WIPO Raises Questions About Artificial Intelligence and Copyright


The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) was founded more than 50 years ago with the aim of protecting intellectual property.

The organization, which is part of the United Nations, brings countries together to share ideas about important copyright issues, including combating online piracy. In addition, it also helps to shape new policy by facilitating information sharing.

A hot topic in the intellectual property world at the moment is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Specifically, everything that is created by such ‘autonomous’ technologies, without concrete input from human beings.

In recent years AIs have advanced quickly and they are now very capable of creating content on their own. This includes unique material that would otherwise qualify to be copyrighted by persons. The question is, can it still be copyrighted if an AI creates it?

These and other questions are at the center of a public consultation that was just launched by the WIPO. The organization is asking the public for input on a wide range of topics which are detailed in a related draft issues paper.

The topics include patents, data, and designs, but our interest is focused on the copyright section. While it is still early days for most AIs, the WIPO’s involvement shows that this is an issue that will be part of future copyright law.

One of the WIPO’s most basic questions is whether content autonymously created by an AI should enjoy copyright protection. This is a crucial question, as it determines whether human and machine creativity is valued equally, or not.

“If AI-generated works were excluded from eligibility for copyright protection, the copyright system would be seen as an instrument for encouraging and favoring the dignity of human creativity over machine creativity,” the WIPO writes.

This automatically leads to the crucial question, whether or not AI-generated works can be copyrighted in a similar way as their human-created counterparts.

“Should copyright be attributed to original literary and artistic works that are autonomously generated by AI or should a human creator be required?” And if copyright can be attributed to AI-generated works, “in whom should the copyright vest?”

The WIPO requests input on these and several related questions. The organization also has a special interest in ‘deep fakes’. While these are generally created based on human input, they often rely on copyrighted content from third-parties.

Do the owners of the deep fake sources have a claim to any copyrights? Should they be otherwise be compensated?

“Since deep fakes are created on the basis of data that may be the subject of copyright, to whom should the copyright in a deep fake belong? Should there be a system of equitable remuneration for persons whose likenesses and ‘performances’ are used in a deep fake?” WIPO writes.

These questions also apply in a broader sense. A lot of AI-generated content relies on data-input from other copyrighted content. If AIs use third-party content, can they then infringe copyrights as well?

Similar topics were also raised in a related public consultation that was launched by the US Patent and Trademark Office a few weeks ago. This consultation is still open for submissions.

The full list of the WIPO’s questions and issues, including additional background information, is available on the WIPO website. For those who want to chime in, the comment period closes on February 14.

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Sky on a Mission to Purge Hundreds of Pirate IPTV Sites From Google


When a massive police operation in Italy took down IPTV management outfit Xtream-Codes in September 2019, a large proportion of the pirate market was thrown into turmoil.

According to figures obtained by TorrentFreak from network equipment company Sandvine, overall pirate streaming traffic dropped by 50%. But three months is an awfully long time on the Internet and today the market seems to have largely recovered, with providers and sellers finding alternative solutions and users relatively happy once again.

Nevertheless, when chaos reigned back in September, there can be little doubt that customers left high and dry turned to search engines in order to find a replacement. It’s certainly not the best strategy to find a reliable supplier but if Comcast-owned broadcaster Sky has anything to do with it, it won’t be an easy option either.

Back in March, we reported that the broadcaster had been sending thousands of takedown notices to Google in an effort to remove IPTV suppliers’ entire websites from the search provider’s indexes. That effort has not only continued but also been stepped up in recent weeks.

Just as an example, a notice sent in November contains 495 URLs and attempts to delist the entire websites of three suppliers – miglioriptv.net, iptvthebest.ws, migliorstreaming.net – from Google. But that is just the tip of a pretty large iceberg.

The delisting efforts are considerable and target many thousands of URLs (e.g 1,2,3,4). The majority of notices were previously filed on behalf of Sky in Italy but Sky in the UK are also getting in on the act.

As the notice above shows, Sky UK goes down the classic route of claiming that the sites in question directly infringe its rights by providing access to its licensed content. While that may be the case in some instances, it’s far more likely that the services use completely different URLs to deliver that content so at best, the above domains might be considered as facilitating infringement, rather than directly infringing Sky’s rights.

However, when it comes to Sky Italy’s notices, the company has a more detailed approach that may prove even more effective.

“The reported sites illegally provide external links with which users can access and/or download unauthorized copyrighted contents, exclusively owned by broadcaster Sky Italia,” the notices state.

“Reported URLs pages are using without any authorization copyrighted images and logos owned by Sky Italia, which are used to promote and selling unauthorized IPTV services or video-on-demand library with show schedules or video catalogs owned by Sky Italia.”

In this context, the use of Sky graphics to promote and sell pirate IPTV packages to consumers is a slam dunk for the company when it comes to the DMCA. Hundreds of platforms not only use official logos in this manner but also images of Sky box controllers, culled from Sky’s own sites.

Having sites delisted from Google on those grounds alone should be relatively simple for the broadcaster. Copyright infringement of logos and graphics is much easier to determine than IPTV seller site URLs that may (but probably do not) contain any copyright-infringing material.

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French Anti-Piracy Law Decreased Music Consumption Variety, Research Suggests


Two decades ago, the music industry was presented with an unprecedented threat. Napster made it possible for the public at large to share tracks with people they didn’t have to meet in person.

While sharing was already commonplace on bulletin boards and IRC, Napster opened it up to an audience of millions.

In the years that followed, torrent sites, download portals, and other pirate services only made things worse. To counter this threat the music industry began filing lawsuits and lobbied for modern anti-piracy laws, which France was one of the first countries to adopt.

Ten years ago the French Government approved the HADOPI law. Among other things, it included a graduated response system where Internet subscribers face fines and even criminal convictions if they get caught repeatedly.

According to initial studies, the legislation wasn’t very effective. However, a new paper set to be published in a forthcoming issue of the academic journal Information, Economics and Policy, sings a different tune.

To measure the impact of Hadopi on music consumption, KU Leuven researcher Ruben Savelkoul analyzed music sales in France during the years following the introduction of the law and compared that data with sales in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The research specifically looks at digital download purchases during the early years of Hadopi. The results, shared in an article titled “Superstars vs the Long Tail”, shine an interesting light on the potential impact the anti-piracy law had during this time.

One of the main findings is that Hadopi had a positive effect on the sales of digital music tracks in France compared to the two control countries. This effect was the strongest for popular artists.

In addition, the findings suggest that the effect of Hadopi on sales decreased over time, except for bigger artists.

“The introduction of the Hadopi anti-piracy law in France had a positive effect on sales for all artists, superstars as well as artists lower in the sales distribution,” Savelkoul writes.

“The effect is stronger for superstars, suggesting that smaller or niche artists gain exposure from illegal downloading, partly offsetting the negative substitution effect on sales,” he adds.

The weaker effect on smaller artists suggests that these may also see some benefits from piracy. For example, because piracy allows music fans to discover new content more easily.

This leads to the second hypothesis tested by Savelkoul. Did the anti-piracy measures lead to a reduction in variation when it comes to music consumption? This indeed turned out to be the case.

“We found that in the absence of piracy, consumers tend to concentrate more on genre and style,” Savelkoul writes.

The researcher suggests that piracy makes it easier to discover newer music. As a result, people consume more different types of music. Stricter anti-piracy measures limit this effect and as a result music fans buy more ‘popular’ music.

“In absence of the possibility to sample ‘adventurous’ music, consumers might not be willing to pay and purchase these music items to discover its quality and instead opt for ‘safer’ purchases, thus consuming less variety,” Savelkoul notes.

Overall, the findings suggest that stricter anti-piracy measures can positively impact digital sales revenue. At the same time, however, they decrease variation in music consumption.

While these are intriguing findings, the paper’s author cautions against generalizing the results. The findings only cover a relatively short period of a few years. In the long run, the effect may be different.

In addition, the research only looks at digital music sales. It’s unclear what the effect is on touring revenue for example. Related research has found that revenue from live performances is growing for smaller artists and Savelkoul suggests that piracy may have a net positive effect for this group.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the music industry has changed quite a bit since the introduction of Hadopi. Streaming subscriptions are now the main digital revenue source, which has made it easier for consumers to discover new content. As such, the ‘discovery’ benefit of piracy may not be the same today.

—

A copy of the article titled “Superstars vs the Long Tail: How Does Music Piracy Affect Digital Song Sales for Different Segments of the Industry?” can be found behind a paywall.

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Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case


Earlier this year a federal grand jury charged eight men for their involvement with the streaming services Jetflicks and iStreamitAll.

The platforms, which were headquartered in Las Vegas, offered a wide range of pirated videos that could be accessed in exchange for a monthly subscription fee.

This week, two of the defendants pleaded guilty. The first is Las Vegas resident Darryl Julius Polo, aka djppimp, who was involved in both services through which he earned over a million dollars in revenue.

In a plea agreement, Polo admits the various counts of criminal copyright infringement and well as a money laundering charge. The copyright offenses carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison and money laundering is punishable by up to 20 years incarceration.

Polo both owned and operated iStreamitAll (ISIA) which he launched after being involved with Jetflicks. In a signed statement, he admits that ISIA offered access to 118,479 different TV episodes and 10,980 individual movies.

Between September 2014 and December 2016 the streaming service processed at least 18,551 successful credit and debit card charges. The associated subscription fees ranged from $19.99 per month up to $179.99 per year.

According to the agreed statement of facts (pdf), Polo pitched his service to potential clients by pointing out that it offered more content than competing legal services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.

“In fact, the defendant sent out emails to potential subscribers highlighting ISIA’s huge catalog of works and urging them to cancel Netflix, Hulu, and similar services, and subscribe to ISIA instead,” it reads.

The various movies and TV-shows were sources from Usenet and torrent sites. Polo had set up an automated system where software including SickRage, Sick Beard, and
SABnzbd scoured the Internet for pirated content which was then stored by the service so it could be streamed to subscribers.

“These tools allowed the defendant to search for pirated movies and television shows available on some of the most popular torrent sites in the world, such as The
Pirate Bay, RARBG, and TorrentDay, as well as some of the largest Usenet NZB index sites,” the statement of facts reads.

The streaming service was not the first piracy operation Polo was involved in. He further admits that he operated the NZB indexer SmackDownOnYou, BoxBusters.TV, Jailbreakingtheipad, and the music piracy site MixtapeUG.

In addition to Polo, 40-year old Luis Angel Villarino from Las Vegas also pleaded guilty. He admits his involvement as a programmer for Jetflicks from December 2016 to at least June 2017.

Villarino agreed to be charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

Jetflicks used many of the same sources as the ISIA streaming service. It was tailored towards TV-show content and listed thousands of shows that could be accessed through a subscription. Both services worked in regular browsers and through various apps, including a Kodi-addon.

According to Villarino’s signed statement of facts (pdf), he mostly worked as a programmer to optimize the scripts that fetched the pirated TV-shows.

“The defendant mostly worked on solving problems with the Jetflicks’ computer scripts that co-defendants Darryl Julius Polo, Peter H. Huber, and Vaillant had written or refined and that were designed to help locate, download, process, store, stream, and make available for downloaded pirated television shows.”

In exchange for the guilty pleas, both defendants can expect a lower sentencing recommendation. They agree to cooperate fully in any further investigations and may have to provide information on and testify against the remaining six defendants, who go to trial in February 2020.

Polo and Villarino will be sentenced a month later. Both men must pay restitution to their victims while their criminal proceeds will be forfeited. In Polo’s case, that’s at least $1 million.

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‘Copyright Troll’ Bypasses Federal Court To Get ‘Cheap’ Piracy Settlements


Earlier this week we reported on a notable finding. For some reason, the two most active copyright litigants in the US had stopped filing new lawsuits in federal courts.

Instead of seeing hundreds of new cases each month targeting alleged BitTorrent pirates, there were none.

While the reason for this hiatus is unknown, we can now confirm that at least one of the companies hasn’t halted its efforts at all. Instead, it changed the venue, which isn’t without controversy.

In the U.S, copyright-related court cases are exclusively a matter of federal law, which is something every first-year law student knows. You can’t bring a copyright suit in state court, period. However, that’s exactly where Strike 3 has moved.

After filing over 1,000 cases in federal courts earlier this year, the adult entertainment company moved its activities to a Florida state court. In recent weeks, it has filed more than a dozen new cases.

Although these cases relate to copyright infringement, Strike 3 submits them as a complaint for “a pure bill discovery.” This essentially means that it asks the court to give it the right to figure out who the defendants are.

In this case, this means a subpoena directed at ISPs to identify the account holder that’s linked to the allegedly infringing IP-addresses. This tactic provides the same result as going through a federal court and allows Strike 3 to demand settlements as well.

While the number of cases in state court is relatively modest, these cases target a substantially higher number of defendants per case. That’s also one of the main advantages. By filing a single case with dozens or hundreds of defendants, the filing fee per defendant is very low.

In federal court, the company generally targets one defendant per complaint, which is far more expensive. And while Strike 3 mentions that it is requesting the information for a subsequent copyright lawsuit, it will likely try to get a settlement first.

Another advantage is that the company doesn’t have to deal with the federal courts that are increasingly reluctant to grant discovery. Just a few weeks ago, Strike 3 was denied a subpoena, for example.

The question is whether this shortcut is appropriate. While we have seen it being used in Florida a few years ago, it certainly isn’t common. And this time there is pushback as well.

TorrentFreak spoke to several attorneys who represent defendants in these cases. They believe that Strike 3 is wrong to use the state court for this purpose. However, in several cases, the Miami-Dade County Court has already granted subpoenas against a variety of ISPs, including AT&T and Comcast.

Attorney Jeffrey Antonelli and his firm Antonelli Law‘s local counsel Steven Robert Kozlowski objected to these subpoenas on behalf of several defendants. In his motion to quash he highlights a variety of problems, including the earlier observation that copyright cases don’t belong in a state court.

“This Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the copyright claims at issue in the lawsuit which the subpoena to Comcast is premised upon. Federal courts have original and exclusive jurisdiction over civil actions arising under federal copyright law,” the motion reads.

Another problem is that the purpose of the “pure bill of discovery” is to obtain facts or information a defendant has. However, the targeted ISPs are not defendants in these cases.

Finally, the motions highlight that the IP-addresses may not even be linked to Florida, where the court is based. Strike 3 should have known this, as they always disclose the location in federal court. However, they may have omitted it on purpose, the defense argues.

“In fact, Plaintiff’s failure to allege that Defendant has sufficient contacts with the state of Florida or is a Florida resident is likely a purposeful omission as Defendant is not a resident of Florida,” the motion to quash reads, showing that the IP-address is linked to Minnesota.

TorrentFreak spoke to Florida-based attorney Cynthia Conlin who has dealt with these ‘trolling’ lawsuits, both in federal and state court. She believes that Strike 3 has moved its efforts to the Miami-Dade County court in an attempt to save costs.

“The most obvious advantage in filing a multi-doe case is economic. Strike 3 need only pay a single filing fee to obtain identifying information for several dozen defendants, as opposed to $400 for each single-doe federal lawsuit,” Conlin says.

In federal courts, these cases typically include one defendant. So filing 50 cases would cost $20,000 in filing fees alone. In the recent state court cases, all defendants are grouped in a single case, which is much cheaper.

“By filing multi-doe suits, Strike 3 is increasing its odds of receiving settlements exponentially. So far it has filed 17 lawsuits in Miami-Dade County, and counting,” Conlin notes.

While Conlin doesn’t believe that these cases are allowed in state courts, judges often sign off on the subpoenas since they are not well-versed in copyright litigation. This is a loophole Strike 3 tried to exploit.

“Strike 3 would not be able to get away with filing a multi-doe lawsuit in federal court. Mass-doe cases have been done before in many federal jurisdictions, and the federal courts will no longer allow them. State court is the only place Strike 3 can get away with it,” she says.

This isn’t the first time this maneuver has been carried out. A few other companies have done so and some argue that it’s a win-win for all, as it can result in lower settlements as well.

Conlin and other defense attorneys don’t buy that and will continue to file motions to quash. At the time of writing, the Miami-Dade County Court has yet to rule on these subpoenas.

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Android 10 On Android TV Is Here

Android 10 On Android TV

Android 10 is out and Google has kept its promise as of this September announcing Android 10 on Android TV until the end of the year. After taking a while for Android 9 Pie in order to arrive also on Android TV devices, this time Google delivered in time the latest version of Android. As Android TV becomes day by day more popular so is Google’s plans for the platform.

“When Android TV was first introduced in 2014, we set out to bring the best of Android into the connected home on the TV,” Google wrote in their Android TV OS blog post. “We worked closely with the developer community to grow our content and app ecosystem and bring users the content they want. Since then, we’ve seen tremendous momentum with OEM and operator partners as well as consumer adoption worldwide.”

Nexus Player Evolution – The ADT-3

To make sure developers have the ability to build and test Android TV app implementations on Android 10 prior to rollout, Google introduced a new, developer-focused streaming media device called ADT-3.

With a quad-core A53, 2GB of DDR3 memory and 4Kp60 HDR HDMI 2.1 output, Google designed this pre-certified TV dongle with updates and security patches to help developers design for the next generation of Android TV devices. That is extremely helpful for third-party manufacturers like Nvidia, Xiaomi, Sony, etc but also for app developers. But do not expect to be able to get one as a consumer. The super small device is only for developers. And as more and more people are wishing for a Pixel TV device, for now the only real device that delivers all the latest updates is still the Nvidia Shield TV.

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Fake: DMCA Notice Targeting Apple Jailbreaks on Reddit Was Fraudulent


Earlier this week, black clouds began to form over the passionate iOS jailbreaking community. Tolerated by Apple through gritted teeth due to legal protection under the DMCA, the company took the unusual step of sending a DMCA notice targeting a developer’s tweet containing an encryption key.

While that tweet was later restored, the takedown came as a complete surprise and the knock-on effect from this unsettling act would set the scene for the company getting blamed for additional similar acts, this time on Reddit.

In the wake of the Twitter action, a moderator of the /r/jailbreak sub-Reddit revealed that Reddit’s legal team had removed five posts detailing iOS jailbreak releases checkra1n and unc0ver. All of the posts were deleted by Reddit’s admins after receiving a DMCA notice, ostensibly sent by Apple.

What followed was an hours-long information blackout, during which /r/jailbreak’s moderators sought but failed to obtain information from Reddit’s admins. With a credible fear that more notices could be filed and as a result label /r/jailbreak as a repeat offender under the DMCA, its moderators put the forum into lockdown.

Right from the very beginning there was no clear proof that Apple had sent any DMCA notices to Reddit, despite news headlines blaming the tech company for going to war against jailbreakers. It now transpires that waiting for proof would’ve been a more prudent option.

As revealed by checkra1n development team member ‘qwertyoruiopz’, the notice that targeted his project was actually a fake.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And, according to fellow developer ‘axi0mX’, the fake notice wasn’t particularly well constructed either.

“We reviewed it and confirmed that it was someone impersonating Apple. It was not sent from their law firm, which is Kilpatrick Townsend. There are issues with grammar and spelling,” he revealed.

“This notice was obviously not submitted in good faith, and it was not done by someone authorized to represent Apple. Not cool. They could be sued for damages or face criminal charges for perjury.”

Being sued for sending a fake notice sounds like a reasonable solution in practice but history tells us, one particularly notable case aside, that is unlikely to happen. However, it’s clear that more can be done to mitigate the effects of malicious takedowns, starting with more transparency from Reddit’s admins.

While the moderators of /r/jailbreak knew about the complaints early on, they were given no information about who sent them or on what basis. This meant that the people against whom the complaints were made weren’t in a position to counter them, at least with knowledge on their side.

“My personal take on all this is that this should provide plenty of food of thought about the state of copyright laws in the US. A site like Reddit risks losing legal safe harbor protections if they don’t immediately act on such notices,” qwertyoruiopz says.

“Not sharing the notices by default is however very bad policy on Reddit’s end; I would even call this a vulnerability. It allows for nefarious parties to create false-flag takedowns that spark can infighting and has chilling effects (albeit temporary) on non-infringing content.”

There can be little doubt that Reddit takes its DMCA obligations very seriously, so it could be argued that taking down the posts in response to a complaint was the safest legal option. However, if a cursory review of the notices by those targeted revealed clear fraud within minutes, there is a very good case for those notices being shared quickly to ensure that the fraudulent notices don’t have the desired effect.

While Reddit has shown no signs of sharing DMCA notices with the Lumen Database recently, quickly sharing them with those who have allegedly infringed would be a good first step.

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USMCA Trade Deal Keeps DMCA-Style ‘Safe Harbor’ for ISPs


More than a quarter-century after the United States, Canada, and Mexico approved the NAFTA trade agreement, the North American countries have now signed off on a new trade deal.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will accommodate changes in trade that the three countries have witnessed over the years, especially online.

The road to this final deal wasn’t without obstacles. After agreeing on the text a year ago, new demands and proposed changes were tabled, some of which were included in the Protocol of Amendments that was published this week.

The amendments don’t cover copyright issues, but the previously agreed text certainly does. For example, USMCA will require all countries to have a copyright term that continues for at least 70 years after the creator’s death.

For Canada, this means that the country’s current copyright term has to be extended by 20 years. This won’t happen instantly, as the country negotiated a transition period to consult the public on how to best meet this requirement. However, an extension seems inevitable in the long term.

Another controversial subject that was widely debated by experts and stakeholders is the DMCA-style ‘safe harbor’ text. In the US, ISPs are shielded from copyright infringement liability under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, and the new deal would expand this security to Mexico and Canada.

This expansion was welcomed by many large technology companies including Internet providers and hosting platforms. However, many major entertainment industry companies and rightsholder groups were not pleased with the plans, as they have been calling for safe harbor restrictions for years.

US lawmakers also raised concerns. Just a few weeks ago the House Judiciary Committee urged the US Trade Representative not to include any safe harbor language in trade deals while the Copyright Office is reviewing the effectiveness of the DMCA law.

As the USMCA negotiations reached the final stage, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighed in as well, trying to have safe harbor text removed from the new trade deal.

Despite this pushback, there is no mention of changes to the safe harbor section in the final amendments. This means that they will remain in the USMCA, much to the delight of major Internet companies.

That said, copyright liability protection also comes with obligations. The agreement specifies that ISPs should have legal incentives to work with ISPs to ensure that copyright infringements are properly dealt with.

This framework shall include “legal incentives for Internet Service Providers to cooperate with copyright owners to deter the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials or, in the alternative, to take other action to deter the unauthorized storage and transmission of copyrighted materials,” the agreement reads.

The USMCA specifically mentions that ISPs must take down pirated content and implement a repeat infringer policy if they want to apply for safe harbor protection. This is largely modeled after the DMCA law.

The safe harbors for copyright infringement and the takedown requirements don’t apply to Canada as long as it continues to rely on its current notice-and-notice scheme. However, the country will enjoy safe harbors for other objectionable content, modeled after section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act.

While the three North American countries have reached an agreement, the text still has to be ratified into local law and policy. So it may take some time before it has any effect.

Commenting on the outcome, Canadian copyright professor Micheal Geist notes that the safe harbor for objectionable content is a win for freedom of expression. The additional 20-year copyright term is a setback, although the negative effects can be limited by requiring rightsholders to register for such an extension.

On the other side, rightsholders are also pleased, at least with parts of the new agreement.

“The USMCA’s provisions to strengthen copyright protections and enforcement will benefit the U.S. motion picture and television industry and support American jobs,” MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin says.

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Apple Hits Encryption Key With DMCA Notice, Panic Shuts Down the Jailbreak Sub-Reddit



To most users of mobile computing devices such as phones and tablets, they exist to be used however the consumer sees fit. However, the majority are restricted to prevent the adventurous from doing whatever they like with their own hardware.

To bypass these restrictions, users can utilize a so-called jailbreak tool. These unlock the digital handcuffs deployed on a device and grant additional freedoms that aren’t available as standard. As such, they are popular with modders who enjoy customizing their hardware with new features that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

Since it is viewed as one of the most restrictive manufacturers, Apple hardware and software face almost continual ‘attacks’ from people wanting to jailbreak its devices. There are many communities online dedicated to this scene, including Reddit’s 462,000-member /r/jailbreak forum.

Yesterday, however, chaos reigned after Reddit’s legal team received multiple DMCA notices against a number of threads detailing a pair of prominent jailbreak tools – Checkra1n and UNc0ver.

“Reddit Legal have removed 5 posts (all release posts) for checkra1n and unc0ver. We don’t know what exactly was the copyright about. Admins never told us, we just saw their actions in our mod log,” a moderator explained.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, many linked the issues facing /r/jailbreak to an earlier drama on Twitter when an iOS hacker called S1guza published an Apple decryption key that led to his tweet being taken down following a DMCA notice. It took a few hours but the tweet was ultimately reinstated last evening. No specific reasons were given for taking it down, and none were provided for putting it back up.

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The Twitter takedown was sent by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP, a company that has acted on Apple’s behalf in the past. The notice itself, published on the Lumen Database thanks to Twitter, also provides no useful details as to why the tweet was targeted.

Since Apple was behind the takedown on Twitter and the most obvious culprit in respect of the DMCA takedowns on Reddit, many fingers were pointed towards the Cupertino-based company. However, despite the best efforts of the moderators on /r/jailbreak, Reddit’s admins would not provide the necessary information to identify who filed the DMCA notices or on what grounds.

With uncertainty apparently the order of the day, moderators of the discussion forum took the drastic decision to put their platform into lockdown.

“Locking down the subreddit to prevent new threads is one of the ‘standard’ responses moderators take to show the admins that the mod team isn’t playing, and that they are serious and ready to remedy the issue,” a post from the mods reads.

“Too many DMCA notices eventually end up with a warn and a ban (or just a ban) from the admins to whatever subreddit these notices are being sent to.”

While the DMCA notices in themselves are clearly the biggest issue here, unlike Twitter and Google, for example, Reddit does not routinely share DMCA notices it receives with an external database such as Lumen. If it did, the additional transparency would perhaps help to shine some light on the topic and prevent heavy self-imposed actions, such as the voluntary lockdown of the jailbreak sub.

Moderators report that Reddit’s admins were initially unresponsive to requests for information and that a database that tracks DMCA notices sent to Reddit didn’t provide any helpful details on the sender of the notices.

Last evening, however, one of the affected jailbreak developers ‘qwertyoruiopz’
announced on Twitter that things were some way to being resolved on Reddit and the sub had been taken out of ‘lockdown mode‘.

Soon after, a welcome response from Reddit’s admins was published, effectively signaling the all-clear.

While the message was well-received, /r/jailbreak shouldn’t have been obliged to take such serious action to preserve its existence. The jailbreaking of iOS devices is considered legal in the US and the DMCA notices filed against Reddit clearly caught everyone by surprise.

It remains unknown whether they were indeed sent by Apple so the possibility remains that they were sent by some kind of imposter, trying to unsettle the community. Nevertheless, it is good news that all complaints have been lifted due to the claims being invalid, as per Reddit’s admins.

Without transparency from Reddit, however, the true nature of what happened is likely to remain a mystery. That being said, the moderators of /r/jailbreak deserve a big pat on the back for taking decisive action, quickly. Things could have really spiraled out of control but by showing good intent early on, things were brought back into line relatively quickly.

Now, let’s see those notices to determine who sent them, and why.

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Most Active Copyright Trolls Have Stopped Filing U.S. Piracy Lawsuits, For Now


While most piracy activity has shifted to streaming in recent years, U.S. courts have still been overloaded with BitTorrent related piracy lawsuits.

This phenomenon, often dubbed as copyright trolling, started roughly a decade ago and remains ongoing.

This scheme can be both simple and lucrative. Rightsholders file complaints against “John Does” who are initially only known by an IP-address. They then request a subpoena to obtain the subscriber details and demand a settlement from the account holder.

In recent years, the vast majority of the U.S. lawsuits were filed by two adult entertainment companies; Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media. Together, they filed over 3,300 new cases last year, which was an all-time record.

Initially, it appeared that they would continue on the same course this year. During the summer we reported that Strike 3 alone had already filed over a thousand new complaints. However, in recent months that changed drastically.

Looking through the federal court records we noticed that there was a notable absence of new cases from both Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media. Instead of filing hundreds of new cases, both companies haven’t been active for weeks.

Strike 3 filed its latest complaint in early August, more than four months ago. Malibu Media had its latest filing spree in August as well and only submitted seven new complaints after that, most recently in October.

 

Strike 3’s latest cases

The sudden halt in activity is remarkable, especially since both companies have different legal teams. It’s also a clear deviation from previous years. However, there’s no clear explanation for the hiatus, nor do we know how long it will last.

It could be that the companies are awaiting the outcome of certain legal proceedings. For example, in a few cases this year the court denied expedited discovery. This makes it impossible for the rightsholders to obtain the personal details of infringers.

Strike 3 has appealed that ruling and may await its outcome before filing any new cases, to prevent wasting filing fees.

In addition, there is the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling from last year in the Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales case. In that matter, the Court ruled that identifying the registered subscriber of an IP-address is by itself not enough to argue that this person is also the infringer.

This Appeals Court ruling has also proven to be a setback for both Malibu Media and Strike 3 Holdings.

Whether these legal developments are indeed a factor is unknown. Whatever the reason may be, we can already conclude that the all-time record for file-sharing cases in the U.S. won’t be broken this year. The current total is still under 2,000, with just three more weeks to go.

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





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