France has been working hard to disrupt online piracy for more than a decade, largely through the efforts of local anti-piracy agency Hadopi.

After many years of planning, in 2010 France became a pioneer of the so-called “graduated response” system, whereby persistent copyright infringers could eventually find themselves disconnected from the Internet.

The entire project was overseen by Hadopi (High Authority for the Distribution and Protection of Intellectual Property on the Internet), the government agency responsible created to ensure citizens comply with relevant anti-piracy laws.

Hadopi has made the headline numerous times over the past 10 years, largely reporting on progress in its field. However, Hadopi’s main goal was to reduce illicit sharing on peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent, which has in many instances given way to streaming equivalents in the interim.

In an announcement this week by the Ministry of Culture, it transpires that a new bill foresees Hadopi merging with another powerful government agency in the near future

The CSA (Conseil Supérieur de L’audiovisuel / Higher Audiovisual Council) – is the local authority for the regulation of electronic media in France, including television. It’s envisioned that a merger between Hadopi and CSA will create a brand new organization with even greater powers for regulating all things digital.

According to a Reuters report, the merger project will be presented to the Council of Minister in November before arriving at parliament early next year.

“The idea is to create a new authority based on this merger that regulates both audiovisual communications and digital communications,” said Franck Riester, France’s Minister of Culture.

Earlier this year, Riester noted that the convergence between the Internet, television, and radio needed to be addressed. This planned merger seems a clear attempt to bridge the gaps although what it will mean for anti-piracy enforcement will remain to be seen.

A July 2018 report indicated that not only were French pirates on the wane (down from 11.6 million in 2016 to 10.6 million in 2017), many were increasingly turning to legal sources such as Netflix.

Those that were still determined to pirate were also downloading and streaming less unlicensed content, with consumption down by 4% and the number of pirates without access to a legal subscription dropping by 30%.

A more recent report, published this June, indicated that in 2018 the agency had dealt with 50,000 to 70,000 instances of Internet users unlawfully and repeatedly making content available on peer-to-peer networks.

“[D]uring the three phases of warnings sent to Internet users, 60% of them were no longer accused of new illegal acts,” Hadopi said, citing the scheme’s effectiveness.

Nevertheless, calls remain for enforcement to be stepped up, including via the use of blacklists that would help to restrict access to unlicensed streaming sites via ISPs and search engines, while encouraging advertisers to boycott the platforms.

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For many years, Dutch Internet users were allowed to download copyrighted content with impunity, as long as it was for their own use.

In 2014, the European Court of Justice decided that the country’s “piracy levy” through which rightsholders could be compensated, was actually unlawful.

It took another three years for entertainment industry groups to realize the untapped potential of settlement lawsuits but in 2017 it was revealed that distribution company Dutch Filmworks (DFW) wanted to begin monitoring pirates. It didn’t immediately mention it would be seeking any compensation but that always seemed likely.

Later that year it became clear the company would indeed try to do just that, using an initial letter to alleged infringers to request payment.

“[The lettter] will propose a fee,” said DFW CEO Willem Pruijsserts. “If someone does not agree [to pay], the organization can start a lawsuit.”

However, before DFW can begin sending letters, it needs to match the IP addresses of alleged infringers with real identities and for that, it needs cooperation from ISPs. Immediately, ISPs including Ziggo refused to comply without being taken to court.

DFW went ahead wth legal action anyway and targeted 377 of Ziggo’s customers, all alleged to have downloaded the movie “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”. However, the effort failed when in February 2019 the Central Netherlands Court denied the company’s request for data.

The Court didn’t deny that those sharing copyrighted movies without permission were breaking the law. However, it also pointed out that an IP-address alone doesn’t identify an infringer. The Court also had issues with the settlement amount that DFW proposed to extract from alleged infringers, describing the ‘fine’ as “in no way substantiated” in respect of actual damages.

In response, DFW filed an appeal, stating that the judge in the case “agreed with DFW on almost all points” so felt that the ruling should have gone the distributor’s way.

“DFW is of the opinion that this decision should have been in favor of the rightsholder and it is convinced that the claim should be awarded on appeal,” the company said.

Accordingly, the Court of Appeal looked at the case and was due to deliver its verdict yesterday, September 3, 2019. However, a report from NRC now reveals that the decision will be postponed “partly due to the complexity of the case.”

A spokesperson for the Court told the publication that “we’re working hard on it” and a ruling should be handed down no later than November 5, 2019, but hopefully sooner.

While in other regions of Europe, notably countries like Germany and Sweden, the discovery process can be a fairly simple one, it seems clear that the Dutch court wants to take a much closer look at the details.

What those reservations are isn’t yet clear but the earlier insistence from DFW, that subscribers should be responsible for what happens on their connections whether they’re the infringer or not, might be playing a part in the Court’s hesitancy.

On top, of course, any decision in favor of DFW could open the floodgates to other companies seeking to obtain settlements from Internet users, something which would be music to the ears of various copyright trolls, many based in the United States and working on an industrial scale.

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This week we have two newcomers in our chart.

Dark Phoenix is the most downloaded movie.

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.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(…)	Dark Phoenix	6.0 / trailer
2	(2)	John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum	7.8 / trailer
3	(1)	Men in Black: International	5.6 / trailer
4	(4)	Avengers: Endgame	8.7 / trailer
5	(3)	Aladdin	7.3 / trailer
6	(5)	Godzilla: King of the Monsters	6.5 / trailer
7	(…)	The Dead Don’t Die	5.9 / trailer
8	(6)	The Secret Life of Pets 2	6.5 / trailer
9	(7)	Rocketman	7.6 / trailer
10	(10)	Avengers: Endgame	8.6 / trailer

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When The Pirate Bay launched in the second half of 2003, it set out to be the bastion of uncensored information.

The site categorically rejects takedown requests from copyright holders and allows anyone to upload almost anything.

During its sixteen years of operation, The Pirate Bay has always been free to use and open to the public at large. Those who wanted to share files only had to register an account, which was easy enough.

The last sentence is in the past tense, as user registrations have become a problem this year. For more than three months The Pirate Bay’s user registrations have been closed. The last ‘new’ user was added to the torrent site on May 22 and there is no sign that this will change anytime soon.

As we reported previously, the TPB team said that registrations were closed to stop floods of malware torrents. This was done in by the site’s operator, ‘Winston,’ in response to a request from a moderator.

The plan was to address the problem by putting a limit on the number of torrents users could upload in a short timeframe. That would prevent hundreds of spam torrents being uploaded at once. After this fix, TPB could accept new users again and continue business as usual.

However, after pretty much an entire summer with closed registrations, there doesn’t appear to be any progress. TorrentFreak spoke to a TPB moderator who notes that there is still no word on the issue from ‘Winston,’ who’s in charge of the backend.

“I have no idea if and when he’ll reopen them,” TPB staffer Spud17 tells us, adding that the temporary measure does limit the spam problem.

At the time of writing, the “register” button remains present in the site. However, following the required steps persistently returns the following error message: “Wrong code x. The username and/or e-mail address is already in use.“

Interestingly, closed registrations don’t appear to affect the site’s popularity, perhaps because only a fraction of the users upload content. However, every now and then a complaint pops up in the official TPB forums.

Questioning or complaining users are usually told that there is no news on the registration issue yet. In other words, prospective users have to be patient.

All of the major uploaders, who are responsible for the vast majority of the popular content on TPB, remain active, of course. This means that there is no significant decrease in the volume of new torrents, apart from those containing spam and malware.

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Game publisher Epic Games has taken a tough stance against Fortnite cheaters.

Aside from banning people from the game, it has also filed lawsuits against several people who promoted or sold cheats online.

One of the most recent lawsuits targets a popular YouTuber called CBV, who was sued by Epic Games in June. The games company is pursuing the minor (referred to as C.B. in the complaint) with several claims, including copyright infringement and breaches of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

While plenty of kids would be terrified facing a lawsuit like this, CBV didn’t appear to be impressed. In a YouTube video where he explained the situation last month, the 14-year-old said that he wouldn’t make Fortnite videos anymore. However, he was far from apologetic.

“Fuck epic games. I mean, at least they can’t come after my channel anymore. I’m never gonna make another video. But if they really want to come at my neck for 100 Mil then they can just fuck their brand on their own,” CBV said.

The alleged cheater lawyered up and responded by filing a motion to dismiss at a North Carolina federal court Among other things, his attorneys pointed out that the Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over this client and that requiring a minor to defend himself in another state would be unreasonable.

This week Epic responded to this motion, arguing that the case should continue.

Among other things, the game publisher points out that CBV didn’t halt his cheating activities after the lawsuit was filed. On the contrary, Epic claims that the defendant made another cheating video on a separate channel and registered a new domain to sell cheats.

“Defendant continues to develop and sell cheat software specifically targeted at Epic and Fortnite. Indeed, Defendant has created a new website located at <NexusCheats.us>, a domain name Defendant registered on August 1, 2019,” Epic writes.

Epic, which doesn’t mention the name of the new channel, tells the Court that the defendant used it to promote his cheats. He published a video titled “Fortnite AIMBOT/WALLHACKS/**LIVE**(nexuscheats),” while taking questions and mentioning that he has a very good lawyer.

“Defendant did not stop his infringing behavior after being served with Epic’s Complaint and retaining legal counsel,” Epic writes. “In this 87-minute long video, Defendant announced it was his ‘first time streaming since I’ve been sued . . . .’ He then live-streamed himself logging into Fortnite and demonstrating his hacks as he played the game.”

The video has now been removed after Epic sent a DMCA notice. However, according to the game publisher, this shows that the teaching activities are not over.

While Epic’s reply focuses on the continued cheating, the main issue is whether there is a reason to dismiss the case. The defense argued that the EULA and the TOS, which prohibit cheating activities, are not enforceable because CBV is a minor. But Epic disagrees.

“His arguments that he is immune from those consequences, including his claim that this Court does not have jurisdiction over him because ‘he’s a kid,’ are without merit,” Epic tells the Court.

According to Epic, not all contracts with minors are automatically void. There are exceptions, which it believes apply here. In addition, this “infancy defense” doesn’t apply, because the alleged cheater also reaped the benefits of these agreements.

According to Epic’s response brief, the defendant was well aware of the potentially illegal nature of his activities – after being sued, banned and targeted with repeated DMCA notices – but he continued nonetheless.

“Not only did he continue to use his access to Fortnite to cheat at the game after being served with the Complaint, he continued to publish videos promoting and supporting his cheat software in violation of both Epic’s rights under the Copyright Act—which are the subject of this lawsuit—and the terms of the agreements that give Defendant access to Fortnite in the first place.”

Based on these and other arguments Epic says the motion to dismiss should be denied. The company also believes that specific jurisdiction exists to continue the case in Noth Carolina, even though the defendant is from Illinois.

If the Court decides that there is not enough ground to establish jurisdiction, Epic asks for limited discovery, so it can find more evidence. In the alternative, the game publisher asks to transfer the case to the Central
District of Illinois, where the alleged cheater resides.

—

A copy of Epic Games’ response to the defendant’s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf).

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