A few weeks ago the MPAA, together with several other trade groups, submitted its annual list of ‘notorious markets’ to the US Trade Representative (USTR).

These submissions help to guide the U.S. Government’s position toward foreign countries when it comes to copyright enforcement, putting significant pressure on the mentioned sites.

The MPAA’s submission included many of the usual targets including The Pirate Bay and Fmovies, but also several hosting sites or cyberlockers.

The latter category is interesting. While there are unmistakenly several “rogue” hosting platforms that don’t care about copyright holders, not all fit the billing. One of the bad actors according to the Hollywood group, however, is Rapidvideo.

“Rapidvideo.com is a streaming/download cyberlocker with a global Alexa ranking of 999. Rapidvideo.com had 21.66 million worldwide unique visitors in August 2018 according to SimilarWeb data,” the MPAA wrote.

“The site incentivizes users to upload content with an affiliate program. The site pays from $7.50 to $60 USD per 10,000 views depending on the country in which the viewer is located,” the Hollywood group added.

As is usual in these reports, there is virtually no detail about any alleged copyright-infringing activity. While we’re pretty certain that Rapidvideo stores some pirated videos, this is no different from Google Drive or Dropbox, for example.

The MPAA’s report does mention that some hosting sites don’t remove infringing files, but only the reported links to these files. On top of that, many sites don’t respond well to takedown notices at all.

So that must be the case with Rapidvideo then? Well, the site’s owner wholeheartedly disagrees.

“We have a DMCA agent guy working with us, who also works with the MPAA and other rightsholders. He was happy with our anti-piracy methods, but the MPAA reported our site to the government nonetheless,” Rapidvideo’s Alex informs TorrentFreak.

As it turns out, Rapidvideo doesn’t fit the MPAA’s description at all.

The site processes takedown requests, has a designated DMCA agent, a repeat infringer policy, and it even implemented an MD5 hash filter system to ensure that flagged files are not re-uploaded.

While the company is incorporated in Belize, it believes that it’s fully compliant with US, Canadian and EU law. It even complies with the proposed ‘upload filter’ the EU may implement in the near future.

In recent months Rapidvideo was approached several times by a representative of an anime video distributor. Many of the recent enforcement changes were implemented as a result between the distributor and Rapidvideo’s copyright agent.

This was also communicated to other rightsholders, including MPAA members, the site’s owner says. However, that didn’t prevent the listing on the MPAA’s most recent overview of rogue sites.

“After the whole procedure, we learned that we would appear on the list submitted by the MPAA to the U.S. Government. This, despite that everything was correctly implemented in compliance with the regulations and rules, including the DMCA,” Alex says.

Rapidvideo was told that they didn’t process all notices correctly. While the site admits that some reports were set aside, those were all inaccurate takedown notices. For example, they lacked details that are actually legal requirements.

“They said that we did not correctly handle all DMCA notices, but those were not fully correct, as required by the DMCA law. Many parts were missing, such as a signature of the rightsholder representative or the names of the infringing works.”

The video hosting site feels that if the copyright holders push them to comply with the law, those companies should be held to the same standards. Also, none of the rightsholders complained about the rejections directly.

Rapidvideo hasn’t sent an official rebuttal to the USTR, so it could very well be listed in the official overview of Notorious Markets early next year.

The video hosting site is fully confident that its policies and procedures are compliant with copyright law. They are not intimidated by the MPAA’s report, and with their upload filter, they have nothing to fear from the EU either, according to the owner.

“We have everything fully ready for the EU upload filter. We are also a legal company that pays taxes and complies with all rules and regulations, so we are not afraid of any possible outcomes,” Alex concludes.

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

Once upon a time, Internet users were free to look at whatever content they liked. There was an almost complete absence of intervention from third-parties, which was mostly a good thing.

However, after the number of Internet users rocketed, more threats began to emerge. Viruses and other types of malware became pervasive, aiming to abuse users’ computers in various ways, from creating botnets to simple vandalism.

As a result, the security market has boomed. Barely a week goes by without some website or piece of software triggering an alert on a machine protected by good anti-virus and anti-malware tools. They don’t always get it right but most interventions are welcomed when the intention is to keep us safe.

On top, however, Internet users are finding online resources censored. Nation states sometimes decide what citizens can and cannot read, while corporate firewall products and network routers often act as over-protective nannies, blocking content based on non-transparent, non-public rules.

Here at TorrentFreak we’re used to censorship. Every few months we’re contacted by readers trying to access our news articles on public WiFi, only to find that the site is blocked alongside various warnings, none of which are true. It’s almost as if the word ‘torrent’ in our URL has been blindly blacklisted for some reason.

Sadly, this week we’ve discovered that Steam, the popular digital game distribution and social networking platform, has jumped on the “let’s censor TorrentFreak” bandwaggon. A tip from a TF reader and Steam user highlighted the problems he’d experienced when trying to read TF articles via Steam’s chat interface.

“I don’t know if you’re already aware of this but the PC gaming software ‘Steam’ is flagging your website as ‘suspicious’ in its chat interface,” he explained.

As the first image below shows, Steam first flagged a link to an article we published this week detailing how Japan intends to crack down on sites that offer links to copyrighted content.

Suspicious news?

The small irony here is that the article details how Japan needs to bring in new and highly controversial laws to criminalize linking to copyrighted content, something which is currently legal in the country. Steam, however, is free to block links to our 100% legal copyrighted content on a whim, mark our platform as “suspicious”, while blocking users from reading our reports.

The second image below shows just how misguided Steam’s policy is. This week, TorrentFreak broke the news that cheat developers in Australia face home searches and asset freezing following legal action from GTA V developer Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive.

It is an original article that covers an important and growing issue in the gaming sector that will hopefully prove of interest to gamers – the very people using Steam’s platform. However, Steam users are prevented from following links to the piece because someone or something at Steam has labeled our news site as “potentially malicious.”

GTA V news – censored

While these are just two examples, we could go on forever. As the large image below shows, Steam has banned our entire platform and put up a warning that’s not only completely false but also damaging to our reputation.

“https://torrentfreak.com has been flagged as being potentially malicious. For your safety, Steam will not open this URL in your web browser. The site could contain malicious content or be known for stealing user credentials,” the warning reads.

Stealing user credentials? Insulting and ridiculous

Of course, on its own platform Steam is fully entitled to block resources that it believes can harm its users. Some might even argue that it has a duty of care to do so, in order to keep its community safe. However, making blatantly false statements while blocking access to accurate news reporting shouldn’t ever be part of that.

Steam is no stranger to blocking links to sites in the file-sharing niche. Previously we’ve reported how it blocked links to KickassTorrents, The Pirate Bay, and MEGA.nz.

While the ban on MEGA was lifted shortly after our article was published back in April, the company appears to be out of favor with Steam once again. Tests show that Mega.nz links are completely banned by the gaming platform with a warning about malicious content and potential stealing of credentials. Meanwhile, known scam sites such as Demonoid.to are in the clear, according to Steam.

There is nothing malicious about our news resource and we’re really upset at the suggestion we might steal user credentials. We’d therefore be very grateful indeed if a Steam engineer could remove TorrentFreak.com from its blacklists, whenever he or she gets a couple of free minutes.

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

Streamripping sites are seen as the largest piracy threat to the music industry, so record labels are doing their best to shut them down.

Last year YouTube-MP3, the world’s largest ripping site at the time, shut down after being sued, and several other folded in response to increased legal uncertainty.

Not all stream-ripping sites are folding without a fight though. FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, owned by the Russian developer Tofig Kurbanov, remain online despite being sued by several record labels in August.

Two weeks ago, Kurbanov filed a motion to dismiss the case at the Federal Court in California. According to the defense, the court has no jurisdiction over the matter. Less than 6% of all visitors come from the US, and the site is managed entirely from Russia, it argued.

This week the RIAA labels, including Universal, Warner Bros, and Sony, responded to the motion to dismiss, clearly disagreeing with the defense. They argue that the operator of FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com downplays the connections to the US and Virginia.

In their memorandum, the record labels argue that both sites had millions of visitors from the United States over the past twelve months.

“[I]n the past year alone, Defendant’s websites had over 542,000 users from Virginia, who visited the sites more than 1.3 million times, and over 31 million users from the United States as a whole, who visited the sites more than 96 million times,” they write.

2conv.com

In addition, they point out that the sites have done business with U.S.-based web-hosting services, domain-name registrars, and advertising firms. Up until recently, some servers were even located in Virginia, the plaintiffs write.

These and other arguments are more than sufficient for the court to have jurisdiction over the case, the RIAA labels argue.

If a dismissal is not an option, the stream-ripper operator asked to transfer the case to a California court. Some of the parties are located there, while none are in Virginia, and it would be easier to access evidence.

However, the major record labels refute this argument as well.

“Wherever the case is held, there will be some burden associated with accessing evidence. But Defendant does not explain why it will be especially difficult to litigate this case in Virginia, or why transferring the case to the Central District of California will resolve those hypothetical problems,” they write.

It’s now up to the Virginia Federal Court to decide how to move forward. As noted by Digital Music News who covered the motion to dismiss, a hearing on the matter has been set for November 9th.

Thus far the case is only dealing with jurisdictional issues. If the case continues, the alleged copyright infringements or lack thereof, are expected to be argued in more detail.

—

Here are copies of Tobig Kurbanov’s motion to dismiss (pdf) and record labels’ response (pdf), both obtained by TorrentFreak.

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

After many years of targeting people who share larger volumes of content on peer-to-peer file-sharing apps and services, Japan is now taking aim at pirate sites.

In basic terms, rightsholders would like to see overseas pirate sites blocked by local ISPs, in much the same way as they are in dozens of countries elsewhere in the world. However, the process is proving a difficult one to move forward, as interference with communications is viewed by many as an invasion of users’ browsing privacy.

The Japanese Government is currently attempting a review on piracy measures for the Internet and has requested input from rightsholders and other interested parties. That’s resulted in a submission from CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association), an anti-piracy coalition featuring major video, publishing, and software organizations.

“Infringement of rights occurs across national boundaries due to the development of the Internet, and the identification of infringers is extremely difficult. The response to this is extremely difficult and we believe that there are limits under the existing laws of Japan, and new initiatives are necessary,” CODA writes in a submission seen by TF.

Noting that criminal complaints and other measures against several targeted ‘pirate’ have proven ineffective, CODA says it is being hindered by online services that help to keep operators anonymous.

So-called “bulletproof” hosters that ignore copyright law are highlighted first. These providers have policies in place to protect their customers, often ignoring takedown notices filed under the DMCA while hiding identities of site operators. Bulletproof hosters were described as an emerging threat by the RIAA recently.

CODA also complains about domain privacy services which allow domain registrants to hide their identities from prying eyes. One such service, Njalla, which was launched by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde last year, is singled out for criticism.

“[S]ervices such as offshore hosting / bulletproof hosting that ignore the DMCA and domain registry services selling complete anonymity are rampant. It is now clear that [pirate site] ‘Mangamura’ was also using Njalla,” CODA adds.

Mangamura was a huge pirate manga site that apparently shut itself down last April. In the last few months of its life alone, the site was accessed well over half a billion times. This led to Toyko-based Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher, to file a criminal complaint against the platform. CODA estimates that Mangamura caused losses amounting to US$2.9 billion.

Given the specific mention in the submission, it seems likely that Mangamura’s use of Njalla caused problems for rightsholders and/or investigators. Njalla helps to keep the registration details of domain names private by registering domains in its own name (holding company 1337 Services LLC), not the customer’s, meaning that the owner of Mangamura should be harder to trace.

Mangamura.org Njalla WHOIS

An agreement allows the customer to use Njalla-registered domains however they like (as long as it doesn’t hurt someone’s “health or safety”) and they are able to take domains back or transfer them at any time. In the meantime, they are shielded from third-parties discovering who is really behind their domains.

TorrentFreak asked Njalla whether they’ve ever had any complaints about Mangamura’s registration but at the time of publication, the service was yet to respond. However, one only has to read a sample of the company’s interactions with content company lawyers to see how it sometimes responds.

In the meantime, CODA continues to push its case to introduce blocking mechanisms in Japan. This wouldn’t solve the anonymity problem posed by bulletproof hosters and services like Njalla, but having ‘pirate’ sites rendered inaccessible in the country would certainly help.

That being said, things are not going smoothly.

According to a report published by Mainichi, a panel of government experts has been unable to compile an interim report on measures against pirate sites due to disagreements over the suitability of site blocking.

While rightsholders believe the practice should be implemented as soon as possible, there are serious concerns that blocking violates the country’s constitution.

“There are strong misgivings among many of the panel members who specialize in law that blocking is unconstitutional, and it’s unacceptable,” said Ryoji Mori, a lawyer on the panel.

On Wednesday, nine panel members opposed to blocking issued a statement, insisting that legislation “should be deferred and cooperation sought with the private sector to advance measures other than blocking.”

Those measures are said to include restriction of advertising on ‘pirate’ sites to hit revenues, plus further cooperation between content creators and the telecoms industry. Several ISPs in Japan currently block several ‘pirate’ sites voluntarily.

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

With copyright holders and anti-piracy outfits continue their battle to make infringing content harder to find, legitimate companies are increasingly finding themselves in the firing line.

In Russia, pressure is building on search giant Yandex, which is being targeted by rightsholders from multiple directions. Their main point of concern is that Yandex’s indexes sometimes carry links to allegedly infringing content. However, Yandex believes that the current law requires rightsholders to file complaints against those actually hosting the content.

While that particular battle plays out, Yandex now has another problem on its hands. Last September the country passed new legislation that prevents sites (and their mirrors and clones) that have already been blocked in Russia from being indexed by search engines.

It now transpires that last October, the Association for Copyright Protection on the Internet (AZAPI) filed a complaint against Yandex. The group, which represents the interests of book publishers, claimed that links to previously blocked sites (including torrent giant RuTracker and eBook site Librusec) were available in Yandex’s search results.

AZAPI director Maxim Ryabyko told Kommersant that the complaint is first to be filed against a search engine under the legislation passed back in September 2017. When a legal entity like Yandex breaches the law, it can be subjected to fines between 500,000 and 700,000 rubles (US$10,700) per instance. However, things may not be straightforward.

According to the publication, the links to the blocked sites only appear via Yandex’s recommendation algorithm which was launched in the summer of 2018. Ryabyko says that when people search for mirrors of blocked sites and try several in a row, the algorithm sometimes decides that the user didn’t find what they were looking for so it gives direct links instead.

This complex arrangement means that telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor may carry out its own tests and not trigger the same results, leaving Yandex in a position to say that the links aren’t indexed or appeared simply by chance. In any event, Roscomnadzor will have the final say, which could potentially result in Yandex having to take stronger action to ensure infringing links don’t appear in its indexes.

As recently reported, a hearing should have taken place Monday at the Moscow City Court in the case of TNT-TV versus Yandex, after the former accused the latter of failing to remove infringing links from search results.

However, according to local sources, that hearing has now been delayed until November 9 in order to give the parties more time to present technical evidence.

“We continue to insist on the need for technical expertise,” Yandex said in a statement.

“We also continue to believe that the demands made to us are impracticable. The search system does not post content to the Internet and it cannot separate the disputed content in search results from legal options.”

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