Mass-piracy lawsuits have been plaguing the U.S. for years, targeting hundreds of thousands of alleged downloaders.

While the numbers are massive, there are only a few so-called “copyright trolling” operations running the show.

These are copyright holders, working together with lawyers and piracy tracking firms, trying to extract cash settlements from alleged subscribers.

Getting a settlement is also what the makers of the “Elf-Man” movie tried when they targeted Ryan Lamberson of Spokane Valley, Washington. Unlike most defendants, however, Lamberson put up a fight, questioning the validity of the evidence. After the filmmaker pulled out, the accused pirate ended up winning $100,000 in attorney fees.

All this happened three years ago but it appears that there might be more trouble in store for Elf-Man and related companies.

The Washington non-profit organization Center for Justice (CFJ) recently filed a motion to intervene in the case. The group, which aims to protect “the wider community from abuse by the moneyed few,” has asked the court to unseal several documents that could reveal more about how these copyright trolls operate.

The non-profit asks the court to open up several filings to the public that may reveal how film companies, investigators, and lawyers coordinated an illegal settlement factory.

“The CFJ’s position is simple: if foreign data collectors and local lawyers are feeding on the subpoena power of federal courts to extract settlements from innocent people, then the public deserves to know.

“What makes this case so important is that, based on the unsealed exhibits and declarations, it appears that a German operation is providing the ‘investigators’ and ‘experts’ that claim to identify infringing activities, but its investigators apparently have a direct financial interest and the ‘software’ is questionable at best,” CFJ adds.

Another problem mentioned by the non-profit organization is that not all defense lawyers are familiar with these ‘trolling’ cases. They sometimes need dozens of hours to research them, which costs the defendant more than the cash settlement deal offered by the copyright holder.

As a result, paying off the trolls may seem like the most logical and safe option to the accused, even when they are innocent.

CFJ hopes that the sealed documents will help to expose the copyright trolls’ “mushrooming” enterprise, not just in this particular case, but also in many similar cases where people are pressured into settling.

“The entire lawsuit may have been a sham. Which is where CFJ comes in. Money and information remain the most significant hurdles for those being named as defendants in lawsuits like this one who receive threatening settlement letters like the one Mr. Lamberson received.

“CFJ’s goal is to level the playing field and reduce the plaintiffs’ informational advantage. The common-law right of access to judicial records is especially important where, as here, the copyright ‘trolling’ risks infecting the judicial system,” the non-profit adds.

The recent filings were spotted by SJD from Fight Copyright Trolls, who rightfully notes that we still have to see whether the documents will be made public, or not. If they are indeed unsealed, it may trigger a response from other accused pirates, perhaps even a class action suit.

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Center For Justice’s full motion to intervene is available here (pdf).

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We are happy and sad at same time to announce that this will be the last v17.6 release. When we say very last this of course only means for the v17 “Krypton” series as we are steadily heading towards the new v18 series called “Leia”. For about a year already our developers have been working on the upcoming v18 release and have been backporting all fixes we deemed safe enough to v17 series. However with all good things there has to come a time to say enough is enough and that moment has come. From our point of view “Krypton” has been a great release and our group has spend a lot of time improving it since it’s initial release on 5 February 2017. It has also been one of the series where we did things a bit different with continues nightly versions for testing and quite a lot point releases with only minor fixes just because we could.

We are certainly excited about our upcoming v18 on which we will start reporting at regular basis quite soon but until that time here’s the v17.6 “Krypton” version for daily use. We recommend every one to upgrade to this version once it’s available for their platform to have the best experience possible. If you want to know what has changed you can browse the list below.

Fixes done in this release:

• Fix possible crash in crontroller dialog
• Update standard scrapers to lastest version available on release
• Fix possible connection issues with internal webserver
• Fix crash when peripheral joystick add-on is disabled

What else is new?

In the bugfix releases we never include any new features. They are as feature complete as the initial version with the difference is they contain stability and usability fixes. If you are curious you can read up on all the v17 changes here: Kodi v17.0 “Krypton”

Where can I download Kodi?

As alway you can find the official builds on our download page. Then click on the platform of choice and select the build you need. You can install these build just on top of your current Kodi installation without doing a reinstall or cleanup as we do a full migration if needed. All you add-ons or installed skin will keep working.

For Android devices not connected to Play Store you can install the following add-on from our repo (listed under programs) which will make the upgrading easier stright from the Kodi interface: Kodi Android Installer

Apparel, donations or getting involved

Getting involved is quite easy. We encourage you to report problems with these builds on our forum first and after that, if asked, submit bugs on Trac (following this guide: How to submit a bug report). Do note that we need detailed information so we can investigate the issue. We also appreciate providing support in our Forums where you can. You can of course also follow or help promote Kodi on all available social networks. Read more on the get involved page. We are always happy to receive a donation by which you show your support and appreciation, and t-shirts and Raspberry Pi cases may still be found on the sidebar for purchase. All donations and other income goes towards the XBMC foundation and are typically used for travel to attend conferences, any necessary paperwork and legal fees, purchasing necessary hardware and licenses for developers and hopefully the yearly XBMC Foundation Developers Conference.

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Following a long-running case, in 2015 Austrian ISPs were ordered by the Commercial Court to block The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites including 1337x.to, isohunt.to, and h33t.to.

The decision was welcomed by the music industry, which looked forward to having more sites blocked in due course.

Soon after, local music rights group LSG sent its lawyers after several other large ISPs urging them to follow suit, or else. However, the ISPs dug in and a year later, in May 2016, things began to unravel. The Vienna Higher Regional Court overruled the earlier decision of the Commercial Court, meaning that local ISPs were free to unblock the previously blocked sites.

The Court concluded that ISP blocks are only warranted if copyright holders have exhausted all their options to take action against those actually carrying out the infringement. This decision was welcomed by the Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA), which described the decision as an important milestone.

The ISPs argued that only torrent files, not the content itself, was available on the portals. They also had a problem with the restriction of access to legitimate content.

“A problem in this context is that the offending pages also have legal content and it is no longer possible to access that if barriers are put in place,” said ISPA Secretary General Maximilian Schubert.

Taking the case to its ultimate conclusion, the music companies appealed to the Supreme Court. Another year on and its decision has just been published and for the rightsholders, who represent 3,000 artists including The Beatles, Justin Bieber, Eric Clapton, Coldplay, David Guetta, Iggy Azalea, Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Metallica, George Michael, One Direction, Katy Perry, and Queen, to name a few, it was worth the effort.

The Court looked at whether “the provision and operation of a BitTorrent platform with the purpose of online file sharing [of non-public domain works]” represents a “communication to the public” under the EU Copyright Directive. Citing the now-familiar BREIN v Filmspeler and BREIN v Ziggo and XS4All cases that both received European Court of Justice rulings earlier this year, the Supreme Court concluded it was.

Citing another Dutch case, in which Playboy publisher Sanoma took on the blog GeenStijl.nl, the Court noted that linking to copyrighted content hosted elsewhere also amounted to a “communication to the public”, a situation mirrored on torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.

“The similarity of the technical procedure in this case when compared to BitTorrent platforms lies in the fact that in both cases the operators of the website did not provide any copyrighted works themselves, but merely provided further information on sites where the protected works were available,” the Court notes in its ruling.

In respect of the potential for blocking legitimate content as well as that infringing copyright, the Court turned the ISPs’ own arguments against them somewhat.

The ISPs had previously argued that blocking The Pirate Bay and other sites was pointless since the torrents they host would still be available elsewhere. The Court noted that point and also found that people can easily upload their torrents to sites that aren’t blocked, since there’s plenty of choice.

The ISPA criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling, noting that in future ISPs will still find themselves being held responsible for decisions concerning blocking.

“We do not support illegal content on the Internet in any way, but consider it extremely questionable that the decision on what is illegal and what is not falls to ISPs, instead of a court,” said ISPA Secretary General Maximilian.

“Although we find it positive that a court of last resort has taken the decision, the assessment of the website in the first instance continues to be left to the Internet provider. The Supreme Court’s expansion of the circle of sites that be potentially blocked further complicates this task for the operator and furthers the privatization of law enforcement.

“It is extremely unpleasant that even after more than 10 years of fierce discussion, there is still no compelling legal basis for a court decision on Internet blocking, which puts providers in the role of both judge and hangman.”

Also of interest is ISPA’s stance on how blocking of content fails to solve the underlying issue. When content is blocked, rather than removed, it simply displaces the problem, leaving others to pick up the pieces, the Internet body argues.

“Illegal content is permanently removed from the network by deletion. Everything else is a placebo with extremely dangerous side effects, which can easily be bypassed by both providers and consumers. The only thing that remains is a blocking infrastructure that can be misused for many purposes and, unfortunately, will be used in many places,” Schubert says.

“The current situation, where providers have to block the rightsholders quasi on the spot, if they do not want to engage in a time-consuming and cost-intensive litigation, is really not sustainable so we issue a call to action to the legislature.”

The domains that were listed in the case, many of which are already defunct, are: thepiratebay.se, thepiratebay.gd, thepiratebay.la, thepiratebay.mn, thepiratebay.mu, thepiratebay.sh, thepiratebay.tw, thepiratebay.fm, thepiratebay.ms, thepiratebay.vg, isohunt.to, 1337x.to and h33t.to.

Whether it will be added later is unclear, but the only domain currently used by The Pirate Bay (thepiratebay.org) is not included in the list.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons

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As part of its quest to reduce piracy, the MPAA continues to spend money on its lobbying activities, hoping to sway lawmakers in its direction.

While the lobbying talks take place behind closed doors, quarterly disclosure reports provide some insight into the items under discussion.

The MPAA’s most recent lobbying disclosure form features several new topics that weren’t on the agenda last year.

Among other issues, the Hollywood group lobbied the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives on set-top boxes, preloaded streaming piracy devices, and streaming piracy in general.

The details of these discussions remain behind closed doors. The only thing we know for sure is what Hollywood is lobbying on, but it doesn’t take much imagination to take an educated guess on the ‘why’ part.

Just over a year ago streaming piracy boxes were hardly mentioned in anti-piracy circles, but today they are on the top of the enforcement list. The MPAA is reporting these concerns to lawmakers, to see whether they can be of assistance in curbing this growing threat.

Some of the lobbying topics

It’s clear that pirate streaming players are a prime concern for Hollywood. MPA boss Stan McCoy recently characterized the use of these devices as “Piracy 3.0” and a coalition of industry players sued a US-based seller of streaming boxes earlier this month.

The lobbying efforts themselves are nothing new of course. Every year the MPAA spends around $4 million to influence the decisions of lawmakers, both directly and through external lobbying firms such as Covington & Burling, Capitol Tax Partners, and Sentinel Worldwide.

While piracy streaming boxes are new on the agenda this year, they are not the only topics under discussion. Other items include trade deals such as the TPP, TTIP, and NAFTA, voluntary domain name initiatives, EU digital single market proposals, and cybersecurity.

TorrentFreak reached out to the MPAA for more information on the streaming box lobbying efforts, but we have yet to hear back.

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When large-scale access to online pirated content began to flourish at the turn of the decade, entertainment industry groups claimed that if left to run riot, it could mean the end of their businesses.

More than seventeen years later that doomsday scenario hasn’t come to pass, not because piracy has been defeated – far from it – but because the music, movie and related industries have come to the market with their own offers.

The music industry were the quickest to respond, with services like iTunes and later Spotify making serious progress against pirate alternatives. It took the video industry far longer to attack the market but today, with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Video, they have a real chance at scooping up what might otherwise be pirate consumption.

While there’s still a long way to go, it’s interesting to hear the progress that’s being made not only in the West but also piracy hotspots further afield. This week, Brazil’s Exame reported on a new study published by Google.

Focused on movies, one of its key findings is that local consumer interest in Netflix is now greater than pirate alternatives including torrents, streaming, and apps. As illustrated in the image below, the tipping point took place early November 2016, when searches for Netflix overtook those for unauthorized platforms.

Netflix vs Pirates (via Exame)

While the stats above don’t necessarily point to a reduction in piracy of movies and TV shows in Brazil, they show that Netflix’s library and ease of use is rewarded by widespread awareness among those seeking such content locally.

“We’re not lowering piracy but this does show how relevant the [Netflix] brand is when it comes to offering content online,” Google Brazil’s market intelligence chief Sérgio Tejido told Exame.

For Debora Bona, a director specializing in media and entertainment at Google Brazil, the success of Netflix is comparable to the rise of Spotify. In part thanks to The Pirate Bay, Sweden had a serious piracy problem in the middle of the last decade but by providing a viable alternative, the streaming service has become part of the solution.

“The event is interesting,” Bona says. “Since the launch of streaming solutions such as Netflix and Spotify, they have become alternatives to piracy. Sweden had many problems with music piracy and the arrival of Spotify reversed this curve.”

Netflix launched in Brazil back in 2011, but Exame notes that the largest increase in searches for the platform took place between 2013 and 2016, demonstrating a boost of 284%. Even more evidence of Netflix’s popularity was revealed in recent surveys which indicate that 77% of surveyed Brazilians had watched Netflix, up from 71% in 2016.

Importantly, nine out of ten users in Brazil said they were “extremely satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the service, up from 79% in the previous year. An impressive 66% of subscribers said that they were “not at all likely to cancel”, a welcome statistics for a company pumping billions into making its own content and increasingly protecting it (1,2), in the face of persistent pirate competition.

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