When PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was first released last year, it became an instant hit.

This success earned the company hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, but according to PUBG, this could have been much more if others hadn’t copied their work.

The general theme of PUBG is now used by many games, which is a thorn in the side of the developer. To protect its financial interests, the company, therefore, decided to take the developer of two alleged spinoffs to court.

In April, PUBG filed a lawsuit against NetEase, the makers of ‘Rules of Survival’ and ‘Knives Out’, accusing it of copyright infringement.

A 155-page complaint documented a long summary of elements that PUBG believes are infringing on its copyrighted works. This includes buildings, landscapes, vehicles, weapons, clothing, the pre-play area, the shrinking gameplay area, and even the iconic “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner” salute.

NetEase clearly disagrees with these accusations. In a new filing this week, the company asks the court to dismiss the entire case. It refutes PUBG’s accusations and stresses that “ideas” and “gameplay mechanics” have no copyright protection.

“This litigation is a shameless attempt by the PUBG Plaintiffs to monopolize the “battle royale” genre of video games and inhibit legitimate competition,” NetEase writes.

“Plaintiffs’ copyright claim is premised on alleged similarities in ideas, merger of ideas and expression, scenes a faire, and game rules and mechanics. Copyright does not protect any of these aspects of PUBG’s game.”

NetEase admits that its games fall into the same genre and share several similarities. However, the idea of displaying a “health bar” and other basic elements is not copyright infringement, the company argues.

“The idea of a ‘health’ status bar, as well as energy ‘boosts,’ and the ability of human characters to ‘stand, walk, run, take a prone position, crawl in a prone position or take a kneeling position’ in a combat situation, are all simply mechanics that flow from the idea of forcing players to kill each other,” the company notes.

PUBG itself has admittedly copied several real-world objects such as guns. In order to argue that NetEase expressions of these are virtually identical, and thus infringing, these real-world similarities have to be filtered out. According to NetEase, there’s no real claim left after that.

“As shown, PUBG’s gun has appropriated the design and configuration of the sight, barrel, grip, magazine, and numerous other features from a century-old gun design; once those elements are removed, there is no virtual identity.”

Infringing Thompson submachine gun?

In addition, NetEase also refuted PUBG’s claim to the iconic “Winner winner chicken dinner” salute, which is displayed to the winner of the game. Citing jurisprudence, it stresses that short phrases are not protectable elements, even when they are unique.

“The short phrase ‘Winner winner chicken dinner’ is therefore unprotectable,” NetEase argues.

Based on these and other arguments, NetEase concludes that PUBG’s copyright infringement, Lanham Act infringement, and unfair competition claims fall flat. The case should, therefore, be dismissed in its entirety, it notes.

—

A copy of NetEase’s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Source link

The name Flipkart probably doesn’t ring too many bells in the United States but if all goes to plan, one of the country’s major retailers will soon be a 77% owner.

Flipkart is India’s largest online retailer and according to a report published in 2017, it controls almost 40% of the entire market.

That prompted Walmart and Amazon to file bids for Flipkart, with the former coming out on top with a $16 billion offer for what CNN describes as “the most valuable startup in India.”

Like all successful online retailers, Flipkart offers a wide range of genuine and authentic products to its consumers. However, like rivals Amazon, it does have an issue with some sellers attempting to sell pirated and counterfeit products via its virtual shelves.

As can be seen in the image below, Flipkart offers PC games for sale, many at heavily discounted prices. However, those listed for “offline use only” raise alarm bells.

One particular listing for a PC game caught the eye of Vidit Sahni, a resident of New Delhi in India. While browsing Flipkart he came across an advert for EA’s FIFA 18, which was offered for the princely sum of 799 rupees – around US$11.66.

The listing highlights that the game has 50% off its retail price and potential buyers should hurry since there’s only a few left. However, a closer look shows that the seller probably has access to an unlimited supply.

“NOTE: THERE IS A CRACK ONLY NO DIGITAL CODE,” the tell-tale text on the bottom right corner of the listing warns.

“Before installation the game first off your internet and antivirus. 1. All CD file copy in your pc 2. Setup File Click 3. Install the game 4. Install finish and open the game and enjoy your game,” it adds in broken English.

The fact that Flipkart is openly selling pirated software prompted Vidit Sahni to contact the company using the ‘Post Your Question’ option listed next to the ‘Have doubts regarding this product?’ notice.

“Why is Flipkart selling pirated products,” Sahni asked the retailer. “The product description itself shows that the game is installed using a crack. Isn’t it a serious oversight? And this is not the only game.”

Flipkart customer support did eventually respond to Sahni’s concerns but the answer was not what he expected.

“We noticed that your question on JBD FIFA 18 EA SPORTS {Offline} PC Game does not fully conform to our internal guidelines. We request you to submit your question again as per our guidelines. We will review it and then make it live on Flipkart,” the company responded.

While it’s certainly possible that the company wanted the complaint filed in a different way, there’s no taking away from the clear message on the item. However, it was the reason given for the rejection that seems to have upset Sahni most.

“Reason for not-approving the question: Irrelevant question,” Flipkart advised.

“@flipkartsupport sucks!” Sahni wrote in response on Twitter.

“They shunned down my question on piracy of the product to them as ‘irrelevant’ Find the screenshot! Don’t buy from Flipkart! They promote Piracy!”

Flipkart does have a section of its site that’s dedicated to the protection of intellectual property rights. However, it’s targeted at entities whose rights have been infringed, meaning that companies like EA would need to file a complaint rather than members of the public like Sahni.

TorrentFreak contacted Flipkart who responded with an automated message saying that our query had been noted and would be answered within 24 hours.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Source link

Streaming pirate content directly to living rooms around the world has become huge business over the past few years, with many hundreds of operations selling various services to the public.

While the majority appears to do so with impunity, a growing number of UK providers are finding that their businesses attract the attention of rightsholders who are keen to send a message that they won’t be tolerated.

The latest case involves John Haggerty and wife Mary Josephine Gilfillan, who together ran Evolution Trading Company Limited, a business venture registered at their former home address.

Incorporated in December 2013 for the stated purpose of “wholesale of coffee, tea, cocoa and spices”, Evolution was used in connection with Haggerty’s business of selling Kodi-based set-top boxes, some of which were loaded with an illicit IPTV service.

“Stop paying for sky high satellite or cable bills. Never buy or rent another DVD again! With Stream Box you can view any movie from the very latest blockbuster to your all time favorites,” some of Haggerty’s original marketing reads.

“Watch any box set or TV Series ever made or ever will be made! Watch tons of sports and hundreds of other TV channels from all over the world ALL FOR FREE.

“We consider Stream Box the future of TV viewing, with Stream box connected to your broadband Internet and your HD TV you can stream any film or TV show ever shown – all totally free.”

Following an investigation by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, searches were carried out at various premises connected with Haggerty. Like many of these kinds of cases, it’s taken a very long time to come to court, but now it has, it’s ended badly for the pair.

According to prosecutors, the business ran from March 2013 to July 2015, during which time at least £764,000 was generated from the sale of set-top boxes, carried out from a shop and online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.

The court heard the devices would be sold for between £75 and £100 to the public and £400 to pubs, although searches reveal them changing hands for as little as £52. The IPTV service provided with some of the boxes, Infusum.tv, was created by Haggerty and sold for £15 per month. The marketing image below shows that football fans were a major target.

According to prosecutors, the operation meant that broadcasters including Sky and BT Sport faced potential losses of £4m per year while using the devices in pubs exposed licensees to the risk of prosecution.

Chronicle Live reports that Haggerty had several passports in different names, and set up a company in Nevis to hide the true purpose of his business. Along with his wife, he also supplied the UK Immigration Service with false documents to sponsor an Egyptian national who was put in charge of the streaming service.

All things considered, 57-year-old Haggerty was jailed for five years and three months for conspiracy to defraud. His wife, 54, who the court accepted had played a minor role, was handed a two-year sentence suspended for two years and ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

“This was a very sophisticated fraud perpetrated primarily by you, John Haggerty,” said Judge Simon Batiste.

“You sold 8,000 set top boxes and started services including streaming services, you created an application to enable other devices to access the stream you created. In particular devices permitted users to view all Premier League matches and films, some of which hadn’t even been released in the cinema.”

The sentencing of the pair was welcomed by Premier League director of legal services, Kevin Plumb.

“This case demonstrates how seriously the courts are dealing with criminals involved in the supply of illicit streaming devices and services that provide illegal access to Premier League football and other popular content,” Plumb said.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Source link

We’re all familiar with the statement that piracy is “killing” the music industry.

It’s one of the main arguments used to argue in favor of stronger copyright enforcement and legislation.

The underlying idea is that strong copyright protection ensures that artists get paid. More money then opens the door to more artistic creations. But is that really the case?

Glynn Lunney Jr, law professor at Texas A&M University, has his doubts.

When the first wave of widespread online piracy hit in the late nineties, copyright holders called for stronger protections. This eventually resulted in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, commonly known under the acronym DMCA, which was passed nearly twenty years ago.

At the time, Professor Lunney declared that this would be the death of copyright. The DMCA would mainly serve the interests of large monopolies, not the independent creators, he envisioned. This would kill the true purpose of copyright, which is the progress of arts and science, as defined by the constitution.

In a new follow-up essay, Lunney looks back at his earlier predictions, with fresh evidence. As is turns out, he was wrong. The DMCA did little to stop the piracy epidemic. But while music industry revenues tanked, there was still plenty of creative output.

The professor doesn’t retract his early criticism of the DMCA, but he now sees that copyright never really served to promote the public interest.

In an ideal world, more money should lead to more creative output, but according to data presented Lunney’s new essay, the reality is quite different. Instead, it suggests that more money leads to less creative output.

Relying on music sales data dating back to the fifties, adjusted for inflation, and comparing that to a database of most-streamed tracks on Spotify in 2014, the professor reveals an interesting trend. There is no greater preference for music created in the high revenue periods, on the contrary in fact.

This is backed up by other data presented in Lunney’s book Copyright’s Excess, which also fails to find evidence that more money means better music.

“There is no evidence that more money meant more or better music. To the contrary, when I found a statistically significant correlation, I found that more money meant fewer and lower quality hit songs,” the professor writes.

The question is, of course, why?

According to the professor, it’s simple. Overpaid artists don’t work harder; they work less.

“These misdirected and excess incentives ensure that our most popular artists are vastly overpaid. By providing these excess incentives, copyright encourages our superstar artists to work less,” Lunney writes.

This suggests that more money for the music industry means less music. Which is the opposite of the true purpose of copyright; to facilitate the progress of arts and science.

It’s a controversial thought that relies on quite a few assumptions. For example, looking beyond the big stars, more money can also mean that more artists get paid properly, so they can make a decent living and dedicate more time to their music.

Also, even in the lower revenue periods, when music piracy is at its height, the top artists still make millions.

The professor, however, is convinced by the data he sees. Adding to the above, he shows that during high revenue periods the top artists made fewer albums, while they produced more albums and hits during tough times.

“As a result, when revenues were high for the recording industry, as they were in the 1990s, our top artists produced fewer studio albums and fewer Hot 100 hits in the first ten years of their career,” Lunney writes.

“In contrast, when revenues were low, both in the 1960s before the sound recording copyright and in the post-file sharing 2000s, our top artists produced more studio albums and more Hot 100 hits.”

Among other things, the data show that the most prolific artists in the study, the Beatles and Taylor Swift, had their first Hot 100 hits in 1964 and 2006, respectively. Both were low revenue years.

It’s a thought-provoking essay which undoubtedly will be countered by music industry insiders. That said, it does highlight that there’s not always a positive linear link between music industry revenue and creative output.

“For the United States recording industry over the last fifty years, more money has not meant more and better music. It has meant less. The notion that copyright can serve the public interest by increasing revenue for copyright owners has, at least for the recording industry, proven false,” Lunney notes.

“Copyright is dead. The DMCA did not, however, kill it. Copyright, in the sense of a law intended to promote the public interest, never existed at all. It was only ever a dream,” he adds.

And the DMCA?

Ironically, major copyright groups are increasingly complaining that the ‘outdated’ law is not fit to tackle the ongoing piracy problem. Instead, they see the DMCA’s safe harbor as a major roadblock which allows services such as YouTube to “profit from piracy.”

The same YouTube, however, is used by tens of thousands of artists to create content and get their work out to the public. It’s proven to be a breeding ground for creative talent, some of which have grown out to become today’s biggest stars. Even those who started as ‘pirates’…

Copyright, as we know it today, is not dead, but it sure is complicated.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Source link

After years of negotiations, last year UK ISPs began sending out piracy warnings to subscribers whose accounts are used to share copyright-infringing material.

The warning notices, sent out by ISPs including BT, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Sky, politely inform account holders that their connections have been monitored sharing movies, music, TV shows and other content.

The notices are purely educational and no further threats are attached, a welcome approach to what can often be a difficult situation for both entertainment groups and the public.

This week, however, a reader sent us a warning he’d received from Virgin Media (redacted and truncated version below) which ended up piquing our interest.

The notice itself is pretty standard and advises the recipient to visit the Get it Right From a Genuine Site educational portal for more information. The recipient tried to do just that, following the hyperlink in the email. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan.

As seen from the image below, AVG immediately threw up a warning, advising the user to stay away from the site due to suspected malware.

Using a machine protected with Avast anti-virus, TorrentFreak followed the same procedure by clicking the hyperlink in the anti-piracy notice email and attempting to reach the GetitRight campaign site. We had broadly the same level of success.

Strangely, none of this came as a surprise to us because this isn’t the first time that there’s been a malware warning on the Get it Right domain.

Back in April, TorrentFreak discovered that the Get it Right site was being flagged as dangerous by several anti-piracy vendors. However, rather than expose people to a potentially dangerous situation (or cause unnecessary alarm), we took the decision to report the problems to an organization connected to Creative Content UK, the campaign behind the Get it Right site.

At the time we were told it was probably just a technical glitch and we were told it was being looked at. But now, several months later, things don’t seem to be any better and with letter recipients now experiencing the same problems, the issue is now known to the public.

The image below is from VirusTotal, which presents results from many anti-virus vendors. While most results are clear, it displays several serious warnings at the top of the list in addition to the issues we know exist with both AVG and Avast.

Precisely what the problem is here we don’t know. Visiting both http and https variants of the site produce malware warnings and there are even problems when trying to access the domain from third-party services.

For example, on the left-hand side of the Get it Right campaign’s Twitter account, one can find the usual information, including a summary of what the project is all about, where it’s located, and details of its website.

However, when clicking the link to access the campaign’s URL, Twitter steps in and prevents visitors from going any further.

Twitter’s warnings, that the site could “steal your password or other personal information” or install “malicious software programs on your computer”, hardly inspires confidence in those seeking advice about how not to pirate in the future. Somewhat ironically, it’s the kind of warning pirates are often told to expect on pirate sites.

As noted earlier, TF previously reported a security problem with the site several months ago but since such a long time has passed with no apparent action, mentioning it more openly will hopefully spring the campaign’s security people into clearing up the confusion.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

Source link