Judgment Day Nears for EU’s ‘Piracy Filters’


September 2016, the European Commission published its proposal for a modernized copyright law. Among other things, it proposed measures to require online services to do more to fight piracy.

Specifically, Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive will require online services to track down and delete pirated content, in collaboration with rightsholders.

The Commission stressed that the changes are needed to support copyright holders. However, many legal scholars, digital activists, politicians, and members of the public worry that they will violate the rights of regular Internet users.

Last month the EU Council finalized the latest version of the proposal. This means that the matter now goes to the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament (JURI), which must decide how to move ahead. This vote is expected to take place in two weeks.

Although the term “filter” is commonly used to describe Article 13, it is not directly mentioned in the text itself.

According to Pirate Party Member of Parliament (MEP) Julia Reda, the “filter” keyword is avoided in the proposal to prevent a possible violation of EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. However, the outcome is essentially the same.

In short, the relevant text states that online services are liable for any uploaded content unless they take “effective and proportionate” action to prevent copyright infringements, identified by copyright holders. That also includes preventing these files from being reuploaded.

The latter implies some form of hash filtering and continuous monitoring of all user uploads. Several companies, including Google Drive, Dropbox, and YouTube already have these types of filters, but many others don’t.

A main point of critique is that the automated upload checks will lead to overblocking, as they are often ill-equipped to deal with issues such as fair use.

“The proposal would require platforms to filter all uploads by their users for potential copyright infringements – not just YouTube and Facebook, but also services like WordPress, TripAdvisor, or even Tinder. We know from experience that these algorithmic filters regularly make mistakes and lead to the mass deletion of legal uploads,” Julia Reda tells TF.

“Especially small independent creators frequently see their content taken down because others wrongfully claim copyright on their works. There are no safeguards in the proposal against such cases of copyfraud.”

Besides affecting uploads of regular Internet users and smaller creators, many businesses will also be ‘hit’. They will have to make sure that they can detect and prevent infringing material from being shared on their systems.

This will give larger American Internet giants, who already have these filters in place, a competitive edge over smaller players and new startups, the Pirate Party MEP argues.

“It will make those Internet giants even stronger, because they will be the only ones able to develop and sell the filtering technologies necessary to comply with the law. A true lose-lose situation for European Internet users, authors and businesses,” Reda tells us.

Based on the considerable protests in recent days, the current proposal is still seen as a clear threat by many.

Tell your MEP…

In fact, the “Save your Internet” campaign, backed by prominent organizations such as Creative Commons, EFF, and Open Media, is ramping up again. They urge the European public to reach out to their Members of Parliament before it’s too late.

“Should Article 13 of the Copyright Directive proposal be adopted, it will impose widespread censorship of all the content you share online. The European Parliament is the only one that can step in and Save your Internet,” they write.

The full Article 13 text includes some language to limit its scope. The nature and size of online services must be taken into account, for example. This means that a small and legitimate niche service with a few dozen users might not be directly liable if it operates without these anti-piracy measures.

Similarly, non-profit organizations will not be required to comply with the proposed legislation, although there are calls from some member states to change this.

In addition to Article 13, there is also considerable pushback from the public against Article 11, which is regularly referred to as the “link tax.”

At the moment, several organizations are planning a protest day next week, hoping to mobilize the public to speak out. A week later, following the JURI vote, it will be ‘judgment day.’

If they pass the Committee the plans will progress towards the final vote on copyright reform next Spring. This also means that they’ll become much harder to stop or change. That has been done before, such as with ACTA, but achieving that type of momentum will be a tough challenge.

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When Joe Public Becomes a Commercial Pirate, a Little Knowledge is Dangerous


Back in March and just a few hours before the Anthony Joshua v Joseph Parker fight, I got chatting with some fellow fans in the local pub. While some were intending to pay for the fight, others were going down the Kodi route.

Soon after the conversation switched to IPTV. One of the guys had a subscription and he said that his supplier would be along shortly if anyone wanted a package to watch the fight at home. Of course, I was curious to hear what he had to say since it’s not often this kind of thing is offered ‘offline’.

The guy revealed that he sold more or less exclusively on eBay and called up the page on his phone to show me. The listing made interesting reading.

In common with hundreds of similar IPTV subscription offers easily findable on eBay, the listing offered “All the sports and films you need plus VOD and main UK channels” for the sum of just under £60 per year, which is fairly cheap in the current market. With a non-committal “hmmm” I asked a bit more about the guy’s business and surprisingly he was happy to provide some details.

Like many people offering such packages, the guy was a reseller of someone else’s product. He also insisted that selling access to copyrighted content is OK because it sits in a “gray area”. It’s also easy to keep listings up on eBay, he assured me, as long as a few simple rules are adhered to. Right, this should be interesting.

First of all, sellers shouldn’t be “too obvious” he advised, noting that individual channels or channel lists shouldn’t be listed on the site. Fair enough, but then he said the most important thing of all is to have a disclaimer like his in any listing, written as follows:

“PLEASE NOTE EBAY: THIS IS NOT A DE SCRAMBLER SERVICE, I AM NOT SELLING ANY ILLEGAL CHANNELS OR CHANNEL LISTS NOR DO I REPRESENT ANY MEDIA COMPANY NOR HAVE ACCESS TO ANY OF THEIR CONTENTS. NO TRADEMARK HAS BEEN INFRINGED. DO NOT REMOVE LISTING AS IT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH EBAY POLICIES.”

Apparently, this paragraph is crucial to keeping listings up on eBay and is the equivalent of kryptonite when it comes to deflecting copyright holders, police, and Trading Standards. Sure enough, a few seconds with Google reveals the same wording on dozens of eBay listings and those offering IPTV subscriptions on external platforms.

It is, of course, absolutely worthless but the IPTV seller insisted otherwise, noting he’d sold “thousands” of subscriptions through eBay without any problems. While a similar logic can be applied to garlic and vampires, a second disclaimer found on many other illicit IPTV subscription listings treads an even more bizarre path.

“THE PRODUCTS OFFERED CAN NOT BE USED TO DESCRAMBLE OR OTHERWISE ENABLE ACCESS TO CABLE OR SATELLITE TELEVISION PROGRAMS THAT BYPASSES PAYMENT TO THE SERVICE PROVIDER. RECEIVING SUBSCRIPTION/BASED TV AIRTIME IS ILLEGAL WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT.”

This disclaimer (which apparently no sellers displaying it have ever read) seems to be have been culled from the Zgemma site, which advertises a receiving device which can technically receive pirate IPTV services but wasn’t designed for the purpose. In that context, the disclaimer makes sense but when applied to dedicated pirate IPTV subscriptions, it’s absolutely ridiculous.

It’s unclear why so many sellers on eBay, Gumtree, Craigslist and other platforms think that these disclaimers are useful. It leads one to the likely conclusion that these aren’t hardcore pirates at all but regular people simply out to make a bit of extra cash who have received bad advice.

What is clear, however, is that selling access to thousands of otherwise subscription channels without permission from copyright owners is definitely illegal in the EU. The European Court of Justice says so (1,2) and it’s been backed up by subsequent cases in the Netherlands.

While the odds of getting criminally prosecuted or sued for reselling such a service are relatively slim, it’s worrying that in 2018 people still believe that doing so is made legal by the inclusion of a paragraph of text. It’s even more worrying that these individuals apparently have no idea of the serious consequences should they become singled out for legal action.

Even more surprisingly, TorrentFreak spoke with a handful of IPTV suppliers higher up the chain who also told us that what they are doing is legal. A couple claimed to be protected by communication intermediary laws, others didn’t want to go into details. Most stopped responding to emails on the topic. Perhaps most tellingly, none wanted to go on the record.

The big take-home here is that following some important EU rulings, knowingly linking to copyrighted content for profit is nearly always illegal in Europe and leaves people open for targeting by copyright holders and the authorities. People really should be aware of that, especially the little guy making a little extra pocket money on eBay.

Of course, people are perfectly entitled to carry on regardless and test the limits of the law when things go wrong. At this point, however, it’s probably worth noting that IPTV provider Ace Hosting recently handed over £600,000 rather than fight the Premier League (1,2) when they clearly had the money to put up a defense.

Given their effectiveness, perhaps they should’ve put up a disclaimer instead?

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UK Pirate Site Blocks are “Opaque and Poorly Administered”


Following a series of High Court orders handed down in recent years, the UK’s major ISPs are required to block access to dozens of the world’s most popular ‘pirate’ sites.

Over time the number of blocked URLs has expanded to well over 1,000, with popular torrent, streaming, and direct download sites being the main targets.

Many of these URLs are proxies and mirrors. These come and go and the High Court permits copyright holders to expand the blocklists with these domains, provided that they are alternative ways to reach already blocked websites.

In the past, we have regularly covered this whack-a-mole and one issue has repeatedly came to the forefront. There is very little transparency. There doesn’t appear to be a master list of blocked domains and ISPs all block different URLs, which has turned into a bit of a mess.

This prompted the Open Rights Group to see if they could bring some order to the chaos, hoping to establish a definite list of blocked sites, or something close to that at least. Their findings show that there is plenty of room for improvement.

“We were concerned by TorrentFreak reporting on the scale of the blocking due to copyright blocking,” Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group (ORG), tells us.

“When we looked at what was blocked, it was clear that the lists of blocks were wildly inaccurate. The lists for each ISP were different, so it was obvious that there were going to be a lot of mistakes. So we wanted to find out exactly what kind of errors they are.”

This quest to determine which sites are blocked by court order, and how many of these were returning errors, took months to complete. This week ORG is ready to present the results to the public and by their standards, the word “mess” is warranted.

As can be seen below, the group found 1,071 blocked URLs of which more than a third (412) are ‘incorrectly’ blocked by at least one Internet provider. This includes sites which no longer exist, are inactive, for sale, or point to entirely different content.

Legal block errors

While many of these sites no longer link to infringing content, they are still blocked. While there’s little harm in blocking a site that no longer exists, ORG is mainly worried about the apparent lack of transparency and oversight.

Some sites also appear to be blocked as collateral damage, because a proxy site links to both blocked and non blocked sites for example, ORG explains.

“There are a number of blocks which are simply inexplicable. Some of these may be due to blocks being placed on proxies, and blocking everything the proxy tool unblocks, whether subject to an injunction or not.”

“The fact that about a quarter of the blocks are incorrect should send alarm bells. This legal process is both opaque and poorly administered,” Killock tells us.

The question is whether copyright holders see the “errors” which ORG reports as a problem. They may argue that a site may return to its pirate habits, even though it’s inactive, and that a block is therefore warranted.

Still, the fact that the blockades differ from ISP to ISP and that it’s unknown which sites are supposed to be blocked, is messy.

Several ISPs expand their blocklists with new domains on a monthly basis. At the same time, other domains are removed. This explains why BT has 100 errors, and Virgin Media as many as 288.

Couchtuner.es, for example, no longer links to anything remotely related to Couchtuner. Several ISPs no longer block the site, but TalkTalk still does, referencing a court order. While the site now appears to sell suspiciously cheap Tod’s shoes, that’s not part of any injunction.

ORG hopes that the courts will allow for more transparency to address this issue. Publishing an updated list of all sites that are supposed to be on the list is a good start, they believe.

“Courts could insist that ISPs publish a list of everything that is being blocked. This would be the failsafe means to ensure that blocking is correct. Other steps could be to publish a list of everything that has been unblocked. This would at least let people check that unblocking actually is implemented,” Killock says.

In addition, the group plans to share its findings with the relevant Internet providers so they can take action if needed. By correcting errors, for example, or sharing more details on what sites they block.

Finally, ORG plans to publish all of the court documentation in relation to the UK blocklist. To do so, they require some funding and have just started a campaign, asking the public to help out.

“Please help us make UK court orders transparent and accountable,” a message on the site reads, noting that it needs £5,000 in support.

People who are interested in the findings can take a look at the blocked site reports on ORG’s website. The list may not be fully complete and will be updated continuously.

ORG asking for support


…

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“Fight Club” Author Chuck Palahniuk Apologizes For Piracy Rants


When it comes to the link between piracy and sales, there are thousands of different opinions. This applies to music, movies, software and many other digital products, including ebooks.

Some authors and publishers see no harm in piracy, while others see it as a massive threat.

Although there is no definite or universal answer we can give, piracy is certainly an easy scapegoat. This is what novelist and “Fight Club” author Chuck Palahniuk found out first hand.

When his income started to dwindle, online piracy was often mentioned as one of the culprits. People were copying books without paying – ‘stealing’ from authors – so that seemed plausible.

“For several years my income has dwindled. Piracy, some people told me. Or the publishers were in crisis and slow to pay royalties, although the publishers insisted they’d sent the money,” Palahniuk wrote this week.

However, the article in question was not another piracy rant. Quite the opposite. It was actually an apology for the previous times he blamed online pirates and his publishers for the significant drop in revenue.

As it turns out someone was stealing ‘for real.’ Not by sharing copies of books, but by messing with royalties, as the New York post explains in detail.

The alleged mastermind is Darin Webb, an accountant who’s accused of embezzling millions of dollars from the prestigious literary agency Donadio & Olson. Webb was indicted by the US Government and confessed his wrongdoings in a video interview, according to the complaint.

One of the secondary victims of the scheme was Palahniuk, who finally found an explanation for his dwindling income. And it was closer to home than he could have imagined.

The main suspect, who now faces 20 years in jail, is the same person who forwarded his mail.

“If you’ve written to me chances are that your letter passed through the hands of the accused. He’d collect the mail and forward it to me. He seemed like a good guy. Like a prince of a guy. Like man-crush material. And then he wasn’t.”

The ‘plus’ side of the revelation is that Palahniuk has his explanation. However, it does come at an expense, as the author is close to going broke. Also, he regrets putting the blame onto others and apologizes for his previous piracy rants.

“So on the minus side, I apologize for cursing my publishers. And I apologize for any rants about piracy. My publishers had paid the royalties. Piracy, when it existed, was small scale.

“I do hereby humbly apologize,” Palahniuk concludes.

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GoDaddy to Suspend ‘Pirate’ Domain Following Music Industry Complaints


Most piracy-focused sites online conduct their business with minimal interference from outside parties. In many cases, a heap of DMCA notices filed with Google represents the most visible irritant.

Others, particularly those with large audiences, can find themselves on the end of a web blockade. Mostly court-ordered, blocking measures restrict the ability of Internet users to visit a site due to ISPs restricting traffic.

In some regions, where copyright holders have the means to do so, they choose to tackle a site’s infrastructure instead, which could mean complaints to webhosts or other service providers. At times, this has included domain registries, who are asked to disable domains on copyright grounds.

This is exactly what has happened to Fox-MusicaGratis.com, a Spanish-language music piracy site that incurred the wrath of IFPI member UNIMPRO – the Peruvian Union of Phonographic Producers.

Pirate music, suspended domain

In a process that’s becoming more common in the region, UNIMPRO initially filed a complaint with the Copyright Commission (Comisión de Derecho de Autor (CDA)) which conducted an investigation into the platform’s activities.

“The CDA considered, among other things, the irreparable damage that would have been caused to the legitimate rights owners, taking into account the large number of users who could potentially have visited said website, which was making available endless musical recordings for commercial purposes, without authorization of the holders of rights,” a statement from CDA reads.

The administrative process was carried out locally with the involvement of the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi), an autonomous public body tasked with handling anti-competitive behavior, unfair competition, and intellectual property matters.

Indecopi HQ

The matter was decided in favor of the rightsholders and a subsequent ruling included an instruction for US-based domain name registry GoDaddy to suspend Fox-MusicaGratis.com. According to the copyright protection entity, GoDaddy agreed to comply, to prevent further infringement.

This latest action involving a music piracy site registered with GoDaddy follows on the heels of a similar enforcement process back in March.

Mp3Juices-Download-Free.com, Melodiavip.net, Foxmusica.site and Fulltono.me were all music sites offering MP3 content without copyright holders’ permission. They too were the subject of an UNIMPRO complaint which resulted in orders for GoDaddy to suspend their domains.

In the cases of all five websites, GoDaddy was given the chance to appeal but there is no indication that the company has done so. GoDaddy did not respond to a request for comment.

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UK Man Convicted After Sharing Cam Copies of Movies


The UK has been rather tough on pirates in recent years but despite calls from the film industry, recording a movie in a cinema is not specifically a crime in itself.

That doesn’t mean that camming, as it’s called, is always without consequences. People who attempt to distribute the recordings are among the most sought-after targets.

Jordan Quartermain learned this the hard way. This week, the 21-year-old from Sunderland was convicted by the Newcastle Crown Court for several crimes that were uncovered following his camming activity.

The ball started rolling due to an investigation by the Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA) and the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT). In 2015, they reported that a cammed version of the film Ant-Man had been recorded at the Empire Cinema in Sunderland.

During the months that followed, cammed copies of Deadpool and London Has Fallen were recorded at the same cinema, after which Northumbria Police got involved. This eventually led the authorities to Quartermain, who was arrested at the movie theater in early 2016 after another offense.

While camcording may not be a crime according to UK law, distributing copyrighted movie without permission certainly is. According to the Northern Echo, Quartermain’s computer revealed that he shared 17 films online between April 2015 and March 2016.

Empire Cinema

Faced with the evidence, Quartermain pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of articles for use in fraud, two counts of distributing copyright infringing articles, and one count of conspiracy to distribute copyright infringing articles.

He was sentenced to a two-year community order and must carry out 200 hours of community service.

“This is another great example of police working efficiently with our partners to bring an offender to justice,” Northumbria Police’s Chief Inspector Michelle Robson comments on the conviction.

“Hopefully this case acts as a reminder that such activity is not acceptable and we will continue to pursue people believed to be committing or deliberately facilitating such offences.”

FCPA director Simon Brown is also happy with the outcome and claims that most pirated films are the result of these camming activities.

“As most pirated films originate from copies taken in cinemas worldwide, it’s vital that offenders are identified as swiftly as possible, and we thank all parties involved in bringing Mr Quartermain to justice.”

The latter claim seems doubtful, as high-quality rips of films tend to be far more common, but that’s nitpicking. We also won’t complain about any headlines which suggest that Quartermain was convicted for simply recording the films, instead of distributing them too.

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Majority of Canadians Consume Online Content Legally, Survey Finds


Back in January, a coalition of companies and organizations with ties to the entertainment industries called on local telecoms regulator CRTC to implement a national website blocking regime.

Under the banner of Fairplay Canada, members including Bell, Cineplex, Directors Guild of Canada, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Movie Theatre Association of Canada, and Rogers Media, spoke of an industry under threat from marauding pirates. But just how serious is this threat?

The results of a new survey commissioned by Innovation Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) in collaboration with the Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) aims to shine light on the problem by revealing the online content consumption habits of citizens in the Great White North.

While there are interesting findings for those on both sides of the site-blocking debate, the situation seems somewhat removed from the Armageddon scenario predicted by the entertainment industries.

Carried out among 3,301 Canadians aged 12 years and over, the Kantar TNS study aims to cover copyright infringement in six key content areas – music, movies, TV shows, video games, computer software, and eBooks. Attitudes and behaviors are also touched upon while measuring the effectiveness of Canada’s copyright measures.

General Digital Content Consumption

In its introduction, the report notes that 28 million Canadians used the Internet in the three-month study period to November 27, 2017. Of those, 22 million (80%) consumed digital content. Around 20 million (73%) streamed or accessed content, 16 million (59%) downloaded content, while 8 million (28%) shared content.

Music, TV shows and movies all battled for first place in the consumption ranks, with 48%, 48%, and 46% respectively.

Copyright Infringement

According to the study, the majority of Canadians do things completely by the book. An impressive 74% of media-consuming respondents said that they’d only accessed material from legal sources in the preceding three months.

The remaining 26% admitted to accessing at least one illegal file in the same period. Of those, just 5% said that all of their consumption was from illegal sources, with movies (36%), software (36%), TV shows (34%) and video games (33%) the most likely content to be consumed illegally.

Interestingly, the study found that few demographic factors – such as gender, region, rural and urban, income, employment status and language – play a role in illegal content consumption.

“We found that only age and income varied significantly between consumers who infringed by downloading or streaming/accessing content online illegally and consumers who did not consume infringing content online,” the report reads.

“More specifically, the profile of consumers who downloaded or streamed/accessed infringing content skewed slightly younger and towards individuals with household incomes of $100K+.”

Licensed services much more popular than pirate haunts

It will come as no surprise that Netflix was the most popular service with consumers, with 64% having used it in the past three months. Sites like YouTube and Facebook were a big hit too, visited by 36% and 28% of content consumers respectively.

Overall, 74% of online content consumers use licensed services for content while 42% use social networks. Under a third (31%) use a combination of peer-to-peer (BitTorrent), cyberlocker platforms, or linking sites. Stream-ripping services are used by 9% of content consumers.

“Consumers who reported downloading or streaming/accessing infringing content only are less likely to use licensed services and more likely to use peer-to-peer/cyberlocker/linking sites than other consumers of online content,” the report notes.

Attitudes towards legal consumption & infringing content

In common with similar surveys over the years, the Kantar research looked at the reasons why people consume content from various sources, both legal and otherwise.

Convenience (48%), speed (36%) and quality (34%) were the most-cited reasons for using legal sources. An interesting 33% of respondents said they use legal sites to avoid using illegal sources.

On the illicit front, 54% of those who obtained unauthorized content in the previous three months said they did so due to it being free, with 40% citing convenience and 34% mentioning speed.

Almost six out of ten (58%) said lower costs would encourage them to switch to official sources, with 47% saying they’d move if legal availability was improved.

Canada’s ‘Notice-and-Notice’ warning system

People in Canada who share content on peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent without permission run the risk of receiving an infringement notice warning them to stop. These are sent by copyright holders via users’ ISPs and the hope is that the shock of receiving a warning will turn consumers back to the straight and narrow.

The study reveals that 10% of online content consumers over the age of 12 have received one of these notices but what kind of effect have they had?

“Respondents reported that receiving such a notice resulted in the following: increased awareness of copyright infringement (38%), taking steps to ensure password protected home networks (27%), a household discussion about copyright infringement (27%), and discontinuing illegal downloading or streaming (24%),” the report notes.

While these are all positives for the entertainment industries, Kantar reports that almost a quarter (24%) of people who receive a notice simply ignore them.

Stream-ripping

Once upon a time, people obtaining music via P2P networks was cited as the music industry’s greatest threat but, with the advent of sites like YouTube, so-called stream-ripping is the latest bogeyman.

According to the study, 11% of Internet users say they’ve used a stream-ripping service. They are most likely to be male (62%) and predominantly 18 to 34 (52%) years of age.

“Among Canadians who have used a service to stream-rip music or entertainment, nearly half (48%) have used stream-ripping sites, one-third have used downloader apps (38%), one-in-seven (14%) have used a stream-ripping plug-in, and one-in-ten (10%) have used stream-ripping software,” the report adds.

Set-Top Boxes and VPNs

Few general piracy studies would be complete in 2018 without touching on set-top devices and Virtual Private Networks and this report doesn’t disappoint.

More than one in five (21%) respondents aged 12+ reported using a VPN, with the main purpose of securing communications and Internet browsing (57%).

A relatively modest 36% said they use a VPN to access free content while 32% said the aim was to access geo-blocked content unavailable in Canada. Just over a quarter (27%) said that accessing content from overseas at a reasonable price was the main motivator.

One in ten (10%) of respondents reported using a set-top box, with 78% stating they use them to access paid-for content. Interestingly, only a small number say they use the devices to infringe.

“A minority use set-top boxes to access other content that is not legal or they are unsure if it is legal (16%), or to access live sports that are not legal or they are unsure if it is legal (11%),” the report notes.

“Individuals who consumed a mix of legal and illegal content online are more likely to use VPN services (42%) or TV set-top boxes (21%) than consumers who only downloaded or streamed/accessed legal content.”

Kantar says that the findings of the report will be used to help policymakers evaluate how Canada’s Copyright Act is coping with a changing market and technological developments.

“This research will provide the necessary information required to further develop copyright policy in Canada, as well as to provide a foundation to assess the effectiveness of the measures to address copyright infringement, should future analysis be undertaken,” it concludes.

The full report can be found here (pdf)

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Michael Jackson Estate Turns The ‘Fair Use’ Tables on Disney


Every week dozens of new copyright cases are filed in the United States. While our reporting is mostly limited to online piracy cases, on occasion there are other lawsuits worth highlighting.

Yesterday, the Michael Jackson Estate filed a copyright infringement complaint against The Walt Disney Company and ABC, who aired the primetime special “The Last Days of Michael Jackson” last week.

According to the claim, Disney and ABC’s broadcast used at least thirty different copyrighted works owned by the Estate, without permission. In fact, Michael Jackson’s heirs specifically urged the media titans not to use its intellectual property without a license.

Since Disney is known to be an avid protector of its own rights, the Estate calls out the company’s double standard.

“Apparently, Disney’s passion for the copyright laws disappears when it doesn’t involve its own intellectual property and it sees an opportunity to profit off of someone else’s intellectual property without permission or payment,” the complaint reads.

The complaint stresses that Disney is known for its strict copyright enforcement actions and a narrow view of copyright law’s “fair use” doctrine.

“For example, just a few years ago, [Disney] sent DMCA takedown notices to Twitter, Facebook, and other websites and webhosts, when consumers posted pictures of new Star Wars toys that the consumers had legally purchased.

“Apparently, Disney claimed that simple amateur photographs of Star Wars characters in toy form infringed Disney’s copyrights in the characters and were not a fair use,” the state writes.

However, when the Estate urged Disney not to use any of its copyrighted works without permission, Disney’s attorney used fair use as a defense. The company argued that it could legally use Jackson’s copyrighted material since the broadcast was labeled as a documentary.

This is “absurd” and “dead wrong” according to Jackson’s heirs, who see it as a blatant form of infringement which even the founders of Napster would recognize.

“Disney’s fair use argument is patently absurd. Even setting aside Disney’s blatant hypocrisy given its notorious history regarding third party uses of its own copyrights, Disney’s argument here is one that would probably make even the founders of Napster pause,” the complaint reads.

Turning the tables on Disney, the Estate gives several examples of cases where the media giant is likely to object to its own fair use arguments.

“[I]f Disney’s position on fair use of the Estate’s copyrights were accepted one could create a two-hour documentary about the Star Wars franchise, by summarizing each film and using extensive clips from each film while playing the iconic Star Wars music in the background of interviews and narration, and all without permission from Disney.

“We are confident that Disney would not react kindly to attempts by others to create such projects without getting permission from Disney and paying Disney for the use of its property,” the Estate adds.

The arguments sound convincing, but it has to be noted that documentary makers can indeed claim fair use under the right conditions. Whether that is the case here is up to the California District Court to decide.

According to Jackson’s heirs, it’s clear that Disney and ABC have gone too far. They, therefore, request an injunction preventing any further infringement as well as damages for the losses they’ve suffered.

—

A copy of the Michael Jackson Estate’s complaint against The Walt Disney Company and ABC is available here (pdf). (thanks BYU Copyright)

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Hollywood Pushes to Expand Swedish Pirate Bay Blockade


Last year, the Swedish Patent and Market Court of Appeal ordered local Internet provider Bredbandsbolaget to block The Pirate Bay and streaming site Swefilmer.

While having the notorious torrent site blocked on its home turf was seen as a major success, the ruling only covered a subsection of Swedish Internet subscribers.

This week, a coalition of major film companies hopes to broaden the scope. The Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios, Warner Bros. and several other companies are taking Internet provider Telia to court.

Through the lawsuit filed on Monday and picked up by Ny Teknik, they request Sweden’s largest Internet provider to block access to a range of pirate sites. This includes The Pirate Bay, Dreamfilm, Nyafilmer, and Fmovies, as well as several related proxies and mirror sites.

“Telia currently provides its subscribers with unrestricted access to these illegal services, thereby enabling these illegal services to utilize Telia’s Internet service to infringe the rights of rights-holders and others,” the complaint reads.

Some of the TPB domains listed in the complaint

The movie companies estimate that Telia has a market share of roughly 36% of all Swedish Internet subscribers. They add that the ISP has the means to block these infringing sites, which would be both proportional and effective, in line with EU regulation.

While this isn’t the first blocking lawsuit in Sweden, the movie companies are taking a slightly different approach this time.

In their complaint they ask for a preliminary ruling, so the blockades can be implemented before the case is fully litigated. This is similar to what Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN did last year in the Netherlands.

The movie companies already list dozens of domain names in their filing but also request the option to add new ones should any appear in the future. They, therefore, request a blocking request against the pirate services as a whole, not limited to the domains that are in use now.

Without this option “the rights holders will have to burden the legal system with repeated blocking requests if and when the operators behind the illegal services change domain names,” the film industry companies argue.

At the time of writing Telia has not responded to the allegations yet. When copyright holders asked the ISP to block The Pirate Bay last year, it said it would only do so following a court order.

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A copy of the complaint, in Swedish, is available here (pdf).

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Hong Kong Customs Arrest Pirate Streaming Device Vendors


As Internet-capable set-top boxes pour into homes across all populated continents, authorities seem almost powerless to come up with a significant response to the growing threat.

In standard form these devices, which are often Android-based, are entirely legal. However, when configured with specialist software they become piracy powerhouses providing access to all content imaginable, often at copyright holders’ expense.

A large proportion of these devices come from Asia, China in particular, but it’s relatively rare to hear of enforcement action in that part of the world. That changed this week with an announcement from Hong Kong customs detailing a series of raids in the areas of Sham Shui Po and Wan Chai.

After conducting an in-depth investigation with the assistance of copyright holders, on May 25 and 26 Customs and Excise officers launched Operation Trojan Horse, carrying out a series of raids on four premises selling suspected piracy-configured set-top boxes.

During the operation, officers arrested seven men and one woman aged between 18 and 45. Four of them were shop owners and the other four were salespeople. Around 354 suspected ‘pirate’ boxes were seized with an estimated market value of HK$320,000 (US$40,700).

“In the past few months, the department has stepped up inspections of hotspots for TV set-top boxes,” a statement from authorities reads.

“We have discovered that some shops have sold suspected illegal set-top boxes that bypass the copyright protection measures imposed by copyright holders of pay television programs allowing people to watch pay television programs for free.”

Some of the devices seized by Hong Kong Customs

During a press conference yesterday, a representative from the Customs Copyright and Trademark Investigations (Action) Division said that in the run up to the World Cup in 2018, measures against copyright infringement will be strengthened both on and online.

The announcement was welcomed by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia’s (CASBAA) Coalition Against Piracy, which is back by industry heavyweights including Disney, Fox, HBO Asia, NBCUniversal, Premier League, Turner Asia-Pacific, A&E Networks, Astro, BBC Worldwide, National Basketball Association, TV5MONDE, Viacom International, and others.

“We commend the great work of Hong Kong Customs in clamping down on syndicates who profit from the sale of Illicit Streaming Devices,” said General Manager Neil Gane.

“The prevalence of ISDs in Hong Kong and across South East Asia is staggering. The criminals who sell ISDs, as well as those who operate the ISD networks and pirate websites, are profiting from the hard work of talented creators, seriously damaging the legitimate content ecosystem as well as exposing consumers to dangerous malware.”

Malware warnings are very prevalent these days but it’s not something the majority of set-top box owners have a problem with. Indeed, a study carried by Sycamore Research found that pirates aren’t easily deterred by such warnings.

Nevertheless, there are definite risks for individuals selling devices when they’re configured for piracy.

Recent cases, particularly in the UK, have shown that hefty jail sentences can hit offenders while over in the United States (1,2,3), lawsuits filed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) have the potential to end in unfavorable rulings for multiple defendants.

Although rarely reported, offenders in Hong Kong also face stiff sentences for this kind of infringement including large fines and custodial sentences of up to four years.

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