When it comes to Nazi propaganda, Germany has an extensive censorship track record. After the Second World War it was policy to ban all Nazi propaganda, most famously Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Even today the issue is still a hot topic. For example, earlier this week our attention was drawn towards a rather unusual censorship effort on behalf of the German National Library.

With help from BR:Enter Music, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek sent a takedown request to YouTube, targeting the historical 2006 documentary You Don’t Know Hitler.

The film in question serves as a reminder of the horrors Hitler brought forth. It is composed of historical material and other propaganda footage, including clips from Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 film Triumph of the Will.

The content that triggered the takedown request is a version of the infamous Horst Wessel Lied, also known to a wider public as the Nazi Anthem. According to the claim, the library owns the right to the recording.

Documentarian and filmmaker James K. Lambert informs TorrentFreak that this is not the first time that his film has been targeted, but usually these claims are dropped when he protests them.

“The complete film has been posted for nearly four years and I periodically get claims against me from companies who say they own this sound recording or that image. These false claims were always dropped once I pushed back.”

Copyright claim

This time, however, that was not enough. The National German Library insists that the film infringes on their rights and as a result the filmmaker has been slapped with a copyright strike.

“According to BR Enter, DNB owns the ‘sound recording’ rights to this track, ‘Version 11’ specifically, which is allegedly the version I used in my film when I extracted it from the Nazi propaganda documentary, Triumph Of The Will.”

While it seems strange that the German state would own the rights to a 87-year-old song it didn’t produce, the issue is a bit of a minefield. Over the years, Germany has indeed obtained the copyrights to a lot of Nazi propaganda, some of which are still enforceable today.

On the other hand, there is a long history of denying Nazi copyrights or permitting its use, starting with the US Government which sanctioned it in Frank Capra’s counter propaganda series Why We Fight.

What’s clear, however, is that after all these years Nazi copyrights are still being enforced. This is something Lambert is fiercely protesting. According to the documentarian, people have the right to see history for what it was.

“Nazi propaganda is part of the criminal record of their Crimes Against Humanity; they are not marketable commodities that should exclusively belong to anyone,” Lambert tells us.

To get his documentary reinstated Lambert submitted a counter-notice which he documented in detail in a lengthy blog post. According to Lambert the song he used is in the public domain and even if it isn’t, it would fall under fair use.

TorrentFreak contacted both BR:Enter and the National German Library several days ago asking for comment on the issue. However, at the time of publication we have yet to hear back.

Lambert hopes that his counterclaim will be accepted and that the documentary will be reinstated soon. For the future, he hopes that YouTube will improve its processes so it can better deal with these fair use cases, keeping the rights of documentarians in mind.

“This matter should never have reached this absurd point. YouTube should not have given unquestioned deference to BR Enter Music’s claim against me and my documentary should not have been taken down from YouTube.

“I hope this counter-claim will finally resolve this matter and restore the video to my channel because I am completely within my rights to have made this film and to publicly show it to others,” Lambert concludes.

For those who are interested, Lambert’s documentary You Don’t Know Hitler is still available on Vimeo.

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

Two months ago KickassTorrents (KAT) was shut down by the U.S. Government, following the arrest of the site’s alleged owner.

Soon after the official site went offline various mirrors and clones launched to take its place, to the pleasure of hundreds of thousands of users.

One of the most popular mirrors started as KAT.am. While this domain name was swiftly seized, and later picked up by scammers, the initial site continued to operate from kickass.cd and kickass.mx.

However, this week the site got in trouble again. Without prior notice the .MX domain name was taken out of circulation by the registry, following an intervention from Mexico’s federal police.

The authorities say they were tipped off by copyright holders and wasted no time in containing the threat.

“This action took place after various distribution companies reported intellectual property infringements. In response, staff at the Center for Prevention of Electronic Crimes started a cyber intelligence operation to locate the source where this crime was committed,” the federal police reported.

“Currently the website is out of service, and our research continues to locate the administrators,” they added.

Although there is no doubt that Kickass.mx is offline, in a rather confusing press release police keep referring to kickass.com.mx, which appears to be an unrelated website.

TorrentFreak reached out to the operator of the Kickass.mx “clone,” which is really just a Pirate Bay mirror with a KickassTorrents skin, who was surprised by the domain seizure.

“The suspension of the MX TLD was very unexpected and came as a shock to us because we used EasyDNS to register the domain name,” the Kickass.mx operator says.

EasyDNS has a track record of standing up against domain seizures and suspensions that are requested without a proper court order. However, in this case EasyDNS was bypassed as the police went directly to the MX domain registry.

“Their team is trying to get into touch with the Mexican registry to get the domain back though any positive development in this regard seems unlikely,” the operator adds.

For now, the KAT-themed site remains available from the Kickass.cd domain and more backup domains are expected to follow in the near future, probably without Mexican ties.

“We already have three more TLDs and plan to set up mirror sites on them to increase resilience,” he concludes.

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

In October 2015, a well-known copyright-trolling outfit announced the launch of the “largest” anti-piracy campaign seen in the UK for years.

German-based monitoring company Maverick Eye said that it had teamed up with London-based Hatton & Berkeley and other key players to target file-sharers with cash settlement demands.

Due to the complexity of the setup, some likened the project to a “smoke and mirrors” operation.

Initially, Hatton & Berkeley and its owner Robert Croucher became known for demanding money from alleged Sky Broadband downloaders of the Robert Redford movie The Company You Keep.

“Hatton and Berkeley stands alongside our colleagues in an international operation that has so far yielded drastic reductions in streaming, torrenting and illegal downloads across Europe,” a company spokesperson said at the time.

Common to all of Hatton and Berkeley’s letters to ISP subscribers are threats that if they don’t pay, ultimately they will end up in court. To date, that has never happened, but interestingly Hatton and Berkeley’s Robert Croucher is now in some legal trouble of his own.

According to a Court News report (subscription), 35-year-old Croucher has been appearing in court this week following allegations of a serious assault.

It all began following a night out at the exclusive members-only Raffles club in Chelsea, London, which is frequented by the rich, famous, and Croucher. It is the only nightclub the Queen has ever attended.

After leaving the club, it’s understood that Croucher tried to get into an Uber car but things quickly got out of hand.

According to driver Mohammad Hussain, a woman was the first to get into his vehicle. Croucher is said to have thrown his bag into the car, something which provoked an argument between the pair. Croucher then slammed the door.

“I got out to open the door, and then the gentlemen took the keys from through the window,” Hussain told Hammersmith Magistrates’ court. “He then slapped me.”

Croucher admits hitting Mr Hussain but according to the Uber driver, things got much worse from there.

“I was begging for my keys and he suddenly pushed me on the pavement,” Hussain told the Court.

“He has just kicked me in several parts of my body and head. My head was very swollen, I went to hospital where I stayed for four hours. I went to my GP a few days later and got prescribed antibiotics, it was severe pain.”

Croucher, who gave his address as Hawthorn Road, Hornsey, north London, admits assault but denies kicking Mr Hussain.

This is the third time in as many months Croucher has made the news.

In the House of Lords during July, Lord Lucas advised recipients of threatening letters from Croucher’s Hatton & Berkeley to thrown them away.

“I really urge them to put [their correspondence] in the bin. The current scammers aren’t pursuing anyone [in court] they’re just after threats, and extortion, and shaking people down,” Lord Lucas said.

Then in August, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority published details of its investigation into claims on Croucher’s personal website that one of his projects had created 10,000 jobs.

The ASA concluded that the claims were misleading and ordered the advertising not to appear again in its current form. Despite the ruling, the claim is still present on the site’s main page.

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

For several years, music rights group BMG has been chasing down pirating BitTorrent users. With help from Rightscorp the company regularly sends DMCA notices to ISPs.

These notices are bundled with settlement demands, intended for Internet subscribers who allegedly shared pirated content. If the accused subscribers pay $30, they avoid further trouble.

However, BMG’s enforcement efforts are not only directed at individual subscribers. Behind the scenes, the company is also putting pressure on ISPs to cooperate with their scheme, or pay up instead.

One of their targets is US-based Internet provider RCN. A relatively small player with roughly 400,000 subscribers, but allegedly good for millions of alleged copyright infringements.

According to BMG, the ISP is liable for the infringements of its users. RCN clearly disagrees with this accusation and went to court earlier this year to ask clarification in the form of a declaratory judgment.

A few days ago the ISP submitted an amended complaint (pdf), revealing a letter that shows how the music licensing group put pressure on them by demanding preventive measures as well as compensation.

In the letter, BMG’s law firm Steptoe & Johnson informed RCN’s executive vice president Jeffrey Kramp that the ISP failed to terminate repeat infringers on its network, despite receiving millions of notices.

“The evidence shows that RCN is allowing repeat infringers to use its network to continue their infringement of BMG works even after RCN has been notified of their specific instances of infringement,” the letter reads.

“Since Rightscorp began monitoring BMG’s copyrights, it has identified millions of instances of infringement involving thousands of BMG copyrighted works using the RCN network.”

BMG’s letter to RCN (full pdf)

RCN had previously noted that BMG accused the ISP of secondary copyright infringement and the letter shared by RCN late last week shows how.

“RCN’s knowledge and allowance of unchecked infringement to occur using its network makes it liable for secondary copyright infringement and actual or statutory damages as high as $150,000 per infringed work,” BMG’s lawyer writes.

With hundreds of works at stake, the potential damages run to dozens of millions. However, just like the accusations against individual subscribers, RCN can make these go away by signing a settlement agreement and paying compensation.

“We are hopeful that a resolution of this ongoing and damaging infringement can be reached. To that end, we suggest the parties meet to discuss a settlement that would include a means of preventing or limiting future infringement and appropriate compensation to BMG,” the letter suggests.

It’s clear that with this language BMG hoped to pressure the Internet provider into cooperating. This didn’t work out though, as RCN decided to lawyer-up instead and sue them instead.

In the amended complaint, the Internet provider asks for a declaratory judgment that it’s not liable for infringing any of BMG’s copyrights or any damage resulting from alleged infringements of their subscribers.

While ISPs enjoy safe harbor protections under the DMCA, this does not guarantee a positive outcome for RCN.

In a similar liability case last year, Internet provider Cox Communications was held responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers. In that case a Virginia federal court ordered Cox to pay BMG $25 million in damages.

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

Ever since their official release, Adobe software products have been popular with pirates. Editing studio Photoshop has been the most enduring, appearing on pirates’ machines since 1990.

In order to innovate, in 2013 Adobe said it would move away from boxed ‘retail’ products and switch to a cloud-subscription model. This meant that the large initial outlay associated with its products could be exchanged for a more affordable monthly fee.

In July 2014, Adobe said the strategy was working, declaring that piracy had fallen. Just over a year later, Adobe was celebrating again, noting that casual pirates had been converted by the lower price of entry.

This week Adobe had more good news for shareholders. In the third quarter, the company generated more than $1.46 billion in revenue, up from $1.22 billion year-on-year. Creative Cloud, the company’s replacement for the old disc-based Creative Suite, accounted for $803 million in revenue, up 39% year-on-year.

In a Q3 2016 earnings conference call the discussion somewhat inevitably turned to piracy, with Adobe Executive Vice President Mark Garrett noting that mitigation is one of the company’s key aims.

“Our focus with Creative Cloud continues to be in three key areas; growing our core base of users, including migrating the legacy user base of Creative Suite users, addressing piracy and growing our installed base in the education market, driving new customer adoption in adjacent markets,” Garrett said.

Heather Bellini from Goldman Sachs wanted to know whether Adobe sees potential for additional revenue boosts as piracy is further eroded.

“Is there kind of a framework that we could think about in terms of the impact on top line growth that you can get from piracy reduction and are there things that you are doing that you are changing even more than you were kind of a couple of years ago to stay ahead of the pirates?” Bellini asked.

Adobe President and Chief Executive Officer Shantanu Narayen responded, indicating that a large proportion of recent growth can be apportioned to pirates jumping ship to become part of Creative Cloud.

“If you look at the macro level we used to sell approximately three million units of Creative Suite a year and if you look at the numbers right now of where we are with Creative Cloud, it’s clear that we have seen significant acceleration,” Narayen said.

“Without a doubt, a large part of that acceleration is people who want Creative Cloud and are no longer pirating Creative products, but are actually as a result of the low price and the value that we are delivering using the entire subscription-based offerings.”

Additionally, Adobe says it has taken other measures to clamp down on pirates, including action against people attempting to abuse trials and sites offering pirated copies.

“Once the trial expires [we’ve ensured] that they don’t have access to the products. And as you know, we have also shutdown places, online websites where people could buy a repackaged box,” Narayen said.

But while Adobe hasn’t been shy to detail its subscription revenues, the company has again refused to say how many subscriptions it has sold. This makes it difficult to compare, one for one, pirated instances of its software in use versus new subscriptions being taken up. During the call, Narayen offered no additional clarity.

“In terms of the installed base of pirates, I think the numbers for that are all over the map. But I think you can go back and look at the last numbers that we gave in terms of the addressable market and you would see that there is still significant headroom,” he said.

“Let’s get the markets that are most developed, let’s address casual pirates, let’s hit the enterprise and then let’s now expand that into emerging markets where there was more piracy and now we have the ability to counter that, both through pricing as well as through technology.”

Exactly one year ago, Adobe products occupied four of the top eight slots in The Pirate Bay’s most popular software download list, with Photoshop Creative Suite 6 taking the top position. In 2016, things haven’t changed that much.

As shown in the image above, Adobe products still share half of the top eight positions with Microsoft, but this time around Photoshop Creative Cloud has taken over at the top from CS6.

Not exactly the transition to the cloud Adobe had in mind of course, but maybe more pirates will subscribe properly next year.

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