Earlier this month Norway became the latest country to block access to The Pirate Bay.

A local court ordered Internet providers to block user access to several large ‘pirate’ websites in the hope of decreasing online copyright infringement.

The decision sparked a public debate and spurred the local Pirate Party to launch their own DNS-service to circumvent the blockade. However, it appears that this countermeasure isn’t needed after all.

Now that the Internet providers have implemented the blockade, it has become apparent that not all Pirate Bay domains are covered by the court order. Apparently, thepiratebay.mn is still available to everyone.

This is quite an oversight because the .mn domain has been in use for several months already. It’s one of the four gTLDs the Pirate Bay is currently rotating as a redirect from the main thepiratebay.se domain.

Willy Johansen of the local “Rights Alliance” group, which was the driving force behind the blockade, acknowledges the problem.

“We are aware of the problem and do not like it at all. We can get the domain blocked by going to the police, but The Pirate Bay loves to play into this by replacing the domain name in a heartbeat,” Johansen tells Dagebladet.

Local media is presenting the story as if The Pirate Bay switched to a new domain, but that clearly isn’t the case. This makes the mistake even more painful, especially because copyright holders spent tens of thousands of dollars on the legal proceedings.

Meanwhile, Johansen says that it is difficult to keep up with The Pirate Bay’s domain switcheroos and hopes Norwegians will use their moral compass to steer clear of the site.

“It will always be possible for people to commit abuses if they want to, and there’s not much we can do about it. That’s also the case for society in general. We just have to hope people follow the law,” he says.

For now, visiting the Pirate Bay is by no means illegal, although sharing copyrighted works is. But that’s no different than before the blockade of course.

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

Following intense pressure from both local and international rightsholders, just over two years ago Russia took important steps towards cracking down on Internet piracy.

August 1, 2013, saw the introduction of a brand new copyright law which provided rightsholders with a mechanism to have sites blocked by ISPs if they do not respond to takedown requests within 72 hours.

Reporting on the first two years of activity, local telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor has now revealed the extent to which the legislation has been used by rightsholders and what action has been taken.

“Since August 1, 2013, Roskomnadzor has received 189 complaints from rights holders. It is worth noting that currently we are limiting access to 282 sites that violate copyright and related rights,” Roskomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov told RIA.

Unsurprisingly the list includes The Pirate Bay, which had restrictions imposed in June 2015 following a complaint from Mosfilm, one of the largest European movie studios.

Other sites currently blocked include popular movie streaming site Primewire. Ukraine-based file-hosting giant EX.ua is also affected, alongside library sites flibusta.net loveread.ws, which combined are good for more than 40 million visitors per month. Sports streaming portal Livetv.sx, which reportedly attracts 27 million visits, is also restricted.

While blockades in Russia can be full, partial or lifted if cooperation is forthcoming, earlier this year authorities made it clear that repeat offenders would not be tolerated. Amendments to copyright law introduced May 1 indicated what lay ahead.

“This development will mean that the systematic violation of intellectual property rights will result in sites providing access to stolen content being blocked forever,” the government announced.

It now appears that RUTracker, Russia’s most-visited torrent site, and popular music portal ProstoPleer, have tested that promise to breaking point.

“A few days ago an appeal was filed by an association of rightsholders that will require constant blocks on two of biggest pirate resources,” Roskomnadzor’s Zharov confirms.

Both RUTracker and Pleer were subjected to earlier copyright complaints but reportedly failed to deal with them as required under the law. The current action comes from the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI), a group which counts Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI among its members.

“We plan to file a statement with the court on Monday or Tuesday,” says NFMI CEO Leonid Agronov.

The music industry group said it tried to negotiate with the sites regarding the removal of pirated content but those discussions failed to yield results. Countering, Pavel Rassudov from the local Pirate Party feels that blockades will prove ineffective.

“People learn how to bypass these blocks, and the increase in their number will only lead to more frequent use of CGI proxies and the Tor network,” Rassudov says.

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

Last year BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music sued Cox Communications, arguing that the ISP fails to terminate the accounts of subscribers who frequently pirate content.

The companies, which control publishing rights to songs by Katy Perry, The Beatles and David Bowie among others, claim that Cox gave up its DMCA safe harbor protections due to this inaction.

The case revolves around data gathered by Rightscorp and Cox believes that the anti-piracy company is the driving force behind it, in part to retaliate for Cox’s refusal to forward their infringement notices.

The case is scheduled to go to trial soon but Cox hopes to avoid that. The company has now submitted a motion for summary judgment (pdf) in which it explains why the copyright holders don’t have a case.

For one, Cox explains that there is no evidence of any relevant actual direct infringement. Rightscorp’s system is flawed, they claim, and the IP-addresses could be used by persons other than the account holders.

“Plaintiffs made no effort to determine whether Cox account holders personally committed any infringements, and they cannot tie IP addresses to specific infringers. Plaintiffs tellingly but wrongly argue it is ‘not required for [them] to prove direct infringement’,” the lawyers write.

Cox cites several cases in which judges concluded that IP-addresses are not a person, and notes that the same applies here. In addition, the ISP argues that there is no evidence in support of contributory infringement or vicarious liability either.

Moving on, Cox says that the copyright holders have “unclean hands” because they turn a blind eye to misconduct by solely relying on Rightscorp, “whose business rests on extortion and falsehoods.”

The ISP highlights an interesting element of Rightscorp’s practice. To track down infringers the monitoring outfit has downloaded thousands of files themselves, without permission from all copyright holders.

“In its work for Plaintiffs Rightscorp downloaded files of thousands of sound recordings over the BitTorrent protocol, evidently to create evidence of infringements over Cox’s network. But copyrights in sound recordings are separate from copyrights in musical compositions.”

Indeed, the companies Rightscorp works for often only own part of the rights, those held by the composer of a track for example. This means that the company doesn’t have permission from all copyright holders involved.

Technically, Rightscorp may rely on “fair use,” but if that’s the case then the alleged downloaders may use this as a defense as well.

“Rightscorp either committed massive infringements of the sound recording copyrights or must have relied on the fair use doctrine. If the latter, that fact is an admission that activity over BitTorrent may constitute fair use, but there is no evidence that Rightscorp considered the possibility of fair use in generating millions of notices of claimed infringement,” Cox lawyers add.

Cox goes on to highlight that Rightscorp targets elderly and disabled consumers, instructing its employees to disregard protests from alleged infringers.

“When a consumer denies infringement, the phone script instructs the enforcer to state that the consumer must obtain a police report, and that the police may ‘take your device and hold it for ~5 days to investigate the matter’.”

Finally, Cox highlights that the copyright holders have failed to directly address the alleged damage downloaders are causing. Instead of sending takedown notices to torrent sites asking them to remove infringing content, Rightscorp relies on these torrents to conduct its business.

“Far from seeking their removal, Rightscorp uses these .torrent files, tolerates them, and relies on their availability on the Internet in order to set up its enforcement and shakedown scheme,” Cox writes.

“Plaintiffs’ failure to mitigate their actual damages, through simple and reasonable steps available to them, reduces or bars entirely their claims for relief based on statutory damages,” they add.

It is now up to the court to decide whether the arguments presented by Cox are sufficient to issue a summary judgment, or whether the case will proceed to trial.

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

It’s no secret that the major record labels and their Hollywood counterparts are less than satisfied with the framework designed to facilitate the removal of infringing content on the Internet.

The DMCA and its European equivalent allow rightsholders to send notices to service providers which mandate the removal of allegedly infringing content in a timely manner. While some sites, The Pirate Bay for example, completely ignore takedown notices, most other services such as Google are quick to comply.

Nevertheless, the burden remains on copyright holders to not only report infringing content when it appears on a site, but to also keep reporting it when the same content reappears time and time again. Under the law, providers only have to keep responding to complaints in order to avoid liability, but copyright holders complain that the process is exhausting. Once content is taken down it should stay down, they argue.

In a Forbes op-ed discussing the value of content in the digital age, RIAA chairman and CEO Cary Sherman has again been highlighting the problems his members face, describing the current enforcement system as “seriously antiquated” and criticizing those who take advantage of it.

“Unfortunately, while the system worked when isolated incidents of infringement occurred on largely static web pages — as was the case when the [DMCA] was passed in 1998 — it is largely useless in the current world where illegal links that are taken down reappear instantaneously,” Sherman says.

“The result is a never-ending game that is both costly and increasingly pointless.”

But while dedicated piracy sites are clearly a thorn in the side of the RIAA, Sherman doesn’t limit his criticism to services that operate on the boundaries of the law. Although they remain unnamed, the music group CEO also appears to take aim at user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Soundcloud.

“Compounding the harm is that some major online music distributors are taking advantage of this flawed system. Record companies are presented with a Hobson’s choice: Accept below-market deals or play that game of whack-a-mole,” Sherman says.

These kinds of allegations are not new. In April, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore accused YouTube of effectively gaming copyright law in order to avoid fair licensing negotiations with rightsholders.

“We want to ensure that services that make our content available, including by curating and monetizing it, are licensed on the same basis,” IFPI told TorrentFreak.

While platforms such as Spotify and Deezer are fully licensed by the labels, the RIAA suggests that others prefer to leverage illicit user uploads instead. While their response to DMCA notices keeps them safe, they are in effect obtaining Spotify-style licensing deals at a fraction of the price.

“The notice and takedown system — intended as a reasonable enforcement mechanism — has instead been subverted into a discount licensing system where copyright owners and artists are paid far less than their creativity is worth,” Sherman says.

In a twist on historical accusations that the music industry failed to innovate quickly enough during the last decade, Sherman says that it’s those taking advantage of a “broken” takedown system that are now living in the past.

“While the music industry has embraced new technology and business models, the beneficiaries of this broken system cling to this antiquated law that was enacted at the turn of the century, well before the modern Internet and today’s most advanced (and unimagined) technologies,” the RIAA chief concludes.

For the world’s largest music labels the future must now offer a modified copyright regime in which “take down” means “stay down” – or face the consequences. Wary of liability, companies like Google are likely to fight that all the way.

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

Following efforts to have his extradition hearing delayed, on Tuesday Kim Dotcom learned that the process would go ahead today as planned.

This morning all parties were present in the Auckland District Court for a hearing that will determine whether Dotcom and co-defendants Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato and Bram van der Kolk will be extradited to the United States to face charges of copyright infringement, money laundering and racketeering.

Acting for the Crown and U.S. authorities, Christine Gordon, QC said that despite the apparent complexity of the case, it could be described in straightforward terms.

“In the long prelude to this hearing much has been said about the novelty and technicality of the case,” Gordon said. “When distractions are stripped away it boils down to a simple scheme of fraud.”

Likening Megaupload to a giant Internet-connect hard-drive, Gordon claimed that site’s 50 million users uploaded huge amounts of content, around 90% of which breached copyright. In the meantime, Dotcom and his associates merely played lip service to takedown requests from copyright holders, all while financially rewarding those who provided the most popular content.

“We have the incredible spectacle of processing take-down notices while at the same time paying many of those same repeat offenders,” Gordon said.

“They knew that they paid rewards for specific copyright-infringing material and in some cases they communicated with the rewards claimants and helped and encouraged their activities by giving them special privileges.”

Kim Dotcom and Ira Rothken

In his submissions to the Court, Dotcom said that Megaupload was like a postal service whose infrastructure was used to smuggle drugs without the knowledge of its operators. Gordon took the analogy and turned it around.

“One would shut down the post office if those who created and ran it had actual knowledge that they were shipping drugs and go to great lengths to conceal it from law enforcement, and knowingly make money off each shipment,” she said.

Gordon boosted her argument by referencing Skype discussions that allegedly took place between Dotcom and his co-accused, including one that reportedly read: “[we are] not the dumb pipe we claim to be”.

Another cautioned over what could happen in the future.

“At some point a judge will be convinced about how evil we are and then we’ll be in trouble. We have to make ourselves invulnerable,” Dotcom allegedly told Ortmann in 2010, adding that logging of discussions should be avoided.

“Don’t log our chats. Too much s*** in there,” he said.

It’s alleged that Megaupload made around $US25 million from advertising and another $US150 million from premium subscriptions which allowed users to watch videos without time limits.

“If copyright holders would really know how big our business is they’d surely try to do something against it,” said van der Kolk in another email to Dotcom. “They have no idea we are making millions in profit every month.”

Gordon said that actions of the former Megaupload operators were systematic.

“[They] were part of a conspiracy, they deliberately attracted copyright infringing material to their websites, deliberately preserved that material, deliberately took steps to profit from that material and made vast sums of money,” Gordon said.

Judge Nevin Dawson’s job isn’t to decide whether the defendants are guilty of any crimes, only if there is a prima facie case against them. If he believes there is, the New Zealand justice minister will make a decision on extradition.

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