For many years, Ukraine has been openly criticized for not doing enough to tackle both online and offline piracy.
The country is known for its high piracy rates but enforcement against local pirate and gray-area hosting platforms has been sporadic and largely ineffective.
According to an announcement from Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, however, fresh action has taken down at least one and possibly many piracy-linked Internet resources.
The Ministry says that officers from the Kiev Department of Cyberpolicies, together with investigators from the Vasylkivsky police department, have executed a warrant in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Their target was a 24-year-old man suspected of running the pirate streaming portal OneMov.net and several other pirate sites.
The authorities say that the individual “reproduced and distributed audiovisual works” belonging to Universal City Studios LLLP, which is represented locally by the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association.
The government department says that OneMov attracted attention due to its international appeal. Although it was administered from Ukraine, the platform carried movies that were mostly in English, with titles later appearing in Ukrainian and Russian.
After carrying out what is being described as an “authorized search”, police say they discovered items linking the man to the platform.
“In his apartment, the system unit of a personal computer containing an electronic control panel of the site was removed. In addition, a router was found that was used to administer the specified web resource and bank cards, which included funds from advertising on the specified site,” the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.
An officer searching the suspect’s PC (Image credit: Ukraine Government)
The authorities claim that the arrested man could also be the brains behind another 10 pirate sites but at the time of writing, the names of those sites haven’t been released. However, a screenshot of what appears to be the suspect’s computer reveals links not only to OneMov, but also MovDB.net and OneStream.cc, both of which are currently inaccessible.
The arrested man is being investigated for offenses under Part 3, Article 176 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Infringement of Copyright and Related Rights) and could receive a prison sentence of up to six years.
Earlier this year the United States Trade Representative (USTR) kept Ukraine on its Priority Watch List(pdf), accusing government agencies of using pirated software and a “failure to implement an effective means to combat the widespread online infringement of copyright in Ukraine.”
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/arrest-feat.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-17 17:01:522018-11-17 17:01:52Cyberpolice Raid Pirate Site For Infringing Universal’s Copyrights
Over the years we have closely followed various reports on Internet traffic changes, specifically in relation to BitTorrent.
Many of these came from the Canadian broadband management company Sandvine, which often focused on the popularity of different types of traffic in specific regions.
That was also the case a few weeks ago when its latest report revealed which sources generate most upload and download traffic in various regions of the world. This revealed that BitTorrent is far from dead.
What it didn’t reveal, however, is which traffic sources consume the most traffic worldwide when both upstream and downstream traffic are combined. This broad overview was missing from earlier reports as well, but in a new update Sandvine now fills this gap.
When all traffic from sources worldwide is combined, Netflix comes out as the clear winner with 13.75% of the total traffic share. The streaming giant is followed by HTTPS Media data (12.25%) and YouTube (10.51%) respectively.
BitTorrent comes in fifth place with 4.10% of all Internet traffic globally, which is mostly driven by the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions.
The full picture, courtesy of Sandvine
“As expected, the top four applications are all video, and also not surprisingly, BitTorrent is fifth overall – strongly boosted by the utter dominance on the upstream in EMEA and APAC,” Sandvine’s Cam Cullen notes.
“This is a pretty significant number since downstream traffic is an order of magnitude larger than the upstream traffic totals worldwide.”
Looking at the upstream and downstream totals in various regions, we see that Netflix accounts for nearly 17% of all traffic from the Americas. Interestingly, BitTorrent doesn’t make it into the top 10, sitting well below 2%.
BitTorrent traffic is most popular in the APAC region where it sits in second place with 7.87%, generating more traffic than both Netflix and YouTube.
It’s interesting to see the bigger picture, where both upload and download traffic is combined on both fixed and mobile connections.
This offers a unique snapshot of Internet traffic sources in 2018. Hopefully, Sandvine will continue to make these data available going forward, so we can track changes over time.
As the heated debate over the EU’s controversial Article 13 proposals continues, YouTube is becoming ever more vocal.
Relatively silent in the run-up to the September vote which saw the European Parliament vote in favor of proposals put forward by Axel Voss’ EPP group, YouTube now seems very concerned over the possibility of being held liable for infringing content uploaded to its platform.
“While we support the goals of article 13, the European Parliament’s current proposal will create unintended consequences that will have a profound impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people,” Wojcicki wrote in blog post earlier this week.
Wojcicki’s statement carried a stark warning that liability for YouTube under Article 13 could force the platform to block content from EU citizens. No company could take on such a financial risk, she said.
Thus far, the Article 13 debate has been polarized, with the entertainment industries hugely in favor and companies like YouTube and pro-Internet freedom groups strongly against. Now, however, a new development has created an interesting split in the ranks, with Julia Reda, MEP for the Pirate Party, warning that YouTube is now lobbying in favor of upload filters.
As detailed in a release from Reda’s office this morning, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has made a number of statements in recent weeks that indicate that the video hosting platform is in favor of pre-filtering content before it’s made available to the public.
Of course, Google has its ContentID filtering system already in place, meaning that it would be in pole position to further dominate the video hosting space, if the filtering option is adopted by the EU.
“The fact that Youtube is now publicly lobbying for mandatory upload filters is not surprising in the least. By introducing ContentID, YouTube has already proven that is is very much capable of developing filters for certain types of content, such as music,” Reda explains.
“If the entire market was obliged to install such filters, YouTube would not only be miles ahead in of its competitors in the development of such technologies, it would also be in a position to sell its filters to smaller platforms. Large platforms such as YouTube would grow further and be presented with an entirely new business model. The significantly smaller EU competition would be left behind.”
In common with many activists, Reda is passionately against the idea of content being filtered. The MEP points to numerous failures of YouTube’s ContentID system that have led to entirely legal content being blocked or deleted from the platform. Reda also warns of a slippery slope where filtering leads to other unintended consequences, such as the stifling of copyright exceptions including parody or quotation.
During October, Wojcicki posted on the company’s blog, warning that Article 13 could “drastically change the Internet.” The piece was effectively a rallying cry to millions of YouTube creators, who were urged to take to social media to protest the proposed legislation.
Now, however, Reda is warning YouTubers against taking YouTube’s stance as their own, noting that its CEO has been in Strasbourg lobbying in favor of upload filters and is only interested in avoiding legal liability.
“The fear of many YouTubers that internet culture and independent creatives will be sacrificed in this reform is certainly justified. They should however not make the mistake of singing from YouTube’s hymn sheet, whose CEO has only been outspoken against the liability of platforms for copyright infringements, while presenting mandatory upload filters as a reasonable compromise,” Reda says.
“If you look more closely at the countless videos, it’s apparent that most YouTubers are warning of the exact problems that YouTube’s ContentID upload filters are already causing today: unjustified copyright strikes and the automated deletion of entirely legal creative content. YouTube and its YouTubers have very different interests in this debate.”
The fact that Julia Reda is now speaking out so clearly against YouTube is likely to prove somewhat of a conundrum to the music industry critics who have been regularly attacking her on Twitter.
While she has risen above many embarrassingly childish accusations, some have claimed – without any evidence – that she’s somehow shilling for YouTube-owner Google in respect of Article 13.
Clearly, the battle lines in this war aren’t so easily drawn.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/youtube-feat.jpg3211200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-16 10:59:522018-11-16 10:59:52Article 13: YouTube CEO is Now Lobbying FOR Upload Filters
While Hollywood has its own problems with movie piracy, the position in India is arguably more pressing.
Many of the country’s top movie titles are immediately pirated and placed online, much to the disappointment of film companies nationwide. Aggressive site-blocking appears to have little effect so, in association with the authorities, the problem is being tackled at the source.
Many leaks happen when individuals or groups illegally record movies in cinemas, which is often simply a case of finding a screen and pointing a camcorder or phone towards it. In tandem, there are concerns that in some cases, theater owners themselves may be part of the piracy conspiracy. That, however, is leading to what appears to be overzealous policing.
When movies are shown, it’s common for watermarks to be embedded in the performance, which allows content security companies to trace where recordings take place. Armed with this information, copyright holders are then filing complaints against theater owners, who are reportedly being arrested by police, in the absence of evidence they’re even involved.
This has led to a plea to the Madras High Court by the Film Exhibitors Association (FEA), requesting that police are restrained from making arrests without evidence that theater owners are directly involved with unauthorized ‘camming’ of theatrical performances.
“The film producers were filing complaints against theater owners falsely accusing the latter as being responsible for such piracy and the resulting losses caused to the film producers,” the Times of India reports, citing the FEA.
“Police were arresting or attempting to arrest the theater owners merely on the basis of such complaints, without any inquiry. This makes the theater owner to run from pillar to post to obtain appropriate bail or anticipatory bail. The theater owners cannot be made responsible for all cases of piracy.”
The FEA added that it’s impossible to search all members of an audience for hidden cameras, whether they’re present in phones, pens, or even spectacles. Public prosecutor A Natarajan countered, telling the court that calls for a blanket ban on arrests can’t be entertained and should be denied.
With that, Justice Puspha Sathyanarayana issued an interim direction, ordering the Tamil Nadu Home Secretary and the Director General of Police to organize a meeting of affected stakeholders (film companies, distributors, exhibitors) to try and reach an amicable solution.
The case was adjourned until November 28, 2018.
In an effort to reduce camcorder piracy, last month the Tamil Nadu Theater Owners Association laid down a strict set of rules designed to prevent pirates from recording the latest movies and uploading them to the Internet.
All cinemas in the southern state of Tamil Nadu were told to saturate their entire sites with CCTV cameras, including projection rooms and customer seating areas plus parking and entrance areas. It is not yet clear whether that has happened or if the measures are having any effect.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/arrest-feat.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-15 19:58:522018-11-15 19:58:52Film Group Asks Court to Stop Arrests of Theater Owners Over Piracy
This morning, the Asia Video Industry Association’s (AVIA) Coalition Against Piracy (CAP), which represents the interests of groups including the MPA and other major companies, revealed the results of a commissioned YouGov survey.
“In a recent study of the content viewing behavior of Thai consumers, it was revealed that 45% of consumers use a TV box which can be used to stream pirated television and video content,” CAP writes.
“These TV boxes, also known as Illicit Streaming Devices (ISDs), allow users to access hundreds of pirated television channels and video-on-demand content, usually with a low annual fee.”
In the above paragraph, the precise definition of “consumer” isn’t particularly clear. Also, the use of the phrase “can be used” is open to ambiguity. TorrentFreak spoke with Neil Gane, General Manager of CAP, who was happy to clarify on both fronts.
“The survey focused on Internet-connected/online consumers. [T]he survey also included consumers who are online and yet don’t view video content, as all respondents were given the option to select ‘Not applicable – I don’t watch television and video content’,” Gain explained.
Gane further clarified that the 45% of consumers does not include users who use general “piracy-capable” devices such as computers, laptops, mobile phones, or Firestick/Chromecast dongles etc.
CAP’s General Manager added that while most devices “can be used” to stream pirated content, the survey was “solely focused on TV boxes pre-loaded with infringing app(s), which by definition would make them illicit streaming devices (ISDs).”
Examples of ‘pirate applications’ found on such devices include Mango TV, HD Playbox, and U Play, which provide access to streaming movies and TV shows, mainly on Android.
With the details established, the claims of the effects of piracy-enabled devices are more easily digested. CAP says that of the 45% of consumers who bought such a device, “more than two in three (69%) stated that they canceled all or some of their subscriptions to legal pay TV services.”
The YouGov research also established that younger people are attracted to piracy-configured devices. They are particularly popular among 18 to 24-year-olds, “with more than three in four (77%) canceling legitimate subscription services as a result of owning ISDs, especially international online subscriptions (40%).”
Of course, no recent anti-piracy announcement would be complete without claims about malware running riot.
“The damage that piracy does to the creative industries is without dispute,” Gane explains.
“However, the damage done to consumers themselves, because of the nexus between content piracy and malware, is only beginning to be recognized. Piracy websites and applications typically have a ‘click happy’ user base, and, as such, are being used more and more as clickbait to distribute malware.”
There is little doubt that many users of pirate websites are indeed “click happy” in their quest for free content and that can lead them into trouble. However, we’ve covered malware issues before (specifically in respect of so-called “Kodi Boxes”) and found nothing to suggest that there is a significant risk to consumers.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a risk with other software pre-installed on set-top boxes – it’s a computer after all, and all such devices are vulnerable to infection. That means that as a minimum, all users should consider running anti-virus software on all devices capable of doing so.
That being said, set-top boxes are isolated machines that rarely carry much of value to malware distributors. Most people don’t browse on these machines, send email, or enter any personal or banking information. There is always some risk involved, but in the set-top box environment, it’s almost certainly minimized.
Speaking with TF, Neil Gane said that the study wasn’t related to malware but he stands by his references to the “piracy/malware nexus”. He also pointed us to a September 2018 EU report that found that trojans and malware can be found on pirate sites, leading to “not only financial losses, but also theft of personal data and other risks of unwanted access and control.”
While that’s true, the same report also stated that copyright-infringing websites and streaming services are not normally considered to be dominant sources of malware.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/iptv-movies-film-feat.jpg2501179Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-15 04:57:532018-11-15 04:57:53‘Pirate’ Set-Top Boxes Used By 45% of Online Thai Consumers
For more than a decade, alleged file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees.
These so-called copyright-trolling efforts are fairly straightforward. Copyright holders obtain a list of ‘pirating’ IP-addresses and then request a subpoena from the court, compelling ISPs to hand over the associated customer data.
In recent years, several news reports have appeared on these cases in the US, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere. In Finland, they have been a common sight since 2013.
Adultia is one of the companies that’s active in the Nordic country which, as its name suggests, deals with adult content. Helped by the Cyprus-based company M.I.C.M, it obtained personal details of thousands of Finnish subscribers, asking them to pay up, or face legal action.
At the start of this year, the company appeared to have halted its practices. No new letters were being reported, which was carefully celebrated as a win by copyright troll opponents, many of whom are active in the local MuroBBS community.
However, the excitement didn’t last as the letters returned after a few months, albeit in a different form.
At the end of September, several people who were previously targeted by Adultia started to receive new letters. While the accusations and details were the same as before, they were sent by KTC Finland Oy this time, which is a local debt collection agency.
Example of a new letter
The letters were reported in the MuroBBS forum where they raised eyebrows. According to several activists, these “debt collection bills” were not lawful, as the earlier letters from Adultia were not official debts, but accusations.
In response, several opponents helped to draft template response letters, accusing the debt collecting company of breaking the rules. These were sent to the debt collection outfit, as well as government officials.
After a few weeks, this had the desired effect. Late last month, Timo Korhonen, chief investigator of Finland’s Regional State Administrative Agencies (AVI) in Finland, wrote a post on MuroBBS stating that KTC’s actions were now under investigation.
AVI’s involvement has weight as it ensures that companies, including debt collectors, follow local rules and regulations. In case of severe violations, it also has the power to revoke licenses of debt collectors.
The pressure was building, as AVI’s involvement was also picked up by the local news site Tivi and Ilta-Sanomat. Last week, KTC announced that it will withdraw from the copyright debt collection business.
“Because of the widespread attention, we have decided to stop collecting these debts. Because of our high standards, we are now concentrating on serving our other customers and thus we leave control over these copyright matters to companies that are specialized in it,” KTC writes on its website.
KTC maintains that its practices are in accordance with the law and encourages people who received a legitimate demand to pay. However, no new letters will go out.
While the anti-trolling activists at MuroBBS see this decision as a clear win, they hope that AVI’s investigation will pay off, noting that copyright trolling remains a problem. Law firm Hedman Partners is reportedly still active, for example, using the court to go after alleged pirates.
TorrentFreak spoke to activist ‘Don MC’ who notes that details behind 200,000 IP-addresses have already been handed out. While there are signs the court is more reserved now when it comes to these cases, copyright trolling remains a problem.
“Lately, and perhaps even by the influence of the civil activists on the MuroBBS board, the Market Court has tightened its criteria and no longer hands out these addresses en masse,” Don MC explains.
“The MuroBBS community is working hard to end copyright trolling in Finland once and for all. The fight against the trolls will hopefully go on until the last single troll is weeded out.”
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/euro-fea.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-14 13:56:592018-11-14 13:56:59Piracy Debt Collectors Back Off After Massive Backlash in Finland
The LibreELEC 9.0 Alpha cycle has continued and releases for Amlogic and Slice hardware have been added additionally to the test cycle. We official support now Khadas VIM (AML S905X) and the LePotato (AML S905X) too. Since the 8.90.006 release we support a wide range of Rockchip devices. There are no plans to release LibreELEC 9.0 images for NXP/iMX6 hardware as support was removed from Kodi some months ago. Support will be reinstated in a future LibreELEC, we wrote an dedicated article about the future of LibreELEC.
Alpha releases are important to the team because we cannot test every scenario and sometimes sidestep issues without realising. The project needs a body of regular testers to go find the problems we miss. Testing will be particularly important for LibreELEC 9.0 as Kodi v18 includes substantial internal changes to VideoPlayer and introduces new retro-gaming capabilities.
** ROCKCHIP **
We added several Rockchip devices at this release. Please consider it as alpha quality and not yet as perfect. All kind of flavors of HDR, 4k and audio are supported already. These images are rather new and it is likely that you hit an problem sooner or later. Please report them at our issue tracker or at the dedicated Rockchip forum that they could get fixed. Within the LE9 release cycle we are likely not able to finish the Rockchip devices to reach an perfect stable state – they stay in alpha status as long it is needed.
TEST NOTES
Our current focus is the OS core and we are more interested in hardware and driver bugs than Kodi problems. Please report the issues you find by starting a thread in the forums or use our bug tracker. Raspberry Pi users are reminded that dtoverlay=lirc-rpi has now been deprecated. Please read the infrared remotes wiki page before updating.
** CAUTION **
Alpha builds exist for hands-on testing not a hands-off experience. If you run Alpha builds you must be willing to report issues and engage the LibreELEC and Kodi developers in hunting bugs. If you have no idea what a debug log is or “wife acceptance factor” is critical, these builds are not for you. If you want to run Alpha builds please make a backup and store it somewhere off-box first. Your failure to make a backup is not our problem.
Updates since v8.90.006 ALPHA:
– updated to Kodi 18 Beta 5
– Kernel updated to 4.19 for Generic, RPi and Slice
– added updated DVB drivers to all S905 devices
– fixed Odroid_C2 update problems
– removed: systemctl mask eventlircd can no longer be used to get long-press support on remotes
– a lot more updates and fixes, have a look at the full changelog
LibreELEC 9.0 Alpha 007 (Kodi 18 Beta 5)
To update an existing installation from within the Kodi GUI select manual update in the LibreELEC settings add-on and then check for updates; select the LibreELEC 9.0 channel and then the 8.90.007 release. To create new install media please use our simple USB/SD Creator App. The following .img.gz files can also be used to create install media or update the old fashioned way:
This summer, Nintendo made it totally clear that websites offering access to its retro-games and ROMs will not be tolerated.
The Japanese game developer filed a complaint at a federal court in Arizona, accusing LoveROMS.com and LoveRETRO.co of massive copyright and trademark infringement.
Faced with millions of dollars in potential damages, the operator of the sites, Jacob Mathias, swiftly took the platforms offline. The legal action also led to the shutdown several other ROM sites, who feared they could be next.
It quickly became clear that the Mathias and his wife, who was later added to the complaint, were not looking forward to a drawn-out legal battle. Instead, they engaged in settlement discussions with Nintendo, hoping to resolve the matter without too much bloodshed.
Today we can report that both sides have indeed reached a deal. They agreed to a consent judgment and a permanent injunction that will resolve all outstanding disputes.
Paperwork obtained by TorrentFreak shows that Mathias and his wife admit that their involvement with the websites constituted direct and indirect copyright and trademark infringement, which caused Nintendo irreparable injury.
However, on paper, the married couple won’t be getting off cheaply. On the contrary, they actually agreed to a judgment that exceeds $12 million.
“Plaintiff is hereby awarded judgment against all Defendants, jointly and severally, in the amount of $12,230,000,” the proposed language reads.
Unsigned final judgment
It seems unlikely that the couple has this kind of money in the bank, or that a jury would have reached a similar figure. So why the high amount?
We can only speculate but it’s possible that Nintendo negotiated such a high number, on paper, to act as a deterrent for other site operators. In practice, the defendants could end up paying much less.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a judgment in court is more than what the parties agreed to privately. This happened before in the MPAA’s lawsuit against Hotfile, where a $80 million judgment in court translated to $4 million behind the scenes settlement.
In addition to the monetary judgment, both parties also agreed on a permanent injunction. This will prevent the couple from infringing Nintendo’s copyrights going forward.
They further have to hand over all Nintendo games and emulators they have, at their own expense. On top of that, the permanent injunction requires them to sign over LoveROMs.com and LoveRETRO.co to the Japanese company.
The documents have yet to be signed off by a judge but considering that both parties agree with it, that should be a formality. After that, it’s game over.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/money-feat.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-13 07:55:042018-11-13 07:55:04Nintendo ‘Wins’ $12 Million From Pirate ROM Site Operators
Two years ago the European Commission announced plans to modernize EU copyright law.
Some of the proposals were hugely controversial. Article 13, for example, would see the liability for infringing content switched from users of sites like YouTube to the platform itself.
This is a revised version of the original proposal, but one that would still pave the way for upload filters, to prevent infringing content from reaching sites like YouTube in the first place. However, speaking today in Financial Times (paywall), YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki says that blocking videos may be the platform’s only option.
“While we support the goals of article 13, the European Parliament’s current proposal will create unintended consequences that will have a profound impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people,” Wojcicki writes.
“The parliament’s approach is unrealistic in many cases because copyright owners often disagree over who owns what rights. If the owners cannot agree, it is impossible to expect the open platforms that host this content to make the correct rights decisions.”
Using the hit “Despacito” as an example, Wojcicki says that the track contains multiple copyrights including sound recording and publishing rights. YouTube has agreements with several parties to license the video but other rightsholders remain unknown. This could present a situation so complex that YouTube might have to stop hosting the video altogether.
“That uncertainty means we might have to block videos like this to avoid liability under article 13. Multiply that risk with the scale of YouTube, where more than 400 hours of video are uploaded every minute, and the potential liabilities could be so large that no company could take on such a financial risk,” she adds.
While the rest of the world appears to be safe from such blocking, YouTube’s CEO warns that it is EU residents that will be affected. During the last month alone, videos were viewed by citizens more than 90 billion times.
Wojcicki says her company wants to work with policymakers and the industry to develop Article 13 in a way that protects rightsholders but without stifling the creative economy. That might including broader licensing agreements, improved collaboration with rightsholders, and technical solutions, similar to Content ID.
“Platforms that follow these rules, and make a good effort to help rights holders identify their content, shouldn’t be held directly liable for every single piece of content that a user uploads,” Wojcicki writes.
“We ask policymakers to find a solution that protects rights holders and creators alike, and listen to the growing number of EU voices, including some member countries, who agree there’s a better way forward.”
In a report last week detailing how Google fights piracy, the company noted that between October 2017 to September 2018, YouTube had paid more than $1.8 billion to the music industry from in advertising revenue alone.
Last Friday, however, that figure was challenged by IFPI Chief Executive, Frances Moore.
“We welcome Google’s recognition that it and Google’s YouTube need to operate responsibly and properly value creators and their work. However, the figures in Google’s anti-piracy paper don’t match our own,” Moore said.
“It is difficult to get any clarity on Google’s claims as it doesn’t explain its methodology, but IFPI data shows that revenue returning to the record industry through video streaming services (including but not limited to YouTube) with 1.3 billion users amounted to US $856 million in 2017 – less than half of Google’s claim and less than US $1 per user per year.”
It seems clear that YouTube and the music industry are yet to see eye to eye on this problem but with the platform suggesting that blocking might be the only option, as we envisioned earlier, the pressure is increasing on supporters of Article 13 to avoid this worst-case scenario.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/europe-featured.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-12 16:54:022018-11-12 16:54:02YouTube CEO Says That Videos May Be Blocked Due to EU Copyright Law
In 2007, the movie The Man From Earth leaked on file-sharing networks, with unexpected results. Instead of proving nothing but damaging, the title gained almost universal praise, rocketing the sci-fi flick to stardom via word-of-mouth advertising.
Director Richard Schenkman and producer Eric Wilkinson embraced the development and enthused over the attention their work was receiving online. Given the positive experience, during January 2018 the team deliberately ‘leaked’ the sequel – The Man from Earth: Holocene – on The Pirate Bay.
Given that filmmakers tend to view piracy as the enemy, TorrentFreak enthusiastically reported both events. Sadly, we had less positive news to convey this week when, out of the blue, Schenkman published an article on the site of pro-industry, anti-piracy alliance CreativeFuture, in which he heavily criticized piracy.
There can be little doubt that the piece was a gift to CreativeFuture and everyone who viewed Schenkman and Wilkinson’s place in the piracy debate as something positive for unauthorized sharing. The movie’s story had become a ray of light and here it was being shredded, a disastrous episode from which nothing good had come.
At TorrentFreak, however, we had our doubts about the tone of the piece. Never before had we seen such a turnaround, particularly when reviewing all previous correspondence with Schenkman. Something didn’t add up.
Mainly due to timezone differences, Schenkman responded to our questions after our article was published. However, his responses only served to increase our suspicions that what had been published on CreativeFuture wasn’t representative of his overall position on piracy.
First of all, Schenkman was rightfully furious about his movie being distributed in Russia after being professionally dubbed, with his donation requests removed from the resulting copy. That, most people will agree, is a flat-out insult to someone who has bent over backward to accommodate piracy.
He had every right to be annoyed but it’s worth noting that his anger was directed at one site, not necessarily pirates in general. In fact, Schenkman told us that plenty of positives have come out of the releases of both movies.
“The only reason that people all over the world knew and loved the original ‘Man from Earth’ was because of piracy, so while I’m disappointed that we’ve (still) made so little money from the first film, I’m deeply grateful that so many people have been able to see my movie,” he told TF this week.
“I’m still quite enthusiastic about, and deeply grateful for, the thousands of people who have written to us with kind words about the films, and who have made donations, large or small,” he added.
“I well understand that once we released the movie into the pirate ecosystem, nobody was under any obligation whatsoever to send us one penny, so the fact that so many have made donations is stunning to me, and I’ll never cease to be appreciative and impressed by the number of people who embraced the honor system. And luckily, donations continue to come in every day.”
For those wondering whether Schenkman’s piece in CreativeFuture and his comments to us might’ve been penned by a different author, assumption forgiven. From our contacts with him in 2007 right through to the present day, we have found Schenkman to be an honest man and a pleasure to deal with. He has never said anything to suggest that piracy is an “existential threat” to creators as mentioned in his piece. So why the sudden negativity?
We all know that life events can shape perceptions, so when the movie’s website and donation portal were hacked around six weeks ago, things began to take a turn for the worse. No revenue for weeks (and thousands in costs to bring it back) appear to have negatively affected the experience for the director. Then other types of piracy happened, ones that ensured that donations would be reduced.
“I learned that there were other people who ignored our requests to share only the version we uploaded, and ripped the movie from BluRay, so that there are versions floating around without my donation preface, even though we DID upload a full HD (BD quality) version of the picture,” Schenkman told TorrentFreak.
Even given the above events, however, the piece in CreativeFuture appears unnecessarily one-sided for a man who still had confidence in the piracy ecosystem a few months ago. Indeed, Schenkman told us this week that his team planned hard for the ‘pirate’ release of Holocene.
“In the case of the new film, we worked for months to promote awareness, so that there would be a groundswell of interest from fans of the original film. I would say that this effort at least partially worked,” he explained.
“In the first week of the pirate release, many thousands of people a day downloaded it, so there was a clear pent-up demand. And we’ve seen more donations come from the ‘Holocene’ release than we ever did from [Man From Earth] alone. So yes, in that sense, the ‘authorized leak’ of the new film has definitely helped spread awareness.
“The movie would have been pirated regardless; by doing it ourselves, we were, to some degree, able to control the narrative, and indeed it became more of a ‘story’, just the same way that ‘producers thank pirates’ became a story at the time of the original film’s release,” he added.
In a long email exchange, Schenkman told us that plenty of fans who didn’t even particularly like his sequel contacted him to congratulate him on choosing the honor system, while donating $5 as a ‘thank you’.
“You’d be surprised at how many of those messages I’ve gotten,” he told us.
But while Schenkman might be surprised at this generosity, we certainly aren’t surprised that none of this came out in the CreativeFuture piece.
It’s understandable that CreativeFuture want to fight their corner with a flawless, polished, and invulnerable anti-piracy narrative, but thankfully we aren’t afraid of calling out both sides of this war, when it’s called for. People deserve that honesty.
For example, Schenkman wanted to speak about some of his frustrations with movie distribution in his article. He believes that the international distribution system is flawed because there isn’t an efficient and fair commercial way to make an indie movie available everywhere, on the same day, unless Netflix buys it.
Those sentiments didn’t make the CreativeFuture piece but we’re happy to let him have a voice here.
“Even now, there isn’t a fair, equitable way for an indie filmmaker like me to make their movie available everywhere around the world at once. Even Amazon, which is in virtually every country, doesn’t allow you to simply upload your movie and with the click of a button make it available everywhere,” he says.
“I think they’ll eventually get there, but not anytime soon. If Netflix buys your movie, great — but if they don’t, you’re back to the antiquated system of going to international film markets and trying to sell you film country by country, a costly, inefficient, and time-consuming process (and again, you’re totally at the mercy of the ‘gatekeepers’).
“When we first released ‘Holocene’ we also made it available at Vimeo and MovieSaints, two platforms which allow access to viewers from most countries. Moviesaints has a unique system allowing both for a partial refund if you don’t like the movie, as well as a ‘tip the filmmaker’ function if you want to provide more support,” he adds.
And then comes an even stronger hint as to why Schenkman’s important comments didn’t make his own article.
“While we’ve seen revenue from both of these platforms, it doesn’t approach the total we’ve earned from donations. So the good news is that thousands of people who watched ‘Holocene’ via the pirate ecosystem have kindly, generously made donations to help support independent film,” he says.
Of course, in the interests of fair reporting we’re absolutely unafraid of publishing the not-so-good news too, so here it is – warts and all.
“The bad news is that hundreds of thousands (or millions) more have not, and thus we are still a long way from breaking even on this very low-budget movie. I really don’t see a sustainable business model for a truly independent filmmaker creating these kinds of thoughtful, serious movies, although I remain open to ideas!” Schenkman concludes.
While CreativeFuture are absolutely entitled to publish whatever they see fit on their own site, it seems clear from Schenkman’s article (and his comments to us spanning more than a decade) that they are only interested in a tightly-controlled narrative that leaves room for criticism of piracy, but none to detail some of the self-inflicted reasons behind much of it.
Piracy is certainly controversial and it can be bad, we’ve acknowledged as much in this piece. But hiding important parts of the full story – especially when they highlight flaws in the distribution system that contributes to piracy’s existence – is just as corrosive.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/censorship3.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2018-11-12 01:53:052018-11-12 01:53:05Pro-Copyright Bias is Alive, Well, and Still Hiding the Full Story
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Over the years we have closely followed various reports on Internet traffic changes, specifically in relation to BitTorrent.
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This summer, Nintendo made it totally clear that websites offering access to its retro-games and ROMs will not be tolerated.
