From Australia to Sweden, all around the world courts have ordered ISPs to block access to pirate sites.

This usually happens after a careful review by a judge, who weighs the arguments from copyright holders and Internet providers before a final decision is made. That’s a fair process.

However, these court-ordered blockades are only the tip of the iceberg. Much more common are private blocking efforts where local WiFi providers use broad blocklists to shield people from visiting dangerous sites, including the one you’re on now.

This problem is not new but the lack of improvement has become increasingly frustrating.

Earlier this month a reader informed us that he was unable to read our news while staying at a Premier Inn in Croydon. Apparently, the hotel’s Virgin WiFi network banned us for our “Criminal Skills/Hacking, News.”

Hackers

This is no temporary or local mistake. In recent months we’ve received several reports of similar Virgin WiFi blockades, including from our colleagues at ISPreview. They ran into the same TorrentFreak blockade while conducting a study of WiFi performance in UK hotels.

And it’s not just Virgin that’s doing the blocking here.

This week another reader alerted us that he was unable to access TorrentFreak on a GovWifi connection. This network is used by many government institutions and managed by the Government Digital Service.

Apparently, they, or their blocklist provider, has classified our news site in the “Piracy and Copyright infringement” category, and accessing it would be a violation of the acceptable use policy.

No access

These two recent examples are related to the UK, but these broad blocklists are used elsewhere too. We’ve seen our site blocked in US libraries and airports, Norwegian trains, and even in a Canadian McDonalds.

We have reached out to both Virgin and the Government Digital Service for a comment on the most recent examples. At the time of publication, we have yet to hear back. Perhaps our email is blocked too?

We hope they can eventually shed some light on their motivations. In the meantime, let’s hope our readers have learned enough from our “hacking skills” to know how to bypass these blocks….

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

Over the years in their neverending fight against piracy, content owners have tried numerous strategies to limit the amount of infringing content reaching the eyes of consumers.

For almost two decades, that has involved targeting ‘pirate’ sites themselves but increasingly that tactic is taking a back seat. In vogue today is the move to force intermediaries and platforms to join the battle, hoping these Internet giants will use their influence to disappear unlawful content.

Over in Russia, legislation is already in place to force cooperation. When sites are deemed to be infringers and unresponsive to targeted takedowns, they can find themselves on a national blacklist and blocked by ISPs. Furthermore, sites that persistently refuse to cooperate can be permanently blocked, with additional consequences.

Sites in this category now face the prospect of being removed from search engines altogether. That has been happening in volume, as telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor reported this week.

“Since the beginning of the year, search engines Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler, Sputnik and Google that have been operating in Russia have blocked access to 2,600 pirated Internet resources that were previously blocked on an ongoing basis,” the government body reported.

“Decisions on restricting access to pirated Internet resources on an ongoing basis are taken by the Moscow City Court and the Ministry of Communications.”

Since the search engine exclusion law came into force October 1, 2017, close to 4,000 sites have been permanently excluded from search results. However, this still isn’t enough for rightsholders who insist that companies like Yandex and Google need to do more.

In a sign of how fractious this battle has become, major broadcasters recently took action against Yandex due to the existence of ‘pirate’ resources in search results. In protest, Gazprom-Media, National Media Group (NMG), and others removed their TV channels from Yandex’s ‘TV Online’ service.

According to comments obtained by Russia’s Kommersant, the media companies will only allow their content to appear again if Yandex “purges the pirated versions” from its search results.

“This is the only way we can influence them to remove pirated content,” the source said.

Yandex began displaying the content of TV channels on its main pages back in March 2017 and agreements inked since then have allowed it to expand the feature. Now, however, the initiative has been set back, with media companies complaining that the revenue generated pales into insignificance when compared to the losses from piracy.

“The situation in which broadcasters promote Yandex media services, provide content, but have piracy ignored in search results, is destructive for the media industry,” a representative from NMG told Kommersant.

“[The revenues] are insignificant compared to the hundreds of millions of rubles of annual losses associated with the distribution of pirated content from broadcasters.”

Gazprom Media told the publication that for as long as piracy is a problem, the company won’t be offering its content via the search engine.

“Prior to resolving the issue of pirated content on Yandex services, we will not license our content in Yandex,” a spokesperson said.

With some media players describing Yandex as “the main pirate site in the country” it’s clear that bridges need to be built if progress is to be made. However, the rhetoric is strong right now with no solution in sight.

“[Yandex] interferes with the work of all and refuses to discuss this topic under far-fetched pretexts, so there will only be more [piracy]. They imagine themselves as an information intermediary, but it’s not true – they make money on content, interfere in content, and develop their own sites,” says producer Alexander Akopov.

Considering the general consensus that access to legal content is the best way to defeat piracy, the decision to remove legal content from Yandex is a little puzzling. The punitive measures used to starve pirate sites of their visitors – removal from search engine results – is now being deployed by rightsholders against themselves. Only time will tell how that will turn out.

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

Last month, Nintendo made it totally clear that websites offering access to its retro-games and ROMs will not be tolerated.

The Japanese game developer filed a complaint at a federal court in Arizona, accusing LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co of massive copyright and trademark infringement.

Faced with millions of dollars in potential damages, the owner of the sites, Jacob Mathias, swiftly took the platforms offline. While the claims still stand, a new court filing shows that both Mathias and Nintendo are open to resolving the matter without a drawn-out fight.

LoveROMS

This week Mathias’ attorney asked the court to extend the standard period to respond to the complaint by three weeks, to enable both parties to continue ongoing settlement negotiations.

“Almost immediately after the complaint was served, the parties began actively discussing and working toward settling the case,” the defendants’ motion reads. “The parties believe that a 21-day extension will allow them to make significant progress toward settling the case.”

Nintendo requested a substantial number of documents as part of the settlement negotiations. The defense provided these and, with the extra time, they hope to get closer to a settlement.

If the case is not settled within the additional three-week period, no further extension will be requested.

From the motion

The filing suggests that this case may be over before it gets properly underway, which might be the best option for the site owner and his wife, who Nintendo previously added to the complaint. A lengthy, costly, and difficult to win court battle would then be avoided.

Nintendo, for its part, wouldn’t mind saving on legal bills too. In addition, with a settlement, they avoid the risk of a ‘theoretical’ negative precedent where a court might rule that not all older ROMs are copyright-infringing.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that filing the complaint alone has already had a sufficient deterrent effect.

In the weeks after the lawsuit was made public, several ROMs sites ceased their activities voluntarily. Not because they were suddenly in agreement that offering retro-ROMs is wrong, but mostly because they wanted to avoid a legal battle that could end in bankruptcy.

Nintendo’s actions and the subsequent fallout has left many retro-gamers without their preferred ROMs sources. However, it is unlikely that any type of legal action will completely root out their passion for good.

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

All around the world, rightsholders connected to often lower-tier media are generating revenue from people alleged to have pirated their content online.

The system is mostly uniform, with alleged infringers’ IP addresses gathered by the ‘copyright trolls’ and taken to court, in the hope that a judge will order ISPs to hand over their personal details. With this information in hand, copyright trolls demand a cash payment to make a supposed lawsuit go away.

It’s important to note, however, that if rightsholders cannot force ISPs to hand over alleged infringers’ details, their entire project is dead in the water. That’s now the position in Denmark after copyright trolls’ greed prompted ISPs to dig in their heels and refuse to cooperate.

After receiving demands to expose tens of thousands of their subscribers’ identities, ISP Telenor grew tired of the demands, with the company’s legal director framing the problem as a battle between the security of the public and law firms’ commercial interests.

Telenor, with the assistance of rival ISP Telia, prepared a case to protect their customers. Last October, however, the District Court ruled against the ISPs, ordering them to provide identities of alleged pirates to the copyright trolls.

Refusing to accept the setback, the providers took their case to the Østre Landsret, one of Denmark’s two High Courts. In May that effort paid off, with a resounding victory for the ISPs. The win meant that the personal details of individuals behind approximately 4,000 IP addresses targeted by troll outfit Copyright Collection Ltd (via law firm Njord Law) would remain private.

“In its order based on telecommunications legislation, the Court has weighed subscribers’ rights to confidentiality of information regarding their use of the Internet against the interests of rightsholders to obtain information for the purpose of prosecuting claims against the subscribers,” the Court said in a statement.

“The telecommunications companies are therefore not required to disclose the names and addresses of their subscribers.”

The decision was met with dismay by the copyright trolls, who framed the defeat as a blow to those who invest in the Danish film and television industries. But the ruling by the Østre Landsret would not be the final roll of the dice if the Supreme Court decided to hear the matter. Hoping that would be the case, Njord Law filed an appeal.

Unfortunately for the trolls, their hopes were shattered this week when the committee responsible for references to the Supreme Court said it would not be putting the case forward.

As a result, the May 7th decision of the Østre Landsret will stand, with Telenor and Telia no longer required to cooperate with parties involved in trolling cases.

Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger, welcomed the decision.

“Both personally and on behalf of our customers, I am really glad that we are being strictly ruled by the National Court’s decision, and we once again find that logging data should only be handed over to the police to combat serious crime,” he told Version2.

Krüger described the decision not to take the case to the Supreme Court has a victory for customers’ legal certainty, with citizens’ right to privacy trumping the copyright trolls’ commercial interests.

If disclosure is to be granted in future, online offenses will have to be shown to be serious enough to get the police involved, something that appears to rule out most copyright trolling efforts.

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

Online piracy is taking place in all corners of the Internet, Facebook included.

This issue is not limited to users who upload or stream infringing content. It also extends to Facebook’s marketplace, where vendors sell pirate streaming boxes and IPTV subscriptions.

Facebook is actively cracking down on these activities. Most recently the company updated its commerce policies to make clear that all streaming devices that use Kodi software are now banned, whether they are infringing or not.

Copyright holders, meanwhile, are not sitting still either. Earlier this month, Sky booked a success in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which ordered Facebook seller Luke Skinner to pay £50,000 in damages.

Skinner, a resident of Burntisland, sold pre-loaded Openbox VX and VX2 boxes on the social media network, as well as access to IPTV subscriptions. These allowed his customers to access unauthorized Sky channels for £35 per year, or £75/£85 for a two year deal with the box included.

Box advertisement

In addition to the damages award, the Court of Session also issued an injunction which prevents the man from selling or advertising any infringing streaming devices or subscriptions going forward.

Sky is pleased with the outcome of the case and hopes that it will deter others from engaging in similar activities.

“Those who infringe copyrighted content do so at their own risk. This case is another example of the heavy price people who facilitate piracy can pay,” Matthew Hibbert, Sky’s Head of Litigation, told Broadband News TV in a comment.

According to Colin Hulme, a partner at law firm Burness Paull, which has experience with these cases, there is little doubt that selling pre-loaded devices or pirate subscriptions is against the law.

And misspelling SkySports as SlySports is not going to help much to stay out of trouble, as this case shows.

“Without question, subscription services and pre-loaded devices that give unauthorized access to copyrighted content are illegal. Sellers misspell brand names to avoid the safeguards that protect content from being pirated but this case proves that they can still be detected,” Hulme commented.

The present case is, to our knowledge, the first private prosecution of a UK seller of pirate tools and IPTV services on Facebook. It is not the first IPTV related conviction in the UK though, and it likely won’t be the last.

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