It is no secret that copyright holders are monitoring unauthorized downloads around the world.
In most cases this results in harmless takedown notices but increasingly, these warnings are triggering settlement demands or automated fines.
Rightsholders in the Netherlands are planning similar action. Dutch Filmworks initially said it would send the first settlement demands last Autumn but a year later, this is yet to happen.
Local anti-piracy group BREIN also announced a similar effort, targeting frequent seeders. This campaign isn’t live either.
Considering the above, it came as a surprise when several people received emails demanding a ‘fine’ over alleged illegal downloading in recent days. The emails in question claim to be from the Dutch Government’s Telecom Agency (Agentschap Telecom), which carries some weight.
The emails may look pretty legitimate, especially to people who are unfamiliar with these type of demands, but the Telecom Agency issued a warning today which explains that they are fake.
“There appear to be fake emails in circulation that supposedly come from the Telecom Agency. These are fake e-mails regarding fines for illegal downloading of films. These are bogus e-mails. They are not from the Telecom Agency,” the warning notes.
“Have you received such an e-mail? Do not respond to the message, do not click on any links and never leave your details behind.”
It appears that the scammers are using the news that ‘fines’ will soon be sent out to alleged pirates to add legitimacy to their efforts. Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that this has happened.
Last year we reported on a similar scheme where fake piracy fines were sent out, supposedly on behalf of Dutch Filmworks. This was a scam as well and the movie distributor advised recipients to throw the letters in the trash.
“There is a fake letter in circulation. This letter is NOT sent by Dutch Filmworks. Do not pay and throw the letter away,” the movie Dutch Filmworks warned at the time.
Being a Government agency, it’s unlikely that the Telecom Agency will ever send out piracy fines. These are more likely to come from rightsholders or their representatives.
How far along BREIN and Dutch Filmworks are with their real ‘fine’ schemes remains unknown.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/featdanfer.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-08 22:47:542018-11-08 22:47:54Dutch Govt Agency Warns Against Fake ‘Piracy’ Fines
The entertainment industries have repeatedly accused Google of not doing enough to limit piracy while demanding tougher action.
For its part, Google regularly publishes updates on the extensive measures it takes to limit piracy on its platforms.
The company has today released the latest iteration of its “How Google Fights Piracy” report. It highlights how the company generates billions in revenue for the entertainment industries while at the same time takes measures to counter copyright infringement.
The company explains that its anti-piracy efforts are guided by five principles, starting with more and better legal alternatives.
“Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply. The best way to battle piracy is with better, more convenient, legitimate alternatives to piracy, which can do far more than attempts at enforcement can,” Google writes.
The other principles include a “follow-the-money” approach, effective and scalable anti-piracy solutions, protection against abuse such as fabricated copyright infringement allegations, and transparency.
A large portion of the report describes Google’s policies and results regarding web search. The company stresses that it doesn’t want to link to any pirated content, but that it relies on copyright holders to pinpoint these URLs.
“Google does not want to include links to infringing material in our search results, and we make significant efforts to prevent infringing webpages from appearing,” the company writes.
“The heart of those efforts is cooperation with creators and rightsholders to identify and remove results that link to infringing content and to present legitimate alternatives.”
Aside from removing more than three billion URLs in recent years, the search engine also helps to promote legal alternatives. This includes “knowledge cards” (which, incidentally, have featured pirate links too), as well as offering copyright holders SEO advice.
Earlier this year we reported that the number of takedown notices was starting to decrease for the first time in years, and Google confirms that observation in its report.
“The number of URLs listed in takedown requests decreased by 9%, reversing a long-term trend where the number of URLs requested for removal increased year-over-year,” the company writes.
Last year, Google was asked to remove 882 million URLs in total, of which 95% were removed. In addition, more than 65,000 sites that were flagged persistently have been demoted in search results, lowering their visibility.
This demotion measure is “extremely effective” according to the search giant.
“Immediately upon launching improvements to our demotion signal in 2014, one major torrent site acknowledged traffic from search engines had dropped by 50% within the first week,” Google notes, citing a TorrentFreak report.
Perhaps more importantly, Google’s demotion measures also passed the tests that were carried out under the Voluntary Code of Practice that Google entered into alongside Microsoft and major UK rightsholder organizations.
This agreement was signaled by the rightsholders as a landmark deal and, reportedly, Google is doing well.
Thus far, four rounds of tests have been carried out to check whether search engines sufficiently limit the availability of infringing content. These are based on guidelines set by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Google passed them all.
“Thanks to the demotion signal and our other efforts to surface legitimate results in response to media-related queries, Google Search has passed the test every time with flying colors — scoring considerably under the thresholds agreed with the IPO,” Google reveals.
This suggests that the search engine doesn’t have much to fear from the UK Government, which previously warned that “legislative” measures could follow if search engines didn’t step up their game.
While Google says that it’s doing its best, the company is convinced that search is not a major driver to pirate sites and stresses that they don’t control what is on the web.
The company reiterates its earlier position that removing entire domains from search results is unacceptable, as that would restrict access to legitimate content as well. Similarly, “filtering” the entire web for pirated content is not an option either.
“It is a myth that Google could create a tool to filter the web for allegedly infringing material and remove images, video, and text from our search results proactively. Such a system is both infeasible and unnecessary,” Google writes.
Aside from search, Google has also removed content from its other services including YouTube, Google Drive, and Google images. Some of these services were extensively abused by streaming sites last year, but Google says it has taken steps to counter this.
Finally, no anti-piracy report these days would be complete without a Kodi mention. The streaming software, which is perfectly legal in its own right, is regularly used in combination with third-party piracy add-ons.
Google, which banned the term Kodi from its auto-complete feature, says it removed several set-top boxes with “suspicious” add-ons from Google Shopping. In addition, the Play Store is closely monitored to flag apps with pre-installed pirate Kodi add-ons before they appear online.
In closing, Google notes that it remains committed to fighting piracy on all fronts, albeit not at all costs.
“Through continued innovation and partnership, we’re committed to rolling back bad actors while empowering the creative communities who make everything we love about the internet today.”
While Hollywood has yet to have any ‘pirate’ sites blocked by Internet service providers in the United States, over in Europe the picture is rather more intense.
At least 17 countries in the European Union now have active site-blocking programs, at last count blocking more than 1,800 sites and 5,300 related domains. This week, action by several major Hollywood studios came to fruition, adding Romania to the list.
In July 2017, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Universal Cable, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Pictures targeted multiple Romanian ISPs with demands to block three pirate sites.
Of course, top of the list was The Pirate Bay, the torrent site with a reputation for being the galaxy’s most resilient, despite being blocked all around the world by dozens of ISPs. Also targeted were Filmehd.net and Filmeonline2013.biz, two movie and TV show streaming portals that are particularly popular with locals.
According to a brief decision published by the Romanian Ministry of Justice, several ISPs including market leader RCS & RDS, Telekom Romania, UPC Romania, Digital Cable Systems, AKTA Telecom, and Nextgen Communication were defendants in the case and are now required to block a long list of domains (see below).
The decision, which is underpinned by a ruling on site-blocking handed down by the European Court of Justice in 2017, is the first of its kind in Romania.
The decision is not yet final and can be appealed within 30 days to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. It is not clear if any of the ISPs intend to do so.
The decision requires the defendant ISPs to implement what appears to be a straightforward DNS blocking regime on fixed-line services. This means that customers of the affected ISPs may be able to switch to a secondary DNS provider (such as Google or OpenDNS) to evade the blocks, once they’ve been put in place.
As revealed earlier this year, The Pirate Bay is now being blocked in at least 19 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
As a result of this widespread blocking, there are now hundreds of ways to access the site, via alternative domains, mirrors, proxies, VPNs and even Tor. A huge ecosystem of third-party sites has sprung up to facilitate access to the site, with new domains appearing on a regular basis.
That goes some way to explaining why the Romanian order is so lengthy. Not only does it block ThePirateBay.org, but dozens of other domains, as listed below.
Domains to be blocked according to the latest Romanian decision
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/pirate_bay2.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-07 16:45:552018-11-07 16:45:55Romanian ISPs to Block The Pirate Bay Following Hollywood Complaint
For roughly two decades, copyright holders have been sending ISPs takedown notices to alert account holders that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material.
These notices are traditionally nothing more than a warning, hoping to scare file-sharers into giving up their habit. In recent years, this has slowly changed.
In the past, AT&T and other ISPs said that they would never terminate accounts of customers without a court order, arguing that only a court can decide what constitutes a repeat infringement.
However, after rightsholders filed several high profile lawsuits against ISPs, many companies have revised their policies. This also appears to be the case at AT&T, which reportedly plans to terminate its first customers over piracy allegations.
The ISP, which is the third-largest broadband provider in the US, plans to terminate over a dozen persistent ‘pirates’ next week, Axios reports.
The customers in question have received repeated warnings for pirating through P2P networks, usually BitTorrent. AT&T states that it reached out to educate them about copyright infringement and prevent the issue from reoccurring, apparently without result.
“A small number of customers who continue to receive additional copyright infringement notifications from content owners despite our efforts to educate them, will have their service discontinued,” an AT&T spokesperson said, commenting on the news.
AT&T is by no means the only ISP that terminates persistent pirates, but it’s a noteworthy step since the company is no longer convinced that a court order is required to do so.
This lack of clarity is, in part, due to the language in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that deals with takedown notices.
The DMCA requires ISPs to “… adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers.”
The term “repeat infringer” is open to interpretation. Are these infringers by a court’s standards, or merely based on allegations from copyright holders?
Where AT&T previously said that a court order was needed, it will now terminate customers based on allegations from copyright holders.
There is little doubt that many of the repeatedly flagged subscribers have a ‘pirate’ in their household. That said, without a proper judicial review of the evidence, there’s more room for error.
AT&T and several other ISPs previously took part in the Copyright Alert System. Together with the MPAA and RIAA, they agreed to send warning notices to alleged pirates, escalating repeat infringers through a series of “mitigation” measures.
Ironically, this scheme didn’t require any of the ISPs to terminate any subscribers, although AT&T threatened to do so.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/computerkeyboardfeat.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-07 01:44:522018-11-07 01:44:52AT&T to Terminate First Customers Over Piracy Accusations
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.
RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/threater-feat.png2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-06 10:43:532018-11-06 10:43:53Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 11/05/18
With a backdrop of Hollywood waging war on pirates and pirate sites, 2007 delivered a ray of light for BitTorrent users and filmmakers alike.
After being produced on a tiny budget, an almost unknown independent sci-fi film called “The Man From Earth” appeared on pirate sites after someone obtained a promotional screener and uploaded it to the Internet, weeks before its official release.
While this type of development is often labeled as disastrous by movie executives, The Man From Earth director Richard Schenkman was very upbeat indeed.
“A week or two before the DVD’s ‘street date’, we jumped 11,000% on the IMDb ‘Moviemeter’ and we were shocked,” Schenkman told TorrentFreak at the time.
Piracy had been labeled as a great promotional vehicle before but the team behind the movie really embraced it, with producer Eric Wilkinson writing to the operators of RLSlog, a once-popular piracy links site – to thank them for their support.
“Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download,” Wilkinson said.
“Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded ‘The Man From Earth’ has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!”
The Man From Earth went on to win multiple awards and did really well on Netflix, so it was a nice development when the movie’s sequel – The Man from Earth: Holocene – appeared on The Pirate Bay upon release earlier this year. This time, however, the team had decided to ‘leak’ the movie themselves, hoping to follow the success of the original more than ten years earlier.
“It was going to get uploaded regardless of what we did or didn’t do, and we figured that as long as this was inevitable, we would do the uploading ourselves and explain why we were doing it,” Schenkman told TF.
“And, we would once again reach out to the filesharing community and remind them that while movies may be free to watch, they are not free to make, and we need their support.”
The team hoped that pirates would flock to the movie’s ‘tip jar’ while using word-of-mouth advertising to ensure that the sequel did as well as the original. When speaking to TF in January 2018, Schenkman was really upbeat and enthusiastic but somewhere on the way, something went wrong – very wrong indeed.
In a new piece published by pro-industry, anti-piracy alliance Creative Future, Schenkman rips into pirates big and small. While noting that the sci-fi sequel has been downloaded almost a million times with uncounted streaming views on top, just 7,000 people supported it with donations.
“If each one of the illegal downloaders (to say nothing of the streamers) had donated just one dollar, we would have already broken even on Holocene and been well on the road toward making our next film. Alas, most people aren’t willing – or able – to pay even that much,” Schenkman says.
But while individual pirates didn’t dig as deeply as Schenkman would’ve liked, he says his venture also fell victim to commercially motivated pirates who took his movie, hired actors, and had it professionally dubbed in Russian – all without permission.
“[I] learned through this experiment that there are people who don’t merely pirate a film, but who are willing to take full advantage of producers like us – who, remember, are offering our movie for free – for their own profit,” he explains.
“I’m talking about Green Ray, a Russian ‘distribution company’ that created a dubbed version of Holocene and offered it on their website. Not only did they do so without any permission, but they removed my donation preface and replaced it with an advertisement so they could monetize it.”
Schenkman says he wrote to Green Ray’s operators, suggesting that in the absence of them leaving the donation elements intact, a revenue-sharing arrangement might be in order. To date, the site has not offered a response.
While it could be argued that Green Ray’s adaption of The Man from Earth: Holocene ensured the movie could be enjoyed by a new audience, the commercial exploitation of the movie in this manner is extremely blatant, to say the least, so it’s hardly a surprise that Schenkman is disappointed.
“Clearly, there is an audience in Russia who cares about seeing a high-quality version of our movie. Perhaps this same audience would have even been willing to pay the actual filmmakers behind the movie to watch it. Now, we will never know,” he says.
Despite his early love affair with pirates (which appeared to still exist early this year), the director now finds himself singing the same anti-piracy tune as the majority of film creators around him. Movies aren’t free to make, he points out, so people need to understand they can’t be free to watch either.
“The lion’s share of films that get released aren’t studio blockbusters, but super low-budget projects from independent filmmakers who struggled just to get their films produced in the first place – and who are very lucky if they break even on them,” he says.
Of course, it’s difficult for Schenkman to deny that the original movie benefited greatly from pirates and that his team believed that the sequel could follow in its footsteps. But now, barely 10 months on, he’s done a complete 180, noting that if there’s no financial support for the people who make them, movies like his won’t be made.
“We need to educate our audience to understand that we are the same as them: working people who love cinema. Piracy poses an existential threat to all of us,” he concludes.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/featstars.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-05 19:42:532018-11-05 19:42:53Man From Earth Director Slams Pirates, Promotional Love Affair Over
We hereby present you the fifth and last Beta build of Kodi v18 as we are heading towards the final release. Next step will be Release candidates where our focus will be on solving bugs and possible usability problems. So far it has been proven to be quite solid to use as a daily driver for those who were brave enough to try it out. Of course you should still keep in mind it’s not a final release yet and that on any upgrade a small glitch could happen as we are still doing rework. Once you decide to give it a try it is highly recommended that you create a backup first.
Currently included
A full changelog is nearly impossible to create and in this release article we will only cover the basics. For a more extensive list you can visit our wiki page v18 (Leia) changelog which will be update along the way. From now on all v18 releases will not contain any big new features as we are focussed on bug fixing or improvements only.
Most notable changes to mention in Beta 5:
Fix repository connection issues on Windows which affected certain CPU types
Some improvements to Android video playback
Some improvements to OSX resolution switching
Support for Radio Data RDS (RDS) if the PVR backend supports this
Try to find the best matching resolution automatically for refreshrate switching if the user has not made a selection in resosution whitelist setting
Update Chorus2 webinterface which contains security and general fixes
General code improvements and cleanup
Of course there are several more changes which are listed on our github repository found here: Beta5 changes.
Make sure to also go through our news sections which contain all past announcements regarding the Leia release and some highlights of what it will contain.
Stability and usability is key
In general the whole stability has been improved quite a lot. The times you still get glitches or occasional crashes haven been reduced due to just ripping out not so well coded parts and replaced with a more structured design and standard. Not that the old code was bad however over time new insights were gained and having newer code standards just make it better. Untangling all parts or components and make them behave better next to each other has been one of the biggest efforts done so far.
Current available skins
Due to changes in how Kodi works skins need to be updated for each release. As of this moment we have the following ones have been update by their developers and are readily available from our repository.
More will follow at a later point in time when we approach final release.
Python 2 & 3 compatibility will be enforced
Currently, Kodi includes the Python 2.7 interpreter to run addons written in Python programming language. However, Python 3 was released almost 10 years ago and the matter of implementing the Python 3 interpreter in Kodi has been brought up on the Kodi forum several times. Now, thanks to a successful GSOC 2017 project, we have a working Python 3.6 interpreter for Kodi, and on the latest DevCon 2017 in Prague Team Kodi decided that it’s time to move on and migrate Python addon subsystem to Python 3. There are several reasons for that:
Python 3 is mature enough and more and more Python libraries either convert their codebase to Python 3-compatible or drop Python 2 support completely (Django is the most notable example).
Most current Python books, tutorials and courses are focused on Python 3.
Python 2 is not actively developed. It receives only security patches while Python 3 gets all the cool new features with every minor version.
However, Python 3 is not backward-compatible with the 2nd version so some transition process is required. Currently the plan is the following:
Kodi 19 (M*) will be released with Python 3 interpreter for running Python-based addons.
After the release of Kodi 18 (Leia) only addons that are compatible with both Python 2 and 3 will be accepted to the official addon repository. Also, Python 3-only addons will be accepted to the repositories for Kodi 19 (M*) and above.
Addon developers are highly encouraged to convert their addons to Python 2/3-compatible so that after the release of Kodi 19 (M*) we will have enough addons that work with the new version.
Test builds based on Kodi 18 with the Python 3 interpreter will be provided continuously so addon developers can test their addons for compatibility with Python 3. Test builds for Windows are already available for downloading from here and test builds for Ubuntu can be obtained from this PPA.
One the v18 version has been branched off for final release the nightlies will become Python 3 only while the release builds will still be Python 2.
Writing Python code that is compatible with both 2 and 3 versions is totally possible and the “big” Python world has been doing it for years since the release of Python 3.0. There are a number of tools and best practices developed to simplify this process. Please read this Kodi Wiki article for more information and technical details about the migration process. Also a special Wiki section has been created that will be updated with new information. You can post questions about converting your addon code to Python 3-compatible or share your experience in “Python 3 migration” subforum on the official Kodi forum.
Binary repository
We can now finally say binary repostory has been finalised for Android, OSX and Windows and are happy to say we can finally split off the binary add-ons from our main Kodi installer which reduces it to half the normal size. For users this means that as already mentioned the installer is much smaller and the Kodi version they get is just enough to get started. Once they decide to get extra functionality like a using PVR they simply go to the repository and only install what they need unlike now where we preinstall them all. Next is the fact that for example a PVR add-on received some fixes you don’t have to wait till we release a new Kodi version. Just like Python and Skin add-ons you will just received the updated PVR add-on and can enjoy the improvement straight away.
Although we don’t really have a clear future plan or clear cut goals (except making a great media center) we would welcome any developer who wants to spend time on getting Kodi better in every way. Either improving the core code to newer standards, fixing bugs or implementing a new feature we haven’t thought of. Compared to years ago the code has become better to understand and follow for newcomers to get started. Once we get something written down of certain to reach goals we will certainly share them.
Since we now started the Beta cycle a final release will be on the near horizon. When the final release will actually be is yet unknown as it all depends on the stability now more people will start using the v18 builds.
That’s about it for now and we’ll go back at improving this upcoming v18 release. Should you wish to give it a try a new version is readily available each day as well as nightly version. We can certainly recommend trying it out however take in mind that it’s not fully production and living room ready yet (take a backup). So far a guestimate of several tens of thousands users already use it so it can’t be that bad can it. You can get it from the download page clicking on the platform of choice and hitting the “pre release” tab. For Android and Windows we have an easy to use download add-on which you can find in our repository.
Go to the Official download page and choose the platform of choice and you will find these builds under the pre release tab.
If you do appreciate our work feel free to give a small donation so we can continue our effort. Just find the big “Donate” button at the top of the website.
For almost two decades, peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been a rich source of content for those who prefer not to pay the going rates for movies, TV shows, music, software, and video games.
For almost as long, entertainment industry companies and groups have been trying to stem the tide. Litigation against P2P software companies was soon accompanied by lawsuits against end users, with the latter gaining in popularity in more recent times after it became clear that money is to be made from the practice.
Over the years, hundreds of so-called ‘copyright troll’ cases have been reported and countless thousands of individuals have chosen to pay a settlement fee, in order to make a supposed lawsuit disappear. For some companies, the practice has proven lucrative but others have found it less so, with more knowledgeable defendants fighting back, causing costs to rise and profits to plummet.
In the UK, several companies have attempted to generate revenue from alleged file-sharers. The business model doesn’t appear to have varied much since its inception around 2006, with most players seemingly backing away in the face of adverse publicity and informed defendants fighting their corners.
In 2015, a company called Hatton and Berkeley entered the arena. Working with well-known copyright troll partner MaverickEye and several movie producers, the company threatened a huge wave of lawsuits. After an initial flurry of developments over several months, things went quiet. However, there are signs the company is eyeing the space once more.
In a recent email to TorrentFreak, Hatton and Berkeley founder Robert Croucher pointed us to a somewhat tricky to digest article, but with an undoubtedly interesting core.
“A ‘mutual assured destruction’ scenario was previously an inevitable outcome to any civil litigation in the UK, bringing with it the real risk of creating a zero-sum game where both claimant and defendant would be equally penalized financially creating an economic ‘non-solution’,” the piece reads.
“To counter the potential risk to rights holders, we opted for an attritional loss model, a proxy battle of sorts, designed to consolidate intellectual property interests – focussing combined efforts and greatly reducing adverse risk exposure to get over of the zero-sum hurdle.”
In common with previous announcements from the company, straightforward language is eschewed in favor of an elaborate overview. However, the main take-home from the release is that there is a new facet to be considered in the mass litigation landscape – Internet piracy insurance.
Offered via UK-based insurance broker Integro and sourced from an unnamed “‘A’ rated, multinational insurer”, Piracy Protection cover claims to assist copyright holders to recover lost revenues by making mass litigation against file-sharers (read: BitTorrent users) a less risky exercise.
“This Insurance is the first of its kind to cover the Rights Holder in their pursuit of Copyright Infringers against three main elements of risk: ISP Adverse Costs; Defendants Costs; Own Court Fees on Loss,” Integro writes (pdf).
“Previously Rights Holders have pursued defendants through court, however until now, they have had to bear the significant risk of Adverse Costs which in many cases would be too high to consider.
“By purchasing this Insurance, 1) you transfer all this risk to the Insurer, 2) you transfer the administrative burden to the Wrapper, and 3) our panel of Specialist
Tier 1 Intellectual Property Lawyers will pursue the infringers through IPEC (Intellectual Property Enterprise Court – A division of the High Court) on your behalf,” the broker adds.
Croucher informs TF that the ‘Wrapper’ is a limited liability partnership (LLP), an entity incorporated to run a business with two or members. Those members can be people or even a company.
“Hatton & Berkeley is the architect and manager of the insurance wrapper,” he explains.
“The LLP is a standard insurance wrapper model, if you can imagine it is similar to managing a fund, principally – multiple capital accounts, structured reporting to members, and generally reduced overheads as the rights holders consolidate and coordinate their efforts under one banner.”
Or, as the UK government phrases it, “Each member pays tax on their share of the profits, as in an ‘ordinary’ business partnership, but isn’t personally liable for any debts the business can’t pay.” Instead, liability is limited to the capital members invest into the LLP.
We put it to Croucher that while there have been plenty of threats to take file-sharers to court, in reality it rarely happens in the UK. It appears that this new type of insurance could be aiming to change that.
“The scarcity of applications to the Courts (specifically in the UK) are born of the high cost and risk associated with issuing litigious proceedings. This is something that rights holders have been battling against for years, and the core of our involvement to date has been to fix this very problem,” Croucher notes.
One of the key business areas of Hatton and Berkeley appears to be the formation of companies and indeed, LLPs.
The idea of piracy insurance isn’t new. More than a decade ago, a Swedish company offered insurance to file-sharers for around $20 per year, in the event they were ever sued for copyright infringement. It wasn’t particularly popular, mainly because people didn’t think they were likely to be sued. Croucher seems to believe the new product can be more successful.
“This type of insurance (Before The Event / After The Event / Legal Expenses hybrid) shares lots of commonality with litigation funding, which is essentially what it is.
“Attritional loss models are quite common, this is however the first in the world market like this that targets torrent activity specifically and is leveraged to fund legal action at court, and of course covers any adverse risk of loss to the rights holder,” he concludes.
Whether this type of approach will prove attractive to rightsholders will remain to be seen, as will its effectiveness under pressure. On the other side, the best risk management strategy for current and future BitTorrent users is not to get monitored doing something illegal in the first place.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/copyright-fea.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-04 13:40:582018-11-04 13:40:58Movie & TV Show ‘Piracy Protection’ Insurance Now Available
Whether it’s for a school project, a funny meme, or a blog, many people use search engines to find fitting images.
Some of these are free to use, but in most cases, permission from the creator is required to publish photos in public.
The same is true for images that float around on news sites or social networks. It’s easy to make a copy of a photo and use it elsewhere on the web but more often than not, people are not supposed to do so without permission.
This is a cause of frustration for many creators and some are now drawing the line. In the past, we have covered several lawsuits filed by photographers against major news outlets that use their work without permission, but there’s another development worth noting – Pixsy.
Pixsy offers a dedicated product that helps creators to find where their images are being copied without permission. Optionally, they can then request to send a takedown notice, or take it up a notch and demand compensation from the infringer, via email.
The artists see the images Pixsy finds and can ‘submit’ the infringing one for further action. The site will then take care of the rest and only gets paid if the artist gets paid too.
“Once submitted our expert case managers handle everything. From preparation to evidence collection, negotiation, settlements, and payouts,” Pixsy notes.
Fight image theft
Pixsy officially launched its services in 2014 and has already processed over 55,000 cases worldwide. The company doesn’t specify how many licensing demands have been sent, but they appear to be quite common.
The Internet is littered with mentions of these emails with varying demands. In some instances they’re asking for $750, but we’ve also seen $575 and various other figures floating around, also in pounds.
TorrentFreak spoke to a person who was recently targeted by a Pixsy license request. He prefers to remain anonymous, fearing more repercussions, but we’ll call him Frank. He was utterly surprised when the email came in.
“I had no idea you could get in trouble for taking a picture off Google search results,” Frank told us.
The trouble, in this case, refers to an email requesting hundreds of pounds in licensing fees. The email stresses that the creator of the image hasn’t given permission, and there’s an “evidence report” that summarizes the findings.
The licensing request doesn’t come without a proper stick, however, as Pixsy warns that legal action may follow if the demands are not met within a set deadline.
What’s next?
“In the event that resolution with a license fee is not possible, our next steps are to forward this matter to a legal partner in your local area to secure the highest fees recoverable for copyright infringement,” Pixsy writes.
“These fees include actual damages or statutory damages, and can include legal costs, expenses, costs affiliated with filing a lawsuit, and ensuing litigation.”
The image Frank used wasn’t an actual photograph but a mocked-up Photoshop image that appeared rather generic. When writing this article a reverse image search revealed that it appears on hundreds of sites.
Interestingly, none of the sites credit the author, nor could we find any way to officially license the image.
Despite the strong language, Frank tells us that he has no intention to pay. And he’s not the only one. The letters have been described as an “extortion scam” by some, and others note that the legal threat may not be as imminent as it seems.
That said, it’s no surprise if many of the recipients choose to pay the license fee (as this woman did), if only to get rid of the looming threat of things getting worse.
While not everyone agrees with the tactics, the scheme certainly is a wake-up call that people should not randomly use images they find online. Many creators who struggle dealing with copyright infringing also see it as a useful service.
TorrentFreak also spoke to Pixsy which informs us that they “fight image theft” with the help of 26 different legal partners across the world. They stress that their service doesn’t target all websites randomly. They pick selected targets which seem to be professional businesses, major publications, or government agencies.
In Frank’s case, the professional business was a blog that was set up a few months ago, offering a certain service. Not a typical company, but Pixsy presumably saw it as a legitimate target.
Our source had no experience with creating websites and maintains that he had no clue that the image he used required a license. To avoid confusion, he urges search engines to make this more clear going forward. Most mention that images “may” be copyrighted, but a starker warning could be appropriate.
While Frank doesn’t deny that creators of photos and other images should be able to protect their rights, he’s no fan of Pixsy’s model.
“I think their email threats come across as a scam or extortion. Only after googling Pixsy I could see that other people have run into them and their methods, and most call them copyright trolls.
“I’ve not replied to their emails as I’m hoping they’ll go away to catch bigger fish than little old me,” Frank adds.
Talking about bigger fish – Pixsy recently offered help to catch one.
The company reached out to photographer Sean Heavey who is currently suing Netflix for the infringing use of a photo. While Heavey didn’t use Pixsy to find the infringing use, the company referred him to a legal partner, and is helping him to track other infringers through their service.
“I now believe all photographers need to have a service such as Pixsy as part of their normal business plan,” Heavey told Alpha Universe.
“We have taken action on not only the Netflix case but others as well — some of which I knew about and others I discovered while using the Pixsy platform,” he adds.
We’re pretty sure Netflix won’t be able to make that go away for $750…
Whether any infringements found through Pixsy have ever resulted in full-blown lawsuits is unknown. The company informs us that it can’t provide exact numbers on licensing requests and legal cases.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/featdanfer.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-03 22:39:532018-11-03 22:39:53Using ‘Googled’ Images Can Result in License Demands and Legal Threats
As a staunch defender of an open Internet, ISP Bahnhof has repeatedly spoken out against pirate site blocking efforts.
The company has also argued the matter in court recently, after academic publisher Elsevier applied for an order to ban a series of domain names, including Sci-Hub.
Today, Bahnhof announced that it has been ordered to block the sites in question.
This is the worst possible outcome for Bahnhof. TorrentFreak spoke to CEO Jon Karlung who describes it as a “horrifying” decision that “goes against the soul of the Internet.”
The result, starting today, is that sci-hub.tw, sci-hub.mu, sci-hub.se, libgen.io, and several other domains are being blocked by the ISP. But Bahnhof wouldn’t be Bahnhof if it went down without a fight.
The company has no faith in an expensive appeal, which another ISP lost last year in a similar blocking case. However, it does have another ace up its sleeve. Now that they are blocking anyway, they can easily an extra domain name to make a point.
So, in addition, Bahnhof has gone ahead and banned its visitors from accessing the official Elsevier.com website as well. Elsevier wanted a site blockade – it now has one.
Visitors attempting to visit the domains now see a 90s style website explaining what’s going on, complete with an old dial-up tone in the background.
“Bahnhof opposes censorship in every way, shape and form, but it looks like we won’t be able to dodge Elsevier’s blocking requirement. That’s why we have placed this barrier in front of Elsevier’s website – to make sure that they themselves also get a taste of the blocking they’re currently evoking against others,” it reads.
Elsevier.com banned
The page goes on to explain what Elsevier is, making note of the controversy surrounding the company’s role in academic publishing. This is one of the reasons why the blocked “pirate” sites have become so popular.
Bahnhof’s CEO informs TorrentFreak that the company sees no point in appealing the case. The Patent and Market Court, which handles these matters, is made up of people who are biased towards copyright holders, he believes.
To make another point, the Internet provider also decided to send the court a message. Starting today, users of the court’s network can no longer access Bahnhof’s website.
“The computer or network you are using belongs to the Patent and Market Court and is therefore blocked from the domain bahnhof.se. You at the Patent and Market Court have recently decided that operators should block certain domains so their customers can no longer visit them,” the message reads.
Court banned
While the ISP is clearly disappointed with the court’s decision, it will not stop its protests. It may not be able to undo the blocking order but the company will continue to make its voice heard.
“Bahnhof has repeatedly demonstrated how copyright law is being abused and exploited by greedy opportunists, and in the end it is always ordinary people who have to pay,” Bahnhof notes.
“This page you’ve got before you right now is the result, this is what awaits in a future where private interests can regulate community information. Is our legal system really being used in this way?
The ISP also hopes that its subscribers will help with its efforts. On the blocking page it provides a form allowing them to send a letter to Justice Minister Morgan Johansson, to share their outrage.
It is no secret that copyright holders are monitoring unauthorized downloads around the world.
The entertainment industries have repeatedly accused Google of not doing enough to limit piracy while demanding tougher action.
For roughly two decades, copyright holders have been sending ISPs takedown notices to alert account holders that their connections are being used to share copyrighted material.
This week we have five newcomers in our chart.
With a backdrop of Hollywood waging war on pirates and pirate sites, 2007 delivered a ray of light for BitTorrent users and filmmakers alike. 
There are several reasons for that:
Whether it’s for a school project, a funny meme, or a blog, many people use search engines to find fitting images. 
As a staunch defender of an open Internet, ISP 
