After cutting their teeth on blocking injunctions against torrent and regular streaming sites, last November it was revealed that Australian movie outfit Village Roadshow and a coalition of movie studios (Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount) had switched to a new threat.

Their action targeted HDSubs+, a fairly well-known IPTV service that provides hundreds of otherwise premium live channels, movies, and sports for a relatively small monthly fee.

The application for injunction was filed October 2017 and in common with earlier requests, it targets Australia’s largest ISPs. Telstra, Optus, TPG, and Vocus, plus their subsidiaries, were asked to prevent the ‘pirate’ service being accessed by their customers.

In December, a parallel action was revealed, this time by Hong Kong-based broadcaster Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB). The company is also demanding that local ISPs block Android-based ‘pirate’ IPTV services, named in court as the A1, BlueTV, EVPAD, FunTV, MoonBox, Unblock, and hTV5.

During a case management hearing in Federal Court today, Justice Nicholas told Roadshow Films that its application would be pushed back from March to mid-April so that it can be hard alongside the application made by TVB. The relative complexity of the cases appears to have played a role.

While blocking demands for these kinds of services may seem similar to those targeted at torrent sites, the situation is more complex, and the Judge clearly wants to have a good grip on the matter.

“I will need to be satisfied by evidence so that I have a good understanding of how it works, I know what the precise relationship is between this box, the apps, and the site from which [content is] downloaded,” the Judge told lawyers appearing for Roadshow and TVB.

One of the issues revolves around the structure of these IPTV services. A number of URLs are required to maintain them, each with a specific role.

A total of 21 URLs were listed in the TVB case and at least another ten for the single service listed in the Roadshow application. The URLs are used for various aspects of the service including the provision of an EPG (electronic program guide), the software itself (such as an Android app), subsequent updates, and sundry other services.

The Judge warned the companies that he will need to be able to understand them all and if he does not, then blocking injunctions may not even be granted.

“I don’t want the evidence in any respect to be scant on those issues; otherwise, you might find the orders won’t be made,” he told them.

Only complicating matters is that the HDSubs+ service isn’t static. In what appeared to be a response to being named in legal action, last year the service appeared to be undergoing some kind of transformation, directing subscribers to update to a new software version (PressPlayPlus) that works in a more evasive manner.

As reported by ZDNet, counsel for Roadshow and TVB argued that “the changing nature of this system” means that HDSubs+ has diverted users to various different apps over the past several months.

“[In late December] the HDSubs+ app updated to send users to a different app … in early January we noticed that the system reverted back to the HDSubs+ app,” counsel explained.

Roadshow added that since its filing for an injunction, HDSubs+ operators had also removed access to films and TV shows listed in Roadshow’s application. This was grounds for the application to be heard more quickly, the company said.

In order to obtain an injunction, the companies will have to convince the Judge that each URL (or “online location”) either infringes or facilitates the infringement of their copyrighted content. They will also have to show that the primary purpose of such “online locations” is to infringe or facilitate the infringement of their copyrights.

While apps and direct streams shouldn’t pose the court with too many difficulties, EPGs – which simply provide metadata – may be more difficult to classify.

The hearings for both the Roadshow and the TVB applications will now go ahead on April 13, 2018.

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December 2015, a Virginia federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers.

The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages.

Cox swiftly filed its appeal arguing that the District Court made several errors in the jury instructions. In addition, it asked for a clarification of the term “repeat infringer” in its favor.

Today the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on the matter in a mixed decision which could have great consequences.

The Court ruled that the District Court indeed made a mistake in its jury instruction. Specifically, it 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.

When this is the case the appeals court can call for a new trial, and that is exactly what it did. This means that the $25 million verdict is off the table, and the same is true for the millions in attorney’s fees and costs BMG was previously granted.

It’s not all good news for Cox though. The most crucial matter in the case is whether Cox has safe harbor protection under the DMCA. In order to qualify, the company is required to terminate accounts of repeat infringers, when appropriate.

Cox argued that subscribers can only be seen as repeat infringers if they’ve been previously adjudicated in court, not if they merely received several takedown notices. This was still an open question, as the term repeat infringer is not clearly defined in the DMCA.

Today, however, the appeals court is pretty clear on the matter. According to Judge Motz’s opinion, shared by HWR, the language of the DMCA suggests that the term “infringer” is not limited to adjudicated infringers.

This is supported by legislative history as the House Commerce and Senate Judiciary Committee Reports both explained that “those who repeatedly or flagrantly abuse their access to the Internet through disrespect for the intellectual property rights of others should know that there is a realistic threat of losing that access.”

“The passage does not suggest that they should risk losing Internet access only once they have been sued in court and found liable for multiple instances of infringement,” Judge Motz writes in her opinion.

Losing Internet access would hardly be a “realistic threat” that would stop someone from pirating if he or she has already been punished several times in court, the argument goes.

This leads the Court of Appeals to conclude that the District Court was right: Cox is not entitled to safe harbor protection because it failed to implement a meaningful repeat infringer policy.

“Cox failed to qualify for the DMCA safe harbor because it failed to implement its policy in any consistent or meaningful way — leaving it essentially with no policy,” Judge Motz writes.

This means that, while Cox gets a new trial, it is still at a severe disadvantage. Not only that, the Court of Appeals interpretation of the repeat infringer question is also a clear signal to other Internet service providers to disconnect pirates based on repeated copyright holder complaints.

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Judge Motz’s full opinion is available here (pdf).

As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe.

This includes thousands of “pirate” sites, including the likes of The Pirate Bay, which rely on the U.S.-based company to keep server loads down.

Many rightsholders have complained about Cloudflare’s involvement with these sites and last year adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan took it a step further by dragging the company to court.

ALS accused the CDN service of various types of copyright and trademark infringement, noting that several customers used the Cloudflare’s servers to distribute pirated content. While Cloudflare managed to have several counts dismissed, the accusation of contributory copyright infringement remains.

An upcoming trial could determine whether Cloudflare is liable or not, but ALS believes that this isn’t needed. This week, the publisher filed a request for partial summary judgment, asking the court to rule over the matter in advance of a trial.

“The evidence is undisputed,” ALS writes. “Cloudflare materially assists website operators in reproduction, distribution and display of copyrighted works, including infringing copies of ALS works. Cloudflare also masks information about pirate sites and their hosts.”

ALS anticipates that Cloudflare may argue that the company or its clients are protected by the DMCA’s safe harbor provision, but contests this claim. The publisher notes that none of the customers registered the required paperwork at the US Copyright Office.

“Cloudflare may say that the Cloudflare Customer Sites are themselves service providers entitled to DMCA protections, however, none have qualified for safe harbors by submitting the required notices to the US Copyright Office.”

Cloudflare itself has no safe harbor protection either, they argue, because it operates differently than a service provider as defined in the DMCA. It’s a “smart system” which also modifies content, instead of a “dumb pipe,” they claim.

In addition, the CDN provider is accused of failing to implement a reasonable policy that will terminate repeat offenders.

“Cloudflare has no available safe harbors. Even if any safe harbors apply, Cloudflare has lost such safe harbors for failure to adopt and reasonably implement a policy including termination of repeat infringers,” ALS writes.

Previously, the court clarified that under U.S. law the company can be held liable for caching content of copyright infringing websites. Cloudflare’s “infrastructure-level caching” cannot be seen as fair use, it ruled.

ALS now asks the court to issue a partial summary judgment ruling that Cloudflare is liable for contributory copyright infringement. If this motion is granted, a trial would only be needed to establish the damages amount.

The lawsuit is a crucial matter for Cloudflare, and not only because of the potential damages it faces in this case. If Cloudflare loses, other rightsholders are likely to make similar demands, forcing the company to actively police potential pirate sites.

Cloudflare will undoubtedly counter ALS’ claims in a future filing, so this case is far from over.

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A copy of ALS Scan’s memorandum in support of the motion for partial summary judgment can be found here (pdf).

As large ISPs become more closely aligned with the entertainment industries, the days of providers strongly standing up to blocking and disclosure requests appear to be on the decline. For Swedish ISP Bahnhof, however, customer privacy has become a business model.

In recent years the company has been a major opponent of data retention requirement, launched a free VPN to protect its users’ privacy, and put on a determined front against the threat of copyright trolls.

Back in May 2016, Bahnhof reiterated its stance that it doesn’t hand over the personal details of alleged pirates to anyone, not even the police. This, despite the fact that the greatest number of disclosure requests from the authorities relate to copyright infringement.

Bahnhof insisted that European privacy regulations mean that it only has to hand over information to the police if the complaint relates to a serious crime. But that went against a recommendation from the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS).

Now, however, the battle to protect customer privacy has received a significant setback after the Administrative Court in Stockholm found that Swedish provisions on disclosure of subscription data to law enforcement agencies do not contravene EU law.

“PTS asked Bahnhof to provide information on subscribers to law enforcement agencies. Bahnhof appealed against the order, claiming that the Swedish rules on disclosure of subscription information are incompatible with EU law,” the Court said in a statement.

“In support of its view, Bahnhof referred to two rulings of the European Court of Justice. The Administrative Court has held that it is not possible to state that the Swedish rules on law enforcement agencies’ access to subscription data are incompatible with EU law.”

The Court also looked at whether Swedish rules on disclosure of subscriber data meet the requirement of proportionality under EU law. In common with many other copyright-related cases, the Court found that law enforcement’s need to access subscriber data was more important than the individual’s right to privacy.

“In light of this, the Administrative Court has made the assessment that PTS’s decision to impose on Bahnhof a requirement to provide information about subscribers to law enforcement authorities is correct,” the Court adds.

PTS will now be able to instruct Bahnhof to disclose subscriber information in accordance with the provisions of the Electronic Communications Act and the ISP will be required to comply.

But as far as Bahnhof is concerned, the show isn’t over yet.

“We believe the sentence is incorrect, but it is also difficult to take PTS seriously when they can not even interpret the laws behind the decision in a consistent manner. We are of course going to appeal,” the company said in a statement.

To illustrate its point, Bahnhof says that PTS has changed its opinion on the importance of IP addresses in a matter of months. In October 2017, PTS lawyer Staffan Lindmark said he believed that IP addresses are to be regarded as privacy-sensitive data. In January 2018, however, PTS is said to have spoken of the same data in more trivial terms.

“That a supervisory authority pivots so much in its opinions is remarkable,” says Jon Karlung, President of the Bahnhof.

“Bahnhof is not in any way against law enforcement agencies, but we believe that sensitive data should only be released after judicial review and suspected crime.”

Bahnhof says it will save as little data on its customers as it can and IP addresses will be deleted within 24 hours, a practice that has been in place for some time.

In 2016, 27.5% of all disclosure requests sent to Bahnhof were related to online file-sharing, more than any other crime including grooming minors, harassment, sex crimes, forgery, and fraud.

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Kodi-powered set-top boxes are a great way to to stream video content to a TV, but sellers who ship these devices with unauthorized add-ons give them a bad reputation.

According to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership comprised of Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, Tickbox TV is one of these bad actors.

Last year, ACE filed a lawsuit against the Georgia-based company, which sells Kodi-powered set-top boxes that stream a variety of popular media.

According to ACE, these devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content and being advertised as such. The coalition, therefore, asked the court for an injunction to prevent Tickbox from facilitating copyright infringement by removing all pirate add-ons from previously sold devices.

This week US District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald issued a preliminary injunction, which largely sides with the movie companies. According to the Judge, there is sufficient reason to believe that Tickbox can be held liable for inducing copyright infringement.

One of the claims is that Tickbox promoted its service for piracy purposes, and according to the Judge the movie companies provided enough evidence to make this likely. This includes various advertising messages the box seller used.

“There is ample evidence that, at least prior to Plaintiffs’commencement of this action, TickBox explicitly advertised the Device as a means to accessing unauthorized versions of copyrighted audiovisual content,” Judge Fitzgerald writes.

In its defense, Tickbox argued that it merely offered a computer which users can then configure to their liking. However, the Judge points out that the company went further, as it actively directed its users to install certain themes (builds) to watch movies, TV and sports.

“Thus, the fact that the Device is just a ‘computer’ that can be used for infringing and noninfringing purposes does not insulate TickBox from liability if [..] the Device is actually used for infringing purposes and TickBox encourages such use.”

Taking these and several other factors into account, the Court ruled that a preliminary injunction is warranted at this stage. After the lawsuit was filed, Tickbox already voluntarily removed much of the inducing advertisements and addons, and this will remain so.

The preliminary injunction compels TickBox to the current version of the user interface, without easy access to pirate add-ons. The devices should no longer contain links to any of the themes and addons that the movie companies have flagged as copyright infringing.

Tickbox had argued that a broad injunction could shut down its business, but the court counters this. Customers will still be able to use the box for legitimate purposes. If they are no longer interested it suggests that piracy was the main draw.

“[A]n injunction of this scope will not ‘shut down Defendant’s business’ as TickBox contends. In the event that such an injunction does shut TickBox down, that will be indicative not of an unjustifiably burdensome injunction, but of a nonviable business model,” Judge Fitzgerald writes.

The preliminary injunction is not final yet as there are several questions still unanswered.

It’s unclear, for example, if and how Tickbox should remove addons from previously sold devices. The Court, therefore, instructs both parties to attempt to reach agreement on these outstanding issues, to include them in an updated injunction.

The above findings are preliminary and apply specifically to the injunction request and the case itself will continue. However, the Court’s early opinion suggests that Tickbox has plenty of work ahead to prove its innocence.

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A copy of the preliminary injunction is available here (pdf), and Judge Fitzgerald’s findings can be found here (pdf).

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