In recent years file-sharers around the world have been targeted with lawsuits by copyright holders seeking financial compensation.

These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have become a common occurrence in the United States as well, with producers of adult content as most active participants.

A few days ago, however, a new name started to appear in the court dockets. In a series of complaints filed at federal courts in Connecticut, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, World Wrestling Entertainment is going after anonymous BitTorrent users.

The lawsuits are filed by daughter company WWE Studios Finance which is connected to the filmmaking activities of the organization. WWE has produced several movies in recent years including the recent “Eliminators” title featuring wrestling superstar Wade Barrett.

Like many other films, pirated copies are widely circulating online, and the wrestling organization is now targeting dozens suspected BitTorrent users for making it available. The number of defendants varies per lawsuit, ranging from eight to several dozens.

“Defendants willfully infringed upon WWE’s Work by participating in the unlawful and unauthorized acquisition, reproduction and distribution of copies of the Work by downloading
and subsequently sharing the Work through the use of the BitTorrent Protocol,” WWE write in the Connecticut complaint (pdf).

“Defendants engaged in this sharing even though the Work contained explicit language warning viewers that unlawful reproduction and distribution without WWE’S permission is unlawful,” WWE adds.

The alleged copyright infringements lead to a loss of income for the producers, WWE argues, and it’s ultimately hurting local theaters, venues, and the greater state economy as well.

The complaints in question only list IP-addresses and no names. WWE recognizes that the account holder itself may not be the infringer and states that it will conduct additional discovery to make sure that the right persons are targeted.

These alleged infringers then face actual or statutory damages which, in theory, can go up to $150,000. That is unless they settle out of court, which is what usually happens in such cases.

It might not always go that far though, as some courts don’t want more file-sharing defendants to be joined in one lawsuit. Indeed, shortly after WWE Studios Finance submitted their complaint in Connecticut, the Court ordered the company to explain why their case shouldn’t be dismissed for lack of proper joinder.

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

Founded half a decade ago, Swefilmer grew to become Sweden’s most popular movie and TV show streaming site. At one stage, Swefilmer and fellow streaming site Dreamfilm were said to account for 25% of all web TV viewing in Sweden.

In 2015, local man Ola Johansson took to the Internet to reveal that he’d been raided by the police under suspicion of being involved in running the site. In March 2016, a Turkish national was arrested in Germany on a secret European arrest warrant.

After a couple of false starts, one last June and another this January, the case finally got underway yesterday in Sweden.

The pair stand accused of the unlawful distribution of around 1,400 movies, owned by a dozen studios including Warner, Disney and Fox. Investigators tested 67 of the titles and ten had been made available online before their DVD release.

Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance claims that the site generated a lot of money from advertising without paying for the appropriate licenses. On the table are potential convictions for copyright infringement and money laundering.

Follow the money

In common with so many file-sharing related cases, it’s clear that the men in this case were tracked down from traces left online. Those included IP address evidence and money trails from both advertising revenues and site donations.

According to Sveriges Radio who were in court yesterday, police were able to trace two IP addresses used to operate Swefilmer back to Turkey.

In an effort to trace the bank account used by the site to hold funds, the prosecutor then sought assistance from Turkish authorities. After obtaining the name of the 26-year-old, the prosecutor was then able to link that with advertising revenue generated by the site.

Swefilmer also had a PayPal account used to receive donations and payments for VIP memberships. That account was targeted by an investigator from Rights Alliance who donated money via the same method. That allowed the group to launch an investigation with the payment processor.

The PayPal inquiry appears to have been quite fruitful. The receipt from the donation revealed the account name and from there PayPal apparently gave up the email and bank account details connected to the account. These were linked to the 26-year-old by the prosecutor.

Advertising

The site’s connections with its advertisers also proved useful to investigators. The prosecution claimed that Swefilmer received its first payment in 2013 and its last in 2015. The money generated, some $1.5m (14m kronor), was deposited in a bank account operated by the 26-year-old by a Stockholm-based ad company.

The court heard that while the CEO of the advertising company had been questioned in connection with the case, he is not suspected of crimes.

Connecting the site’s operators

While the exact mechanism is unclear, investigators from Rights Alliance managed to find an IP address used by the 22-year-old. This IP was then traced back to his parents’ home in Kungsbacka, Sweden. The same IP address was used to access the man’s Facebook page.

In court, the prosecution read out chat conversations between both men. They revealed that the men knew each other only through chat and that the younger man believed the older was from Russia.

The prosecution’s case is that the 26-year-old was the ring-leader and that his colleague was a minor player. With that in mind, the latter is required to pay back around $4,000, which is the money he earned from the site.

For the older man, the situation is much more serious. The prosecution is seeking all of the money the site made from advertising, a cool $1.5m.

The case was initially set to go ahead last year but was postponed pending a ruling from the European Court of Justice. Last September, the Court determined that it was illegal to link to copyrighted material if profit was being made.

Claes Kennedy, the lawyer for the 22-year-old, insists that his client did nothing wrong. His actions took place before the ECJ’s ruling so should be determined legal, he says.

The case continues.

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

Following the 2012 raid on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom, U.S. and New Zealand authorities seized millions of dollars in cash and other property.

Claiming the assets were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes, the U.S. government launched a separate civil action in which it asked the court to forfeit the bank accounts, cars, and other seized possessions of the Megaupload defendants.

The U.S. branded Dotcom and his colleagues as “fugitives” and won their case. Dotcom’s legal team quickly appealed this verdict, but lost once more at the Fourth Circuit appeals court.

However, Dotcom is determined to regain access to his property and has now taken the case to the US Supreme Court. Together with the other defendants, he filed a petition to the Supreme Court to overturn the “fugitive disentitlement” ruling and the forfeiture of his assets.

The crux of the case is whether or not the District Court’s order to forfeit an estimated $67 million in assets was right. The defense argues that Dotcom and the other Megaupload defendants were wrongfully labeled as fugitives by the the Department of Justice.

Dotcom’s legal team warns that, if the current verdict stands, the US Government can seize the assets of foreign nationals based on unproven claims.

“If left undisturbed, the Fourth Circuit’s decision enables the Government to obtain civil forfeiture of every penny of a foreign citizen’s foreign assets based on unproven allegations of the most novel, dubious United States crimes,” the Supreme Court petition reads.

“And the Government can do so without affording a foreign defendant any opportunity to challenge in court whether the foreign assets are traceable to criminal conduct, whether the Government’s allegations are sufficient to establish the charged crime, or even whether the charged ‘crime’ is a crime at all.”

The decision of the lower courts invites abuse according to Dotcom’s legal team, as it allows the Government to seize assets of people who have never been to the United States, seemingly with little evidence.

By taking on the case, the Supreme Court has the chance to clarify what the Government is permitted to do in such cases, something that isn’t entirely clear based on current case law.

“In sum, this case poses questions that have divided the lower courts and carry important implications for federal jurisdiction, constitutional law, statutory interpretation, civil procedure, and international relations,” Dotcom’s legal team writes.

If the US Supreme Court takes on the case, which has yet to be decided, Kim Dotcom has a chance to regain access to the million of dollars the authorities have taken from him.

The full petition is available here (pdf).

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

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is viewed by copyright holders as an essential mechanisim to prevent the public from copying and distributing copyrighted content.

While to some extent it can achieve those aims, DRM is often viewed as preventing those who actually buy content from carrying out tasks such as format shifting or making backups. Those who obtain content from illegal sources aren’t affected by DRM, critics argue.

Like any other anti-piracy measure, DRM’s task is to prevent copying and many countries have laws in place which prevent citizens from circumventing it. This can be problematic, particularly when DRM stands in the way of a citizen’s right to copy, in fair use instances for example. This has been in the case in Portugal since 2004.

As a result, the DRM-PT movement in Portugal has been campaigning for a change in the law which would restrict the use of DRM and grant citizens a circumvention right when certain conditions are met. When parliament approved a draft bill last week, the country moved closer to that goal.

The bill, which received general approval last December, tackles the main issues head-on by granting copying permission in some circumstances and by flat-out banning the use of DRM when the public should have right of access to a copyrighted work.

In a boost to educators, citizens will be given the right to circumvent DRM for teaching and scientific research purposes. There will also be an exception for private copying.

The draft also outlaws the use of DRM on copyright works that have fallen into the public domain, works which support cultural heritage, and works that were created by public entities or funded with public money.

The move is being welcomed by ANSOL and the Free Teaching Association, which thanked the politicians who supported the bill, noting that their work will “ensure that citizens can finally exercise their fundamental rights in respect of DRM-protected works.”

The bill (pdf, Portuguese) must now be approved by the president before being passed into law.

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

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Kong: Skull Island is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(…)	Kong: Skull Island (Subbed HDRip)	7.0 / trailer
2	(9)	Split	7.0 / trailer
3	(1)	Rogue One	8.0 / trailer
4	(3)	Logan (HDCam)	8.6 / trailer
5	(…)	Sleepless	7.0 / trailer
6	(2)	Monster Trucks	5.5 / trailer
7	(6)	Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them	7.6 / trailer
8	(…)	Boyka: Undisputed	8.3 / trailer
9	(4)	Beauty and the Beast (HDTS)	7.8 / trailer
10	(…)	Ghost in The Shell	6.9 / trailer

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