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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In recent years, BitTorrent users around the world have been targeted with threats. They can either pay a significant settlement fee, or face far worse in court.

The scheme started in Germany years ago, and copyright holders later went after alleged pirates in Australia, Denmark, Finland, the UK, US, and elsewhere.

This summer, the copyright holders behind the movie Dallas Buyers Club added Spain to the mix, going after dozens of alleged pirates in Bilbao and San Sebastian. The ‘filmmakers’ are part of a tight group of so-called copyright trolls which are constantly expanding their business to other countries.

While they have had some success, mainly by sending out settlement letters, in Spain the first court case brought bad news.

The Commercial Court of Donostia dismissed the claim against an alleged file-sharer due to a lack of evidence. Dallas Buyers Club identified the infringer through an IP-address, but according to Judge Pedro José Malagón Ruiz, this is not good enough.

“The ruling says that there is no way to know whether the defendant was the P2P user or not, because an IP address only identifies the person who subscribed to the Internet connection, not the user who made use of the connection at a certain moment,” copyright lawyer David Bravo tells TorrentFreak.

“A relative or a guest could have been using the network, or even someone accessing the wifi if it was open,” he adds.

In addition, the Judge agreed with the defense that there is no evidence that the defendant actively made the movie available. This generally requires a form of intent. However, BitTorrent clients automatically share files with others, whether it’s the intention of the user or not.

“The upload of the data from the P2P programs occurs automatically by the program configuration itself. […] This occurs by default without requiring the knowledge or intention of the user,” Judge Malagón Ruiz writes in his verdict, quoted by Genbeta.

In other words, these BitTorrent transfers are not necessarily an act of public communication, therefore, they are not infringing any copyrights.

The case provides hope for other accused file-sharers who are looking to have their cases dismissed as well. Not in the last place because the defense was coordinated online, without active involvement of a lawyer.

Bravo, together with two colleague lawyers, offered self-help forms to accused file-sharers free of charge. Defendants could use these to mount a proper defense, which paid off in this case.

“This ruling sets a precedent,” Bravo tells TorrentFreak, noting that it’s a clear setback for the copyright holders who are involved in these mass file-sharing lawsuits.

While the lawyer cautions that other courts may come to a different conclusion, it appears that Dallas Buyers Club and other copyright trolls will meet some fierce ‘p2p coordinated’ resistance in Spain.

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When it comes to providing digital online audio content, TuneIn is one of the world’s giants.

Whether music, news, sport or just chat, TuneIn provides more than 120,000 radio stations and five million podcasts to 75,000,000 global users, both for free and via a premium tier service.

Accessible from devices including cellphones, tablets, smart TVs, digital receivers, games consoles and even cars, TuneIn reaches more than 230 countries and territories worldwide. One, however, is about to cause the company a headache.

According to a report from Music Business Worldwide (MBW), Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are suing TuneIn over unlicensed streams.

MBW sources say that the record labels filed proceedings in the UK High Court last week, claiming that TuneIn committed copyright infringement on at least 800 music streams accessible in the UK.

While TuneIn does offer premium streams to customers, the service primarily acts as an index for radio streams hosted by their respective third-party creators. It describes itself as “an audio guide service” which indicates it does not directly provide the content listened to by its users.

However, previous EU rulings (such as one related to The Pirate Bay) have determined that providing an index to content is tantamount to a communication to the public, which for unlicensed content would amount to infringement in the UK.

While it would be difficult to avoid responsibility, TuneIn states on its website that it makes no claim that its service is legal in any other country than the United States.

“Those who choose to access or use the Service from locations outside the United States of America do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable,” the company writes.

“Access to the Service from jurisdictions where the contents or practices of the Service are illegal, unauthorized or penalized is strictly prohibited.”

All that being said, the specific details of the Sony/Warner complaint are not yet publicly available so the precise nature of the High Court action is yet to be determined.

TorrentFreak contacted the BPI, the industry body that represents both Sony and Warner in the UK, for comment on the lawsuit. A spokesperson informed us that they are not directly involved in the action.

We also contacted both the IFPI and San Francisco-based TuneIn for further comment but at the time of publication, we were yet to hear back from either.

TuneIn reportedly has until the end of November to file a defense.

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A decade ago online pirates had more or less free rein in Russia, but much has changed in recent years.

With the introduction of several new laws, the country has been very aggressive in its anti-piracy approach, outpacing the United States and other western countries in several key areas.

At the center of many of these efforts is Rozcomnadzor. The controversial Russian Government body is responsible for managing web-blockades against pirate portals and other disruptive sites, which are censored on a broad scale.

In addition to regular pirate sites, Rozcomnadzor also has the power to block their proxies and mirrors, and even VPN services which can be used to circumvent these measures. However, according to a recent proposal from the Russian government, this is not enough.

A new amendment that that was published by the Ministry of Culture proposes to allow for near-instant pirate site blockades to protect the local movie industry, Vedomosti reports.

Russian officials state that people often skip a visit to the movie theater when a pirated copy is available, depriving the makers of a crucial source of income. While filmmakers and other copyright holders can already report infringing sites, it’s a relatively slow process.

At the moment, website owners are given three days to remove infringing content before any action is taken. Under the new proposal, site blockades would be implemented less than 24 hours after Rozcomnadzor is alerted. Website owners will not get the chance to remove the infringing content and a court order isn’t required either.

Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s Minister of Culture, has been a proponent of such pre-judicial blockades for a while, but his previous proposals didn’t receive support in the State Duma.

The new blocking plans go further than any of the previous legislation, but they will only apply to movies that have “a national film certificate” from Russian authorities, as HWR points out. This doesn’t cover any Hollywood movies, which typically top the local box office.

Hollywood’s industry group MPAA is not going to appreciate being left out, but its critique isn’t new. Despite all the new anti-piracy laws, the group is generally critical of Russia’s copyright enforcement policies.

“Russia needs to increase its enforcement activity well beyond current levels to provide adequate and effective enforcement of IPR violations, including the imposition of criminal deterrent penalties,” the MPAA wrote in its recent trade barriers report.

That said, the group was positive about the new law that allows rightsholders to have proxy sites and mirrors banned.

“The recently-enacted amendment to the Anti-Piracy law should constrain the ability of wrongdoers to simply modify their internet sites and continue to operate in violation of the law,” the MPAA added.

From a Hollywood perspective, it certainly beats blocking no sites at all, which is largely the case in the US at the moment.

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