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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With former US president Barack Obama in New Zealand until Friday, the visit provided a golden opportunity for Kim Dotcom to pile on yet more pressure over the strained prosecution of both him and his defunct cloud storage site, Megaupload.

In a statement issued yesterday, Dotcom reiterated his claims that attempts to have him extradited to the United States have no basis in law, chiefly due to the fact that the online dissemination of copyright-protected works by Megaupload’s users is not an extradition offense in New Zealand.

Mainly, however, Dotcom shone yet more light on what he perceives to be the dark politics behind the case, arguing that the Obama administration was under pressure from Hollywood to do something about copyright enforcement or risk losing funding. He says they pulled out all the stops and trampled his rights to prevent that from happening.

In a lengthy affidavit, filed this week to coincide with Obama’s visit, Dotcom called on the High Court to compel the former president to give evidence in the entrepreneur’s retaliatory multi-billion dollar damages claim against the Kiwi government.

This morning, however, Chief High Court Judge, Justice Geoffrey Venning, quickly shut that effort down.

With Obama enjoying a round of golf alongside former Prime Minister and Dotcom nemesis John Key, Justice Venning declined the request to compel Obama to give evidence, whether in New Zealand during the current visit or via letter of request to judicial authorities in the United States.

In his decision, Justice Venning notes that Dotcom’s applications were filed late on March 19 and the matter was only handed to him yesterday. As a result, he convened a telephone conference this morning to “deal with the application as a matter of urgency.”

Dotcom’s legal team argued that in the absence of a Court order it’s unlikely that Obama would give evidence. Equally, given that no date has yet been set for Dotcom’s damages hearing, it will “not be practicable” to serve Obama at a later point in the United States.

Furthermore, absent an order compelling his attendance, Obama would be unlikely to be called as a witness, despite him being the most competent potential witness currently present in New Zealand.

Dotcom counsel Ron Mansfield accepted that there would be practical limitations on what could be achieved between March 21 and March 23 while Obama is in New Zealand. However, he asked that an order be granted so that it could be served while Obama is in the country, even if the examination took place at a later date.

The Judge wasn’t convinced.

“Despite Mr Mansfield’s concession, I consider the application is still premature. The current civil proceedings were only filed on 22 December 2017. The defendants have applied for an order deferring the filing of a statement of defense pending the determination of the hearing of two appeals currently before the Court of Appeal. That application is yet to be determined,” Justice Venning’s decision reads.

The Judge also questions whether evidence Obama could give would be relevant.

He notes that Dotcom’s evidence is based on the fact that Hollywood was a major benefactor of the Democratic Party in the United States and that, in his opinion, the action against Megaupload and him “met the United States’ need to appease the Hollywood lobby” and “that the United States and New Zealand’s interests were perfectly aligned.”

However, Dotcom’s transcripts of his conversations with a lobbyist, which appeared to indicate Obama’s dissatisfaction with the Megaupload prosecution, are dismissed as “hearsay evidence”. Documentation of a private lunch with Obama and the head of the MPAA is also played down.

“Mr Dotcom’s opinion that Mr Obama’s evidence will be relevant to the present claims appears at best speculative,” the Judge notes.

But even if the evidence had been stronger, Justice Venning says that Obama would need to be given time to prepare for an examination, given that it would relate to matters that occurred several years ago.

“He would need to review relevant documents and materials from the time in preparation for any examination. That confirms the current application is premature,” the Judge writes.

In support, it is noted that Dotcom knew as early as February 21 that Obama’s visit would be taking place this week, yet his application was filed just days ago.

With that, the Judge dismissed the application, allowing Obama to play golf in peace. Well, relative peace at least. Dotcom isn’t done yet.

“I am disappointed of course because I believe my affidavit contains compelling evidence of the link between the Obama administration, Hollywood, and my extradition proceeding. However, after seven years of this, I am used to fighting to get to the truth and will keep fighting. Next round!” Dotcom said in response.

“The judgment is no surprise and we’ll get the opportunity to question Obama sooner or later,” he added.

As a further indication of the international nature of Dotcom’s case, the Megaupload founder also reminded people of his former connections to Hong Kong, noting that people in power there are keeping an eye on his case.

“The Chinese Government is watching my case with interest. Expect some bold action in the Hong Kong Courts soon. Never again shall an accusation from the US DOJ be enough to destroy a Hong Kong business. That lesson will soon be learned,” he said.

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