Technically speaking it’s not hard to rip a DVD or Blu-ray disc nowadays, and the same is true for ripping content from Netflix or YouTube.

However, in the US people can break the law when they do this. The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions specifically forbid it.

There are some exemptions, such as educational and other types of fair use, but the line between legal and illegal is not always clear, some argue.

Filmmakers, for example, are allowed to use small pieces of other copyrighted films under some conditions. However, this only applies to the documentary genre.

This is confusing and creates uncertainty, according to the International Documentary Association, Kartemquin Films, Independent Filmmaker Project, University of Film and Video Association, and several other organizations.

Late last year they penned a submission to the Copyright Office, which is currently considering updates to the exemptions, where they argued that all filmmakers should be allowed by break DRM and rip Blu-rays. The documentary exemptions have been in place for years now and haven’t harmed rightsholders in any way, they said.

“There is no reason this would change if the ‘documentary’ limitation were removed. All filmmakers regularly need access to footage on DVDs and without an exemption to DVDs, many non-infringing uses simply cannot be made,” the groups noted.

Not everyone agrees with this assessment though. A group of “joint creators and copyright owners” which includes Hollywood’s MPAA, the RIAA, and ESA informs the Copyright Office that such an exemption is too broad and a threat to the interests of the major movie studios.

The MPAA and the other groups point out that the exemption could be used by filmmakers to avoid paying licensing fees, which can be quite expensive.

“Many of the filmmakers who have participated in the rulemaking assert that license fees are often higher than they are willing to pay,” the Joint Creators and Copyright Owners write.

“While unfortunate, the fact that a copyright owner has chosen to make works available on terms that are not palatable to a particular user does not make that user’s proposed use fair or justify granting an exemption.”

If the filmmakers don’t have enough budget to license a video, they should look for alternatives. Simply taking it without paying would hurt the bottom line of movie studios, the filing suggests.

“Many filmmakers work licensing fees into their budgets. There is clearly a market for licensing footage from motion pictures, and it is clear that unlicensed uses harm that market.

“MPAA members actively exploit the market for licensing film clips for these types of uses. Each year, MPAA member companies license, collectively, thousands of clips for use in a variety of works,” the group writes.

The Copyright Office has limited the exemption to the documentary genre for a good reason, the creators argue, since non-documentaries are less likely to warrant a finding of fair use.

In addition, they also refute the claim that the documentary category is “vague.” They note that the International Documentary Association, which argued this, has an award ceremony for the same category, for example.

Finally, the MPAA and other creators respond to calls to extend the current exemptions to 4K content, such as AACS2 protected Ultra HD discs. They see no need for this, as the filmmakers and other groups haven’t shown that they suffer negative consequences in the current situation.

They have alternatives, such as regular Blu-ray discs, while allowing AACS2 circumvention could severely impact the Ultra HD ecosystem, they argue.

“No one has released a universal hack to all Ultra HD films protected by AACS2. The integrity of the AACS2 and Ultra HD technology is an especially important component of the ecosystem that is resulting in the increased availability of motion pictures.

“The Register and the Librarian should not undermine this integrity by authorizing widespread hacking, which could negatively impact ‘the market for or value of’ some of the industry’s most exciting products,” the Joint Creators add.

The Copyright Office will take all arguments into consideration before it makes a final decision later this year.

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A copy of the Joint Creators reply is available here.

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According to local prosecutors who have handled many copyright infringement cases over the past decade, Sweden is nowhere near tough enough on those who commit online infringement.

With this in mind, the government sought advice on how such crimes should be punished, not only more severely, but also in proportion to the damages alleged to have been caused by defendants’ activities.

The corresponding report was returned to Minister for Justice Heléne Fritzon earlier this month by Council of Justice member Dag Mattsson. The paper proposed a new tier of offenses that should receive special punishment when there are convictions for large-scale copyright infringement and “serious” trademark infringement.

Partitioning the offenses into two broad categories, the report envisions those found guilty of copyright infringement or trademark infringement “of a normal grade” may be sentenced to fines or imprisonment up to a maximum of two years. For those at the other end of the scale, engaged in “cases of gross crimes”, the penalty sought is a minimum of six months in prison and not more than six years.

The proposals have been criticized by those who feel that copyright infringement shouldn’t be put on a par with more serious and even potentially violent crimes. On the other hand, tools to deter larger instances of infringement have been welcomed by entertainment industry groups, who have long sought more robust sentencing options in order to protect their interests.

In the middle, however, are Internet service providers such as Bahnhof, who are often dragged into the online piracy debate due to the allegedly infringing actions of some of their customers. In a statement on the new proposals, the company is clear on why Sweden is preparing to take such a tough stance against infringement.

“It’s not a daring guess that media companies are asking for Sweden to tighten the penalty for illegal file sharing and streaming,” says Bahnhof lawyer Wilhelm Dahlborn.

“It would have been better if the need for legislative change had taken place at EU level and co-ordinated with other similar intellectual property legislation.”

Bahnhof chief Jon Karlung, who is never afraid to speak his mind on such matters, goes a step further. He believes the initiative amounts to a gift to the United States.

“It’s nothing but a commission from the American film industry,” Karlung says.

“I do not mind them going for their goals in court and trying to protect their interests, but it does not mean that the state, the police, and ultimately taxpayers should put mass resources on it.”

Bahnhof notes that the proposals for the toughest extended jail sentences aren’t directly aimed at petty file-sharers. However, the introduction of a new offense of “gross crime” means that the limitation period shifts from the current five years to ten.

It also means that due to the expansion of prison terms beyond two years, secret monitoring of communications (known as HÖK) could come into play.

“If the police have access to HÖK, it can be used to get information about which individuals are file sharing,” warns Bahnhof lawyer Wilhelm Dahlborn.

“One can also imagine a scenario where media companies increasingly report crime as gross in order to get the police to do the investigative work they have previously done. Harder punishments to tackle file-sharing also appear very old-fashioned and equally ineffective.”

As noted in our earlier report, the new proposals also include measures that would enable the state to confiscate all kinds of property, both physical items and more intangible assets such as domain names. Bahnhof also takes issue with this, noting that domains are not the problem here.

“In our opinion, it is not the domain name which is the problem, it is the content of the website that the domain name points to,” the company says.

“Moreover, confiscation of a domain name may conflict with constitutional rules on freedom of expression in a way that is very unfortunate. The issues of freedom of expression and why copyright infringement is to be treated differently haven’t been addressed much in the investigation.”

Under the new proposals, damage to rightsholders and monetary gain by the defendant would also be taken into account when assessing whether a crime is “gross” or not. This raises questions as to what extent someone could be held liable for piracy when a rightsholder maintains damage was caused yet no profit was generated.

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Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned the $25 million piracy liability verdict against Internet provider Cox.

The panel of three judges concluded that the district court made an error in its jury instruction and ordered a new trial.

The erroneous instruction said that the ISP could be found liable for contributory infringement if it “knew or should have known of such infringing activity.” The Court of Appeals agrees that based on the law, the “should have known” standard is too low.

As a result of the ruling, music publisher BMG Rights Management and Cox would have to go head to head again in a new trial. However, according to BMG, the Court of Appeals itself made a mistake.

A few days ago the copyright holder petitioned the court for a rehearing en banc, asking for a do-over before all the judges of a court.

The music publisher argues that the appeals court judges mistakenly reached their decision based on a legal principle that applies to “inducement” of liability, while BMG was pursuing a claim of “material contribution.”

“The panel’s unprecedented application of a heightened knowledge standard creates a conflict with decisions and pattern jury instructions from other circuits as well as with the common-law rules underlying contributory infringement.

“All of those recognize that BMG’s material-contribution theory requires only constructive knowledge,” BMG’s brief adds.

Even if the appeals court persists with its assertion that the liability standard is “willful blindness” rather than “should have known,” a new trial would not be warranted, according to the music publisher.

They point out that plenty of evidence was presented which proved that Cox was wilfully blind to the copyright infringements and describe the erroneous instruction as a “harmless error of the most benign kind.”

The music publisher’s request for a rehearing is supported by the RIAA, which filed an amicus curiae brief together with the National Music Publishers Association.

Both music industry groups back BMG’s arguments and ask the appeals court to consider a rehearing, stating that it would be in the best interests of artists, songwriters, and other rightsholders.

“The level of copyright infringement that takes place over the Internet is ‘staggering,’ and it is vital that copyright owners have effective mechanisms to address it. It is also critical that copyright owners can adequately address infringement that occurs in other contexts.

“If the panel’s decision is not corrected, it would threaten the very incentives of artists, songwriters, and others to create valuable works and distribute them to the public,” the RIAA and NMPA add.

For the RIAA the case is particularly important since it filed a similar lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications last year.

Given what’s at stake, we can assume that Cox will protest the request for a rehearing. And it wouldn’t be a big surprise if other telecommunications companies take the same position.

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BMG’s petition is available here (pdf) and a copy of the RIAA/NMPA motion can be found here (pdf).

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With The Pirate Bay proving to be somewhat of an elusive and irritating target, in 2014 police took on a site capturing an increasing portion of the Swedish pirate market.

Unlike The Pirate Bay which uses torrents, Dreamfilm was a portal for streaming content and it quickly grew alongside the now-defunct Swefilmer to dominate the local illicit in-browser viewing sector. But after impressive growth, things came to a sudden halt.

In January 2015, Dreamfilm announced that the site would be shut down after one of its administrators was detained by the authorities and interrogated. A month later, several more Sweden-based sites went down including the country’s second largest torrent site Tankefetast, torrent site PirateHub, and streaming portal Tankefetast Play (TFPlay).

Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance described the four-site networks as one of “Europe’s leading players for illegal file sharing and streaming.”

Image published by Dreamfilm after the raid

After admitting they’d been involved in the sites but insisting they’d committed no crimes, last year four men aged between 21 and 31-years-old appeared in court charged with copyright infringement. It didn’t go well.

The Linköping District Court found them guilty and decided they should all go to prison, with the then 23-year-old founder receiving the harshest sentence of 10 months, a member of the Pirate Party who reportedly handled advertising receiving 8 months, and two others getting six months each. On top, they were ordered to pay damages of SEK 1,000,000 ($122,330) to film industry plaintiffs.

Like many similar cases in Sweden, the case went to appeal and late last week the court handed down its decision which amends the earlier decision in several ways.

Firstly, the Hovrätten (Court of Appeals) agreed that with the District Court’s ruling that the defendants had used dreamfilm.se, tfplay.org, tankafetast.com and piratehub.net as platforms to deliver movies stored on Russian servers to the public.

One defendant owned the domains, another worked as a site supervisor, while the other pair worked as a programmer and in server acquisition, the Court said.

Dagens Juridik reports that the defendants argued that the websites were not a prerequisite for people to access the films, and therefore they had not been made available to a new market.

However, the Court of Appeal agreed with the District Court’s assessment that the links meant that the movies had been made available to a “new audience”, which under EU law means that a copyright infringement had been committed. As far as the samples presented in the case would allow, the men were found to have committed between 45 and 118 breaches of copyright law.

The Court also found that the website operation had a clear financial motive, delivering movies to the public for free while earning money from advertising.

While agreeing with the District Court on most points, the Court of Appeals decided to boost the damages award from SEK 1,000,000 ($122,330) to SEK 4,250,000 ($519,902). However, there was much better news in respect of the prison sentences.

Taking into consideration the young age of the men (who before this case had no criminal records) and the unlikely event that they would offend again, the Court decided that none would have to go to prison as previously determined.

Instead, all of the men were handed conditional sentences with two ordered to pay daily fines, which are penalties based on the offender’s daily personal income.

Last week it was reported that Sweden is preparing to take a tougher line with large-scale online copyright infringers. Proposals currently with the government foresee a new crime of “gross infringement” under both copyright and trademark law, which could lead to sentences of up to six years in prison.

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This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Justice League is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(1)	Justice League	7.1 / trailer
2	(2)	Thor Ragnarok	8.1 / trailer
3	(…)	Black Panther (HDTS)	7.9 / trailer
4	(5)	The Shape of Water (DVDScr)	8.0 / trailer
5	(4)	Coco	8.9 / trailer
6	(8)	Lady Bird	7.7 / trailer
7	(3)	Pitch Perfect 3	6.2 / trailer
8	(…)	The Disaster Artist	7.7 / trailer
9	(6)	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	8.3 / trailer
10	(7)	Daddy’s Home 2	6.0 / trailer

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