Over the past few years the entertainment industries have repeatedly asked Google to step up its game when it comes to its anti-piracy efforts.

These calls haven’t fallen on deaf ears and Google has steadily implemented various anti-piracy measures in response.

Still, that is not enough. At least, according to several prominent music industry groups who are advocating a ‘Take Down, Stay Down’ approach.

Currently, Google mostly responds to takedown requests that are sent in by copyright holders. The search engine deletes the infringing results and demotes the domains of frequent infringers. However, the same content often reappears on other sites, or in another location on the same site.

Earlier this year a group of prominent music groups stated that the present situation forces rightsholders to participate in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole which doesn’t fix the underlying problem. Instead, it results in a “frustrating, burdensome and ultimately ineffective takedown process.”

While Google understands the rationale behind the complaints, the company doesn’t believe in a more proactive solution. This was reiterated by Matt Brittin, President of EMEA Business & Operations at Google, during the Royal Television Society Event in London this week.

“The music industry has been quite tough with us on this. They’d like us proactively to know this stuff. It’s just not possible in this industry,” Brittin said.

That doesn’t mean that Google is sitting still. Brittin stresses that the company has invested millions in anti-piracy tools. That said, there can always be room for improvement.

“What we’ve tried to do is build tools that allow them to do that at scale easily and that work all together … I’m sure there are places where we could do better. There are teams and millions of dollars invested in this.

“Combatting bad acts and piracy is obviously very important to us,” Brittin added.

While Google sees no room for proactive filtering in search results, music industry insiders believe it’s possible.

Ideally, they want some type of automated algorithm or technology that removes infringing results without a targeted DMCA notice. This could be similar to YouTube’s Content-ID system, or the hash filtering mechanisms Google Drive employs, for example.

For now, however, there’s no sign that Google will go beyond the current takedown notice approach, at least for search. A ‘Take Down, Stay Down’ mechanism wouldn’t “understand” when content is authorized or not, the company previously noted.

And so, the status quo is likely to remain, at least for now.

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Frustrated by thousands of cheaters who wreak havoc in Fortnite’s “Battle Royale,” game publisher Epic Games decided to take several of them to court.

One of the defendants is Minnesota resident Charles Vraspir, a.k.a. “Joreallean,”

The game publisher accused him of copyright infringement and breach of contract, by injecting unauthorized computer code in order to cheat.

According to Epic’s allegations, Vraspir was banned at least nine times but registered new accounts to continue his cheating. In addition, he was also suspected of having written code for the cheats.

“Defendant’s cheating, and his inducing and enabling of others to cheat, is ruining the game playing experience of players who do not cheat,” Epic games wrote.

While the complaint included all the elements for an extensive legal battle, both sides chose to resolve the case without much of a fight. Yesterday, they informed the court that a settlement had been reached.

Epic Games’ counsel asked the court to enter the agreement as well as a permanent injunction, which both have agreed on.

The proposed injunction, signed today, forbids Vraspir from carrying out any copyright infringements in the future, to destroy all cheats, and to never cheat again.

Among other things, he is prohibited from “creating, writing, developing, advertising, promoting, and/or distributing anything that infringes Epic’s works now or hereafter protected by any of Epic’s copyrights.”

While there is no mention of a settlement fee or fine, Vraspir will have to pay $5,000 if he breaches the agreement.

From the injunction

Based on the swift settlement, it can be assumed that Epic Games is not aiming to bankrupt the cheaters. Instead, it’s likely that the company wants to set an example and deter others from cheating in the future.

In addition to the settlement, Epic Games also responded to the mother of the 14-year-old cheater who was sued in a separate case. After we first covered the news last week it was quickly picked up by mainstream media, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed by the game publisher either.

The mother accused Epic of taking a minor to court and making his personal info known to the public.

In a response this week, the company notes that it had no idea of the age of the defendant when it filed the complaint. In addition, Epic notes that by handing over his full name and address in the unredacted letter, she exposed her son.

The rules dictate that filings mentioning an individual known to be a minor should use the minor’s initials only, not the full name as the mother did. While the mother may have waived this protection with her letter, Epic says it will stick to the initials going forward.

“Although there is an argument that by submitting the Letter to the Court containing Defendant’s name and address, Defendant’s mother waived this protection […] we plan to include only Defendant’s initials or redact his name entirely in all future filings with the Court, including this letter.”

Given the quick settlement in the Vraspir case, it’s likely that the case against the 14-year-old boy will also be resolved without much additional damage. That is, if both sides can come to an agreement.

—

A copy of the yet unsigned stipulation and injunction is available here (pdf). The reply to the mother can be found here (pdf).

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YouTube is used by millions of people worldwide to access a broad range of content but it is music that is increasingly one of the platform’s big draws.

With an almost unrivaled library, YouTube is the go-to service for music fans globally but over in Finland this morning, things aren’t playing out well.

As shown in the image below, users who try to access music are now getting the following graphic. When translated the text reads “Video content owned by Teosto. The video can not be used in your country.”

No license…..No access…<Unavailble in Finland

This is a pretty big deal. Teosto is a Finnish performance rights organization that collects royalties on behalf of local artists and composers. It represents around 30,000 local songwriters and publishers, small fry when compared to the three million foreign music entities it represents in Finland.

This means that YouTube must have pulled huge volumes of content from its platform locally, rendering the service far less attractive to users. However, according to a TorrentFreak source, things go much further than standard modern licensed music.

As shown in the image below, even music published in 1899 has found itself pulled from the platform.

Jean Sibelius’ masterpiece Finlandia? Gone..

The music licensing dispute, which appears to have led to millions of tracks being rendered inaccessible in Finland, was confirmed by YouTube this morning.

“We were unable to reach a new licensing agreement with TEOSTO. Because of this, some videos containing music will be blocked in Finland,” the team said.

While the removal of content will come as a disappointment to the quarter of Finnish citizens who use YouTube regularly, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise.

In September, Teosto issued an opinion on copyrights to Parliament’s Education Committee. The licensing group complained that rightsholders aren’t adequately compensated for content played on platforms like YouTube. Like other groups in the same position, Teosto is looking to obtain more revenue for its members. That seems to be the basis for the dispute with YouTube.

For YouTube to have pulled so much content, negotiations must have really broken down, but Teosto sounded a note of optimism this morning. The group noted that while Google had indeed pulled music content from YouTube in Finland, it may reinstate it during the next couple of days.

Update: We have a statement from Sami Valkonen, Director of International Music Publishing Partnerships at YouTube – EMEA

“We are in active conversations to bring TEOSTO content back to YouTube in Finland. Our previous licensing agreement had expired so videos containing music represented by TEOSTO are currently blocked in Finland in accordance with copyright law. Talks are proceeding on good terms and we look forward to having great music back up on YouTube in Finland as soon as possible.”

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According to recent press, “Kodi boxes” can KILL.

Okay, to be specific (and perhaps a touch less alarmist), the power supplies on cheap, untested devices are often a bit on the dreadful side, and that’s where a risk of things bursting into flames resides. Beyond that, we assure you that the Kodi software remains friendly, docile, free-range, and free of any killer instinct. We could bore you with other tales of devices that report fake RAM size and heatsinks that rattle inside the case, but that would distract from the point of this blog post. 

Our issue with the current wave of articles is not the shock-horror, click-bait headlines, but the choice of images used. Instead of showing one of the many thousands of generic black boxes sold without the legally required CE/UL marks, the media mainly chose to depict a legitimate Rasbperry Pi clothed in a very familiar Kodi case. The Pis originate from Cambridge, UK, and have been rigorously certified. The case is from a good friend and partner of ours, FLIRC, in sunny California, USA. It’s a combination that’s as safe and unlikely to burn down your house as any Kodi device can be (indeed, neither even comes with the sort of dangerous power supplies that are in question here). We’re also super-huge fans of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and the proceeds of Pi board sales fund the awesome work they do to promote STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education in schools. The Kodi FLIRC case has also been a hit with our Raspberry Pi users and sales contribute towards the cost of events like Kodi DevCon.

It’s insulting, and potentially harmful, to see two successful (and safe) products being wrongly presented for the sake of a headline.

In related news, you may be aware of issues in the piracy community that drives the sales of these devices. There are a number of legal actions underway, and we regularly read news of large numbers of pirate add-on developers and repo operators fleeing from these legal issues. We still see strong downloads from kodi.tv: interestingly, there’s also an increase in the rate of user churn, which is probably linked to the above and our discontinuation of support for the older versions of Android that many of these devices run. This does not concern us. Our general stance on piracy remains neutral, but fewer people damaging the Kodi name is a good thing.

Here’s the reality: if your mates are spending hundreds on something per year, and you can get it for free – If it looks too good to be true – yeah, it probably is too good to be true. You make your own choices.

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Mashups are musical compositions, usually made up of two or more tracks seamlessly blended together, which bring something fresh and new to the listener.

There are hundreds of stunning examples online, many created in hobbyist circles, with dedicated communities sharing their often brilliant work.

However, the majority of mashups have something in common – they’re created without any permission from the copyright holders’ of the original tracks. As such they remain controversial, as mashup platform Sowndhaus has just discovered.

This Canada-based platform allows users to upload, share and network with other like-minded mashup enthusiasts. It has an inbuilt player, somewhat like Soundcloud, through which people can play a wide range of user-created mashups. However, sometime last Tuesday, Sowndhaus’ main domain, Sowndhaus.com, became unreachable.

Sowndhaus: High-quality mashups

The site’s operators say that they initially believed there was some kind of configuration issue. Later, however, they discovered that their domain had been “purposefully de-listed” from its DNS servers by its registrar.

“DomainBox had received a DMCA notification from the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and immediately suspended our .com domain,” Sowndhaus’ operators report.

At this point it’s worth noting that while Sowndhaus is based and hosted in Canada, DomainBox is owned by UK-based Mesh Digital Limited, which is in turn owned by GoDaddy. IFPI, however, reportedly sent a US-focused DMCA notice to the registrar which noted that the music group had “a good faith belief” that activity on Sowndhaus “is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”

While mashups have always proved controversial, Sowndhaus believe that they operate well within Canadian law.

“We have a good faith belief that the audio files allegedly ‘infringing copyright’ in the DMCA notification are clearly transformative works and meet all criteria for ‘Non-commercial User-generated Content’ under Section 29.21 of the Copyright Act (Canada), and as such are authorized by the law,” the site says.

“Our service, servers, and files are located in Canada which has a ‘Notice and Notice regime’ and where DMCA (a US law) has no jurisdiction. However, the jurisdiction for our .com domain is within the US/EU and thus subject to its laws.”

Despite a belief that the site operates lawfully, Sowndhaus took a decision to not only take down the files listed in IFPI’s complaint but also to ditch its .com domain completely. While this convinced DomainBox to give control of the domain back to the mashup platform, Sowndhaus has now moved to a completely new domain (sowndhaus.audio), to avoid further issues.

“We neither admit nor accept that any unlawful activity or copyright infringement with respect to the DMCA claim had taken place, or has ever been permitted on our servers, or that it was necessary to remove the files or service under Section 29.21 of the Copyright Act (Canada) with which we have always been, and continue to be, in full compliance,” the site notes.

“The use of copyright material as Non-commercial User-generated Content is authorized by law in Canada, where our service resides. We believe that the IFPI are well aware of this, are aware of the jurisdiction of our service, and therefore that their DMCA notification is a misrepresentation of copyright.”

Aside from what appears to have been a rapid suspension of Sowndhaus’ .com domain, the site says that it is being held to a higher standard of copyright protection that others operating under the DMCA.

Unlike YouTube, for example, Sowndhaus says it pro-actively removes files found to infringe copyright. It also bans users who use the site to commit piracy, as per its Terms of Service.

“This is a much stronger regime than would be required under the DMCA guidelines where users generally receive warnings and strikes before being banned, and where websites complying with the DMCA and seeking to avoid legal liability do not actively seek out cases of infringement, leading to some cases of genuine piracy remaining undetected on their services,” the site says.

However, the site remains defiant in respect of the content it hosts, noting that mashups are transformative works that use copyright content “in new and creative ways to form new works of art” and as such are legal for non-commercial purposes.

That hasn’t stopped it from being targeted by copyright holders in the past, however.

This year three music-based organizations (IFPI, RIAA, and France’s SCPP) have sent complaints to Google about the platform, targeting close to 200 URLs. However, at least for more recent complaints, Google hasn’t been removing the URLs from its indexes.

Complaints sent to Google about Sowndhaus in 2017<

Noting that corporations are using their powers “to hinder, stifle, and silence protected new forms of artistic expression with no repercussions”, Sowndhaus says that it is still prepared to work with copyright holders but wishes they would “reconsider their current policies and accept non-commercial transformative works as legitimate art forms with legal protections and/or exemptions in all jurisdictions.”

While Sowndhaus is now operating from a new domain, the switch is not without its inconveniences. All URLs with links to files on sowndhaus.com are broken but can be fixed by changing the .com to .audio.

DomainBox did not respond to TorrentFreak’s request for comment.

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