Roughly a decade ago, Sweden was considered a safe haven for pirates.

The country is the home of the Pirate Bay, the birthing ground of the Pirate Party, and a place where for many citizens file-sharing was second nature.

Today this is no longer the case. The Scandinavian country famously prosecuted the Pirate Bay’s founders and lawsuits targeting individual BitTorrent users are no longer an exception.

The ‘copyright trolling’ phenomenon, in which movie companies target hundreds or thousands of alleged pirates hoping to secure monetary settlements, is commonplace now.

The first wave of these lawsuits started in 2016 but the practice has grown exponentially since. According to Swedish Internet provider Bahnhof, which keeps track of these cases on a dedicated website, records are being broken this year.

“Thousands of Swedes have received threatening letters from law firms which accuse them of illegal downloading. They are asked to pay a sum of money, ranging from a couple of thousand Swedish Kronors up to several thousand, to avoid being brought to justice,” Bahnhof Communicator Carolina Lindahl notes.

“During 2018 the extortion business has increased dramatically. The numbers have already exceeded last year’s figures even though four months still remain.”

This year to date, 49 separate court cases have been filed requesting ISPs to disclose the personal details of the account holders behind 35,711 IP-addresses. As the chart below shows, that’s already more than the two previous years combined.

Also, the number of targeted people exceeds that of all US and Canadian file-sharing cases in 2018, which is quite extraordinary.

Swedish ‘troll’ lawsuits and targeted IP-addresses

The data draws on filings submitted to the Patent and Market Court since 2016. These also reveal which ISPs are most often targeted. The vast majority of all requests are made to Telia, followed by Com Hem, and Bredbandsbolaget.

Bahnhof persistently objects to handing over customer data for these types of cases. It keeps its IP-address allocation logs limited to 24-hours and stresses that it has never handed over any data to the rightsholders in question.

“The real winners are, of course, Bahnhof’s customers. Bahnhof never has, and will never hand out its customers’ details for this kind of business,” Lindahl notes.

Targeted ISPs

While the ISP is using these figures to promote its own business, the company ultimately hopes that the Government will step in and put an end to these ‘copyright trolling’ practices.

Bahnhof says that there are clear shortcomings in current legislation and that the evidence these cases rely on is far from solid. Despite this, the number of lawsuits keeps rising at a rapid pace.

“It’s time to reverse the trend before another 100, 1000 or 10,000 individuals have to join the growing group of victims. The practice of sending extortion letters to internet users solely based on IP-addresses does not meet any requirements of legal certainty and must be stopped,” Bahnhof’s Communicator stresses.

“We want to see a reform of copyright law aimed at promoting artistic creation instead of the commercial interests of the copyright industry.”

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While Kodi and its dazzling array of addons grabs most mainstream piracy headlines, much simpler options lie just below the surface.

Referred to generally as APKs (taken from the installation format used by Android devices), these applications provide direct access to huge amounts of movie and TV show content. Most can be downloaded and installed in seconds and are extremely simple to use.

Perhaps the most impressive in recent years has been Terrarium TV. Inspired by the simplicity of Popcorn Time, Terrarium TV eschewed the use of torrents as a supply protocol. Instead, the software pulled in content from file-hosting sites in a similar way to Kodi addons, but with an almost non-existent learning curve.

Created by a developer who identified as Hong Kong-based Peter Chan (aka NitroXenon), Terrarium TV enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom over the past couple of years. With only Showbox and a handful of other applications getting anywhere close to its volume of active users, Terrarium TV became the go-to app for Android users looking for a Netflix-style fix.

Now, however, the ride is over.

In a notification pushed to Terrarium TV users last night, NitroXenon explained that his days of working on the app are over.

“It has always been a great pleasure to work on this project. However, it is time to say goodbye. I am going to shut down Terrarium TV, forever,” he wrote.

“I know this day will come eventually. I know it would be hard to let go. But it is really time for me to move on to other projects.”

Thanking users for their support over the years, NitroXenon singled out Reddit moderator ‘Nic’ for his support. TorrentFreak reached out to Nic for comment but he preferred not to add anything further.

The big question, of course, is why NitroXenon decided to close Terrarium TV down but again, the decision didn’t really come as a surprise. From pushing regular updates to the app as it grew (the last was around May), in recent months its developer has been mostly absent, with users requesting information but very little coming back.

As is often the case when services shut down abruptly, speculation builds that maybe the developer has been subjected to legal pressure. While that’s a distinct possibility (the MPA and its associates have reached into the Asia-Pacific region before to threaten developers of similar apps) there are no clear signs that happened here.

Equally, the rumor that NitroXenon was paid off by the studios to shut down the application is almost certainly untrue. If (and it is an if) NitroXenon was targeted, it is definitely not the style of the MPA (or the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment) to offer cash for favors. If anything, they’re the ones demanding the money.

As can be seen from the image of the notification below, NitroXenon indicates that Terrarium TV will work until the end of September. However, in most (if not all) cases the app appears to be dead already. Users cannot get beyond the ‘UPDATE’ button.

While some Terrarium TV users are sarcastically describing this September 11 as the “worst in history,” it’s likely that other applications will take up the slack. TeaTV, which looks very similar to Terrarium TV, is already gaining traction.

Finally, now would also be a good time to look out for imposters claiming to be Terrarium reincarnated.

During the past few months, there has been an effort by third-parties to contact publications (such as TF and others in the tech space) to convince them that their website is the real home of Terrarium TV. However, the app hasn’t had a website of its own for some time, so the claims are easily debunked.

The closure of Terrarium TV follows after a similar APK pulled the plug. Morpheus TV took this decision in August after its developer decided it had received too much mainstream attention. Unlike Terrarium, however, the idea is to relaunch quietly under a new name, to a select group of people.

“Distribution will be restricted to a small group of individuals and hidden from public eyes like it was supposed to be,” the Morpheus developer said.

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Way back in 2012, Kim Dotcom’s cloud storage site Megaupload was shut down in a massively blaze of publicity. Ever since, Dotcom and several of his former colleagues have been fighting extradition to the United States.

Dotcom’s strategy in New Zealand has been to challenge all aspects of the case against him, something that has seen him burn through tens of millions of dollars in legal fees. He has sought every piece of available information to assist his defense, but that hasn’t always gone his way.

In 2015, Dotcom asked dozens of ministers and multiple government departments to disclose information they held on him. With Dotcom’s case rolling on, his requests were classified by his team as “urgent”. However, then-Attorney General Chris Finlayson denied the requests, describing them as vexatious and baseless.

Ever persistent, Dotcom filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal, accusing the New Zealand Government of wrongfully withholding information from him.

Last March the Tribunal ruled in Dotcom’s favor, noting that the Crown was “in clear breach of its obligations under the Privacy Act” when it withheld the information. Dotcom was awarded NZ$60,000 in damages for “loss of dignity or injury to feelings” plus NZ$30,000 to compensate for the information not being handed over.

Dotcom was quick to celebrate, noting that the ruling from the Tribunal meant that his extradition case was effectively over, with the Attorney General having “perverted the course of Justice.”

While an end to the extradition process is still not in sight, the ruling from the Tribunal also compelled the authorities to comply with Dotcom’s original request. But with that still yet to happen, the show isn’t over yet.

The Crown subsequently appealed the decision of the Tribunal and yesterday the matter went before the High Court in Wellington.

Lawyer Victoria Casey, representing the Attorney General, said there was no evidence that the information was wrongly disclosed to cause injury to Dotcom’s feelings (as the NZ$60,000 award suggests) and there was no evidential basis for Dotcom to be awarded the NZ$30,000 either, RadioNZ reports.

Casey also argued that while Dotcom’s 52 requests to 28 ministers and government departments were marked as urgent due to his ongoing extradition battle, the information could not have been used because the window for submitting evidence had already closed. It was also a sizeable request, that could not have been fulfilled quickly, the lawyer said.

These factors meant that the allegedly unwieldy request for disclosure was considered vexatious by the then-Attorney General.

In Court yesterday, Casey said that Dotcom had demanded “every record mentioning him by name held by every government agency and every then-government minister, plus each agency contracted to work with any of those entities.”

Four days have been set aside for the hearing.

A copy of the original Human Rights Tribunal ruling is available here (pdf).

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Following a confidential settlement, Dish Network dismissed its lawsuit against TVAddons founder Adam Lackman last week.

The dismissal didn’t apply to the other defendant in that case. ZemTV developer Shahjahan Durrani, Shani for short, remains 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 has now requested a default judgment of nearly $2 million.

“Defendant infringed DISH’s copyrights on a massive scale by retransmitting the Protected Channels without authorization on ZemTV. Defendant transmitted the Protected Channels on ZemTV for at least 16 months from February 2016 through June 2017,” Dish informs the Texas federal court.

The infringements were willful, according to Dish, as Shani indirectly received multiple takedown requests from the company. That suggests that he was aware of Dish’s complaints but continued nonetheless.

If copyright infringement is ‘willful’ the rightsholder can request the maximum amount of statutory damages, which is $150,000 per work.

This is exactly what Dish is going for. The company further notes that this amount will serve as a clear deterrent to Shani and other Kodi-addon developers. In addition, it offers Dish the chance to recoup some of the subscription revenues it allegedly lost.

Dish argues that ZemTV infringed hundreds if not thousands of works, but limits the number in the lawsuit to thirteen titles. If the maximum amount of statutory damages for each work is granted, the total will be $1,950,000.

In addition, the broadcast provider also requests an injunction preventing Shani from engaging in any copyright-infringing activities going forward.

“Defendant’s clear willfulness and the strong need for deterrence, as shown by ongoing infringement in the face of numerous notices of infringement and intent to operate his service on the basis of stealing others’ intellectual property, justifies an award of $150,000 per work.

“The Court should grant this motion and hold Defendant liable for damages in the amount of $1,950,000 and enter a permanent injunction, which is necessary to protect DISH’s copyrights from further infringement,” Dish writes.

As ZemTV’s developer has chosen not to defend himself, there’s a high chance that Dish’s request will be granted. If that’s the case, the question remains whether Dish will ever see the full amount paid.

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A copy of the memorandum in support of a motion for default judgment is available here (pdf).

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At the turn of the century, downloading movies and TV shows from the Internet wasn’t a particularly attractive proposition. The process was cumbersome and content availability was poor.

Early peer-to-peer file-sharing applications gave the activity increased exposure, with multi-source downloading improving speeds for a growing audience. However, when BitTorrent came along and gained traction around 2003, the phenomenon exploded.

While tens of millions of torrent users are still active on a daily basis today, another type of unauthorized content delivery is grabbing most of the headlines. Video streaming, which has been going from strength to strength over the past eight years and more, is now perceived as the greatest threat to Hollywood.

Torrents have a relatively steep learning curve but streaming does not. If a person can operate Netflix, he can also use a pirate streaming website. The process is made even more simple with the latest desktop and mobile applications, which are so intuitive a child can use them – and many do.

Lobbying registration documents recently filed with Congress indicate that the MPAA is taking the threat very seriously. First reported by O’Dwyer PR, they reveal that the Hollywood group has hired Fort Lauderdale-based law firm Becker & Poliakoff to take the battle against piracy to Capitol Hill.

Filed as required under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, the documents reveal a two-person team representing the MPAA’s interests.

They are Senior Corporate & Government Relations Director Bert Gómez, who opened TV broadcaster Univision’s Washington government relations office and has 25 years of lobbying under his belt. And Omar Franco, the Managing Director of Becker’s Washington, D.C. office, who previously acted as Chief of Staff for Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart.

The disclosure sums up the MPAA’s aims in a short paragraph. The lobbyists will tackle copyright policy on Capitol Hill, with an emphasis on “streaming piracy devices and applications” and the “economic impact of film industry production.”

Taking the piracy fight to Capitol Hill

Today’s buzzing ‘market’ for online streaming devices and applications will give Gómez and Franco plenty to discuss. In addition to the now ubiquitous Kodi and the swarm of third-party addons flooding its ecosystem, mainly Android-based applications are causing headaches for all of the studios.

Tools such as Terrarium TV and Showbox are becoming household names, with these and similar tools often pre-loaded onto set-top boxes to provide an accessible and entirely free Netflix-like experience to everyday consumers.

Unlike Netflix, however, these types of applications grant access to all content – no matter how new – meaning that first-run movies are regularly available during week one, something which famously causes a red mist to descend upon studios bosses everywhere.

As the leading force behind the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the MPAA has already shown it has illegal streaming firmly in its sights.

The thirty-company global coalition, which also features Amazon, Netflix, CBS, HBO, BBC, Sky, Bell Canada, CBS, Hulu, Lionsgate, Foxtel, and Village Roadshow, is currently engaged in legal action against various players in the illicit streaming sector.

Set-top box sellers such as SET TV and Tickbox have already found themselves in court, while various Kodi addon developers have quit following legal threats. However, this is just the tip of a massive iceberg that will take years to melt, even if the MPAA massively turns up the heat.

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