TVAddons is perhaps the best well known Kodi add-on resource around today.

Over the past couple of years, however, the site has battled lawsuits in both Canada and the United States, something that has proven a huge drain on both the site and founder Adam Lackman.

Given the nature of some Kodi add-ons, it’s no surprise that they are regularly linked with copyright infringement. However, a takedown notice received this week by TVAddons doesn’t mention the word ‘copyright’ once.

Sent to TVAddons by anti-piracy outfit Copyright Integrity, the notice begins by stating the company is acting on behalf of Cricket Australia (CA), the governing body for cricket in Australia. Copyright Integrity’s client page confirms the connection with CA and other cricket organizations around the world.

The complaint targets a now-deleted page on TVAddons listing details of the Cricket Australia Kodi Addon, an add-on that scraped Cricket Australia’s free-to-air cricket streams and made them available within Kodi for convenience, but without permission from CA.

The complaint, however, doesn’t mention the add-on at all, even in passing. Instead it majors on the unlicensed use of Cricket Australia’s trademarks and logos.

“[P]lease note that any unlicensed commercial use and exploitation of the names ‘CA’, ‘Cricket Australia’, or any combination thereof; or CA’s proprietary trademarks, logos or images constitutes an infringement of CA’s intellectual property rights,” the complaint reads.

“Further, any unlicensed commercial utilization of CA’s names, proprietary
logos/trademarks or images is in violation of the exclusive rights granted to CA’s licensees, sponsors and partners. No entity is permitted to commercialize any of CA’s names, trademarks, logos or images in a manner that suggests an association between a third party and such of CA’s intellectual property rights.”

While the use of the CA logo is clear to see, the complaint then goes off on an odd tangent, claiming that TVAddons should not only remove the page within 48 hours (the site actually deleted it within five) but also stop listing “unlicensed Cricket Australia merchandise” on TVAddons and “remove and disable access to all existing listings and classified advertisements which pertain to the sale and distribution of unlicensed CA merchandise.”

While TVAddons quickly complied, it remains unclear whether Cricket Australia actually has a problem with the add-on itself, which is not even hosted on TVAddons but on Github. In any event, the end result is the deletion of the page and disappointment from TVAddons, who believe that users should have access to content in the most convenient manner.

“Preventing users from viewing free and publicly accessible content through their own choice of medium signals an unfortunate trend for the state of individual rights and freedoms,” a TVAddons representative told TF.

“The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Privacy Badger reports that watching a video on cricket.com.au exposes a user to over 26 different trackers ranging from Facebook to Google, Gigya to Roy Morgan. A total of 27 cookies are downloaded to the user’s computer without consent.

“Users should have the right to view publicly accessible content without having ‘legal’ malware downloaded to their computer, streaming through Kodi was one of many available options. We hope that the move towards decentralized technologies will put control back into the hands of the people who matter the most, away from privacy violating corporations.”

While Cricket Australia was never specifically mentioned as the cause, development of the (unofficial) Cricket Australia Kodi Add-On was actually shelved in April 2018 by developer Aussie Add-Ons following complaints from rightsholders.

“It’s with our greatest displeasure to announce that Aussie Add-ons will no longer be operating,” the shutdown notice read.

“After being contacted by some content providers about copyright violations, we believe it’s best that we stop supporting all of our add-ons. Our aim was to support those users wanting to use free and Open Source software to enjoy Australian free-to-air content on their Kodi installations, which I think we managed to do.

“Unfortunately it seems we have crossed a line, and therefore we must comply and remove all of our add-ons and code.”

TorrentFreak reached out to Copyright Integrity for more information but at the time of publication we were yet to hear back.

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

ISP blocking has become a prime measure for the entertainment industries to target pirate sites on the Internet.

In recent years sites have been blocked throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America, and even Down Under.

The first blocking order was issued by a Danish court in 2006 against the music download store AllOfMP3 and, after two years, local ISPs were also the first to block The Pirate Bay.

These efforts were later followed by similar orders in the UK, Belgium and other European countries, with the rest of the world following behind. During an anti-piracy conference in France this week, Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association (MPA) provided an overview of the progress thus far.

Okke Delfos Visser, head of MPA’s legal department in the EMEA region, informed the audience that pirate sites are now blocked in 31 countries around the globe. As the map below shows, the list is dominated by European countries.

Together, Internet providers in these countries block a total of 3,966 websites and 8,150 ‘actual’ domain names.

The map above also reveals some blocking ‘holes.’ Africa, for example, is still completely blank. Similarly, the United States and Canada remain block-free as well, although there are calls to change this moving forward. 

Western Europe is the best-covered area. However, the MPA’s presentation revealed that there are significant differences in the scope of the blockades there. 

Portugal and Italy appear to be most thorough, with 944 and 855 blocked websites respectively. The Netherlands and Lithuania, meanwhile, are stuck on one site, as shown below. 

Not all pirate site blockades take place through the courts. In Italy, Russia, and Portugal, for example, there are administrative procedures in place through which sites are blocked. Roughly 42% of the global blocking proceedings take place through administrative procedures, and civil (53%) and criminal court cases (5%) make up the rest.

What’s clear though, is that site blocking is becoming more and more prevalent. During the first ten years there were less than 1,000 sites blocked, but over the past three years, more than 3,000 new sites were added to the global total.

The burning question is whether these efforts actually help to decrease piracy rates. It is no secret that dedicated pirates have plenty of options to circumvent them, but the MPA points out that, on the whole, site blocking works. 

In his presentation, Visser cited several studies and polls that back this up. While it’s no silver bullet, site blocking leads to fewer visits to the targeted sites, it decreases overall piracy rates, and drives some casual pirates to legal options instead.

The presentation and figures will undoubtedly be used to expand site blocking efforts even further. Canada and the United States appear to be the most high profile targets. But, history has shown that it’s a rather sensitive issue there, so it’s likely to meet some fierce resistance.

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

In order to counter the ever-present threat of Internet piracy, countries all around the world are tightening their copyright laws.

These new regulations aim to help copyright holders, often by creating new obligations and restrictions for Internet service providers that host or link to infringing material.

Many Silicon Valley companies are not happy with these developments. This week the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which includes Amazon, Cloudflare, Facebook, and Google as members, sent a stark warning to the US Government.

The submission, sent to the US Trade Representative (USTR) as input for the 2019 Special 301 Report, highlights several “onerous” copyright laws and regulations.

“Foreign countries are increasingly prone to imposing onerous intellectual property-related regulations, aimed at U.S. Internet companies. These countries are pursuing legislation that disadvantages American Internet platforms, and online and cloud services,” CCIA writes.

The tech companies support a strong intellectual property system but note that this should reflect the needs of all participants, including those in the distribution supply chains.

This is not what CCIA is experiencing at the moment. The European Union and individual countries including Australia, Greece, Italy, and Ukraine, are creating new rules that hurt the operations of US companies abroad. In particular when it comes to liability for copyright infringement.

“U.S. firms operating as online intermediaries face an increasingly hostile environment in a variety of international markets. This impedes U.S. Internet companies from expanding services abroad,” CCIA writes.

“These adverse conditions manifest through court decisions and new copyright regulations that depart from global norms on intermediary responsibility,” the group adds.

In some cases, it is very clear that these new regulations are created to target US companies. The tech companies cite the op-ed the EU’s copyright rapporteur Axel Voss wrote earlier this week, where he framed Article 13 as a defense against “large US platforms.”

CCIA counters this and states that Article 13 “disrupts settled law,” making Internet platforms “directly liable for the actions of Internet users,” and requiring “unworkable filtering mandates” as well as automated “notice-and-stay-down” procedures.

“If adopted, the Directive would dramatically weaken these longstanding liability protections and exclude many modern service providers from its protections,” CCIA warns.

Article 13 is just one of a growing number of regulatory threats the CCIA views as detrimental to its members.

It also cautions against a new Australian law, which makes it possible to order search engines to block sites that are generally seen as facilitating piracy. This may lead to overblocking, the group warns.

In Ukraine, a revised article of the local copyright law now imposes 24 and 48-hour “shot clocks” for Internet services. If they don’t remove reported copyright infringements within that timeframe, they can be held liable. This can be particularly problematic for small services with limited resources.

“This deadline may be feasible at times for some larger platforms who can devote entire departments to takedown compliance, but will effectively deny market access to smaller firms and startups, and is inconsistent with the ‘expeditious’ standard under U.S. copyright law,” CCIA writes.

The group’s submission for the USTR’s 2019 Special 301 Report provides a detailed overview of these and other liability threats around the world, as well as other issues, including ancillary copyright protections.

Generally speaking, the USTR points out shortcomings in foreign copyright protections in their annual list, but the tech companies urge the US Government not to ignore the flip side of the coin.

“USTR should recognize the concerns of U.S. Internet services who not only hold intellectual property and value its protection, but also rely on innovation-enabling provisions that reflect the digital age,” CCIA concludes.

—

A copy of the CCIA submission for USTR’s 2019 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf).

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Last September, international cyber-security firm Group-IB revealed that almost all movies released in 2018 had been leaked online.

While that isn’t particularly surprising, the company went on to highlight the activities of an organized group of “camcording” pirates in Russia.

“This group is financed by online-casinos, which support online-pirates as well. Online-casinos integrate their ads in the pirated copies and TV-shows in the form of logos, captioning or even as audio tracks,” Andrey Busargin, Director of Brand Protection at Group-IB, told TorrentFreak.

According to Group-IB, the major player utilizing this tactic is Azino777. The gambling service is unlicensed and therefore illegal in Russia. Under orders from the court, it is currently blocked by local ISPs along with hundreds of its own mirror sites. Nevertheless, the business is doing everything it can to recruit new customers.

In 2018, Azino777 was reported to be one of Russia’s top advertisers, outspending leading search engines Yandex and Google, and even Coca Cola and Pepsi. Now, however, a crisis could be looming following a blunder by a court in neighboring Ukraine.

Online casinos are illegal in Ukraine, so the authorities there have been taking a keen interest in Azino777. Following a criminal investigation by local police, it’s reported that the casino’s alleged offices in Kiev were raided in June 2018 and equipment seized.

This week, Russian news outlet The Bell discovered that a court in Kiev had failed to redact the name of 33-year-old Russian IT expert Albert Valiakhmetov from documents relating to that operation. The publication’s investigation, which references Ukraine court documents, indicates that the Russian is the suspected creator of Azino777.

While Azino777 is still operational, it’s clear that the heat is being turned up on the operation, both in Russia and Ukraine, which could have a potential impact on the piracy landscape in both countries.

Last week, TorrentFreak reported on data provided by Group-IB, which indicated that streaming piracy in Russia is dominated by professionals operating ‘pirate’ CDNs ( Content Distribution Networks) that not only supply movies and TV shows, but also additional services that make it easy to setup and maintain a pirate site. According to Group-IB, Azino777 is deeply involved.

“Azino777 has become an integral part of the existing ecosystem of pirated content in Russia. Azino777 closely cooperates with key pirated resources, placing advertising on such pirate CDNs as Moonwalk (the largest in Russia) and HDGO (second most popular),” says Dmitry Tyunkin, Deputy Director Anti-Piracy at Group-IB.

“In the case of Moonwalk, most often pre-roll and mid-roll ads are bought
(excluding ad inserts in the body of the video). In the case of HDGO, a unique precedent was achieved; the advertising network was built into the player. This meant that, apart from the classic pre-roll/mid-roll ads, all new content uploaded into the player is marked with a watermark and advertising within the video file itself.”

The amount of advertising in each title depends on the popularity of the release. Tyunkin says that the number of ads can vary between one and four, and can even include audio ads that are dubbed at the request of Azino777. Given the number of releases, the scale is impressive.

According to Group-IB data, in 2018 a total of 218 movies appeared in ‘cam’ format, with more than 90% of them containing advertising. TV shows posted with exclusive voiceovers exceeded 540 titles. Overall, the company believes that Azino777 is responsible for around 1,415 movie releases and 1,835 TV shows.

Group-IB says it can’t put a value on the revenues generated by these activities but says that the advertising format (via pirated content) is effective. The content spreads naturally and advertising on pirate sites is cheap – four to five times less than on equivalents in the US or EU – and the number of sites is huge.

“The estimated number of existing portals that are indirectly (through advertising networks and pirate CDNs such as HDGO) or directly linked to this casino is approximately 6,100 portals,” Tyunkin says.

Interestingly, Azino777 isn’t the only – or indeed first – company to embark on this kind of mass marketing. Group-IB says that JoyCasino was the first to experiment with the pirate model, with 1XBet trying the same in India and English speaking countries.

In short, there are takers around to fill the niche, even if Azino777 somehow falls.

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

It is no secret that copyright holders are monitoring unauthorized BitTorrent downloads around the world.

In most cases, this results in harmless takedown notices but increasingly, these warnings are triggering settlement demands or automated fines.

Movie distributor Dutch Filmworks is planning similar action in the Netherlands.  The company initially hoped to send the first settlement demands more than a year ago, but this plan was stalled.

Without voluntary cooperation from ISPs, the movie company had to get a court order to request the personal details of account holders whose IP-addresses were caught pirating. It turns out that this is not going to happen, at least not yet.

In a decision published today, the Central Netherlands Court denied the request from Dutch Filmworks, following an objection from local Internet provider Ziggo.

The movie company requested the personal details connected to 377 IP-addresses which allegedly shared a copy of‘ ‘The Hitman’s Bodyguard,’ a title that has come up in so-called “copyright trolling” cases in the US as well.

In its conclusion, the Court states that is it indeed against the law to upload or download movies without permission. As such, Dutch Filmworks is entitled to damages. And to request damages, it does indeed require the personal details of account holders.

However, the Court adds that, in this case, Ziggo is not required to share any personal information. The verdict notes that it’s unclear how the movie company plans to approach the account holders, and whether it sees these people as the offending downloaders.

According to the Court, an account holder who’s linked to an IP-address is not necessarily the downloader. This is an argument we’ve seen in many foreign cases as well.

On top of that, it is unclear whether the proposed settlements, which are expected to be around €150 per infringement, do indeed match up with the actual damages the movie company suffered. That number may be a ‘fine’ to some extent, which shouldn’t be part of a settlement.

“The amount that [Dutch Filmworks] DFW now wishes to receive, presumably € 150, – is, however, in no way substantiated and it is not excluded that in the amount of damage to be requested by DFW also elements of a fine,” the verdict reads.

All in all, the Court sides with Ziggo. The ISP doesn’t have to expose its users and Dutch Filmworks is ordered to pay the costs for the court proceedings.

A spokesperson for Ziggo told the Dutch news site Nu.nl that the company is “satisfied” with the result. Dutch Filmworks refrained from commenting at this time and will issue a statement next week.

Considering the time and resources that have gone into the data collection, as well as the fact that local anti-piracy group BREIN plans to go after frequent BitTorrent uploaders, this is probably not the last we’ve heard of it.

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