In recent years we’ve written several articles on Apple’s aversion to BitTorrent-related apps in the iOS store.

Until this day, no fully-featured torrent client has managed to get listed in the store, at least not permanently but Google Play has been more welcoming. The popular app store for Android devices has had a nice collection of BitTorrent apps for years, including several well-known brands.

Last weekend, however, the developers of the relatively new BitTorrent client BiglyBT learned that the term “BitTorrent” is no longer allowed. When they pushed an update of their app on Google Play they were informed that their description violated the metadata policy.

“I reviewed your app and had to reject it because it violates our metadata policy. The app’s full description mentions other brands: Bittorrent.”

Play Store rejection

Needless to say, the BiglyBT developers were astounded. The app is created by seasoned BitTorrent developers who previously worked on Azureus and Vuze. Since BitTorrent is the name of the transfer protocol their app is using, they expected no issues.

Initially, this wasn’t the case. When the app was first submitted, Google didn’t flag the description as problematic, but something apparently changed.

“Looks like either Google just newly considered ‘Bittorrent’ a brand, or Bittorrent Inc has decided to enforce their name. I guess it’s not good enough anymore that bittorrent is also the protocol name,” BiglyBT developer TuxPaper informed us.

It could indeed have been possible that BitTorrent Inc, which owns the relevant trademark in the US, had started to enforce it. However, that’s not the case. The San Francisco company informs TorrentFreak that they haven’t asked Google to take any action.

Interestingly, BitTorrent Inc.’s own uTorrent app also disappeared from Google’s app store for a few days last month, but it’s unclear to us why this was. The app eventually returned though, and there are also plenty of other apps with BitTorrent mentions on Google Play.

The good news for BiglyBT’s developers is that their app was allowed back on Google Play after they changed all “BitTorrent” mentions to “torrent.”

Google rejections can happen automatically or after a manual review. If the former applies in this case, other developers may face the same issue in the future.

“If it’s an automated one, then other Bittorrent Apps will also be getting this rejection the next time they update their app or play metadata,” TuxPaper notes.

TorrentFreak reached out to Google for a comment on the situation but a few days have passed without a reply. So for now, it remains a mystery why Google is taking action against “BitTorrent,” and on what grounds.

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For anyone familiar with the BitTorrent brand, there can only be one company that springs to mind. BitTorrent Inc., the outfit behind uTorrent that still employs BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen, seems the logical choice, but not everything is straightforward.

Back in June 2003, a company called BitTorrent Marketing GmbH filed an application to register an EU trademark for the term ‘BitTorrent’ with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The company hoped to exploit the trademark for a wide range of uses from marketing, advertising, retail, mail order and Internet sales, to film, television and video licensing plus “providing of memory space on the internet”.

The trademark application was published in Jul 2004 and registered in June 2006. However, in June 2011 BitTorrent Inc. filed an application for its revocation on the grounds that the trademark had not been “put to genuine use in the European Union in connection with the services concerned within a continuous period of five years.”

A year later, the EUIPO notified BitTorrent Marketing GmbH that it had three months to submit evidence of the trademark’s use. After an application from the company, more time was given to present evidence and a deadline was set for November 21, 2011. Things did not go to plan, however.

On the very last day, BitTorrent Marketing GmbH responded to the request by fax, noting that a five-page letter had been sent along with 69 pages of additional evidence. But something went wrong, with the fax machine continually reporting errors. Several days later, the evidence arrived by mail, but that was technically too late.

In September 2013, BitTorrent Inc.’s application for the trademark to be revoked was upheld but in November 2013, BitTorrent Marketing GmbH (by now known as Hochmann Marketing GmbH) appealed against the decision to revoke.

Almost two years later in August 2015, an EUIPO appeal held that Hochmann “had submitted no relevant proof” before the specified deadline that the trademark had been in previous use. On this basis, the evidence could not be taken into account.

“[The appeal] therefore concluded that genuine use of the mark at issue had not been proven, and held that the mark must be revoked with effect from 24 June 2011,” EUIPO documentation reads.

However, Hochmann Marketing GmbH wasn’t about to give up, demanding that the decision be annulled and that EUIPO and BitTorrent Inc. should pay the costs. In response, EUIPO and BitTorrent Inc. demanded the opposite, that Hochmann’s action should be dismissed and they should pay the costs instead.

In its decision published yesterday, the EU General Court (Third Chamber) clearly sided with EUIPO and BitTorrent Inc.

“The [evidence] document clearly contains only statements that are not substantiated by any supporting evidence capable of adducing proof of the place, time, extent and nature of use of the mark at issue, especially because the evidence in question was submitted, in the present case, three days after the prescribed period expired,” the decision reads.

The decision also notes that the company was given an additional month to come up with evidence and then some – the evidence was actually due on a Saturday so the period was extended until Monday for the convenience of the company.

“Next, EUIPO had duly informed the applicant, by letter of 19 July 2011, that it was ‘required to submit the required evidence of use in reply to the request within three months of receipt of this communication’ and that ‘if no evidence of use [was] submitted within this period, the [EU] mark w[ould] be revoked’,” the decision reads, adding;

“That letter also included guidance on how to provide evidence in a timely manner. Consequently, the applicant knew not only what documents it must submit, but also what the consequences of late submission of evidence were.”

All things considered, the Court rejected Hochmann Marketing GmbH’s application, ultimately deciding that not enough evidence was produced and what did appear was too late. For that, the trademark remains revoked and Hochmann Marketing must cover EUIPO and BitTorrent Inc.’s legal costs.

This isn’t the first time that BitTorrent Inc. has taken on BitTorrent/Hochmann Marketing GmbH and won. In 2014, it took the company to court in the United States and walked away with a $2.2m damages award.

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It’s well known that the US Government is actively involved in copyright enforcement efforts around the globe.

In some countries they’ve actively helped write copyright law. Elsewhere, U.S. authorities provide concrete suggestions for improvement, including in Sweden.

After The Pirate Bay was raided for the first time, more than ten years ago, the media highlighted that the U.S. Government and Hollywood pulled strings behind the scenes. However, little was known about what this actually entailed.

Today we can provide more context, thanks to a Freedom of Information request that was sent to the U.S. Department of State. While the events happened a decade ago, they show how action against The Pirate Bay was discussed at the highest political level.

The trail starts with a cable sent from the US Embassy in Sweden to Washington in November 2005. This is roughly six months before the Pirate Bay raid, which eventually resulted in criminal convictions for four men connected to the site.

The Embassy writes that Hollywood’s MPAA and the local Anti-Piracy Bureau (APB) met with US Ambassador Bivins and, separately, with Swedish State Secretary of Justice at the time, Dan Eliasson. The Pirate Bay issue was at the top of the agenda during these meetings.

“The MPA is particularly concerned about PirateBay, the world‘s largest Torrent file-sharing tracker. According to the MPA and based on Embassy’s follow-up discussions, the Justice Ministry is very interested in a constructive dialogue with the US. on these concerns,” the cable reads.

“Embassy understands that State and Commerce officials have also met with Swedish officials in Washington on the same concern,” it adds, with the Embassy requesting further “guidance” from Washington.

The document adds that there has been some movement on the piracy enforcement front in Sweden, with two legal cases pending. However, those were not the targets Hollywood was looking for.

“We have yet to see a ‘big fish’ tried – something the MPA badly wants to see, particularly in light of the fact that Sweden hosts the largest Bit Torrent file-sharing tracker in the world, ‘Pirate-Bay’, which openly flaunts IPR,” the cable writer comments.

Interestingly, Hollywood and the authorities were aware of the fact that a case against The Pirate Bay wouldn’t be an easy one. The site never stored any infringing material directly and had proper legal backing, the cable points out.

“However, it is not clear to us what constraints Sweden and even U.S. authorities would be under in pursuing a case like this when the site is legally well advised and studiously avoids storing any copyrighted material.”

At the time there were some rumors that Sweden would be placed on the US Trade Representative’s 301 Watch List. This could possibly result in negative trade implications. However, in a cable written April 2006, the US Embassy in Sweden was informed that, while there were concerns, it would not be listed. Not yet at least.

“We understand that a specialized organization for enforcement against Internet piracy currently is under consideration,” the cable reads, while mentioning The Pirate Bay once again.

“We are encouraged by reports of ongoing efforts related to Internet piracy in Sweden; however, the increase in Pirate Bay peers, up 74 percent in just the last 7 months, demonstrates the urgent need to step up current efforts dramatically to address this issue in the near term.”

Then the ‘inevitable’ happened. On May 31, 2006, The Pirate Bay was raided by 65 Swedish police officers. They entered a datacenter in Stockholm with instructions to shut down the Pirate Bay’s servers and collect vital evidence.

A few weeks after the raid, the Embassy sent another cable to Washington informing the homefront on the apparent success of their efforts.

“Starting with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) visit to post last fall, Embassy Stockholm has engaged intensely with our Swedish interlocutors in efforts to improve IPR enforcement, in particular with regard to Internet piracy. The actions on May 31 thus mark a significant victory for our IPR efforts.”

The US clearly saw a link between their diplomatic maneuvering and the Pirate Bay raid. This link was also brought up in the media at the time, with news reports citing sources claiming that Justice Minister Bodström and his State Secretary Dan Eliasson ordered the police raid under US pressure.

Interestingly, both Bodström and Eliasson denied any direct involvement of the Justice Ministry with the work of the police and prosecutors in the Pirate Bay case.

While the cables make it very clear that the US wanted The Pirate Bay gone, the Embassy said that the raid went beyond their expectations, suggesting they were not directly involved. The pressure was clearly there though.

In future cables, the Pirate Bay case was often mentioned, with regular updates on the media backlash and progress in the criminal investigation. According to the US Embassy in Sweden, shutting down The Pirate Bay “should not be underestimated as a sign of [Sweden’s] willingness to take action and their position against illegal piracy.”

The cables also make clear that in Washington, the Pirate Bay raid was celebrated as a victory that was directly triggered by US diplomacy.

In a cable sent in April 2007, the Embassy nominated one of its employees, whose name is redacted, for the State Department’s Foreign Service National (FSN) of the year award. Again, The Pirate Bay case was brought up.

“REDACTED has spearheaded-work on Internet piracy enforcement in Sweden. The issue is particularly acute here as Sweden was home to the largest Internet piracy site (Pirate Bay) in the world. The work has involved extensive contacts with the Ministry of Justice, the Motion Picture Agency, as well as the Anti-Piracy Bureau.”

The employee is praised for her diplomatic efforts behind the scenes which directly led to the decision to raid The Pirate Bay, the Embassy writes.

“REDACTED skillful outreach directly led to a bold decision by Swedish law enforcement authorities to raid Pirate Bay and shut it down. This was recognized as a major achievement in Washington in furthering U.S. efforts to combat Internet piracy worldwide.”

Despite US officials taking credit for the Pirate Bay raid, it didn’t turn out to be the success they had hoped for. The notorious torrent site was back online after three days, “flaunting IPR” bolder and braver than ever before.

The press coverage was largely unfavorable towards the US Government and Hollywood, while the people behind the site were seen as heroes by many.

The US Embassy in Sweden was well aware of the delicate situation but kept pushing for stronger copyright measures behind the scenes. This time even further in the background than before.

“The Pirate Bay raid was portrayed as caving to USG pressure. The delicate situation made it difficult, if not counter-productive, for the Embassy to play a public role on IPR issues. Behind the scenes, the Embassy has worked well with all stakeholders,” Washington was informed February 2008.

At the time, Sweden was being considered for the 301 Watch List once again. The Embassy pointed out that, given the public suspicion, this could backfire. The other option was to keep a potential watch list entry as a “looming threat” while Sweden implements the changes they’re looking for.

“The USG [US Govt] has to carefully determine which course of action will be the most productive; (1) a Watch-Listing with potentially negative repercussions in future GOS [Swedish Govt.] cooperation and in the public eye; or (2) continuing to exercise influence behind the scenes, with a potential Watch-Listing looming in the background as a continued threat.”

As our earlier coverage has shown, Sweden then went on to implement a list of copyright changes which also happened to be proposed by US copyright holders. Needless to say, Sweden was never placed on the US Trade Representative’s 301 Watch List.

TorrentFreak spoke with Peter Sunde, one of the Pirate Bay co-founders who was indicted after the raid, and who has since served a jail sentence for his involvement with the site.

He is happy to see the new information being released. This is yet more confirmation of what he and many others have known for quite some time.

While former Swedish State Secretary of Justice Dan Eliasson, who now happens to be the national police commissioner, denied any direct orders from the Justice Ministry, it’s clear that US pressure made an impact.

“It’s been an open secret that the USG was behind the unlawful raid against The Pirate Bay, and exerting their power with threats against Sweden like this. It’s nice to see these documents coming up, interestingly enough from the most secretive of governments,” he says.

There is still a lot of information missing though. The documents mention a fifth person that was supposed to be indicted, for example, which is completely new information. Sunde hopes that Sweden will open up its secret archives as well.

“I’m hoping that Sweden will now follow up and release the 747 documents they’ve classified as secret regarding this affair. The Minister of Justice at the time, Thomas Bodström, said that he would put all the cards on the table so the public would know what happened, but then classified these 747 documents as secret.

“Sweden has a proud history of transparency, celebrating 250 years of freedom of the press this year, and it’s an open sore that these documents are being held as classified,” Sunde adds.

—

The relevant responses to the Freedom of Information request, which was submitted by Rachael Tackett and shared with TorrentFreak, are available here.

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While piracy-focused tutorials have been around for many years, the advent of streaming piracy coupled with the rise of the YouTube star created a perfect storm online.

Even a cursory search on YouTube now turns up thousands of Kodi addon and IPTV-focused channels, each vying to become the ultimate location for the latest and hottest piracy tips. While these videos don’t appear to be a priority for copyright holders, a channel operator in Brazil has just discovered that they aren’t without consequences.

The case involves Marcelo Otto Nascimento, the operator of YouTube channel Café Tecnológico. It began, strangely, with videos about baking bread but later experimented with videos on technological topics including observations on streaming content without paying for it.

In time, this attracted the negative attention of local TV industry group Associação Brasileira de Televisões por Assinatura (Brazilian Association of Television By Signature / ABTA). The group eventually took legal action, complaining about the nature of Nascimento’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

ABTA told the court that Nascimento had been posting tutorials that “encourage the use of equipment and applications designed to allow access to services and content” of its members, despite that content being protected by copyright. The trade group called for the removal of the content, an injunction against Nascimento, an apology, plus compensation for “material and moral damages.”

In his defense, Nascimento said that he merely comments on IPTV systems, does not breach copyright, doesn’t represent unfair competition, and did not cause the TV companies to incur any losses. Overall, Judge Fernando Henrique de Oliveira Biolcati did not agree with his assertions.

“[T]he plain intention of the defendant was to guide users in order for them to obtain access to the restricted content of the applicant’s associates….while gaining advantages for this, especially via remuneration from the providers of the mentioned applications (YouTube and Facebook), proportional to the volumes of visitors,” the Judge wrote in his ruling.

“This is not a question of mere disinterested comments, in the exercise of freedom of expression,” he added.

As a result, Nascimento was ordered to remove all of his online content that could be deemed instructional for pirates, in order to protect the interests of ABTA’s members and their ability to earn revenue from their content. In addition, the channel operator was forbidden from publishing any more videos of a similar nature.

On top, Nascimento must now pay the copyright holders for material damages, yet to be determined, measured from the posting of the first ‘pirate’ tutorial until such a date when all of the tutorials have been removed.

The ruling (PDF via Mg, Portuguese) also requires Nascimento to pay the equivalent of US$7,600 for “moral damages” plus extra for legal costs, during the next 15 days.

In a statement, ABTA said that following this conviction, more people could fall under the spotlight.

“ABTA is also monitoring the activities of other channels on YouTube and on social networks that publish illegal content such as channel lists, movies and ‘free’ access TV series, as well as tutorials and comparisons of devices or applications intended for illicit use (such as Megabox, HtvBox, Kodi, Dejavu, IPTV, ITVGo, etc.),” the group said.

Meanwhile, Nascimento says that he would’ve taken the videos down if only ABTA had asked him to. He will be appealing the decision, claiming that the videos did not teach people about piracy, they only demonstrated functionality. YouTube declined to comment.

One of the remaining IPTV-focused videos

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Nowadays, movie buffs and videophiles find it hard to imagine a good viewing experience without UHD content, but disc rippers and pirates have remained on the sidelines for a long time.

Protected with strong AACS 2.0 encryption, UHD Blu-ray discs have long been one of the last bastions movie pirates had yet to breach.

This year there have been some major developments on this front, as full copies of UHD discs started to leak online. While it remained unclear how these were ripped, it was a definite milestone.

Just a few months ago another breakthrough came when a Russian company released a Windows tool called DeUHD that could rip UHD Blu-ray discs. Again, the method for obtaining the keys was not revealed.

Now there’s another setback for AACS LA, the licensing outfit founded by Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft, Intel, and others. On various platforms around the Internet, copies of 72 AACS 2.0 keys are being shared.

The first mention we can find was posted a few days ago in a ten-year-old forum thread in the Doom9 forums. Since then it has been replicated a few times, without much fanfare.

The keys

The keys in question are confirmed to work and allow people to rip UHD Blu-ray discs of movies with freely available software such as MakeMKV. They are also different from the DeUHD list, so there are more people who know how to get them.

The full list of leaked keys includes movies such as Deadpool, Hancock, Passengers, Star Trek: Into Darkness, and The Martian. Some movies have multiple keys, likely as a result of different disc releases.

The leaked keys are also relevant for another reason. Ten years ago, a hacker leaked the AACS cryptographic key “09 F9” online which prompted the MPAA and AACS LA to issue DMCA takedown requests to sites where it surfaced.

This escalated into a censorship debate when Digg started removing articles that referenced the leak, triggering a massive backlash.

Thus fas the response to the AACS 2.0 leaks has been pretty tame, but it’s still early days. A user who posted the leaked keys on MyCe has already removed them due to possible copyright problems, so it’s definitely still a touchy subject.

The question that remains now is how the hacker managed to secure the keys, and if AACS 2.0 has been permanently breached.

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