As one of the leading CDN and DDoS protection services, Cloudflare is used by millions of websites across the globe.

This includes thousands of “pirate” sites, including The Pirate Bay, who rely on the U.S. based company to keep server loads down.

Copyright holders are generally not happy that Cloudflare is doing business with these sites. While most stop at complaining, adult entertainment outfit ALS Scan took the matter to court.

In a complaint filed at a California federal court two months ago, the company accused the CDN service of various counts of copyright and trademark infringement. ALS listed several copyright-infringing websites Cloudflare does business with, but which it allegedly failed to terminate as clients.

Yesterday, Cloudflare responded to the allegations (pdf), arguing that ALS Scan has no legal grounds to come after them. For this reason, they say the entire case should be dismissed.

Among other things, Cloudflare argues that they are not liable for contributory copyright infringement. Even if it wanted to, it couldn’t take any measures to effectively stop pirate sites from operating.

“CloudFlare is not the operator of the allegedly infringing sites but is merely one of the many intermediaries across the internet that provide automated CDN services, which result in the websites in question loading a bit faster than they would if they did not utilize CDN services.”

If Cloudflare terminated the accounts of allegedly infringing websites, the sites themselves would still continue to exist. It would just require a simple DNS reconfiguration to continue their operation.

“Indeed, there are no measures of any kind that CloudFlare could take to prevent this alleged infringement, because the termination of CloudFlare’s CDN services would have no impact on the existence and ability of these allegedly infringing websites to continue to operate,” Cloudflare writes.

As such, the company argues that it’s not “materially contributing” to any of the alleged copyright infringements.

This role puts Cloudflare on par with other third party service providers such as domain registrars and advertisers. The question of whether these services can be held liable for pirate sites is at the heart of this case.

The CDN provider further stresses that the claims for contributory copyright infringement also fail under the under the “inducement” theory.

Under the Grokster ruling, inducement would require an intentional form of advertising or messaging where the public is encouraged to infringe. This is not the case here, the company argues.

“Here, ALS has pleaded no facts regarding such a theory. Instead, ALS makes only conclusory allegations using the term inducement, devoid of any factual support,” Cloudflare writes.

“For instance, ALS Scan does not plead (as it must) facts sufficient to allege that CloudFlare solicited, advertised, promoted or rewarded acts of direct infringement by others, or that CloudFlare was created for the purpose of facilitating mass copyright infringement.”

In addition to the above, Cloudflare says that ALS fails to state proper claims other forms of copyright and trademark infringement, asking the court to dismiss the case.

Advertising network JuicyAds, which is also named in the suit, requested the same earlier this month. All parties will have a chance to defend their positions in a court hearing, after which the court will have to decide how to continue.

With theoretical damages that can run to dozens of millions of dollars and well as broad liability implications, it’s expected to become a heated fight.

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

As Megaupload was being shutdown in 2012, authorities in the United States, New Zealand and Hong Kong swooped on millions of dollars in cash and other property.

The US government said that these considerable assets were the product of copyright infringement and money laundering. As a result, sweeping steps were taken to take control of bank accounts and other property belonging to the defendants in the so-called Mega Conspiracy.

After meeting with stiff opposition when attempting to extradite Dotcom and his co-defendants, the US Government branded them fugitives from justice and subsequently won a legal battle to seize their millions.

Soon after, Megaupload’s legal team filed an appeal with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, that ended in disappointment last month when a three-judge panel at the Fourth Circuit handed down a two to one decision against Dotcom.

The Fourth Circuit upheld the decision of the lower court, dismissing the argument that the seizure order against Dotcom’s assets had no jurisdiction and finding that as a fugitive, the Megaupload founder had no standing to reclaim his assets. With more than $67m at stake, that was a particularly big deal.

At the time, Dotcom vowed to fight back and yesterday the first stage of that process began. Headed by Ira Rothken, Dotcom’s US legal defense announced that they had filed a Petition to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals for a rehearing and rehearing en banc on the issues of forfeiture and fugitive disentitlement.

“Petitioners seek en banc review of a 2-1 ruling that conflicts with the precedents of this Court, the Supreme Court, and other circuits on issues of importance to the scope of federal jurisdiction over foreign property and civil forfeiture law,” the filing begins (pdf).

The petition goes on to highlight the gravity of the matter – the largest criminal copyright case in U.S. history – and notes that the US government acted aggressively by seizing property first and then relying on the doctrine of “fugitive disentitlement” to achieve forfeiture without having a trial on the merits.

Noting that the decision of the Fourth Circuit panel was not unanimous (Judge Floyd dissented), Dotcom’s team says that the ruling conflicts with precedents of both the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court.

“[U]nder this Court’s precedent, ‘[o]nly if the court has exclusive custody and control over the property does it have jurisdiction over the property so as to be able to adjudicate rights in it that are binding against the world,” the petition reads.

Noting that the property in question is controlled by foreign courts that are not compelled to comply with a U.S. forfeiture order, the petition describes the ruling as both a “hypothetical judgment” and an “unconstitutional advisory opinion.”

“En banc review is needed to ensure uniformity in this Court’s decisions, and to avoid a conflict with Supreme Court precedent,” it adds.

Finally, the petition underlines the claims Dotcom has been making from the beginning, that the US Government is abusing its powers in order to gain unfair advantage over citizens of foreign countries that have never set foot on US soil.

“By stacking allegations of fugitive status on top of allegations of forfeitability, the government can obtain an unprecedented, roving worldwide license to indict foreign citizens who have never lived or worked in the United States and forfeit their foreign property — all without proving any wrongdoing or having control over the property,” it warns. “Review is warranted.”

Whether a rehearing will be granted remains to be seen but Dotcom says he intends to take his case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

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

Two weeks ago, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry published research which claimed that half of 16 to 24-year-olds use stream-ripping tools to copy music from sites like YouTube.

The industry group said that the problem of stream-ripping has become so serious that in volume terms it had overtaken downloading from ‘pirate’ sites. Given today’s breaking news, the timing of the report was no coincidence.

Earlier today in a California District Court, a huge coalition of recording labels sued the world’s largest YouTube ripping site. UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, Arista Records, Atlantic Records and several others claim that YouTube-MP3 (YTMP3), owner Philip Matesanz, and Does 1-10 have infringed their rights.

“YTMP3 rapidly and seamlessly removes the audio tracks contained in videos streamed from YouTube that YTMP3’s users access, converts those audio tracks to an MP3 format, copies and stores them on YTMP3’s servers, and then distributes copies of the MP3 audio files from its servers to its users in the United States, enabling its users to download those MP3 files to their computers, tablets, or smartphones,” the complaint reads.

The labels allege that YouTube-MP3 is one of the most popular sites in the entire world and as a result its owner, German-based company PMD Technologies UG, is profiting handsomely from their intellectual property.

“Defendants are depriving Plaintiffs and their recording artists of the fruits of their labor, Defendants are profiting from the operation of the YTMP3 website. Through the promise of illicit delivery of free music, Defendants have attracted millions of users to the YTMP3 website, which in turn generates advertising revenues for Defendants,” the labels add.

And it’s very clear that the labels mean business. YouTube-MP3 is being sued for direct, contributory, vicarious and inducement of copyright infringement, plus circumvention of technological measures.

Among other things, the labels are also demanding a preliminary and permanent injunction forbidding the Defendants from further infringing their rights. They also want YouTube-MP3’s domain name to be surrendered.

“This is a coordinated action to protect the rights of artists and labels from the blatant infringements of YouTube-mp3, the world’s single-largest ‘stream ripping’ site,” says IFPI Chief Executive Frances Moore.

“Music companies and digital services today offer fans more options than ever before to listen to music legally, when and where they want to do so – over hundreds of services with scores of millions of tracks – all while compensating artists and labels. Stream ripping sites should not be allowed jeopardize this.”

Cary Sherman, the Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) says that YouTube-MP3 is making money on the back of their business and needs to be stopped.

“This site is raking in millions on the backs of artists, songwriters and labels. We are doing our part, but everyone in the music ecosystem who says they believe that artists should be compensated for their work has a role to play,” Sherman says.

“It should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place, and no stream ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart.”

BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor says that it’s time for web services and related companies to stop supporting similar operations.

“It’s time to stop illegal sites like this building huge fortunes by ripping off artists and labels. Fans have access now to a fantastic range of legal music streaming services, but they can only exist if we take action to tackle the online black market,” Taylor says.

“We hope that responsible advertisers, search engines and hosting providers will also reflect on the ethics of supporting sites that enrich themselves by defrauding creators.”

TorrentFreak contacted YouTube-MP3 owner Philip Matesanz for comment but at the time of publication we were yet to receive a response.

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

No copyright holder will be happy to see their work being shared for free on pirate sites, if their income depends on it. However, how they respond can make quite a difference.

Every now and then we see artists and developers scolding or lecturing pirates. While such an emotional response is understandable, it’s usually counterproductive.

Although some casual pirates can be threatened, most usually get very defensive when rightsholders call out their behavior.

Perhaps unwittingly, the studio behind the popular Vita game SUPERBEAT XONiC took a more gentle approach. Taking a page from a reverse psychology handbook, they confronted pirates with positivity.

After noticing that several people were posting links to pirated copies of their game in the Vitahacks and VitaPiracy subreddits, PM Studios joined the discussion. Not with a tirade, but with kind words and a discount offer.

“We feel honored that you enjoy our game SUPERBEAT XONiC so much, we would like to invite you to take this opportunity to purchase it on sale at the Playstation Store,” they commented on severalthreads.

“You can enjoy the original game and show support to the team for just $15.99 (60% off), no Playstation Plus required! [link] Have a nice day!”

PM Studio’s response

The people in the subreddit were pleasantly surprised by the response and created a thank you thread. This generated even more exposure including a write-up at Destructoid, with positive comments all around.

While we doubt that PM Studios appreciates the fact that people are downloading their game without paying for it, they do seem to realize that all these ‘pesky pirates’ are potential customers. Rightly so, as the most prolific pirates are often the people who buy a lot of games as well.

And with their positive response, the developers undoubtedly picked up a few extra purchases, as various self-proclaimed pirates suggest that they now plan to buy the game.

“I appreciate the ability to be able to download a game and give it a good run. Demos do not always sway purchasing decisions in the right way, for numerous reasons,” Mr_Cloud_Strife writes.

“When devs can look the offender right in the eye and say, ‘We are really happy that you enjoy the game! We have even discounted it for those that CHOOSE to purchase it.’ How can you say no?”

The response from the game developer works particularly well because it’s a relatively rare sight. However, one of the users who linked to a pirated version of SUPERBEAT XONiC believes others should follow suit.

“This is how all game studios should conduct themselves!” codemasterv writes.

PM Studios probably feels exactly the same, when they convert another pirate into a paying customer.

“This is how all pirates should conduct themselves….”

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

Those who prefer to pirate rather than pay for their software often face installation issues. These range from the very simple to the fairly complex, depending on the strength of the anti-piracy technology deployed by manufacturers.

At the lower end of the scale, users are sometimes required to input a fake serial number into their software. This is achieved by running a key generator or “keygen”, a tool bundled with a pirate release by the team who cracked it.

This is often straightforward but for users of the macOS Sierra, the latest update to the Mac operating system currently being rolled out by Apple, things are proving problematic.

When people try to run keygens and cracks that are bundled with many Mac pirate software releases, the tools break and offer the following error report.

“Termination Reason: EXEC, [0xc] This UPX compressed binary contains an invalid Mach-O header and cannot be loaded,” the message reads.

According to Mac Kung Fu, it is keygens’ reliance on a free multiplatform executable packer that is causing the issues.

“[The problem] occurs because the creators of the hacks and keygens use the popular open source UPX app to package their code but subsequently attempt to cover their tracks by erasing any mention of the app, including the vital markers to compressed data. This confuses macOS Sierra, causing the error,” the report notes.

Searches on popular torrent sites do indeed reveal a fairly widespread problem. In particular, there are many complaints noted by users of keygens published by popular piracy release group CORE.

Several users commenting on CORE releases that have been uploaded to The Pirate Bay are reporting similar issues but the problems aren’t isolated in English-speaking areas. As suggested by the image below, the problem is widespread.

UPX’s developers have been made aware of the issues since they affect more than just keygens and cracks. It’s reported that v3.92 of UPX will address the problem.

However, that won’t fix the broken keygens and cracks already available online. People who have already upgraded to MacOS Sierra will find that these tools won’t work, effectively taking that pirate software out of the marketplace for them.

But of course, pirates are an ingenious bunch and the thirst for free software is a great motivator. That has already prompted a user called zerocoolroot to find a fix, which reportedly works.

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