Like most countries, France is struggling to find ways to stop online piracy running rampant. A number of options have been tested thus far, with varying results.

One of the more interesting cases has been running since 2015, when music industry group SNEP took Google and Microsoft to court demanding automated filtering of ‘pirate’ search results featuring three local artists.

Before the High Court of Paris, SNEP argued that searches for the artists’ names plus the word “torrent” returned mainly infringing results on Google and Bing. Filtering out results with both sets of terms would reduce the impact of people finding pirate content through search, they said.

While SNEP claimed that its request was in line with Article L336-2 of France’s intellectual property code, which allows for “all appropriate measures” to prevent infringement, both Google and Microsoft fought back, arguing that such filtering would be disproportionate and could restrict freedom of expression.

The Court eventually sided with the search engines, noting that torrent is a common noun that refers to a neutral communication protocol.

“The requested measures are thus tantamount to general monitoring and may block access to lawful websites,” the High Court said.

Despite being told that its demands were too broad, SNEP decided to appeal. The case was heard in November where concerns were expressed over potential false positives.

Since SNEP even wants sites with “torrent” in their URL filtered out via a “fully automated procedures that do not require human intervention”, this very site – TorrentFreak.com – could be sucked in. To counter that eventuality, SNEP proposed some kind of whitelist, NextInpact reports.

With no real consensus on how to move forward, the parties were advised to enter discussions on how to get closer to the aim of reducing piracy but without causing collateral damage. Last week the parties agreed to enter negotiations so the details will now have to be hammered out between their respective law firms. Failing that, they will face a ruling from the court.

If this last scenario plays out, the situation appears to favor the search engines, who have a High Court ruling in their favor and already offer comprehensive takedown tools for copyright holders to combat the exploitation of their content online.

Meanwhile, other elements of the French recording industry have booked a notable success against several pirate sites.

SCPP, which represents Warner, Universal, Sony and thousands of others, went to court in February this year demanding that local ISPs Bouygues, Free, Orange, SFR and Numéricable prevent their subscribers from accessing ExtraTorrent, isoHunt, Torrent9 and Cpasbien.

Like SNEP in the filtering case, SCPP also cited Article L336-2 of France’s intellectual property code, demanding that the sites plus their variants, mirrors and proxies should be blocked by the ISPs so that their subscribers can no longer gain access.

This week the Paris Court of First Instance sided with the industry group, ordering the ISPs to block the sites. The service providers were also told to pick up the bill for costs.

These latest cases are yet more examples of France’s determination to crack down on piracy.

Early December it was revealed that since its inception, nine million piracy warnings have been sent to citizens via the Hadopi anti-piracy agency. Since the launch of its graduated response regime in 2010, more than 2,000 cases have been referred to prosecutors, resulting in 189 criminal convictions.

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Nowadays there are dozens of ways for people to pirate free music. Torrent sites, direct downloading portals, stream ripping, you name it.

While the music industry tries to crack down on these unauthorized services, there are also plenty of problems close to home.

Legitimate streaming platforms such as Spotify and Tidal has been used to rip music from, and the same is true for the French streaming giant Deezer.

Through various applications, the public can freely access and download the entire Deezer library, completely hassle-free.

Take Deezloader, for example, which makes it surprisingly easy to grab high-quality tracks, complete with proper titles and tags. Want to download a full album in one click? No problem. A custom playlist of dozens of songs? Done.

Deezloader

Deezer is obviously not happy with these applications. Through DMCA notices the company does its best to take them down. This week it sent a notice to the developer platform GitHub, targetting several of these tools.

“The following projects, in the paragraph below, make available a hacked version of our Deezer application or a method to unlawfully download the music catalogue of Deezer, in total violation of our rights and of the rights of our music licensors,” Deezer wrote.

“..therefore ask that you immediately take down the projects corresponding to the URLs below and all of the related forks by others members who have had access or even contributed to such projects.”

GitHub was quick to respond and removed access to (forks of) applications such as Deezloader, DeezerDownload, Deeze, Deezerio, Deezit, and Deedown. Instead, users who try to access these repositories now see the following notice.

Deezgone?

While the DMCA notice helps to make these projects unavailable, at least on GitHub, the applications still work. They’re also widely available through other sites and forums.

These tools have been around for a while and despite Deezer’s most recent efforts, the music’s still playing

Deezer refers to the pirate applications as “hacked” versions and appears to be unable block them from accessing its own servers. That’s a worrying prospect for the company.

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Last year, Torrentz.eu decided to close its doors. Without prior warning, all torrent listings were removed from the meta-search engine.

As is often the case with torrent sites, this gap was quickly filled. Just several hours after Torrentz has thrown the proverbial towel, several ‘copies’ popped up, eager to take its place.

The most successful alternative, in terms of traffic, is the elegantly named Torrentz2.eu. Unlike many others, Torrentz2 has always been upfront with its users and never claimed to be an official resurrection.

They just wanted to do what Torrentz did, or even better. This worked, as millions of users were drawn to the site. However, since a few days Torrentz2 is no longer listing any torrent links.

People can still search for files, but the site only lists file details and no links to third-party sites where these can be downloaded.

No links?

The problems first started earlier this week and have been persistent since at least Thursday.

To the broader public it’s unclear what’s causing the issue. It could very well be a technical problem that can be addressed easily, or perhaps something more severe.

Interestingly, new torrent data is still being added to the site. The links to other torrent sites are missing, however, which makes it pretty much unusable.

TorrentFreak reached out to the operator to find out more but we haven’t heard back yet. If we received a response the article will be updated accordingly.

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In recent years there has been a boom in video streaming services, some operating with proper licenses and others without.

In a few cases, the line between legal and illegal is hard to spot for the public. When the latest Hollywood blockbusters are available for free it’s quite clear, but there are also slick-looking paid subscription services that operate without proper licenses.

The latter is what eTVnet is accused of. The streaming service targets Russian speakers in the United States and is accessible via the web or streaming boxes such as Roku. However, it does so without proper licenses, a complaint filed at a Massachusetts federal court alleges.

“On information and belief, the eTVnet Conspirators have illegally copied thousands of movies and are distributing them to paying customers illegally,” the complaint reads.

“By populating their streaming video service with stolen, illegally copied, and infringing copyrighted content, the eTVnet Conspirators have unlawfully and unfairly gained an advantage over their competitors, including Plaintiff.”

While this reads like a typical copyright infringement lawsuit, it isn’t. The complaint was filed by the Scottish company Alamite Ventures, which operates TUA.tv, a competing streaming service in the US.

The company filed suit against eTVnet, which is incorporated in Canada, as well as two owners and operators of the streaming service. They stand accused of civil conspiracy, unfair business practices, and false or misleading representations of fact under the Lanham Act.

“The eTVnet Conspirators deceptively market the eTVnet Service as a legal and fully licensed service,” Alamite Ventures notes.

ETVNET

There obviously can’t be a claim for copyright infringement damages, since Alamite is not a copyright holder, but the complaint does mention that major US companies such as HBO, Disney and Netflix are harmed as well.

“Given the staggering amount of copyright infringement committed by the eTVnet Conspirators, the damage to United States-based copyright owners easily eclipses $100,000,000,” it reads.

There is no calculation or evidence to back the $100 million claim, which seems quite substantial. However, according to Alamite Ventures there is no doubt that eTVnet is willingly operating a pirate service.

“…the eTVnet Conspirators know that their actions are illegal and have instituted a sophisticated scheme to avoid getting caught.”

“For example, the eTVnet Conspirators do not allow new users to access the stolen content library until they can verify that the new users are not “spies” or affiliated with content producers or law enforcement.”

Alamite Ventures hopes the court will agree and requests damages, as well as the shutdown of eTVnet in the United States.

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A copy of the full complaint is available here (pdf).

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Way back in 2013, anti-piracy prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad filed a motion targeting two key Pirate Bay domain names – ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se.

Ingblad filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level .SE domain, arguing that the domains are tools that The Pirate Bay uses to infringe copyright.

In April 2015 the case was heard and a month later the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit both ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se to the state. The case later went to appeal.

In May 2016, the Svea Court of Appeal handed down its decision which upheld the decision of the Stockholm District Court, finding that since they assisted with crimes, the domains could be seized.

With that established a question remained – should the domains be seized from Pirate Bay co-founder and domain owner Fredrik Neij or from IIS, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top-level .SE domain?

The Court subsequently found that domain names should be considered a type of intellectual property, property owned by the purchaser of the domain. In this case, therefore, IIS was not considered the owner of the Pirate Bay domains, Fredrik Neij was.

Neij subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the District Court and the Court of Appeal wrongly concluded that a domain name is a type of property that can be confiscated.

Today the Supreme Court handed down its decision, siding with the lower courts and determining that the domains – ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se – can indeed be seized by the state.

“The Supreme Court declares that the right to domain names constitutes property that may be forfeited as the Court of Appeal previously found,” its judgment reads.

Since the decision was handed down, things have been moving quickly. Kjetil Jensen of Online Group, the parent company of domain registry Binero, informs TorrentFreak that the police have already moved to take over the domains in question.

“Today Binero, Binero.se, (registrar for thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se) received an executive request from Swedish Police to take over ownership of the domain names thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se because the Swedish Supreme Court now allows the domain names to be seized,” Jensen says.

“The WHOIS of the domain names shows that the domain names no longer have any active name servers and the next step in this process is that the Police will take over the ownership of the domain names.”

WHOIS entry for ThePirateBay.se

While Binero will cooperate with the authorities, the company doesn’t believe that seizure will solve the online copyright infringement problem.

“Binero considers that the confiscation of a domain name is an ineffective approach to prevent criminal activity on the internet,” Jensen says.

“Moving a site to another top-level domain is very easy. And even if you want to close the domain, content is still available over the internet, using both the IP address and search engines etc.”

Indeed, The Pirate Bay saw this day coming a long way off and has already completely migrated to its original domain, ThePirateBay.org.

Despite the ruling, the site remains fully accessible, but it appears a line has been drawn in the sand in Sweden when it comes to domains that are used to break the law. They will be easier to seize in future, thanks to this lengthy legal process.

The judgment is available here (PDF, Swedish)

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