Copyright holders and search engines such as Google are not on the best of terms when it comes to links to infringing content appearing in search results.

The former wants the latter to do more, despite the considerable measures already in place. Google, until now at least, has insisted it’s doing enough.

In the UK, there have been on/off murmurings of the government stepping in to intervene, but to date, it’s been hoped that the parties will sit down and reach a voluntary agreement.

Some meetings have taken place, with the government reportedly playing a role in bringing the groups together. Then, last week, to not inconsiderable surprise, a breakthrough was reported.

During a Digital Economy Bill committee, Baroness Buscombe revealed some interesting news. Rightsholders and search engines are nearing a deal.

“Since the idea was last discussed in [parliament], Intellectual Property Office officials have chaired a further round-table meeting between search engines and representatives of the creative industries,” Buscombe said.

“While there are still elements of detail to be settled, the group is now agreed on the key content of the code and I expect an agreement to be reached very soon.”

The Baroness even gave a date – June 1, 2017 – by which the code would be in effect. However, it appears that the government is still preparing for a scenario in which the parties don’t reach a voluntary agreement.

Titled “Code of practice on search engines and copyright infringement”, a Digital Economy Bill amendment to be moved on report foresees the Secretary of State stepping in to force companies like Google into compliance.

“The Secretary of State may impose by order a code of practice (‘the code’) for search engine providers with the purpose of minimizing the availability and promotion of copyright infringing services, including those which facilitate copyright infringement by their users,” the amendment reads.

The amendment indicates that any order made in respect of the above “must include appropriate provisions to ensure compliance with the code by the providers.”

That sounds a lot like a stick being raised in the event the carrots at the negotiating table aren’t proving tasty enough. However, there appears to be some room for maneuver, even if voluntary discussions break down.

Before imposing any anti-piracy code, the Secretary of State will publish a draft code and consider submissions made by search engine providers, rightsholders and their representatives, plus any other interested parties.

At this point, however, some level of control will have already slipped away from the search engines, so it seems likely that reaching a voluntary arrangement would be preferable to all, if things are to avoid becoming messy.

Currently, there is no public record of what Google and its counterparts have agreed with the copyright holders, and the search engine is ignoring requests for comment on the topic. Furthermore, there is no clear idea of what the government might seek to impose, should negotiations fail.

In any event, legislation to force search engines to take broad action against allegedly infringing content would be unprecedented, especially when it includes the rather vague notion of taking action against “[sites that] facilitate copyright infringement by their users.”

That could include YouTube for instance, or even Google itself.

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

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has released its latest 301 ‘watch list’ submission to the U.S. Government.

The IIPA, which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPAA, RIAA, and ESA, has listed its complaints against a whole host of countries. As in previous years, Canada is discussed in detail with the recommendation to put it on the 2017 Special 301 ‘watch list.’

One of the main criticisms is that, despite having been called out repeatedly in the past, the country still offers a home to many pirate sites.

“For a number of years, extending well into the current decade, Canada had a well-deserved reputation as a safe haven for some of the most massive and flagrant Internet sites dedicated to the online theft of copyright material,” IIPA writes.

The group notes that some progress has been made. For example, last year the Canadian authorities actively helped to shut down the popular torrent site KickassTorrents, which was partly hosted there. However, the rightsholders say that there’s more work to be done.

“Nonetheless, major online piracy operations still find a home in Canada. These include leading BitTorrent sites such as Sumotorrent.sx and Seedpeer.eu, and hybrid cloud storage services utilizing BitTorrents, such as cloudload.com.”

Another disturbing development, according to IIPA, is the emergence of stand-alone BitTorrent applications that allow users to stream content directly through an attractive and user-friendly interface, hinting at Popcorn Time.

In addition to the traditional pirate sites that remain in Canada, IIPA reports that several websites offering modified game console gear have also moved there in an attempt to escape liability under U.S. law.

“In a growing and problematic trend, sites selling circumvention devices that have been subject to DMCA takedown notices from right holders in the U.S. are moving to Canadian ISPs for hosting, to evade enforcement action under U.S. law. Canadian hosting services such as Hawk Host and Crocweb are particularly popular with such sites.”

The group specifically highlights R4cardmontreal.com, gamersection.ca and r4dscanada.com among the offenders, and notes that “This trend breathes new life into Canada’s problematic ‘safe haven’ reputation.”

The recommendation continues by stressing that Canada’s legal regime fails to deal with online piracy in a proper manner. This is also true for the “notice and notice” legislation that was adopted two years ago, which requires ISPs to forward copyright infringement notices to pirating subscribers.

IIPA notes that there is no evidence that this initiative has resulted in a significant change in consumer behavior, in part because there are no punishments involved for frequent offenders.

“…simply notifying ISP subscribers that their infringing activity has been detected is ineffective in deterring illegal activity, because receiving the notices lacks any meaningful consequences under the Canadian system,” IIPA writes.

This is even worse for hosting providers and other Internet services, who currently have no legal incentive to take infringing material down, IIPA argues.

“The ‘notice-and-takedown’ remedy that most other modern copyright laws provide is far from a panacea for online piracy, but it does, at a minimum, provide some incentives for cooperation, incentives that Canada’s laws simply lack.”

In addition, IIPA notes that a broad range of third-party services such as advertisers, payment processors, and domain name registrars are all too often abused to facilitate piracy. They believe that this is in part because Canadian law doesn’t offer enough “motivation” for these companies to cooperate.

The rightsholders hope that the U.S. Government can help to steer Canada in another direction and encourage more and better anti-piracy regulation. If not, they fear that Canada will remain a safe haven for pirates during the years to come.

IIPA’s full submission, which highlights a variety of countries which deserve a spot on the 301 Watch Lists per IIPA’s standards, is available here (pdf).

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

While in practical terms the impact may not be as pronounced as it would’ve been half a decade ago, yesterday a Court of Appeal in Sweden made a landmark decision.

After years of litigation by Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry, local Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company) was ordered to block The Pirate Bay and streaming portal Swefilmer.

The case went to trial at the Stockholm District Court during October 2015, ending in victory for the ISP at the District Court, but the Court of Appeal’s decision unraveled all of that, ordering Bredbandsbolaget to implement “technical measures” to prevent its customers accessing the ‘pirate’ sites through a number of domain names and URLs.

Considering the importance of having The Pirate Bay blocked on home turf, the official response from the industry was somewhat muted. Per Strömbäck, spokesman for the copyright holders, said that it’s good that the legal situation is becoming more clear. Representatives from the ISPs were much more animated.

Bredbandsbolaget itself said it was surprised at the decision, noting that not only does Swedish law does not support it, but it will also fail to achieve its aims.

“The Patent and Market Court of Appeal has not taken into account the intention of the legislator with Swedish law,” the company said.

“Our belief is that this type of blockage is not effective to prevent unlawful distribution of copyrighted work on the internet. Nor is it a good guarantee that creator will get paid for their works.

“Services must evolve and become more customer orientated. The film and television services that grow the most today are those who, instead of seeing the internet as a threat, see opportunities in digitalisation.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction of Jon Karlung, boss of ISP Bahnhof, was much more scathing. Karlung has positioned himself and his company as defenders of Internet freedom and this decision has him all kinds of fired up.

“The entire industry is in shock. It is disastrous in so many ways, the judgment is a deathblow to a free and open Internet,” Karlung said.

“We are the postman and the postman does not read people’s mail, or take control over the content. [This ruling signals] the death throes of the copyright industry,” he added.

While the current action involves just a single ISP, it is crystal clear that the copyright holders didn’t come all this way to have just a couple of sites blocked by one provider. They will be back, probably sooner rather than later, to obtain more injunctions against more providers against a broad range of sites.

At this stage, it seems that any site with a large proportion of infringing content could become a target and Karlung is concerned just how far things could go.

“One can almost think of what the consequences are going to be. There’s copyrighted content on YouTube. And should we block Google, how will that work?”

According to Bredbandsbolaget’s interpretation of the Court ruling, it must block specific URLs to stop customers getting access to The Pirate Bay. However, there are fines attached if the ISP fails to do so and as everyone knows, blocking the site can be extremely difficult. As a result, the ISP says it needs time to work things out.

“Exactly what is it to be blocked? This is very technically complicated. It is extremely difficult to block access to sites. What this actually means to us, we need to analyze in detail,” the ISP said.

But for Bahnhof’s Jon Karlung, the approach seems more adversarial. At some point, it is almost certain his company will be subjected to a similar injunction that will force it to block The Pirate Bay, something the ISP chief vehemently opposes. However, speaking with HD.se, the Swede hinted at another possibility.

Co-opting the Court of Appeal’s instructions for Bredbandsbolaget to use “technical measures” to block The Pirate Bay, Karlung told the publication he may yet introduce “technical countermeasures” for the convenience of his customers.

Quite what that means is unclear, but offering VPN-like services is something that the company is already familiar with. Way back in 2014, Bahnhof provided its customers with a no-logging VPN service to protect their privacy.

That being said, if it chose to offer something along similar lines to unblock The Pirate Bay, the situation could get very interesting indeed.

In the UK, where a similar injunction forbids the country’s leading ISPs from providing customer access to The Pirate Bay, dozens of smaller ISPs still legally allow their customers to access the site. However, back in 2014 when a proxy provider decided to do the same, he was arrested by police. He’s still awaiting trial.

Either way, one gets the impression that the war for the so-called “free and open Internet” is far from over in Sweden – and there are still some people left that are prepared to fight for it.

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

A week ago hundreds of thousands of people watched unauthorized Facebook live streams of a highly anticipated rematch between two Aussie boxers.

Pay TV channel Foxtel, which secured the broadcasting rights for the event, was outraged by the blatant display of piracy and vowed to take the main offenders to court.

This weekend, however, things had calmed down a bit. Foxtel did indeed reach out to the culprits, some of whom had more than 100,000 people watching their unauthorized Facebook streams. The company decided to let them off the hook if they published a formal apology.

Soon after, the two major streaming pirates in this case both admitted their wrongdoing in similarly worded messages.

“Last Friday I streamed Foxtel’s broadcast of the Mundine v Green 2 fight via my Facebook page to thousands of people. I know that this was illegal and the wrong thing to do,” streamer Brett Hevers wrote.

“I unreservedly apologize to Anthony Mundine and Danny Green, to the boxing community, to Foxtel, to the event promoters and to everyone out there who did the right thing and paid to view the fight. It was piracy, and I’m sorry.”

But that doesn’t mean that the streaming piracy problem is no longer an issue. Quite the contrary. Instead of investing time and money in legal cases, Foxtel is putting its efforts in stopping future infringements.

In an op-ed for the Herald Sun, Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh likens piracy to stealing, a problem that’s particularly common Down Under.

“It is no less of a crime than stealing a loaf of bread from a supermarket or sneaking into a movie theater or a concert without paying. Yet, as a nation, Australians are among the worst offenders in the world,” Tonagh writes.

Foxtel’s CEO sees illegal live streaming as the third wave of piracy, following earlier trends of smart card cracking and file-sharing. The Facebook piracy fest acted as a wake-up call and Tonagh says the company will do everything it can to stop it from becoming as common as the other two.

“Rest assured we will work even harder to address this piracy before it gets out of control. The illegal streaming of the Mundine v Green fight nine days ago was a wake-up call. It was the first time that Foxtel had experienced piracy of a live event on a mass scale,” he notes.

Over the past several days, Foxtel and Facebook have been working on a new technology which should be able to recognize pirated streams automatically and pull them offline soon after they are started. This sounds a lot like YouTube’s Content-ID system, but for live broadcasts.

“We are working on a new tool with Facebook that will allow us to upload a large stream of our events to Facebook headquarters where it can be tracked,” Tonagh tells The Australian behind a paywall.

“If that content is matched on users’ accounts where it’s being streamed without our authorisation then Facebook will alert us and pull it down,” he adds.

The initiative will be welcomed by other rightsholders, who face the same problem. Having an option to have Facebook recognize infringing content on the fly, is likely to make it much easier to stop these streams from becoming viral.

That said, live streaming piracy itself is much broader and not particularly new. There are dozens of niche pirate site that have been offering unauthorized streams for many years already, and they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

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

In 2014, Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry teamed up in a lawsuit designed to force Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company) to block The Pirate Bay and streaming portal Swefilmer.

In a move that was to irk the ISP, the rightsholders argued that Bredbandsbolaget should be held liable for the infringements of the ‘pirate’ sites, if it refused to block them.

In response, Bredbandsbolaget dug in its heels while insisting that its only role is to provide subscribers with unfettered access to the Internet. The upholding (or otherwise) of this concept would be a landmark moment for all Swedish ISPs.

The case went to trial at the Stockholm District Court during October 2015. Considering the outcomes of similar cases against ISPs elsewhere in Europe, Bredbandsbolaget was expected to lose. Instead, however, the ISP won its case, with the District Court ruling that when Bredbandsbolaget facilitated access to The Pirate Bay, that did not amount to participation in a crime under Swedish law.

Soon after, the defeated rightsholders filed an appeal. The case was heard again last September, running for several days at the brand new Patent and Market Court of Appeal. Today the Court made its decision and it’s bad news for the ISP and by extension other ISPs and their collective customers.

In a ruling handed down minutes ago, the Court overruled the earlier ruling of the District Court and ordered Bredbandsbolaget to implement “technical measures” to prevent its customers accessing the ‘pirate’ sites through a number of domain names and URLs.

The Court found that under EU law it is possible for copyright holders to obtain an injunction against ISPs whose services are used to commit copyright infringement, even if the ISP only provides its customers with Intenet access. It found that the Swedish Copyright Act should be interpreted “in the light of EU law.”

The Court also considered whether such a blocking injunction would be proportional. In this respect, it found that since the content being made available via The Pirate Bay and Swefilmer is primarily copyright protected and distributed illegally, then an injunction would be an appropriate response.

“In today’s judgment, the Patent and Market Court held that right holders such as film and music companies can obtain a court order in Sweden against an ISP, which forces the ISP to take measures to prevent copyright infringement committed by others on the Internet,” Court of Appeals Judge Christine Lager said in a statement.

“The decision is based in EU law and Swedish Law should be interpreted in the light of EU law. Similar injunctions have already been announced, such as in Denmark, Finland, France and the UK, but the verdict today is the first of its kind in Sweden.”

The injunction has a time limit of three and years and has a penalty of $56,000 if the ISP fails to comply. The verdict can not be appealed.

“It is a dangerous path to go down, which forces Internet providers to monitor and evaluate content on the Internet and block websites with illegal content in order to avoid becoming accomplices,” Bredbandsbolaget and fellow ISP Telenor warned in an earlier statement.

“We don’t think that tougher legislation and blocking requirements are an effective way to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet.”

While the current injunction covers just two sites, the ruling opens the floodgates to rightsholders looking to block potentially hundreds of sites. That, and potentially more far-reaching consequences worries former Pirate Bay spokesman, Peter Sunde.

“The fight is not about TPB – the users of TPB can just bypass this blockade easily. It’s about the slippery slope it brings; next time it will be another uncomfortable site, maybe politically uncomfortable, then it starts to become purely a business model to stifle your competition,” Sunde informs TorrentFreak.

“In today’s society with an insane ruler of the world’s most powerful country, his country having all of our data and information, we shouldn’t help with centralizing or controlling the information flow on the Internet, but the opposite. It’s quite clear for everyone, but the Swedish court doesn’t understand what they’ve done.”

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