MPA Met With Russian Site-Blocking Body to Discuss Piracy


Given Russia’s historical reputation for having a weak approach to online piracy, the last few years stand in stark contrast to those that went before.

Overseen by telecoms watchdog Rozcomnadzor, Russia now has one of the toughest site-blocking regimes in the whole world. It’s possible to have entire sites blocked in a matter of days, potentially over a single piece of infringing content. For persistent offenders, permanent blocking is now a reality.

While that process requires the involvement of the courts, the subsequent blocking of mirror sites does not, with Russia blocking more than 500 since a new law was passed in October 2017.

With anti-piracy measures now a force to be reckoned with in Russia, it’s emerged that last week Stan McCoy, president of the Motion Picture Association’s EMEA division, met with telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor in Moscow.

McCoy met with Rozcomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov last Friday, in a meeting that was also attended by Ekaterina Mironova, head of the anti-piracy committee of the Media Communication Union (ISS).

According to Rozcomnadzor, issues discussed included copyright-related legislation and regulation. Also on the agenda was the strengthening of international cooperation, including between public organizations representing the interests of rightholders.

“In particular, an agreement was reached to expand contacts between the MPAA and the ISS,” Rozcomnadzor notes.

The ISS (known locally as Media-Communication Union MKC) was founded by the largest Russian media companies and telecom operators in February 2014. It differentiates itself from other organizations with the claim that its the first group of its type to represent the interests of communications companies, rights holders, broadcasters and large distributors.

During the meeting, McCoy was given an update on Russia’s implementation of the various anti-piracy laws introduced and developed since May 2015.

“Since the introduction of the anti-piracy laws, Roskomnadzor has received more than 2,800 rulings from the Moscow City Court on the adoption of preliminary provisional [blocking] measures to protect copyright on the Internet, including 1,630 for movies,” the watchdog reveals.

“In connection with the deletion of pirated content, access to the territory of Russia was restricted for 1,547 Internet resources. Based on the decisions of the Moscow City Court, 752 pirated sites are now permanently blocked, and according to the decisions of the Ministry of Communications, more than 600 ‘mirrors’ of these resources are blocked too.”

While it’s normally the position of the US to criticize Russia for not doing enough to tackle piracy, it must’ve been interesting to participate in a meeting where for once the Russians had the upper hand. Even though the MPAA previously campaigned for one, there is no site-blocking mechanism in the United States.

“The fight against piracy stimulates the growth of the legal online video market in Russia. Attendance of legal online sites is constantly growing. Users are attracted to high-quality content for an affordable fee,” Rozcomnadzor concludes.

The meeting’s participants will join up again during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum scheduled to take place May 24-26.

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Rightscorp Has a Massive Database of ‘Repeat Infringers’ to Pursue


Last week the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ISPs are required to terminate ‘repeat infringers’ based on allegations from copyright holders alone, a topic that has been contested for years.

This means that copyright holders now have a bigger incentive to send takedown notices, as ISPs can’t easily ignore them. That’s music to the ears of the various piracy tracking companies, Rightscorp included.

The piracy monetization company always maintained that multiple complaints from copyright holders are enough to classify someone as a repeat infringer, without a court order, and the Fourth Circuit has now reached the same conclusion.

“After years of uncertainty on these issues, it is gratifying for the US Court of Appeals to proclaim the law on ISP liability for subscriber infringements to be essentially what Rightscorp has always said it is,” Rightscorp President Christopher Sabec says.

Rightscorp is pleased to see that the court shares its opinion since the verdict also provides new business opportunities. The company informs TorrentFreak that it’s ready to help copyright holders to hold ISPs responsible.

“Rightscorp has always stood with content holders who wish to protect their rights against ISPs that are not taking action against repeat infringers,” Sabec tells us.

“Now, with the law addressing ISP liability for subscriber infringements finally sharpened and clarified at the appellate level, we are ready to support all efforts by rights holders to compel ISPs to abide by their responsibilities under the DMCA.”

The piracy tracking company has a treasure trove of piracy data at its disposal to issue takedown requests or back lawsuits. Over the past five years, it amassed nearly a billion “records” of copyright infringements.

“Rightscorp’s data records include no less the 969,653,557 infringements over the last five years,” Sabec says.

This number includes a lot of repeat infringers, obviously. It’s made up of IP-addresses downloading the same file on several occasions and/or multiple files over time.

While it’s unlikely that account holders will be disconnected based on infringements that happened years ago, this type of historical data can be used in court cases. Rightscorp’s infringement notices are the basis of the legal action against Cox, and are being used as evidence in a separate RIAA case against ISP Grande communications as well.

Grande previously said that it refused to act on Rightcorp’s notices because it doubts their accuracy, but the tracking company contests this. That case is still ongoing and a final decision has yet to be reached.

For now, however, Rightcorp is marketing its hundreds of thousands of recorded copyright infringements as an opportunity for rightsholders. And for a company that can use some extra cash in hand, that’s good news.

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Man Handed Conditional Prison Sentence for Spreading Popcorn Time Information


In August 2015, police in Denmark announced they had arrested a man in his thirties said to be the operator of a Popcorn Time-focused website. Popcorntime.dk was subsequently shut down and its domain placed under the control of the state prosecutor.

“The Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime is presently conducting a criminal investigation that involves this domain name,” a seizure notice on the site reads.

“As part of the investigation the state prosecutor has requested a Danish District Court to transfer the rights of the domain name to the state prosecutor. The District Court has complied with the request.”

In a circumstance like this, it’s common to conclude that the site was offering copyright-infringing content or software. That wasn’t the case though, not even close.

PopcornTime.dk was an information resource, offering news on Popcorn Time-related developments, guides, plus tips on how to use the software while staying anonymous.

PopcornTime.dk as it appeared in 2015

Importantly, PopcornTime.dk hosted no software, preferring to link to other sites where the application could be downloaded instead. That didn’t prevent an aggressive prosecution though and now, two-and-half years later, the verdict’s in and it’s bound to raise more than a few eyebrows.

On Wednesday, a court in Odense, Denmark, handed the now 39-year-old man behind PopcornTime.dk a six-month conditional prison sentence for spreading information about the controversial movie streaming service.

Senior prosecutor Dorte Køhler Frandsen from SØIK (State Attorney for Special Economic and International Crime), who was behind the criminal proceedings, described the successful prosecution as a first-of-its-kind moment for the entire region.

“Never before has a person been convicted of helping to spread streaming services. The judgment is therefore an important step in combating illegal streaming on the Internet and will reverberate throughout Europe,” Frandsen said.

According to a statement from the prosecutor, the 39-year-old earned 506,003 Danish Krone ($83,363) in advertising revenue from his website in 2015. In addition to forfeiting this amount and having his domain confiscated, the man will also be required to complete 120 hours of community service.

“The verdict is a clear signal to those who spread illegal pirate services. The film industry and others lose billions in revenue each year because criminals illegally offer films for free. It’s a loss for everyone. Also the consumer,” Frandsen added.

The convicted man now has two weeks to decide whether he will take his appeal to the Østre Landsret, one of Denmark’s two High Courts.

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RIAA: Cox Ruling Shows that Grande Can Be Liable for Piracy Too


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

Last year several major record labels, represented by the RIAA, filed a lawsuit in a Texas District Court, accusing ISP Grande Communications of turning a blind eye on its pirating subscribers.

“Despite their knowledge of repeat infringements, Defendants have permitted repeat infringers to use the Grande service to continue to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights without consequence,” the RIAA’s complaint read.

Grande disagreed with this assertion and filed a motion to dismiss the case. The ISP argued that it doesn’t encourage any of its customers to download copyrighted works, and that it has no control over the content subscribers access.

The Internet provider didn’t deny that it received millions of takedown notices through the piracy tracking company Rightscorp. However, it believed that these notices are flawed and not worthy of acting upon.

The case shows a lot of similarities with the legal battle between BMG and Cox Communications, in which the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an important verdict last week.

The appeals court overturned the $25 million piracy damages verdict against Cox due to an erroneous jury instruction but held that the ISP lost its safe harbor protection because it failed to implement a meaningful repeat infringer policy.

This week, the RIAA used the Fourth Circuit ruling as further evidence that Grande’s motion to dismiss should be denied.

The RIAA points out that both Cox and Grande used similar arguments in their defense, some of which were denied by the appeals court. The Fourth Circuit held, for example, that an ISP’s substantial non-infringing uses does not immunize it from liability for contributory copyright infringement.

In addition, the appeals court also clarified that if an ISP wilfully blinds itself to copyright infringements, that is sufficient to satisfy the knowledge requirement for contributory copyright infringement.

According to the RIAA’s filing at a Texas District Court this week, Grande has already admitted that it willingly ‘ignored’ takedown notices that were submitted on behalf of third-party copyright holders.

“Grande has already admitted that it received notices from Rightscorp and, to use Grande’s own phrase, did not ‘meaningfully investigate’ them,” the RIAA writes.

“Thus, even if this Court were to apply the Fourth Circuit’s ‘willful blindness’ standard, the level of knowledge that Grande has effectively admitted exceeds the level of knowledge that the Fourth Circuit held was ‘powerful evidence’ sufficient to establish liability for contributory infringement.”

As such, the motion to dismiss the case should be denied, the RIAA argues.

What’s not mentioned in the RIAA’s filing, however, is why Grande chose not to act upon these takedown notices. In its defense, the ISP previously explained that Rightcorp’s notices lacked specificity and were incapable of detecting actual infringements.

Grande argued that if they acted on these notices without additional proof, its subscribers could lose their Internet access even though they are using it for legal purposes. The ISP may, therefore, counter that it wasn’t willfully blind, as it saw no solid proof for the alleged infringements to begin with.

“To merely treat these allegations as true without investigation would be a disservice to Grande’s subscribers, who would run the risk of having their Internet service permanently terminated despite using Grande’s services for completely legitimate purposes,” Grande previously wrote.

This brings up a tricky issue. The Fourth Circuit made it clear last week that ISPs require a meaningful policy against repeat infringers in respond to takedown notices from copyright holders. But what are the requirements for a proper takedown notice? Do any and all notices count?

Grande clearly has no faith in the accuracy of Rightscorp’s technology but if their case goes in the same direction as Cox’s, that might not make much of a difference.

—

A copy of the RIAA’s summary of supplemental authority is available here (pdf).

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Jailed Streaming Site Operator Hit With Fresh $3m Damages Lawsuit


After being founded more than half a decade ago, Swefilmer grew to become Sweden’s most popular movie and TV show streaming site. It was only a question of time before authorities stepped in to bring the show to an end.

In 2015, a Swedish operator of the site in his early twenties was raided by local police. A second man, Turkish and in his late twenties, was later arrested in Germany.

The pair, who hadn’t met in person, appeared before the Varberg District Court in January 2017, accused of making more than $1.5m from their activities between November 2013 and June 2015.

The prosecutor described Swefilmer as “organized crime”, painting the then 26-year-old as the main brains behind the site and the 23-year-old as playing a much smaller role. The former was said to have led a luxury lifestyle after benefiting from $1.5m in advertising revenue.

The sentences eventually handed down matched the defendants’ alleged level of participation. While the younger man received probation and community service, the Turk was sentenced to serve three years in prison and ordered to forfeit $1.59m.

Very quickly it became clear there would be an appeal, with plaintiffs represented by anti-piracy outfit RightsAlliance complaining that their 10m krona ($1.25m) claim for damages over the unlawful distribution of local movie Johan Falk: Kodnamn: Lisa had been ruled out by the Court.

With the appeal hearing now just a couple of weeks away, Swedish outlet Breakit is reporting that media giant Bonnier Broadcasting has launched an action of its own against the now 27-year-old former operator of Swefilmer.

According to the publication, Bonnier’s pay-TV company C More, which distributes for Fox, MGM, Paramount, Universal, Sony and Warner, is set to demand around 24m krona ($3.01m) via anti-piracy outfit RightsAlliance.

“This is about organized crime and grossly criminal individuals who earned huge sums on our and others’ content. We want to take every opportunity to take advantage of our rights,” says Johan Gustafsson, Head of Corporate Communications at Bonnier Broadcasting.

C More reportedly filed its lawsuit at the Stockholm District Court on January 30, 2018. At its core are four local movies said to have been uploaded and made available via Swefilmer.

“C More would probably never even have granted a license to [the operator] to make or allow others to make the films available to the public in a similar way as [the operator] did, but if that had happened, the fee would not be less than 5,000,000 krona ($628,350) per film or a total of 20,000,000 krona ($2,513,400),” C More’s claim reads.

Speaking with Breakit, lawyer Ansgar Firsching said he couldn’t say much about C More’s claims against his client.

“I am very surprised that two weeks before the main hearing [C More] comes in with this requirement. If you open another front, we have two trials that are partly about the same thing,” he said.

Firsching said he couldn’t elaborate at this stage but expects his client to deny the claim for damages. C More sees things differently.

“Many people live under the illusion that sites like Swefilmer are driven by idealistic teens in their parents’ basements, which is completely wrong. This is about organized crime where our content is used to generate millions and millions in revenue,” the company notes.

The appeal in the main case is set to go ahead February 20th.

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Google Won’t Take Down ‘Pirate’ VLC With Five Million Downloads


VLC is the media player of choice for Internet users around the globe. Downloaded for desktop at least 2,493,000,000 times since February 2005, VLC is an absolute giant. And those figures don’t even include GNU/Linux, iOS, Android, Chrome OS or Windows Phone downloads either.

Aside from its incredible functionality, VLC (operated by the VideoLAN non-profit) has won the hearts of Internet users for other key reasons, not least its commitment to being free and open source software. While it’s true to say that VLC doesn’t cost a penny, the term ‘free’ actually relates to the General Public License (GPL) under which it’s distributed.

The GPL aims to guarantee that software under it remains ‘free’ for all current and future users. To benefit from these protections, the GPL requires people who modify and redistribute software to afford others the same freedoms by informing them of the requirement to make source code available.

Since VLC is extremely popular and just about as ‘free’ as software can get, people get extremely defensive when they perceive that a third-party is benefiting from the software without adhering to the terms of the generous GPL license. That was the case beginning a few hours ago when veteran Reddit user MartinVanBallin pointed out a piece of software on the Google Play Store.

“They took VLC, put in ads, didn’t attribute VLC or follow the open source license, and they’re using Media Player Classics icon,” MartinVanBallin wrote.

The software, found here, is called 321 Media Player and has an impressive 4.5 score from more than 101,000 reviews. Despite not mentioning VLC or the GPL, it is based completely on VLC, as the image below (and other proof) shows.

VLC Media Player 321 Media Player

TorrentFreak spoke with VideoLAN President Jean-Baptiste Kempf who confirmed that the clone is in breach of the GPL.

“The Android version of VLC is under the license GPLv3, which requires everything inside the application to be open source and sharing the source,” Kempf says.

“This clone seems to use a closed-source advertisement component (are there any that are open source?), which is a clear violation of our copyleft. Moreover, they don’t seem to share the source at all, which is also a violation.”

Perhaps the most amazing thing is the popularity of the software. According to stats provided by Google, 321 Media Player has amassed between five and ten million downloads. That’s not an insignificant amount when one considers that unlike VLC, 321 Media Player contains revenue-generating ads.

Using GPL-licensed software for commercial purposes is allowed providing the license terms are strictly adhered to. Kempf informs TF that VideoLAN doesn’t mind if this happens but in this case, the GPL is not being respected.

“A fork application which changes some things is an interesting thing, because they maybe have something to give back to our community. The application here, is just a parasite, and I think they are useless and dangerous,” Kempf says.

All that being said, turning VLC itself into adware is something the VideoLAN team is opposed to. In fact, according to questions answered by Kempf last September, the team turned down “several tens of millions of euros” to turn their media player into an ad-supported platform.

“Integrating crap, adware and spyware with VLC is not OK,” Kempf informs TF.

TorrentFreak contacted the developer of 321 Media Player for comment but at the time of publication, we were yet to receive a response. We also asked for a copy of the source code for 321 Media Player as the GPL requires, but that wasn’t forthcoming either.

In the meantime, it appears that a small army of Reddit users are trying to get something done about the ‘rogue’ app by reporting it as an “inappropriate copycat” to Google. Whether this will have any effect remains to be seen but according to Kempf, tackling these clone versions has proven extremely difficult in the past.

“We reported this application already more than three times and Google refuses to take it down,” he says.

“Our experience is that it is very difficult to take these kinds of apps down, even if they embed spyware or malware. Maybe it is because it makes money for Google.”

Finally, Kempf also points to the obviously named “Indian VLC Player” on Google Play. Another VLC clone with up to 500,000 downloads, this one appears to breach both copyright and trademark law.

“We remove applications that violate our policies, such as apps that are illegal,” a Google spokesperson informs TorrentFreak.

“We don’t comment on individual applications; you can check out our policies for more information.”

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Cloudflare Terminates Service to Sci-Hub Domain Names


While Sci-Hub is praised by thousands of researchers and academics around the world, copyright holders are doing everything in their power to wipe the site from the web.

Following a $15 million defeat against Elsevier last June, the American Chemical Society (ACS) won a default judgment of $4.8 million in copyright damages a few months later.

The publisher was further granted a broad injunction, requiring various third-party services to stop providing access to the site. This includes domain registries, hosting companies and search engines.

Soon after the order was signed, several of Sci-Hub’s domain names became unreachable as domain registries complied with the court order. This resulted in a domain name whack-a-mole, but all this time Sci-Hub remained available.

Last weekend another problem appeared for Sci-Hub. This time ACS went after CDN provider Cloudflare, which informed the site that a court order requires the company to disconnect several domain names.

“Cloudflare has received the attached court order, Case 1:17-cv-OO726-LMB-JFA,” the company writes. “Cloudflare will terminate your service for the following domains sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, and sci-hub.tw by disabling our authoritative DNS in 24 hours.”

According to Sci-Hub’s operator, losing access to Cloudflare is not “critical,” but it may “cause a short pause in website operation.”

Sci-Hub’s Cloudflare tweet

Cloudflare’s actions are significant because the company previously protested a similar order. When the RIAA used the permanent injunction in the MP3Skull case to compel Cloudflare to disconnect the site, the CDN provider refused.

The RIAA argued that Cloudflare was operating “in active concert or participation” with the pirates. The CDN provider objected, but the court eventually ordered Cloudflare to take action, although it did not rule on the “active concert or participation” part.

In the Sci-Hub case “active concert or participation” is also a requirement for the injunction to apply. While it specifically mentions ISPs and search engines, ACS Director Glenn Ruskin previously stressed that companies won’t be targeted for simply linking users to Sci-Hub.

“The court’s affirmative ruling does not apply to search engines writ large, but only to those entities who have been in active concert or participation with Sci-Hub, such as websites that host ACS content stolen by Sci-Hub,” Ruskin told us at the time.

Cloudflare does more than linking of course, but the company doesn’t see itself as a web hosting service either. While it still may not agree with the “active concert” classification, there’s no evidence that Cloudflare objected in court this time.

As for Sci-Hub, they have to look elsewhere if they want another CDN provider. For now, however, the site remains widely available.

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Virgin Media Store Caught Running Movie & TV Show Piracy Software (Updated)


While other providers in the UK and Ireland aim to compete, those requiring the absolute fastest fibre optic broadband coupled with a comprehensive TV package will probably find themselves considering Virgin Media.

Despite sporting Richard Branson’s Virgin brand, the company has been owned by US-based Liberty Global since 2013. It previously earned the title of first quad-play media company in the United Kingdom, offering broadband, TV, fixed-line and mobile telecoms packages.

Today, however, the company has a small piracy-related embarrassment to address.

Like several of the large telecoms companies in the region, Virgin Media operates a number of bricks-and-mortar stores which are used to drum up sales for Internet, TV and phone packages while offering support to new and existing customers. They typically look like the one in the image below.

Virgin Media store (credit: Virgin)

The outside windows of Virgin stores are usually covered with advertising for the company’s products and regularly carry digital displays which present the latest deals. However, one such display spotted by a passer-by carried a little extra.

In a now-deleted post on Reddit, a user explained that when out and about he’d passed a Virgin Media store which sported a digital display advertising the company’s impressive “Full House” package. However, intruding at the top of the screen was a notification from one of the most impressive piracy apps available, Terrarium TV.

Busted: Terrarium TV notification top and center

For those out of the loop, Terrarium TV is one of the most feature-rich Android-based applications available today. For reasons that aren’t exactly clear, it hasn’t received the attention of ‘rivals’ such as Popcorn Time and Showbox but its abilities are extremely impressive.

As the image shows, the notification is letting the user know that two new movies – The Star and The Stray – have been added to Terrarium’s repertoire. In other words, they’ve just been listed in the Terrarium app for streaming directly to the user’s installation (in this case one of Virgin’s own displays) for free, without permission from copyright holders.

Of course, Virgin Media definitely won’t have authorized the installation of Terrarium TV on any of its units, so it’s most likely down to someone in the store with access to the display, perhaps a staff member but possibly a mischievous customer. Whoever it was should probably uninstall it now though, if they’re able to. Virgin will not be happy about this.

The person who took the photo didn’t respond to TorrentFreak’s request for comment on where it was taken but from the information available in the image, it seems likely that it’s in Ireland. Virgin Media ads elsewhere in the region are priced in pounds – not in euros – so a retail outlet in the country is the most likely location. The same 99 euro “Full House” deal is also advertised on Virgin’s .ie website.

Terrarium TV

Terrarium TV

While a display running a piracy application over the top of an advert trying to sell premium access to movies and TV shows is embarrassing enough, Virgin and other ISPs including Eircom, Sky Ireland, and Vodafone Ireland are currently subject to a court order which compels them to block several pirate sites in Ireland.

The sources used by Terrarium to supply illicit copies of movies are not part of that order but since ISPs in the region don’t contest blocking orders when rightsholders apply for them, it’s reasonable to presume they’re broadly in favor of blocking pirate sites.

Of course, that makes perfect sense if you’re a company trying to make money from selling premium access to content.

Update: We have a lengthy statement from Virgin Media:

“Virgin Media takes copyright very seriously and does not condone illegal streaming.

Our new Tallaght Store is due to officially open later this month and currently does not currently have Virgin Media network connectivity.

Over the weekend, an advertising screen display in this Store was being set up by a contractor.

The contractor took it on themselves to use their own 4G device to set up the screen, ahead of the store being connected to our fibre services this week.

At some stage, it seems an unwanted pop-up appeared on the screen from an illegal streaming site. To be clear, this was not on the Virgin Media network.

Other than as outlined above, this occurrence has no connection whatsoever with Virgin Media. We have notified the contractor regarding this incident.”

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Russia Blocks 500 ‘Pirate’ Sites in Four Months, Without a Single Court Order


Once the legal process for blocking pirate sites has been accepted in a region, it usually follows that dozens if not hundreds of other sites are given the same treatment. Rightsholders simply point to earlier decisions and apply for new blockades under established law.

Very quickly, however, it became clear that when a domain is blocked it’s relatively easy to produce a clone or ‘mirror’ of a site to achieve the same purpose, thus circumventing a court order. This mirror site whac-a-mole was addressed in Russia last year with new legislation.

Starting October 1, 2017, Russian authorities allowed rightsholders to add mirror sites to the country’s national blocklist without having to return to court. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the relative convenience and cost-efficiency, they have been doing that en masse.

According to Alexei Volin, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media, hundreds of mirrors of pirate sites have been blocked since the introduction of the legislation in October, affecting an audience of millions of people.

“For the past few months, we have been able to block mirrors of pirate sites. As of today, we can already note that about 500 sites are blocked as mirrors,” said Volin at the CSTB 2018 television and telecommunications expo in Moscow.

While rightsholders were expected to quickly take advantage of the change in the law, the speed at which they have done so is unprecedented. According to Volin, more pirate platforms have been blocked in the four months since October 1, 2017, than in the previous two years’ worth of judicial decisions.

“Colleagues from the industry recently found a general audience of blocked sites, it’s about 200 million people,” Volin said, while describing the results as “encouraging.”

The process is indeed quite straightforward. Following a request from a rightsholder, the Ministry of Communications decides whether the site being reported is actually a copy of a previously blocked pirate site. If it is, the owner of the site and telecoms regulator Rozcomnadzor are informed about the situation, while local ISPs are ordered to begin blocking the site.

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China to Start Blocking Unauthorized VPN Providers This April


Back in January 2017, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced a 14-month campaign to crack down on ‘unauthorized’ Internet platforms.

China said that Internet technologies and services had been expanding in a “disorderly” fashion, so regulation was required. No surprise then that the campaign targeted censorship-busting VPN services, which are used by citizens and corporations to traverse the country’s Great Firewall.

Heralding a “nationwide Internet network access services clean-up”, China warned that anyone operating such a service would require a government telecommunications business license. It’s now been more than a year since that announcement and much has happened in the interim.

In July 2017, Apple removed 674 VPN apps from its App Store and in September, a local man was jailed for nine months for selling VPN software. In December, another man was jailed for five-and-a-half years for selling a VPN service without an appropriate license from the government.

This week the government provided an update on the crackdown, telling the media that it will begin forcing local and foreign companies and individuals to use only government-approved systems to access the wider Internet.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) chief engineer Zhang Feng reiterated earlier comments that VPN operators must be properly licensed by the government, adding that unlicensed VPNs will be subjected to new rules which come into force on March 31. The government plans to block unauthorized VPN providers, official media reported.

“We want to regulate VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities,” Zhang told reporters.

“Any foreign companies that want to set up a cross-border operation for private use will need to set up a dedicated line for that purpose,” he said.

“They will be able to lease such a line or network legally from the telecommunications import and export bureau. This shouldn’t affect their normal operations much at all.”

Radio Free Asia reports that state-run telecoms companies including China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, which are approved providers, have all been ordered to prevent their 1.3 billion subscribers from accessing blocked content with VPNs.

“The campaign aims to regulate the market environment and keep it fair and healthy,” Zhang added. “[As for] VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities, we want to regulate this.”

So, it appears that VPN providers are still allowed in China, so long as they’re officially licensed and approved by the government. However, in order to get that licensing they need to comply with government regulations, which means that people cannot use them to access content restricted by the Great Firewall.

All that being said, Zhang is reported as saying that people shouldn’t be concerned that their data is insecure as a result – neither providers nor the government are able to access content sent over a state-approved VPN service, he claimed.

“The rights for using normal intentional telecommunications services is strictly protected,” said Zhang, adding that regulation means that communications are “secure”.

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