Regular Internet providers are being put under increasing pressure for not doing enough to curb copyright infringement.

This has already resulted in several ‘repeat infringer’ lawsuits in US federal courts. The major record labels, helped by the RIAA, are the driving force behind most of these cases.

There is another notable party of interest though. Anti-piracy company Rightscorp, known for sending settlement requests to alleged pirates through the DMCA notification system, plays a central role as well.

The company’s notices are used as ‘evidence’ to show that ISPs such as Grande and Cox Communications failed to disconnect repeat infringers from their networks. While Rightscorp settlement practices haven’t been particularly profitable, court records reveal that the company was paid handsomely for its litigation support.

In a recent court filing, which was insufficiently redacted, Grande Communications reveals that the BitTorrent piracy monitoring company was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“In 2016, Rightscorp approached the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) and convinced that association to purchase Rightscorp’s Grande-related notices for $700,000,” Grande’s legal team writes.

“Rightscorp also convinced the RIAA to pay Rightscorp’s representatives hourly rates of $350-$500 to testify in this matter,” they add.

It is no secret that RIAA is a Rightscorp customer, or that Rightscorp inspired the RIAA to sue ISPs, but this is the first time we’ve read that the music industry group specifically paid for the notices. Further details on the agreement were not revealed, however.

The information comes from a motion for summary judgment that was denied near instantly, as it relied heavily on redacted elements. While a revised version will likely be submitted later, it’s quite clear that Grande rejects any attempts to hold it liable for pirating subscribers.

The company notes that the major record labels want to turn ISPs into de facto copyright enforcement agents, a strategy it clearly rejects.

“Having given up on actually pursuing direct infringers due to bad publicity, and having decided not to target the software and websites that make online file-sharing possible, the recording industry has shifted its focus to fashioning new forms of copyright liability that would require ISPs to act as the copyright police,” the denied motion reads.

Although the RIAA is not listed as a plaintiff, it is clear that the music group helped to set out the legal strategy for the labels. This prompted Grande to request information from the RIAA, in particularly its communications with Rightscorp.

The RIAA is refusing to hand over all the requested documents, however, claiming that some are protected work. Grande, therefore, filed a separate motion to compel the RIAA to hand over this information.

“Plaintiffs and the RIAA are relying on Rightscorp’s work product to support their claims in this case, while at the same time refusing to produce Rightscorp materials, and communications with Rightscorp, that may undermine those claims. The Court should not permit this sort of gamesmanship,” Grande’s legal team writes.

It appears that the ISP is trying to use Rightscorp’s evidence and its role in this case, for its defense. The company already discredited the accuracy of the notices, and described Rightscorp as little more than a “hired gun,” albeit one that was handsomely paid.

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A copy of Grande’s reply in support of its motion to compel the RIAA to hand over additional information is available here (pdf)

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Last year several major record labels, represented by the RIAA, filed a lawsuit against ISP Grande Communications accusing it of turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers.

According to the RIAA, the Internet provider knew that some of its subscribers were frequently distributing copyrighted material, but failed to take any meaningful action in response.

Grande refuted the accusations and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The ISP partially succeeded as the claims against its management company Patriot were dropped. The same was true for the vicarious infringement allegations, as the court saw no evidence that the ISP had a direct financial interest in the infringing activity.

The labels were not willing to let go so easily.

They submitted a motion for leave to file an amended complaint including new evidence obtained during discovery. And a few days ago, they upped the pressure with a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Grande has no safe harbor defense.

In order to get safe harbor protection, the DMCA requires ISPs to adopt and reasonably implement a policy for terminating the accounts of repeat copyright infringers. According to the motion, it is clear that Grande failed to do so. As such, the company should be held directly liable.

“For years, Grande claimed in its online ‘Acceptable Use Policy’ that it had a policy of terminating repeat infringers. Grande continued to assert that claim in its pleadings and written discovery responses in this suit.

“None of that was true. The undisputed record evidence establishes that Grande’s Acceptable Use Policy was a sham,” the labels’ motion reads.

There can be little dispute over Grande’s failing policy, the labels state. They point out that corporate paperwork and testimony of Grande’s senior executives clearly show that there wasn’t an adequate repeat infringer policy.

“Indeed, the documents and testimony demonstrate that rather than a policy for terminating repeat infringers, Grande consciously chose the opposite: a policy allowing unlimited infringement by its subscribers,” the labels write.

At the same time, there was no lack of DMCA notices. The labels note that the ISP received at least 1.2 million notices of alleged copyright infringement between 2011 and 2016. This includes hundreds of thousands of notices from Rightscorp.

Despite these repeated warnings, the company didn’t terminate a single subscriber from October 2010 until June 2017, the labels allege. This changed after the lawsuit was filed, but even then the number remained minimal, with ‘only’ twelve terminations.

Based on the provided information, the record labels ask for a summary judgment in their favor.

“Grande’s failure to adopt and reasonably implement a repeat infringer policy renders Grande ineligible for the DMCA safe harbor. The Court should grant Plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment and reject Grande’s DMCA safe harbor defense as a matter of law,” the labels say.

If the court sides with the record labels, Grande will be at a severe disadvantage, to say the least.

Without safe harbor protection, the company can be held liable for the copyright infringements of its users, which could potentially lead to dozens of millions of dollars in damages.

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A copy of the record labels motion is available here (pdf).

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After years of careful planning and negotiating, the European Parliament was ready to vote on its new copyright directive last month.

With backing from large political factions and pretty much the entire entertainment industry, many assumed that proposal would pass.

They were wrong.

The Copyright Directive was sent back to the drawing board following protests from legal scholars, Internet gurus, activists, and many members of the public. Article 13, often referred to as the “upload filter” proposal, was at the center of this pushback.

The vote was a massive blow to those who put their hope on the EU’s proposed copyright changes. Following the failure of SOPA and ACTA, this was another disappointment, which triggered several entertainment industry insiders to call foul play.

They claimed that the grassroots protests were driven by automated tools, which “spammed” Members of Parliament were with protest messages, noting that large tech companies such as Google were partly behind this.

This narrative is gaining attention from the mainstream media, and there are even calls for a criminal investigation into the matter.

Opponents of the upload filters clearly disagree. In part triggered by the criticism, but more importantly, to ensure that copyright reform proposals will change for the better, they plan to move the protests to the streets of Europe later this month.

Julia Reda, the Pirate Party’s Member of European Parliament, is calling people to join these protests, to have their voices heard, and to show the critics that there are real people behind the opposition.

“We haven’t won yet. After their initial shock at losing the vote in July, the proponents of upload filters and the ‘link tax’ have come up with a convenient narrative to downplay the massive public opposition they faced,” Reda writes.

“They’re claiming the protest was all fake, generated by bots and orchestrated by big internet companies. According to them, Europeans don’t actually care about their freedom of expression. We don’t actually care about EU lawmaking enough to make our voices heard. We will just stand idly by as our internet is restricted to serve corporate interests.”

Thus far, nearly a million people have voiced their discontent with the copyright reform plans through an online petition. And if it’s up to Reda, these people should do the same away from their keyboard.

On September 12th, Members of Parliament will vote on the future of the Copyright Directive and the protests are planned two weeks earlier, on August 26th.

“Our goal is clear: The Parliament must adopt alternatives for Article 11 and Article 13 that don’t force platforms to install upload filters and don’t threaten links and snippets with an extra layer of copyright,” Reda notes.

The public protests will take place in several cities including Berlin, Ljubljana, Prague, Stockholm, Vienna, and Warsaw. The organizers hope to gain the same momentum as the ACTA protests did when hundreds of thousands of people marched the streets.

That would certainly make an impact.

Meanwhile, the tension between opponents and proponents of the Copyright Directive keeps growing. The latter will hope that the protests will only draw a small crowd, but if the turnout is high, they can always point out that many of the protest cities have Google offices.

Protest locations

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Hundreds of torrent sites have come and gone over the years with most disappearing after relatively short periods in action.

Sites like The Pirate Bay, which has just celebrated 15 years online, tend to drown out smaller players on the news front, but several have an impressive history behind them.

Take SevenTorrents, for example. The site has been serving torrents for around 10 years and last year serviced around six million unique visitors. It’s not a giant by any means but its longevity is notable in a somewhat hostile and oppressive anti-piracy environment.

Now, however, the show is over for this long-term player. In an announcement yesterday, SevenTorrents’ operator said the towel had been thrown in.

“We have been serving you for near 10 years and served over 40 Million visitors, with all troubles including copyright complaints, limitations, domain bans and …., we were able to keep this site up and running and make our visitors satisfied,” the announcement reads.

Indeed, SevenTorrents has weathered the usual storms over the years. In 2014, the site’s main domain was added to the UK’s ISP blocking system following a complaint from the Motion Picture Association and in 2015, other domains were added to the list.

Unlike other sites on a downward spiral, no single event appears to have pressured SevenTorrents’ out of existence but they clearly feel the time is right to move on. However, the site’s decision to hand over its database to another torrent site raises some questions.

“Today we have decided to retire. But this is not the end for you and we will not let you down, there is a good news for you. We have talked with the owners of our professional friend site WatchSoMuch which is doing same thing as we were doing but in a better way, it has a super fast search and modern and mobile friendly design,” SevenTorrents says.

“We have transferred all the data and members to there, please visit and continue using your account in WatchSoMuch with same password and enjoy.”

While SevenTorrents is an open index, according to its operator it has around 200,000 members, which means that WatchSoMuch – a site that only surfaced in June – now has the details those users signed up with along with any other data gathered along the way.

So, after receiving emails from users and noticing some concern on Reddit and elsewhere, TF contacted SevenTorrents to find out more about the shutdown and the hand over of data to WatchSoMuch. In polite terms, the site doesn’t believe that there should be any concern whatsoever.

TF was informed that SevenTorrents hasn’t encountered anyone who is worried about their data being passed to WatchSoMuch and the overwhelming reaction has been sadness at the site closing down.

“[T]he announcement on Facebook you can see real people reactions, none of the comments in there nor the emails we received show any worries about their data, except people are sad, and asking us not to close this site,” we were told.

“WSM owners are friends of us and very professional, they can be the no #1 movie site in next months because of what they are offering.”

Highlighting the privacy-conscious nature of current times, we pointed out that some people are indeed concerned about the transfer of data. However, SevenTorrents’ operator is insistent that there’s nothing for users to be worried about.

“Yes, logically [users] should get nervous, but they [shouldn’t],” TF was told.

“Transferring the user data to a new site should sound like an upgrade to an existing site. It’s not publishing data or selling it, which many of current torrent sites do without any notice.

“But we respect those users who don’t like to join a new site (if there are any) and I will ask new owners to add a delete account option if there isn’t any.”

While it’s impossible for outsiders to know exactly what will happen, we get the impression that SevenTorrents simply wanted to give WatchSoMuch a rolling start at being a success with a community they didn’t want to tear apart. It won’t sit well with some but this is a free pirate site we’re talking about, not Netflix.

“SevenTorrents will be up for few days but we no longer update this site,” SevenTorrents says.

“We promise this event will look like a change of address and layout to you. There is no difference, the data will be better and more complete. All data including movies, torrents, activities, comments have been transferred to WSM so you will feel like home.”

Indeed, it looks like a large number of former SevenTorrents users have already made the switch. Over the past two days, more than 6,000 are said to have logged in to WatchSoMuch.

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Access to the Internet is considered a basic need in many modern countries. Ideally, this should come without any content restrictions.

With all the fuss about net neutrality in recent years, most Internet providers have stayed clear from any interference.

In Belarus, however, local ISP Velcom is crossing a sensitive line.

The company informed its customers that its summer promotion, which provided subscribers on some plans with “unlimited” Internet access, is being limited.

Those who exceeded their regular cap have been able to access the Internet without any restrictions until now, but starting tomorrow BitTorrent traffic will no longer be allowed.

“From 13.08.2018, the possibility of data transfers using the bittorrent protocol is excluded for subscribers of the Comfort and Comfort + plans, when using the Unlimited Internet package,” the company writes in its terms of service.

The restriction was publicly announced by the ISP but no reason for this change was provided. The company does stress, however, that the BitTorrent blockade only applies when the regular limits of the plan are exceeded.

The special “unlimited” promotion only runs this summer and will end in September, so it’s effectively a temporary measure.

Given the fact that the ISP changed the rules during the promotion suggests that many torrenters were using it to their advantage. Perhaps to a degree that it was causing more overhead than the ISP hoped for.

Velcom does not provide any details on how BitTorrent traffic will be detected. However, it’s probably safe to assume that tech-savvy subscribers can still use a VPN or other tools to remain undetected, to get truly ‘unlimited’ Internet access.

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