Hollywood Asks New UK Culture Secretary To Fight Online Piracy


Following Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle earlier this month, Matt Hancock replaced Karen Bradley as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Hancock, the 39-year-old MP for West Suffolk, was promoted from his role as Minister for Digital and Culture, a position he’d held since July 2016.

“Thrilled to become DCMS Secretary. Such an exciting agenda, so much to do, and great people. Can’t wait to get stuck in,” he tweeted.

Of course, the influence held by the Culture Secretary means that the entertainment industries will soon come calling, seeking help and support in a number of vital areas. No surprise then that Stan McCoy, president and managing director at the ‎Motion Picture Association’s EMEA division, has just jumped in with some advice for Hancock.

In an open letter published on Screen Daily, McCoy begins by reminding Hancock that the movie industry contributes considerable sums to the UK economy.

“We are one of the country’s most valuable economic and cultural assets – worth almost £92bn, growing at twice the rate of the economy, and making a positive contribution to the UK’s balance of payments,” McCoy writes.

“Britain’s status as a center of excellence for the audiovisual sector in particular is no accident: It results from the hard work and genius of our creative workforce, complemented by the support of governments that have guided their policies toward enabling continued excellence and growth.”

McCoy goes on to put anti-piracy initiatives at the very top of his wishlist – and Hancock’s to-do list.

“A joined-up strategy to curb proliferation of illegal, often age-inappropriate and malware-laden content online must include addressing the websites, environments and apps that host and facilitate piracy,” McCoy says.

“In addition to hurting one of Britain’s most important industries, they are overwhelmingly likely to harm children and adult consumers through nasty ads, links to adult content with no age verification, scams, fraud and other unpleasantness.”

That McCoy begins with the “piracy is dangerous” approach is definitely not a surprise. This Hollywood and wider video industry strategy is now an open secret. However, it feels a little off that the UK is being asked to further tackle pirate sites.

Through earlier actions, facilitated by the UK legal system and largely sympathetic judges, many thousands of URLs and domains linking to pirate sites, mirrors and proxies, are impossible to access directly through the UK’s major ISPs. Although a few slip through the net, directly accessing the majority of pirate sites in the UK is now impossible.

That’s already a considerable overseas anti-piracy position for the MPA who, as the “international voice” of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), represents American corporations including Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros.

There’s no comparable blocking system for these companies to use in the United States and rightsholders in the UK can even have extra sites blocked without going back to court for permission. In summary, these US companies arguably get a better anti-piracy deal in the UK than they do at home in the United States.

In his next point, McCoy references last year’s deal – which was reached following considerable pressure from the UK government – between rightsholders and search engines including Google and Bing to demote ‘pirate’ results.

“Building on last year’s voluntary deal with search engines, the Government should stay at the cutting edge of ensuring that everyone in the ecosystem – including search engines, platforms and social media companies – takes a fair share of responsibility,” McCoy says.

While this progress is clearly appreciated by the MPA/MPAA, it’s difficult to ignore that the voluntary arrangement to demote infringing content is somewhat special if not entirely unique. There is definitely nothing comparable in the United States so keeping up the pressure on the UK Government feels a little like getting the good kid in class to behave, while his rowdy peers nearer the chalkboard get ignored.

The same is true for McCoy’s call for the UK to “banish dodgy streaming devices”.

“Illegal streaming devices loaded with piracy apps and malware – not to mention the occasional electrical failure – are proliferating across the UK, to the detriment of consumers and industry,” he writes.

“The sector is still waiting for the Intellectual Property Office to publish the report on its Call for Views on this subject. This will be one of several opportunities, along with the promised Digital Charter, to make clear that these devices and the apps and content they supply are unacceptable, dangerous to consumers, and harmful to the creative industry.”

Again, prompting the UK to stay on top of this game doesn’t feel entirely warranted.

With dozens of actions over the past few years, the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (which Hollywood ironically dumped in 2016) have done more to tackle the pirate set-top box problem than any group on the other side of the Atlantic.

Admittedly the MPAA is now trying to catch up, with recent prosecutions of two ‘pirate’ box vendors (1,2), but largely the work by the studios on their home turf has been outpaced by that of their counterparts in the UK.

Maybe Hancock will mention that to Hollywood at some point in the future.

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Judge Tells Movie Company That it Can’t Sue Alleged BitTorrent Pirate


Despite a considerable migration towards streaming piracy in recent years, copyright trolls are still finding plenty of potential targets around the world. Alleged BitTorrent pirates are target number one since their activities are most easily tracked. However, it isn’t all plain sailing for the pirate hunters.

Last December we reported on the case of Lingfu Zhang, an Oregan resident accused by the makers of the 2015 drama film Fathers & Daughters (F&D) of downloading and sharing their content without permission. While these kinds of cases often disappear, with targets making confidential settlements to make a legal battle go away, Zhang chose to fight back.

Represented by attorney David Madden, Zhang not only denied downloading the movie in question but argued that the filmmakers had signed away their online distribution rights. He noted that (F&D), via an agent, had sold the online distribution rights to a third party not involved in the case.

So, if F&D no longer held the right to distribute the movie online, suing for an infringement of those rights would be impossible. With this in mind, Zhang’s attorney moved for a summary judgment in his client’s favor.

“ZHANG denies downloading the movie but Defendant’s current motion for summary judgment challenges a different portion of F&D’s case,” Madden wrote.

“Defendant argues that F&D has alienated all of the relevant rights necessary to sue for infringement under the Copyright Act.”

In response, F&D argued that they still held some rights, including the right to exploit the movie on “airlines and oceangoing vessels” but since Zhang wasn’t accused of being on either form of transport when the alleged offense occurred, the defense argued that point was moot.

Judge Michael H. Simon handed down his decision yesterday and it heralds bad news for F&D and celebration time for Zhang and his attorney. In a 17-page ruling first spotted by Fight Copyright Trolls, the Judge agrees that F&D has no standing to sue.

Citing the Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn case from 2013, the Judge notes that under the Copyright Act, only the “legal or beneficial owner of an exclusive right under a copyright” has standing to sue for infringement of that right.

Judge Simon notes that while F&D claims it is the ‘legal owner’ of the copyright to the Fathers & Daughters movie, the company “misstates the law”, adding that F&D also failed to present evidence that it is the ‘beneficial owner’ of the relevant exclusive right. On this basis, both claims are rejected.

The Judge noted that the exclusive rights to the movie were granted to a company called Vertical Entertainment which received the exclusive right to “manufacture, reproduce, sell, rent, exhibit, broadcast, transmit, stream, download, license, sub-license, distribute, sub-distribute, advertise, market, promote, publicize and exploit” the movie in the United States.

An exclusive license means that ownership of a copyright is transferred for the term of the license, meaning that Vertical – not F&D – is the legal owner under the Copyright Act. It matters not, the Judge says, that F&D retained the rights to display the movie “on airlines and ships” since only the transferee (Vertical) has standing to sue and those locations are irrelevant to the lawsuit.

“Under the Copyright Act, F&D is not the ‘legal owner’ with standing to sue for infringement relating to the rights that were transferred to Vertical through its exclusive license granted in the distribution agreement,” the Judge writes.

Also at issue was an undated document presented by F&D titled Anti-Piracy and Rights Enforcement Reservation of Rights Addendum. The document, relied upon by F&D, claimed that F&D is authorized to “enforce copyrights against Internet infringers” including those that use peer-to-peer technologies such as BitTorrent.

However, the Judge found that the peer-to-peer rights apparently reserved to F&D were infringing rights, not the display and distribution (exclusive rights) required to sue under the Copyright Act. Furthermore, the Judge determined that there was no evidence that this document existed before the lawsuit was filed. Zhang and his attorney previously asserted the addendum had been created afterwards and the Judge agrees.

“F&D did not dispute that the undated anti-piracy addendum was created after this lawsuit was filed, or otherwise respond to Defendant’s standing argument relating to the untimeliness of this document,” the Judge notes.

“Accordingly, because the only reasonable inference supported by the evidence is that this document was created after the filing of this lawsuit, it is not appropriate to consider for purposes of standing.”

So, with Vertical Entertainment the only company with the right to sue, could they be added to the lawsuit, F&D asked? Citing an earlier case, the Judge said ‘no’, noting that “summary judgment is not a procedural second chance to flesh out inadequate pleadings.”

With that, Judge Simon granted Lingfu Zhang’s request for summary judgment and dismissed F&D’s claims for lack of standing.

As noted by Fight Copyright Trolls, the movie licensing scheme employed by F&D is complex and, given the fact that notorious copyright troll outfit Guardaley is involved (Guardaley filed 24 cases in eight districts on behalf of F&D), it would be interesting if legal professionals could dig deeper, to see how far the rabbit hole goes.

The summary judgment can be found here (pdf)

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UK Government Teaches 7-Year-Olds That Piracy is Stealing


In 2014, Mike Weatherley, the UK Government’s top IP advisor at the time, offered a recommendation that copyright education should be added to the school curriculum, starting with the youngest kids in primary school.

New generations should learn copyright moral and ethics, the idea was, and a few months later the first version of the new “Cracking Ideas” curriculum was made public.

In the years that followed new course material was added, published by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) with support from the local copyright industry. The teaching material is aimed at a variety of ages, including those who have just started primary school.

Part of the education features a fictitious cartoon band called Nancy and the Meerkats. With help from their manager, they learn key copyright insights and this week several new videos were published, BBC points out.

The videos try to explain concepts including copyright, trademarks, and how people can protect the things they’ve created. Interestingly, the videos themselves use names of existing musicians, with puns such as Ed Shealing, Justin Beaver, and the evil Kitty Perry. Even Nancy and the Meerkats appears to be a play on the classic 1970s cartoon series Josie and the Pussycats, featuring a pop band of the same name.

The play on Ed Sheeran’s name is interesting, to say the least. While he’s one of the most popular artists today, he also mentioned in the past that file-sharing made his career.

“…illegal fire sharing was what made me. It was students in England going to university, sharing my songs with each other,” Sheeran said in an interview with CBS last year.

But that didn’t stop the IPO from using his likeness for their anti-file-sharing campaign. According to Catherine Davies of IPO’s education outreach department, knowledge about key intellectual property issues is a “life skill” nowadays.

“In today’s digital environment, even very young people are IP consumers, accessing online digital content independently and regularly,” she tells the BBC. “A basic understanding of IP and a respect for others’ IP rights is therefore a key life skill.”

While we doubt that these concepts will appeal to the average five-year-old, the course material does it best to simplify complex copyright issues. Perhaps that’s also where the danger lies.

The program is in part backed by copyright-reliant industries, who have a different view on the matter than many others. For example, a previously published video of Nancy and the Meerkats deals with the topic of file-sharing.

After the Meerkats found out that people were downloading their tracks from pirate sites and became outraged, their manager Big Joe explained that file-sharing is just the same as stealing a CD from a physical store.

“In a way, all those people who downloaded free copies are doing the same thing as walking out of the shop with a CD and forgetting to go the till,” he says.

“What these sites are doing is sometimes called piracy. It not only affects music but also videos, books, and movies.If someone owns the copyright to something, well, it is stealing. Simple as that,” Big Joe adds.

The Pirates of the Internet!

While we won’t go into the copying vs. stealing debate, it’s interesting that there is no mention of more liberal copyright licenses. There are thousands of artists who freely share their work after all, by adopting Creative Commons licenses for example. Downloading these tracks is certainly not stealing.

Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group, notes that the campaign is a bit extreme at points.

“Infringing copyright is a bad thing, but it is not the same as physical theft. Many children will guess that making a copy is not the same as making off with the local store’s chocolate bars,” he says.

“Children aren’t born bureaucrats, and they are surrounded by stupid rules made by stupid adults. Presumably, the IPO doesn’t want children to conclude that copyright is just another one, so they should be a bit more careful with how they explain things.”

Killock also stresses that children copy a lot of things in school, which would normally violate copyright. However, thanks to the educational exceptions they’re not getting in trouble. The IPO could pay more attention to these going forward.

Perhaps Nancy and the Meerkats could decide to release a free to share track in a future episode, for example, and encourage kids to use it for their own remixes, or other creative projects. Creativity and copyright are not all about restrictions, after all.

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The Man from Earth Sequel ‘Pirated’ on The Pirate Bay – By Its Creators


More than a decade ago, Hollywood was struggling to get to grips with the file-sharing phenomenon. Sharing via BitTorrent was painted as a disease that could kill the movie industry, if it was allowed to take hold. Tough action was the only way to defeat it, the suits concluded.

In 2007, however, a most unusual turn of events showed that piracy could have a magical effect on the success of a movie.

After being produced on a tiny budget, a then little-known independent sci-fi film called “The Man from Earth” turned up on pirate sites, to the surprise of its creators.

“Originally, somebody got hold of a promotional screener DVD of ‘Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth’, ripped the file and posted the movie online before we knew what was even happening,” Man from Earth director Richard Schenkman informs TorrentFreak.

“A week or two before the DVD’s ‘street date’, we jumped 11,000% on the IMDb ‘Moviemeter’ and we were shocked.”

With pirates fueling interest in the movie, a member of the team took an unusual step. Producer Eric Wilkinson wrote to RLSlog, a popular piracy links site – not to berate pirates – but to thank them for catapulting the movie to fame.

“Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded ‘The Man From Earth’ has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!” he wrote.

Richard Schenkman told TF this morning that availability on file-sharing networks was important for the movie, since it wasn’t available through legitimate means in most countries. So, the team called out to fans for help, if they’d pirated the movie and had liked what they’d seen.

“Once we realized what was going on, we asked people to make donations to our PayPal page if they saw the movie for free and liked it, because we had all worked for nothing for two years to bring it to the screen, and the only chance we had of surviving financially was to ask people to support us and the project,” Schenkman explains.

“And, happily, many people around the world did donate, although of course only a tiny fraction of the millions and millions of people who downloaded pirated copies.”

Following this early boost The Man from Earth went on to win multiple awards. And, a decade on, it boasts a hugely commendable 8/10 score on IMDb from more than 147,000 voters, with Netflix users leaving over 650,000 ratings, which reportedly translates to well over a million views.

It’s a performance director Richard Schenkman would like to repeat with his sequel: The Man from Earth: Holocene. This time, however, he won’t be leaving the piracy aspect to chance.

Yesterday the team behind the movie took matters into their own hands, uploading the movie to The Pirate Bay and other sites so that fans can help themselves.

“It was going to get uploaded regardless of what we did or didn’t do, and we figured that as long as this was inevitable, we would do the uploading ourselves and explain why we were doing it,” Schenkman informs TF.

“And, we would once again reach out to the filesharing community and remind them that while movies may be free to watch, they are not free to make, and we need their support.”

The release, listed here on The Pirate Bay, comes with detailed notes and a few friendly pointers on how the release can be further shared. It also informs people how they can show their appreciation if they like it.

The Man from Earth: Holocene on The Pirate Bay

“It’s a revolutionary global experiment in the honor system. We’re asking people: ‘If you watch our movie, and you like it, will you pay something directly to the people who made it?’,” Schenkman says.

“That’s why we’re so grateful to all of you who visit ManFromEarth.com and make a donation – of any size – if you’ve watched the movie without paying for it up front.”

In addition to using The Pirate Bay – which is often and incorrectly berated as a purely ‘pirate’ platform with no legitimate uses – the team has also teamed up with OpenSubtitles, so translations for the movie are available right from the beginning.

Other partners include MovieSaints.com, where fans can pay to see the movie from January 19 but get a full refund if they don’t enjoy it. It’s also available on Vimeo (see below) but the version seen by pirates is slightly different, and for good reason, Schenkman says.

“This version of the movie includes a greeting from me at the beginning, pointing out that we did indeed upload the movie ourselves, and asking people to visit manfromearth.com and make a donation if they can afford to, and if they enjoyed the film.

“The version we posted is very high-resolution, although we are also sharing some smaller files for those folks who have a slow Internet connection where they live,” he explains.

“We’re asking people to share ONLY this version of the movie — NOT to edit off the appeal message. And of course we’re asking people not to post the movie at YouTube or any other platform where someone (other than us) could profit financially from it. That would not be fair, nor in keeping with the spirit of what we’re trying to do.”

It’s not often we’re able to do this so it’s a pleasure to say that The Man from Earth: Holocene can be downloaded from The Pirate Bay, in various qualities and entirely legally, here. For those who want to show their appreciation, the tip jar is here.

"The Man from Earth: Holocene" Teaser Trailer from Richard Schenkman on Vimeo.

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Hollywood Wins ISP Blockade Against Popular Pirate Sites in Ireland


Like many other countries throughout Europe, Ireland is no stranger to pirate site blocking efforts.

The Pirate Bay was blocked back in 2009, as part of a voluntary agreement between copyright holders and local ISP Eircom. A few years later the High Court ordered other major Internet providers to follow suit.

However, The Pirate Bay is not the only ‘infringing’ site out there. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) has therefore asked the Commercial Court to expand the blockades to other sites.

On behalf of several major Hollywood studios, the group most recently targeted a group of the most used torrent and streaming sites; 1337x.io, EZTV.ag, Bmovies.is, 123movieshub.to, Putlocker.io, RARBG.to, Gowatchfreemovies.to and YTS.am.

On Monday the Commercial Court sided with the movie studios ordering all major Irish ISPs to block the sites. The latest order applies to Eircom, Sky Ireland, Vodafone Ireland, Virgin Media Ireland, Three Ireland, Digiweb, Imagine Telecommunications and Magnet Networks.

According to Justice Brian McGovern, the movie studios had made it clear that the sites in question infringed their copyrights. As such, there are “significant public interest grounds” to have them blocked.

Irish Examiner reports that none of the ISPs opposed the blocking request. This means that new pirate site blockades are mostly a formality now.

MPA EMEA President and Managing Director Stan McCoy is happy with the outcome, which he says will help to secure jobs in the movie industry.

“As the Irish film industry is continuing to thrive, the MPA is dedicated to supporting that growth by combatting the operations of illegal sites that undermine the sustainability of the sector,” McCoy says.

“Preventing these pirate sites from freely disturbing other people’s work will help us provide greater job security for the 18,000 people employed through the Irish film industry and ensure that consumers can continue to enjoy high quality content in the future.”

The MPA also obtained similar blocks against movie4k.to, primewire.ag, and onwatchseries.to. last year, which remain in effect to date.

The torrent and streaming sites that were targeted most recently have millions of visitors worldwide. While the blockades will make it harder for the Irish to access them directly, history has shown that some people circumvent these measures or simply move to other sites.

Several of the targeted sites themselves are also keeping a close eye on these blocking efforts and are providing users with alternative domains to bypass the restrictions, at least temporarily.

As such, it would be no surprise if the Hollywood studios return to the Commercial Court again in a few months.

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Tickbox Clearly Promotes and Facilitates Piracy, Hollywood Tells Court


The rising popularity of piracy streaming boxes has turned into Hollywood’s main piracy concern in recent months.

While the hardware and media players such as Kodi are not a problem, sellers who ship devices with unauthorized add-ons turn them into fully-fledged piracy machines.

According to the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), an anti-piracy partnership comprised of Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and more than two dozen other companies, Tickbox TV is one of these bad actors.

Last year, ACE filed a lawsuit against the Georgia-based company, which sells set-top boxes that allow users to stream a variety of popular media. The Tickbox devices use the Kodi media player and comes with instructions on how to add various add-ons.

According to ACE, these devices are nothing more than pirate tools, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content. The coalition, therefore, asked the court for a permanent injunction to remove all infringing add-ons from previously sold devices.

Tickbox maintained its innocence, however. The company informed the court that its box is a simple computer like any other, which is perfectly legal.

According to Tickbox, they don’t have anything to do with the infringing “Themes” that users can select on their device. These themes feature several addons that link to infringing content.

This explanation doesn’t sit well with the movie companies, which submitted a reply to the court late last week. They claim that Tickbox is deliberately downplaying their own role, as they are the ones who decided to make these themes accessible through their boxes.

“TickBox falsely claims that the presence of these ‘Themes’ on TickBox devices ‘have nothing to do with Defendant’,” ACE’s reply reads.

“To the contrary, TickBox intentionally chooses which ‘Themes’ to include on its ‘Select your Theme’ menu for the TickBox TV interface, and TickBox pushes out automatic software updates to its customers’ TickBox TV devices.”

The movie companies also dispute Tickbox’s argument that they don’t induce copyright infringement because their device is “simply a small computer” that has many legitimate uses.

This liability question isn’t about whether Tickbox stores any infringing material or runs pirate streams through their servers, they counter. It’s about the intended use and how Tickbox promotes its product.

“TickBox’s liability arises based on its advertising and promoting TickBox TV as a tool for infringing use, and from designing and including software on the device that encourages access to infringing streams from third-party sources.”

ACE notes that, unlike Tickbox claims, the current case shows a lot of parallels with previous landmark cases including Grokster and Fung [isoHunt].

The isoHunt website didn’t store and infringing material, nor was it crucial in the torrent piracy ecosystem. However, it was liable because the operator willingly facilitated copyright infringing activity. This is what Tickbox does too, according to ACE.

“TickBox ‘competes’ with legitimate services by telling customers that they can access the same content available from legitimate distributors ‘ABSOLUTELY FREE’ and that customers therefore ‘will find that you no longer need those subscriptions’.”

The movie companies therefore ask the court to issue the requested injunction. They want all existing devices to be impounded and Tickbox should, through an update, remove infringing addons from already sold devices.

Tickbox argued that this would require them to “hack into” their customers’ boxes and delete content. ACE, however, says that this is a simple update and nothing different from what the company has done in the past.

“The proposed injunction would merely obligate TickBox to make good on its halfhearted and ineffective efforts to do what it claims to have already done: remove Kodi builds with illicit addons from TickBox TV,” ACE writes.

“As demonstrated by TickBox’s own, repeated software updates since the filing of Plaintiffs’ Complaint, TickBox has the means and ability to easily and remotely change what options users see and can access on their TickBox TVs.”

After having heard the arguments from both sides, it’s now up to the California federal court to decide who’s right.

The current case should set an important precedent. In addition to Tickbox, ACE also filed a similar lawsuit against Dragon Box. Clearly, the coalition is determined to get these alleged pirate devices off the market.

—

A copy of ACE’s reply is available here (pdf).

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“Where to Invade Next” Popular Among North Korean Pirates


Due to the public nature of BitTorrent transfers, it’s easy to see what a person behind a certain IP-address is downloading.

There are even entire sites dedicated to making this information public. This includes the ‘I Know What You Download‘ service we’ve covered in the past.

While the data are not complete or perfect, looking at the larger numbers provides some interesting insights. The site recently released its overview of the most downloaded titles in various categories per country, for example.

What stands out is that there’s a lot of overlap between countries that seem vastly different.

Game of Thrones is the most downloaded TV show in America, but also in Iran, Mongolia, Uruguay, and Zambia. Other popular TV-shows in 2017, such as The Flash, The Big Bang Theory, and The Walking Dead also appear in the top ten in all these countries.

On the movie side, a similar picture emerges. Titles such as Wonder Woman, The Fate of the Furious, and Logan appear in many of the top tens. In fact, browsing through the result for various countries there are surprisingly little outliers.

The movie Prityazhenie does well in Russia and in India, Dangal is among the most pirated titles, but most titles appear globally. Even in North Korea, where Internet access is extremely limited, Game of Thrones is listed as the most downloaded TV-show.

However, North Korea also shows some odd results, perhaps because there are only a few downloads per day on average.

Browsing through the most downloaded movies we see that there are a lot of kids’ movies in the top ten, with ‘Despicable Me’ as the top result, followed by ‘Moana’ and ‘Minions’. The Hobbit trilogy also made it into the top ten.

12 most pirated movies in North Korea (2017)

The most eye-catching result, however, is the Michael Moore documentary ‘Where to Invade Next.’ While the title may suggest something more malicious, in this travelogue Moore ‘invades’ countries around the world to see in what areas the US can improve itself.

It’s unclear why North Koreans are so interested in this progressive film. Perhaps they are trying to pick up a few tips as well. This could also explain why good old MacGyver is listed among the most downloaded TV-series.

The annual overview of ‘I Know What You Download’ is available here, for those who are interested in more country statistics.

Finally, we have to note that North Korean IP-ranges have been vulnerable to hijacks in the past so you’re never 100% sure who might be using them. It might be the Russians…

Image credit: KNCA

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Pirate Streaming on Facebook is a Seriously Risky Business


For more than a year the British public has been warned about the supposed dangers of Kodi piracy.

Dozens of headlines have claimed consequences ranging from system-destroying malware to prison sentences. Fortunately, most of them can be filed under “tabloid nonsense.”

That being said, there is an extremely important issue that deserves much closer attention, particularly given a shift in the UK legal climate during 2017. We’re talking about live streaming copyrighted content on Facebook, which is both incredibly easy and frighteningly risky.

This week it was revealed that 34-year-old Craig Foster from the UK had been given an ultimatum from Sky to pay a £5,000 settlement fee. The media giant discovered that he’d live-streamed the Anthony Joshua v Wladimir Klitschko fight on Facebook and wanted compensation to make a potential court case disappear.

While it may seem initially odd to use the word, Foster was lucky.

Under last year’s Digital Economy Act, he could’ve been jailed for up to ten years for distributing copyright-infringing content to the public, if he had “reason to believe that communicating the work to the public [would] cause loss to the owner of the copyright, or [would] expose the owner of the copyright to a risk of loss.”

Clearly, as a purchaser of the £19.95 pay-per-view himself, he would’ve appreciated that the event costs money. With that in mind, a court would likely find that he would have been aware that Sky would have been exposed to a “risk of loss”. Sky claim that 4,250 people watched the stream but the way the law is written, no specific level of loss is required for a breach of the law.

But it’s not just the threat of a jail sentence that’s the problem. People streaming live sports on Facebook are sitting ducks.

In Foster’s case, the fight he streamed was watermarked, which means that Sky put a tracking code into it which identified him personally as the buyer of the event. When he (or his friend, as Foster claims) streamed it on Facebook, it was trivial for Sky to capture the watermark and track it back to his Sky account.

Equally, it would be simplicity itself to see that the name on the Sky account had exactly the same name and details as Foster’s Facebook account. So, to most observers, it would appear that not only had Foster purchased the event, but he was also streaming it to Facebook illegally.

It’s important to keep something else in mind. No cooperation between Sky and Facebook would’ve been necessary to obtain Foster’s details. Take the amount of information most people share on Facebook, combine that with the information Sky already had, and the company’s anti-piracy team would have had a very easy job.

Now compare this situation with an upload of the same stream to a torrent site.

While the video capture would still contain Foster’s watermark, which would indicate the source, to prove he also distributed the video Sky would’ve needed to get inside a torrent swarm. From there they would need to capture the IP address of the initial seeder and take the case to court, to force an ISP to hand over that person’s details.

Presuming they were the same person, Sky would have a case, with a broadly similar level of evidence to that presented in the current matter. However, it would’ve taken them months to get their man and cost large sums of money to get there. It’s very unlikely that £5,000 would cover the costs, meaning a much, much bigger bill for the culprit.

Or, confident that Foster was behind the leak based on the watermark alone, Sky could’ve gone straight to the police. That never ends well.

The bottom line is that while live-streaming on Facebook is simplicity itself, people who do it casually from their own account (especially with watermarked content) are asking for trouble.

Nailing Foster was the piracy equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel but the worrying part is that he probably never gave his (or his friend’s…) alleged infringement a second thought. With a click or two, the fight was live and he was staring down the barrel of a potential jail sentence, had Sky not gone the civil route.

It’s scary stuff and not enough is being done to warn people of the consequences. Forget the scare stories attempting to deter people from watching fights or movies on Kodi, thoughtlessly streaming them to the public on social media is the real danger.

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ISP: We’re Cooperating With Police Following Pirate IPTV Raid


This week, police forces around Europe took action against what is believed to be one of the world’s largest pirate IPTV networks.

The investigation, launched a year ago and coordinated by Europol, came to head on Tuesday when police carried out raids in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Netherlands. A fresh announcement from the crime-fighting group reveals the scale of the operation.

It was led by the Cypriot Police – Intellectual Property Crime Unit, with the support of the Cybercrime Division of the Greek Police, the Dutch Fiscal Investigative and Intelligence Service (FIOD), the Cybercrime Unit of the Bulgarian Police, Europol’s Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC³), and supported by members of the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA).

In Cyprus, Bulgaria and Greece, 17 house searches were carried out. Three individuals aged 43, 44, and 53 were arrested in Cyprus and one was arrested in Bulgaria.

All stand accused of being involved in an international operation to illegally broadcast around 1,200 channels of pirated content to an estimated 500,000 subscribers. Some of the channels offered were illegally sourced from Sky UK, Bein Sports, Sky Italia, and Sky DE. On Thursday, the three individuals in Cyprus were remanded in custody for seven days.

“The servers used to distribute the channels were shut down, and IP addresses hosted by a Dutch company were also deactivated thanks to the cooperation of the authorities of The Netherlands,” Europol reports.

“In Bulgaria, 84 servers and 70 satellite receivers were seized, with decoders, computers and accounting documents.”

TorrentFreak was previously able to establish that Megabyte-Internet Ltd, an ISP located in the small Bulgarian town Petrich, was targeted by police. The provider went down on Tuesday but returned towards the end of the week. Responding to our earlier inquiries, the company told us more about the situation.

“We are an ISP provider located in Petrich, Bulgaria. We are selling services to around 1,500 end-clients in the Petrich area and surrounding villages,” a spokesperson explained.

“Another part of our business is internet services like dedicated unmanaged servers, hosting, email servers, storage services, and VPNs etc.”

The spokesperson added that some of Megabyte’s equipment is located at Telepoint, Bulgaria’s biggest datacenter, with connectivity to Petrich. During the raid the police seized the company’s hardware to check for evidence of illegal activity.

“We were informed by the police that some of our clients in Petrich and Sofia were using our service for illegal streaming and actions,” the company said.

“Of course, we were not able to know this because our services are unmanaged and root access [to servers] is given to our clients. For this reason any client and anyone that uses our services are responsible for their own actions.”

TorrentFreak asked many more questions, including how many police attended, what type and volume of hardware was seized, and whether anyone was arrested or taken for questioning. But, apart from noting that the police were friendly, the company declined to give us any additional information, revealing that it was not permitted to do so at this stage.

What is clear, however, is that Megabyte-Internet is offering its full cooperation to the authorities. The company says that it cannot be held responsible for the actions of its clients so their details will be handed over as part of the investigation.

“So now we will give to the police any details about these clients because we hold their full details by law. [The police] will find [out about] all the illegal actions from them,” the company concludes, adding that it’s fully operational once more and working with clients.

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Court Expands Dutch Pirate Bay Blockade to More ISPs, For Now


The Pirate Bay is arguably the most widely blocked website on the Internet.

ISPs from all over the world have been ordered by courts to prevent users from accessing the torrent site, and this week the list has grown a bit longer.

A Dutch court has ruled that local Internet providers KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile, Zeelandnet and CAIW must block the site within ten days. The verdict follows a similar decision from September last year, where Ziggo and XS4All were ordered to do the same.

The blockade applies to several IP addresses and more than 150 domain names that are used by the notorious torrent site. Several of the ISPs had warned the court about the dangers of overblocking, but these concerns were rejected.

While most Dutch customers will be unable to access The Pirate Bay directly, the decision is not final yet. Not until the Supreme Court issues its pending decision. That will be the climax of a legal battle that started eight years ago.

A Dutch court first issued an order to block The Pirate Bay in 2012, but this decision was overturned two years later. Anti-piracy group BREIN then took the matter to the Supreme Court, which subsequently referred the case to the EU Court of Justice, seeking further clarification.

After a careful review of the case, the EU Court of Justice decided last year that The Pirate Bay can indeed be blocked.

The top EU court ruled that although The Pirate Bay’s operators don’t share anything themselves, they knowingly provide users with a platform to share copyright-infringing links. This can be seen as “an act of communication” under the EU Copyright Directive.

This put the case back to the Dutch Supreme court, which has yet to decide on the matter.

BREIN, however, wanted a blocking decision more quickly and requested preliminary injunctions, like the one issued this week. These injunctions will only be valid until the final verdict is handed down.

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A copy of the most recent court order is available here (pdf).

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