There are many methods used by copyright holders and the authorities in their quest to disable access to pirate sites.

Site blocking is one of the most popular but pressure can also be placed on web hosts to prevent them from doing business with questionable resources. A skip from one host to another usually solves the problem, however.

Another option is to target sites’ domains directly, by putting pressure on their registrars. It’s a practice that has famously seen The Pirate Bay burn through numerous domains in recent years, only for it to end up back on its original domain, apparently unscathed. Other sites, it appears, aren’t always so lucky.

As a full member of IFPI, the Peruvian Union of Phonographic Producers (UNIMPRO) protects the rights of record labels and musicians. Like its counterparts all over the world, UNIMPRO has a piracy problem and a complaint filed against four ‘pirate’ sites will now force the world’s largest domain registrar into action.

Mp3Juices-Download-Free.com, Melodiavip.net, Foxmusica.site and Fulltono.me were all music sites offering MP3 content without the copyright holders’ permission. None are currently available but the screenshot below shows how the first platform appeared before it was taken offline.

MP3 Juices Downnload Free

Following a complaint against the sites by UNIMPRO, the Copyright Commission (Comisión de Derecho de Autor) conducted an investigation into the platforms’ activities. The Commission found that the works they facilitated access to infringed copyright. It was also determined that each site generated revenue from advertising.

Given the illegal nature of the sites and the high volume of visitors they attract, the Commission determined that they were causing “irreparable damage” to legitimate copyright holders. Something, therefore, needed to be done.

The action against the sites involved the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi), an autonomous public body of the Peruvian state tasked with handling anti-competitive behavior, unfair competition, and intellectual property matters.

Indecopi HQ

After assessing the evidence, Indecopi, through the Copyright Commission, issued precautionary (interim) measures compelling US-based GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain registrar which handles the domains for all four sites, to suspend them with immediate effect.

“The Copyright Commission of INDECOPI issued four precautionary measures in order that the US company Godaddy.com, LLC (in its capacity as registrar of domain names) suspend the domains of four websites, through which it would have infringed the legislation on Copyright and Related Rights, by making available a large number of musical phonograms without the corresponding authorization, to the detriment of its legitimate owners,” Indecopi said in a statement.

“The suspension was based on the great evidence that was provided by the Commission, on the four websites that infringe copyright, and in the framework of the policy of support for the protection of intellectual property.”

Indecopi says that GoDaddy can file an appeal against the decision. At the time of writing, none of the four domains currently returns a working website.

TorrentFreak has requested a comment from GoDaddy but at the time of publication, we were yet to receive a response.

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It is now common knowledge that Spotify launched its service more than a decade ago with the aim of attracting pirates.

With the disruption of The Pirate Bay ringing in the music industry’s ears, Spotify set out to capture the hearts and minds of music fans, particularly those with an aversion to paying.

Although it is yet to turn a profit, there can be little doubt that Spotify is a rampant success, at least as far as user numbers go. With premium and ad-supported free tiers available, the service is superbly accessible, no matter the depth of one’s pockets.

Naturally, those who pay get a better and smoother service so it’s no surprise that many free tier users aspire to that level of access. But while some pay the extra, others prefer to hack their way to music utopia.

How many people were accessing Spotify’s service using mainly hacked Android APK files has remained a mystery, but late last week, as part of the company’s IPO, Spotify dropped the bombshell.

“On March 21, 2018, we detected instances of approximately two million users as of December 31, 2017, who have been suppressing advertisements without payment,” Spotify wrote.

“We previously included such users in calculations for certain of our key performance indicators, including MAUs [Monthly Active Users], Ad-Supported Users, Content Hours, and Content Hours per MAU.”

Two million users is hardly an insignificant number and it appears Spotify felt the need to disclose them since up to January 1, 2017, the company had been including these users in its accounting. A couple of million users on the free tier is great, but not if they’re riding ad-free and therefore less likely to upgrade to premium, the suggestion goes.

Earlier this month, with its IPO process underway, Spotify clearly had these freeloading users on its mind. As previously reported, the company started to send out emails to people using hacked installation files, largely on Android, putting them on notice that their activities were not going unnoticed.

“We detected abnormal activity on the app you are using so we have disabled it. Don’t worry – your Spotify account is safe,” the email from Spotify said.

“To access your Spotify account, simply uninstall any unauthorized or modified version of Spotify and download and install the Spotify app from the official Google Play Store. If you need more help, please see our support article on Reinstalling Spotify.”

At the time it became apparent that this email had gone out to a large number of people, with significant volumes of users reporting problems with their accounts. It also seemed to target users fairly methodically, in that some countries’ users retained access while others suffered, only to be hit later on as more and more waves were sent out.

As the chart below from Google Trends shows, it appears that Spotify began taking action on March 1, which drove people to start searching for Spotify APK files that were still working.

By March 3, search volumes had doubled on the index and on March 7, Google searches for ‘Spotify APK’ reached a dramatic peak never before witnessed in the history of the search term. That’s quite an achievement given how many people use these pieces of software.

No prizes for guessing when Spotify got tough….

But after a flurry of activity, on March 22 search volumes were back down to March 3 levels, which is quite interesting in itself.

Although various modified APKs are still managing to evade Spotify’s ban, there doesn’t seem to be a dominant modified client proving popular enough to stop hundreds of thousands of people from continuing to search for an APK solution. So, presuming these ‘banned’ people still want the music offered by Spotify, where have they gone?

Aside from those using the APKs that have slipped through the net, reports suggest others have migrated to Deezer downloading solutions, which are also being targeted by Deezer. Others are using tools to convert their Spotify playlists to use with other pirate services or even YouTube.

The big question then is whether hitting the ban button to potentially eject up to two million users has resulted in a net positive for Spotify?

There’s no doubt it lowered the bandwidth bill for the growing company but how many former freeloaders traded the pirate high seas for an ad-supported account or even the premium service? Only Spotify has the numbers, and it won’t be sharing those yet – if ever.

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Blocking sites is one of the most popular anti-piracy mechanisms of recent times. The practice is now commonplace in the UK, Europe, and Australia and, if entertainment industry groups get their way, it’ll soon be installed in Canada too.

While most regions with blocking legislation carry out their work with enthusiasm, perhaps surprisingly it’s Russia setting the standards. With almost constant amendments to copyright law, the country is able to block pirate sites, mirrors, and proxies in a very short timeframe indeed. And it has been doing so, in huge numbers.

According to data shared with Izvestia by local telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor, in 2017 Russia blocked a staggering 8,000 pirate sites, more than any other country on the planet. In a clear sign of the way things are going, that figure represents a four-fold increase over the 2,000 sites that were blocked on copyright grounds in 2016.

While blocks can be authorized for infringement of copyright on everything from music to software and from books to TV shows, it is the movie industry leading the way in volume terms. In 65% of cases of site-blocking in 2017, the requests came from companies involved in the production and distribution of films.

Sheer volume aside, there’s nothing really surprising about the site-blocking movement in Russia. However, it differs from most other regions when it comes to assessing its usefulness.

Groups in many other countries have claimed that site-blocking is effective in reducing visits to pirate sites and even reducing piracy itself, but the majority steer clear of claiming that it actually does anything to increase sales. Not so Russia.

According to data from Russia’s Cinema Foundation cited by Rozcomnadzor alongside site-blocking statistics, last year “the aggregate box office of the national film distribution” grew by 10.9% amounting to 53.6 billion rubles [US$927.3m], up from 48.4 billion rubles [US$837.3m] in 2016.

In addition, the telecoms regulator said that cinema attendance across the country had increased by 11.4% over the previous year.

A court process is required to block infringing sites that fail to cooperate when rightsholders ask for content to be taken down. Those that push the boundaries by refusing to remove content on multiple occasions can find themselves blocked on a permanent basis.

In 2017, a total of 530 sites were added to Russia’s permanent blacklist, up from ‘just’ 107 sites in 2017. In addition, 459 pirate site “mirrors” were blocked by ISPs with no hope of reprieve. Following changes to the law last October, permanently blocked sites are also removed from search engine results.

But while the current system presents no significant obstacles to having many thousands of sites blocked during the course of a year, Russian authorities want more anti-piracy tools in their arsenal. New proposals would see pirate sites blocked without the need for any court process at all.

It’s already possible to have mirror sites blocked without a separate process but if the Ministry of Culture has its way, copyright complaints issued to hosting services and sites that go completely unanswered without deletion of content could suffer the same fate.

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In January, a coalition of Canadian companies called on the country’s telecom regulator CRTC to establish a local pirate site blocking program, which would be the first of its kind in North America.

The Canadian deal is supported by FairPlay Canada, a coalition of both copyright holders and major players in the telco industry, such as Bell and Rogers, which also have media companies of their own.

Before making any decisions, the CRTC has asked the public for comments. Last week we highlighted a few from both sides, but in recent days two Internet heavyweights have chimed in.

The first submission comes from the Internet Infrastructure Coalition (i2Coalition), which counts Google, Amazon, Cogeco PEER1, and Tucows among its members. These are all key players in the Internet ecosystem, with a rather strong opinion.

In a strongly-worded letter, the coalition urges the CRTC to reject the proposed “government-backed internet censorship committee” which they say will hurt the public as well as various companies that rely on a free and open Internet.

“The not-for-profit organization envisioned by the FairPlay Canada proposal lacks accountability and oversight, and is certain to cause tremendous collateral damage to innocent Internet business owners,” they write.

“There is shockingly little judicial review or due process in establishing and approving the list of websites being blocked — and no specifics of how this blocking is actually to be implemented.”

According to the coalition, the proposal would stifle innovation, shutter legitimate businesses through overblocking, and harm Canada’s Internet economy.

In addition, they fear that it may lead to broad blockades of specific technologies. This includes VPNs, which Bell condemned in the past, as well as BitTorrent traffic.

“VPN usage itself could be targeted by this proposal, as could the use of torrents, another technology with wide legitimate usage, including digital security on public wifi, along with myriad other business requirements,” the coalition writes.

“We caution that this proposal could be used to attempt to restrict technology innovation. There are no provisions within the FairPlay proposal to avoid vilification of specific technologies. Technologies themselves cannot be bad actors.”

According to the i2Coalition, Canada’s Copyright Modernization Act is already one of the toughest anti-piracy laws in the world and they see no need to go any further. As such, they urge the authorities to reject the plan.

“The government and the CRTC should not hesitate to firmly reject the website blocking plan as a disproportionate, unconstitutional proposal sorely lacking in due process that is inconsistent with the current communications law framework,” the letter concludes.

The second submission we want to highlight comes from the Internet Society. In addition to many individual members, it is supported by dozens of major companies. This includes Google and Facebook, but also ISPs such as Verizon and Comcast, and even copyright holders such as 21st Century Fox and Disney.

While the Internet Society’s Hollywood members have argued in favor of pirate site blockades in the past, even in court, the organization’s submission argues fiercely against this measure.

Pointing to an extensive report Internet Society published last Spring, they inform the CRTC that website blocking techniques “do not solve the problem” and “inflict collateral damage.”

The Internet Society calls on the CRTC to carefully examine the proposal’s potential negative effects on the security of the Internet, the privacy of Canadians, and how it may inadvertently block legitimate websites.

“In our opinion, the negative impacts of disabling access greatly outweigh any benefits,” the Internet Society writes.

Thus far, nearly 10,000 responses have been submitted to the CRTC. The official deadline passes on March 29, after which it is up to the telecoms regulator to factor the different opinions into its final decision.

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The i2Coalition submission is available here (pdf) and the Internet Society’s comments can be found here (pdf).

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After a film first shows up in theaters, movie fans usually have to wait a few months before they can get a DVD or digital download, depending on the local release strategy.

This delay tactic, known as a release window, helps movie theaters to maximize their revenues. However, for many pirates, this is also a reason to turn to unauthorized sites and services.

Many of the most pirated movie titles are not yet available to buy or rent online, but they are on The Pirate Bay, Fmovies, and elsewhere. Perhaps only a fraction of these pirates would pay, if they could, but release windows are not helping.

This critique isn’t new and, according to a working paper published by Pepperdine University researchers, the tide is turning. Movie release windows are shrinking rapidly, for digital downloads at least.

In their paper titled: Popcorn or Snack? Empirical Analysis of Movie Release Windows, the researchers compared the release windows of DVDs to those of electronic sell-through movies (EST) on iTunes, Amazon, and YouTube. EST movies are also called “download to own” and have a comparable release date to rentals, in most cases.

The results show that between 2012 and 2017, the release windows for DVDs remained relatively stable at three to four months. However, for digital downloads there was a sharp decrease over the same period.

“Based on our results, the EST release date has been approaching the DVD release date at a steady and significant average rate of about 23 days per year,” the researchers write.

“Within only two years, we have seen the average EST release window shrink by more than half, from 255 days in the 2nd quarter of 2012 to 114 days in the 2nd quarter of 2014. The EST window has pretty much reached the average 113 day DVD window in our sample.”

Shrinking window

Since 2015, digital downloads actually have a slightly smaller release window than DVDs on average, making it the first release channel after movie theaters.

While this is good news for movie fans, it’s uncertain if this trend will continue. The current release windows appear to be carefully chosen to ensure that they don’t cannibalize box office revenues.

This is nicely illustrated in the figure below, which shows that 95% of all box office revenues are generated in the first two months, and 99% after four months. The optimal release window falls somewhere in the middle.

That would also explain why the DVD release window isn’t shrinking any further.

Cumulative box office revenue

The researchers see room for further improvement, however. Decreasing the video on demand release window can cost a few percents of box office revenue, at most, but it might result in a significant boost in online sales.

And with the piracy rates not showing any decline, movie studios might feel the need to experiment a little.

“Given that most of the theater revenues are captured within the first two months and given that movie piracy shows no signs of slowing down, there will be increasing pressure for studios to release movies earlier in secondary channels to increase revenues coming from these channels,” the researchers write.

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The full paper, written by Dr. Nelson Granados and Dr. John Mooney, is available here.

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