Will Reddit’s /r/Piracy Sub-Reddit Get Shut Down?


To millions of loyal users, Reddit is one of the Internet’s most valuable resources. The platform covers every subject one can think of, plus hundreds that have never entered mainstream consciousness.

Along with fairly benign topics such as news, health, beauty and sport, Reddit caters to those whose hobbies and interests are a little more controversial. Dozens of so-called sub-Reddits are dedicated to most aspects of piracy, for example, something that has landed a few of them in hot water.

Take the /r/megalinks sub-Reddit, for example. Last year the discussion forum was shut down in a blaze of bad publicity after the site accumulated enough ‘strikes’ to trigger Reddit’s repeat infringer policy.

Megalinks was a very good example of sub-Reddit simply waiting to be closed down. The entire purpose of the community was to post links to infringing content stored on file-hosting site MEGA. No pirated content was off-limits so when Reddit’s admins decided enough was enough, it was no surprise to see the sub disappear down the drain.

This week, another piracy-focused sub-Reddit found itself disappearing into history. The /r/crackedsoftware forum, which (surprise, surprise) dedicated itself to links to pirated software, also found itself banished by Reddit’s admins. As the image below shows, it too fell foul of Reddit’s ‘repeat infringer’ policy.

No surprise the banhammer came out for this one

With news of these bannings filtering through to other sections of Reddit dedicated to piracy, some users have been asking whether they too could be banished to the digital wilderness. The question has been asked several times on /r/piracy, a sub with more than 244,000 subscribers. So, is it at risk?

To answer that question it’s first necessary to differentiate between sub-Reddits that act as a platform for piracy and those that discuss piracy but do not engage in it, on Reddit itself.

There can be no doubt that /r/megalinks and /r/crackedsoftware fall into the first category. Both sub-Reddits were designed to encourage and then provide access to links to known infringing content. Or, to put it another way, these sub-Reddits acted like The Pirate Bay or any other intentional ‘pirate’ linking site.

While this in itself would probably be enough to put the subs on the wrong side of the law, Reddit only appears to take action against subs when they cause documented copyright infringement problems for the platform. If a sub-Reddit receives repeat complaints from copyright holders, Reddit – as is required under the DMCA – invokes its repeat infringer policy.

At Reddit’s discretion, that repeat infringer policy can be acted upon in two ways. Firstly, Reddit could determine that a particular user is at fault and since he or she is continually posting infringing content, they could be banned. However, if the problem “pervades a whole community“, the entire sub will be banned if it doesn’t clean up its act. Clearly, both Megalinks and CrackedSoftware fall into this category, hence their demise.

Now, compare these two now-defunct subs to /r/piracy, Reddit’s flagship piracy forum with close to 245,000 users. While the sub is no doubt inhabited by many thousands of pirates, its moderators have put in place a set of clear rules to ensure that their home isn’t shut down in the same way as some others.

The sub only has four rules, three of which are dedicated to keeping the discussion both tidy and on topic. However, rule three is the sub’s most important, despite being a single line long. To be sure, however, the point is repeated and rephrased.

“No asking or linking pirated/copyrighted content,” it reads. “Do not request or link to pirated/copyrighted content,” notes the reminder.

It is this rule (and its enforcement by the sub’s moderators) that ensures that /r/piracy does not often find itself mentioned in DMCA notices sent to Reddit. If there are no links to infringing content, copyright holders can’t send a valid DMCA notice and Reddit will not be required to invoke its repeat infringer policy.

Advice from Reddit to keep a piracy-focused sub in shape

Of course, even the most fastidious of moderation teams can accidentally let something infringing slip through the net (even mods have to sleep), meaning that it’s still possible for an infringing post or comment to appear on /r/piracy. However, that is not the forum’s main aim, something which seems to go a long way with Reddit’s admins.

There are threats to the sub, however. A minority of users, many of whom simply can’t be bothered to read the rules and/or stick to them, are the number one concern.

While regular subscribers rarely attempt to post infringing content without being asked, every day people wander in and post questions demanding links for movie X or TV show Y. Other users rarely respond and the mods act quickly, but it’s not a great look for /r/piracy, especially when the mods work so hard to keep things legal.

In short and as things stand, /r/piracy seems a solid discussion forum that operates well within Reddit’s rules and is unlikely to be shut down. However, a little common sense in respect of Rule 3 wouldn’t go amiss and perhaps the threat of a temporary ban here and there would help to focus the minds of the minority of users who play fast and loose with the sub’s future.

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Broadcasters Remove Content From Search Engine to Protest Piracy


Over the years in their neverending fight against piracy, content owners have tried numerous strategies to limit the amount of infringing content reaching the eyes of consumers.

For almost two decades, that has involved targeting ‘pirate’ sites themselves but increasingly that tactic is taking a back seat. In vogue today is the move to force intermediaries and platforms to join the battle, hoping these Internet giants will use their influence to disappear unlawful content.

Over in Russia, legislation is already in place to force cooperation. When sites are deemed to be infringers and unresponsive to targeted takedowns, they can find themselves on a national blacklist and blocked by ISPs. Furthermore, sites that persistently refuse to cooperate can be permanently blocked, with additional consequences.

Sites in this category now face the prospect of being removed from search engines altogether. That has been happening in volume, as telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor reported this week.

“Since the beginning of the year, search engines Yandex, Mail.ru, Rambler, Sputnik and Google that have been operating in Russia have blocked access to 2,600 pirated Internet resources that were previously blocked on an ongoing basis,” the government body reported.

“Decisions on restricting access to pirated Internet resources on an ongoing basis are taken by the Moscow City Court and the Ministry of Communications.”

Since the search engine exclusion law came into force October 1, 2017, close to 4,000 sites have been permanently excluded from search results. However, this still isn’t enough for rightsholders who insist that companies like Yandex and Google need to do more.

In a sign of how fractious this battle has become, major broadcasters recently took action against Yandex due to the existence of ‘pirate’ resources in search results. In protest, Gazprom-Media, National Media Group (NMG), and others removed their TV channels from Yandex’s ‘TV Online’ service.

According to comments obtained by Russia’s Kommersant, the media companies will only allow their content to appear again if Yandex “purges the pirated versions” from its search results.

“This is the only way we can influence them to remove pirated content,” the source said.

Yandex began displaying the content of TV channels on its main pages back in March 2017 and agreements inked since then have allowed it to expand the feature. Now, however, the initiative has been set back, with media companies complaining that the revenue generated pales into insignificance when compared to the losses from piracy.

“The situation in which broadcasters promote Yandex media services, provide content, but have piracy ignored in search results, is destructive for the media industry,” a representative from NMG told Kommersant.

“[The revenues] are insignificant compared to the hundreds of millions of rubles of annual losses associated with the distribution of pirated content from broadcasters.”

Gazprom Media told the publication that for as long as piracy is a problem, the company won’t be offering its content via the search engine.

“Prior to resolving the issue of pirated content on Yandex services, we will not license our content in Yandex,” a spokesperson said.

With some media players describing Yandex as “the main pirate site in the country” it’s clear that bridges need to be built if progress is to be made. However, the rhetoric is strong right now with no solution in sight.

“[Yandex] interferes with the work of all and refuses to discuss this topic under far-fetched pretexts, so there will only be more [piracy]. They imagine themselves as an information intermediary, but it’s not true – they make money on content, interfere in content, and develop their own sites,” says producer Alexander Akopov.

Considering the general consensus that access to legal content is the best way to defeat piracy, the decision to remove legal content from Yandex is a little puzzling. The punitive measures used to starve pirate sites of their visitors – removal from search engine results – is now being deployed by rightsholders against themselves. Only time will tell how that will turn out.

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LoveROMS Owner Hopes to Settle Nintendo’s Copyright Lawsuit


Last month, 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 owner of the sites, Jacob Mathias, swiftly took the platforms offline. While the claims still stand, a new court filing shows that both Mathias and Nintendo are open to resolving the matter without a drawn-out fight.

LoveROMS

This week Mathias’ attorney asked the court to extend the standard period to respond to the complaint by three weeks, to enable both parties to continue ongoing settlement negotiations.

“Almost immediately after the complaint was served, the parties began actively discussing and working toward settling the case,” the defendants’ motion reads. “The parties believe that a 21-day extension will allow them to make significant progress toward settling the case.”

Nintendo requested a substantial number of documents as part of the settlement negotiations. The defense provided these and, with the extra time, they hope to get closer to a settlement.

If the case is not settled within the additional three-week period, no further extension will be requested.

From the motion

The filing suggests that this case may be over before it gets properly underway, which might be the best option for the site owner and his wife, who Nintendo previously added to the complaint. A lengthy, costly, and difficult to win court battle would then be avoided.

Nintendo, for its part, wouldn’t mind saving on legal bills too. In addition, with a settlement, they avoid the risk of a ‘theoretical’ negative precedent where a court might rule that not all older ROMs are copyright-infringing.

Most importantly, perhaps, is that filing the complaint alone has already had a sufficient deterrent effect.

In the weeks after the lawsuit was made public, several ROMs sites ceased their activities voluntarily. Not because they were suddenly in agreement that offering retro-ROMs is wrong, but mostly because they wanted to avoid a legal battle that could end in bankruptcy.

Nintendo’s actions and the subsequent fallout has left many retro-gamers without their preferred ROMs sources. However, it is unlikely that any type of legal action will completely root out their passion for good.

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Copyright Trolls Killed Off in Denmark After Supreme Court Hearing Denied


All around the world, rightsholders connected to often lower-tier media are generating revenue from people alleged to have pirated their content online.

The system is mostly uniform, with alleged infringers’ IP addresses gathered by the ‘copyright trolls’ and taken to court, in the hope that a judge will order ISPs to hand over their personal details. With this information in hand, copyright trolls demand a cash payment to make a supposed lawsuit go away.

It’s important to note, however, that if rightsholders cannot force ISPs to hand over alleged infringers’ details, their entire project is dead in the water. That’s now the position in Denmark after copyright trolls’ greed prompted ISPs to dig in their heels and refuse to cooperate.

After receiving demands to expose tens of thousands of their subscribers’ identities, ISP Telenor grew tired of the demands, with the company’s legal director framing the problem as a battle between the security of the public and law firms’ commercial interests.

Telenor, with the assistance of rival ISP Telia, prepared a case to protect their customers. Last October, however, the District Court ruled against the ISPs, ordering them to provide identities of alleged pirates to the copyright trolls.

Refusing to accept the setback, the providers took their case to the Østre Landsret, one of Denmark’s two High Courts. In May that effort paid off, with a resounding victory for the ISPs. The win meant that the personal details of individuals behind approximately 4,000 IP addresses targeted by troll outfit Copyright Collection Ltd (via law firm Njord Law) would remain private.

“In its order based on telecommunications legislation, the Court has weighed subscribers’ rights to confidentiality of information regarding their use of the Internet against the interests of rightsholders to obtain information for the purpose of prosecuting claims against the subscribers,” the Court said in a statement.

“The telecommunications companies are therefore not required to disclose the names and addresses of their subscribers.”

The decision was met with dismay by the copyright trolls, who framed the defeat as a blow to those who invest in the Danish film and television industries. But the ruling by the Østre Landsret would not be the final roll of the dice if the Supreme Court decided to hear the matter. Hoping that would be the case, Njord Law filed an appeal.

Unfortunately for the trolls, their hopes were shattered this week when the committee responsible for references to the Supreme Court said it would not be putting the case forward.

As a result, the May 7th decision of the Østre Landsret will stand, with Telenor and Telia no longer required to cooperate with parties involved in trolling cases.

Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger, welcomed the decision.

“Both personally and on behalf of our customers, I am really glad that we are being strictly ruled by the National Court’s decision, and we once again find that logging data should only be handed over to the police to combat serious crime,” he told Version2.

Krüger described the decision not to take the case to the Supreme Court has a victory for customers’ legal certainty, with citizens’ right to privacy trumping the copyright trolls’ commercial interests.

If disclosure is to be granted in future, online offenses will have to be shown to be serious enough to get the police involved, something that appears to rule out most copyright trolling efforts.

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Pirate IPTV Seller on Facebook Ordered to Pay £50,000


Online piracy is taking place in all corners of the Internet, Facebook included.

This issue is not limited to users who upload or stream infringing content. It also extends to Facebook’s marketplace, where vendors sell pirate streaming boxes and IPTV subscriptions.

Facebook is actively cracking down on these activities. Most recently the company updated its commerce policies to make clear that all streaming devices that use Kodi software are now banned, whether they are infringing or not.

Copyright holders, meanwhile, are not sitting still either. Earlier this month, Sky booked a success in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, which ordered Facebook seller Luke Skinner to pay £50,000 in damages.

Skinner, a resident of Burntisland, sold pre-loaded Openbox VX and VX2 boxes on the social media network, as well as access to IPTV subscriptions. These allowed his customers to access unauthorized Sky channels for £35 per year, or £75/£85 for a two year deal with the box included.

Box advertisement

In addition to the damages award, the Court of Session also issued an injunction which prevents the man from selling or advertising any infringing streaming devices or subscriptions going forward.

Sky is pleased with the outcome of the case and hopes that it will deter others from engaging in similar activities.

“Those who infringe copyrighted content do so at their own risk. This case is another example of the heavy price people who facilitate piracy can pay,” Matthew Hibbert, Sky’s Head of Litigation, told Broadband News TV in a comment.

According to Colin Hulme, a partner at law firm Burness Paull, which has experience with these cases, there is little doubt that selling pre-loaded devices or pirate subscriptions is against the law.

And misspelling SkySports as SlySports is not going to help much to stay out of trouble, as this case shows.

“Without question, subscription services and pre-loaded devices that give unauthorized access to copyrighted content are illegal. Sellers misspell brand names to avoid the safeguards that protect content from being pirated but this case proves that they can still be detected,” Hulme commented.

The present case is, to our knowledge, the first private prosecution of a UK seller of pirate tools and IPTV services on Facebook. It is not the first IPTV related conviction in the UK though, and it likely won’t be the last.

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After Stopping Pirates, Denuvo Plans to Catch Cheaters Too


Denuvo‘s anti-piracy system has been a sworn enemy of many gaming pirates for years. While it is no longer as unbreakable as it once was, the software is still seen as a major roadblock.

Earlier this year the company was acquired by Irdeto, a global anti-piracy company, which has also taken an interest in cheating.

The company recently conducted an extensive survey which revealed that more than half of all gamers felt the negative impact of cheaters. In addition, three-quarters of the gamers agreed that it was important for games to have protection against cheaters.

Game publishers and developers have recognized the problem as well, as is illustrated by recent lawsuits. And according to Irdeto, they’re taking cheating as seriously as piracy.

“Thankfully, we are finally seeing the industry taking anti-cheat as seriously as anti-piracy,” Irdeto’s Bob Hernandez wrote two months ago.

“To succeed, they’ll need to put anti-cheat strategies at the heart of game design, alongside smart technologies for cheat detection, data encryption and behavioral analysis.”

The cheating research and additional commentary exist for a reason. Today, Iredeto announced that they’re joining the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC). And perhaps more importantly, Denuvo will soon launch its own anti-cheat technology to help solve this problem.

“Denuvo’s Anti-Cheat technology, which is soon to be launched as a full end-to-end solution, will prevent hackers in multiplayer games from manipulating and distorting data and code to gain an advantage over other gamers or bypass in-game micro-transactions,” the company says.

With its anti-cheating solution, Denuvo hopes to help game companies protect the value of their games. But, unlike their anti-piracy technology, it’s also good news for gamers, and not just professional E-sporters.

Whether that will be good enough to restore some of Denuvo’s negative image, which even rubs off on game ratings, has yet to be seen.

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GOG Launches FCKDRM to Promote DRM-Free Art and Media


For several decades, video games developers and publishers have been doing everything in their power to prevent unlicensed copying and distribution of their products.

The theory is that if games are easy to copy, people will share them around with non-paying individuals and this will have a detrimental effect on sales for that product.

As a result, customers of companies like Denuvo sink significant sums into systems that attempt to protect their games from pirates. And Denuvo gets tough with anyone who dares to circumvent its systems.

While these kinds of anti-piracy systems can be popular with games makers, they are invariably unpopular with consumers. Games protected by leading anti-piracy systems come with a number of restrictions, meaning that titles cannot easily be backed up and may even lose functionality altogether, should developers make that decision.

Bucking this trend in the gaming marketplace are the folks behind GOG, the digital distribution platform for DRM-free video games and video. Brought to life by Poland’s CD Projekt, GOG has been offering content without DRM for more than eight years. It’s a strategy that has proven extremely popular with the gaming public and as a result, GOG has become synonymous with content ‘freedom’.

In a fresh move to enhance this reputation, GOG and owners CD Projekt have launched a new portal with the eye-catching title FCKDRM. The platform aims to promote GOG and other companies with a similar ethos, including those offering DRM-free music, books, and video.

“DRM-free approach in games has been at the heart of GOG.COM from day one. We strongly believe that if you buy a game, it should be yours, and you can play it the way it’s convenient for you, and not how others want you to use it,” GOG said in a statement.

“The landscape has changed since 2008, and today many people don’t realize what DRM even means. And still the DRM issue in games remains – you’re never sure when and why you can be blocked from accessing them. And it’s not only games that are affected, but your favorite books, music, movies and apps as well.”

Through the FCKDRM portal, GOG also hopes to educate people while igniting a discussion about DRM. The company wants to help consumers understand the implications of DRM, how it affects purchased content, and how the absence of DRM in a product leads to various benefits.

The benefits of DRM

While the discussion over the negative effects of DRM has been sizzling for many years, the majority of consumers have become used to operating within its boundaries. Most games are protected by DRM but its security measures also extend to music, video, and books purchased from online vendors. Such content is controlled and could be taken away at any time.

“Games with DRM include a layer of software or code on top of what’s needed to just play the game. Nowadays DRM will send your information to an online server, it could run checks to see if you touched any files, or outright refuse access unless you’re logged in somewhere. In other words, DRM is there to question what you’re doing every step of the way,” GOG says.

While some DRM does have the ability to be somewhat unintrusive for some consumers, there’s a darker side, particularly with games. They can be turned off at any point and there isn’t a thing gamers can do about it.

“[T]here is a killswitch built into your games. Sure, DRM might not affect you right now, but corporations hold the key and they’ll only let you in as long as you can repeatedly prove ownership. As long as you’re connected to the internet. As long as their DRM works without fault. As long they’re still around,” GOG adds.

“So should the burden of proof be on you? Do you place your trust in someone who doesn’t trust you?”

The list of DRM-free resources listed on FCKDRM is currently fairly limited, with Bandcamp, 7Digital and emusic on the audio front, Project Gutenberg and OpenLibra on books, and Moving Image Archive and Vimeo on Demand on video. However, GOG is keen to expand the directory and is inviting companies to contact them in order to be included.

The FCKDRM initiative can be found here.

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Piracy is the Internet’s Canary in the Coal Mine, MPAA Chief Says


The entertainment industries are growing increasingly frustrated with major Internet platforms that, in their view, are not doing enough to tackle online piracy.

This was also the topic of a speech given by MPAA chief Charles Rivkin, during the TPI Aspen Forum yesterday.

The title of the speech is telling. Rivkin’s “Declaration of Accountability for Cyberspace” is a play on John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace,” which was written 22 years ago.

Barlow, who passed away earlier this year, was an artist, an Internet activist, and one of the founding members of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As an Internet pioneer, he repeatedly warned against stifling Internet restrictions, to keep cyberspace free and open.

According to the MPAA, however, Barlow’s vision of a cyberspace where inhabitants right any wrongs themselves has failed. Its chief instead argues that the future of the “healthy” Internet is in danger.

“I want to address one of the most vibrant and interconnected ecosystems in human history. That, of course, is the internet. And as we meet, the healthy and vibrant internet that we all want is in serious jeopardy,” Rivkin says.

“The title of this speech is ‘a declaration of accountability for cyberspace’ — a reference I’m sure is not lost on this audience,” he adds.

While the complaints about Internet piracy are not new, the MPAA ties piracy in with more recent debates about fake news, election meddling, and hate speech. From Cambridge Analytica to Infowars.

Rivkin calls for a national conversation on how to return the Internet to a place of vibrant but civil discourse. A place where fake news, hate speech, and piracy are properly dealt with.

Eventually, this leads the MPAA’s boss to Silicon Valley. Rivkin sees a major role for Internet platforms to do more to stop piracy and other types of abuse. If that doesn’t happen voluntarily, the US Government could step in, he suggests.

“The crescendo is rising within our ecosystem. The message is getting louder by the day: Internet platforms must bear responsibility. And they must do more to address the harms that, wittingly or not, they facilitate.

“Online platforms could increase their voluntary efforts to work with those affected to curb abuse of their services. Or perhaps Congress could recalibrate the online immunities to more explicitly require proactive steps as a condition of those protections,” Rivkin adds.

The widespread problem of online piracy is a sign of worse to come, the MPAA chief suggests.

“Online piracy is also the proverbial canary in a coal mine. The same pervasive theft that my industry faces is part of a continuum of toxic developments that harm all of us in this ecosystem – consumers, creators, and commercial operators alike,” he says.

In his speech, Rivkin refers to the “broken windows” theory to illustrate his point. This theory suggests that an atmosphere of lawlessness is created when small crimes are left unpunished. Seeing broken windows in the streets makes it more likely that others will start vandalizing as well.

This is also happening on the Internet today, according to Rivkin. When people continuously cross legal boundaries, by pirating, for example, others are more likely to follow suit.

To fix this problem, the MPAA has already started working with advertising companies, payment processors and other intermediaries. These companies have adopted a strict anti-piracy stance, and it is now time for the Twitters, YouTubes, and Facebooks to follow suit.

“If we want to bring back the internet we all want, it’s better to work together than cut each other off at the knees,” Rivkin says. “There are too many online windows broken and left unfixed for us to do anything but take collective action – and take it now.”

One of the major gripes of the MPAA and other rightsholder organizations is the fact that current laws shield Internet platforms from direct liability. This should be changed, if these platforms don’t work along, they argue.

Not everyone agrees that this is the case. Internet Association spokesman Noah Theran told Variety that the protections provided by laws such as the Communications Decency Act are a good thing.

“Without intermediary liability protections it would be harder, not easier, for online platforms to keep bad actors off the internet,” Theran notes, and many Internet platforms will share this view.

—

Without adding any commentary, we would welcome everyone to contrast Charles Rivkin’s “Declaration of Accountability for Cyberspace” with John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.”

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RIAA Complaint Shuts Down YouTube-Ripper MP3Fiber


Every week, millions of Internet users get their musical fix from service like Spotify and iTunes. However, a growing number see YouTube as their preferred content platform.

In theory, labels and artists should get paid for every licensed stream accessed on YouTube but there are ways to disrupt that business model. So-called ‘YouTube-ripping’ services allow people to extract MP3 audio files from YouTube videos and store them on their local machines. This is a thorn in the side of recording labels seeking to extract every last penny from their content.

In an effort to bring an end to this activity, the major labels of the RIAA in the US and BPI in the UK have been putting YouTube-ripping sites under pressure. Former market leader YouTube-MP3 was their most significant target, a site that eventually shut down following a settlement with the labels. Now there’s news of fresh action against another player.

MP3Fiber allowed users to download MP3 audio from several platforms including YouTube, SoundCloud and Daily Motion. However, following recent threats from the RIAA, the site has decided to call it a day.

After launching an investigation against MP3Fiber, the RIAA asked domain privacy service DomainsByProxy to hand over the personal details of the site’s operator. TF is informed that the company responded by giving the RIAA what it wanted, in the absence of a court order. It did inform MP3Fiber that it had cooperated with the music group but that will probably be of little comfort to others using this supposed privacy service.

After obtaining his details, the RIAA then contacted the operator of the site, who lives in Canada. TF understands that due to the blank media levy in Canada, which reimburses the labels for private copying, the site believed it was operating legally. However, the RIAA insisted that since the MP3Fiber site was accessible in the US, this defense wouldn’t apply south of the border.

The operator was also reminded of the YouTube-MP3 case and another involving a pair of Russian-based ripping sites. With no desire to endure any legal headaches with the RIAA, MP3Fiber’s operator took the decision to close down the service.

“This site was actually run as a hobby. We spent more on servers then we ever made so did not want to get into any legal battles. We pretty much gave in to their demands without too many other thoughts,” he told TF.

Action against YouTube-ripping sites has stepped up in 2018. In addition to the pressure on MP3Fiber and Russian sites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com, June saw the closure of Pickvideo.net, Video-download.co and EasyLoad.co. All three are believed to have ended their activities following threats from the RIAA.

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Court Halts ‘GTA V’ Cheat Maker Over Copyright Claim


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

Fortnite’s developers have launched a few cases in US courts, and so has Take-Two Interactive Software, the company behind ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ (GTA V).

The latter managed to score a success last week. The court granted its requested preliminary injunction, ordering David Zipperer to stop working on and distributing the ‘Menyoo’ and ‘Absolute’ cheats.

The dispute between Zipperer is not new as Kotaku highlights. Last year the game developer already sent Zipperer a cease and desist notice over the Menyoo cheat, which appeared to work.

The cheat was made unavailable at the website of the developer, who sold it for $10 a piece and said he would donate all the proceeds to a charity. Soon after, however, he began distributing another cheat titled ‘Absolute.’

“While Mr. Zipperer originally appeared cooperative and disabled access to the Menyoo program, it recently has come to Take-Two’s attention that Mr. Zipperer distributed a new cheating program titled Absolute,” GTA V’s developer wrote in its complaint.

This prompted the present lawsuit where Take-Two Interactive accuses the cheat maker of copyright infringement, among other things. Specifically, Zipperer stands accused of creating derivative works of GTA V without Take-Two’s authorization.

According to a court order issued late last week, the allegations are sufficient to grant a preliminary injunction. This means that, for the time being, Zipperer is ordered to stop creating, producing, and distributing any infringing works.

Zipperer opposed the request for an injunction arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction and that the issue was moot. He told the court that he already stopped distributing Menyoo and that he also stopped working on Absolute.

“I will not be performing any more computer programming for Absolute in the future. I have informed the individuals responsible for Absolute that I will not assist them in the future. I have no intention of working on any other ‘cheat menu’ for GTAV,” Zipperer wrote.

The court, however, concluded that this doesn’t make the injunction request moot, not least because the defendant previously continued his infringing actions, following a cease and desist order from Take-Two Interactive.

“Mr. Zipperer agreed to cease his activities and shut down Menyoo. But he then secretly started developing and distributing a different program called Absolute, which like Menyoo, alters GTAV’s multiplayer feature,” the court writes.

However, Zipperer’s comments suggest that he’s not the only person who has control over the cheats. This means that they may still be available elsewhere. For now, however, the Absolute website appears to be offline.

In addition to this lawsuit, Take-Two Interactive has a separate case pending against two people who are allegedly connected to “Infamous,” another popular GTA V cheat.

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A copy of the preliminary injunction and the associated order is available here (pdf).

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