A change in the law means that when copyright holders spot Canadian subscribers’ Internet connections sharing content online without permission, ISPs must forward any resulting infringement notices to their customers.

Following its introduction less than a week ago, the so-called notice-and-notice system is already being utilized by entertainment companies. Small but popular ISP Teksavvy confirms that it’s already sending out thousands of notices to its subscribers every single day.

“With notice-and-notice, in early January 2015 we were receiving about 3000 copyright infringement notices each day,” the company confirms.

But despite knowing about the system for some time (and the relevant Canadian laws which led to its introduction), it seems that rightsholders haven’t yet found the time to customize their takedown notices to accommodate the law of the land.

“Many of [the notices] are formatted based on the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’) requirements, although we expect that to change over time,” Teksavvy add.

While the aims of a DMCA takedown notice tend to be understood internationally, there are companies involved in anti-piracy activities who make more explicit threats so should be more prepared. University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist has already spotted a particularly bad example.

The ridiculous

Rightscorp Inc. is a U.S. based anti-piracy outfit whose activities have been documented here many times. Their business model involves tagging cash demands onto takedown notices so it perhaps comes as no surprise that Canada has become the company’s latest target.

However, instead of tailoring their demands to the Canadian market, Rightscorp have simply exported their U.S. model north. A notice obtained by Geist and sent by Rightscorp on behalf of music outfit BMG reveals the details.

“Your ISP account has been used to download, upload or offer for upload copyrighted content in a manner that infringes on the rights of the copyright owner. Your ISP service could be suspended if this matter is not resolved. You could be liable for up to $150,000 per infringement in civil penalties,” the notice reads.

As Geist points out, the $150,000 claim is bogus since Canadian law caps liability for non-commercial infringement at $5,000 for all infringements. Disconnecting a user from the Internet is also out since there is no provision under Canadian law. Even the claim against music piracy is up for debate.

“Given the existence of the private copying system (which features levies on blank media such as CDs), some experts argue that certain personal music downloads may qualify as private copying and therefore be legal in Canada,” Geist explains.

The benign

But while Rightscorp aim to scare Internet subscribers, it’s clear that other notices being received are much less worrisome. A copy of a notice sent to a Bell Aliant subscriber and obtained by TorrentFreak is a good example.

The subscriber had been downloading a DVD screener copy of the movie American Sniper on Thursday which took just 10 mins to complete. Nevertheless, that was enough to receive a standard U.S. DMCA notice from Warner Bros a few hours later.

“We have received information that an individual has utilized the below-referenced IP address at the noted date and time to offer downloads of copyrighted material. The title in question is: American Sniper,” the Warner Bros. notice begins.

“The distribution of unauthorized copies of copyrighted television programs constitutes copyright infringement under the Copyright Act, Title 17 United States Code Section 106(3). This conduct may also violate the laws of other countries, international law, and/or treaty obligations.

The notice made no threats but did contain a request for the ISP to deal with the customer under its abuse policy. The ISP forwarded the notice but nothing was done to punish the recipient.

From: Copyright Notification
Date: Thu, Jan 8, 2015 at XX:XX
Subject: Important notice regarding your Internet activity [******]

The Government of Canada requires by law that all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) let their clients know when content owners contact them about possible unauthorized use of the content owner’s material such as illegal downloading of music, videos and games. As a result, we must let you know that we have received the below notification related to your account.

We want to assure you that Bell Aliant as your Internet Service Provider played no part in the identification of possible unauthorized use of content but are only passing on the owner’s message as required by law.

If you have any questions or need clarification please contact the content owner directly. For more information on why you received this notice visit http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=858069 . Thank you for your cooperation.

The person who received the notice told TF that while he was surprised to have received one so quickly, his downloading habits won’t change.

“I’ll continue to download, I’ll now be activating my VPN though whenever torrenting activity is going on,” he explained. “I suspect it’s a scare tactic that will work on most of the novice Canadians that download. I also suspect that roughly 90% of Canadians have downloaded something illegally, or know some who does for them.”

It’s expected that most ISPs will handle notices carefully but if any reader receives any notices containing threats or aggressive language, please feel free to forward them.

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

While some pirates are content with downloading and viewing so-called ‘cam’ releases of the latest movies, few will be happy with the quality. Movies recorded surreptitiously in cinemas with home-made rigs can produce reasonable results but nothing beats the sparkle of a digital copy.

Filling that gap are DVD screeners, the advance copies of recent movies sent out to critics and awards voters. Often in DVD format (but now also in Blu-ray), these high quality releases are much sought after online and as a result are subjected to intense security by the studios sending them out.

But despite all the efforts, leaks always happen. Every year copies of DVD screeners (identified by the term DVDSCR) turn up on torrent sites and are downloaded in huge numbers. December and January are the key months for leaks and yesterday downloaders hit the jackpot.

Over the past 24 hours copies of at least nine big movies leaked online in decent quality, all apparently sourced from industry DVD screeners.

The Hobbit is a smash hit – without watermarks

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is proving exceptionally popular with BitTorrent users. Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that the movie was downloaded at least 500,000 times in the first 24 hours.

Several ‘versions’ of the movie exist on torrent sites, each labeled by rival release groups including CM8, EVO, TiTAN, Ozlem and RAV3N. But despite the apparent selection, sources inform TorrentFreak that there is only one true source. Whether that is CM8 remains unclear but in a comment the group revealed that a lot of time was spent removing security watermarks from Peter Jackson’s movie.

“Movie had watermarks visible and invisible ones, had to remove frames to get rid of them,” CM8 said.

“Nothing I haven’t done before. It was hours of work, but its finally done and here for you to get!”

Oscar hopefuls 2015

Yesterday, Indiewire published their Oscar predictions. Their ‘absolute locks’ for Best Picture include “Birdman” (Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis) and “The Imitation Game” (Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley). Both were leaked yesterday.

Also tipped for Best Picture is “Selma“, a chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. Paramount sent DVD screeners to Academy voters in December and the movie leaked yesterday.

Also battling it out for Oscar glory are Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, Unbroken directed by Angelina Jolie, and crime thriller Nightcrawler. While the latter was leaked in October, the other titles were in yesterday’s batch.

Rounding off the DVD Screener bonanza are Disney’s Big Hero 6, Into the Woods, and Big Eyes.

From studio to torrent site

Finally, it’s worth highlighting how these titles appeared online. For years one of the most popular routes was via the “The Scene” but in common with more recent times, yesterday’s DVD screeners hit the Internet via P2P/BitTorrent suppliers. These upstarts continue to slice the top off the so-called ‘piracy pyramid’.

According to TorrentFreak sources who asked to remain anonymous, the nine movies came from three different sources. One accounted for the Hobbit and another Big Hero 6. The remaining seven all came from a single source. The encoding on these is described as “choppy” suggesting the leaker may not be an experienced pirate.

Update: More screeners have leaked including The Gambler, Inherent Vice, A Most Violent Year and Kill The Messenger.

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

A month has passed since The Pirate Bay was raided at the Nacka station, a nuclear-proof data center built into a mountain complex near Stockholm.

After being down for two weeks the site’s domain became responsive again, waving a pirate flag and a counter that kept track of the time that had elapsed since the raid.

Last week this counter suddenly started counting down, indicating that something is about to happen on February 1st. A few hours ago a few new mystery changes were made to the site.

The Pirate Bay logo in the right left corner started to move to a new image named totheisland.png on the bottom left. The CSS class of the image is “setsail,” suggesting that TPB is moving to the island.

The question that remains, however, is what it all means. The text on the island image is hardly readable but on closer inspection it appears to be a copy of one of TPB’s older doodles, pictured below.

The island in question features Pirate Bay’s home base and a few other torrent landmarks, including the seeder’s cave, dead torrents swamp, Sealand and the grave of the MPAA.

So does this mean that the Pirate Bay is heading home for a fresh start? Or will the ship dock for good?

Besides the moving ship and the island image TPB also added a new “pipe vi Makefile” class for the encrypted AES code. This is yet another suggestion that something’s coming, but in common with the other hints it’s still unclear what.

A source close to The Pirate Bay team informs TF that they are not ready to make an announcement on the site’s future yet. However, an official statement will follow in a few days time.

While Pirate Bay users are eagerly hoping for a full comeback on February 1st, the site could also announce something new. The extended downtime suggests that the site was hit hard and it’s not unthinkable that recent backups are out of reach.

Meanwhile, several Pirate Bay copycats are trying to gain the hearts and minds of lost Pirate Bay users. Yesterday, one of the imposters using the com.ua TLD went as far as issuing a press release, stating that the Pirate Bay has found a new home in Ukraine.

For now, however, the real Pirate Bay remains without torrents. And if it eventually makes a comeback, it will be at the official thepiratebay.se domain.

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

Copyright is a double-edged sword, and those who sharpen one side often get cut by the other. We see it happening time and time again with lawyers, lawmakers, anti-piracy groups and copyright holders.

In Canada the local anti-piracy group Canipre is running into the same trap. The blog copyrightenforcement.ca, which is linked to one of the company’s top executives and often used to post Canipre press releases, has been making a habit out of lifting articles written by hard-working journalists.

Most of the articles that appear on the site are copied from other news sources, including TechCrunch, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, The Hollywood Reporter, TorrentFreak and many others.

At TF we publish our content under a CC license, so there’s no foul play there, but the other news sites are not all copy friendly. In fact, the publication of most of the lifted articles amounts to blatant copyright infringement.

While fair dealing exists, posting full articles, some of which are behind a paywall, generally doesn’t fall into this category. And it’s not only the text that’s being copied but also the images which are often independently copyrighted.

After becoming the first company to go after individual Canadian file-sharers in court, this week Canipre announced a new campaign to send copyright infringement warnings to ISPs under the notice-and-notice program.

However, as University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist points out, they may have to start sending piracy notices to their own staff first.

“Canipre would likely offer its services to the media companies whose work is affected, yet it might want to take a closer look at its internal conduct before throwing stones in the form of thousands of notices alleging infringement,” Geist notes.

Making matter even worse, this isn’t the first time that Canipre has been linked to unauthorized copying. Two years ago the company’s own website blatantly used photos that were ripped-off from independent photographers.

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

A few days ago it became a legal requirement for Canadian ISPs to forward copyright infringement notices to their subscribers.

As a result of the new copyright law amendments, which also apply to VPN services, providers now have to retain logs of their subscribers’ IP-addresses or face high penalties.

Specifically, the law requires a broad range of Internet services to “retain records that will allow the identity of the person to whom the electronic location belongs to be determined, and do so for six months….”

Failing to retain logs and forward these notices may result in “statutory damages in an amount that the court considers just, but not less than $5,000 and not more than 10,000…”

The new rules also apply to BTGuard, a well-known Canadian VPN and proxy service that claims to keep no logs. Concerned that the new data retention requirements would force a change in this policy, several customers asked the provider for clarification.

Responding to these requests BTGuard assured its customers that its logging policy remains unchanged. However, BTGuard may discontinue its Canadian servers in the near future.

“Rest assured that we are committed to our customers’ privacy. As stated in our privacy policy, we do not log our customers’ usage or IPs and never will,” one customer was told by BTGuard.

“It’s possible that this legislation will require us to discontinue our servers in Canada, but we will find a solution and our services will continue where it’s legal to be anonymous without causing you any inconvenience,” the company added.

In a separate request we asked BTGuard for a comment on how the new law will affect its business. In a short comment we were informed that they are still exploring their options and that no final decision has been made yet.

“We still guarantee privacy. Our servers in Canada might be closed, but we are still exploring our options,” BTGuard’s Jared told TF.

Other providers are prepared to take similar measures. While the text of the law suggests that VPN providers are covered (something that’s also confirmed by one of Canada’s top copyright scholars), many are still uncertain about the exact impact it will have.

TunnelBear informed us that they are still investigating if they are indeed covered by the new legislation. If they are, the company will take its business elsewhere.

“Despite our investigation and legal consultations, it remains unclear whether or not VPN companies are included in the bill. We have brought on legal counsel to continue to investigate,” TunnelBear says.

“If it is determined that TunnelBear is required to comply with C11 if we retain operations in Canada, we will swiftly move our operations to a more privacy friendly region. At no point, under any circumstances will TunnelBear log the activity of our users,” TunnelBear adds.

For TunnelBear the issue is less urgent than for others though, as the company doesn’t allow torrent traffic on its servers.

While the changes may reduce piracy somewhat, it also negatively affects people’s privacy. And with the new data retention requirements Canada has certainly become an unattractive location for VPNs and other privacy services.

—

Update: Several sources in the know have offered TF additional analyses to clear up some the confusion. Below are some of the most relevant comments regarding VPN providers.

1. There is disagreement to what extent VPNs are seen as a “means of telecommunication.” This description could be fought by VPN providers which would then mean that they are not bound to section 41.25(1)(a). For now, this remains undecided.

2. Section 41.26(1)(b) requires to retain data for six months from the moment a notice is received so “the identity of the person to whom the electronic location belongs to be determined.” This includes the IP-address/timestamp linking the infringement to a specific customer, but no other “logs” are required.

3. If a VPN doesn’t hold any information that can link an IP-address to a specific customer they have to explain that to the copyright holder. 41.26(3) suggests that this could lead to potential legal action.

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