Many countries around the world have systems in place to block access to copyright-infringing content and even entire sites.
Russia’s system is particularly streamlined and has resulted in large volumes of pirate sites being rendered inaccessible to the country’s citizens.
However, Russia’s blocking system isn’t only used to protect rightsholders. It’s regularly used to prevent access to terrorism-related material and other content considered dangerous to the public or even insulting to the state.
On November 28, 2019, US-based stock footage site Shutterstock appeared on Russia’s registry of banned domains. Authority for the blocking was granted by the Prosecutor General’s Office on November 13, 2019, and as shown in the image below, covers one domain and two IP addresses.
At first view, one might consider this to be a copyright infringement issue. However, those who visit the URL detailed at the top of the notice will find what appears to be an image of a Russian flag placed in the middle of a pile of excrement. Russian authorities do not take kindly to their national symbols depicted in such a fashion and have laws in place to prevent it.
As a result, Russian ISPs are now blocking two Shutterstock-related IP addresses (one in Germany, one in the Netherlands) which are both operated by cloud company Akamai. Whether other sites using the same IP addresses are also being affected is currently unclear.
For good measure, Russia is also targeting the image.shutterstock.com domain. As highlighted by Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda, which first reported the news, this is particularly problematic since rather than tackling just a single URL, a whole HTTPS subdomain is in the register.
While overblocking is never welcome, the great irony here is that while the Russian blacklist is often used to protect the rights of content creators, it is now effectively restricting their ability to do legitimate business in Russia via Shutterstock. Whether the company will remove the image to resolve the matter remains to be seen.
The so-called ‘Six-Strikes’ Copyright Alert System was once praised as an excellent tool to address online piracy.
Under the agreement, which included the major rightsholder groups MPA and RIAA, several large Internet providers in the US sent copyright infringement warnings to pirating customers.
After repeated alerts, these subscribers would face a variety of ‘mitigation’ measures but their accounts would not be terminated. Although rightsholders and ISPs appeared happy with the deal, it was shut down nearly three years ago.
Instead of cooperating with ISPs, several RIAA members then took another approach by filing lawsuits against Internet providers for not doing enough to curb piracy. This also happened to Cox, which was sued for failing to disconnect repeat infringers.
The lawsuit between several music companies and Cox is scheduled to go to trial later this month. Interestingly, the ISP is now planning to use the aforementioned Copyright Alert System (CAS) as evidence in its favor.
Cox was asked to participate in the voluntary anti-piracy scheme years ago but chose not to do so. According to the company, its own “strike” policy was already functioning well and perhaps even better than the industry-approved alternative.
This line of reasoning is also relevant for the ongoing legal dispute, Cox believes. The RIAA members disagreed and previously asked the court to exclude it from the trial. However, according to a recent ruling from Judge Liam O’Grady, the ISP is permitted to use it in its favor.
“Defendants are permitted to put on evidence about the Copyright Alert System as well as its own graduated response system, the Cox Abuse Ticket System,” O’Grady writes.
In addition, Cox is also allowed to present evidence about the policies at other ISPs, as identified in related reports, as long as it is relevant to the case.
This is a clear setback for the music labels which argued that the policies and actions of other ISPs and the CAS are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether Cox’s own anti-piracy system was reasonable or effective in comparison with other providers, they said.
The court disagreed, however, but it also brought some bad news for Cox.
The ISP planned to cite internal research to suggest that 96% of subscribers stopped receiving notices after the 5th warning. This was concluded in 2010 and resulted in the ISP’s belief that its “graduated response” system was effective.
According to the music companies these conclusions, of which the underlying data is no longer available, were based on a “mess of misleading calculations.” As such, they wanted it excluded from the trial.
Judge O’Grady agreed with the music companies. After reviewing the arguments from both sides, he concludes that there is no adequate foundation for the information presented in the “96% Stop By 5 Notices” evidence.
“Defendants have had ample time to produce such a foundation, and failed to do so. Discrepancies in numbers and figures as detailed in Plaintiffs’ briefs raise an alarming number of questions that demand the underlying data be produced, not just the emails Defendants offer in support,” O’Grady writes.
With these and various other motions dealt with, the trial will soon get underway. While some boundaries have been set, there is still plenty left to argue over.
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A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady’s order is available here (pdf).
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court1-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-03 07:48:352019-12-03 07:48:35Cox Can Use ‘Copyright Alert System’ Evidence in Piracy Case, Court Rules
With the rise of convenient web-based live streaming, in recent years the Premier League has found itself on the front lines of anti-piracy enforcement.
While a significant proportion of its actions are targeted at illicit offerings available in the UK, the Premier League doesn’t shy away from tackling those who offer live games in other areas of the world too.
The group, which operates top-tier football in England, says it launched an investigation which was taken on by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation in 2015. That developed into a covert investigation in Hong Kong during 2017 targeting individuals behind various websites operating under the banner Expat.tv.
The trail eventually led back to an operation in Thailand which offered pirate streams and preloaded set-top boxes across southeast Asia including Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia.
Raids were subsequently carried out by Thailand’s DSI at five locations including a residential address in Bangkok on May 11, 2017. Two British men were arrested and a Thai woman was detained at a later date.
One of the men subsequently skipped bail but the remaining pair faced charges, including copyright infringement, relating to the unlicensed distribution of Premier League content and running a major ‘piracy network’ across Asia. Both pleaded guilty and have now been sentenced.
The Premier League reports the pair have paid damages to them totaling THB 15 million (around £385,000) which, according to the League, is one of the highest damages awards for copyright infringement ever paid in Thailand.
This is an addition to funds of almost THB 7 million (£180,000) that were seized by the state, THB 3 million (£76,800) in fines, plus suspended prison sentences totaling 3.5 years.
“This is one of the most substantial compensations for piracy-related crimes in Thailand and is a stark warning to anyone involved in the illegal supply of Premier League streams,” says Premier League Director of Legal Services Kevin Plumb.
“Attitudes towards, and acceptance of, these types of operators in Asia is changing, which is good news for fans who watch Premier League content through legitimate channels.”
This latest success for the Premier League can be added to the growing list of anti-piracy victories reported by the football group in recent times which include dynamic blocking injunctions and dealing with the sprawling problem of premium IPTV services.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/grass-soccer.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-02 21:47:352019-12-02 21:47:35Premier League Piracy Case Ends In ‘Record Damages’, Suspended Sentences
To many people, the Pirate Bay logo is the icon of free entertainment. For more than 15 years, the site has been the goto place for pirate content.
Although the site has faced regular downtime and connectivity issues in recent years, it remains online today.
In recent weeks, however, we noticed that The Pirate Bay’s logo was regularly replaced with something else. This isn’t entirely new, as the site often used to swap the iconic pirate ship graphic to send a message.
The more recent changes are noteworthy though, as they are – at least in part – used to generate revenue.
The Pirate Bay never displayed standard ads on the site’s homepage. And while there are still no network ads, TPB has swapped its logo several times to promote the “Pirate Bay approved” VPN provider AzireVPN, as shown below.
The VPN provider confirmed to TorrentFreak that The Pirate Bay asked to join its affiliate program, which it uses to generate some extra revenue. In addition to the homepage banner that appeared several times, there’s a “VPN” link to AzireVPN on all TPB pages as well.
Another new logo that showed up recently promotes the file-hosting service TMP.ninja. It’s not clear whether this is an advertisement, or perhaps a promotion for a ‘friend,’ but there must be a good reason to show the banner.
We reached out to TMP.ninja to find out more but, at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. As with the VPN, TMP.ninja also has a sitewide link on the site, under the “filehosting” tag.
Finally, there’s The Pirate Bay’s promotion of the blockchain project Hex, which describes itself as the first high-interest savings account on the blockchain. Like most crypto projects it’s not without controversy. However, TPB believes it can get something out of it.
The torrent site currently displays a Hex.win banner on its homepage which comes with a referral link. This means that TPB gets a 20% bonus minted for everyone who signs up through the site.
It’s unclear whether the logo swaps are a temporary thing or if they will happen more frequently in the future. Over the past few weeks, the ‘promo’ logos have been appearing on an off, with Hex being the most recent addition.
In any case, people shouldn’t be surprised to see a slightly different look when they access the TPB homepage.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/worldfea.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-12-02 11:46:392019-12-02 11:46:39Pirate Bay Replaced Its Iconic Logo to Get Some Extra Revenue
In March, US-based author John Van Stry filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Travis McCrea, the operator of eBook download platform eBook.bike.
To say early progress in the case was disorganized is something of an understatement. With a relatively inexperienced McCrea opting to defend himself, things were never likely to go particularly smoothly.
Nevertheless, in September things appeared to get back on track, with McCrea eventually filing an answer to the complaint, pushing matters on to the next stage. Since then, however, the plaintiff and his attorney have grown increasingly frustrated with McCrea’s alleged conduct and tactics.
Back in August during a scheduling conference, the court indicated a desire to keep costs as low as possible during the discovery process, to the benefit of both plaintiff and defendant. According to a motion to compel discovery filed by the plaintiff this week, however, McCrea is allegedly frustrating the discovery process.
“Defendant has been acting at cross-purposes with the Court; bringing all progress in the case to a standstill by providing no response to discovery requests, much less any discovery; delaying by habitually requiring weeks and numerous emails from Plaintiff before Defendant responds to simple inquiries, such as indicating whether Defendant received the discovery requests,” the motion reads.
What follows is a laundry list of complaints, too numerous to cover here in detail. In summary, however, there are many accusations that McCrea promised to do things he subsequently didn’t, including missing deadlines, failing to communicate properly, if at all, and generally bogging the process down.
Van Stry’s attorney further accuses McCrea of “needlessly” driving up costs by “propounding discovery that Defendant never collected, and proposing a settlement requiring Plaintiff’s counsel to draft an agreement quickly, and then ignoring communications from Plaintiff regarding the same once drafted.”
In respect of the settlement, McCrea is said to have proposed terms that suited Van Stry and a draft was drawn up and sent to McCrea in advance of the required date of October 11, 2019. On October 9, counsel for the plaintiff reached out to McCrea to confirm receipt of the agreement and asked when a reply could be expected.
After McCrea’s own deadline passed without communication, on October 15 Van Stry’s legal team set a deadline of their own – October 18. McCrea reportedly got in touch on the day but then requested an amendment to the agreement, which was accepted and redrafted within hours.
A new deadline of October 21 passed without communication so on October 23, counsel for the plaintiff asked McCrea, “If there is some impediment to executing the agreement, please let us know.” According to the filing, a response to that statement was never received.
“Plaintiff can only speculate why Mr. McCrea would propose a settlement, making Plaintiff’s counsel scramble in order to achieve the objective after Plaintiff agreed to the settlement, and then ignore communication regarding the same, but such speculation by Plaintiff leads only to harmful motives on Mr. McCrea’s part,” the motion reads.
According to counsel for Van Stry, McCrea “is simply failing to prioritize” the litigation he’s involved in. McCrea is reportedly moving house but the plaintiff believes that the case is “at least on par” with the former Pirate Party leader’s commitments in respect of moving and working.
To highlight that McCrea isn’t taking things seriously, Van Stry’s team indicate they have been watching McCrea’s Reddit activity, noting that he’s had time to post “over 100 times” on the platform during October and November but not deal with the lawsuit efficiently.
In closing, the author’s attorney asks the court to set McCrea a quick deadline to deliver his discovery responses.
“Plaintiff is asking the Court to recognize Mr. McCrea’s behavior as unacceptable, and asking that Mr. McCrea be given a tight and strict deadline to fully respond to the interrogatories and RFPs or face consequences,” the motion concludes.
The response from the court was swift. Two days later an order appeared on the docket ordering McCrea to take action or face the consequences.
“Because of the apparent lack of progress in the discovery process in this case and the impending deadlines for the close of discovery and the filing of dispositive motions, the defendant is ordered to respond to the motion by 5:00 pm, Central (U.S.) Time, on December 2, 2019,” Judge Bryson writes.
“In the absence of a response from the defendant by that time, the motion will be treated as unopposed, and the Court will take action based on the allegations in the motion.”
The motion to compel and subsequent order can be found here and here (pdf)
The entertainment industry is a major driver of the US economy, good for millions of jobs and billions in revenue.
To protect this industry the US Government is keeping a close eye on copyright policies around the world.
This often happens following referrals from industry groups. For example, earlier this year the US Trade Representative (USTR) was asked to take a close look at South Africa’s copyright track record.
This request came from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). This coalition of prominent rightsholder groups, including the MPA and RIAA, informed the USTR that it’s not happy with how South Africa addresses copyright issues.
In its submission the IIPA called for trade sanctions, recommending that the U.S. Government should suspend South Africa’s GSP trade benefits. According to the group, the country doesn’t do enough to protect the interests of copyright holders.
“South Africa does not meet the GSP eligibility criteria primarily due to its weak copyright law and enforcement regime,” the IIPA noted.
The USTR took the matter seriously and recently launched an official review of South Africa’s intellectual property rights protections, asking the public for input. If these protections are not deemed to be “adequate and effective” the country faces trade sanctions.
“USTR has accepted a petition filed by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA). The petition alleges that the Government of South Africa does not provide adequate and effective copyright protection for U.S. copyrighted works,” the USTR announced.
In recent years, copyright issues have already been on the political agenda in South Africa. Lawmakers have been working on a new copyright bill, which is close to being signed into law. However, according to the IIPA, this hasn’t delivered any progress. On the contrary.
“This legislation will move South Africa further away from international norms by failing to establish a clear legal framework to provide adequate and effective protection of copyrighted material, especially in the digital environment,” the IIPA noted.
The group strives for modern copyright laws and enforcement regimes around the world and notes that the African country falls short. Among other things, the IIPA would like South Africa to appoint special cybercrime inspectors and develop a cybercrime security hub, recognizing copyright as a top priority.
While the US Government can’t write South Africa’s laws directly, trade sanctions might just help motivate the local Government to take action in the interest of US companies. That would certainly not be the first time.
In 2017 the US Government sanctioned Ukraine following a similar referral from the IIPA. This triggered a wave of copyright-related actions in the country, after which President Trump decided to lift the sanctions last month.
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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the anti-piracy alliance featuring several Hollywood studios, Amazon, Netflix and other entertainment outfits, has declared war on pirate streaming services.
The alliance is the driving force behind several lawsuits including the one filed against Florida-based IPTV service SET TV early last year.
At the time, SET TV was a popular software-based IPTV service that was also sold pre-loaded with set-top boxes. While it was marketed as a legal service, ACE members framed it as little more than a pirate tool, allowing buyers to stream copyright-infringing content.
“Defendants market and sell subscriptions to ‘Setvnow,’ a software application that Defendants urge their customers to use as a tool for the mass infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted motion pictures and television shows,” the complaint read.
Soon after the lawsuit was filed the IPTV service went offline, leaving its 180,000 subscribers behind. But that didn’t mean the case against SET TV, its owner Jason Labossiere, and employee Nelson Johnson, was over. ACE pressed on, hoping to get a judgment in its favor.
Without any of the defendants putting up a defense, ACE booked its first victory a few months ago. The media companies submitted a motion for a default judgment against the company SET Broadcast, LLC, which the court granted.
ACE celebrated the victory in public, but the matter wasn’t completely closed. The anti-piracy alliance managed to secure a judgment against the company, but not the two employees. To address that, the copyright holders went back to the court requesting another default judgment.
This week the U.S. District Court for Central California granted their request. SET TV owner Jason Labossiere and employee Nelson Johnson, who both failed to put up a defense, were found guilty of willful copyright infringement.
The rightsholders demanded the maximum in statutory damages of $150,000 for each of the 51 infringed works. The Court deemed this appropriate. The mentioned works were just a small sample so the actual damages “would likely be astronomically higher.”
As a result, Labossiere and Johnson must pay $7,650,000 in damages. The two are jointly and severally liable, meaning that both can be required to pay the full amount if the other is unable to.
In addition to the damages, the Court also issued a permanent injunction to prevent any future copyright infringement. Among other things, the men are prohibited from operating the Set TV Now service, as well as any website, system, software, or service that is substantially similar.
With judgments against all defendants, the most recent order effectively ends the SET TV lawsuit. However, it’s certainly not the end of ACE’s legal campaigns.
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A copy of the default judgment granted by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Fitzgerald, is available here (pdf).
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The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.
RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/worldfea.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-11-30 19:42:352019-11-30 19:42:35Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week on BitTorrent – 11/25/19
Until recently, Boom Media was one of the most active and recognizable ‘pirate’ IPTV reseller brands available to the public.
Operating in the United States under the name Boom Media LLC, the company acted as a reseller for IPTV subscription services including MFG TV, Beast TV, Nitro TV, Murica Streams, Epic IPTV, Vader Streams, and OK2.
As reported early November, this attracted the unwanted attention of DISH Network and partner NagraStar, who teamed up to sue Boom Media LLC and son and mother team John and Debra Henderson.
The broadcaster claimed that the Boom Media service, which was allegedly operated from John’s home, received payments from customers via accounts operated by mother Debra. This operation, DISH said, resulted in willful violations of the company’s rights under the Federal Communications Act.
While some of DISH’s similar lawsuits have dragged on for some time in court, there’s evidence to suggest that in addition to obtaining cash settlements from targets such as Boom, the broadcaster views such litigation as a stepping-stone to further litigation against their associates. And, of course, more settlements.
John Henderson certainly believes this is the case. In an expletive-ridden video posted to YouTube this week, he says that DISH and NagraStar want to break him down in their hunt for information on others involved in the IPTV supply and consumption chain.
He says he’s not comfortable with that at all so he wants to take the fight to DISH in order to prevent that from happening. But of course, that will take money – lots of money – and he wants that to be donated by former customers and other interested parties.
“I set up a GoFundMe to help me pay for legal fees. The point of that is i’m gonna take this shit to a trial by jury, that’s my intent. So basically, the lawyer just to start is $15,000,” he says.
“The basic point is in order for me to get any kind of settlement, I have to turn over information on fucking everything, everything I’ve ever known, and I’m just not comfortable doing that. Yeah, so you bought [subscriptions to IPTV services through Boom] but they have the right to subpoena Google and PayPal.”
The $15,000 to get started is, well, just that. The GoFundMe currently has a target of $250,000 but whether that sizeable amount will cover the costs of lengthy litigation is up for debate. Nevertheless, Henderson says that by biting back, he can stop DISH from getting his customers’ details and sending them demands for cash settlements for alleged piracy.
“What they’ve done with these cookie-cutter lawsuits is that they’ve turned them into a stream of revenue for themselves. This isn’t really about fucking lawsuits and protecting anything at this point, it’s about getting information to send you a fucking letter demanding $3,500, which is what they’ve been doing with everyone.
“Everyone has settled, no one has taken them to trial, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it unfolds,” he says.
Henderson acknowledges that the legal process is going to cost “a shit-load of money” but if people don’t want to support him, “that’s fine”. However, he warns that these types of cases can set a precedent and handing over the information is something he wants to avoid, to protect everyone in the supply and consumption chain.
“I think I have some valid points why they shouldn’t be able to get that information at all. That’s really all there is to it, I’m asking for support. I think resellers across the fucking globe should be jumping on this because whatever happens to me, does affect you because now they can say ‘we got this from Boom Media’, this is the way it worked out, now you must settle,” he adds.
Henderson believes that IPTV providers themselves should also take an interest in a successful outcome to the case because if resellers are no longer a legal target, they won’t have any reason to give up information on their suppliers.
“The only reason that people are getting snitched on is because resellers are pussies, I mean that’s just the way it is,” he claims.
Boom Media: We need $250,000 to fight DISH lawsuit
“I have [the GoFundMe] up for $250,000. I know that when TVAddons was going through this, that’s pretty much how it went. They just bled them dry,” Henderson says.
While TVAddons did have a huge legal dispute with DISH that undoubtedly cost founder Adam Lackman a lot of money, Lackman insists that he never handed over his users’ data to DISH. That suggests there may be a way out of Henderson’s situation without compromising his suppliers and former customers but only time will tell if a jury trial can deliver the type of victory that avoids that.
If it even gets that far, that is.
While a quarter of a million dollars is a significant sum, Henderson fully expects to face tactics designed to break his ability to fight back. Already he claims that DISH is attempting to get a gag order to prevent him from telling the world “what garbage they are for suing an innocent woman, my mother, knowing goddamn well she had nothing to do with anything.”
Until he gets served with a gag order, however, he’s not shutting up at all, he insists. Meanwhile, he says that DISH is generating money from a “stupid tax”, a reference to all the IPTV and IKS (Internet Key Sharing) users to whom DISH sends letters and receives settlements in return.
The fundraiser’s goals
“They [DISH] want everything from me. They want my soul, they want all the information, they want me to roll on everyone, which isn’t even really possible but I’m not gonna do it,” Henderson adds.
“I’m fully prepared to go to war over this shit but I’m gonna need financial help. Obviously, everyone knows I’m out of business, that’s the way it is. I’m not a millionaire, I’m not a billionaire, I’m barely a thousandaire.”
Henderson doesn’t provide any proof, but claims that Vader Streams – a pirate IPTV provider that was targeted by the MPA-backed Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment earlier this year, “snitched on everyone, they snitched and they rolled over and they gave up everything.” Prior to the settlement agreement, Vader said it would not compromise customers.
Henderson says he doesn’t want to go down the disclosure route but DISH is on record wanting Boom Media to do just that. In addition to a permanent injunction against the company, it wants Boom’s domain name plus “all hard copy and electronic records” regarding persons involved in the entire “Rebroadcasting Scheme”.
At the time of writing, the GoFundMe has raised $700 of its $250,000 target.
The original complaint against Boom Media can be found here (pdf)
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There are plenty of options for copyright holders to frustrate the operations of pirate sites, but one of the most effective is to attack their domain names.
In recent years, various entertainment industry groups have called on the domain name industry to help out on this front.
As a result, the MPAA signed a landmark agreement with the Donuts registry under which the movie industry group acts as a “trusted notifier” of “pirate” domains. A similar deal was later announced with the Radix registry.
Not all registrars and registries are welcoming these types of voluntary actions. The Public Interest Registry (PIR), which oversees the registrations of .org domains, was previously asked by the RIAA to suspend The Pirate Bay’s domain name. However, the organization chose not to do so.
Many registrars and registries don’t like the idea of acting as “content police.” Instead, they prefer these matters to be handled through the courts instead. This is one of the main reasons why The Pirate Bay, after more than 15 years, is still accessible on its .org domain.
Ironically, the infamous torrent site moved to over a dozen other domains in the past, fearing a .org domain seizure. However, while many other the other domains were suspended or taken by court order, thepiratebay.org stands tall.
The question is whether things will remain this way, as PIR is in the process of being sold to private equity firm Ethos Capital. At the moment, PIR is part of the Internet Society, which is critical of stringent copyright policies, but its new owner may see things differently.
Possible policy changes are also a concern many organizations and groups have. A few days ago, EFF, Wikimedia, Internet Archive, Creative Commons, Demand Progress, and several others, sent a letter to Internet Society President Andrew Sullivan, urging him to stop the sale.
The groups are concerned that Ethos may raise domain name prices and that it will implement rights protection mechanisms. In addition, they caution that domain names could be suspended for alleged illegal activity, without any judicial oversight.
Ethos will have “the power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of ‘activity contrary to applicable law’,” the letter reads.
The organizations are concerned that this will put NGOs at risk. However, the same issues are very relevant for The Pirate Bay as well. After all, that will be one of the prime candidates for a voluntary domain name suspension.
Thus far there is no indication that Ethos has any plans to do so. However, if we look closely at the company we do notice something worth sharing. Erik Brooks, the founder and CEO of Ethos Capital, served (or serves) on the board of the Donuts registry.
Yes, that’s the same Donuts the MPAA has an agreement with to suspend copyright-infringing domains. Brooks joined the board after that deal was struck, but it’s an interesting observation nonetheless.
TorrentFreak reached out to both the Internet Society and Ethos Capital for further details but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back.
We doubt that The Pirate Bay is worried about any of this. While it may become more likely that they’ll lose their original .org domain sometime in the future, the site always has alternatives ready. We have little doubt that they still have a few lined up, just in case.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ships-fea.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-11-29 23:40:352019-11-29 23:40:35Planned .Org Registry Sale Puts The Pirate Bay at Risk