While piracy of all kinds is often viewed as a threat to the creative industries, a new type of unauthorized content distribution has been gaining prominence over the past few years.

Sites like YouTube, that allow their users to upload all kinds of material – some of it infringing – are now seen as undermining a broad range of industries that rely on both video and audio to generate revenue.

The cries against such User Uploaded Content (UUC) sites are often led by the music industry, which complains that the safe harbor provisions of copyright law are being abused while UUC sites generate review from infringing content. In tandem, while that free content is made available, UUC sites have little or no incentive to pay for official content licenses, and certainly not at a rate considered fair by the industry.

This mismatch, between the price that content industries would like to achieve for licenses and what they actually achieve, is now known as the ‘Value Gap’.

Today, in advance of an EU meeting on the draft Copyright Directive, a huge coalition of rightsholder groups is calling on the new EU Presidency not to pass up an “unmissable opportunity” to find a solution to their problems.

In a letter addressed to the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which Bulgaria officially took over January 1, 2018, an army of rightsholders lay out their demands.

“We represent musical, audio-visual, literary, visual authors; performers; book, press, musical, scientific, technical and medical publishers; recorded music, film and TV producers; football leagues; broadcasters; distributors and photo agencies. These are at the very heart of Europe’s creative sector,” the groups write.

“We have formed an alliance to campaign for a solution to a major problem which is holding back our sector and jeopardizing future sustainability – the Transfer of Value, otherwise known as the Value Gap.

“User uploaded content services have become vast distributors of our creative works e.g. film, music, photos, broadcasts, text and sport content – all while refusing to negotiate fair or any copyright licences with us as right holders.”

Value Gap Coalition

Featuring groups representing many thousands of rightsholders, the coalition is the broadest yet to call for action against the ‘Value Gap’. Or, to put it another way, to demand a change in the law to prevent sites like YouTube, Facebook and other hosting platforms from “hiding” behind provisions designed to protect them from the infringing activities of others.

“This problem is caused by a lack of clarity surrounding the application of copyright to certain online services and the abuse of European copyright ‘safe harbor’ rules in the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC) by those services,” the coalition writes.

Referencing the EU Copyright Directive proposal tabled by the European Commission in September 2016, the coalition says that UUC services communicating content to the public should be compelled to obtain licenses for that content. If they play an “active role” through promotion or optimization of content, UUC platforms should be denied ‘safe harbors’ under copyright law, they argue.

Noting that there is “no solution” to the problem without the above fixes, the coalition cites last year’s ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union which found that The Pirate Bay knowingly provide users with a platform to share copyright-infringing links.

“It is important to recall that the underlying policy objective of this legislation is to address the current unfairness in the online market due to the misapplication of copyright liability rules by UUC services. We would therefore like to stress that the focus should remain on finding effective solutions to tackle this issue.

“As an alliance, we look forward to working with your Presidency to achieve an effective solution to the Value Gap problem for the benefit of Europe,” the coalition concludes.

The letter, addressed to Prime Minister Borissov, Minister Pavlova and Minister Banov, arrives in the wake of an alert sounded by several Members of the European Parliament.

Earlier this month they warned that the EU’s proposed mandatory upload filters – which could see UUC sites pre-screen user-uploaded content for infringement – amount to “censorship machines” that will do more harm than good.

The full letter can be found here (pdf)

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

For the past eight years, Austria has been struggling with the thorny issue of pirate site blocking. Local ISPs have put up quite a fight but site blocking is now a reality, albeit with a certain amount of confusion.

After a dizzying route through the legal system, last November the Supreme Court finally ruled that The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites including 1337x.to and isohunt.to can be blocked, if rightsholders have exhausted all other options.

The Court based its decision on the now-familiar BREIN v Filmspeler and BREIN v Ziggo and XS4All cases that received European Court of Justice rulings last year. However, there is now an additional complication, this time on the net neutrality front.

After being passed in October 2015 and coming into force in April 2016, the Telecom Single Market (TSM) Regulation established the principle of non-discriminatory traffic management in the EU. The regulation still allows for the blocking of copyright-infringing websites but only where supported by a clear administrative or judicial decision. This is where T-Mobile sees a problem.

In addition to blocking sites named specifically by the court, copyright holders also expect the ISP to block related platforms, such as clones and mirrors, that aren’t specified in the same manner.

So, last week, after blocking several obscure Pirate Bay clones such as proxydl.cf, the ISP reported itself to the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR) for a potential net neutrality breach.

“It sounds paradoxical, but this should finally bring legal certainty in a long-standing dispute over pirate sites. T-Mobile Austria has filed with regulatory authority RTR a kind of self-report, after blocking several sites on the basis of a warning by rights holders,” T-Mobile said in a statement.

“The background to the communication to the RTR, through which T-Mobile intends to obtain an assessment by the regulator, is a very unsatisfactory legal situation in which operators have no opportunity to behave in conformity with the law.

“The service provider is forced upon notification by the copyright owner to even judge about possible copyright infringements. At the same time, the provider is violating the principle of net neutrality by setting up a ban.”

T-Mobile says the problem is complicated by rightsholders who, after obtaining a blocking order forcing named ISPs to block named pirate sites (as required under EU law), send similar demands to other ISPs that were not party to court proceedings. The rightsholders also send blocking demands when blocked sites disappear and reappear under a new name, despite those new names not being part of the original order.

According to industry body Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), there is a real need for clarification. It’s hoped that T-Mobile reporting itself for a potential net neutrality breach will have the desired effect.

“For more than two years, we have been trying to find a solution with the involved interest groups and the responsible ministry, which on the one hand protects the rights of the artists and on the other hand does not force the providers into the role of a judge,” complains Maximilian Schubert, Secretary General of the ISPA.

“The willingness of the rights holders to compromise had remained within manageable limits. Now they are massively increasing the pressure and demanding costly measures, which the service providers see as punishment for them providing legal security for their customers for many years.”

ISPA hopes that the telecoms regulator will now help to clear up this uncertainty.

“We now hope that the regulator will give a clear answer here. Because from our point of view, the assessment of legality cannot and should not be outsourced to companies,” Schubert concludes.

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

In recent years pirate sites have been blocked around the world, from Europe, through Asia, and even Down Under.

While many of the large corporations backing these blockades have their roots in North America, blocking efforts have been noticeably absent there. This should change, according to a new anti-piracy coalition that was launched in Canada this week.

Fairplay Canada, which consists of a broad range of organizations with ties to the entertainment industry, calls on the local telecom regulator CRTC to institute a national website blocking program.

The coalition’s members include Bell, Cineplex, Directors Guild of Canada, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Movie Theatre Association of Canada, and Rogers Media, which all share the goal of addressing the country’s rampant piracy problem.

The Canadian blocklist should be maintained by a yet to be established non-profit organization called “Independent Piracy Review Agency” (IPRA) and both IPRA and the CRTC would be overseen by the Federal Court of Appeal, the organizations propose.

“What we are proposing has been effective in countries like the UK, France, and Australia,” says Dr. Shan Chandrasekar, President and CEO of Asian Television Network International Limited (ATN), who is filing Fairplay Canada’s application.

“We are ardent supporters of this incredible coalition that has been formed to propose a new tool to empower the CRTC to address online piracy in Canada. We have great faith in Canadian regulators to modernize the tools available to help creators protect the content they make for Canadians’ enjoyment.”

The proposal is unique in the sense that it’s the first of its kind in North America and also has support from major players in the Telco industry. Since most large ISPs also have ties to media companies of their own, the latter is less surprising as it may seem at first glance.

Bell, for example, is not only the largest Internet provider in Canada but also owns the television broadcasting and production company Bell Media, which applauds the new plan.

“Bell is pleased to work with our partners across the industry and the CRTC on this important step in ensuring the long-term viability of the Canadian creative sector,” says Randy Lennox, President of Bell Media.

“Digital rights holders need up-to-date tools to combat piracy where it’s happening, on the Internet, and the process proposed by the coalition will provide just that, fairly, openly and effectively,” he adds.

Thus far the Government’s response to the plan has been rather reserved. When an early version of the plans leaked last month, Canadaland quoted a spokesperson who said that the Government is committed to opening doors instead of building walls.

Digital rights group OpenMedia goes a step further and brands the proposal a censorship plan which will violate net neutrality and limit people’s right to freedom of expression.

“Everybody agrees that content creators deserved to be paid for their work. But the proposal from this censorship coalition goes too far,” Executive Director Laura Tribe says.

“FairPlay Canada’s proposal is like using a machine gun to kill a mosquito. It will undoubtedly lead to legitimate content and speech being censored online violating our right to free expression and the principles of net neutrality, which the federal government has consistently pledged support for.”

While CTRC is reviewing FairPlay Canada’s plans, OpenMedia has launched a petition to stop the effort in its tracks, which has been signed by more than 45,000 Canadians to date.

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

While there’s no shortage of people who advocate free sharing of movies and music, passions are often raised when it comes to the availability of educational information.

Significant numbers of people believe that learning should be open to all and that texts and associated materials shouldn’t be locked away by copyright holders trying to monetize knowledge. Of course, people who make a living creating learning materials see the position rather differently.

A clash of these ideals is brewing in the United States where online learning platform Udemy has been trying to have some of its courses taken down from FreeTutorials.us, a site that makes available premium tutorials and other learning materials for free.

Early December 2017, counsel acting for Udemy and a number of its individual and corporate instructors (Maximilian Schwarzmüller, Academind GmbH, Peter Dalmaris, Futureshock Enterprises, Jose Marcial Portilla, and Pierian Data) wrote to FreeTutorials.us with DMCA takedown notice.

“Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’), this communication serves as a notice of infringement and request for removal of certain web content available on freetutorials.us,” the letter reads.

“I hereby request that you remove or disable access to the material listed in Exhibit A in as expedient a fashion as possible. This communication does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained.”

A small sample of Exhibit A

On January 10, 2018, the same law firm wrote to Cloudflare, which provides services to FreeTutorials. The DMCA notice asked Cloudflare to disable access to the same set of infringing content listed above.

It seems likely that whatever happened next wasn’t to Udemy’s satisfaction. On January 16, an attorney from the same law firm filed a DMCA subpoena at a district court in California. A DMCA subpoena can enable a copyright holder to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer without having to file a lawsuit and without needing a signature from a judge.

The subpoena was directed at Cloudflare, which provides services to FreeTutorials. The company was ordered to hand over “all identifying information identifying the owner, operator and/or contact person(s) associated with the domain www.freetutorials.us, including but not limited to name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), email address(es), Internet protocol connection records, administrative records and billing records from the time the account was established to the present.”

On January 26, the date by which Cloudflare was ordered to hand over the information, Cloudflare wrote to FreeTutorials with a somewhat late-in-the-day notification.

“We received the attached subpoena regarding freetutorials.us, a domain managed through your Cloudflare account. The subpoena requires us to provide information in our systems related to this website,” the company wrote.

“We have determined that this is a valid subpoena, and we are required to provide the requested information. In accordance with our Privacy Policy, we are informing you before we provide any of the requested subscriber information. We plan to turn over documents in response to the subpoena on January 26th, 2018, unless you intervene in the case.”

With that deadline passing last Friday, it’s safe to say that Cloudflare has complied with the subpoena as the law requires. However, TorrentFreak spoke with FreeTutorials who told us that the company doesn’t hold anything useful on them.

“No, they have nothing,” the team explained.

Noting that they’ll soon dispense with the services of Cloudflare, the team confirmed that they had received emails from Udemy and its instructors but hadn’t done a lot in response.

“How about a ‘NO’? was our answer to all the DMCA takedown requests from Udemy and its Instructors,” they added.

FreeTutorials (FTU) are affiliated with FreeCoursesOnline (FCO) and seem passionate about what they do. In common with others who distribute learning materials online, they express a belief in free education for all, irrespective of financial resources.

“We, FTU and FCO, are a group of seven members assorted as a team from different countries and cities. We are JN, SRZ aka SunRiseZone, Letap, Lihua Google Drive, Kaya, Zinnia, Faiz MeemBazooka,” a spokesperson revealed.

“We’re all members and colleagues and we also have our own daily work and business stuff to do. We have been through that phase of life when we didn’t have enough money to buy books and get tuition or even apply for a good course that we always wanted to have, so FTU & FCO are just our vision to provide Free Education For Everyone.

“We would love to change our priorities towards our current and future projects, only if we manage to get some faithful FTU’ers to join in and help us to grow together and make FTU a place it should be.”

TorrentFreak requested comment from Udemy but at the time of publication, we were yet to hear back. However, we did manage to get in touch with Jonathan Levi, an Udemy instructor who sent this takedown notice to the site in October 2017:

“I’m writing to you on behalf of SuperHuman Enterprises, LLC. You are in violation of our copyright, using our images, and linking to pirated copies of our courses. Remove them IMMEDIATELY or face severe legal action….You have 48 hours to comply,” he wrote, adding:

“And in case you’re going to say I don’t have evidence that I own the files, it’s my fucking face in the videos.”

Levi says that the site had been non-responsive so now things are being taken to the next level.

“They don’t reply to takedowns, so we’ve joined a class action lawsuit against FTU lead by Udemy and a law firm specializing in this type of thing,” Levi concludes.

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

The Tribler client has been around for over a decade. We first covered it in 2006 and since then it’s developed into a truly decentralized BitTorrent client.

Even if all torrent sites were shut down today, Tribler users would still be able to find and add new content.

The project is not run by regular software developers but by a team of quality researchers at Delft University of Technology. There are currently more than 45 masters students, various thesis students, five dedicated scientific developers, and several professors involved.

Simply put, Triber aims to make the torrent ecosystem truly decentralized and anonymous. A social network of peers that can survive even if all torrent sites ceased to exist.

“Search and download torrents with less worries or censorship,” Triber’s tagline reads.

Like many other BitTorrent clients, Tribler has a search box at the top of the application. However, the search results that appear when users type in a keyword don’t come from a central index. Instead, they come directly from other peers.

Thriber’s search results

With the latest release, Tribler 7.0, the project adds another element to the mix, it’s very own blockchain. This blockchain keeps track of how much people are sharing and rewards them accordingly.

“Tribler is a torrent client for social people, who help each other. You can now earn tokens by helping others. It is specifically designed to prevent freeriding and detect hit-and-run peers.” Tribler leader Dr. Johan Pouwelse tells TF.

“You help other Tribler users by seeding and by enhancing their privacy. In return, you get faster downloads, as your tokens show you contribute to the community.”

Pouwelse, who aims to transform BitTorrent into an ethical Darknet, just presented the latest release at Stanford University. In addition, the Internet Engineering Task Force is also considering the blockchain implementation as an official Internet standard.

This recognition from academics and technology experts is welcome, of course, but Triber’s true power comes from the users. The client has gathered a decent userbase of the years but there sure is plenty room for improvement on this front.

The anonymity aspect is perhaps one of the biggest selling points and Pouwelse believes that this will greatly benefit from the blockchain implementation.

Triber provides users with pseudo anonymity by routing the transfers through other users. However, this means that the amount of bandwith used by the application inceases as well. Thus far, this hasn’t worked very well, which resulted in slow anonymous downloads.

“With the integrated blockchain release today we think we can start fixing the problem of both underseeded swarms and fast proxies,” Dr. Pouwelse says.

“Our solution is basically very simple, only social people get decent performance on Tribler. This means in a few years we will end up with only users that act nice. Others leave.”

Tribler’s trust stats

Tribler provides users with quite a bit of flexibility on the anonymity site. The feature can be turned off completely, or people can choose a protection layer ranging from one to four hops.

What’s also important to note is that users don’t operate as exit nodes by default. The IP-addresses of the exit nodes are public ouitside the network and can be monitored, so that would only increase liability.

So who are the exit-nodes in this process then? According to Pouwelse’s rather colorful description, these appear to be volunteers that run their code through a VPN a or a VPS server.

“The past years we have created an army of bots we call ‘Self-replicating Autonomous Entities’. These are Terminator-style self-replicating pieces of code which have their own Bitcoin wallet to go out there and buy servers to run more copies of themselves,” he explains.

“They utilize very primitive genetic evolution to improve survival, buy a VPN for protection, earn credits using our experimental credit mining preview release, and sell our bandwidth tokens on our integrated decentral market for cold hard Bitcoin cash to renew the cycle of life for the next month billing cycle of their VPS provider.”

Some might question why there’s such a massive research project dedicated to building an anonymous BitTorrent network. What are the benefits to society?

The answer is clear, according to Pouwelse. The ethical darknet they envision will be a unique micro-economy where sharing is rewarded, without having to expose one’s identity.

“We are building the Internet of Trust. The Internet can do amazing things, it even created honesty among drugs dealers,” he says, referring to the infamous Silk Road.

“Reliability rating of drugs lords gets you life imprisonment. That’s not something we want. We are creating our own trustworthy micro-economy for bandwidth tokens and real Bitcoins,” he adds.

People who are interested in taking Tribler for a spin can download the latest version from the official website.

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