December 2015, a Virginia federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers.

The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages.

Cox swiftly filed its appeal arguing that the district court made several errors that may ultimately restrict the public’s access to Internet services.

This week the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard oral argument from both sides, which turned out to be an interesting exercise. The panel of judges Motz, Shedd, and Wynn grilled of both attorneys in an effort to distill the crucial arguments.

Cox attorney Michael Elkin was first up. Among other things, he stressed that Cox didn’t have actual and sufficient knowledge of the claimed infringements.

While BMG uncovered internal Cox emails discussing how frequent offenders were kept on board, these were not specifically discussing BMG infringed works, he argues. However, Judge Wynn stressed that the emails in question did discuss Cox’s policy of not disconnecting infringers.

“But they’re talking about the general abuse department in terms of, where we get these things, this is what we’re going to do with them because we don’t want to lose customers. I mean, it’s the same thing,” he said.

It’s also clear that BMG sent over a million takedown notices to Cox. However, since these were not the ones referenced in the company’s internal emails, these are irrelevant when it comes to the company’s liability for alleged contributory infringement, Cox’s attorney noted.

The back and forth over various issues became rather lively up to a point where Elkin was asked to stop interrupting. “When a judge speaks, you have to be quiet,” Judge Shedd said.

BMG attorney Michael Allan was next in line to present his arguments, which were also carefully dissected by the judges. The attorney stressed that in addition to the takedown notices, BMG provided Cox with a wealth of information on the alleged infringers.

He explained that they sent 1.8 million takedown notices to Cox. When asked what the Internet provider should do with all these notices, Allan mentioned the dashboard they made available, which would help the ISP to check all claims.

“We also provided them with a dashboard. It’s a searchable website that they can search by most egregious repeat infringer, they can pull up every single piece of information we’ve ever provided to them, and they can play the actual songs that were downloaded,” BMG’s attorney said.

Judge Wynn, however, questioned whether the ISP’s abuse department would listen to thousands of infringing songs.

“An internet service provider is going to receive 20,000 of these things per day, 1.8 million a year, or whatever, I don’t care. And they’re going to start playing songs and things like that to see if it’s going on?

“You think that’s where this case is going to go?” Wynn added.

The judges then moved on to the repeat infringer question. An important question asked, was what a ‘repeat infringer’ actually is. BMG’s attorney described this as “someone who repeatedly infringes copyright,” but that wasn’t enough.

“How does somebody know a third party is an infringer? ‘Cause you say so?” Judge Shedd asked.

Cox, for example, sees a repeat infringer as someone who has been previously adjudicated, not someone who has received several takedown notices. Eventually, all had to admit that a repeat infringer is not clearly defined in the DMCA.

Judge Wynn then moved on to highlight another peculiarity. While this case deals with Cox’s failure to implement a repeat infringer policy, this legal requirement by itself is rather meaningless. Even when subscribers are disconnected, they can still join another ISP or come back to Cox after a few months, which makes it pointless.

“As Judge Motz indicated it’s not a perfect solution,” BMG’s lawyer commented.

“It’s not even a good one,” Judge Wynn added.

Another controversial topic that came up is the fact that Cox refused to pass on BMG’s demands because the ISP saw the included settlement demands as extortion. While BMG’s attorney tried to downplay the money issue, Judge Shedd made it very clear what this case is actually about.

“[The DMCA notice] says: you are infringing, you can go to this website and click and pay us $20 or $30. If not, you’re looking at a $150,000 fine. It was about collecting money. We don’t dance around that do we?” Shedd said.

Both Cox and BMG ultimately wanted money from the allegedly infringing subscribers, who might now face an even bigger threat.

“You have two corporations fighting over money, which may be justified. But the net effect of this battle is going to be up against another policy, which is, I think it is the policy, that people should have access to the Internet,” Judge Shedd said.

While the case can still go either way, the oral hearing suggests that the panel of judges is not putting too much weight on the notices sent by BMG. The internal emails from Cox appear to be the key part. Still, we’ll have to wait for the full opinion to see if that’s really true.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Search engine results are something on which any Internet user should be able to rely. After entering a search term, we generally expect the most relevant results to appear at the top, which seems like a fair assumption.

That being said, all searches aren’t equal, even when the same parameters are entered into the same company’s product. Case in point: Google Search and The Pirate Bay.

We’ve known for years that due to entertainment industry pressure, Google has been demoting pirate sites in its search results. That’s perhaps understandable when trying to deter a user from finding specific content via a Google search but should that affect a search about the site itself?

If one types the term The Pirate Bay into Google, there is no reason for the site iin question not to appear at the top of the list. After all, it’s the most informative result for one of the world’s most popular sites. However, tests carried out by TF show that some Google search variants coupled with certain countries’ IP addresses produce dramatically different results.

In all tests we began with an incognito Chrome browser window, to ensure no previous behavior affected our results. We then commenced testing searches for The Pirate Bay, with the UK up first. We know that Google has been under pressure to demote pirate sites in the country, so it wasn’t a surprise to find a relatively poor result.

Using a UK-based IP address to access Google.co.uk, we had to click through to the fifth page of results to find the entry for thepiratebay.org, the site’s main domain.

Google.co.uk, accessed via a UK IP address

However, when we carried out exactly the same test on Google.co.uk but after substituting our UK IP address for one located in the United States, a very different result was achieved. As can be seen in the image below, thepiratebay.org now appears as the very top result, as it should.

Google.co.uk, accessed via a US IP address

Given the above, there’s the suggestion that Google only penalizes users of Google.co.uk searching for The Pirate Bay, if they’re using a UK-based IP address. So we switched things around a little bit to try and find out.

Testing Google.com with a US-based IP address, thepiratebay.org appeared as the top result, as expected. Then, when accessing Google.com with a UK-based IP address, thepiratebay.org was relegated to the sixth page of Google results, which wasn’t a surprise.

Thus far, one could be forgiven for thinking that having a UK-based IP address is the poisoned chalice here. So, with that in mind, we switched over to the Netherlands for some testing there.

Using a Netherlands-based IP address on Google.nl, thepiratebay.org appears as the first result. But, to our surprise, deploying a UK IP address on the same service returns exactly the same position, i.e right at the very top. The same was true for searches carried out on Google.ca (Canada). No matter what IP addresses were used, thepiratebay.org appeared at the top of results.

Of course, The Pirate Bay has been blocked in the UK for some time, so people may have switched away from searching directly for The Pirate Bay towards other proxy services, for example. However, that doesn’t change the indisputable fact that a search for The Pirate Bay should list the site as the first result – because that’s what people are looking for.

But if people think that only UK-based searchers are getting a raw deal, then they should reconsider.

Over in India, using an Indian IP address to access Google.co.in, thepiratebay.org doesn’t appear until page 8. Somewhat unexpectedly, doing a similar search on the same Google variant using a UK IP address actually improved matters, with thepiratebay.org appearing more readily on page 6.

A lowly page 8 for Indian searchers of The Pirate Bay

But in terms of results, there are other countries doing even worse. Tests carried out on Google.fr (France) reveal that thepiratebay.org doesn’t appear until page 12, a result matched identically by Google.ru (Russia), no matter which source IP addresses were used.

To be clear, it’s not like Google doesn’t understand the significance of the site in these low-ranking regions or that searchers aren’t interested. Although it doesn’t place the actual site until a dozen pages down the road, Google is very happy to list dozens of proxies in the first sets of results, including some fake ‘Pirate Bay’ sites that Google itself flags up as unsafe due to malware.

Overall, it’s hard to find much consistency but it’s reasonable to presume that at least to some extent, searches for The Pirate Bay are being manipulated, depending on where you live and which search variant people use. For English speakers, Canada seems a good variant for now. But that could change at any moment.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

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

Sweden is not spared from these practices. A recent wave of threatening letters, sent out on behalf of film distributors including those behind the zombie movie Cell, targets thousands of local Internet users.

The campaign is coordinated by Danish law firm Njord Law. The company accuses people of downloading the movie without permission and demands a settlement, as is common with these copyright troll schemes.

The scope of the latest campaign is enormous as 20,000 new IP-addresses were collected. Swedish courts can order ISPs to uncover the identities of thousands of IP addresses, in a single batch. That’s quite a lot compared to the US, where the same filmmakers can target only a dozen Internet accounts at a time.

While recipients of these letters can be easily scared by the legal language and proposed 4,500 SEK [$550] settlement, not all experts are impressed.

Sanna Wolk, Intellectual Property Professor at Uppsala University, recommends people to ignore the letters entirely.

“Do not pay. You do not even have to answer it. 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,” Wolk tells Ny Teknik.

However, if the case does indeed move beyond a threat and goes to court then it’s important for the accused to contest the claim.

Njord Law says that it will follow up on their ‘promise’ and take people to court if they ignore their settlement requests.

Whether they have the resources to sue thousands of people is questionable though. Similarly, it remains to be seen how good an IP-address is as evidence, since it doesn’t identify a single person, just a connection.

The law firm also highlights that subscribers can be held liable even if someone else used their connection to download the film. However, professor Wolk stresses that this isn’t necessarily true.

“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,” she states.

The Copyright Professor refers to the McFadden vs Sony Music ruling where the EU Court of Justice found that the operator of an open WiFi network can’t be held liable for infringements carried out by his users.

National courts have some leeway and could order someone to protect his or her WiFi connection, but this doesn’t mean that they are liable for past infringements.

It’s doubtful that Njord Law and their clients will change their tune. Not all people will read the professor’s comments and their scheme generally thrives on the easily threatened and uninformed. Still, most of the accused will probably sleep better after reading it.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

YouTube is the world’s leading video and music service and has partnerships with thousands of artists and other publishers around the globe.

While many are happy with the revenue they’re generating from the Google-owned platform, there has been a lot of negative commentary as well.

Several major record labels are complaining about the so-called ‘value gap‘ and the low payouts per streaming view, for example. This view is shared by the Content Creators Coalition (c3), an artist-run advocacy organization for musicians.

The group has just released two new ads calling on the streaming service to give artists more options to prevent piracy while calling on Congress to update the DMCA.

Rehashing the old Apple vs. Microsoft ad theme, the first video depicts an artist who is trying to get pirated content removed from the site. In the ad, YouTube is not particularly helpful, suggesting that pirated content is quickly re-uploaded after it’s removed.

Interestingly, there is no mention of the Content-ID program which many creators successfully use to prevent pirated content from reappearing. The vast majority (98%) of all copyright complaints are currently handled automatically through the Content-ID system.

Takedown Whack-a-Mole?

The second ad complains about poor payments. In this video, the artist gets paid more from all smaller streaming services, even though these generated only a fraction of the views compared to YouTube.

This complaint is not new either. Over the past several years, YouTube has been called out repeatedly for not paying enough. Not only that, the streaming service has also been accused of running a DMCA protection racket, profiting from pirated streams while hiding behind the DMCA’s safe harbor protections.

Pennies?

The Content Creators Coalition says that the advertisements will run on YouTube and other digital platforms as part of a significant new ad buy.

“Google’s YouTube has shortchanged artists while earning billions of dollars of our music. Artists know YouTube can do better,” c3 President and award-winning bassist Melvin Gibbs says.

“So, rather than hiding behind outdated laws, YouTube and Google should work to give artists more control over our music and pay music creators fairly when our songs are played on their platform.”

While these complaints are nothing new for YouTube, they are also intended to rally support from the public and lawmakers.

“Our ads send a message to the executives in Mountain View that artists are fighting back and mobilizing fans to push Congress to update the DMCA and end the legal neglect that has given Big Tech too much power over our work and society,” Gibbs adds.

YouTube itself paints an entirely different picture. The company previously stated that it goes above and beyond what it’s required to do by law, while paying billions to copyright holders.

“Content ID goes beyond a simple ‘notice-and-takedown’ system to provide a set of automated tools that empowers rightsholders to automatically claim their content and choose whether to track, block or monetize it on YouTube,” senior policy counsel Katherine Oyama noted.

“YouTube has paid out over $2 billion to rightsholders who have monetized their content through Content ID since it first launched. In fact, today well over 90% of all Content ID claims across the platform result in monetization.”

This music industry vs YouTube battle is far from over.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Without doubt, streaming is the hot topic in piracy right now, with thousands of illicit channels, TV shows and movies just a few clicks away.

As widely reported, the legal Kodi software augmented with illicit third-party addons is the preferred way to watch for millions of users. However, if people don’t mind sitting at a desktop machine, there’s also a thriving underbelly of indexing sites and similar platforms offering unauthorized access to infringing content.

According to information released by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, an individual in the UK has just felt the wrath of the High Court for providing content to one such platform.

“On Monday 23 October 2017 a judgment was obtained in the High Court against a Sky customer who had been streaming Sky Sports content illegally online,” FACT reports.

“Mr Yusuf Mohammed, of Bristol, has been ordered to pay legal costs of over £16,000, and to disclose details about the money he made and people he colluded with.”

With FACT releasing no more information, TorrentFreak contacted the anti-piracy group for more details on the case.

“Mohammed shared the Sky Sports stream via a piracy blog,” FACT Director of Communications Alice Skeats told TF.

Although FACT didn’t directly answer our question on the topic, their statement that Mohammed was a Sky customer seems to suggest that he might’ve re-streamed content he previously paid for. When we can clarify this point, we will.

FACT didn’t name the ‘piracy blog’ either, nor did it respond to questions about how many people may have viewed Mohammed’s illegal streams. However, FACT did confirm that he streamed Sky Sports channels so potentially a wide range of sports was made available.

The other interesting factor is the claim that Mohammed made money from his streams. Again, FACT didn’t reveal how that revenue was generated (understandable since the case is ongoing) but it seems likely that advertising played a part, as it often does on pirate platforms.

Whether Mohammed will comply with the High Court’s orders to reveal who he colluded with is something for the future but even if he does, Sky isn’t finished with him yet. According to FACT, Mohammed’s already sizeable costs bill will be augmented with a claim for damages from the satellite broadcaster.

While providing and profiting from illegal streams could easily be considered criminal in the UK, FACT confirmed that the case against Mohammed was brought by Sky and supported by FACT in a civil proceeding alone. That was also the case last week when an individual who shared the Joshua vs Klitschko fight on Facebook apologized to Sky and agreed to pay Sky legal costs.

That’s an option Middlesborough businessman Brian Thompson didn’t enjoy when he was arrested for selling infringing ‘Kodi boxes’ two years ago. He was handed an 18 month suspended prison sentence last Friday, after being prosecuted by his local council.

Thompson won’t have to pay compensation but he still gets a criminal record, which can be a major hindrance when trying to get a job or even something as simple as cost-effective insurance cover. Whether these details will have any effect on other commercial pirates in the UK will remain to be seen but it’s certainly possible that some will begin to think twice.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.