Considering the effort it takes to set one up, pirate sites are clearly always intentional. One doesn’t make available hundreds of thousands of potentially infringing works accidentally.

Unless you’re developer Nick Janetakis, that is.

“About 2 years ago I was recording a video course that dealt with setting up HTTPS on a domain name. In all of my courses, I make sure to ‘really’ do it on video so that you can see the entire process from end to end,” Nick wrote this week.

“Back then I used nickjanetakis.com for all of my courses, so I didn’t have a dedicated domain name for the course I was working on.”

So instead, Nick set up an A record to point ssl.nickjanetakis.com to a DigitalOcean droplet (a cloud server) so anyone accessing the sub-domain could access the droplet (and his content) via his sub-domain.

That was all very straightforward and all Nick needed to do was delete the A record after he was done to ensure that he wasn’t pointing to someone else’s IP address when the droplet was eventually allocated to someone else. But he forgot, with some interesting side effects that didn’t come to light until years later.

“I have Google Alerts set up so I get emailed when people link to my site. A few months ago I started to receive an absurd amount of notifications, but I ignored them. I chalked it up to ‘Google is probably on drugs’,” Nick explains.

However, the developer paid more attention when he received an email from a subscriber to his courses who warned that Nick’s site might have been compromised. A Google search revealed a worrying amount of apparently unauthorized eBook content being made available via Nick’s domain.

350,000 items? Whoops! (credit: Nick Janetakis)

Of course, Nick wasn’t distributing any content himself, but as far as Google was concerned, his domain was completely responsible. For confirmation, TorrentFreak looked up Nick’s domain on Google’s Transparency report and found at least nine copyright holders and two reporting organizations complaining of copyright infringement.

“No one from Google contacted me and none of the copyright infringement people reached out to me. I wish they would have,” Nick told us.

The earliest complaint was filed with Google on April 22, 2018, suggesting that the IP address/domain name collision causing the supposed infringement took place fairly recently. From there came a steady flow of reports, but not the tidal wave one might have expected given the volume of results.

Complaints courtesy of LumenDatabase.org

A little puzzled, TorrentFreak asked Nick if he’d managed to find out from DigitalOcean which pirates had been inadvertently using his domain. He said he’d asked, but the company wouldn’t assist.

“I asked DigitalOcean to get the email contact of the person who owned the IP address but they denied me. I just wanted to know for my own sanity,” he says.

With results now dropping off Google very quickly, TF carried out some tests using Google’s cache. None of the tests led us to any recognizable pirate site but something was definitely amiss.

The ‘pirate’ links (which can be found using a ‘site:ssl.nickjanetakis.com’ search in Google) open documents (sample) which contain links to the domain BookFreeNow.com, which looks very much like a pirate site but suggests it will only hand over PDF files after the user joins up, ostensibly for free.

However, experience with this kind of platform tells us that eventually, there would probably be some kind of cost involved, if indirect.

So, after clicking the registration link (or automatically, if you wait a few seconds) we weren’t entirely shocked when we were redirected briefly to an affiliate site that pays generously. From there we were sent to an advert server which caused a MalwareBytes alert, which was enough for us to back right out of there.

While something amazing might have sat behind the doors of BookFreeNow, we suspect that rather than being a regular pirate site, it’s actually set up to give the impression of being one, in order to generate business in other ways.

Certainly, copyright holders are suspicious of it, and have sent numerous complaints to Google.

In any event, Nick Janetakis should be very grateful that his domain is no longer connected to the platform since a basic pirate site, while troublesome, would be much more straightforward to explain. In the meantime, Nick has some helpful tips on how to avoid such a situation in the future.

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

Last year several major record labels, represented by the RIAA, filed a lawsuit against ISP Grande Communications accusing it of turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers.

According to the RIAA, the Internet provider knew that some of its subscribers were frequently distributing copyrighted material, but failed to take any meaningful action in response.

Grande refuted the accusations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The ISP partially succeeded as the claims against its management company Patriot were dropped. The same was true for the vicarious infringement allegations, as the court saw no evidence that the ISP had a direct financial interest in the infringing activity.

While the RIAA could still go after the ISP for contributory copyright infringement, it wants more. A few days ago, the music group submitted a motion for leave to file an amended complaint including new evidence obtained during discovery.

Among other things, the RIAA argues in more detail that Grande willingly kept pirating subscribers abroad, to generate more revenue. According to the complaint, Grande terminated accounts of pirating subscribers in the past, but stopped doing so in 2010.

“The evidence in this case reveals that, until 2010, Grande actually suspended and may even have terminated known repeat infringing customers,” reads the amended complaint, filed at a Texas federal court.

“But then, from 2011 to 2016, Defendants made the conscious decision not to terminate a single Grande subscriber for copyright infringement, regardless of how much proof they received, from any source, of those subscribers blatant, repeat infringement.”

After the RIAA filed its lawsuit, Grande allegedly started terminating subscribers again, According to the music group, the ISP hereby implicitly acknowledged that it acted unlawfully during the period in between.

The new complaint claims that Grande profited from the repeat infringers. They were also the most profitable customers by profit margin, as many had a more lucrative “a la carte” subscription.

“Defendants’ policy of refusing to take meaningful action against repeat infringers protects a significant revenue stream that Grande receives every month from its many infringing subscribers,” RIAA writes.

These allegations, including the claim that RIAA members’ sound recordings acted as a draw, are backed up by evidence filed under seal.

According to the record labels, however, it’s clear that Grande failed to adopt and reasonably implement a policy to stop repeat infringers. As such, it should have no DMCA safe harbor defense and be held liable for both vicarious and contributory copyright infringement.

In addition, the RIAA stated that newly discovered evidence also shows that the ISPs’ management company Patriot should not escape liability.

If the court accepts the amended complaint, Grande will have to respond to the new evidence and additional allegations.

As in the original complaint, the RIAA seeks statutory damages, which could go up to $150,000 per infringed work, actual damages, plus profits generated by Grande as a result of the infringement. The music group also asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions preventing Grande from further infringement.

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A copy of the amended complaint is available here (pdf).

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

With waves of piracy settlement letters being sent out across the world, the last line of defense for many accused Internet users has been their ISPs.

In a number of regions, notably the United States, Europe, and the UK, most ISPs have given up the fight, handing subscriber details over to copyright trolls with a minimum of resistance. However, there are companies out there prepared to stand up for their customers’ rights, if eventually.

Over in Denmark, Telenor grew tired of tens of thousands of requests for subscriber details filed by a local law firm on behalf of international copyright troll groups. It previously complied with demands to hand over the details of individuals behind 22,000 IP addresses, around 11% of the 200,000 total handled by ISPs in Denmark. But with no end in sight, the ISP dug in its heels.

“We think there is a fundamental legal problem because the courts do not really decide what is most important: the legal security of the public or the law firms’ commercial interests,” Telenor’s Legal Director Mette Eistrøm Krüger said last year.

Assisted by rival ISP Telia, Telenor subsequently began preparing a case to protect the interests of their customers, refusing in the meantime to comply with disclosure requests in copyright cases. But last October, the District Court ruled against the telecoms companies, ordering them to provide identities to the copyright trolls.

Undeterred, the companies took their case to the Østre Landsret, one of Denmark’s two High Courts. Yesterday their determination paid off with a resounding victory for the ISPs and security for the individuals behind approximately 4,000 IP addresses targeted by Copyright Collection Ltd via law firm Njord Law.

“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.

Noting that the case raised important questions of European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights, the High Court said that after due consideration it would overrule the decision of the District Court. The rights of the copyright holders do not trump the individuals right to privacy, it said.

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

Telenor welcomed the decision, noting that it had received countless requests from law firms to disclose the identities of thousands of subscribers but had declined to hand them over, a decision that has now been endorsed by the High Court.

“This is an important victory for our right to protect our customers’ data,” said Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger.

“At Telenor we protect our customers’ data and trust – therefore it has been our conviction that we cannot be forced into almost automatically submitting personal data on our customers simply to support some private actors who are driven by commercial interests.”

Noting that it’s been putting up a fight since 2016 against handing over customers’ data for purposes other than investigating serious crime, Telenor said that the clarity provided by the decision is most welcome.

“We and other Danish telecom companies are required to log customer data for the police to fight serious crime and terrorism – but the legislation has just been insufficient in relation to the use of logged data,” Krüger said.

“Therefore I am pleased that with this judgment the High Court has stated that customers’ legal certainty is most important in these cases.”

The decision was also welcomed by Telia Denmark, with Legal Director Lasse Andersen describing the company as being “really really happy” with “a big win.”

“It is a victory for our customers and for all telecom companies’ customers,” Andersen said.

“They can now feel confident that the data that we collect about them cannot be disclosed for purposes other than the terms under which they are collected as determined by the jurisdiction.

“Therefore, anyone and everybody cannot claim our data. We are pleased that throughout the process we have determined that we will not hand over our data to anyone other than the police with a court order,” Andersen added.

But as the ISPs celebrate, the opposite is true for Njord Law and its copyright troll partners.

“It is a sad message to the Danish film and television industry that the possibilities for self-investigating illegal file sharing are complicated and that the work must be left to the police’s scarce resources,” said Jeppe Brogaard Clausen of Njord Law.

While the ISPs finally stood up for users in these cases, Telenor in particular wishes to emphasize that supporting the activities of pirates is not its aim. The company says it does not support illegal file-sharing “in any way” and is actively working with anti-piracy outfit Rights Alliance to prevent unauthorized downloading of movies and other content.

The full decision of the Østre Landsret can be found here (Danish, pdf)

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

Since the turn of the last decade, numerous people have been sued for illegal file-sharing in US courts.

These cases are generally filed by a small group of rightsholders and this year “Strike 3 Holdings” has proven itself to be one of the most active litigants.

The company, which distributes its works through various adult websites, has filed cases against hundreds of alleged defendants over the past several months.

As is common in these cases, the copyright holder only knows the defendant by an IP-address. It then asks the courts to grant a subpoena, allowing it to ask Internet providers for the personal details of the alleged offenders, so it can send a settlement request.

In most district courts this established process is usually just a matter of filing boilerplate paperwork but in Minnesota, this didn’t go as easily as Strike 3 had expected.

Late last month, Magistrate Judge Franklin Noel denied such a discovery motion. As a result, Strike 3 is not allowed to ask the ISP, Comcast in this case, for the personal details of the account holder associated with the IP-address.

According to Judge Noel, these cases present a conflict between the copyright protections of the DMCA on the one hand and the privacy rights of the public as set out in the Communications Act. Here, the scale tips in the favour of the latter.

“This Court concludes that the conflict between the statutes, DMCA and the Communications Act, compels it to deny Plaintiff’s instant ex parte motion,” Judge Noel wrote.

This order didn’t go unnoticed. Last week Magistrate Judge David Schultz cited the ruling in two similar cases, also filed by Strike 3. Again, the subpoena requests were denied to secure the privacy of the alleged BitTorrent pirates.

“From this Court’s perspective there are obvious tensions between DMCA, the Communications Act, and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45,” Schultz’s orders read.

“The Court is not unsympathetic to Plaintiff’s need to discover the actual identity of the infringer of its copyright; however, the discovery sought by Plaintiff through a Rule 45 subpoena directly collides with federal privacy protections.”

In the orders, which are all nearly identical, the magistrate judges note that unless there’s a binding precedent from the Eighth Circuit or further guidance from Congress, they have no other option than to deny these discovery requests.

While this is good news for the defendants in these cases, copyright troll watcher ‘FCT’ notes that it’s too early to celebrate. Since issuing these subpoenas is a well-established procedure, the district judge or an appeal court may reverse the denials.

This lack of agreement is also apparent from another ruling that came in right before the weekend, where another Minnesota Magistrate Judge granted a similar subpoena request from Strike 3, witch the caveat that the defendant should be able to proceed anonymously.

That said, if the orders from Magistrate Judges Noel and Schultz stand, it’s a clear win for the defendants in these cases. While it won’t stop Strike 3 from continuing it’s business, at least a few people are spared from receiving settlement demands in the mail.

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The denials are available here (pdf 1,2,3) and the order granting the subpoena can be found here (pdf).

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

In 2015, Middlesbrough-based shopkeeper Brian ‘Tomo’ Thompson shot into the headlines after being raided by police and Trading Standards in the UK.

Thompson had been selling “fully-loaded” piracy-configured Kodi boxes from his shop but didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

“All I want to know is whether I am doing anything illegal. I know it’s a gray area but I want it in black and white,” he said.

Thompson started out with a particularly brave tone. He insisted he’d take the case to Crown Court and even to the European Court. His mission was show what was legal and what wasn’t, he said.

Very quickly, Thompson’s case took on great importance, with observers everywhere reporting on a potential David versus Goliath copyright battle for the ages. But Thompson’s case wasn’t straightforward.

The shopkeeper wasn’t charged with basic “making available” under the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Acts that would have found him guilty under the earlier BREIN v Filmspeler case. Instead, he stood accused of two offenses under section 296ZB of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which deals with devices and services designed to “circumvent technological measures”.

In the end it was all moot. After entering his official ‘not guilty’ plea, last year Thompson suddenly changed his tune. He accepted the prosecution’s version of events, throwing himself at the mercy of the court with a guilty plea.

In October 2017, Teeside Crown Court heard that Thompson cost Sky around £200,000 in lost subscriptions while the shopkeeper made around £38,500 from selling the devices. But despite the fairly big numbers, Judge Peter Armstrong decided to go reasonably light on the 55-year-old, handing him an 18-month prison term, suspended for two years.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that in all the circumstances an immediate custodial sentence is not called for. But as a warning to others in future, they may not be so lucky,” the Judge said.

But things wouldn’t end there for Thompson.

In the UK, people who make money or obtain assets from criminal activity can be forced to pay back their profits, which are then confiscated by the state under the Proceeds of Crime Act (pdf). Almost anything can be taken, from straight cash to cars, jewellery and houses.

However, it appears that whatever cash Thompson earned from Kodi Box activities has long since gone.

During a Proceeds of Crime hearing reported on by Gazette Live, the Court heard that Thompson has no assets whatsoever so any confiscation order would have to be a small one.

In the end, Judge Simon Hickey decided that Thompson should forfeit a single pound, an amount that could increase if the businessman got lucky moving forward.

“If anything changes in the future, for instance if you win the lottery, it might come back,” the Judge said.

With that seeming particularly unlikely, perhaps this will be the end for Thompson. Considering the gravity and importance placed on his case, zero jail time and just a £1 to pay back will probably be acceptable to the 55-year-old and also a lesson to the authorities, who have gotten very little out of this expensive case.

Who knows, perhaps they might sum up the outcome using the same eight-letter word that Thompson can be seen half-covering in this photograph.

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