Last December a Virginia federal jury ruled that Internet provider Cox Communications was responsible for the copyright infringements of its subscribers.

The ISP was found guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement and ordered to pay music publisher BMG Rights Management $25 million in damages.

The verdict was a massive victory for the music licensing company and nothing short of a disaster for Cox.

Hoping to escape the jury verdict, the Internet provider renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law. Alternatively, the ISP asked the court to grant a new trial.

For its part, BMG asked the court to issue a permanent injunction against Cox, requiring the Internet provider to terminate the accounts of pirating subscribers and monitor and prevent future infringements.

After a review, the court ruled on the matter this week. In his opinion Judge Liam O’Grady affirms the $25 million judgment against Cox, while denying the motions for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial.

In the verdict, the court upholds the conclusions of the jury. Among other things, it rules that there is sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that Cox is responsible for the infringements that occurred on its network.

The fact that the ISP chose not to forward BMG’s notices and settlement requests to its customers to protect them from extortion-like practices, doesn’t change this.

“Whether or not Cox’s effort to protect its customers from Rightscorp was noble or well-intentioned, Cox could not also turn a blind eye to specific infringement occurring on its network,” Judge O’Grady writes.

The court acknowledges that his decision will have widespread consequences for other ISPs and Internet services, and hints that further litigation could help to clarify what’s allowed and what not.

“In reaching this conclusion, the Court acknowledges that the application of traditional contributory infringement to large intermediaries like Cox magnifies the uncertainties in this area of the law and raises the specter of undesirable consequences that may follow.

“This case may provide the vehicle for consideration of those questions,” Judge O’Grady adds.

The above means that the $25 million judgment against Cox is upheld.

While the ISP will be disappointed with this outcome, it will be pleased to see that BMG’s request for a permanent injunction was also denied.

The music licensing group requested a permanent injunction against Cox, requiring the Internet provider to expose the personal details of pirating subscribers, and monitor their actions to limit or prevent further infringements.

The court rules that the requested injunction is too vague. BMG failed to explain what actions the ISP would have to take, and Judge O’Grady notes that “limit” and “prevent” are two entirely different things.

Among other things, BMG suggested that the ISP could ‘spy’ on its subscribers by using deep packet inspection, but it failed to provide more specifics.

“Perhaps, as BMG suggests, Cox could require a subscriber to remove BitTorrent from their computers in order to remain on the network. Aside from the obvious point that this does not appear in the injunction, there was minimal testimony about deep packet inspection or its viability as a court-ordered solution here,” O’Grady writes.

In addition, the court also rejects BMG’s request to receive email addresses, phone numbers and other personal details of repeat infringers, which would put the privacy of Cox subscribers at risk.

In his decision to deny the permanent injunction, Judge O’Grady weighs in the fact that BMG waited for several years to take action.

“The Court does not question the harm BMG suffers each time a work becomes available on BitTorrent, but BMG has not sufficiently articulated how maintaining its years-long status quo outweighs the burden it wishes to place on Cox.”

Both sides have yet to comment on the court’s ruling but considering the importance, it is likely that Cox will appeal the case to a higher court.

A full copy of Judge O’Grady’s memorandum of opinion is available here (pdf).

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

It’s no secret that Facebook frequently removes copyright-infringing links shared by its users.

However, it sometimes goes a step further by removing entire pages. This is also what happened to ExtraTorrent, one of the largest torrent sites around.

Even though the site stopped sharing links to copyrighted material on Facebook years ago, it was still being reported by copyright holders, music industry group IFPI in particular.

As a result, Facebook flagged the ExtraTorrent page as a repeat copyright infringer. This recently resulted in the removal of its fan page, which had tens of thousands of followers.

According to ExtraTorrent operator SaM, it didn’t stop there either.

“They blocked multiple ExtraTorrent pages,” he says. “First our main page, and after some fans made new pages, these were removed every other day as well.”

Roughly a half dozen fan-made pages were removed by Facebook. On top of that, the user profiles and groups associated with the official ExtraTorrent page were disabled as well.

“They even disabled profiles of those who were moderating the page. All groups were removed and profiles of admins were disabled,” SaM tells us.

The complaints were sent to Facebook on behalf of IFPI, according to ExtraTorrent’s operator. However, since his profile was deleted he no longer has access to the messages in question.

Although the ExtraTorrent page did not post any updates linking to infringing material, it did list the site’s URLs and official mirrors in its profile. Perhaps this was enough for Facebook to warrant its actions.

That would make sense, as the social networking site is actively flagging all ExtraTorrent links on its service. Anyone who wants to post an ExtraTorrent link, with or without torrent, has to go through a “security check.”

Facebook’s security check

“It looks like a link you’re sharing might be unsafe. If you can, please remove this link: extratorrent.cc,” Facebook warns, adding “If you can’t remove this link and you still want to share it, please complete the security check below.”

The same warning also pops up for private messages, making it impossible to share an ExtraTorrent link without having to go through an additional check.

Whether the ExtraTorrent URL filter is piracy related is unknown, but the page removal certainly is.

Also, this is not the first time that ExtraTorrent has lost its Facebook following. The same happened last year, as well as a few years earlier.

Shortly before publishing this article a new unofficial ExtraTorrent Facebook page was registered, again started by fans. However, ExtraTorrent informed us that they’ll stay away from the social network for the time being.

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

Over the years, many anti-piracy systems have ruffled the feathers of video game pirates but none have done so to the extent Denuvo has.

Not a DRM technology its own right, Denuvo is software that acts as an anti-tamper mechanism, thwarting the efforts of so-called crackers who want to make games available for free.

Before this weekend, just one Denuvo-protected title had appeared online. FIFA 16’s protection was bypassed, not cracked (a subtle but important detail), by Turk DM. Nevertheless, pirates never take even a bypass for granted – free games are free games, after all.

Then this weekend, the floodgates opened. A cracker known as Voksi found a loophole in Steam which allowed many Denuvo-protected titles to be played for free. It was another bypass, one powered by a secret sauce.

“His secret method for defeating Denuvo was beer, tons of it,” Voksi colleague Royalgamer06 told TorrentFreak.

Royalgamer06 confirms that Voksi hails from Bulgaria and the pair met on a forum where they shared a passion for cracking games.

“Voksi has been cracking for a number of years now. We met each other on [a Russian forum]. We both were releasing so-called ‘Steamworks fixed’, which allowed pirates to play cracked games online through Steam,” he says.

“Somehow he found out about this exploit. At first, he couldn’t believe it himself. But after several tests it really worked. And then he got really excited and released it. This got the whole piracy community excited, which motivated Voksi even more.”

And exciting it was too. After the Doom release came several other titles including Return of the Tomb Raider, Just Cause 3, Homefront: The Revolution, ABZU, INSIDE and Total War WARHAMMER.

“It’s a Denuvo bypass technically,” Royalgamer06 explains

“It relies on an exploit using the DOOM Demo Denuvo activation. Voksi had to make different memory patches for each game to work. But the principle remained the same. So many pirates have been able to play and finish these games.”

Indeed, according to stats provided by Voksi, an estimated 650K people used his bypass method over the weekend. It apparently somehow calls back home to him, hence the figures.

But then yesterday, as thousands of pirates celebrated the surprise fall of Denuvo, misery struck. Voksi’s workaround was defeated.

“Voksi’s exploit has been patched by Denuvo now,” Royalgamer06 told TF last night.

“They disabled activations for the DOOM demo, which the bypass relied on. It took them three days to do it. Seems the Denuvo guys don’t work at the weekend.”

But as the storm clouds gathered over pirate haunts everywhere and the sun beamed down on Denuvo in Austria, even bigger news appeared on the horizon. A single line of text on so-called pre-databases (sites that signal pirate releases) indicated that a big name in the piracy scene had made amazing progress.

‘Rise.Of.The.Tomb.Raider.READNFO-CONSPIR4CY’ references a release by a ‘Scene’ group known as CONSPIR4CY, a reported collaboration between CPY and CODEX.

More than a bypass of Denuvo, this release of the latest Tomb Raider game appears to contain the Holy Grail – a bona fide crack of Denuvo.

Predictably and despite its size, the 31GB file is now hot property on file-sharing sites. It comes updated with the latest patch and includes three DLCs including Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch, Cold Darkness Awakened and Endurance Mode.

But while CONSPIR4CY (whose motto is “Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned) have undoubtedly achieved something amazing in pirate terms, the Denuvo battle is probably far from won.

Thus far only Tomb Raider has fallen, and that was released in January this year, meaning that the title had more than six months clear run at piracy-free sales. That being said, no one knows when CONSPIR4CY began working on Denuvo.

In any event, optimism is high for more Denuvo titles being released soon.

“Who knows what more Denuvo games get released now,” Royalgamer06 says.

“Denuvo’s reputation will get crushed at this rate for sure. First they let this big [Voksi] exploit happen and now their infamous protection gets fully cracked by CONSPIR4CY.

“Seems like there really is no way to beat piracy,” he concludes.

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

An astonishing three decades have passed since Nintendo first unleashed Metroid on a still-young video gaming market. Debuted in Japan in 1986 on the now-classic Famicom system, Metroid gained a dedicated and passionate following.

For those interested in the game’s development, Kotaku has decent potted history. However, this weekend, with Metroid turning 30, another big event reignited the fires.

AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) has been in development for more than 10 years. Based on Metroid II: The Return Of Samus, it’s a game written by fans, for fans. After a demo version was released in 2014, this Saturday the full version landed, free of charge.

“Finally. This is the first full release of AM2R. You’ll be able to complete Metroid 2 like you never did before,” a post by developer DoctorM64 revealed.

“It was a long journey. I grew up both as a person and as a developer along this project. Today I can start sharing with you the rest of the game. There’s lots of improvements and features planned for a near future.”

The release delighted the gaming press, with shouts of “brilliant” and “hot hot hot“. But now it appears that Nintendo is attempting to pour cold water on the flames using the DMCA.

According to an announcement this morning by leading Metroid fansite Metroid-Database, Nintendo took exception to the site hosting the game files and filed a complaint with its webhost.

Friends: Nintendo has hit us (meaning, our website host) with a DMCA takedown notice. We can no longer host the AM2R file. Sorry!

— Metroid Database (@MetroidDatabase) August 7, 2016

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8">

In a follow-up, Metroid Database lead designer Infinity’s Edge published the full email, which was sent to the site’s web host by a lawyer acting for Nintendo of America.

Dear Copyright Agent,

We represent Nintendo of America Inc. (Nintendo) in intellectual property matters. Nintendo recently learned that content hosted by SoftLayer at http://www.metroid-database.com/files/AM2R_10.zip infringes copyrights owned by Nintendo. This notice is provided pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 USC § 512, and SoftLayer’s DMCA Policy.

The above URL provides access to a software file that makes unauthorized use of Nintendo’s copyrighted material from its Metroid video game franchise, including but not limited to the images and fictional character depictions from U.S. Copyright Reg. Nos. PA0000356142, supp. by PA0000547461 (Metroid); VA0000474073 & TX003221317 (Metroid II: Return of Samus); PA0000720157 (Super Metroid); PA0001275461 (Metroid Prime); PA0001275460 (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes); PA0001633666 (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption); PA0001915118 (Metroid Prime Hunters); and PA0001791606 (Metroid: Other M).

I have a good faith belief that this use is not authorized by the intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law. I hereby state that the information herein is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that I am authorized to act on Nintendo of America Inc.’s behalf.

We would appreciate your expeditious removal of all infringing content. Please contact me immediately with any questions.

This notice is not intended to and shall not waive or prejudice any rights and remedies that Nintendo may have at law, in equity, or otherwise. Any and all such rights and remedies are hereby expressly reserved.

Best regards,

Brian Sniffen
Attorney for Nintendo of America Inc.

Miller Nash Graham & Dunn LLP
3400 U.S. Bancorp Tower | 111 S.W. Fifth Avenue | Portland, Oregon 97204
Office: 503.224.5858 | Fax: 503.224.0155

Why Nintendo appears to have targeted Metroid Database with a takedown and not yet the official site is unclear. However, the official site is currently only linking to files hosted elsewhere (Mediafire, Filedropper), so it could be that the third party sites will receive notices directly. That being said, no files have yet been taken down. (Update: Both files have been removed by Nintendo)

TorrentFreak has reached out to Brian Sniffen for comment but in the meantime a DMCA notice published by Kickstarter in June confirms that the lawyer has acted for Nintendo in earlier Metroid copyright cases.

Of course, fans of the remake and indeed the whole Metroid series are pretty upset that Nintendo appear to be spoiling the party, but with the game already widely distributed, Nintendo isn’t going to be able to do much to stop things now.

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

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

The Polish authorities acted on a criminal complaint from the U.S. Government. In the indictment, the 30-year-old Ukrainian is charged with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering.

According to Vaulin’s legal defense team, lead by Ira Rothken, these allegations are baseless. While not addressing whether their client is indeed the owner of the site, they argue that the changes don’t hold up.

In a letter sent to the Department of Justice (pdf), they request the authorities to dismiss the criminal complaint against Vaulin and release him from prison as soon as possible.

One of the main arguments is that the alleged KickassTorrents owner can’t be held responsible for the potentially infringing actions of the site’s users. The defense team argues that criminal secondary or indirect copyright infringement does not exist under U.S. law.

“This alleged criminal copyright case arises out of an erroneous theory of criminal copyright law advanced by the United States that attempts to hold Artem Vaulin criminally liable for the alleged infringing acts of KAT’s search engine users,” the defense team writes.

The lawyers point out that the KickassTorrents website itself never hosted any infringing material. It only stored torrent files, and possible copyright infringements would take place once the visitors had left the site.

“By the time any possible primary infringement by a former KAT visitor could ever occur the visit to the site is long over,” the defense argues.

“Defendants cannot be held criminally responsible for what users do after they leave the KAT search engine behind. The Copyright Act does not criminalize secondary copyright infringement,” they add.

Letter to the U.S. Department of Justice

The affidavit also contains other “incorrect, misleading and irrelevant allegations” regarding BitTorrent technology and how KickassTorrents operated, according to the defense.

In addition, it lacks specific examples linking the alleged site operator to infringing downloads. In fact, the only relevant infringement quoted is one committed by an agent from Homeland Security Investigations.

“The Affidavit fails to identify even one specific infringement committed within the last 180 days by someone in the United States of America, other than by HIS Special Agents,” Vaulin’s defense argues.

The absence of any specific allegations is not an oversight according to the defense. Rather, it is a side effect of how far the alleged site owner is removed from potentially copyright infringing acts, they note.

Given the weakness of the criminal claims, Vaulin’s lawyers ask the U.S. Department of Justice to drop the charges against their client and release him from prison as soon as possible.

The letter further urges the authorities not to question, interrogate, or interview Vaulin, and allow the defense to immediately speak with him in prison so he can assist with his defense.

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