With site-blocking measures in full swing Down Under, entertainment industry groups want to tighten up the law further still, in order to tackle the piracy problem more easily.

The recently introduced Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018 aims to provide the solution. Born out of frustration with apparent loopholes in current legislation, the new proposals are targeted at circumvention techniques that render blocking less effective.

As previously reported, the bill will enable mirrors and proxies of pirate sites to be blocked much more quickly out of court, after an injunction has been handed down. It also targets search engines such as Google, which will be forbidden from displaying links to blocked sites in search results.

Another, perhaps less obvious detail in the legislation was highlighted during the bill’s second reading in parliament yesterday.

Under current law, injunctions are able to block access to sites “with a primary purpose to infringe”, meaning that the more blatant torrent and streaming portals fall neatly into place. However, amendments currently on the table will also target sites with “the primary effect” of infringing of facilitating infringement, which is a subtle but important addition.

This expansion has the potential to scoop up all kinds of services, particularly file-hosting platforms that, for whatever reason, prove popular with pirates. With set-top box piracy one of the hottest topics at the moment, it’s clear that this detail can be used to target content-agnostic services where movies and TV shows may be stored.

“This addition of the words ‘primary effect’ is a significant expansion of the scope of the site-blocking scheme, which had been limited to sites with the primary purpose of infringing copyright only,” said Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

“Stakeholders had been concerned that new websites such as cyberlocker sites, which are frequently used for copyright infringement through file sharing of music, movies and TV shows but which it is difficult to prove exist for that primary purpose, fell outside the scheme. It’s expected the addition of a primary effect test will bring such sites within the scheme but without unduly widening its scope.”

While the ‘primary effect’ clause could potentially suck in plenty of targets, the bill does allow ministers to exercise discretion. Should the need arise, certain platforms – whether file-hosters or search engines – can be completely excluded from the scheme.

“[This] measure is essentially a safeguard to ensure that injunctions are directed only against larger service providers facilitating the infringing of copyright,” Dreyfus added.

The Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018 is fully supported by both the government and the Labor opposition, so it’s likely to pass into law unhindered. However, there are dissenting voices – not necessarily over the need to protect copyright – but in respect of the entertainment industries’ failure to do more.

In a scathing attack, Labor MP Ed Husic urged people to “face up to big rights holders” and the “hysterical arguments” presented in the anti-piracy debate.

“No-one supports piracy. No-one should support piracy. Piracy is theft — I totally get that,” Husic said.

“We support this bill, but the problem is that the bloated, greedy, resistant-to-change rights holders will always refuse to reform in this space. Copyright reform is used as their way to shield themselves from the modern era, to shield themselves from new ways of doing things.”

Husic challenged the notion that the Internet presented a challenge to rightsholders; their mentality and resistance to change is their biggest problem.

“These rights holders think that, by constantly using legal mechanisms through this place and elsewhere, piracy will disappear. The reality is that piracy is a reflection of a market failure,” he said.

“I do not excuse, condone or support piracy, but I do recognize that it is a reflection of market failure, where producers are making an offering that is not in line with consumer expectations and the access is not in line with consumer expectation.

“What we are providing for with these types of bills, which the rights holders all champion, support and claim credit for, is a form of regulatory hallucinogen, where they think that, if they get this type of regulatory reform through, piracy will disappear. No, it won’t. When rights holders get serious about the consumer offering and the way in which they’re helping consumers access content in a much more affordable way, that will have a bigger impact,” he added.

In his speech (available here), Husic also took aim at Village Roadshow chief Graham Burke, whose fiery anti-piracy rhetoric has become a rallying cry for rightsholders in Australia.

Husic accused the industry veteran of wanting to curate content available on search engines, having the economy and ISPs pick up the bill, while offering the public less choice. Only a change in business model will really solve the problem, Husic added, while urging caution over what further demands rightsholders will make, once the current ones are in the bank.

“I imagine at some point we’re going to have a debate in here about banning VPNs because they allow people to access content on other sides of the planet that aren’t able to be accessed here. At what point do we see the rights holders make that argument? I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it soon,” Husic warned.

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

While the majority of visitors to torrent and streaming platforms will be searching for the latest Hollywood blockbusters, millions of people are seeking out the marvels of Bollywood instead.

India’s famous film industry turns out a staggering number of movies each year and many thousands can be found on local and international pirate sites. These often come in the form of so-called ‘cams’, copies of movies recorded in cinemas using anything from camera-enabled smartphones to high-end video cameras.

With leaking of content escalating to crisis levels, theater operators have found themselves under pressure, with some accused of assisting or enabling pirates to make their copies. According to local reports, the Tamil and Telugu film industries – which contribute more than a third of all film revenues in India – are particularly affected.

In order to stem the tide, the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) has been placing cinema operators under pressure, recently urging digital distribution company Qube Cinema Technologies not to supply equipment to nine suspected of being involved in piracy.

“The theatres that are found to be enabling piracy should not be able to play movies anymore. We are meeting the theater owners association on Tuesday to demand some concrete steps,” a TFPC spokesperson reported Monday.

That meeting with the Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners Association took place yesterday as planned and the result was an agreement on a strict set of rules designed to prevent pirates from recording the latest movies and uploading them to the Internet.

First up, all cinemas in the southern state of Tamil Nadu must saturate their entire sites with CCTV cameras. That means all inside locations (including projection rooms and customer seating areas) plus outside to cover all parking and entrance areas. These cameras must be installed by November 6, 2018.

Having CCTV cameras is mandatory but it’s no good if they’re not in working order. This means that all cameras must be recording 24 hours a day, seven days a week to “record every single second’s happening.”

Cinemas that don’t take these CCTV warnings seriously will have to face the consequences. There’s a second installation deadline of November 15, after which sites that are not blanket covered by CCTV will be banned from screening any new films.

Those that meet the criteria will get to screen the latest releases but will still have to comply in other areas.

Local reports say that security guards will be put in place to search customers for recording devices on the way in. Those who get through will then have to sit through “an awareness documentary” about piracy, which will highlight the consequences of getting caught ‘camming’.

Meanwhile, two members of cinema staff will be tasked with monitoring audiences, to ensure that no one is able to record any part of a movie, if they somehow manage to get a camera past security.

In parallel, additional measures face those who somehow manage to capture their own copies of the latest movies and upload them to the Internet. A report in The Hindu cites the founder and CEO of anti-piracy outfit Copyright Media on their efforts to disrupt illicit copies.

“As soon as the pirated torrents make their way to the internet search engines, we bump up fake torrents and keep removing actual, good quality torrents using a software to parse through the Google search — and remove the links one by one by flagging Google. Such links are taken down immediately and only the fake torrents remain,” he said.

While fake ‘anti-piracy’ torrents are a tactic with roots deep in the last decade, India’s film producers are also embracing site-blocking and domain suspensions. According to the official Twitter account of the Tamil Film Producers Council, several domains have recently been suspended for piracy.

https://t.co/SCpjOzSdZnhttps://t.co/8zltttnjTnhttps://t.co/XOY8Z0O11Ihttps://t.co/MbGqknJv4hhttps://t.co/u6GMOWe4vEhttps://t.co/NNwWZFCb18
List of domains that has been suspended by TFPC Anti Piracy Cell for pirating the movies #VadaChennai & #Sandaikozhi2.#KillPiracy pic.twitter.com/4y0dkBShgC

— TFPC ANTI PIRACY CELL (@TFPC_Antipiracy) October 20, 2018

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

Those breaching India’s Copyright Act 1957 can be jailed for up to three years with fines of US$2,700 but convictions for cam-related movie piracy are rare, despite thousands of copies being available online.

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

In a plenary vote last month, the European Parliament backed a slightly amended version of the original Article 13 proposal.

According to critics, the widely protested plan will result in an indirect upload filter requirement for many Internet services.

While the vote has made it more likely that Article 13 will be implemented, it is yet to be set in stone. There is still strong opposition from individuals and groups who fear that it will hurt freedom of expression.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been a critic from day one. The digital rights group fears that, if the European plan is implemented, false copyright claims will lead to increased censorship.

This week the group voiced its concerns in a letter that was sent to all members of the EU bodies that will negotiate the final draft of the proposal.

EFF special consultant Cory Doctorow notes that the low evidentiary standard is particularly problematic. As a result, rightsholders can, intentionally and by accident, submit bogus takedown requests without any repercussions.

This can result in absurd situations where white noise or birds chirping, and other harmless content is flagged as copyright infringement.

One solution that could help to limit this type of abuse, according to the EFF, is to hold copyright holders accountable for their takedowns.

“To limit abuse, Article 13 must, at a minimum, require strong proof of identity from those who seek to add works to an online service provider’s database of claimed copyrighted works and make ongoing access to Article 13’s liability regime contingent on maintaining a clean record regarding false copyright claims,” Doctorow writes.

Keeping track of the accuracy of various takedown requests, and who’s responsible for them, will help people who are wronged to take legal action in response. In addition, repeat senders of false claims can then be barred from using the automated filters.

“In the event that rightsholders repeatedly make false copyright claims, online service providers should be permitted to strike them off of their list of trusted claimants, such that these rightsholders must fall back to seeking court orders – with their higher evidentiary standard – to effect removal of materials,” Doctorow adds.

As a result, Internet services should not be held liable for reports which are submitted by copyright holders who have been struck off. And to prevent a whack-a-mole situation, information about penalized rightsholders should be shared in public so they can be removed by other services as well.

“Online service providers should be able to pre-emptively strike off a rightsholder who has been found to be abusive of Article 13 by another provider,” the EFF notes.

By adding more transparency and accountability, the EFF hopes that Article 13 will be more balanced. It, therefore, encourages the negotiators to consider these recommendations, as well as several possible improvements to Article 11, the so-called “link tax”.

The coming months will turn out to be crucial for the EU’s copyright reform. Not only will the final text be agreed upon during the “trilogue” meetings, the EFF notes that there is also a chance that the controversial copyright reform plans will be blocked by member states.

Following local protests, the Italian Government recently opted to ban both Article 11 and Article 13. And with other opposing member states, there is a chance that a “blocking minority” could oppose the reform plans. That is, if all opposing members can agree on how to move forward.

In light of the recent setbacks, that offers a glimmer of hope to opponents of the upload filter proposals, but for now they’re still fighting at a disadvantage.

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

Responding to a request from the US Trade Representative (USTR), various copyright holder groups have submitted their overviews of ‘notorious’ markets in recent weeks.

These annual submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement.

We previously covered the submissions from the RIAA, MPAA, and ESA, who all listed a wide variety of pirate sites including torrent, streaming, MP3-downloaders, and ROM archives.

Late last week another submission caught our eye. While the official deadline had already passed, the Swiss company Maus Frères submitted an overview of problematic sites that have a bad reputation when it comes to copyright infringement. Counterfeiting to be precise.

Maus Frères has a stake in several major brands including Lacoste and Gant, and it highlights Facebook as a “notorious” market. We generally don’t cover counterfeit goods, but since it’s part of the same “notorious markets” process, it adds some relevant context here.

“Very large volume of obvious Lacoste fakes found on Facebook,” the Swiss company writes in its submission.

“Large number of Lacoste look-alike pages, using our trademarks, logos and images without authorization. Based on a visual analysis of the first 100 posts when searching ‘Lacoste bag’, 84% of posts were offering counterfeit bags for sale.”

Maus Frères notes that thousands of infringing links are reported every year, adding that Facebook takes no “obvious” proactive measures to deal with the problem. The image matching technology, for example, is not available to target fake goods, and repeat infringers are not properly addressed.

“No obvious penalties for repeat infringers, users have been reported up to 6X on separate occasions. Suspended accounts have been found to come back under similar new usernames. Counterfeiters can post to private groups and can’t be monitored,” the company informs the US Government.

Facebook is not the only major social network reported as a notorious market. The Russian equivalent VK has been called out as a relatively safe haven for pirates for years.

That said, there is a problem with Facebook’s listing. The USTR’s notorious markets overview is only meant for non-US companies. This means that Facebook, and other US-sites listed by the Swiss company, will likely be ignored.

This brings us to another report, submitted by the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which counts popular brands including Adidas and Levi Strauss as members. The organization included Amazon in its overview of notorious copyright-infringing markets. However, it specifically listed the foreign stores.

“Members consider Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.de to be the most unresponsive and non-compliant Amazon marketplace extensions,” the Association wrote in its submission, summing up several concerns including fake brands.

“Members report coming across products that use their trademarks and brand names to identify product, but that are in no way associated with the actual brand. These ‘fake brands’ infringe on registered trademarks.”

In some cases these fake brands and counterfeit stores are removed, only to reappear under a new account. This sounds very similar to the problems copyright holders have with classic pirate sites.

Amazon’s listing is particularly sensitive as the company has been involved in the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a relatively new anti-piracy coalition. Together with Hollywood’s major studios and other players, Amazon committed to tackling online copyright infringement.

While the current comments are about counterfeiting, not piracy, being reported as a “notorious market” certainly doesn’t look good.

While Facebook is unlikely to end up on a list of foreign notorious markets, it will be interesting to see what the USTR does with the comments regarding Amazon’s foreign stores.

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

For the past few years, the music industry has complained about the so-called “Value Gap” caused by sites like YouTube.

The major labels claim that since unlicensed content is readily available for free on user-uploaded content sites, these platforms are able to pay less to the labels in licensing fees while hiding behind so-called ‘safe harbor’ laws.

In an attempt to solve this business model riddle, the industry lobbied strongly for new EU legislation (Article 13) that would effectively require user-uploaded content platforms to install upload filters to detect infringing content before it’s even made available to the public.

In September, those legislative amendments were adopted by the EU Parliament. But while the music industry celebrated its initial victory, opponents warned that the measures could stifle innovation.

Now, more than a month later, YouTube is warning users that if the amendments pass in their current form, the Internet experience as a whole could “drastically change” for the worse causing the loss of thousands of jobs.

“Article 13 as written threatens to shut down the ability of millions of people — from creators like you to everyday users — to upload content to platforms like YouTube,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told YouTube creators.

While this worrying element of Article 13 was highlighted dozens of times in the run up to the crucial September vote, the music industry shrugged off the criticism. However, Wojcicki now warns that the damage could go further still, by negatively affecting access to content that’s already on the platform.

“[Article 13] threatens to block users in the EU from viewing content that is already live on the channels of creators everywhere. This includes YouTube’s incredible video library of educational content, such as language classes, physics tutorials and other how-to’s,” the YouTube CEO warns.

“This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world. And, if implemented as proposed, Article 13 threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs, European creators, businesses, artists and everyone they employ.”

In the run-up to the vote, opponents of the amendments said that the adoption of Article 13 would mean putting even more power into the hands of corporations.

On the one hand, difficulties in complying with the new law would mean only the biggest companies would be able to police uploads effectively. On the other, smaller uploaders might not be adept at ensuring that uploads are non-infringing and with liability for that content passed to sites like YouTube, platforms might not accept those uploads. This, Wojcicki says, is a very real threat.

“The proposal could force platforms, like YouTube, to allow only content from a small number of large companies. It would be too risky for platforms to host content from smaller original content creators, because the platforms would now be directly liable for that content,” she explained.

“We realize the importance of all rights holders being fairly compensated, which is why we built Content ID and a platform to pay out all types of content owners. But the unintended consequences of Article 13 will put this ecosystem at risk.”

In closing, the YouTube CEO says the company is committed to building bridges with industry. However, if the fiery rhetoric that hit the Internet in the run-up to September’s vote is any indication of things to come, it seems unlikely that the labels will water down their requirements now.

Still, the precise wording of Article 13 is yet to be finalized, so YouTube hopes that there is still some room for maneuver.

“Please take a moment to learn more about how it could affect your channel and take action immediately. Tell the world through social media (#SaveYourInternet) and your channel why the creator economy is important and how this legislation will impact you,” Wojcicki concludes.

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