t travel all the way from Washington DC.

? So viele rufen der @CDU-Parteizentrale auf der spontanen #Artikel13Demo entgegen: #WirSindKeineBots – Der Platz wird immer voller. #Uploadfilter #Artikel13 pic.twitter.com/UtnF90tN9R

— Change.org DE (@ChangeGER) March 5, 2019

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

During the weeks to come there are more offline demonstrations planned throughout Europe, mostly Germany.

Responding to questions from the public on Reddit, Julia Reda called on people from other countries to get involved as well. These demonstrations make a bigger impact than writing to MEPs or tweeting a message.

“This is the most powerful proof that people really do care about it, and it has led many MEPs to change their minds. But we can’t win this vote with protests in Germany alone, they need to spread to other countries,” Reda said.

Those in favor of Article 13 are not sitting still either and are continuing to both lobby and protest.

Whether it’s wise for the European Parliament to get actively involved any further is doubtful. The video has shown that such efforts are not going to convince those who have made up their mind. On the contrary, in this case, it completely backfired.

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

When Internet users download or share copyrighted content online, particularly using BitTorrent, they should presume that copyright holders are watching.

Transfers that take place without the protection of a VPN, for example, are easily traced back to ISPs, who have the ability to link that activity to a specific account, when asked to do so.

In many cases this results in an ISP forwarding an infringement notice to a customer on behalf of a rightsholder, to warn that an account may have been used to breach copyright. However, over the years some rightsholders (often referred to as ‘copyright trolls’) have taken things a step further by including demands for cash in their notices.

In Canada, where a so-called ‘notice-and-notice‘ system is in place, this wasn’t well received by the government. So much so that during December 2018, the law was amended to prohibit companies from sending notices containing the following:

(a) an offer to settle the claimed infringement;
(b) a request or demand, made in relation to the claimed infringement, for payment or for personal information;
(c) a reference, including by way of hyperlink, to such an offer, request or demand;

“Such notices are deemed to be invalid under the regime,” government advice reads.

Unfortunately, however, copyright holders are ignoring the new law.

A notice sent by Eastlink, an ISP headquartered in Halifax, Canada, to one of its customers and reviewed by TorrentFreak, reveals a copyright holder breaching every single rule detailed above.

Filed by anti-piracy outfit Digital Millennium Forensics, on behalf of Elevation Pictures, the notice claims infringement of the 2015 movie ‘Into The Forest’. It lists the time and date of the alleged infringement (in January 2019) along with the alleged infringer’s IP address.

What follows is a wall of text, citing various laws and “recent amendments to the Copyright Act, which came into force on November 7, 2012” outlining the rights of Elevation Pictures and warning that the company could seek to unmask the subscriber through the courts, “should this matter remain unresolved.”

Of course, like all such companies, Elevation Pictures doesn’t want to take the matter to court. What it really wants is money.

“In order to help avoid legal action, we have been authorized by Elevation Pictures to offer you a settlement opportunity that we believe is reasonable for everyone,” Digital Millennium Forensics writes.

That offer, of course, clearly breaches rules (a) and (b) detailed above but the notice soon creeps ever closer to a full house by breaching rule (c) too.

“To access the settlement offer for this claim, you have until [a date three weeks after the notice was issued (redacted for privacy reasons)] to visit the provided URL and complete the settlement instructions,” it reads.

TorrentFreak obtained written permission from the Eastlink customer to access the provided URL. Below is a redacted version of the offer to settle, which is clearly in breach of the new government guidelines. (Note: TF has redacted the dollar amount too since it is very specific indeed and may identify the subscriber. However, we can confirm it is between CAD$250 and CAD$300)

It’s no surprise that both copyright holders and anti-piracy companies are failing to respect the terms of the new regime. There are no penalties for sending non-compliant notices, so there’s no incentive for copyright holders and their agents to follow the rules.

Furthermore, while there is no obligation on ISPs to forward non-compliant notices, that is clearly happening at Eastlink. The ISP does inform its customers that any notices falling foul of the rules (a), (b), or (c) are invalid, but sends them anyway.

This is problematic. Not only will some people feel pressured to pay up whether they’re the infringer or not, the notice seen by TF contains references to the “Copyright Act, R.SC, 1985″, and “(i) the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, (ii) the Universal Copyright Convention, (iii) bilateral treaties with other countries including Canada, and/or those copyright laws and regulations as cited herein.”

Legal jargon such as that highlighted above is not easily understood by the layman and can be difficult to comprehend without professional legal advice. It’s not unexpected, therefore, to find recipients who are overwhelmed by notice that simply shouldn’t have been sent.

TorrentFreak wrote to Eastlink asking why clearly abusive notices are being forwarded to its customers. Jill Laing, Head of Public Relations & Media, informed us that the volume of notices being received presents a problem for Internet service providers.

“The federally regulated Notice and Notice regime has resulted in ISPs receiving millions of such notices a year, which presents significant challenges for operators to filter,” Laing said.

“While we are compliant with the federal government’s legislation, we have and continue to provide clear communication to our customers that these specific types of notices are not valid. We fully support and encourage government and industry initiatives that would prevent copyright holders from sending invalid notices such as these.”

While it can indeed be reasonably argued that the government’s recent amendments go some way to dealing with the issue, the loopholes are clear to see and, as predicted, are now being abused by rightsholders.

Late last year, a coalition including Canada’s major ISPs called on the Government to create a standard for copyright infringement notices. This would make it easier to handle the massive volume of notices. In addition, the companies asked for a meaningful deterrent to stop those who breach the rules.

TF asked Eastlink if it had ever told complainants that sending abusive notices is unacceptable. We also asked whether the company would consider not sending abusive notices to customers in the future. We received no response to either question.

With the loopholes in the new rules clearly being exploited, notice recipients should be aware that the government offers the following advice:

“The Notice and Notice regime does not impose any obligations on a subscriber who receives a notice, and it does not require the subscriber to contact the copyright owner or the intermediary.”

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

Last month, several major Hollywood studios, Amazon, and Netflix filed a lawsuit against Omniverse One World Television.

Under the flag of anti-piracy group ACE, the companies accused Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo of supplying of pirate streaming channels to various IPTV services.

Omniverse doesn’t offer any streaming boxes but sells live-streaming services to third-party distributors, such as Dragon Box, HDHomerun, Flixon TV, and SkyStream TV, which in turn offer live TV streaming packages to customers.

According to ACE, Omniverse offered these channels without permission from its members. As such, the company was branded a pirate streaming TV supplier.

Omniverse swiftly refuted this claim in a statement to TorrentFreak. The company said that it supports anti-piracy efforts in general but didn’t go into detail about ACE’s allegations or the licenses it has.

That changed his week. After being repeatedly branded as a pirate service, Omniverse CEO Jason DeMeo provided further details to Lightreading. The company is completely legal, he said, backed by an unprecedented licensing deal that was signed decades ago.

“Everyone is framing me as some sort of pirate… when I’m 100% compliant with what I’m supposed to do,” DeMeo said.

The licensing deal in question was obtained by a company called Hovsat, which is linked to the US-based real-estate company Hovnanian Enterprises. According to DeMeo, the agreement was signed by Hovsat in the early 90s for the duration of 100 years. Such a long term was required to allow home-builders to serve communities for decades to come.

Aside from the long duration, there apparently are no geographical restrictions either. And with IPTV still being a pipe dream in the early 90s, that wasn’t excluded either. The only requirements in the agreement are linked to copyright protection in general.

The existence of such a deal was already hinted at by DeMeo months ago when he was questioned by Cord Cutters News. Although Hovsat was not named then, Omniverse already used it as a tag on Twitter more than a year ago.

While it’s clear that Omniverse believes that it’s doing everything by the book, a coalition of ACE rightsholders clearly disagree, as their lawsuit shows. Also, DirectTV, whose logos appear on some Onmiverse broadcasts, clearly states that its content can’t be licensed in this manner.

So, it appears that the lawsuit between ACE and Omniverse may be different from traditional ‘pirate’ lawsuits. Based on DeMeo’s comments, the validity of the 100-year licensing deal will likely be at the center of it.

“I’m literally doing everything by the book,” DeMeo told Lightreading, describing ACE’s lawsuit as “reckless.” He further noted that his company makes sure that all its licenses are in order and that its distribution partners stick to the rules as well.

Omniverse and its legal counsel believe that the licensing agreement allows it to operate in this manner. This feeling was strengthened when it defeated cease and desist orders from companies such as Discovery Communications and Viacom.

“Fifty percent of the channels that I provide have already sent cease and desists, and we’ve won,” DeMeo commented. “They never went to court. We proved our agreements, and we passed.”

Until now, the joint venture between Hovsat and Omniverse was not made public but DeMeo said that his company pays all the required fees. Whether the licensing deal will indeed hold up will likely become apparent in the upcoming court battle.

While Omniverse has commented in public, it has yet to file a response to ACE’s complaint at the California District Court.

The lawsuit was initially assigned to Judge Dale S. Fischer, who recused himself due to a conflict of interest. It was reassigned to Judge Christina A. Schnyder, who also recused herself stating that she has a financial interest in one of the parties, before being handed over to Judge Dolly M. Gee.

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

Pirated copies of movies appear online every day in a variety of formats, such as CAM, DVDRip, WEBRip, and Web-DL.

The latter, which usually come from streaming and download services such as Netflix, Amazon, or iTunes, have proven to be a reliable source for pirates over the years.

While most releases are nothing unusual, a 4K Aquaman release that came out this week was received with cheers and surprise among pirate film fanatics. 

The title, “Aquaman.2018.2160p.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.HDR.HEVC-MOMA,” suggests that this is a 4K release that was decrypted directly from iTunes. This is something that has never happened before with a 4K WEB-DL. 

The pirate release appeared online shortly after it was listed for sale on iTunes, so the timing would fit. Also, there are no 4K releases of the film on either Netflix or Amazon at the moment, meaning that it didn’t come from those services. 

The release immediately sparked rumors that iTunes’ 4K protection may have somehow been cracked or breached. If that’s the case, then many more high-quality releases could follow in the future. 

“Looks like MOMA managed to somehow decrypt 2160p iTunes,” one commenter noted on a popular torrent site, with another adding that it’s “amazing news because there’s a lot of 4k iTunes-only content out there.”

TorrentFreak reached out to Apple for a comment and more background information but at the time of publication, we have yet to hear back. 

While this would be the first ever 4K WEB-DL from iTunes, it’s too soon to jump to conclusions. Some have suggested that the release could somehow be mislabeled.

We can’t rule anything out but since the 4K digital version is not widely available, there are few other possible sources. In addition, the release has been posted by reputable sources who are certainly not known for making stuff up.

There is currently a 4K release available on Vudu but the pirate version was uploaded before it went on sale there. A source who has experience with the matter believes that it most likely comes from iTunes, as advertised. How, exactly, remains a mystery, but there may be a vulnerability in Apple’s tvOS. 

“Apple has 4k only on Apple TV running tvOS. I assume they skipped checks, if the device is jailbroken, and someone just dumped the encrypted stream and decrypted it via what’s in memory as keys,” says our source, who prefers to remain anonymous.

If iTunes is indeed breached then Apple will likely do everything in its power to patch the hole as quickly as possible.

“I’m pretty sure Apple will react fast and block it via updates because they don’t have to keep compatibility with any devices like the iTunes desktop version,” our source adds.

Whether that’s the case or not, the release has already created plenty of buzz, and pirates are dreaming of many more 4K iTunes releases like this one.

“Maybe we will be able to get the 007 catalogue off iTunes? In any way, exciting times!” a commenter on Reddit notes. 

While we were writing this article two other 4K Web-DL releases appeared online; “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”

These are internal releases from the group DEFLATE and could trace back to iTunes as well.  The bitrate and channel layout for the Spider-Man release certainly seems to suggest so, our source says.

To be continued.

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