U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is part of Homeland Security, regularly seizes copyright infringing goods.

In addition, it also targets devices that circumvent copyright protection measures, which violate the DMCA. These can include Blu-ray rippers or mod-chips, for example.

In recent years the number of DMCA-related seizures has been relatively low. In 2016, only 70 items were confiscated. While this grew to 297 seized shipments a year later, copyright holders see it as just a drop in the ocean. However, that could change going forward.

A few weeks ago, Customs and Border Protection launched a public inquiry into its planned implementation of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (TFTEA) This includes several proposed regulation changes for seizures of “piratical articles.”

The consultation triggered a response from the Motion Picture Association (MPA). The group supports most changes but is concerned that the proposed definition of a “copyright protection measure” isn’t broad enough.

According to the proposal, it would only cover devices that are designed to circumvent access controls under the DMCA. However, the MPA would like to extend this to devices that circumvent “copy controls” as well.

“To adequately implement the TFTEA and ensure effective border enforcement is available against all circumvention devices that violate the DMCA, CBP should revise the definition of ‘copyright protection measure’ to include copyright controls,” MPA writes, while offering a revised definition.

With this broader definition, the Hollywood-funded group hopes to block or at least restrict the importation of pirate boxes. At the moment, these devices are rarely – if ever – seized by border patrol officers.

“MPA is hopeful that these proposed regulations will enhance border enforcement against Piracy Devices (also referred to as ‘illicit streaming devices’ (ISDs) or in some cases ‘Kodi boxes’). These devices enable users to stream, download, or otherwise access unauthorized content from the Internet,” the group notes.

The focus on these pirate boxes is no surprise as streaming piracy is seen as the latest and greatest piracy threat, according to the movie industry.

The MPA points out that pirate devices alone already result in billions of dollars in estimated losses for the North American entertainment industries. By seizing these devices at the border this could become less of an issue.

The group also gives an indication of what to look for. According to the MPA’s letter, China is the country to watch.

“China is a hub for the manufacture of these devices, many of which are exported to the United States, as well as for the development of the piracy apps and add-ons that allow these devices to be used to pirate content,” it reads.

Whether the proposed changes, with or without the MPA’s suggestion, will actually lead to more seizures is unclear. Many streaming devices are not illegal in their own right and can also be used to stream or download legitimate content.

However, the letter makes it clear that the movie industry is trying to keep the bad apples out, ideally with the help of enforcement authorities.

—

A copy of the Motion Picture Association’s letter forwarded to U.S. Customs and Border Protection is available here (pdf).

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From a standing start in January 2013, file-hosting platform Mega has gone from strength to strength.

Founded by Kim Dotcom in response to the Megaupload takedown of 2012, Mega has since parted ways with the entrepreneur but its growth has continued in his wake.

According to figures published by Mega, at the end of the final quarter of 2013 the cloud storage company was hosting around 0.6 billion files. In 2014, that had leaped to 3.6 billion files, a figure that almost doubled to 11.9 billion by the end of 2015. The latest published data reveals that at the end of September 2019, Mega was storing an impressive 63.8 billion files.

Early 2015 the company published its first transparency report, a common practice for large technology companies including Google, Twitter and Reddit. The latest installment published today by Mega strives to underline the platform’s compliance with local and international law and has a clear emphasis on how it deals with copyright infringement.

With an obvious eye on the fate of Kim Dotcom and the ongoing Megaupload saga, Mega stresses that it enjoys safe harbor protections under New Zealand’s Copyright Act in respect of content uploaded by its users. Additionally, while there is no technical need for it to do so, the company says that it also respects the standards required to achieve safe harbor under the DMCA and the EU Copyright Directive.

As a result, Mega reports that when it receives a takedown notice it aims to disable access to content within four hours, with takedowns “usually being actioned” well within that self-imposed limit. However, with files reportedly being uploaded at the rate of 500 per second, there are bound to be some that breach copyright law.

For the first nine months of 2019, Mega reports that it processed around 317,500 takedown requests. As the table below shows, that is a relatively small number when viewed alongside the total number of files stored by the company.

Data provided by Mega shows that the number of links taken down peaked in 2014 at around 150,000, with a downward trend following until late 2015. Since then, takedowns have varied from a low of around 50,000 in the third quarter of 2018 to a high of 120,000 in the second quarter of 2019.

However, as the table below shows, the relatively steep rises seen this year had very little impact on the trend of reducing takedowns when compared to the percentage of files stored overall.

In light of the ongoing lawsuits in the United States, particularly involving ISP Cox Communications, the manner in which technology companies handle the issue of so-called “repeat infringers” is now a key battleground when questions are raised over liability for infringement. In this regard, it’s clear that Mega doesn’t want to be seen falling short.

After initially operating a “five strikes” policy, in 2015 Mega introduced a “three strikes” regime that remains in place today. Related account suspensions peaked in the third quarter of 2017 at just over 8,000 but then suddenly tailed off to a relatively steady 2,000 to 2,500 suspensions per quarter thereafter.

Since its inception, Mega says it has suspended around 78,000 accounts for hitting the limits of its repeat infringer policy, which is a significant number but relatively small when compared to the number of user accounts overall.

Mega launched as “The Privacy Company” with file encryption a key selling point. The cloud storage platform says that it cannot decrypt any files without the appropriate key but “does have access to registration information and IP addresses used to access our services.”

The company adds that it holds personal data relating to users for extended periods, including email and IP addresses, plus “limited activity detail” relating to account access, file uploads, shares, and chats.

“Personal data is retained indefinitely while the user’s account is open. After account closure, Mega will retain all account information as long as there is any law enforcement request pending but otherwise for 12 months after account closure as users sometimes request that an account be re-activated,” Mega states.

“After 12 months, identifying information such as email and IP addresses will be anonymized (except that email address records will be retained for reference by the user’s contacts or where the user has participated in chats with other Mega users) but other related database records may be retained.”

This information will only be handed over when Mega is required to do so by New Zealand law, a New Zealand court, or law enforcement authority “with appropriate jurisdiction”. However, the company notes that it may “consider” requests from overseas law enforcement and civil claimants.

“During the 2018-2019 year, Mega was served 7 legal orders from NZ authorities and then disclosed account information for 540 user accounts which are alleged to be involved in serious criminal activity overseas,” the company concludes.

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The phrase declaring that there is “nothing new under the sun” is well known.

At least in part, it suggests that everything we say, do, or create is copied from the people or material we learn from, after being processed through the intricacies of our own experiences.

This ‘human remix’ theory is the premise of a new documentary series produced by Copy-Me.org, a group that was featured on the main page of The Pirate Bay back in 2013. Titled the Creativity Delusion, the latest installment in the series declares that “Geniuses Steal.”

“We know geniuses are not real and minds don’t have Eureka moments. But we still cling to the idea of an original artist. That romantic notion of someone who creates something out of nothing, with their mind alone,” the introduction reads.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Copy-Me’s Alex Lungu further explains that the episode focuses on the rarity of originality in history, art, and inventions.

“From Morse to Beethoven, from Shakespeare to Orwell, from Lynch to Tarkovsky, everything is a constant remix,” Lungu says.

“It makes us feel good to believe in a somewhat supernatural idea of a creator. But I think it’s much more liberating for anyone who makes anything to not put so much pressure on themselves, as it’s too much already. And yeah, one of the biggest downsides is that we lock our culture up believing that this will somehow lead to more creativity, not less.”

In common with any good documentary, The Creativity Delusion: Geniuses Steal goes into detail, providing clear examples of well-known quotes, pieces of art, film scenes, musical compositions and more, that were either copied from pre-existing works or provided inspiration for new creations.

Unfortunately, uploading such a documentary to YouTube is a risky endeavor, since the platform’s automatic ContentID system has no way to determine whether a piece of content had been truly pirated or should be subject to fair use exemptions.

As a result, after the documentary was uploaded on December 8, 2019, it was immediately targeted by YouTube’s bots. They determined that highlighting the similarities between well-known tracks, such as the Robin Thicke/Pharrell Williams track Blurred Lines and Marvin Gaye’s Got to Give it Up, with appropriate short samples, are an infringement of the labels’ copyrights.

This resulted in the documentary being subjected to not just one but four separate ContentID matches.

Copy-Me disputed all of the claims but fast forward ten days and the hits against the video remain in place and look to remain so for another three weeks. The disputes are reportedly “under review” but in the meantime, the entities behind these tracks get the benefit of the doubt that their content is being used illegally.

While the documentary highlights many clear instances of artists copying or basing their work on those of others, the fact that the section focusing on Blurred Lines seems to have caused the most issues is ironic, to say the least.

After a long legal battle that finally came to a close in 2018, a judge ruled that Thicke and Pharrell must pay $5m to the family of Marvin Gaye for copyright infringement because Blurred Lines bore too many similarities to Got to Give it Up.

Interestingly, just after that case went to an unsuccessful appeal, more than 200 musicians filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Thicke and Williams which warned that the verdict in the case “threatens to punish songwriters for creating new music that is inspired by prior works.”

This, of course, is the entire point of the Copy-Me documentary, that all artists and creators in various niches rely on those who went before to provide ideas and artistic inspiration. There truly is nothing new under the sun, but sadly that also includes highly questionable copyright hits on YouTube, pointing out that very thing.

“We used samples [from the songs] to make the point that the biggest copyright lawsuit of the decade ($5m) is a travesty that can have serious repercussions on inspiration and creativity,” Lungu says.

“The two songs are similar in the way any two funk songs are similar, and we play other samples from other songs to make that point. There’s no other way to show that… other than to actually play them. This is clearly covered by fair use: to use a fragment of a song in an educational material, for non-commercial purposes to make a point about that very song.”

It remains to be seen whether this problem will be resolved quickly, or indeed resolved at all. However, Lungu firmly believes that if a platform like YouTube uses automated detection systems, there must be a clear and simple way to dispute false positives.

“[The platform] should explain what you can do in the easiest way possible. It should explain how copyright actually works and how using someone else’s work can be completely legal, even without anyone’s permission,” he says.

“Copyright isn’t property, but not that many people know that. And we should have a strict way of taxing those who claim works that aren’t theirs. Why should repeat infringers have a three-strike policy, but repeat abusers shouldn’t?”

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Regular Internet providers are being put under increasing pressure for not doing enough to curb copyright infringement.

Music rights company BMG got the ball rolling a few years ago when it won its piracy liability lawsuit against Cox Communications.

The ISP eventually agreed to pay millions of dollars in damages, but that didn’t end the troubles. Last year a group of RIAA labels filed a similar piracy liability suit which is currently under trial.

For more than two weeks, Cox and the music companies have presented their case to the jury in a Virginia federal court. However, now that both parties have been heard, the ISP would prefer the court to rule on the matter.

Yesterday Cox submitted a motion for a judgment of federal law. If granted, this will leave the judgment of several crucial issues up to the court instead of the jury.

Such a request is allowed when the evidence can only lead the jury to reach one conclusion, or if the verdict would be based on speculation and conjecture. Both of these issues can play a role in this case, according to Cox.

In its motion, the ISP asks the court to rule that there is no evidence of direct infringement by Cox subscribers. This is a crucial matter, as it’s a requirement to prove contributory and vicarious infringement, which are at the basis of the liability claims.

According to Cox, the music companies presented no evidence which proves that all affected subscribers reproduced pirated content. While it’s clear that subscribers made music available through BitTorrent, these files could have been purchased legally, the company argues.

“The MarkMonitor system cannot determine whether the purported copies of Plaintiffs’ works on devices associated with Cox subscribers’ IP addresses were initially purchased from iTunes, legally uploaded from a purchased CD, or obtained from another legal source,” Cox notes.

MarkMonitor’s tracking system revealed that subscribers made files available for others to download. However, it didn’t always show that these files were illegally obtained. According to a witness, most subscribers already had a full copy and ‘only’ 15% were still downloading files.

The 15% figure would leave the jury with guess-work, Cox argues, which can be a critical shortcoming.

Furthermore, it’s argues that the music companies have no proof that any subscribers distributed infringing copies. while there was an easy option to actually prove the matter if the tracking systems were configured properly.

“The easy and obvious way to prove that a Cox subscriber ‘actually disseminated’ a particular recording would have been to use a file-sharing protocol to actually download that recording directly from the subscriber’s computer,” Cox writes.

The music companies also failed to show that piracy acted as a “draw” to potential customers, the ISP notes.

“There is no evidence showing that any subscribers were drawn to Cox’s service by the availability of unauthorized copies of Plaintiffs’ works, or for that matter the availability of any infringing works.”

In addition, the ISP argues that it can’t be held liable for alleged infringements of business subscribers. While Cox was made aware of these, businesses can have hundreds or thousands of users, and Cox can’t identify these based on a single IP-address.

Based on these and various other arguments Cox argues that it’s clearly not liable for contributory or vicarious infringement. As such, it asks the court to rule on these issues, instead of leaving it up to the jury.

Finally, the ISP requests a similar judgment when it comes to potential damages. The music companies request statutory damages for sound recordings, compositions, compilations, and other derivatives that point to the same tracks. As such, it requests to limit the damage claims to one award per work.

The above is obviously all based on Cox’s viewpoint and the music companies are likely to argue the opposite. Many of these issues were previously argued earlier in the legal proceedings when Cox asked for summary judgment.

At the time, the court opted to leave the issues open for the jury to decide. Whether it will rule differently now that both parties have presented their arguments in court will become apparent in the near future.

—

A copy of Cox Communication’s motion for a judgment of federal law is available here (pdf).

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OpenSubtitles is one of the largest and most advanced subtitle repositories on the Internet, with millions of subtitles being downloaded every week.

The site was founded over a decade ago by a Slovakian programmer who came up with the idea while drinking a few beers at a local pub. In the early days, copyright concerns weren’t much of an issue, but that position has changed.

In recent years, OpenSubtitles and similar sites have been blocked by ISPs in several countries following court orders. While the subtitles themselves offer little entertainment value, rightsholders see them as an integral part of the piracy ecosystem.

This belief is shared by the Danish anti-piracy outfit RettighedsAlliancen. Acting on behalf of several movie companies, the group obtained a blocking injunction against Internet provider TDC. As part of a voluntary agreement, several other ISPs followed suit.

While RettighedsAlliancen was happy with the blockade, it wasn’t completely satisfied. There were still Danes on smaller ISPs who could access the site and Danish VPN servers could access it too. This prompted the group to demand action from the target site itself.

This came to light when several OpenSubtitles users noticed that they could no longer access the site. Instead, they were redirected to a translated copy of the court order, hosted on the anti-piracy group’s website.

After some initial speculation surrounding the possible involvement of Europol and Cloudflare, OpenSubtitles admin “oss” offered some much-needed clarification.

“We received ‘nice’ letter from Danish Rettighedsalliancen to block our site from Danish users. So on our end we detect if User IP is from DK, and if yes, then they are redirected there,” oss writes.

Not all users understand the decision to block users voluntarily and mention that it’s a “slippery slope.” While the admin doesn’t dispute this, he prefers to resolve the matter to avoid potential problems. Especially since most Danish visitors are blocked by their ISPs already.

TorrentFreak reached out to the anti-piracy group which confirmed that it sent OpenSubtitles an email late November. The group pointed out that some of the site’s activities are deemed illegal in Denmark and urged the operator to “stop further infringements.”

As far as we know, this is the first time that a site has voluntarily blocked access to visitors from a country to comply with a court order against a third-party, which doesn’t specifically apply to the site itself.

It’s also worth noting that the blocking efforts are broader than the Danish court order, which is limited to OpenSubtitles’ role as a supplier to the Popcorn Time app. According to the order, only the api.opensubtitles.org and dl.opensubtitles.org domains have to be blocked. However, the site also redirects visitors to the main domain.

While the anti-piracy group is pleased with OpenSubtitles’ cooperation, making the site completely inaccessible in Denmark will be impossible. People can still bypass the blockade, even the site’s own one, by relying on foreign VPN servers.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.