When people upload original content to YouTube, there should be no problem with getting paid for that content, should it attract enough interest from the public.

Those who upload infringing content get a much less easy ride, with their uploads getting flagged for abuse, potentially putting their accounts at risk.

That’s what’s happened to Australia-based music technologist Sebastian Tomczak, who uploaded a completely non-infringing work to YouTube and now faces five separate copyright complaints.

“I teach and work in a music department at a University here in Australia. I’ve got a PhD in chiptune, and my main research interests are various intersections of music / sound / tech e.g. arduino programming and DIY stuff, modular synthesis, digital production, sound design for games, etc,” Tomczak informs TF.

“I started blogging about music around a decade ago or so, mainly to write about stuff I was interested in, researching or doing. At the time this would have been physical interaction, music controller design, sound design and composition involving computers.”

One of Tomczak videos was a masterpiece entitled “10 Hours of Low Level White Noise” which features – wait for it – ten hours of low-level white noise.

“The white noise video was part of a number of videos I put online at the time. I was interested in listening to continuous sounds of various types, and how our perception of these kinds of sounds and our attention changes over longer periods – e.g. distracted, focused, sleeping, waking, working etc,” Tomczak says.

White noise is the sound created when all different frequencies are combined together into a kind of audio mush that’s a little baffling and yet soothing in the right circumstances. Some people use it to fall asleep a little easier, others to distract their attention away from irritating sounds in the environment, like an aircon system or fan, for example.

The white noise made by Tomczak and presented in his video was all his own work.

“I ‘created’ and uploaded the video in question. The video was created by generating a noise waveform of 10 hours length using the freeware software Audacity and the built-in noise generator. The resulting 10-hour audio file was then imported into ScreenFlow, where the text was added and then rendered as one 10-hour video file,” he explains.

This morning, however, Tomczak received a complaint from YouTube after a copyright holder claimed that it had the rights to his composition. When he checked his YouTube account, yet more complaints greeted him. In fact, since July 2015, when the video was first uploaded, a total of five copyright complaints had been filed against Tomczak’s composition.

As seen from the image below, posted by Tomczak to his Twitter account, the five complaints came from four copyright holders, with one feeling the need to file two separate complaints while citing two different works.

The complaints against Tomczak’s white noise

One company involved – Catapult Distribution – say that Tomczak’s composition infringes on the copyrights of “White Noise Sleep Therapy”, a client selling the title “Majestic Ocean Waves”. It also manages to do the same for the company’s “Soothing Baby Sleep” title. The other complaints come from Merlin Symphonic Distribution and Dig Dis for similar works .

Under normal circumstances, Tomczak’s account would have been disabled by YouTube for so many infringements but in all cases the copyright holders chose to monetize the musician’s ‘infringement’ instead. In other words, after creating the video himself with his own efforts, copyright holders are now taking all the revenue. It’s a situation that Tomczak will now dispute with YouTube.

“I’ve had quite a few copyright claims against me, usually based on cases where I’ve made long mixes of work, or longer pieces. Usually I don’t take them too seriously,” he explains.

“In any of the cases where I think a given claim would be an issue, I would dispute it by saying I could either prove that I have made the work, have the original materials that generated the work, or could show enough of the components included in the work to prove originality. This has always been successful for me and I hope it will be in this case as well.”

Sadly, this isn’t the only problem Tomczak’s had with YouTube’s copyright complaints system. A while back the musician was asked to take part in a video for his workplace but things didn’t go well.

“I was asked to participate in a video for my workplace and the production team asked if they could use my music and I said ‘no problem’. A month later, the video was uploaded to one of our work channels, and then YouTube generated a copyright claim against me for my own music from the work channel,” he reveals.

Tomczak says that to him, automated copyright claims are largely an annoyance and if he was making enough money from YouTube, the system would be detrimental in the long run. He feels it’s something that YouTube should adjust, to ensure that false claims aren’t filed against uploads like his.

While he tries to sort out this mess with YouTube, there is some good news. Other videos of his including “10 Hours of a Perfect Fifth“, “The First 106 Fifths Derived from a 3/2 Ratio” and “Hour-Long Octave Shift” all remain copyright-complaint free.

For now……

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

Fifteen years ago BitTorrent conquered the masses. It offered a superior way to share large video files, something that was virtually impossible at the time.

With the shift to online video streaming, BitTorrent has lost prominence in recent years. That’s a shame, since the technology offers many advantages.

This is one of the reasons why Stanford University graduate Feross Aboukhadijeh invented WebTorrent. The technology, which is supported by most modern browsers, allows users to seamlessly stream videos on the web with BitTorrent.

In the few years that it’s been around, several tools and services have been built on WebTorrent, including a dedicated desktop client. The desktop version basically serves as a torrent client that streams torrents almost instantaneously on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Add in AirPlay, Chromecast and DLNA support and it brings these videos to any network-connected TV as well. Quite a powerful tool, as many people have discovered in recent months.

This week Feross informed TorrentFreak that WebTorrent Desktop had reached the one million download mark. That’s a major milestone for a modest project with no full-time developer. But while users seem to be happy, it’s not perfect yet.

“WebTorrent Desktop is the best torrent app in existence. Yet, the app suffers from performance issues when too many torrents are added or too many peers show up. It’s also missing important power user features like bandwidth throttling,” Feross says.

The same is true for WebTorrent itself, which the desktop version is built on. The software has been on the verge of version 1.0.0 for over two years now but needs some more work to make the final leap. This is why Feross would like to invest more time into the projects, given the right support.

Last month Feross launched a Patreon campaign to crowdfund future development of WebTorrent including the desktop version. There are dozens of open issues and a lot of plans and with proper funding, the developer can free up time to work on these.

“The goal of the campaign is to allow me to spend a few days per week addressing these issues,” Feross says, adding that all software he works on is completely free and always has been.

Feross and cat

Thus far the fundraising campaign is going well. WebTorrent’s developer has received support from dozens of people, totaling $1,730 a month through Patreon alone, and he has signed up the privacy oriented browser Brave and video site PopChest as Platinum backers.

Community-driven funding is a great way to support Open Source projects, Feross believes, and he is encouraging others to try it out as well.

“I’ve been promoting Patreon heavily within my community as a way for open source software developers to get paid for their work,” Feross says.

“The norm in the industry right now is that no one gets paid — it’s all volunteer work, even though we’re generating a lot of value for the world! Patreon is a really promising solution for software people like me.”

People who want to give WebTorrent Desktop a try can download a copy from the official site. More information on the core WebTorrent technology and its implementations is available there was well. And if you like what you see, Feross still needs a bit of help to reach his Patreon goal.

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

Since the advent of the first truly mass-market videogames consoles, people have dreamed about removing the protection mechanisms that prevent users from tinkering with their machines.

These modifications – which are software, hardware, or combination of the two – facilitate the running of third-party or “homebrew” code. On this front, a notable mention must go to XBMC (now known as Kodi) which ran on the original Xbox after its copy protection mechanisms had been removed.

However, these same modifications regularly open the door to mass-market piracy too, with mod-chips (hardware devices) or soft-mods (software solutions) opening up machines so that consumers can run games obtained from the Internet or elsewhere.

For the Nintendo Switch, that prospect edged closer at the end of December when Wololo reported that hackers Plutoo, Derrek, and Naehrwert had given a long presentation (video) at the 34C3 hacking conference in Germany, revealing their kernel hack for the Nintendo Switch.

While this in itself is an exciting development, fresh news from a veteran hacking group suggests that Nintendo could be in big trouble on the piracy front in the not-too-distant future.

“In the light of a recent presentation at the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany we’ve decided to come out of the woodwork and tease you all a bit with our latest upcoming product,” the legendary Team-Xecutor just announced.

While the hack announced in December requires Switch firmware 3.0 (and a copy of Pokken Tournament DX), Team-Xecutor say that their product will be universal, something which tends to suggest a fundamental flaw in the Switch system.

“This solution will work on ANY Nintendo Switch console regardless of the currently installed firmware, and will be completely future proof,” the team explain.

Xecutor say that their solution opens up the possibility of custom firmware (CFW) on Nintendo’s console. In layman’s terms, this means that those with the technical ability will be able to dictate, at least to a point, how the console functions.

“We want to move the community forward and provide a persistent, stable and fast method of running your own code and custom firmware patches on Nintendo’s latest flagship product. And we think we’ve succeeded!” the team add.

The console-modding community thrives on rumors, with various parties claiming to have made progress here and there, on this console and that, so it’s natural for people to greet this kind of announcement with a degree of skepticism. That being said, Team-Xecutor is no regular group.

With a long history of console-based meddling, Team-Xecutor’s efforts include hardware solutions for the original Playstation and Playstation 2, an array of hacks for the original Xbox (Enigmah and various Xecuter-branded solutions), plus close involvement in prominent Xbox360 mods. Their pedigree is definitely not up for debate.

For now, the team isn’t releasing any more details on the nature of the hack but they have revealed when the public can expect to get their hands on it.

“Spring 2018 or there around,” they conclude.

Team-Xecutor demo

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

In broad terms, there are two types of unauthorized online streaming of live TV. The first is via open-access websites where users can view for free. The second features premium services to which viewers are required to subscribe.

Usually available for a few dollars, euros, or pounds per month, the latter are gaining traction all around the world. Service levels are relatively high and the majority of illicit packages offer a dazzling array of programming, often putting official providers in the shade.

For this reason, commercial IPTV providers are considered a huge threat to broadcasters’ business models, since they offer a broadly comparable and accessible service at a much cheaper price. This is forcing companies such as US giant Dish Networks to court, seeking relief.

Following on from a lawsuit filed last year against Kodi add-on ZemTV and TVAddons.ag, Dish has just filed two more lawsuits targeting a pair of unauthorized pirate IPTV services.

Filed in Maryland and Texas respectively, the actions are broadly similar, with the former targeting a provider known as Spider-TV.

The suit, filed against Dima Furniture Inc. and Mohammad Yusif (individually and collectively doing business as Spider-TV), claims that the defendants are “capturing
broadcasts of television channels exclusively licensed to DISH and are unlawfully retransmitting these channels over the Internet to their customers throughout the United States, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.”

Dish claim that the defendants profit from the scheme by selling set-top boxes along with subscriptions, charging around $199 per device loaded with 13 months of service.

Dima Furniture is a Maryland corporation, registered at Takoma Park, Maryland 20912, an address that is listed on the Spider-TV website. The connection between the defendants is further supported by FCC references which identify Spider devices in the market. Mohammad Yusif is claimed to be the president, executive director, general manager, and sole shareholder of Dima Furniture.

Dish describes itself as the fourth largest pay-television provider in the United States, delivering copyrighted programming to millions of subscribers nationwide by means of satellite delivery and over-the-top services. Dish has acquired the rights to do this, the defendants have not, the broadcaster states.

“Defendants capture live broadcast signals of the Protected Channels, transcode these signals into a format useful for streaming over the Internet, transfer the transcoded content to one or more servers provided, controlled, and maintained by Defendants, and then transmit the Protected Channels to users of the Service through
OTT delivery, including users in the United States,” the lawsuit reads.

It’s claimed that in July 2015, Yusif registered Spider-TV as a trade name of Dima Furniture with the Department of Assessments and Taxation Charter Division, describing the business as “Television Channel Installation”. Since then, the defendants have been illegally retransmitting Dish channels to customers in the United States.

The overall offer from Spider-TV appears to be considerable, with a claimed 1,300 channels from major regions including the US, Canada, UK, Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

Importantly, Dish state that the defendants know that their activities are illegal, since the provider sent at least 32 infringement notices since January 20, 2017 demanding an end to the unauthorized retransmission of its channels. It went on to send even more to the defendants’ ISPs.

“DISH and Networks sent at least thirty-three additional notices requesting the
removal of infringing content to Internet service providers associated with the Service from February 16, 2017 to the filing of this Complaint. Upon information and belief, at least some of these notices were forwarded to Defendants,” the lawsuit reads.

But while Dish says that the takedowns responded to by the ISPs were initially successful, the defendants took evasive action by transmitting the targeted channels from other locations.

Describing the defendants’ actions as “willful, malicious, intentional [and] purposeful”, Dish is suing for Direct Copyright Infringement, demanding a permanent injunction preventing the promotion and provision of the service plus statutory damages of $150,000 per registered work. The final amount isn’t specified but the numbers are potentially enormous. In addition, Dish demands attorneys’ fees, costs, and the seizure of all infringing articles.

The second lawsuit, filed in Texas, is broadly similar. It targets Mo’ Ayad Al
Zayed Trading Est., and Mo’ Ayad Fawzi Al Zayed (individually and collectively doing business as Tiger International Company), and Shenzhen Tiger Star Electronical Co., Ltd, otherwise known as Shenzhen Tiger Star.

Dish claims that these defendants also illegally capture and retransmit channels to customers in the United States. IPTV boxes costing up to $179 including one year’s service are the method of delivery.

In common with the Maryland case, Dish says it sent almost two dozen takedown notices to ISPs utilized by the defendants. These were also countered by the unauthorized service retransmitting Dish channels from other servers.

The biggest difference between the Maryland and Texas cases is that while Yusif/Spider/Dima Furniture are said to be in the US, Zayed is said to reside in Amman, Jordan, and Tiger Star is registered in Shenzhen, China. However, since the unauthorized service is targeted at customers in Texas, Dish states that the Texas court has jurisdiction.

Again, Dish is suing for Direct Infringement, demanding damages, costs, and a permanent injunction.

The complaints can be found here and here.

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

On an average day, Google processes more than three million takedown notices from copyright holders, and that’s for its search engine alone.

Under the current DMCA legislation, US-based Internet service providers are expected to remove infringing links, if a copyright holder complains.

This process shields these services from direct liability. In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the effectiveness of the system, but Google has always maintained that it works well.

This was also highlighted by Google’s copyright counsel Caleb Donaldson, in an article he wrote for the American Bar Association’s publication Landslide.

“The DMCA provided Google and other online service providers the legal certainty they needed to grow,” Donaldson writes.

“And the DMCA’s takedown notices help us fight piracy in other ways as well. Indeed, the Web Search notice-and-takedown process provides the cornerstone of Google’s fight against piracy.”

The search engine does indeed go beyond ‘just’ removing links. The takedown notices are also used as a signal to demote domains. Websites for which it receives a lot of takedown notices will be placed lower in search results, for example.

These measures can be expanded and complemented by artificial intelligence in the future, Google’s copyright counsel envisions.

“As we move into a world where artificial intelligence can learn from vast troves of data like these, we will only get better at using the information to better fight against piracy,” Donaldson writes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a buzz-term that has a pretty broad meaning nowadays. Donaldson doesn’t go into detail on how AI can fight piracy. It could help to spot erroneous notices, on the one hand, but can also be applied to filter content proactively.

The latter is something Google is slowly opening up to.

Over the past year, we’ve noticed on a few occasions that Google is processing takedown notices for non-indexed links. While we assumed that this was an ‘error’ on the sender’s part, it appears to be a new policy.

“Google has critically expanded notice and takedown in another important way: We accept notices for URLs that are not even in our index in the first place. That way, we can collect information even about pages and domains we have not yet crawled,” Donaldson writes.

In other words, Google blocks URLs before they appear in the search results, as some sort of piracy vaccine.

“We process these URLs as we do the others. Once one of these not-in-index URLs is approved for takedown, we prophylactically block it from appearing in our Search results, and we take all the additional deterrent measures listed above.”

Some submitters are heavily relying on the new feature, Google found. In some cases, the majority of the submitted URLs in a notice are not indexed yet.

The search engine will keep a close eye on these developments. At TorrentFreak, we also found that copyright holders sometimes target links that don’t even exist. Whether Google will also accept these takedown requests in the future, is unknown.

It’s clear that artificial intelligence and proactive filtering are becoming more and more common, but Google says that the company will also keep an eye on possible abuse of the system.

“Google will push back if we suspect a notice is mistaken, fraudulent, or abusive, or if we think fair use or another defense excuses that particular use of copyrighted content,” Donaldson notes.

Artificial intelligence and prophylactic blocking surely add a new dimension to the standard DMCA takedown procedure, but whether it will be enough to convince copyright holders that it works, has yet to be seen.

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