Late last year the RIAA started targeting YouTube ripping sites by sending relatively rare takedown requests to Google.

Instead of the usual DMCA copyright notices, the music group asked the search engine to remove various URLs for alleged violations of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

The sites in question circumvent YouTube’s rolling cipher, which is a technical protection measure that protects audio and video from being copied without permission, the RIAA argued. As such, they should be removed from Google’s search results.

Over the past months, the RIAA has ramped up its efforts, hoping to make it harder for users to find these sites. However, the YouTube rippers themselves weren’t sitting still either. They actively countered the RIAA’s notices by continuously using new URL structures.

We highlighted this development in an article late last month, describing it as a game of whack-a-mole. While the RIAA was the only player on its side, it has now found an ally in its British counterpart, the BPI.

A few days after our whack-a-mole article was published the BPI started sending similar DMCA anti-circumvention notices, targeting the same YouTube downloader the RIAA is after.

Over the past several days, the UK group has sent over a dozen notices. The requests target over a hundred URLs from Mpgun.com, which allegedly circumvents YouTube’s copyright protections.

“To our knowledge, the URLs indicated provide access to a service (and/or software) that circumvents YouTube’s rolling cipher, a technical protection measure, that protects our members’ works on YouTube from unauthorised copying/downloading,” the BPI writes.

This is the same ‘rolling cipher’ the RIAA references, which is another indication that both groups work in tandem.

In fact, the entire statement above is copied verbatim from the RIAA. The BPI only changed the American ‘authorized’ to the British ‘authorised’ and corrected the RIAA’s copyrighted ‘woks’ to ‘works.’

This is the first time the BPI has sent multiple requests of this kind. When looking through the archive we did spot an older notice from October, but that was phrased differently (no cipher mention) and targeted only a single URL.

Whether the extra manpower will lead to any results has yet to be seen. With or without the BPI’s involvement, Mpgun continues to evade and bypass the takedown requests. For now, Google searches for terms such as “YouTube to MP3” and “YouTube downloader” still yield plenty of results, including Mpgun.

In fact, when searching for “MP3 and MP4 YouTube converter,” Mpgun comes up as the first result.

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

Sweden is widely known as the birthplace of The Pirate Bay, without a doubt the most iconic torrent site on the Internet.

However, in recent years the country has also evolved into a hotbed for copyright trolls. These use the same file-sharing technology to extract monetary settlements from suspected pirates.

This ‘copyright-trolling’ phenomenon is driven by a select group of copyright holders. In court, they ask for permission to obtain the personal details of account holders, claiming that their IP-addresses are tied to infringing activity.

The law firms involved represent a variety of companies, including the makers of familiar movie and TV titles such as ‘Angel Has Fallen,’ ‘Black Sails’ and ‘Spartacus,’ but also music, and adult entertainment.

The first wave of these lawsuits in Sweden started almost four years ago but the practice has grown exponentially since. According to Swedish Internet provider Bahnhof, which has kept track of these developments, record numbers were reached last year.

During 2019, a total of 140 new applications were submitted to the Patent and Market Court. This is up from 72 during the whole of 2018, and substantially more than the 27 applications that were filed a year earlier.

Not only has the number of applications grown, but the cases also target more IP-addresses in total. In 2019, 60,368 IPs were targeted which is a 15% increase compared to 2018. Combined with the 2017 numbers, we see that more than 144,000 IP-addresses have been targeted over the past three years.

It’s worth noting that this exceeds the number of targets in other, much larger countries, including the United States. While the US has a much larger population, the number of targeted IP-addresses in federal cases are at most a few thousand in a typical year.

It may seem odd that an Internet provider is keeping track of these statistics. Especially when considering that Bahnhof has an entire website dedicated to the copyright trolling efforts, which it describes as extortion practices.

However, Bahnhof is not an ordinary ISP. The company has been very vocal in opposing these legal demands and actively shields its subscribers from getting exposed. With success, as it simply doesn’t hand over any data.

This dedication to protecting the privacy of subscribers is good PR for the company. Its competitors, however, will be less pleased.

According to Bahnhof, four ISPs were requested to disclose data during the past year. Telia was the main target with 31,572 IP-addresses, followed by Com Hem (19,520), Telenor (9,276), and Tre (312).

A significant number of the targeted IP-addresses were requested by adult entertainment companies, which results in settlement requests such as the one below.

In the request, the account holder is offered a settlement of 7,000 Swedish Krona ($722). At the top of the letter, it prominently states that this is about “filesharing of an erotic movie”.

According to Bahnhof, this type of language is likely used to invoke some extra shame, which may increase the likelihood of paying.

As for the future, there is no sign that things will be slowing down anytime soon. Dozens of new cases have already appeared this year. Time will tell whether we will see another record in 2020.

More information on these and other cases is available on Bahnhof’s website, which is regularly updated with new information.

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

For developers of PC games around the globe there are three certainties – death, taxes and online piracy. While this trio are rarely the subject of amusement, developer Warhorse Studios is doing its best to satirize the latter.

After releasing its action role-playing game Kingdom Come: Deliverance early 2018, the game was quickly cracked by infamous underground group Codex, who released the title online for consumption by the pirating masses. It’s unclear to what extent this event affected sales but within a week of its launch, it had sold a million copies, including more than 300,000 on Steam.

With two million copies sold in the year that followed, Warhorse Studios clearly had a hit on its hands but this year the company showed that it also has a sense of humor. While publicizing a revamp of its headquarters in Prague, the company revealed that it had framed a copy of the information (NFO) file released by Codex with its pirate release, giving it pride of place near the company’s kitchen.

This unorthodox move was met with delight by many of the developer’s fans while also gaining it respect among those who might not traditionally part with cash to enjoy its work. And now, just a month later, Warhorse is poking yet more fun at the piracy phenomenon with another hilarious stunt that may even see it raise a bit of extra cash.

Offered at Displate.com, Displates are described as “one-of-a-kind” metal posters “designed to capture your unique passions.” Their creators note that they’re “sturdy, magnet mounted, and durable enough to withstand a lifetime of intense staring.”

So, if you’re into staring intensely at pirate-created artwork for an eternity, boy does Warhorse Studios have something for you. Pirate ASCII art, preserved on metal.

Warhorse previously explained that it had upscaled the Codex NFO file using AI software, so it’s likely that these metal posters will be of exceptional quality. They are available in three sizes – medium, large, and extra-large – with the latter presented in quadriptych format – i.e four posters combined to make one big image. There’s also a range of colors.

It’s obvious that Warhorse has a sense of humor but it also understands the piracy scene. Many so-called ‘scene’ release groups state that if you enjoy a pirated copy of a game, you should buy it to “support the developer.” With its metalized NFO offering, the developer states in the description that by buying the pirated poster, people will be “supporting the developer of Kingdom Come: Deliverance.”

Pirating the work of pirates is a humorous concept, especially given that the NFO itself almost certainly enjoys copyright protection. Obviously Codex isn’t in any position to do anything about that, which makes the whole episode even more delicious. All that being said, Warhorse certainly doesn’t endorse copyright infringement.

“In all honesty, putting up the CODEX Info was meant to be a joke and a form of self-irony. This doesn’t change the fact that piracy still harms various industries,” PR Manager Tobias Stolz-Zwilling told TF referencing the company’s NFO shenanigans.

“But in the case of Kingdom Come: Deliverance we can rely on and be proud of a strong and loyal community that supported us way before release and even years after. Anyone who intends to pirate your game wouldn’t buy it anyway. All in all, we strongly believe that in a tense world and a tense industry, one should maintain a healthy sense of humor.

“PS: Support your favorite developers – that way you ensure future games.”

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In August 2019, eight men were indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.”

Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Darryl Julius Polo, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, Yoany Vaillant, and Luis Angel Villarino were the operators of Jetflicks, an unlicensed subscription-based TV show streaming service running out of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The defendants were charged with reproducing thousands of copyrighted TV shows and streaming them to customers all over the United States. Jetflicks reportedly had a massive library running to more than 183,000 episodes.

Last December, Darryl Julius Polo – who also ran another service called iStreamitAll – pleaded guilty to copyright infringement and money laundering charges. Alongside, Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement.

The trial of the other defendants is set to go to trial in the summer, having been recently delayed due to Canadian authorities handing over a trove of discovery material. However, a legal matter involving Jetflick’s Kristopher Lee Dallmann has now provided an early glimpse into how that pirate streaming service was born.

As part of a US Government motion requesting confirmation that Dallmann waived his attorney-client privilege with respect to legal advice he received on the operation of Jetflicks, an FBI agent’s affidavit reveals what was said by Dallmann during the execution of a search warrant on his Las Vegas home on November 16, 2017.

Under questioning, Dallmann told the agent that the FBI misunderstood the nature of Jetflicks, claiming it was an entity providing aviation services.

“[Dallmann] described Jetflicks as a service through which customers could put their personal DVD collection onto a mobile device that could be utilized on aircraft,” the agent explained, adding that Dallman said that Jetflicks provided “minimal streaming services” and that its primary source of income came from digitizing personal DVD collections.

During the interview, Dallmann said that Jetflicks only ever had two customers, who combined paid a total of $80,000. Later, however, the Las Vegas resident admitted to streaming TV shows without permission but said that was permissible under the law since if a complaint was received, he would remove the content.

Following a pause in the interview, during which Dallmann used the bathroom, the tone appeared to change. The FBI agent reports Dallmann as weeping while admitting that he hadn’t been telling the entire truth. The Jetflicks business, or the DVD digitization service at least, hadn’t been successful and as a result, he’d turned to downloading TV shows from various websites and streaming them illegally via Jetflicks.

Dallmann volunteered that he had sought legal advice from an unnamed attorney who told him that Jetflicks could operate legally as long as content was taken down following a copyright complaint. However, Dallmann also admitted to receiving a cease-and-desist notice sent by the MPAA but said that the same attorney advised him to ignore it, dismissing the correspondence as having been “written by an amateur”.

According to the US Government, the illegal Jetflicks streaming operation and DVD digitization project (named as Jetflicks MoVi Entertainment System) ran alongside each other. The premise for the latter was that Dallmann “would contract with private aircraft owners to digitize their personal DVD collections of movies and television shows so they could watch their favorite movies and shows on digital devices on their planes.”

Interestingly, it’s reported that the Jetflicks MoVi Entertainment System was being built with copyright in mind. Promotional material seized by the FBI stated that Jetflicks would need to inspect a customer’s DVD collection to ensure that all original copies were owned before a customer’s new digital system could be populated.

“This aviation-services business, however, never got off the ground,” the motion reads.

“So, Mr. Dallmann and other conspirators quickly realized that it was much more lucrative to run and expand what amounted to an illegal version of Netflix, that is, a service where they obtained infringing digital copies of television shows from pirate sites, processed and renamed those works, and then streamed and distributed them on an unlimited basis to paying subscribers.”

While the aviation business failed, it’s claimed that the defendants used its identity to ensure that banks and payment processors for the streaming business carried on supplying their services.

According to the Government, Dallmann and his co-conspirators told service providers that their business focused on in-flight entertainment, referring them to Jetflicks.com rather than the Jetflicks.mobi domain used by the streaming entity.

“For example, beginning in November 2016, Jetflicks used a company called Stripe to process subscriptions for the jetflicks.mobi illegal streaming service,” the motion reads.

“However, the Jetflicks Stripe account listed the domain as ‘jetflicks.com’ and Mr. Dallmann described his business to Stripe as follows: ‘Private and Corporate aviation entertainment system sales, service, and subscription services. We invented the first entertainment system for private aviation that is classified as carry-on equipment’.”

Dallmann reportedly made a further statement to Stripe, shortly after opening the account, that his “aviation” business had 3,500 active customers. An application for a Wells Fargo account had Dallmann stating his business as “In flight entertainment for private jets.”

The untruths apparently continued when Jetflicks responded to streaming customers who complained that certain TV shows weren’t available on the service. They were told that the service’s “legal department” were negotiating contracts with copyright owners and that in some cases “a lot of red tape” was involved.

One customer who asked about the show True Blood was reportedly told that “Contract renewals and negotiations are in progress with HBO. They have a new HBO-ToGo mobile phone app now… so you can understand how they want it all on their app now. We will keep working on it but nothing moves fast with that sort of thing.”

The trial of the six remaining defendants is set to go ahead in July 2020.

The US Government’s motion and supporting affidavit can be found here and here (pdf)

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Rockstar Games, the company behind ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (GTA V), has taken cheat developers and sellers to court around the world in recent years.

We have previously reported of lawsuits in the US and Australia against people involved with the “Elusive” and “Infamous” cheats. More recently, a case in the UK caught our attention.

At the Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court, Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive filed a complaint against several people connected to the now-defunct “Epsilon” cheat.

Epsilon was a so-called ‘mod menu’ which offered players significant advantages. The game companies reportedly shut down the cheat in 2018 and identified five men connected to it. They were accused of copyright infringement by creating and distributing the software.

Since the complaint was filed, three defendants settled their case through consent orders. The remaining two went to court recently, where they hoped to be found not guilty.

The defendants didn’t deny their involvement with Epsilon. However, in defense of the copyright infringement claims, the pair argued that they showed a disclaimer of liability to users of the cheat.

In addition, the two men countered that many of the materials they used to create the cheat were sourced from other sites, including a popular and well-known public cheating site that offers GTA V’s source code.

Epsilon screenshot, courtesy of je modz

According to the court, these and other defenses were not sufficient. The liability disclaimer was seen as “mere window dressing” and the fact that they relied on external sources to create Epsilon is irrelevant.

“[P]ublic availability of the means to infringe copyright is not a defense to copyright infringement,” Justice Falk writes in the order.

All in all, the court ruled in favor of Rockstar and Take-Two, granting summary judgment for copyright infringement against the two men. This means that the case won’t go to trial.

Both defendants were also accused of (inducement of) breach of contract and breach of contract. The court sided with the game companies here as well, except for the breach of contract claim against one of the two, who was a minor at the time of the offense.

As mentioned by Worldipreview, any costs associated with the judgment may have to be determined in a separate trial. Justice Falk, however, hopes that the parties will reach an agreement on this outstanding matter outside of court.

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A copy of Justice Falk’s order at Intellectual Property and Enterprise Court is available here.

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