Once the legal process for blocking pirate sites has been accepted in a region, it usually follows that dozens if not hundreds of other sites are given the same treatment. Rightsholders simply point to earlier decisions and apply for new blockades under established law.

Very quickly, however, it became clear that when a domain is blocked it’s relatively easy to produce a clone or ‘mirror’ of a site to achieve the same purpose, thus circumventing a court order. This mirror site whac-a-mole was addressed in Russia last year with new legislation.

Starting October 1, 2017, Russian authorities allowed rightsholders to add mirror sites to the country’s national blocklist without having to return to court. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relative convenience and cost-efficiency, they have been doing that en masse.

According to Alexei Volin, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media, hundreds of mirrors of pirate sites have been blocked since the introduction of the legislation in October, affecting an audience of millions of people.

“For the past few months, we have been able to block mirrors of pirate sites. As of today, we can already note that about 500 sites are blocked as mirrors,” said Volin at the CSTB 2018 television and telecommunications expo in Moscow.

While rightsholders were expected to quickly take advantage of the change in the law, the speed at which they have done so is unprecedented. According to Volin, more pirate platforms have been blocked in the four months since October 1, 2017, than in the previous two years’ worth of judicial decisions.

“Colleagues from the industry recently found a general audience of blocked sites, it’s about 200 million people,” Volin said, while describing the results as “encouraging.”

The process is indeed quite straightforward. Following a request from a rightsholder, the Ministry of Communications decides whether the site being reported is actually a copy of a previously blocked pirate site. If it is, the owner of the site and telecoms regulator Rozcomnadzor are informed about the situation, while local ISPs are ordered to begin blocking the site.

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In recent years various copyright holder groups have adopted a “follow-the-money” approach in the hope of cutting off funding to so-called pirate sites.

Thus far this has resulted in some notable developments. In the UK, hundreds of advertising agencies began banning pirate sites in 2014 and similar initiatives have popped up elsewhere too.

One of the more prominent plans was orchestrated by the European Commission. In October 2016, this resulted in a voluntary self-regulation agreement signed by leading EU advertising organizations, which promised to reduce ad placement on pirate sites. The question is, how effective is this agreement?

To find out, researchers from European universities in Munich, Copenhagen, and Lisbon, conducted an extensive study. They collected data on the prevalence of ads from various advertisers on hundreds of pirate sites. The data were collected on several occasions, both before and after the agreement.

The findings are published in the article “Follow The Money: Online Piracy and Self-Regulation in the Advertising Industry.” Christian Peukert, one of the authors, informs TF that the latest version of the working paper was published last month and is currently under review at an academic journal.

The results show that the effects of the anti-piracy agreement are fairly minimal. On a whole, there is no significant change in the volume of piracy sites that ad agencies serve. Only when looking at the larger ad-networks in isolation, a downward trend is visible.

“Our results suggests that the presence of advertising services on piracy websites does not change significantly, at least not on average,” the researchers write in their paper.

“Once we allow for heterogeneity in terms of size, we show that more popular advertising services, i.e. those that are overall more diffused on the Internet, reduce their presence on piracy websites significantly more.”

When larger advertising companies are given more weight in the analysis, the average effect equates to a 17% drop in pirate site connections.

That larger companies are more likely to comply with the agreement can be explained by a variety of reasons. They could simply be more aware of the agreement, or they feel more pressure to take appropriate steps in response.

Interestingly, there are also advertising companies that began advertising on pirate sites after the agreement was signed.

“We further provide some evidence that ad services that were not active in the piracy market before the self-regulation agreement increase their presence on piracy websites afterwards,” the researchers write.

This may have been partly triggered by site owners looking for alternatives, or advertising companies looking for new opportunities. However, the effect is not statistically significant, which means that people shouldn’t read into it too much.

Overall, however, the researchers conclude that the voluntary agreement only had a relatively small impact on the EU advertising as a whole, and that there’s room for improvement.

“These results raise concerns about the overall effectiveness of the self-regulation effort with respect to reducing incentives for publishers to supply unlicensed content,” they write.

The EU agreement coincided with a series of similar agreements which, according to this data, had little effect on EU advertisers either over the researched timespan. And by looking at the average pirate site today, it becomes instantly clear that there are still plenty advertisers who are willing to work with these sites.

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Over the years video game developer Blizzard Entertainment has published many popular game titles, including World of Warcraft (WoW).

First released in 2004, the multiplayer online role-playing game has been a massive success. It holds the record for the most popular MMORPG in history, with over 100 million subscribers.

While the current game looks entirely different from its first release, there are many nostalgic gamers who still enjoy the earlier editions. Unfortunately, however, they can’t play them. At least not legally.

The only option WoW fans have is to go to unauthorized fan projects which recreate the early gaming experience, such as Light’s Hope.

“We are what’s known as a ‘Legacy Server’ project for World of Warcraft, which seeks to emulate the experience of playing the game in its earliest iterations, including advancing through early expansions,” the project explains.

“If you’ve ever wanted to see what World of Warcraft was like back in 2004 then this is the place to be. Our goal is to maintain the same feel and structure as the realms back then while maintaining an open platform for development and operation.”

In recent years the project has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of die-hard WoW fans. At the time of writing, the most popular realm has more than 6,000 people playing from all over the world. Blizzard, however, is less excited.

The company has asked the developer platform GitHub to remove the code repository published by Light’s Hope. Blizzard’s notice targets several SQL databases stating that the layout and structure is nearly identical to the early WoW databases.

“The LightsHope spell table has identical layout and typically identical field names as the table from early WoW. We use database tables to represent game data, like spells, in WoW,” Blizzard writes.

“In our code, we use .sql files to represent the data layout of each table […]. MaNGOS, the platform off of which Light’s Hope appears to be built, uses a similar structure. The LightsHope spell_template table matches almost exactly the layout and field names of early WoW client database tables.”

This takedown notice had some effect, as people now see a “repository unavailable due to DMCA takedown” message when they access it in their browser.

While this may slow down development temporarily, it appears that the server itself is still running just fine. There were some downtime reports earlier this week, but it’s unknown whether that was related.

In addition to the GitHub repository, the official Twitter account was also suspended recently.

TorrentFreak contacted both Blizzard and Light’s Hope earlier this week for a comment on the situation. At the time of publication, we haven’t heard back.

Blizzard’s takedown notice comes just weeks after several organizations and gaming fans asked the US Copyright Office to make a DMCA circumvention exemption for “abandoned” games, including older versions of popular MMORPGs.

While it’s possible that such an exemption is granted in the future, it’s unlikely to apply to the public at large. The more likely scenario is that it would permit libraries, researchers, and museums to operate servers for these abandoned games.

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Back in January 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced a 14-month campaign to crack down on ‘unauthorized’ Internet platforms.

China said that Internet technologies and services had been expanding in a “disorderly” fashion, so regulation was required. No surprise then that the campaign targeted censorship-busting VPN services, which are used by citizens and corporations to traverse the country’s Great Firewall.

Heralding a “nationwide Internet network access services clean-up”, China warned that anyone operating such a service would require a government telecommunications business license. It’s now been more than a year since that announcement and much has happened in the interim.

In July 2017, Apple removed 674 VPN apps from its App Store and in September, a local man was jailed for nine months for selling VPN software. In December, another man was jailed for five-and-a-half years for selling a VPN service without an appropriate license from the government.

This week the government provided an update on the crackdown, telling the media that it will begin forcing local and foreign companies and individuals to use only government-approved systems to access the wider Internet.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) chief engineer Zhang Feng reiterated earlier comments that VPN operators must be properly licensed by the government, adding that unlicensed VPNs will be subjected to new rules which come into force on March 31. The government plans to block unauthorized VPN providers, official media reported.

“We want to regulate VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities,” Zhang told reporters.

“Any foreign companies that want to set up a cross-border operation for private use will need to set up a dedicated line for that purpose,” he said.

“They will be able to lease such a line or network legally from the telecommunications import and export bureau. This shouldn’t affect their normal operations much at all.”

Radio Free Asia reports that state-run telecoms companies including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, which are approved providers, have all been ordered to prevent their 1.3 billion subscribers from accessing blocked content with VPNs.

“The campaign aims to regulate the market environment and keep it fair and healthy,” Zhang added. “[As for] VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities, we want to regulate this.”

So, it appears that VPN providers are still allowed in China, so long as they’re officially licensed and approved by the government. However, in order to get that licensing they need to comply with government regulations, which means that people cannot use them to access content restricted by the Great Firewall.

All that being said, Zhang is reported as saying that people shouldn’t be concerned that their data is insecure as a result – neither providers nor the government are able to access content sent over a state-approved VPN service, he claimed.

“The rights for using normal intentional telecommunications services is strictly protected,” said Zhang, adding that regulation means that communications are “secure”.

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Early 2016, Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin published an article in which she linked to an archive of every Playboy centerfold image till then.

“Kind of amazing to see how our standards of hotness, and the art of commercial erotic photography, have changed over time,” Jardin commented.

While the linked material undoubtedly appealed to many readers, Playboy itself took offense to the fact that infringing copies of their work were being shared in public. While Boing Boing didn’t upload or store the images in question, the publisher filed a complaint.

Playboy accused the blog’s parent company Happy Mutants of various counts of copyright infringement, claiming that it exploited their playmates’ images for commercial purposes.

Last month Boing Boing responded to the allegations with a motion to dismiss. The case should be thrown out, it argued, noting that linking to infringing material for the purpose of reporting and commentary, is not against the law.

This prompted Playboy to fire back, branding Boing Boing a “clickbait” site. Playboy informed the court that the popular blog profits off the work of others and has no fair use defense.

Before the California District Court decides on the matter, Boing Boing took the opportunity to reply to Playboy’s latest response. According to the defense, Playboy’s case is an attack on people’s freedom of expression.

“Playboy claims this is an important case. It is partially correct: if the Court allows this case to go forward, it will send a dangerous message to everyone engaged in ordinary online commentary,” Boing Boing’s reply reads.

Referencing a previous Supreme Court decision, the blog says that the Internet democratizes access to speech, with websites as a form of modern-day pamphlets.

Links to source materials posted by third parties give these “pamphlets” more weight as they allow readers to form their own opinion on the matter, Boing Boing argues. If the court upholds Playboy’s arguments, however, this will become a risky endeavor.

“Playboy, however, would apparently prefer a world in which the ‘pamphleteer’ must ask for permission before linking to primary sources, on pain of expensive litigation,” the defense writes.

“This case merely has to survive a motion to dismiss to launch a thousand more expensive lawsuits, chilling a broad variety of lawful expression and reporting that merely adopts the common practice of linking to the material that is the subject of the report.”

The defense says that there are several problems with Playboy’s arguments. Among other things, Boing Boing argues that did nothing to cause the unauthorized posting of Playboy’s work on Imgur and YouTube.

Another key argument is that linking to copyright-infringing material should be considered fair use, since it was for purposes of criticism, commentary, and news reporting.

“Settled precedent requires dismissal, both because Boing Boing did not induce or materially contribute to any copyright infringement and, in the alternative, because Boing Boing engaged in fair use,” the defense writes.

Instead of going after Boing Boing for contributory infringement, Playboy could actually try to uncover the people who shared the infringing material, they argue. There is nothing that prevents them from doing so.

After hearing the arguments from both sides it is now up to the court to decide how to proceed. Given what’s at stake, the eventual outcome in this case is bound to set a crucial precedent.

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A copy of Boing Boing’s reply is available here (pdf).

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