After many years of targeting people who share larger volumes of content on peer-to-peer file-sharing apps and services, Japan is now taking aim at pirate sites.

In basic terms, rightsholders would like to see overseas pirate sites blocked by local ISPs, in much the same way as they are in dozens of countries elsewhere in the world. However, the process is proving a difficult one to move forward, as interference with communications is viewed by many as an invasion of users’ browsing privacy.

The Japanese Government is currently attempting a review on piracy measures for the Internet and has requested input from rightsholders and other interested parties. That’s resulted in a submission from CODA (Content Overseas Distribution Association), an anti-piracy coalition featuring major video, publishing, and software organizations.

“Infringement of rights occurs across national boundaries due to the development of the Internet, and the identification of infringers is extremely difficult. The response to this is extremely difficult and we believe that there are limits under the existing laws of Japan, and new initiatives are necessary,” CODA writes in a submission seen by TF.

Noting that criminal complaints and other measures against several targeted ‘pirate’ have proven ineffective, CODA says it is being hindered by online services that help to keep operators anonymous.

So-called “bulletproof” hosters that ignore copyright law are highlighted first. These providers have policies in place to protect their customers, often ignoring takedown notices filed under the DMCA while hiding identities of site operators. Bulletproof hosters were described as an emerging threat by the RIAA recently.

CODA also complains about domain privacy services which allow domain registrants to hide their identities from prying eyes. One such service, Njalla, which was launched by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde last year, is singled out for criticism.

“[S]ervices such as offshore hosting / bulletproof hosting that ignore the DMCA and domain registry services selling complete anonymity are rampant. It is now clear that [pirate site] ‘Mangamura’ was also using Njalla,” CODA adds.

Mangamura was a huge pirate manga site that apparently shut itself down last April. In the last few months of its life alone, the site was accessed well over half a billion times. This led to Toyko-based Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher, to file a criminal complaint against the platform. CODA estimates that Mangamura caused losses amounting to US$2.9 billion.

Given the specific mention in the submission, it seems likely that Mangamura’s use of Njalla caused problems for rightsholders and/or investigators. Njalla helps to keep the registration details of domain names private by registering domains in its own name (holding company 1337 Services LLC), not the customer’s, meaning that the owner of Mangamura should be harder to trace.

Mangamura.org Njalla WHOIS

An agreement allows the customer to use Njalla-registered domains however they like (as long as it doesn’t hurt someone’s “health or safety”) and they are able to take domains back or transfer them at any time. In the meantime, they are shielded from third-parties discovering who is really behind their domains.

TorrentFreak asked Njalla whether they’ve ever had any complaints about Mangamura’s registration but at the time of publication, the service was yet to respond. However, one only has to read a sample of the company’s interactions with content company lawyers to see how it sometimes responds.

In the meantime, CODA continues to push its case to introduce blocking mechanisms in Japan. This wouldn’t solve the anonymity problem posed by bulletproof hosters and services like Njalla, but having ‘pirate’ sites rendered inaccessible in the country would certainly help.

That being said, things are not going smoothly.

According to a report published by Mainichi, a panel of government experts has been unable to compile an interim report on measures against pirate sites due to disagreements over the suitability of site blocking.

While rightsholders believe the practice should be implemented as soon as possible, there are serious concerns that blocking violates the country’s constitution.

“There are strong misgivings among many of the panel members who specialize in law that blocking is unconstitutional, and it’s unacceptable,” said Ryoji Mori, a lawyer on the panel.

On Wednesday, nine panel members opposed to blocking issued a statement, insisting that legislation “should be deferred and cooperation sought with the private sector to advance measures other than blocking.”

Those measures are said to include restriction of advertising on ‘pirate’ sites to hit revenues, plus further cooperation between content creators and the telecoms industry. Several ISPs in Japan currently block several ‘pirate’ sites voluntarily.

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Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act allows copyright holders to apply for injunctions that force ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing ‘overseas online locations’ that facilitate access to infringing content.

The legislation has been used on a number of occasions since its adoption in 2015 and as a result, dozens of notorious pirate sites are now inaccessible via regular means. However, pirate sites are often quick to adapt, with mirrors, proxies and other sites popping up to reactivate access.

Additionally, search engines – Google in particular – provide a handy reference guide for those looking for these kinds of resources. The entertainment industries are therefore keen to plug this loophole, to ensure that their web-blocking efforts are as effective as possible. That has resulted in the publication today of proposed amendments to copyright law.

The aims of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018 are fairly straightforward.

Where existing legislation compels ISPs to prevent access to sites listed in an injunction, the amendments attempt to deal with sites that “have started to provide access to the online location after the injunction is made”, meaning that subsequently appearing mirrors and proxies can be dealt with much more quickly.

Turning to the perceived problems with search engines, the amendments will allow rightsholders to apply for injunctions that will not only target infringing ‘online locations’ but also their appearance in search results.

Companies including Google will be required to “take such steps as the Court considers reasonable so as not to provide a search result that refers users to the online location.” Search providers will also be compelled to deal with the subsequent appearance of mirrors and proxies by ensuring that these don’t appear in search results either.

In a statement published this morning, the Department of Communications offered the following summary.

“The Copyright Amendment Bill will ensure a broader range of overseas websites and file-hosting services widely used for sharing music and movies are within the scope of the scheme, and provide a means for proxy and mirror pirate sites to be blocked quickly,” the statement reads.

“The amendments will also further empower copyright owners to seek Federal Court orders requiring search results for infringing sites.”

That search engines are being targeted in this manner is not a surprise. Entertainment industry groups everywhere believe that Google has become a key part of the piracy problem and rhetoric has at times been scathing, particularly in Australia where Village Roadshow chief and outspoken piracy critic Graham Burke has continually slammed the company.

In a TV interview with Sky News Australia yesterday, Burke said that site-blocking is working to an extent but is being undermined by the actions of Google.

“It’s been very effective because the traffic to the blocked sites is down 53% and that’s extremely gratifying. But it should be down 90% and the reason it’s not down 90% is because Google are saying ‘Hey, the front door’s been shut but hey folks, here’s the back door, we’ll lead you round to the backdoor’. In so doing, actually – in my view – they’re facilitating crime,” Burke said.

The Village Roadshow chief added that Google is helping people to circumvent the legislation of the Australian Government and is making it very easy for people to “break the will of the Australian Parliament and Australian courts.”

“If you Google in ‘Watch Mad Max Fury Road’ up will come a whole raft of pirate sites. [Google are] taking people to the proxies, to the mirror sites, of the pirates and they’re doing it unashamedly,” he said.

“Google have no interest in Australian jobs, Australian culture, and the Australian economy. They make protesting noises but it’s a sham.”

Google already and voluntarily demotes pirate sites in search results based on the number of DMCA notices it receives against them. However, should this legislation be adopted, it will be required to remove references to them completely following an injunction, at least in the Australia-facing parts of its service.

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In an effort to reduce levels of copyright infringement, content companies and distributors have adopted site-blocking as one of their preferred anti-piracy tools.

The practice is now commonplace across Europe, with many of the main torrent and streaming portals blocked by local ISPs.

In Sweden, ‘pirate’ site blocking became a reality in February 2017 when ISP Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company) was ordered to block The Pirate Bay and streaming portal Swefilmer.

That process took a long time to come to fruition. The original lawsuit, filed in 2014 by Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film, and the Swedish Film Industry, initially went in the ISP’s favor.

A subsequent appeal, however, saw the rightsholders emerge victorious, with Bredbandsbolaget ordered to implement “technical measures” to prevent its customers from accessing the ‘pirate’ sites through a number of domain names and URLs.

For more than a year, other ISPs in Sweden have been able to provide subscribers with access to The Pirate Bay, since the earlier case was targeted at just one ISP. Now, however, local ISP Telia finds itself in a similar position following an order handed down Monday by the Patent and Market Court.

Following an application by a huge coalition of content companies and groups including the Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Disney, and Twentieth Century Fox, Telia must now block subscriber access to several ‘pirate’ sites.

As is often the case, torrent favorite The Pirate Bay heads the list, with streaming platforms Fmovies, Dreamfilm and NyaFilmer following closely behind.

Cited by IDG, Per Strömbäck of the Film and TV Industry Cooperation Committee said that a favorable decision was anticipated.

“The decision was expected and complies with the current legal situation. Now it’s high time that Telia takes the same responsibility in Sweden as it already does in Denmark and Norway,” Strömbäck said.

While the move to site blocking in Sweden hasn’t always plain sailing, last year’s decision in the Bredbandsbolaget case laid down some valuable pointers.

The Court found that under EU law it is possible for copyright holders to obtain an injunction against ISPs whose services are used to commit copyright infringement, noting that the Swedish Copyright Act should be interpreted “in the light of EU law.”

Before deciding on an injunction, the Court also sought to ensure that any blocking would be proportional. Since sites like The Pirate Bay and similar platforms primarily offer illegally-distributed copyright-protected content, a blocking order is now considered an appropriate response.

The decision handed down Monday is an interim measure valid from October 30. From that date, Telia must prevent its subscribers from accessing the sites listed in the complaint and keep those measures in place until the case is finalized. In the meantime, Telia says it is considering its position.

“We are surprised by the news and we are going to analyze the decision to decide if we will appeal,” says Telia spokesperson Iréne Krohn.

“We believe that legislators and courts should make the assessment. Service providers cannot and do not want to decide what’s available on the internet.”

In a reaction to the news, Jon Karlung, CEO of freedom-loving ISP Bahnhof, criticized the court and its decision.

“It is a specialized court without credibility that represents a special interest,” he said.

“[Blocking] does not work technically and, in principle, you can not build a filter for everything you dislike on the internet. You are destroying the core of the internet, to communicate freely.”

The injunction handed down against Bredbandsbolaget last year was the first of its kind in Sweden. It had a time limit of three years and a penalty of around US$56,000 for any breaches. The details on the Telia case will be revealed in due course.

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Over the past year there has been a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits against alleged cheaters or cheat makers.

More than a handful have been filed in the US, but there’s also been some action in Australia recently.

In one case, filed last month, GTA V developer Rockstar Games and its parent company Take-Two Interactive are going after several people believed to be linked to the popular “Infamous” cheat.

This lawsuit is notable because the Federal Court of Australia has signed off on several broad enforcement actions. Not only are the defendants restrained from any cheating related activity, they are also the subject of a search and assets freezing order.

The orders are issued against the person or persons known as Christopher Anderson, Cycus Lesser, Sfinktah, Koroush Anderson, and Koroush Jeddian. Per the court’s order, all are prohibited from cheating and can be imprisoned if they refuse to comply.

Restrained

The associated search order identifies two Melbourne premises. It allows a search party to enter the buildings and search, copy, or remove relevant evidence including any computer, electronic storage device, or documents related to “Infamous.” Any cars that are located at these locations can also be searched.

In addition to the search order, the Federal Court also issued a freezing order preventing the defendants from taking out more money than needed for regular expenses.

“You must not remove from Australia or in any way dispose of, deal with or diminish the value of any of your assets in Australia (Australian assets) up to the unencumbered value of AU$286,609.80 (the Relevant Amount),” the order states.

This freezing order also applies to any cryptocurrency and other digital currency, including the money stored in the PayPal account that’s assigned to “Christopher Anderson.”

It is likely that Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive will try to obtain copyright infringement related damages, and with the freezing order they can make sure that the money isn’t spent beforehand.

The orders in question were initially not disclosed, but that restriction has now been lifted. From the information we have available the searches were carried out late last month. In a follow-up order, the federal court ruled that the freezing and other orders should remain in place for now.

The defendant(s) have yet to file a defense, which is expected later this month. Whatever the outcome, these orders and actions reveal that GTA V’s developer and its parent company are taking cheating rather seriously.

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An overview of the various orders is available here (pdf).

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Over the past decades, the entertainment industries have tried out numerous anti-piracy campaigns.

From “don’t copy that floppy,” “copyright alerts,” to “get it right,” and everything in between, it has been tried.

The problem with these campaigns is that it’s hard to measure the direct effect. This prompted psychology researchers Joanne Ullman and Clayton Silver from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to conduct a controlled experiment.

The results, published in an article titled “Perceived Effectiveness of Potential Music Piracy Warnings” show that some warnings are more effective than others.

The researchers conducted a study where students would see a series of piracy warning labels. These came with one of four icons, depicted below, as well as one of the signal words; NOTICE, IMPORTANT, and STOP. For each of these, five different warning categories were created.

1. Icon + Signal word – No warning
2. Icon + Signal word – “This is illegal”
3. Icon + Signal word – “This is illegal. You may be fined.
4. Icon + Signal word – “This is illegal. You may be monitored.”
5. Icon + Signal word – “This is illegal. You may be monitored and you may be fined.”

4 icons were tested with varying signal words and warnings

The students then had to rate each of these 60 warning messages for perceived effectiveness. These ratings were then analyzed to see if some are believed to work better than others, which was indeed the case.

The computer icon with a download arrow and a slash through it received the highest rating. The one of the right, with the cross and without the computer, was seen as least effective.

“The highest perceived warning effectiveness icon was the computer with the download paired with a slash; whereas, the no computer with the download followed by the cross, had the lowest perceived warning effectiveness,” the researchers write.

As for the signal words, both IMPORTANT and STOP were seen as more effective than NOTICE. This is something senders of infringement ‘notices’ might want to keep in mind.

When it comes to warnings, the combination of “this is illegal” with “you may be monitored and fined” received the highest perceived effectiveness rating. The control group where no warning was shown was the least effective.

These findings suggest that the more explicit warnings work better. Indeed, that’s also the case when the researchers pinpointed the most effective combinations of all, with an example pictured on the right.

The most effective warning includes a computer for context, a download symbol, a slash symbol, the signal words STOP or IMPORTANT, and a message with all consequences (fined and monitored).

It is worth noting that these results are about ‘perceived’ effectiveness. While that’s a decent indicator, it doesn’t say anything about how these warnings would change the behavior of an actual audience of pirates.

This experiment is limited to a small set of warnings, but the researchers believe that developing an effective warning label can help to deter piracy and inform consumers.

The research suggests that explicit warnings are better than vague ones. In addition, we would caution that some campaigns can also go too far. Over the past decade, the “Piracy. It’s a crime” PSA has been mocked and ridiculed for being overly dramatic, without much substance.

Joanne Ullman, lead author of the article, tells us that the “Piracy. It’s a Crime” campaign isn’t particularly informative and therefore not very explicit. Providing explicit information about the risks appears to be most effective.

“This may be of value to some consumers given that we all have varying levels of risk aversion due to personality and/or situational factors,” Ullman says.

“For others, perhaps being reminded of these restrictions would embolden them to take legal and proactive measures to change current policies. The overall aim of this research is to maximize the capacity of people to make sound decisions for themselves.”

Piracy. It’s a Crime

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