In recent years copyright holders have bombarded Google with DMCA takedown notices, targeting links to pirated content.

These requests have increased dramatically over the years, breaking record after record.

Five years ago the search engine received ‘only’ ten million takedown notices during the entire year, but today it processes the same amount in less than three days.

Data gathered by TorrentFreak from Google’s Transparency Report reveals a new weekly record of 24,119,797 reported pirate links, which is more than twice the number received by Google last year.

The graph below nicely illustrates the continued increase, showing the number of weekly requests over the most recent years.

At the current rate, Google will process more than a billion links in 2016, which would be a hundredfold increase in just five years, with no slowdown in sight.

Reported ‘pirate’ links

Considering our frequent reporting about various takedown related mistakes, it’s worth looking at how many of these reported links actually disappear from search results.

New data made public earlier this month showed that the majority of the links, 91 percent, are ultimately removed. Two percent of the reported URLs are rejected, with the remainder being duplicate or incomplete links.

While rightsholders have increased their takedown efforts over the years, the major entertainment industry groups are not happy with the current state of Google’s takedown process at all.

One of the main complaints has been that content which Google de-lists often reappears under new URLs.

“Every day we have to send new notices to take down the very same links to illegal content we took down the day before. It’s like ‘Groundhog Day’ for takedowns,” RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said previously.

To counter this, rightsholders would like Google to ensure that content “stays down” while blocking the most notorious pirate sites from search results entirely.

Google, however, believes that this will lead to all sorts of problems and maintains that the current system is working as the DMCA was intended.

The search engine did implement various other initiatives to counter piracy, including the downranking of pirate sites and promoting legal options in search results, which it recently detailed in its updated “How Google Fights Piracy” report.

For now the impasse continues and whether it will ever be broken is highly doubtful.

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

A couple of weeks ago, the IFPI announced that the problem of stream-ripping has become so serious that in volume terms it has overtaken downloading from ‘pirate’ sites. For what is essentially a YouTube-powered phenomenon, that was quite a claim.

When the labels publish this kind of information, they usually have an end game in mind. So, thinking ahead, we contacted Philip Matesanz, the usually responsive operator of YouTube-MP3, the world’s largest ripping site. We asked if the labels had been in contact with him. We received no response and the alarm bells began ringing.

This week, all became clear. UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, Arista Records, Atlantic Records and several others, sued Matesanz and his company PMD Technologie, claiming that his ripping of tracks from YouTube infringed their rights. Today we take a closer look at their lawsuit.

Jurisdiction

Those familiar with YouTube-MP3 will recall that the site is based in Germany and therefore operates under local law. However, the labels have chosen to sue Matesanz and his company in the United States under US law.

They state that their claims arise under federal copyright law and that is appropriate since YouTube-MP3 is “dedicated exclusively to capturing, converting, and copying audio content that is maintained on a U.S.-based website, YouTube.com.”

The labels say that after ripping the content from YouTube, YouTube-MP3 then distributes that content to users in the United States, noting that the site has more users from the US than any other country.

It is worth noting that unlike the Kim Dotcom/Megaupload case, there appears to be no criminal action against YouTube-MP3, only civil litigation.

The allegations against YouTube-MP3

The labels claim that YouTube-MP3 was designed and exists for one reason – to profit from the unauthorized reproduction of their copyrighted music. In carrying this out, the labels say that YouTube-MP3 breaches copyright law in a number of ways.

Direct Copyright Infringement: The labels allege that after ripping content from YouTube, YouTube-MP3 stores the resulting MP3s on its servers in order to service subsequent users more efficiently. This, they say, amounts to the site carrying an illegal library of their content and distributing it in the United States.

Contributory Copyright Infringement: With the allegations of direct infringement in mind, the labels say that YouTube-MP3 has “actual and constructive knowledge” that its users are also committing infringement when they rip content and have it delivered to their machines. Therefore, YouTube-MP3 is liable for user infringements too and at $150,000 per shot, that could get insanely expensive.

Vicarious Copyright Infringement: “Defendants have the right and ability to supervise and control the infringing activities that occur through the use of YTMP3, and at all relevant times have derived a direct financial benefit from the infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrights. Defendants are therefore vicariously liable for the infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings,” the lawsuit reads.

Inducement of Copyright Infringement: Simply put, the labels claim that by providing the ripping and downloading service, YouTube-MP3 encouraged, promoted and assisted the direct infringements of its users. As a result, the site is liable for their actions.

Circumvention of Technological Measures: The labels say that YouTube has technical measures in place to prevent users from downloading music from the site. These are bypassed by YouTube-MP3 in breach of copyright law.

“YTMP3 service circumvents technological measures that YouTube has implemented to effectively control access to and prevent copying of works protected under the Copyright Act, in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a). More specifically, Defendants’ service descrambles a scrambled work, decrypts an encrypted work, or otherwise avoids, bypasses, removes, deactivates, or impairs a technological measure without the authority of Plaintiffs or YouTube.”

While not as much as the $150,000 in statutory damages available for each instance of willful infringement, circumvention can get expensive too. In this respect, the labels are looking for $2,500 for each act of circumvention and with a reported 60 million visitors each month, there are countless millions of those.

Conclusion

There can be little doubt that given the importance the labels are now placing on stream-ripping, this case against YouTube-MP3 will be vigorously pursued to its conclusion. Whether it will progress to a full trial will remain to be seen but one has to think that barring an extraordinarily spirited Kim Dotcom-style defense, this one is unlikely to end well for YouTube-MP3.

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

Online streaming continues to gain in popularity, both from authorized and pirate sources.

Unlike traditional forms of downloading, however, in many countries the legality of viewing unauthorized streams remains unclear.

In the European Union this may change in the near future. This week the European Court of Justice held a hearing during which it reviewed several questions related to pirate streaming.

The questions were raised in a case between Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and the Filmspeler.nl store, which sells “piracy configured” media players. While these devices don’t ‘host’ any infringing content, they ship with add-ons that make it very easy to watch infringing content.

The Dutch District Court previously referred the case to the EU Court of Justice, where several questions were discussed in a hearing this week. In addition to BREIN and Filmspeler, the European commission and Spain weighed in on the issue as well.

The first main question that the Court will try to answer is rather specific. It asks whether selling pre-programmed media-players with links to pirate sources, through add-ons for example, are permitted.

Not surprisingly, Filmspeler.nl believes that it should be allowed. They argued that there is no communication to the public or a crucial intervention from their side, since these pirate add-ons are already publicly available.

The European Commission doesn’t classify selling pre-loaded boxes as infringing either, and notes that rightholders have other options to go after intermediaries, such as blocking requests.

BREIN, which covered the hearing in detail, countered this argument noting that Filmspeler willingly provides access to illegal content for profit. Spain sided with BREIN and argued that willingly including pirate plugins should not be allowed.

The second question is more crucial for the general public as it asks whether it is illegal for consumers to stream pirated content from websites or services.

“Is it lawful under EU law to temporarily reproduce content through streaming if the content originates from a third-party website where it’s made available without permission?”

Spain argued that streaming pirated content should not be allowed in any way. BREIN agreed with this position and argued that streaming should be on par with unauthorized downloading, which is illegal under EU case law.

Interestingly, the European Commission doesn’t believe that consumers who watch pirate streams are infringing. From the user’s perspective they equate streaming to watching, which is legitimate.

Based on the hearing the Advocate General will issue a recommendation later this year, which will be followed by a final verdict from the EU Court of Justice somewhere early 2017.

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

When discussing the most influential websites on the planet, there can be little doubt that YouTube is a true giant. The video-hosting platform is the second most popular site on the Internet behind its owner’s Google.com

YouTube attracts well over a billion visitors every money, with many flocking to the platform to view the original content uploaded by its army of contributors. However, with great power comes great responsibility and for YouTube that means pleasing advertisers.

As a result, YouTube has rules in place over what kind of content can be monetized, something which caused a huge backlash recently.

In a nutshell, if you don’t produce content that is almost entirely “appropriate for all audiences,” (without references to drugs, violence, and sex, for example), your content is at risk of making no money. But YouTube goes further still, by flagging “controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies.” Awkward.

Many YouTubers view this refusal to monetize content as a form of censorship but recognize that as long as they’re in bed with the company, they’re going to have to play by its rules. For some, this means assessing alternatives.

Popular YouTuber Connor Hill (Bluedrake42 – 186,600 subscribers) is no stranger to YouTube flagging his videos. As a result, he’s decided to take matters into his own hands by experimenting with WebTorrent.

As previously reported, WebTorrent brings torrents to the web. Instead of using standalone applications it allows people to share files directly from their browser, without having to configure or install anything.

Early on, WebTorrent creator Feross Aboukhadijeh identified “people-powered websites” as a revolutionary application for WebTorrent.

“Imagine a video site like YouTube, where visitors help to host the site’s content. The more people that use a WebTorrent-powered website, the faster and more resilient it becomes,” he told TF.

It is exactly this application for the technology that has excited Bluedrake. By taking his content, embedding it in his website, and using his own fans for distribution, Bluedrake says he can take back control.

“This solution does not require torrent clients, this solution does not require torrent files, this is a seamless video-player hosted solution, with a completely decentralized database, supported by the people watching the content itself,” Bluedrake says in a new video. “And it works…REALLY well.

Of course, all torrents need seeds to ensure that older content is always available, so Bluedrake says that the servers already funded by his community will have backup copies of all videos ready to seed, whenever that’s necessary.

“That’s literally the best of both worlds. A CDN and a TVDN – a Torrent Video Distribution Network – at the same time. It will be community-funded and community supported…and then we’ll have truly censorship-free, entirely impervious video content, in a network. That gives me chills,” Bluedrake adds.

But while this solution offers the opportunity to avoid censorship, there is no intention to break the law. Bluedrake insists that the freedom of peer-to-peer will only be used for speech, not to infringe copyright.

“All I want is a site where people can say what they want. I want a site where people can operate their business without having somebody else step in and take away their content when they say something they don’t like. We’re going to host our own content distribution network within a peer-to-peer, web-socketed torrent service,” he says.

The development has excited WebTorrent creator Feross Aboukhadijeh.

“This is just one of the extremely creative uses for WebTorrent that I’ve heard about. I’m continually amazed at what WebTorrent users are building with the open source torrent engine,” Feross informs TF.

“When a video site uses WebTorrent, visitors help to host the site’s content. The more people that use a WebTorrent-powered website, the faster and more resilient it becomes. I think that’s pretty cool. It’s something that traditional CDNs cannot offer.

“The magic of WebTorrent is that people can use it however they like. It’s not just a desktop torrent app but it’s a JavaScript library that anyone can use anywhere on the web.”

Of course, one YouTuber using the technology is a modest start but the potential is there for this to get much bigger if Bluedrake can make a success of it.

“The way that we get P2P technology to go mainstream is simple: make it easy, make it better,” Feross says.

“This is part of a larger trend of decentralized protocols replacing centralized services, as we’ve seen with Bitcoin and blockchain apps.”

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

Earlier this year Paramount Pictures and CBS Studios filed a lawsuit against the makers of a Star Trek inspired fan film, accusing them of copyright infringement.

The dispute centers around the well-received short film Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar and the planned follow-up feature film Axanar.

Among other things, the Star Trek rightsholders claim ownership over various Star Trek related settings, characters, species, clothing, colors, shapes, words, short phrases and even the Klingon language.

A few months after the complaint was filed it appeared that the movie studios and the Axanar team had found a way to resolve their issues. During a Star Trek fan event director J.J. Abrams announced that the case would be over soon, citing discussions with Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin.

“We started talking about this realizing that this is not an appropriate way to deal with the fans. The fans should be celebrating this thing,” Abrams said. “So Justin went to the studio and pushed them to stop this lawsuit and now, within the next few weeks, it will be announced this is going away.”

However, as time passed it appears that the director had spoken too soon, or perhaps made up the entire claim ad-lib. The case didn’t “go away” at all and this week it became clear that Paramount and CBS Studios see J.J. Abrams’ comments as irrelevant.

Both parties are currently in the discovery phase where they hope to gather evidence from the other side to back up their claims. Axanar was particularly interested in obtaining any communications the studios had with Justin Lin and J.J. Abrams, which seem to favor their claims.

However, through their lawyers CBS and Paramount refused to hand anything over, noting that this is information is irrelevant, if it exists at all. “We objected to your requests for communications with Justin Lin and J.J. Abrams as irrelevant, and did not agree to produce those documents,” they wrote in an email earlier this month.

The email

To resolve this and other outstanding discovery disputes, the parties now ask the court what information should be handed over, and what can remain confidential.

In the joint motion (pdf) CBS and Paramount reiterate that the comments J.J. Abrams made are “not relevant” to any party’s claim. The directors are not authorized to speak on behalf of the movie studios and their comments have no impact on the damages amount, they argue.

“J.J. Abrams is a producer/director of certain Star Trek Copyrighted Works and Justin Lin was the director of Star Trek Beyond. Neither Mr. Abrams nor Mr. Lin is an authorized representative of either of the Plaintiffs,” the studios claim.

“A third party’s statement about the merits of this lawsuit has absolutely no bearing on the amount of money Defendants’ obtained by their infringing conduct, nor does it bear on any other aspect of damages,” they add.

Axanar disagrees with this assessment. They claim that Abrams statements about dropping the “ridiculous” lawsuit in the interest of fans, is central to a possible fair use claim and damages.

“Statements that Star Trek belongs to all of us and that the lawsuit is ridiculous and was going to be ‘dropped’ is relevant to the impact on the market prong of the fair use analysis, and Plaintiffs utter lack of
damages,” Axanar claims.

The court will now have to decide what information CBS and Paramount must share. It’s clear, however, that J.J. Abrams spoke way too soon and that the movie studios are not ready to drop their lawsuit without putting up a fight.

While Abrams may not have realized it at the time, his comments are a blessing for the fan-film. It offers Axanar great leverage in potential settlement discussions and will reflect badly on CBS and Paramount if the case heads to trial.

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