The music industry sees stream ripping as one of the largest piracy threats, worse than torrent sites or direct download portals.

The RIAA, IFPI, and BPI showed that they’re serious about the issue when they filed legal action against YouTube-MP3, the largest stream ripping site at the time.

This case eventually resulted in a settlement where the site, once good for over a million daily visitors, agreed to shut down voluntarily last year.

YouTube-MP3’s demise was a clear victory for the music groups, which swiftly identified their next targets, putting them under pressure, both in public and behind the scenes.

This week this appears to have taken its toll on several ‘stream ripping’ sites, which allowed users to download videos from YouTube and other platforms, with the option to convert files to MP3s.

The targets include Pickvideo.net, Video-download.co and Easyload.co, which all inform their users that they’ve thrown in the towel.

With several million visits per month, Pickvideo is the largest of the three. According to the site, they took the drastic measures following a cease -and-desist letter.

“We’re sorry to inform you that all downloading and conversion services have been disabled to comply with a ‘Cease & Desist’ request,” a message on Pickvideo’s homepage reads.

PickVideo

The German-based site Video-download.co doesn’t mention a specific threat. However, it does reference the aforementioned YouTube-MP3 case, which shows that it’s worried about the legal ramifications.

“Bad news… We decided to disable all functionality for video-download forever due to the recent takedown of the bigger site youtube-mp3.org, which was based in Germany (so are we).”

Video-download.co

The same is true for EasyLoad. In a message directed to its users, the site also cites YouTube-MP3’s legal troubles as the reason for shutting down its video downloading and conversion service.

“Due to the recent takedown of the site youtube-mp3.org we are forced to disable the functionality of our site. Sorry and thanks for your feedback and support,” EasyLoad writes.

EasyLoad

TorrentFreak reached out to the three sites, but at the time of publishing, they are yet to respond. It seems likely that they were targeted by music industry representatives recently, but that’s not confirmed.

While the music industry groups can scrap a few targets this week, their ‘stream ripping’ problem isn’t going away. A quick search for terms such as “Youtube download Mp3” reveals dozens of working alternatives.

UK music group BPI informed TorrentFreak today that the YouTube-MP3 case is having an impact on the operations of other ripping sites, but the industry is well-aware that their battle isn’t over yet.

“These sites are making large sums of money from music without paying a penny to those that invest in and create it,” a BPI spokesperson tells TF.

“We continue to pursue our strategy to clear these illegal sites, to prevent music fans from being ripped off and to further encourage the use of legal music sites.”

It is worth noting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) previously stressed that not all stream ripping sites are facilitating copyright infringement by definition.

While some people may use these sites to ‘pirate’ tracks there are also legitimate purposes, the digital rights group said. Some creators specifically allow others to download and modify their work, for example, and in other cases ripping can be seen as fair use.

“There exists a vast and growing volume of online video that is licensed for free downloading and modification, or contains audio tracks that are not subject to copyright,” the EFF stressed.

“Moreover, many audio extractions qualify as non-infringing fair uses under copyright. Providing a service that is capable of extracting audio tracks for these lawful purposes is itself lawful, even if some users infringe.”

Despite these arguments, however, the music industry is not going to stop applying pressure against the sites they see as clear infringers. And as today’s examples show, that sometimes pays off.

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

On June 2, 2017, Canadian telecoms giants including Bell Canada, Bell ExpressVu, Bell Media, Videotron, Groupe TVA, Rogers Communications and Rogers Media, filed a complaint in Federal Court against Montreal resident, Adam Lackman.

Lackman is the founder of Kodi addon repository TVAddons and someone described by the telecoms companies as a serial infringer of their intellectual property rights.

The companies demanded injunctions against Lackman, preventing him from developing, promoting or distributing allegedly infringing add-ons and software. The plaintiffs also requested damages and costs on top.

Without Lackman being present or able to mount a defense, on June 9, 2017, the Federal Court handed down a time-limited interim injunction. Bailiffs took control of TVAddons’ domains, shutting TVAddons down. They also obtained an Anton Piller order, a civil search warrant which granted no-notice permission to enter Lackman’s premises to secure evidence.

On June 12, 2017, Lackman’s home was searched against his wishes, but on June 29, 2017, a judge decided that Lackman had been mistreated. The Anton Piller order was vacated and the application for interlocutory injunction was dismissed.

The plaintiffs took this decision to appeal during November 2017. A three-judge panel handed down its decision February 2018, effectively turning the earlier ruling on its head.

The telecoms companies emerged victorious with the Anton Piller order and interim injunctions declared legal. As the image below shows, Lackman was also told to pay the telecoms companies attorney’s fees of CAD$50,000.

Pay CAD$50,000 to the plaintiffs

Yesterday, just one day after the anniversary of the original search of Lackman’s home, representatives of the plaintiffs were back again to carry out yet another search.

“Bell, Rogers, and Videotron showed up once again to force their way into our founder’s home,” TVAddons said in a statement.

“They had a court order that allowed them to search through anything and everything, in order to mark down things of value which would be sold to repay the debt.”

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Lackman said he could find no deadline dates on the order issued by the court and believed he had much more time to tackle the issue.

“I didn’t think they expected to be paid prior to the conclusion of the [full] lawsuit,” Lackman told TF.

“I’ve already been forced to fundraise in order to defend myself, they have seized millions worth of property (domains, social media) and destroyed my only source of revenue already. Harassing me to pay them when I don’t even have money to pay my own lawyers is really disruptive to my general well being.”

But surely the TVAddons founder was given notice that the monies were due and a visit was imminent? Not so, he insists.

“Other than the appeal judgment, I had not heard from them since. I had no clue they could even show up again. How could I expect that collections would begin while the entire lawsuit on the actual merits (the only important part) is still ahead?” he told us.

But turn up they did. Yesterday morning three bailiffs working for Smart & Biggar Fetherstonhaugh on behalf of Bell, Rogers, and Videotron arrived at Lackman’s home and made their presence known.

“As soon as I opened my door, one of the bailiffs put his foot in it and said that they had the right to enter. I called my lawyer who told me I should comply with their demands,” Lackman says.

“One of the bailiffs appeared to be there for ‘muscle.’ The other bailiff was extremely aggressive, even asking me to show them copies of my invoices with lawyers. And the third bailiff (who seemed to be in charge, he was also part of the original seizure last year) was a bit harsh, but it seemed like he was just trying to do his job.”

Lackman says the visit wasn’t particularly fruitful. The bailiffs found a laptop and “two near worthless” prints on his wall. The goods will be sold at auction come July 31 unless Lackman can either come up with the funds (now CAD$57,500, up from the original CAD$50,000) or get a court to suspend the action. But for a man with no money, it’s a catch-22 situation.

“I am hoping that we will be able to get a sort of stay of proceedings on the collections, at least until the court hears the merits of the lawsuit at trial. The problem is that the goods they are going to seize probably aren’t even worth what it will cost to return to Federal Court. They’re trying to ruin me,” Lackman adds.

With Lackman’s back up against the wall, he’s still relying on well-wishers to help bail him out. However, the case is already a year old with many thousands spent in legal fees and no end in sight.

When or if a trial on the merits will ever take place is still anyone’s guess but with powerful deep-pocketed adversaries, there’s a possibility that Lackman might be worn down without ever having had his day in court.

“If they are going to harass me on an ongoing basis for every little thing I have (such as my laptop), I’ll have no chance of ever being able to fight the merits, which is what they want,” he concludes.

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

Former Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde paid the ultimate price for his involvement with the notorious pirate site, by sacrificing his freedom.

Since his release from prison over three years ago he has been busy with several old and new projects, ranging from Flattr to his art projects, and even a TV-show in Finland.

However, even though he hasn’t been involved with TPB for nearly a decade, his past association still haunts him.

Previously, the District Court in Finland ordered him to pay €350,000 for 60 music tracks that were shared illegally by the site’s users, as well as a looming € 1,000,000 fine if he ever operated the site in future.

Sunde appealed this decision with help from his lawyer Herkko Hietanen, and not without success.

This week the Helsinki District Court decided to drop the million euro threat hanging over his head. Also, the record labels voluntarily abandoned their €350,000 damages claim.

The Pirate Bay co-founder doesn’t walk away completely unscathed though. While he doesn’t have to pay the legal fees of the record labels, the Court did order him to pay €7,769 in various costs that arose from the case.

The Court concluded that Sunde was liable for The Pirate Bay during the period 2010 to 2014. The reasoning behind this is that he opposed a request from a company that tried to trademark “The Pirate Bay” and its logo. Also, he used the word “we” and “us” when referring to the site in public.

Sunde doesn’t agree with this conclusion and has already announced an appeal.

The Pirate Bay’s co-founder says he saw it as his public duty to defend The Pirate Bay as a member of the public. And referring to TPB with terms such as “we” or “us” simply refers to his history with the site, he says.

“The ‘trademark’ of TPB belongs to the public, and not any individual or commercial entity. On a moral level, it’s important to oppose when commercial entities are trying to limit anyone from what belongs to the public,” Sunde informs TF.

“It’s like having been part of a rock band, I still care about the band, even if I split because I couldn’t stand the bass player. It’s absurd expecting that person to not use words as ‘us’ or ‘we’ when talking about that group anymore.”

Despite the dropped claims, music industry group IFPI is still happy with the outcome. The lawsuit was primarily needed to declare the Pirate Bay illegal, so it could demand that ISPs should block it. This blockade will remain in place.

“The most important thing was to stop The Pirate Bay’s operations in Finland, thus keeping the service blocked for Finns. It was the copyright owners’ real intention to start the trial in 2011,” Jaana Pihkala, head of the local anti-piracy group TTVK, told Svenska Yle.

Sunde, however, notes that the record labels may want to take a closer look at the people they employ, adding that this whole case was just another effort to censor the Internet.

“It’s time that the record companies start paying for their own injustices. Just two days ago a core member of the Danish anti-piracy organization, Johan Schlüter, got convicted to four years of probation after embezzling 100 Million Danish kroner from his clients.

“The same person has previously claimed that “child porn is great” because it opens up doors for copyright companies to censor the internet,” Sunde adds.

“This is exactly what the current case is about, censoring the internet. By suing an individual with little means to defend himself, the record companies found a backdoor into censoring a website. They don’t care about the damages to the individual, as long as they can get control of the internet.”

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

The Pirate Bay has been hard to reach for nearly 48 hours now.

For most people, the site currently displays a CloudFlare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider mentioning that a “bad gateway” is causing the issue.

No further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. However, judging from past experience, it’s likely a small technical issue that needs fixing.

TPB 502 Cloudflare error

The Pirate Bay has had quite a few stints of downtime in recent months. The popular torrent site usually returns after several hours, but an outage of more than a day has happened before as well.

Amid the downtime, there’s still some good news for those who desperately need to access the notorious torrent site.

TPB is still available via its .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example. The site’s Tor traffic goes through a separate server and works just fine.

The Pirate Bay team has a status page in the forums where people can check to see if an outage is affecting everyone or not. This also shows that the Tor version of the site is working fine, although it doesn’t show any new torrents.

The main .org domain will probably be back in action soon enough, but seasoned TPB users will probably know the drill by now…

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

The ever-popular Kodi media center is in the press every week, usually due to complaints from the entertainment industries that it poses a threat to their businesses.

Nevertheless, enthusiasts know that Kodi has plenty of other uses, not least that it can bring the consumption of legal content under one roof. Through the use of innovative addons that are not designed to infringe copyright, Kodi users can enjoy many legitimate services without having to leave the Kodi platform.

For the majority of services accessed in this manner, Kodi users are a welcome addition. However, it’s clear that not all companies are happy with people using unconventional consumption routes, even when they’re already paying to access a platform.

The latest case involves Crunchyroll, an online video service that has built a reputation for offering the best in Japanese anime and Asian entertainment. For a fee, Crunchyroll is accessible via a wide range of devices from iOS, Android and Windows, to Chromecast, Apple TV, Roku, and gaming consoles.

Until recently it was also available, albeit unofficially, via a dedicated Kodi addon. Users needed to have a premium subscription already, so piracy wasn’t a factor. However, the company has now flexed its considerable muscles and forced its creators to withdraw it from the public on copyright grounds.

In an email sent to development platform Github, anti-piracy outfit Remove Your Media explained that it is authorized to act on behalf of Crunchyroll and that the addon was infringing the video company’s rights.

“The works in question is copyrighted source code developed by CrunchyRoll Inc. Code has been reversed engineered, in bad faith, to disrupt owner’s rights,” the email reads.

“I have a good faith belief that the items or materials listed below are not authorized by the above owners, their agents or the law and therefore infringe the owner’s rights. Please act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the infringing material.”

What followed was a list of URLs operated by two Github users – Yoshiofthewire and MattRK. All are now unavailable after the repos were deleted.

Writing on the official Crunchyroll and Kodi forums, Yoshiofthewire explained that if only he’d been asked directly, he would’ve taken the addons down. Instead, he was compelled to take action after Github received a complaint directly.

“It is with a heavy heart that I report that the Kodi (XBMC) plugin to view Crunchyroll has been hit with a DMCA take down,” Yoshiofthewire wrote.

“Over the 4 years of its existence it was used by (as of 2016) 5000 monthly active PAYING users. I stress the Paying part because the version that was taken down, mostly unchanged since 2016, required a paid subscription.”

Noting that the addon worked in exactly the same way as the existing Crunchyroll app, Yoshiofthewire noted that no additional functionality was available.

“While I feel the take down was in bad faith, if I was contacted I would have removed the plugin,” he said.

According to information made available by Github, Crunchyroll’s complaint targeted a subset of code made available on the addon’s repository, not the whole thing.

“In this case only certain files were identified as allegedly infringing,” Github told Yoshiofthewire.

“Since it’s not possible to disable individual files within a GitHub repository, we’re giving you a 24 hour opportunity to remove the content named in the takedown.”

That was enough to kill the project. Instead of fighting, Yoshiofthewire deleted the repository.

The news was met with disappointment on the official Kodi forums, but over on Crunchyroll, the mood was even more critical.

“It’s reassuring to see Crunchyroll caring about its paying customers by not fixing their apps in years, and by DMCA’ing an app extension that actually worked,” one user wrote.

“Well, about time I cancel my premium for end of the payment period then,” added another.

“The Kodi addon worked for me better than the official apps/website, especially under Linux, and was in fact the very reason I even considered premium. Not much reason to continue with it for me any longer.”

In response to the critics, one user pointed former addon fans to Vrv.co, which apparently has an improved official player. However, according to Yoshiofthewire, that too has its issues.

“If we have to use the [Crunchyroll] app or the VRV app, can you fix it so the login doesn’t break once a month?” he asked.

Whether the unofficial addon will raise its head elsewhere will remain to be seen, but in the meantime, it will be missed by those who used it alongside their paid subscriptions.

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