Elsevier is one of the largest academic publishers in the world.

Through its ScienceDirect portal the company controls access to millions of scientific articles spread out over thousands of journals, most of which are behind a paywall.

Not all academics are happy with these restrictions that hamper their work. As a result, hundreds of thousands of researchers are turning to ‘pirate’ sites such as Sci-Hub, Libgen and Bookfi to access papers for free.

Elsevier views these sites as a major threat to its business model and last year it filed a complaint at a New York District Court, accusing the sites’ operators of systematic copyright infringement.

The publisher managed to obtain a preliminary injunction to seize the sites’ domain names. However, the case is still ongoing and the three sites in question continue to operate from new domains.

Over the past several months a lot of media coverage focused on Sci-Hub and its operator Alexandra Elbakyan. However, Elsevier still has no clue who’s behind the other two sites. With help from Cloudflare, it hopes to fill in the gaps.

Earlier this week Elsevier submitted a motion for leave to take discovery (pdf), so it can demand logs and other personally identifiable data about the operators of Libgen and Bookfi from Cloudflare.

Both sites previously used Cloudflare’s CDN services and the publisher is hoping that they still have crucial information on file.

Elsevier already tried to obtain the host IP addresses of the sites through the “Trusted Reporter” program, but Cloudflare replied that it could not share this info for sites that are no longer active on its network.

In addition to contacting Cloudflare, the academic publisher also requested information from Whois Privacy Corp. – the domain registration anonymization service used by both Libgen.org and Bookfi.org – but the company hasn’t responded to these requests at all.

“Elsevier has used all of the tools at its disposal in its attempt to identify the operators of Libgen.org and Bookfi.org,” Elsevier informs the court.

“However, as a consequence of the Defendants’ use of various service providers to anonymize their identities, as well as the nonresponsiveness of those service providers to Elsevier’s requests to date, these efforts have thus far been fruitless.”

According to Elsevier, a court-ordered discovery subpoena is the only option to move the case forward and identify the defendants behind Libgen and Bookfi.

“As a result, Elsevier has exhausted all other reasonable options and now must now seek this Court’s intervention in order to obtain identifying information concerning John Doe Defendants […] from CloudFlare: a business which has had direct dealings with both Libgen.org and Bookfi.org,” Elsevier adds.

Since neither Libgen not Bookfi are currently using Cloudflare’s services, it remains to be seen whether the company still has the site’s old IP-addresses and other information on file.

On Thursday the court granted Elsevier’s leave to take discovery ordering CloudFlare to save all relevant logs until a final discovery decision is taken. Before that happens, CloudFlare will have a chance to respond to the request.

To leave room for the possible discovery process, Elsevier previously asked for the pretrial hearing to be postponed. It will now take place late October.

Meanwhile, the websites continue serving ‘pirated’ papers and books through their new domain names at golibgen.io, bookfi.net and sci-hub.cc.

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

Founded back in 2006, SwePiracy grew to become one of the most famous private torrent sites on the Swedish scene. With that reputation came attention from anti-piracy groups and local authorities

In the wake of the “guilty” verdict in the Pirate Bay trial during April 2009, SwePiracy disappeared offline. It reappeared just a few weeks later.

Anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån (now Rights Alliance) said that during this downtime, the operators of the site took measures to improve their security. However, three years later those efforts proved futile.

In February 2012, police in Sweden and the Netherlands took coordinated action to shut down the site and earlier this year its 24-year-old operator appeared in court for the first time facing several years in prison.

Despite the prosecution admitting that the site had likely been created for fun, it’s alleged SwePiracy raised $100,000 from donations. As a result, the pursuit of damages against its operator was to be made “according to The Pirate Bay model”, i.e extremely aggressively.

This week the now 25-year-old appeared in court again, facing charges that he assisted in the unlawful distribution of a large number of movies. As is customary in such cases, the prosecution has homed in on a smaller sample of 27 movies in its evidence.

“They earned a lot of money, they spread huge amounts of pirated content and this [man] is one of the key players. Therefore, it is important that those involved are sentenced to severe punishment,” said Henrik Pontén of Rights Alliance, who represent Nordisk Film, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

One of five companies acting against SwePiracy, Nordisk is reportedly being the most aggressive. The film distributor is demanding more than $3m (20m kronor) in damages for a single low-budget movie.

SwePiracy defense lawyer Per E. Samuelsson, who also represents Julian Assange and previously took part in The Pirate Bay trial, says the claims are the most unreasonable he’s ever witnessed in his 35 years as a lawyer.

“I think this is the most unreasonable claim for damages I have been through. The idea that [this type of film] could cause 20-25 million kronor in damages on an illegal file-sharing site is totally absurd from every point of view,” he said.

Swedish news outlet SVT reported an exchange in court between Samuelsson and Pontén, in which the former argued that his client had started the site as a child, for fun.

“My client started [SwePiracy] when he was 14 years old. It was purely a prank,” Samuelsson said.

“That’s not true,” Pontén objected. “He was not fourteen years old when he committed these acts. At some point, he has certainly been fourteen, but when he did this he was criminally responsible and earned lots of money.”

The verdict will be handed down at a later date.

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

In July, Polish law enforcement officers arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged founder of KickassTorrents, who’s been held in a local prison since.

Polish authorities acted on a criminal complaint from the U.S. Government, which accused him of criminal copyright infringement and money laundering.

Last month the 30-year-old Ukrainian was indicted together with two co-conspirators, all with ties to Ukraine. While the fate of the other two is unknown, we’ve learned that the U.S. Government has now officially requested Vaulin’s extradition.

TorrentFreak spoke with Vaulin’s U.S. counsel Ira Rothken who informed us that the U.S. sent official notice of the extradition request to Poland this week.

The defense team is still working on getting the paperwork translated back into English so they can respond, but meanwhile they highlight another crucial issue.

Even though nearly two months have passed, the alleged KickassTorrents owner still hasn’t been allowed to meet with his U.S. defense team. A clear due process violation, according to Rothken.

“We still have not had an opportunity, nor have we been granted access, to meet with Artem Vaulin in prison in Poland. So we now believe that this has ripened into an international due process problem.

“We believe that Artem’s rights are now being impacted with his inability to communicate with U.S. counsel,” Rothken tells TF.

While Vaulin is allowed to meet with his Polish lawyer, Rothken stresses that this is not enough, since the case deals with a U.S. indictment, under U.S. law, based on evidence gathered by the United States of America.

“There’s no way that there could be a fair trial in the United States, or a fair extradition process, without Artem being able to have access to U.S. counsel, to learn his rights, to be able to galvanize the evidence, and to do so in a robust and expedient manner,” Rothken tells TF.

This issue doesn’t only apply to the U.S. case, but also affects the extradition process and proceedings, which have just begun.

In recent weeks Vaulin’s defense team have exhausted every option they have to set up a meeting with the U.S. counsel, but all requests have been rejected so far.

“We have gone through all the hurdles that we could possibly go through with the Polish authorities. Right now there’s simply no proper basis for them not to give access, other than the fact that they’re involved in procedural gamesmanship,” Rothken says.

Instead, the defense sees no other option than to raise the issue in court. They plan to do so in the near future and hope to have the case dismissed as a result of these due process problems.

“Right now we think the only remedy can be that when you go ahead and interfere with a U.S. defendant having access to his U.S. counsel, the entire case should be dismissed in the interest of justice,” Rothken concludes.

More news about the due process problems and the extradition process is expected to become available as the case evolves.

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

Countless individuals and businesses around Europe operate open WiFi networks, but what happens when those networks are used by third parties to infringe intellectual property rights?

Pirate Party member Tobias McFadden runs a lighting and sound system shop in Germany and as part of his customer service and marketing efforts, he’s been operating an open WiFi network. Six years ago, this policy landed him in trouble with a major recording label.

In 2010, McFadden received a claim from music company Sony who alleged that his open WiFi had been used to offer one of their albums online without permission.

Sony demanded a range of measures from McFadden, including preventing future infringement by password protecting the WiFi network, blocking file-sharing ports, and logging/blocking users sharing copyrighted content.

Sony also wanted to hold McFadden liable for third party infringement, which led to the case being referred to the European Court of Justice. Yesterday the court handed down its judgment and its largely good news for the Pirate Party member.

[T]he Court holds, first of all, that making a Wi-Fi network available to the general public free of charge in order to draw the attention of potential customers to the goods and services of a shop constitutes an ‘information society service’ under the directive on [electronic commerce],” the decision reads.

The Court further notes that in order for such ‘mere conduit’ services to be exempt from third party liability, three cumulative conditions must be met:

– The provider must not have initiated the transmission

– It must not have selected the recipient of the transmission

– It must neither have selected nor modified the information contained in the transmission.

“[T]he Court confirms that, where the above three conditions are satisfied, a service provider such as Mr McFadden, who provides access to a communication network, may not be held liable,” the judgment reads.

“Consequently, the copyright holder is not entitled to claim compensation on the ground that the network was used by third parties to infringe its rights. Since such a claim cannot be successful, the copyright holder is also precluded from claiming the reimbursement of the costs of giving formal notice or court costs incurred in relation to that claim.”

However, the decision did not go entirely McFadden’s way. In an effort to strike a balance between protecting a service provider from third party liability and the rights of IP owners, the Court ruled that providers can be required to end infringement.

“[T]he directive does not preclude the copyright holder from seeking before a national authority or court to have such a service provider ordered to end, or prevent, any infringement of copyright committed by its customers,” the Court found.

One such measure could include the obtaining of an injunction which would force an operator to password-protect his open WiFi network in order to deter infringement.

“In that regard, the Court nevertheless underlines that, in order to ensure that deterrent effect, it is necessary to require users to reveal their identity to be prevented from acting anonymously before obtaining the required password,” the ruling adds.

On a more positive note, the Court rejected the notion of monitoring networks for infringement or taking more aggressive actions where unnecessary.

“[T]he directive expressly rules out the adoption of a measure to monitor information transmitted via a given network. Similarly, a measure consisting in terminating the internet connection completely without considering the adoption of measures less restrictive of the connection provider’s freedom to conduct a business would not be capable of reconciling the abovementioned conflicting rights,” the Court concludes.

Commenting on the decision, Marietje Schaake MEP says the ruling could complicate plans for more open access to WiFi.

“This may lead to a lot of unnecessary red tape for every small business that currently offers free Wi-Fi. [President of the European Commission] Juncker’s plan to offer free WiFi in European Cities also just became a bit more complicated after this ruling,” Schaake notes.

“On a more fundamental level we must remain vigilant that copyright enforcement does not become a Trojan horse for ending online anonymity.”

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

Starting a few hours ago Chrome and Firefox users are unable to access The Pirate Bay’s torrent download pages without running into a roadblock.

Instead of a page filled with the latest torrents, visitors now see an ominous red warning banner when they try to grab a torrent.

“The site ahead contains harmful programs,” Google Chrome informs its users.

“Attackers on thepiratebay.org might attempt to trick you into installing programs that harm your browsing experience (for example, by changing your homepage or showing extra ads on sites you visit),” the warning adds.

Mozilla’s Firefox browser displays a similar message.

While Pirate Bay’s homepage and search is still freely available, torrent detail pages now show the following banner.

Chrome’s Pirate Bay block

Both Chrome and Firefox rely on Google’s Safe Browsing report which currently lists TPB as a partially dangerous site.

In addition to the two browsers, people who use Comodo’s Secure DNS also experienced problems reaching the site.

Comodo’s secure DNS has a built-in malware domain filtering feature and earlier today it flagged the Pirate Bay as a “hacking” site, as the banner below shows. Shortly before publishing this warning disappeared.

Pirate Bay hacking?

Comodo DNS still blocks access to ExtraTorrent, the second largest torrent site trailing just behind The Pirate Bay.

The secure DNS provider accuses ExtraTorrent of spreading “malicious” content. Interestingly, Google’s Safe Browsing doesn’t report any issues with ExtraTorrent’s domain name, so another source may play a role here.

This isn’t the first time that Comodo has blocked torrent sites and usually the warnings disappear again after a few hours or days. Until then, users can add the domains to a whitelist to regain access. Of course, they should do so at their own risk.

Chrome and Firefox users should be familiar with these intermittent warning notices as well, and can take steps to bypass the blocks if they are in a gutsy mood.

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