Back in March, US-based author John Van Stry filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Travis McCrea, the operator of eBook platform eBook.bike.

The direction of the case has been somewhat disorganized but rests on Van Stry’s basic claims that his books appeared on eBook.bike without his permission and weren’t taken down, resulting in breaches of copyright law.

McCrea, on the other hand, says that the DMCA notices he received from the author were deficient, meaning he has no case to answer. In August, a motion for default judgment filed by Van Stry was set aside, as was a motion to dismiss filed by McCrea. At that time, a trial date was provisionally set for June 2020.

This week, McCrea – who is defending himself – filed his answer to the 54-page complaint filed by Van Stry in March. In many respects it covers old ground, such as restating McCrea’s defense under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA and reiterating the claim that Van Stry’s notices were deficient and thus contributed to any problems he may have faced.

Even more fundamentally, McCrea’s answer states that no evidence has been presented to the Court to back up Van Stry’s claim that eBook.bike ever advertised, imported, or distributed any copyrighted material. On that basis, McCrea denies all the claims to the contrary.

“No files have been submitted for evidence, nothing that proves that infringement actually happened at all, nothing that even shows the files were in fact on the servers,” he writes.

A significant portion of Van Stry’s original complaint focused on McCrea’s character and alleged previous conduct, describing him as having a “proud history of pervasive, blatant, and egregious violations of other persons’ intellectual property rights” as a key figure in the Pirate Party movement.

The complaint adds that McCrea was president/reverend of the Kopimist Church of Idaho – a spin-off from the pro-file-sharing Church of Kopimism which was recognized as a religion in Sweden back in 2012.

“‘Reverend’ McCrea is on record as having said that ‘giving away other people’s intellectual property’ is his ‘religious vocation’,” the complaint noted.

In his answer, McCrea says that none of these things should be taken as evidence that he breaks the law.

“[T]he Plaintiff shows that the Defendant is active politically but does not show a link between the political action and the Defendant’s desire to engage in illegal activities,” McCrea writes.

“The Defense accepts that the Defendant has both religious and political beliefs that deal with the concept of intellectual property laws. However, the 1st Amendment of the constitution protects the Defense for having political and religious beliefs.

“It is no more appropriate to allow the belief in Kopimism and the Pirate Party to be evidence for actually infringing in copyright as it would be to assume Baptists and/or a Republican are going to bomb an abortion clinic.”

Further underlining that someone’s religious beliefs don’t necessarily lead to them following every ‘rule’ to the letter, McCrea states that Leviticus 21:17-24 “essentially” tells follows to “shun ugly people” but Catholic Priests don’t do that. Jacob 2:24-30, he continues, references “plural marriage” but Mormons largely reject that because it’s illegal.

“You can believe in something without practicing it. The defense denies wrongdoing and will make a subsequent motion to have religious references struck from the case,” he adds.

But even with that said, McCrea cites religion as at least part of his defense. Noting that Van Stry has provided no proof of infringement and that in any event eBook.bike is protected under the DMCA, he accuses the author of introducing conjecture of a nature that potentially violates his human rights and ability to practice religion without persecution.

“An argument will be made that in a worst case scenario where the Defendant had failed to adequately address the copyright infringement per the DMCA it was only acting in a way to balance their religious beliefs against the societal laws that also bound them,” the answer reads.

“When a religion is acting without harm to those around them, leeway must be given to allow them to exercise their right to free expression as per the First Amendment.”

In closing, McCrea calls for Van Stry to “take nothing” and judgment to be awarded in his favor, including recovering all costs related to the lawsuit from the author and any additional relief the Court deems appropriate.

McCrea’s answer can be obtained here (pdf)

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When Disney announced that it would launch its own streaming service, two years ago, some noted that this would keep piracy relevant.

People had just become used to having access to a broad movie and TV library in one or two places, and any increased fragmentation appeared to be a step backward.

Fast forward to 2019 and Disney is about to launch its new service. At the same time, more and more streaming subscription platforms are coming up with exclusive releases. If you want to see those, you have to sign up.

While that may not be a problem for some, there is an audience of millions who don’t want to or simply can’t pay for a handful of streaming subscriptions. This means that they have to pick the ones they want the most.

That’s the hard reality for modern consumers, at least, for those who don’t want to break the law.

As it turns out, many people are willing to cross the line, and the increased fragmentation of video streaming service is indeed driving people back to pirate sites. This problem may actually be worse than some think, based on new research that was just published by Broadband Genie.

The broadband comparison/advice site conducted a survey among UK streaming users and found that 18% confessed to using pirate sites on the side. However, this number could more than double to 37% if the legal streaming subscription market continues to fragment.

The cost of these services is the driving factor behind the findings. Two thirds (67%) of the surveyed UK streamers feel that they are already paying too much. The average expenditure is roughly £15 a month, where a maximum of £10 is seen as ideal.

Interestingly, those people who consider becoming pirates are not doing so without taking precautions. More than half (60%) of the prospective pirates say they will invest in a VPN to prevent copyright holders from tracing their steps.

Alex Tofts, Broadband Expert at Broadband Genie, notes that we’re still a long way from having all video entertainment in one place. People have options to save costs, through family discounts, for example. But instead, many people prefer to pay for a VPN so they can go the pirate route.

“It’s disheartening that consumers are prepared to turn to streams and file sharing to access the content they want. The price consumers are willing to pay is the equivalent of subscribing to one service,” Tofts says.

Rightsholders, meanwhile, keep repeating that availability is no longer a problem. They are right. In most countries, people can watch pretty much everything they want, but it comes at a price which, according to the survey, they are not willing to pay.

If fragmentation increases most people will still pay for legal services, but an increasing number will additionally use pirate services to watch content that’s otherwise only available at platforms they don’t have access to.

Availability is no longer the key issue. Instead, the focus has shifted to convenience and affordability. The prospect of signing up and using four or even five different streaming service is not affordable for many people, nor is it convenient.

The solution would be to provide universal access to a multitude of services through a single interface at a decent price. That’s what people also get at pirate sites. But this is easier said than done, as it won’t bring in enough revenue, at least not at the subscription rates we have now.

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Streaming has become the preferred way for pirates to enjoy movies and TV-shows which, unwittingly, boosted the profile of the Kodi media center.

The term “Kodi” often shows up in piracy-related headlines and was even banned by Amazon’s app store and removed from Google’s autocomplete suggestions for its links to copyright infringement.

Those who don’t know better may think that Kodi itself is illegal but that’s certainly not the case. The bad reputation is the result of dozens of unofficial addons and builds, which can turn the software into a piracy tool, something the Kodi team can do little about.

While this is well-known to insiders, the people behind Kodi are faced with the piracy stigma pretty much every day. Questions like “is Kodi legal” are often asked and this week the Kodi team makes an effort to answer this question as clearly as it can.

Kodi’s Darren Hill notes that the piracy associations are in large part driven by sources that fail to make the distinction between the Kodi media center and third-party addons. Kodi itself doesn’t offer access to pirated media, but third-party addons can.

“Due to various 3rd party addons, the app has gained an unwanted reputation as being a way to get movies and TV shows for free. This is not helped at all by certain unscrupulous websites and YouTube bloggers who encourage and perpetuate the myth, simply to increase their traffic from web users and earn more cash from the site sponsors,” Hill writes.

Indeed, Kodi related searches on either Google or YouTube return plenty of results that feature its ‘piracy’ capabilities, which are of great interest to a certain audience. On YouTube, there are entire channels dedicated to Kodi piracy, which get millions of views.

The Kodi team isn’t happy with this situation. They stress that their media player is meant to play people’s locally stored media files or to use any of the Kodi-vetted addons. There are no piracy traces or options in the default software.

“As we supply it, Kodi is totally legal,” Hill clarifies.

People who do want to use third-party addons have the option to do so. However, this capability is disabled by default. Those who enable it, do it at their own risk, which, based on the usage numbers, millions of people are willing to take.

That begs the question. If third-party addons are causing all this trouble, why not ban them altogether?

While that seems like a simple step, it’s also one that goes against the very nature of the Kodi project. The Kodi team informs TorrentFreak that it believes in an open ecosystem, much like Android and Windows. Especially since Kodi itself is open-source software (OSS).

“Similar to how Android allows you to install any APK, which can provide 3rd party store access we have a similar belief/idea,” Kodi’s Keith Herrington tells us.

“Our purpose isn’t to be a gatekeeper of how folks use our software. Most OSS is designed to remove these restrictions and barriers to entry, leveling the playing field so anyone can utilize technology how they wish to see it,” he adds.

The intention was never to make Kodi a ‘consumable’ product, although it can be. As an open ecosystem, it’s first and foremost something others can build upon and enjoy. It’s a breeding ground for developers, many of whom contribute to the project.

That there are bad actors is a given by now. Theoretically, Kodi could restrict ‘unsigned’ addons but it doesn’t believe that there’s a safe and constructive manner to do so. Other have tried this, but often without success.

“Google has tried, failed, and then gave up on this, so if a billion-dollar+ company can’t figure this out, I doubt our loosely organized group of volunteers doing this all for fun can, either,” Herrington says.

The last part is something most people forget. Kodi is created and supported by volunteers – it’s not a for-profit operation. While many outsiders have built businesses, legal or not, based on the software, those who code and support the media center do it for free. And people promoting piracy addons are ruining Kodi’s image in the process.

“It’s sad how many ‘social media influencers’ think they’ve ‘helped us’ in some way, by getting us ‘more followers’. That isn’t how this works,” Herrington notes. “Nobody is paid here. Many others are making money off the backs of our hard work, and its a struggle, and it sucks to see how the media treats us.”

The Kodi team does accept donations and every now and then users send over $5 or $10, or even a bit more. This helps the core team to meet up and go to conferences and pay for administrative costs, but not much more than that.

In fact, while we are writing this piece the main Kodi website is down because its “sponsor” Acquia pulled the plug as it was using too many resources. One dedicated server can easily run the website, but apparently that’s already a challenge to get.

Coming back to the third-party addon issue, Kodi’s Darren Hill informs TorrentFreak that the team believes in freedom of choice. Kodi shouldn’t police its users, nor does it intend to.

“We specifically do not tell the user what to do and how to use Kodi, that should be up to them. All we ask is that their choice is an enlightened one, and they fully understand what they are doing. Equally, if there are any repercussions from their actions, then those too are entirely their responsibility,” Hill says.

That outsiders are hurting Kodi’s image is unfortunate, but that doesn’t stop the team from continuing its work. While some rightsholders have threatened legal action, there’s also a growing group that’s better informed and doesn’t blame the media center.

Just recently, the Copyright Alliance made this pretty clear in a submission to the US Customs and Border Protection Bureau.

“While the Kodi system itself is a legitimate media center, the system is open source – meaning that just about anybody can use the device’s original blueprint to create software that configures Kodi boxes to access illegal streams of films and shows that are available online – and unfortunately, they do,” the group wrote.

So, while the Kodi team cautions users to be aware of unlawful third-party addons it’s not going to try to ban them anytime soon. Instead, it will focus on making the media center better. That includes the official addon library, which can use some extra addons.

“We hope someday our curated addon repo will be so good and have so much content that everything a user could want would be available. This is not the case today. We’ve made great strides with our PVR addons, but we’d love to work with any content provider out there, and hope more will reach out,” Kodi’s Keith Herrington concludes.

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Millennium Films is continuing its quest to identify and shut down pirate sites and services.

In recent weeks the company managed to take the widely popular app CotoMovies offline and the popular torrent site MKVCage also disappeared following legal pressure.

To identify the operators of these sites and apps the movie outfit, alongside several of its daughter companies, uses a relatively simple weapon. Through their attorney, they request DMCA subpoenas, ordering hosts, domain registries, and other intermediaries to share personal information of their targets.

While foreign companies may not always be responsive to such requests, US-based corporations usually are.

The most recent effort from Millennium Films is particularly interesting in this regard. The company requested a subpoena to compel the .To registry to hand over information connected to the domains of streaming sites FMovies.to, Yesmovies.to and Cmovieshd.to, as well as torrent site iBit.to.

According to information submitted to the court, the sites are linked to pirated copies of the film “London Has Fallen.”

While .To is the top-level domain of the island kingdom of Tonga, the Tonic registry operates through Tonic Domains Corp., which clearly has a U.S. presence with a California address. As such, it will generally fall under the jurisdiction of US courts.

As is usually the case with DMCA subpoenas, this request was swiftly approved by a court clerk without oversight from a judge. As such, the registry is required to hand over emails, phone numbers, payment details, and other information it has on the domain owners.

Interestingly, the subpoena request contains several errors. It repeatedly refers to Cloudflare, for example. This is likely because it was copied from a previous submission. In addition, it addresses “Tonics Domain” corp, instead of “Tonic Domains,” but the court clerk approved it nonetheless.

Responding to our inquiry, the Tonic registry said that it will, and has always complied with valid US subpoenas. This means that it will respond to this request as well, unless it sees the misspelled name as problematic.

The question remains what Millennium Films can do with the information. While some pirate sites and services are responsive to legal pressure, not all are.

FMovies, for example, which is the largest site targeted in this instance, didn’t flinch when it was sued by ABS-CBN three years ago. The site operators simply didn’t respond to the complaint, resulting in a default judgment of $210,000 in damages.

The same judgment, issued by a federal court in Florida, also came with an injunction allowing ABS-CBN to take over the FMovies.to domain name, but that never happened.

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A copy of the subpoena issued by the US District Court for the District of Hawaii is available here (pdf).

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Music piracy, in various forms, has been a problem for decades but more recently stream-ripping has emerged as the dominant source.

Three years ago music industry group IFPI sounded the alarm bell. Stream-ripping had become a bigger piracy threat than other forms of piracy, including torrent sites, the group said.

This awareness motivated various music labels and publishers to crack down on ripping tools. That also led to the demise of YouTube-MP3, which once was the most popular ripping site.

While there was no shortage of enforcement actions, the stream-ripping problem only appeared to increase. By this time last year, IFPI’s yearly consumer insight report revealed that 32% of all Internet users were stream rippers, up from 30% in 2016.

Online piracy, in general, was also substantial, as 38% of the surveyed Internet users classified themselves as pirates. That number includes the stream-rippers, obtaining content from various legal sites.

These statistics are certainly concerning but what IFPI failed to note was that a downward trend was starting to emerge, one that continues today.

IFPI just released its latest consumer insight report, which it renamed to the “Music Listening” report. The main focus is on legal consumption, which is thriving. However, stream-ripping piracy is still highlighted as a major threat.

“Copyright infringement remains a challenge for the music ecosystem. 27% of all those surveyed used unlicensed methods to listen to or obtain music in the past month, while 23% used illegal stream ripping services – the leading form of music piracy,” IFPI notes.

There is little further context in the full report as IFPI doesn’t compare the numbers to earlier years, as it does with other statistics. We don’t know whether this is intentional or not, but the music industry group fails to observe one of the largest changes in piracy consumption in recent years.

This year 27% of Internet users classify themselves as music pirates, compared to 38% last year. Similarly, the percentage of stream-rippers dropped from 32% to 23% between 2018 and 2019, which is a rather dramatic decrease.

To put this into perspective, out of every 100 persons who were classified as music pirates last year, 29 kicked the habit. And for every 100 stream-rippers, 28 stopped. These groups obviously overlap, but it’s certainly a major shift.

Another thing we observed is that the role of search engines is no longer highlighted. This used to be a top priority. In 2016 IFPI reported that 66% of all music pirates used general search engines (e.g. Google) to find pirated music. A year later this went down to 54%, last year it dipped under 50%, and in 2019 it’s not mentioned at all.

For some reason, we think this may have been different if these trends had gone in the other direction. For example, in 2016, IFPI sounded the alarm bell when stream-ripping grew 10% while the 28% drop this year isn’t mentioned.

Perhaps the music industry group has its reasons not to discuss these newsworthy changes, but we definitely think it is at least worth pointing them out.

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