Last year Epic Games started to sue several Fortnite cheaters, accusing them of copyright infringement.

With these lawsuits the company hopes to stop the cheaters and send a clear message to others who do the same. However, Fortnite cheating remains rampant.

This week Epic Games continued its efforts by suing a rather prominent target, Golden Modz, who they’ve identified as Brandon Lucas. With more than 1.7 million subscribers on YouTube, he is the most high profile target we’ve seen thus far.

The complaint, filed at a North Carolina Federal Court, accuses ‘Golden Modz’ of copyright infringement and also names Colton Conter, a.k.a. ‘Exentric,’ as a second defendant.

“This is a copyright infringement, breach of contract, and tortious interference case in which the Defendants are infringing Epic’s copyrights by injecting unauthorized cheat software (‘cheats’ or ‘hacks’) into the copyright protected code of Epic’s popular video game Fortnite®,” Epic Games writes.

Both defendants have displayed their use of cheats in various YouTube videos. By using these cheats, they inject code into the game which modifies the original, which is a clear violation of copyright law, according to Epic Games.

Even worse, Golden Modz also stands accused of selling cheats online through the websites goldengodz.com and gtagods.com, which are often advertised in his gameplay videos.

“Lucas is operating these websites and selling these cheats and accounts for his own personal enrichment. He posts videos of people using the cheats for the same reason. His ill-gotten gains come at the expense of Epic and members of the Fortnite community.”

Cheats for sale

Golden Modz and Exentric team up on occasion, which appears to be the case in this video. They refer to their cheats as magical powers, informing viewers where to buy these, while hosting giveaways as well.

“At the end of the stream, I’m gonna do a three month of Fortnite magical powers giveaway. Definitely not cheats – wink wink – its magical powers okay,” Golden Modz notes.

According to Epic Games and the video’s title, there is little magical about these powers.

“In some of their YouTube videos, Defendants play (sometimes together) in duos and squads, and joke that the cheat software gives its users ‘magical’ powers, allowing them to ‘troll’ Fortnite by killing dozens of other players and ‘win’ the game,” the complaint reads.

Teaming up

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The complaint points out several videos where the defendants showcase their hacks and cheats. Epic has asked YouTube to remove several of these, which hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In fact, last month Golden Modz uploaded a video titled “I am getting sued by fortnite…” which, as it turns out, was rather prophetical. In the video, he notes that many other YouTubers are creating these videos, and he doesn’t really see his actions as problematic.

“I’m almost kind of feeling I’m being discriminated against by Epic Games you know I’m just a kid that’s making YouTube videos and a lot of people were enjoying this,” Golden Modz said.

Epic Games clearly disagrees and the company wants to be compensated for its losses. They’re suing both defendants for copyright infringement and breach of contract, adding several other claims including contributory copyright infringement against Golden Modz specifically.

“Defendants should be permanently enjoined from continuing to engage in the conduct complained of herein, their profits should be disgorged, and they should be ordered to pay Epic’s damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs related to this action,” Epic writes.

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A copy of the complaint, obtained by TorrentFreak, is available here (pdf).

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Fans in the UK looking for a top-tier football fix on a Saturday afternoon have a simple choice. Go to a football ground and buy a ticket, stream the game online illegally, or don’t watch matches at all.

This unusual situation is the product of an agreement back in the 1960s, which saw football bosses take protective action to preserve attendances at live matches. Agreeing that airing matches on TV would negatively affect the size of crowds at games, a blanket broadcasting ban was put in place.

Even today, the various leagues in the UK do not permit matches to be aired live between 2:45pm and 5:15pm on Saturdays, with a few exceptions over the years to accommodate the FA Cup Final. The ban prevents foreign matches from being aired in the UK too, despite most leagues in other EU countries not observing the same restrictions as the UK.

Now, however, a new situation has upset the status quo, with UK-based streaming sports provider Eleven Sports ignoring the decades-old ban by broadcasting games from Spain’s La Liga into the UK during the blackout period.

On September 29, Eleven Sports ignored the blackout and streamed the game between Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao, which kicked off at 3:15pm. Last Saturday, the broadcaster breached the rules once more and according to the company, it will do so again. The aim, it says, is to generate revenue from football fans who would otherwise turn to illegal streams.

“We disagree with the ban and will continue to challenge it with the best interest of our customers at heart,” the company wrote on Facebook.

The move is supported by Spain’s top-tier league, La Liga, which says that Eleven’s actions are pushing the boundaries to challenge illegal services which currently have a monopoly on broadcasts in the UK.

“We support Eleven Sports in pushing the envelope in making matches available on Saturday afternoons,” said Joris Evers, La Liga’s chief communications officer, as cited by Bloomberg.

“People are watching football either through piracy or on betting websites anyway,” Evers added. “Upholding the ban does not make much sense.”

The broadcasting ban in the UK is seen by many as both old-fashioned and protectionist. Many fans have zero intention of attending grounds so the convenience of watching games from home is certainly attractive. It’s a market opportunity that’s exclusively exploited by illicit IPTV providers and pirate sites, which has caused the Premier League to obtain blocking injunctions in an effort to prevent viewing.

According to corporate sports law expert Satish Khandke, this revolutionary move by Eleven Sports has the potential to completely undermine the UK’s “blackout” period.

“[E]leven might argue that the blackout is unnecessary and anti-competitive, particularly as it is only operated in one EU member state, and so is unenforceable. If the blackout is not enforced or is successfully challenged, it is likely that companies having rights to show overseas games in the UK would all start to show them on Saturday afternoons,” Khandke notes.

“Once that happens, then the UK blackout would probably end as it could not be enforced selectively against some broadcasters but not others. That would mean that domestic matches could also be broadcast in the UK on Saturday afternoons – ending the status of Saturday afternoons as a ‘haven’ from televised football.”

If the “blackout” was abandoned, it would raise issues for the dozens of pirate IPTV providers currently supplying into the UK. They currently enjoy a somewhat lucrative monopoly, with many subscribers buying pirate packages to enjoy 3:00pm games.

Having official competition would certainly make life more difficult, with price becoming the only obstacle to prevent consumers from going legal.

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IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, presents itself as the “voice of the recording industry worldwide.” The organization represents 1,300 record companies globally including the biggest labels in the industry.

IFPI’s annual Music Consumer Insight Report delves into the way music is consumed by 16 to 64-year-olds, particularly in the ever-expanding digital marketplace. Carried out by AudienceNet between April and May 2018 and covering twenty territories accounting for 91.3% of global revenues, the research aims to understand how consumers engage with both licensed and unlicensed content.

The report kicks off with the headline figure that 86% of consumers are now listening to music through on-demand streaming, with a solid 50% of 16 to 24-year-olds indicating a preference for streaming if there were only one way to listen to music. According to the research, 75% of consumers now use smartphones to access music.

But while millions of global consumers are now choosing licensed services for their musical fix, large numbers are still obtaining content from unlicensed sources. The report finds that almost four out of ten consumers (38%) still obtain their content using methods that infringe copyright.

In the early 2000s, the unchallenged kings of illegal music supply were the P2P networks dominated by the likes of Kazaa and LimeWire, with BitTorrent and file-hosting sites entering the party later but grabbing a huge slice of the cake. Now, however, it is largely legal services that are providing the source material for the ‘pirate’ market.

IFPI is clear: so-called ‘stream-ripping’ is now the most-used form of obtaining music online illegally, with 32% of all consumers downloading music this way. While users can head off to legal services and stream ad-supported content at will, stream-rippers use various tools to download the music instead, meaning that they don’t have to revisit to listen to the same content.

“Stream-ripping users are more likely to say that they rip music so they have music to listen to offline. This means they can avoid paying for a premium streaming subscription,” IFPI notes.

With a nod to successful action against sites including YouTube-MP3 and others, IFPI notes that the stream-ripping issue isn’t going away.

“Record companies are taking action globally against stream ripping sites that undermine legitimate services and pay no money to those investing in and creating the music. Despite some successes, the problem persists,” its report reads.

In its latest submission to the USTR, the RIAA highlighted a number of key overseas stream-ripping offenders, including Flvto.biz and 2conv.com (which are currently being sued), plus Mp3juices.cc, Convert2mp3.net, Ytmp3.cc, plus several others.

Given that YouTube is now a major source of both licensed and unlicensed music (and is an unwitting key supplier of source material to the ‘pirate’ market), it’s no surprise that the so-called ‘Value Gap’ and related issues are highlighted in IFPI’s research.

“[U]ser upload services are not returning fair value to the music community,” IFPI notes, adding that 35% of consumers say that a main reason for them not subscribing to a paid music service is because everything they need is already available for free on YouTube.

While the music industry is determined to change legislation in order to find a way out of the ‘Value Gap’ conundrum (particularly via the now infamous Article 13 in the EU), it has other copyright-related problems to deal with too.

According to the study, almost a quarter (23%) of global consumers obtain unlicensed music through either cyberlocker sites or P2P systems such as BitTorrent.

Sites specializing in both delivery systems were recently reported to the USTR including Russian giant Rapidgator, Zippyshare, and Turbobit, plus torrent indexes ThePirate Bay, Torrentz2, RARBG, and 1337x.

Piracy: still going strong

Finally, IFPI’s report notes that 17% of all consumers use search engines to find infringing content. Given that billions of takedown notices have been sent to Google to remove links to pirate music from search results, this seems like a pretty high figure. Anecdotal evidence online suggests that Google, in particular, is no longer the trove of unlicensed content links it once was.

However, with initiatives like site downranking now in place at Google, it seems likely that key sources of unlicensed content will continue their trip to the outlying pages of search engine indexes, which could encourage users to test out alternatives such as DuckDuckGo. IFPI, of course, will hope the trend switches towards licensed services instead.

The full Music Consumer Insight Report 2018 can be downloaded here (pdf)

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With file-sharers manually acquiring increasingly large libraries of content, several years ago it became clear that software to automate the process would prove popular with the masses.

One such tool was Sick Beard, a PVR-like piece of software that was able to utilize Usenet providers, indexers, and TheTVDB to identify airing dates for TV shows and automatically download whenever they became available online. It would then add the content to a user’s library ready for viewing.

Like many successful open projects, Sick Beard later found itself ‘forked’, with developers breathing life into SickRage, a GNU General Public Licensed tool that took Sick Beard’s dreams and ran with them. With improved Usenet and torrent support plus a whole raft of new features, SickRage gained an impressive following.

SickRage in action

Unfortunately, however, SickRage began to suffer problems common to many projects where not every developer is an agreement on every point of action. This led to fragmentation, with devs moving to work on other similar projects. One of those who departed was a dev known as Echel0n, who started up his own SickRage variant operating from SickRage.ca.

In July 2017, things appeared to boil over when Echel0n (later self-identified as ‘Justin Tabish’) filed a DMCA complaint with Github, claiming copyright over the SickRage code.

“SiCKRAGE and the original code has not been provided or its use authorized, this is a violation of my copyright. I have a good faith belief the distribution of SiCKRAGE includes content of which the distribution is not authorized by the copyright owner, it’s [sic] agent, or the law,” the complaint reads.

Just days later, SickRage fought back, filing a counter-notice with Github. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the various contributors to long-standing open projects, the counter-notice points out a number of issues with the original DMCA notice.

Disputing all of its claims, the counter-notice states that the original SickRage copyright holder (@midgetspy) endorsed adding his name to the license and adding the counter-notice filer’s name “underneath his as credit for later contributions as per convention.” It also states that ‘Echel0n’ has no standing to make a complaint.

“As such, all other claims are disputed for this DMCA. We are in compliance with all applicable law to the best of our knowledge. Very little if any code is shared among these forks, however if complainant would like a prior credit added that would be amenable,” the notice adds.

With that, Gihub reinstated the project and for some time it appeared that an uneasy peace had broken out. It now transpires, however, that Echel0n (Tabish) was just getting warmed up.

As the image below shows, in September the developer registered the trademark ‘SickRage’ in the US with the United States Trademark and Patents Office (USPTO).

SickRage trademark filing

Armed with this piece of paper, Justin Tabish fired off a complaint to developer Dustyn Gibson (aka ‘miigotu‘) of the SickRage project, warning him to cease and desist using the SickRage trademark, even though it doesn’t appear to have been awarded yet.

Cease and Desist

Tabish also wrote to Github, demanding that the site transfer ownership of the SickRage repository to him.

“I’d like to report a case of trademark infringement and am requesting transfer of ownership for the following organization to my control so that I can remedy the situation, the organization is https://github.com/sickrage and is owned/controlled by username Miigotu, user’s profile is located at https://github.com/miigotu,” he told the company.

“This repo also has a website located at https://sickrage.github.io. This user/repo is a ex-team member of mine that I let go awhile back, they and others decided to open a repo on you’re servers under the exact same name of my company and project causing confusion and misleading members, as you can see in the title of the repo they have placed ‘The new home of the SickRage community’ which leads others to think there was some sort of change of ownership.”

Describing the effort as a “hostile takeover” attempt, ‘miigotu’ posted a note to the official Github account promising to fight every inch of the way.

“I will have to fight this again, he is claiming his ‘company’ owns a trademark to the name SickRage. This is a joke and I will fight it tooth and nail,” miigotu writes.

“Just another attempt by the drug addict to try and claim he owns the work that we all did on this project. He abandoned the project and we made it what it is. Then he popped up 2 years later and removed the entire team. If I have to take him to court, that will happen.”

There’s now a pretty huge argument taking place on Github as to who is right and wrong, and who is infringing on various rights. It’s a minefield of opinions that’s best read directly to be understood. Needless to say, it’s very messy indeed.

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Well over six years have passed since Megaupload was shut down and it’s still unclear how the criminal proceedings will unfold.

Aside from Andrus Nomm’s plea deal, progress in the criminal proceedings has been slow.

Kim Dotcom and his former colleagues are currently fighting a legal battle in New Zealand to prevent their extradition to the US, for which the final decision has yet to be issued.

While all parties await the outcome, the criminal case in the United States remains pending. The same goes for the civil cases launched by the MPAA and RIAA in 2014, more than four years ago.

Since the civil cases may influence the criminal proceedings, Megaupload’s legal team previously managed to put these cases on hold, and last week they requested another extension.

This is not the first time that such a request had been made. There have been several extensions already, which caused some issues.

There were previously concerns that the long delays could result in the destruction of evidence, as some of Megaupload’s hard drives were starting to fail. However, after the parties agreed on a solution to back-up and restore the files, this is no longer an issue.

“With the preservation order in place, and there being no other objection, Defendant Megaupload hereby moves the Court to enter the attached proposed order, continuing the stay in this case for an additional six months,” Megaupload’s legal team informed the court this week.

Without any objections from the MPAA and RIAA, U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady swiftly granted Megaupload’s request to stay both lawsuits until April next year.

And so that wait continues…

Order to stay

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