While Kodi is undoubtedly the most popular media player software in the world right now, it’s also the most hated by entertainment industry groups. On its own its an extremely decent and legal piece of software but with third-party add-ons it becomes a piracy powerhouse.

Earlier this year, following the legal attack on the TVAddons repository, several addon developers decided to call it quits. Facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit was something none of them fancied so shutting down became the preferred option for some. But while others kept going, there are now clear signs that the fallout isn’t over yet.

Last evening news began to emerge of fresh upheaval in the Kodi addon scene. In a posting on Twitter, Kodi addon developer jsergio123 delivered the first blow, effectively announcing his retirement.

“Sorry to say but I am stopping all development of the urlresolver, metahandler, and my other addons,” he said.

Early reports indicate that the retirement was the result of Hollywood threats but as the dust settled there, another clearer case emerged in Europe.

UK-based Kodi addon developer The_Alpha was believed to be involved in the popular Colossus repository, having previously been part of an addon called Bennu, which many view as the successor to the resurrected Phoenix addon.

Yesterday The_Alpha also threw in the towel after receiving a letter at his home in the UK, hand-delivered by the world’s most powerful anti-piracy coalition – the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (1,2).

“This letter is addressed to you by companies of the six-major United States film studios represented by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), namely Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Universal City Studios LLLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Netflix, Inc. and Amazon Studios LLC (represented by MPA via the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE)), Sky UK Limited, and The Football Association Premier League Limited,” the breathless opening paragraph reads.

“We are writing to you concerning your development, distribution and/or involvement in the operation of certain third party Kodi add-ons under the moniker ‘The Alpha’. The infringing addons provide unlawful access to protected copyright works, including works owned by, or exclusively licensed to, the Content Companies.”

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by TVAddons, also notes The_Alpha’s involvement in the popular Colossus Kodi addon repository, which shut down last evening, taking dozens of popular addons with it.

The letter: shut down – or else

The shutdown of the Colossus repo and the two developers’ addons is undoubtedly a severe blow to the Kodi scene. But, while many casual users might be familiar with Colossus and Bennu, most won’t appreciate the importance of URLResolver. Most recently maintained by jsergio12 and distributed via TVAddons, this is an extremely important addon. Here’s how it works.

When Kodi plays content using addons, whether that’s a movie or TV show, links to that content have to be obtained (scraped) from sites hosting it. This means that all addons would ordinarily have to have their own code in order to find the URLs where that content can be obtained. It can be a different process for every video host, a big job for any developer. That’s where URLResolver comes in.

This clever tool helps other addons access content by resolving video hosting site URLs to enable related content to be played in Kodi. URLResolver is a really important tool but since it comes packaged with addons that rely on it, most users won’t even know it’s already on their system.

They’ll definitely miss it when it’s gone, since among other things it was utilized by the extremely popular Covenant addon. All may not be lost though, since TVAddons indicate they’ll try to keep URLResolver alive.

“TV ADDONS has been distributing URLResolver from our community repository since our return in August. We plan on continuing to provide updates, although we expect things to be slowed a bit by jsergio123’s sudden retirement,” the site said.

While also useful, MetaHandler is a different beast. The addon queries sites such as thetvdb.com, themoviedb.org and imdb.com, extracts relevant metadata (such artwork and summaries etc) and installs it in a database for local use in Kodi.

Adding to his retirement announcement, Jsergio123 took to Twitter to confirm problems over in the UK.

“I am not responsible for Covenant and Bennu but Colossus has agreed to delete the repo too,” Jsergio123 confirmed.

The Colossus repo has been taken offline, taking the addons above and many others with it. The fallout from this could be pretty significant so it will interesting to see how the community responds.

There’s no publicly confirmed reason for Jsergio123 discontinuing development but given the obvious problems in the UK and a subsequent tweet, everything points to the whole affair being linked to the same threats of legal action.

The community needs to support @tvaddonsco legal battle. That's all I'm going to say.

— jsergio123 (@jsergio123) 15 November 2017

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

Update: The hugely popular Ares Wizard has also gone offline.

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While most cracking groups operate under a veil of secrecy, China-based 3DM is not shy to come out in public.

The group’s leader, known as Bird Sister, has commented on various gaming and piracy related issues in the past.

She also spoke out when her own group was sued by the Japanese game manufacturer Koei Tecmo last year. The company accused 3DM of pirating several of its titles, including Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

However, Bird Sister instead wondered why the company should be able to profit from a work inspired by a 3rd-century novel from China.

“…why does a Japanese company, Koei have the copyright of this game when the game is obviously a derivation from the book “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” written by Chen Shou. I think Chinese gaming companies should try taking back the copyright,” she said.

Bird Sister

The novel in question has long since been in the public domain so there’s nothing stopping Koei Tecmo from using it, as Kotaku points out. The game, however, is a copyrighted work and 3DM’s actions were seen as clear copyright infringement by a Chinese court.

In a press release, Koei Tecmo announces that it has won its lawsuit against the cracking group.

The court ordered 3DM to stop distributing the infringing games and awarded a total of 1.62 million Yuan ($245,000) in piracy damages and legal fees.

While computer games are cracked and pirated on a daily basis, those responsible for it are rarely held accountable. This makes the case against 3DM rather unique. And it may not be the last if it’s up to the game manufacturer.

“We will continue to respond rigorously to infringements of our copyrights and trademark rights, both in domestic and overseas markets, while also developing satisfying games that many users can enjoy,” said the company, commenting on the ruling.

While the lawsuit may help to steer the cracking group away from pirating Koei Tecmo games, it can’t undo any earlier releases. Court order or not, past 3DM releases, including Romance of the Three Kingdoms titles, are still widely available through third-party sites.

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Companies that aim to turn piracy into profit have been in existence for more than a decade but still the controversy around their practices continues.

Most, known colloquially as ‘copyright trolls’, monitor peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent, collecting IP addresses and other data in order to home in on a particular Internet account. From there, ISPs are sued to hand over that particular subscriber’s personal details. Once they’re obtained, the pressure begins.

At this point, trolls are in direct contact with the public, usually by letter. Their tone is almost always semi-aggressive, warning account holders that their actions are undermining entire industries. However, as if by magic, all the harm can be undone if they pay up few hundred dollars, euros, or pounds – quickly.

That’s the case in Sweden, where law firm Njord Law is representing the well-known international copyright trolls behind the movies CELL, IT, London Has Fallen, Mechanic: Resurrection, Criminal, and September of Shiraz.

“Have you, or other people with access to the aforementioned IP address, such as children living at home, viewed or tried to watch [a pirate movie] at the specified time?” Njord Law now writes in its letters to alleged pirates.

“If so, the case can be terminated by paying 4,500 SEK [$550].”

It’s clear that the companies involved are diving directly for cash. Indeed, letter recipients are told they have just two weeks to pay up or face further issues. The big question now is whether these demands are permissible under law, not necessarily from a copyright angle but due to the way they are presented to the alleged pirates.

The Swedish Data Protection Authority (Datainspektionen) is a public authority tasked with protecting the privacy of the individual in the information society. Swedish Radio reports that it has received several complaints from Swedes who have received cash demands and as a result is investigating whether the letters are legal.

As a result, the authority now has to determine whether the letters can be regarded as a debt collection measure. If so, they will have to comply with special laws and would also require special permission.

“They have not classified this as a debt collection fee, but it is not that element that is crucial. A debt collection measure is determined by whether there is any kind of pressure on the recipient to make a payment. Then there is the question of whether such pressure can be considered a debt collection measure,” says lawyer Camilla Sparr.

Of course, the notion that the letters exist for the purposes of collecting a debt is rejected by Njord Law. Lawyer Jeppe Brogaard Clausen says that his company has had no problems in this respect in other jurisdictions.

“We have encountered the same issue in Denmark and Finland and it was judged by the authorities that there is no talk about a debt collection letter,” Clausen told SR.

A lot hinges on the investigation of the Data Protection Authority. Njord Law has already obtained permission to find out the identities behind tens of thousands of IP addresses, including a single batch where 25,000 customers of ISP Telia were targeted.

At least 5,000 letters demanding payment have been sent out already and another 5,000 are lined up for the next few months. Clausen says their purpose is to change Swedes’ attitude towards illegal file sharing but there’s a broad belief that they’re part of a global network of companies whose aims are to generate profit from piracy.

But while the Data Protection Authority does its work, there is plenty of advice for letter recipients who don’t want to cave into demands for cash. Last month, Copyright Professor Sanna Wolk advised them to ignore the letters entirely.

“Do not pay. You do not even have to answer it,” Wolk told people receiving a letter.

“In the end, it’s the court that will decide whether you have to pay or not. We have seen this type of letter in the past, and only very few times those in charge of the claims have taken it to court.”

Of course, should copyright holders actually take a matter to court, then recipients must contest the claim since failure to do so could result in a default judgment. This means they lose the case without even having had the opportunity to mount a defense.

Importantly, one such defense could be that the individual didn’t carry out the offense, perhaps because their WiFi isn’t password protected or that they share their account with others.

“Someone who has an open network cannot be held responsible for copyright violations – such as downloading movies – if they provide others with access to their internet connection. This has been decided in a European Court ruling last year,” Wolk noted.

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In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees, or face legal repercussions.

These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States for more than half a decade, and still are.

While copyright holders should be able to take legitimate piracy claims to court, there are some who resort to dodgy tactics to extract money from alleged pirates. The evidence isn’t exactly rock-solid either, which results in plenty of innocent targets.

A prime candidate for the latter category is a man who was sued by Venice PI, a copyright holder of the film “Once Upon a Time in Venice.” He was sued not once, but twice. That’s not the problem though. What stood out is that defendant is no longer alive.

The man’s wife informed a federal court in Seattle that he passed away recently, at the respectable age of 91. While age doesn’t prove innocence, the widow also mentioned that her husband suffered from dementia and was both mentally and physically incapable of operating a computer at the time of the alleged offense.

These circumstances raised doubt with US District Court Judge Thomas Zilly, who brought them up in a recent order (citations omitted).

“In two different cases, plaintiff sued the same, now deceased, defendant, namely Wilbur Miller. Mr. Miller’s widow submitted a declaration indicating that, for about five years prior to his death at the age of 91, Mr. Miller suffered from dementia and was both mentally and physically incapable of operating a computer,” the Judge writes.

The Judge notes that the IP-address tracking tools used by the copyright holder might not be as accurate as is required. In addition, he adds that the company can’t simply launch a “fishing expedition” based on the IP-address alone.

“The fact that Mr. Miller’s Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address was nevertheless identified as part of two different BitTorrent ‘swarms’ raises significant doubts about the accuracy of whatever IP-address tracking method plaintiff is using.

“Moreover, plaintiff may not, based solely on IP addresses, launch a fishing expedition aimed at coercing individuals into either admitting to copyright infringement or pointing a finger at family members, friends, tenants, or neighbors. Plaintiff must demonstrate the plausibility of their claims before discovery will be permitted,” Judge Zilly adds.

From the order

Since the copyright holder has only provided an IP-address as evidence, the plausibility of the copyright infringement claims is not properly demonstrated. This means that the holder was not allowed to conduct discovery, which includes discussions with defendants.

The court, therefore, ordered Venice PI to cease all communication with defendants effective immediately, until further notice. This order applies to a dozen cases which are now effectively on hold.

The copyright holder has been given 28 days to provide more information on several issues related to the evidence gathering. This offer of proof should be supported by a declaration of an expert in the field.

The Judge wants to know if an IP-address can be spoofed or faked by a BitTorrent tracker, and if so, how likely this is. In addition, he questions if the material that was tracked (possible only part of a download) is actually playable. And finally, the Judge asks what other evidence Venice PI has against each defendant, aside from the IP-address.

“In the absence of a timely filed offer of proof, plaintiff’s claims will be dismissed with prejudice and without costs, and these cases will be closed,” Judge Zilly warns.

The harsh order was noticed by copyright troll skeptic FCT, who notes that Venice PI will have a hard time providing the requested proof.

Venice and other “copyright trolls” use the German company Maverickeye to track BitTorrent pirates on a broad scale. They are also active with their settlement demands in various other countries, most recently in Sweden.

If the provided proof is not sufficient in the court’s opinion, it will be hard for them and other rightsholders to continue their practices in the Washington district.

—

The full order is available here (pdf).

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Following a long-running case, in 2015 Austrian ISPs were ordered by the Commercial Court to block The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites including 1337x.to, isohunt.to, and h33t.to.

The decision was welcomed by the music industry, which looked forward to having more sites blocked in due course.

Soon after, local music rights group LSG sent its lawyers after several other large ISPs urging them to follow suit, or else. However, the ISPs dug in and a year later, in May 2016, things began to unravel. The Vienna Higher Regional Court overruled the earlier decision of the Commercial Court, meaning that local ISPs were free to unblock the previously blocked sites.

The Court concluded that ISP blocks are only warranted if copyright holders have exhausted all their options to take action against those actually carrying out the infringement. This decision was welcomed by the Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), which described the decision as an important milestone.

The ISPs argued that only torrent files, not the content itself, was available on the portals. They also had a problem with the restriction of access to legitimate content.

“A problem in this context is that the offending pages also have legal content and it is no longer possible to access that if barriers are put in place,” said ISPA Secretary General Maximilian Schubert.

Taking the case to its ultimate conclusion, the music companies appealed to the Supreme Court. Another year on and its decision has just been published and for the rightsholders, who represent 3,000 artists including The Beatles, Justin Bieber, Eric Clapton, Coldplay, David Guetta, Iggy Azalea, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Metallica, George Michael, One Direction, Katy Perry, and Queen, to name a few, it was worth the effort.

The Court looked at whether “the provision and operation of a BitTorrent platform with the purpose of online file sharing [of non-public domain works]” represents a “communication to the public” under the EU Copyright Directive. Citing the now-familiar BREIN v Filmspeler and BREIN v Ziggo and XS4All cases that both received European Court of Justice rulings earlier this year, the Supreme Court concluded it was.

Citing another Dutch case, in which Playboy publisher Sanoma took on the blog GeenStijl.nl, the Court noted that linking to copyrighted content hosted elsewhere also amounted to a “communication to the public”, a situation mirrored on torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.

“The similarity of the technical procedure in this case when compared to BitTorrent platforms lies in the fact that in both cases the operators of the website did not provide any copyrighted works themselves, but merely provided further information on sites where the protected works were available,” the Court notes in its ruling.

In respect of the potential for blocking legitimate content as well as that infringing copyright, the Court turned the ISPs’ own arguments against them somewhat.

The ISPs had previously argued that blocking The Pirate Bay and other sites was pointless since the torrents they host would still be available elsewhere. The Court noted that point and also found that people can easily upload their torrents to sites that aren’t blocked, since there’s plenty of choice.

The ISPA criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting that in future ISPs will still find themselves being held responsible for decisions concerning blocking.

“We do not support illegal content on the Internet in any way, but consider it extremely questionable that the decision on what is illegal and what is not falls to ISPs, instead of a court,” said ISPA Secretary General Maximilian.

“Although we find it positive that a court of last resort has taken the decision, the assessment of the website in the first instance continues to be left to the Internet provider. The Supreme Court’s expansion of the circle of sites that be potentially blocked further complicates this task for the operator and furthers the privatization of law enforcement.

“It is extremely unpleasant that even after more than 10 years of fierce discussion, there is still no compelling legal basis for a court decision on Internet blocking, which puts providers in the role of both judge and hangman.”

Also of interest is ISPA’s stance on how blocking of content fails to solve the underlying issue. When content is blocked, rather than removed, it simply displaces the problem, leaving others to pick up the pieces, the Internet body argues.

“Illegal content is permanently removed from the network by deletion. Everything else is a placebo with extremely dangerous side effects, which can easily be bypassed by both providers and consumers. The only thing that remains is a blocking infrastructure that can be misused for many purposes and, unfortunately, will be used in many places,” Schubert says.

“The current situation, where providers have to block the rightsholders quasi on the spot, if they do not want to engage in a time-consuming and cost-intensive litigation, is really not sustainable so we issue a call to action to the legislature.”

The domains that were listed in the case, many of which are already defunct, are: thepiratebay.se, thepiratebay.gd, thepiratebay.la, thepiratebay.mn, thepiratebay.mu, thepiratebay.sh, thepiratebay.tw, thepiratebay.fm, thepiratebay.ms, thepiratebay.vg, isohunt.to, 1337x.to and h33t.to.

Whether it will be added later is unclear, but the only domain currently used by The Pirate Bay (thepiratebay.org) is not included in the list.

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