Faced with non-cooperative ‘pirate’ sites, copyright holders have begun targeting web services with demands for them to stop serving errant platforms.

A lot of attention has focused on search engines, domain name registrars, and advertisers, who are frequently asked to do more to counter online piracy.

This summer, adult entertainment publisher ALS Scan took it up a notch, taking legal steps to hold several third-party services accountable for the actions of several pirate sites “with no apparent function other than to display infringing [ALS] adult content.”

In a complaint filed at a California federal court, ALS Scan targeted CloudFlare and the advertising network JuicyAds over image copyright infringement carried out by the users of pirate sites (full list below) they service.

“The pirate sites would not be able to thrive were it not for third party service providers who provide valuable services to these sites,” ALS wrote.

Last month, JuicyAds was cleared of any wrongdoing and the case against it was dismissed. However, Cloudflare is still a defendant and in an amended complaint filed earlier this month, other companies have now been dragged into the dispute.

First up is well-known hosting provider OVH, which made the headlines earlier this month when it was targeted by police seeking to shut down private tracker What.cd. ALS Scan says that OVH (based in France and Canada) is responsible for providing hosting and related services to pirate sites.

Also under fire is United States hosting provider Steadfast Networks. According to ALS, like OVH this Chicago-based company also hosts illegal sites, including “pirate” image hosting platform Imagebam.com. This is a very popular site indeed, currently ranked #680 in the world by SimilarWeb with more than 40m visits per month.

According to ALS, Dolphin Media Ltd is the Hong Kong-based company behind an image hosting site operating from Imgchilli.net. Again, ALS characterizes this as a pirate platform but instead of Dolphin merely being the host, it’s claimed the company also owns and operates the service.

Finally, ALS names Hivelocity Ventures as a new defendant. According to the adult outfit, Hivelocity hosts ‘pirate’ sites including namethatpornstar.com.

“The pirate sites would not be able to thrive were it not for third party service providers who provide valuable services to these sites. These third party providers include hosts and content delivery networks,” the amended complaint reads.

According to ALS, when Cloudflare learned of this lawsuit its lawyers contacted ALS offering to hand over the information it holds on the pirate sites in question, but only in exchange for a release of liability. While that doesn’t appear to have been granted, Cloudflare did begin to play ball.

“Eventually Cloudflare identified the OVH Companies as the primary host of some of the sites in question,” the company adds, noting that despite “numerous notifications of infringement”, OVH has continued to provide hosting services to pirate sites.

“On information and belief, the OVH Companies have failed to implement and enforce a repeat infringer policy,” ALS adds.

US-based host Steadfast Networks is subjected to the same criticism. The company allegedly received numerous infringement notifications on which it failed to act, and has failed to “implement or enforce a repeat infringer policy by removing Imagebam.com from its servers.”

In respect of ImgChilli and owner Dolphin, ALS has nothing good to say either.

“This is no site like dropbox.com, however, which caters to consumers who want to share family pictures or personal oversize files. Instead, Dolphin offers to pay imgchili.net members $4.50 per thousand views of images uploaded to imgchili.net,” the complaint reads.

“Dolphin is not offering to pay members money for page views of uploaded materials to encourage consumers to share pictures of their vacations. On information and belief, Dolphin provides monetary incentives to induce members to steal and upload massive galleries of infringing adult content.”

In summary, ALS says that while some of the defendants may claim safe harbor under the DMCA, they do not qualify for its protections.

“ALS denies that any would apply, but if they do, such safe harbors have been lost through ignoring red flags of infringement, ignoring actual notifications of infringement, failure to adopt and reasonably implement a repeat infringer policy and failure to accommodate, and interference with, standard technical measures,” the amended complaint reads.

If successful, ALS is demanding actual damages of no less than $10m, statutory damages, disgorgement of defendants’ profits, trebling of damages, costs and attorneys’ fees, plus preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.

The full list of the pirate sites in the complaint:

a. imgchili.net (Dolphin, Cloudflare, OVH)
b. namethatpornstar.com (Hivelocity)
c. slimpics.com (Cloudflare)
d. cumonmy.com (Cloudflare)
e. bestofsexpics.com (Cloudflare)
f. stooorage.com (Cloudflare, OVH)
g. greenpiccs.com (Cloudflare)
h. imagebam.com (Steadfast)
i. imgsen.se (Cloudflare)
j. imgspice.com (Cloudflare)
k. imgspot.org (Cloudflare)
l. img.yt (Cloudflare)
m. vipergirls.to (Cloudflare)
n. pornwire.net (Cloudflare)
o. fboom.me (Cloudflare)
p. imgflash.net (Cloudflare)
q. imgtrex.com (Cloudflare)

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

Streaming piracy is on the rise with popular media player Kodi at the center of attention.

While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, millions of people use third-party add- ons to turn it into the ultimate pirate machine.

TVAddons is a leading player in this field. Over the past year alone, the add-on repository has seen the number of unique users double. However, not everyone is happy with the service.

In a recent interview with TorrentFreak’s Steal This Show, Eleazar, one of the people behind TVAddons, explained that several cyberlockers would rather see them go.

While there are a wide variety of add-ons, quite a few allow users to stream pirated movies and TV-shows, which are hosted by streaming cyberlockers.

These cyberlockers generate revenue through advertising. However, many Kodi add-ons strip these ads, which means that they only cost these sites valuable resources. In response, several cyberlockers are now trying to ban these add-ons from ‘stealing’ their content.

“They change the coding to break the Kodi Add-on, and that’s specifically being done because Kodi add-ons are causing a spike in server load and that costs them money and bandwidth,” Eleazar explained.

This week TorrentFreak spoke to an operator of one of the largest streaming cyberlockers, who preferred not have his site named. He confirmed that Kodi add-ons are indeed a thorn in their side.

“Kodi plugins are harming cyberlockers due to their massive bandwidth usage, which is not compensated in any way,” he said.

According to the cyberlocker operator, several of his competitors have already shut down due to this problem. With so many people leeching bandwidth, the sites are no longer as profitable as they were.

“I would also say that some hosts, which are already gone, were heavily affected from draining bandwidth from third party applications.”

Other sites, including the one we’ve spoken to, are trying very hard to block Kodi add-ons from their service. This is somewhat successful, but often the add-on developers find their way around it.

“To fight this, we keep our streaming links obfuscated, changing them multiple times a week,” the cyberlocker operator says.

Ironically, the above means that the Kodi add-ons might be destroying their own sources, making it harder to find pirated content in the long run.

There is a way out though, according to the operator. With one add-on developer they have struck an agreement to use their service with permission. However, this is relatively rare.

“Unfortunately most of the Kodi plugin developers seems not to be interested in finding a solution like this, so it’s a continued cat and mouse game like we also have with adblockers,” the operator notes.

And so the blocking wars continue, on several fronts.

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

Megaupload was shutdown nearly half a decade ago, but all this time there has been little progress on the legal front.

Last December a New Zealand District Court judge ruled that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues can be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges, a decision that was appealed earlier this year.

While all parties await the outcome of this appeal, the criminal case in the United States remains pending. The same goes for the civil cases launched by the MPAA and RIAA in 2014.

Fearing that these might influence the criminal proceedings, Megaupload’s legal team previously managed to put these civil actions on hold, and this week another extension was granted.

U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady granted Megaupload’s request to stay both lawsuits until April next year. The music and movie companies didn’t oppose the motion.

The downside of yet another delay is that the evidence remains at risk of being destroyed. Much of the Megaupload data is stored on hard drives, which according to hosting provider Cogent, are not in the best shape.

A few months ago Cogent warned that sixteen of them have actually become unreadable, which is a grave concern since they contain crucial information. Thus far this situation hasn’t been addressed, but some progress has been made.

“Counsel have met and conferred and are negotiating a preservation order regarding the Cogent Data, and they anticipate reaching an agreement and presenting a consent motion and stipulated preservation order to the Court for entry,” Megaupload informed the court.

“However, until such a preservation order is entered, the parties each reserve their rights to file motions seeking preservation of the Cogent Data on appropriate terms and conditions.”

Judge Liam O’Grady agreed with this request. In his order this week he notes that if the negotiations fail, any party may seek relief to ensure that the evidence remains intact.

For now, however, the waiting continues.

—

The order of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady is available here (pdf). A copy of Megaupload’s request can be found here (pdf).

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

Seattle-based Getty Images is an agency
with control over an archive of millions of stock images. It also has a reputation for strongly protecting its copyrights and chasing down companies and individuals who use Getty images without paying an appropriate fee.

Late December 2015, established US-based photographer Carol Highsmith was a recipient of a Getty threat via License Compliance Services (LCS) on behalf of Alamy, another Getty-affiliated company.

“We have seen that an image or image(s) represented by Alamy has been used for online use by your company. According to Alamy’s records your company doesn’t have a valid license for use of the image(s),” the letter began.

“Although this infringement might have been unintentional, use of an image without a valid license is considered copyright infringement in violation of the Copyright Act, Title 17, United States Code. This copyright law entitles Alamy to seek compensation for any license infringement.”

Targeting Highsmith with this particular threat was problematic. The image in question was one of her own. It was among thousands of other images she previously donated to the Library of Congress and made available to the public to reproduce and display for free. Highsmith subsequently discovered that Getty and its affiliates were making available more than 18,000 of her other photographs too.

The photographer responded with a $1bn lawsuit but the stock image company didn’t back down. Fighting back, Getty said it would vigorously defend its position based on the fact that Highsmith had placed her work in the public domain.

Considering the David and Goliath nature of the case (not to mention Getty’s reputation for picking on the little guy), observers hoped that during the lawsuit Getty would at least get a bloody nose. That has not come to pass.

To begin, on October 28, US District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed each of Carol Highsmith’s federal copyright claims.

“Defendants Getty Images (US), Inc., License Compliance Services, Inc., Alamy, including thatInc., and Alamy Ltd. collectively moved to dismiss all claims of plaintiffs Carol Highsmith and This is America!, Inc. under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act,…the Lanham Act,… New York General Business Law,… and New York common law of unfair competition,” the Judge wrote.

“Upon consideration, the Court grants defendants’ motions,” he added.

With the federal claims gone, three state law claims werincluding that Getty charged licensing fees for images when it shouldn’t have and collected settlements from alleged infringers when it had no right. However, these claims have now also been dismissed, along with the rest of the case.

“It is hereby stipulated and agreed, by and among the parties, that this action shall be dismissed with prejudice pursuant to Rule 41(a)(l)(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, each party to bear its own costs and fees,” the Judge wrote in his dismissal.

Since the case was dismissed with prejudice, it is done and cannot be brought back to court.

The Judge added that a memorandum explaining the reasoning behind the rulings will be issued in due course, but it seems fairly clear that since Highsmith had passed her images into the public domain in 1988, that seriously undermined her case.

The terms of the settlement have not been released, and a lengthy protective order issued early November forbids all parties from discussing any information obtained during the pre-trial discovery phase.

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

As one of oldest and most prominent live streaming sites, Rojadirecta is a thorn in the side of many international sports organizations.

The website is operated by the Spanish company Puerto 80, which previously won two lawsuits in Spain, declaring the site as operating legally under local law.

Even the U.S. Government couldn’t bring the site down. In 2011 the Department of Homeland Security seized the site’s domain name, but facing a legal battle the authorities chose to hand it back to the rightful owners.

Now, several years later, the tide has turned. Last year, the site received its first setback in court when it was ordered to stop linking to certain football streams in Spain.

This week the site faced another major setback. Following a complaint from Mediapro and GolT, the Commercial Court of A Coruña ruled that Rojadirecta must cease linking to unauthorized streams of football events to which these two companies hold the rights.

“I declare that the defendants have violated related intellectual property rights belonging to the plaintiff,” the court declared.

The decision applies to both live and delayed streams of football matches and the current Rojadirecta.me domain name as well as any other websites it is, or will become, involved in.

“I order the defendants to cease immediately in the provision of links or Internet links, of any kind, giving access to live or slightly deferred viewing of football matches produced or issued by any of the applicants, whether in the current season or in future seasons,” the court ruled.

The court also concluded that the streaming site financially hurts the football broadcasters. The rightsholders claim hundreds of million in losses, but the exact damages amount will be decided in a future proceeding.

Rojadirecta still has the option to appeal the verdict, and at the time of writing, there are still plenty of football matches listed on the site.

The site’s owner and operator was identified by local press as Igor Seoane. He appeared in court hiding behind a wig and fake beard.

TorrentFreak reached out to the operator for a comment on his future plans, but we have yet to receive a response. After last year’s disappointing verdict he was still confident of a positive outcome in the long run.

“Rojadirecta is advised in Europe by a number of legal teams with the best experience regarding Internet operators liabilities. We are very aware of the legality of Rojadirecta; our operations now and in the future are not reckless,” he said at the time.

“At the end, we will win, but we will have to fight quite a bit. This new challenge will end up putting us in a better position,” the operator added.

A year later, however, the problems keep stacking up.

In addition to the civil case, Rojadirecta’s owner was also arrested in a separate criminal investigation last month. According to the authorities, his bank accounts totaled over 11 million euros. This case is still ongoing.

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