Earlier this month we reported on problems facing SickRage, a successful ‘fork’ of the Sick Beard PVR-like software that utilizes Usenet, torrent indexers, and TheTVDB to identify airing dates for TV shows and automatically download them whenever they became available.

SickRage is a GNU General Public Licensed tool that improved on Sick Beard to gain an impressive following. However, a growing dispute with a former developer known as Echel0n has proven a distraction for the past year, with Echel0n launching his own SickRage variant (SickRageTV) at SickRage.ca and filing complaints with Github to have SickRage taken down.

Unfortunately, the problems haven’t stopped there. In addition to the DMCA notices filed against his former project, Echel0n filed a trademark application in September in an effort to prevent his old team from using the term ‘SickRage’.

SickRage trademark filing

Brandishing this application, Echel0n (real name Justin Tabish) fired off a complaint to developer Dustyn Gibson (aka ‘Miigotu‘) of the SickRage project, warning him to cease and desist using the SickRage trademark.

The application and subsequent threats haven’t been particularly well-received by many in the SickRage community. Tabish, however, won’t have a fight on his hands. The SickRage team informs TorrentFreak that they will “totally wipe their hands of this Echel0n nonsense” by undergoing a rebranding exercise. Moving forward, the old SickRage project will now be known as SickChill.

“Even though it was giving [Echel0n] what he wanted, it was in the best interest of the users to distance themselves from the copyright infringement issues he has opened for anything related to his (yet to be granted) trademarked work ‘Sickrage’,” SickChill developer Miigotu informs TF.

Indeed, a timeline reviewed by TorrentFreak reveals that while Echel0n was involved in the project as early as March 2014, the years that followed were peppered by friction and multiple disputes, reaching peaks in July 2017 with multiple DMCA notices filed by Echel0n, with further attempts at taking over the project on Github this October.

Miigotu also reveals that on October 5, 2018, Echel0n attempted to starve the project of its income.

“Echel0n filed an IP infringement with PayPal and had my PayPal locked, claiming I was stealing and selling his product because I had a donation button on our wiki. It was restored about a week later,” Miigotu explains.

In addition to reports that Echel0n previously added bitcoin-mining software to his SickRage variant at SickRage.ca, a report on Github just over a week ago revealed more issues, with a trojan reportedly being served from the .ca domain.

While Google’s malware scanner currently reports no issues with the domain, TorrentFreak’s attempts to reach SickRage.ca were prevented by a trojan warning generated by MalwareBytes.

“We found proof that his software is malicious and using his personal computer as a requests auth adapter for all providers, so all of the users’ logins for private trackers pass through his gateway, and scanners actually pick this traffic up,” Miigotu claims.

For his part, Echel0n says that the bitcoin mining was quickly discontinued and he denies that tracker logins were ever stored.

“[T]he bitcoin mining was publicly announced on my forums as a means to help pay for the project servers, shortly it was stopped/removed as it caused more issues than good,” he said in a response to Miigotu.

“Never has SiCKRAGE stored private torrent tracker login details, you’re a coder you should know this as the app doesn’t transmit any of that data!”

It’s unclear whether the warring factions will now be able to go in their own directions in peace, or whether the problems will persist moving forward. It’s probably safe to say, however, that both projects will benefit when less time is taken up by fighting.

The rebranded SickChill project can be found here, with all references to SickRage now removed. The domain SickRage.tv is also for sale, with all proceeds going to the EFF.

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

For those unfamiliar with the service, JustWatch is a search engine that aims to direct consumers to legal options for TV shows and movies.

“We show you where you can legally watch movies and TV shows that you love. You are kept up to date with what is new on Netflix, Amazon Prime, iTunes and many other streaming platforms,” the company explains.

“Our simple filter system allows you to see only what is important to you. We also tell you where and when to watch movies on the big screen so you never miss when a movie is running in cinema again.”

TF covered JustWatch back in 2015 after the company acknowledged the negative effect Google’s “Pirate Update” had on torrent sites but somehow left streaming sites relatively unscathed.

Speaking with JustWatch this week, we asked the company if anything had changed over the past three years. Noting that a dedicated report will be out in the coming months, JustWatch says that it’s still unhappy with the situation at Google.

“We can already tell you that the situation (obviously) hasn’t changed much,” JustWatch Head of Growth Lise Le Petit told us.

“Google takes those illegal sites down regularly, but new ones pop up really fast and climb up in rankings pretty quick. In the end, there are as many pirate sites as 4 years ago swarming the Google search – they are just different ones.”

The big question, then, is what can be done? JustWatch says that instead of tackling problems once they’ve appeared in search results, Google should prevent sites from being indexed in the first place. And this where the controversy begins.

“Google could build up a Domain-Blacklist, which is owned/maintained by the MPAA in the US and Google, and would filter websites infringing on copyright,” Le Petit says.

“A company files against a whole domain and within a certain timeframe (2-3 weeks) all results of this website get deleted. We guess illegal sites won’t officially reply. The idea would be that instead of cleaning out single URLs, spammy domains would get flagged instantly as a whole.”

JustWatch doesn’t really believe such a thing will be implemented since Google “will never give away power over what they decide to show or not in their search result pages.” That being said, Google isn’t the only problem here.

A couple of weeks ago we reported how another search engine for legal content had experienced problems with wrongful DMCA notices targeting its domain. So, we wondered, might JustWatch be suffering the same issues?

A swift look at Google’s Transparency Report reveals that JustWatch, despite being entirely legal, is regularly targeted by anti-piracy companies. They write to Google claiming JustWatch is a pirate site and demanding that links are taken down from its indexes.

JustWatch – regularly and wrongfully targeted

The great irony here is that these companies end up taking down links to their own legal content, if Google lets their erroneous claims slip through. Worse still, even though Hollywood is being touted as a possible “blacklist” maintainer, plenty of movie companies and their business partners are wrongfully taking down links to a perfectly legal platform.

In a notice from March 2018, Disney demands that a JustWatch link to Zootopia should be removed. In fact, JustWatch was simply promoting legal platforms where people can buy the movie.

In another, Sony Pictures Worldwide attempted to take down a JustWatch link to the movie No Way Jose, which was advising people to buy the movie from Apple, Google Play, and Amazon, among others.

Amazon itself can’t escape criticism either. In a notice sent by its anti-piracy company to ‘protect’ the TV show Inside Edge on Prime Video, the company tried to take down a JustWatch page which was actually trying to drive sales to Amazon.

Is driving Amazon sales a crime? Apparently…

While JustWatch would like to see some kind of blacklist, the company understands the pitfalls. It believes that transparency could be part of the solution, in much the same way that Google’s Transparency report shines light on the often-messy DMCA takedown process.

“The major drawback we see is the risk of censorship for websites that do not suit the MPAA – which is why this is a pretty controversial topic – and it should be,” Le Petit says.

“Although, if there is the will to change, one could make such a list accessible and transparent (including its criteria) to the public – plus the option for everyone to file against entries, for example.

“In the end, the real question is whether leaving full control to the black hole that is Google is better than creating a blacklist that might be seen as censorship,” she concludes.

Just like rightsholders, JustWatch has a vested interest in seeing ‘pirate’ links disappear from search results since that elevates its own links towards Google’s front page.

That said, Google doesn’t seem keen to censor sites voluntarily but the world could get a glimpse of what that looks like fairly soon regardless, with Australia edging closer to approving legislation to remove blocked pirate sites from search results.

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

There are a lot of things people are not allowed to do under US copyright law, but perhaps just as importantly there are exemptions.

The U.S. Copyright Office regularly reviews these exemptions to Section 1201 of the DMCA, which prevent the public from ‘tinkering’ with DRM-protected content and devices.

These provisions are renewed every three years after the Office hears various arguments from stakeholders and the general public. This year, this process has resulted in some noteworthy changes

There was a major victory for the “right to repair” movement, as Vice points out, which gives the public more leeway to fix their own devices even if the means that they have to break DRM in the process.

In addition, there’s also an important update related to the preservation of abandoned games.

To preserve these games for future generations and nostalgic gamers, the Copyright Office previously included game preservation exemptions. This meant that libraries, archives, and museums can use emulators and other circumvention tools to make old classics playable.

However, these exemptions are limited and do not apply to games that require a connection to an online server, which includes the most recent games. When the online servers are taken down, the game simply disappears forever.

To address this, several game fans including San Francisco’s Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (The MADE) urged the Copyright Office to expand the DMCA exemptions to online games. And with the release of the new exemptions, game archivists gained some new freedoms.

The new exemptions will allow preservation institutions who legally possess a copy of a video game’s server code and the game’s local code, to break DRM and other technological restrictions to make these playable.

This type of “tinkering” is seen as fair use by the Government, which rejects critique from the major game companies who fear that this may hurt sales of the games they sell.

Part of the new exemptions (full decision here)

The MADE founder Alex Handy informs TorrentFreak he is happy with the decision but notes that there still is a long way to go before all games can be legally archived.

“While this exemption does not necessarily fix all the problems that are out there in the difficult realm of digital preservation, it is another step forward toward reforming our extremely restrictive digital copyright laws,” Handy tells us.

“We’ve gained a small victory that will help us save dead MMOs, provided, of course, we have been given the original server code by the owning entity. The exemption allows us to circumvent any DRM or other restrictions included in the game, or around it.”

The exemption process generally moves slowly but for game preservationists, this is certainly a step in the right direction. Handy notes that the Copyright Office put a lot of work into their review, but that it may not fully understand what’s at stake here.

Without proper exemptions to legally archive works, many games are at risk of being lost forever.

“When George Martin was asked why he hadn’t saved more Beatles outtakes and recordings, he responded that he didn’t know anyone would care about those things in the future,” Handy says.

“The same thing is going on in the games industry, and it is only very recently that most companies in the industry have begun to properly preserve their histories, source code and all.”

This was also illustrated by James Clarendon, software development manager at Amazon, during a hearing on the exemptions earlier this year. He worked for 2K Games in 2012 and was confronted with this problem when the company wanted to reissue their megahit BioShock after five years.

“The problem was, was that no archive of that game existed and nobody had actually put in the time to build an archive for that. We had to scour people’s machines, artists, engineers, everybody’s machines to find the missing pieces and put it back together,” Clarendon said, adding that they didn’t manage to reissue the full original.

The MADE says that it will continue work to widen the exemptions until all games can be properly archived. That will likely take a few more hearings, at a minimum, but they believe it’s worth the effort.

“The MADE is thankful for everyone who helped out in this project, including our friends in the industry, the folks at Reddit’s PCMasterRace and our lawyers from UC Berkeley,” Handy says.

A full overview of the Copyright Office’s final rules is available here (pdf). This also includes a new DMCA circumvention exemption for filmmakers to rip a DVD or Blu-Ray disc, beyond the documentary genre, although that remains limited.

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

Earlier this year, several major Hollywood studios including Disney, Universal Studios and Warner Bros, teamed up with Swedish movie outfits to expand the local Pirate Bay blockade.

After obtaining a blocking order against local Internet provider Bredbandsbolaget, the film companies wanted Telia, Sweden’s largest ISP, to follow suit.

Last week the film companies booked a major victory when the Swedish Patent and Market Court ordered Telia to block access to The Pirate Bay, Dreamfilm, Nyafilmer, and Fmovies.

The interim decision requires the ISP to start blocking the sites at the end of the month and is valid until the case is finalized. Telia is not happy with the decision, however, and today announced an appeal.

Telia’s spokesperson Irene Krohn tells Computer Sweden that the company doesn’t agree with the Court’s assessment.

The Patent and Market Court ruled that proportional site-blocking injunctions are warranted under EU law, noting that the Swedish Copyright Act should be interpreted in the same manner.

Telia clearly disagrees and intends to make its position clear during the appeal.

“We appeal because it’s a principally important question for us and the Internet. We interpret the law differently than the court, and it is something that we will continue to make clear during the court process,” she says.

Previously, fellow ISP Bredbandsbolaget also appealed a similar blocking order, but without the desired result.

Whatever the outcome, the interim decision stands which means that Telia’s subscribers will at least be barred from accessing The Pirate Bay and the other sites for the time being.

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

Last year, American satellite and broadcast provider Dish Network targeted two well-known players in the third-party Kodi add-on ecosystem.

In a complaint filed in a federal court in Texas, the persons behind the ZemTV addon and the TVAddons library were accused of copyright infringement.

Following a confidential settlement, last month Dish Network dismissed its lawsuit against TVAddons founder Adam Lackman. However, ZemTV developer Shahjahan Durrani, Shani for short, remained at risk.

The UK-based Kodi-addon programmer initially planned to defend himself but had to give up this fight due to the high costs. As a result, Dish moved for a default judgment which has now been granted.

Without a proper defense, US District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore agreed that Shani is indeed liable for the copyright infringements that were carried out through his addon.

“Defendant developed ZemTV and then distributed and supported it through [..TVAddons..], resulting in his unauthorized retransmission of the Protected Channels and causing injury to Plaintiff throughout the United States. Therefore, Defendant is liable for direct copyright infringement,” Judge Gilmore writes.

“Defendant engaged in these illegal activities for more than 16 months, despite having received Plaintiff‘s notices of infringement from his service providers and Tvaddons.”

Dish previously argued that ZemTV’s infringing activities were willful and asked for the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work. This would serve as a clear deterrent to Shani and other infringing Kodi-addon developers, the company said.

The Judge doesn’t want to go that far though. Instead, the developer is ordered to pay a third of the requested amount, which adds up to $650,000.

“The amount consisting of $50,000.00 for each of its thirteen registered, copyrighted works that Defendant willfully infringed by retransmitting these copyrighted works without authorization on ZemTV,” Judge Gilmore writes.

A negative outcome was nearly unavoidable as the developer didn’t defend himself. In addition to the damages, Shani is also barred from distributing ZemTV or any similar addons in the future.

TorrentFreak reached out to Shani who is not convinced that Dish is ‘winning’ anything with this verdict, as the external sources that were used by his addon remain online.

“Dish are still at the same place they started. They didn’t lose any money due to the addon and the sources which the addon scanned still are online. The Zem addon is not maintained so obviously it won’t work, but the apps and servers it scanned are still working.

“Based on their complaint, we should see a 10-fold increase in their subscriptions. Well, I won’t hold my breath, Shani tells us.

Whether Dish will actually recoup any of the damages has yet to be seen. The addon developer gave up the legal fight due to a lack of funds, so it seems unlikely that he can pay $650,000, if he intends to pay at all.

The default judgment wraps up the Dish lawsuit, which was one of the first enforcement efforts related to Kodi piracy. While Kodi itself is perfectly legal software, the entertainment industry is determined to root out the piracy links.

This and other efforts appear to have had some effect, as Comparitech highlights that Kodi-related search traffic has dropped significantly over the past year. Google’s autocomplete ban likely plays a role here, but it seems plausible that the various anti-piracy efforts are paying off too.

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A copy of the default judgment issued yesterday by Texas US District Court Judge Vanessa Gilmore 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.