In an effort to turn piracy into profit, copyright holders have chased alleged BitTorrent pirates through courts all over the world.

This so-called copyright troll scheme was also used by the firm Prenda Law. However, the lawyers involved started to break the law themselves.

The firm was accused of all sorts of wrongdoing including identity theft, misrepresentation, and even deception. Most controversial was the shocking revelation that Prenda uploaded their own torrents to The Pirate Bay, creating a honeypot for the people they later sued over pirated downloads.

This eventually caught the attention of the US Justice Department. In 2015 we first reported that two Pirate Bay co-founders had been questioned by Swedish police, acting on behalf of the FBI. The feds were interested in the honeypot evidence, to build a case against Prenda.

A year later the investigation was finished, resulting in a criminal indictment against Prenda attorneys Paul Hansmeier and John Steele. The US Government accused the two of various crimes, including money laundering, perjury, mail, and wire fraud.

Since then both defendants have both signed plea agreements. They now face years in prison. While it is by no means illegal to go after file-sharers, the Prenda attorneys crossed a line by repeatedly lying to or misleading the courts.

The US prosecutor recently recommended a 12.5-year prison sentence for Paul Hansmeier, who instructed his brother to upload torrents of videos he produced himself. In doing so he misled the court, as he made it appear as if the videos were from a third-party company.

In total, Prenda Law generated roughly $3,000,000 from the fraudulent copyright lawsuits they filed at courts throughout the United States.

Thus far very little has been said about the victims of the scheme but with the final sentencing coming up, this has changed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Minnesota is now allowing people who were targeted by the scheme to register for restitution.

“HANSMEIER and STEELE were charged and convicted of orchestrating a multi-million dollar fraud scheme in which they obtained payments from victims to settle sham pornography film copyright infringement lawsuits,” the Attorney’s Office writes.

“At the sentencing hearing, the Court may, but is not required to, order HANSMEIER and STEELE to pay restitution to the victims of their scheme.”

The list of potential victims includes everyone who paid a settlement to any of the related companies, including Steele Hansmeier Law, Prenda Law, Alpha Law, Anti-Piracy Group, AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, Guava LLC, Livewire, and LW Systems.

The Attorney’s Office encourages all potential victims to fill out a form, so it can identify whether they were indeed defrauded by the defendants. The information provided will be shared with the court, but it won’t be available publicly.

The sentencing for both defendants is scheduled for June 4, before Judge Joan N. Ericksen in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here, it will be decided whether the two defendants must pay restitution, which is not a given.

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File-hosting site Zippyshare has been online for more than 12 years, serving millions of users every day.

Stats from SimilarWeb indicate that traffic to the site has remained stable for some time, hovering around the 100 million visits per month mark. That positions the site well within the top 500 sites on the whole Internet, making it a major player in the file-hosting market.

The site is utilized by users all over the world but last month those in the UK suddenly found the platform inaccessible. At least initially, there was speculation that local Internet service providers had blocked the site but given the circumstances, that seemed unlikely.

The error messages received by users when attempting to access the site’s domain indicated that ISPs weren’t to blame and Zippyshare itself had probably begun blocking UK visitors. Even those using some UK-based VPN servers couldn’t access the platform either.

It’s been more than month since that unexplained problem first raised its head and the situation doesn’t appear to have changed for those in the UK since. Indeed, a new problem seems to have raised its head elsewhere in Europe.

This week, users of Zippyshare attempting to access the site from Germany began reporting that they too are experiencing the same issues, with visitors seeing the same “403 Forbidden” notice, as shown below;

Tips received by TorrentFreak from users in Germany indicate that the site cannot be reached from several ISPs including Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, M-net, Pyur, Unitymedia, and others.

Changing DNS settings to point to other providers (such as Cloudflare or Google) doesn’t seem to help matters but we did manage to access the site using VPN servers located in Berlin and Frankfurt.

Zippyshare did not respond to our earlier request for comment and the site hasn’t made any announcements that would explain the ‘forbidden’ errors now being displayed across the EU’s most powerful countries.

While that’s a strange situation for a platform of Zippyshare’s scale and reach, stats provided by SimilarWeb reveal that the highest volume of visitors to the site are from Indonesia (13%) followed by Japan (9%), the United States (8%), Brazil (7%) and then India (4%).

This data suggests that countries in the EU are fairly insignificant in terms of traffic, which could explain the apparent apathy. Or, of course, Zippyshare might simply not want to talk about the problem in public, either voluntarily or otherwise, for a number of reasons.

Until the platform comments, speculation will continue.

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Plex is a multifunctional media server that allows users to easily organize all their entertainment in one place. 

Whether it’s movies, music, TV-shows, or photos, Plex can organize and index, making the content ready to stream on a wide variety of supported devices. 

The technology itself is content-neutral, which means that it can be used both legally and illegally. In this case illegally, due to the often copyright infringing content. Much like the Kodi platform, Plex seems to be rather popular among pirates. 

There are a variety of places where access to “Plex shares” are being offered, sometimes in exchange for a small fee. Those who sign up can then stream from a library of movies and TV-shows that’s regularly updated by the owner. 

While sharing a small Plex library privately with a few friends isn’t going to be noticed easily, things change when access to a treasure trove of pirated videos is offered in public places. This is what a Dutch Plex user learned the hard way. 

Earlier this week the man in question informed fellow Plex users on Tweakers that he was approached by local anti-piracy group BREIN, which had become aware that he was running a Plex share with 5,700 movies and 10,000 TV-shows. 

Since these were offered without permission, BREIN requested a €750 settlement plus an additional €500 for each day the share remained online. The user in question, who publicly stated that he downloaded the videos through Usenet and torrents sites, admitted his wrongdoing and swiftly complied.

This is the first time we’ve seen this type of settlement with the owner of a Plex share, but it may not be the last. According to BREIN Director Tim Kuik, his organization keeps an eye on all kinds of piracy-related activity, also on Plex. 

“BREIN and its participants are alert on any kind of server being used to give unauthorized public access to content. In this matter we received information from a third party which enabled us to determine widespread infringement by the person in question,” Kuik informs TF.

Interestingly, the audience of the Plex server, as described by BREIN, differs quite a bit from the user’s own account. 

The Plex user, who has removed his initial posting, said he shared with two friends and his parents. However, BREIN, which had an informant with access to the server, said the audience was substantially larger. In addition, it was being advertised in public places such as Discord and Reddit.

“The customer base consisted of visitors who – for a fee or not – were given access to the media server’s library to view films and/or series,” the anti-piracy group wrote in an announcement.

“Customers were also given the opportunity to submit requests for films and/or series that they would like to see, which were subsequently made available,” BREIN added.

BREIN’s statement is backed up by readers from Tweakers. In response to a news report, they posted links to Reddit posts that suggest that the user in question, or someone linked to this person,  indeed offered his share with a much larger group. However, the user in question denied this. 

Whether the owner had just a few users on the Plex share or many more is ultimately irrelevant. The person in question admitted to downloading the files through torrents and Usenet, which in itself is against the law.

The question remains how BREIN obtained the personal details that were used to send the registered letter.

According to the user, the address in the letter contained a typo he made in his PayPal account. He also used a different name with PayPal, which was mentioned in the letter as well. This suggests that BREIN somehow received this information via the payment provider, but this remains unconfirmed. 

Plex doesn’t appear to be directly involved in the matter, as it generally informs users following copyright complaints, which hasn’t happened. We reached out to the company, which informed us that it respects user privacy as well as rightsholders’ rights.

“We take our customers’ privacy extremely seriously. Per our terms of service and privacy policy, libraries are owned and managed by our customers, and we have no access to the contents of their files,” a Plex spokesperson informed TorrentFreak.

“Our terms of service are very clear that we respect copyright holders’ rights and customers agree that they must have rights to the content in their libraries,” the company added.

Finally, BREIN itself stresses that there’s nothing wrong with using Plex, as long as people do so legally. That is, using it to access files for which they have obtained permission.

“It is permitted to use Plex with legally obtained material,  as long as it’s for your own use,” the anti-piracy group notes. 

Those who share thousands of movies and TV-shows and share these in public, on the other hand, risk being caught at one point or another.

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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In recent years, file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees or face legal repercussions.

These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in the United States for roughly a decade, and they still are.

Malibu Media, the Los Angeles-based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, is behind many of these cases. The company has filed thousands of lawsuits in recent years, targeting Internet subscribers whose accounts were allegedly used to share Malibu’s films via BitTorrent.

These cases generally don’t make it to trial and there are several examples where the rightsholder opted to voluntarily dismiss a case when a defendant pushed back. This is also what happened in a lawsuit that was filed against Tim McManus. 

The adult entertainment company named McManus in a complaint last year and later added his company Greenwood Digital as well. However, these defendants were not intent on settling and fought back. They filed a counterclaim for “abuse of process” against Malibu Media and requested discovery. 

The defendants were ready to fight the case on its merits as that would help them to clear their names. However, Malibu Media then decided that it would no longer pursue the case. 

While we have seen such voluntary dismissals in the past, in this case, the adult entertainment company gave a rather unique explanation. It informed the court that it chose not to continue because the defendants are “IT professionals” who know how to hide infringing activity.

“Plaintiff has elected not to pursue its claim against Defendants as present evidence does not support the time and expense that would be incurred in an attempt to bear out Defendants’ infringer status as a direct or contributory infringer as it appears the Defendants are sophisticated IT professionals with the knowledge to hide infringing activity.

“For this reason, and to conserve judicial resources and prevent unnecessary expense for the parties, Plaintiff respectfully requests that this Court dismiss with prejudice Plaintiff’s claim against Defendants,” Malibu Media added.

In essence, Malibu argues that it’s not financially feasible to pursue the matter because the IT company can, presumably, hide any infringing activity despite the evidence it has collected. 

McManus and his IT company deny these accusations and believe that the rightsholder didn’t have any proper evidence to begin with.

They are not happy with this request for a dismissal, as it will make it harder for them to clear their name and get compensated for the costs they have incurred thus far in their defense. They made this clear in a filing submitted to the District Court of New Jersey yesterday. 

According to the defendants, the allegations made by Malibu Media have led to both financial and reputational damage. They request the court to deny the motion to dismiss, allowing the case to be fought on its merits.

“Defendants have been severely prejudiced by being forced to expend substantial sums of money and time to defend against plaintiff’s claims and pursue their Counterclaims.  In addition, by the mere existence of plaintiff’s lawsuit against defendant Tim McManus, Mr. McManus’s reputation and ability to secure business have been negatively affected,” the defendants argue. 

In an additional certification, defendant Tim McManus writes that the case has harmed his reputation. Among other things, he says that the false accusations were brought up by one of his students at Fordham University. 

“It is a challenge explaining to the students that I did not download the titles outlined in the plaintiff’s Complaint. These accusations have harmed my reputation since I cannot say (yet) that I won a favorable judgment in the case,” McManus writes.

McManus stresses that his company is also harmed by the case and wants to fight the allegations in court so he can properly refute the claims. If the case was simply dismissed, as Malibu wants, that wouldn’t be an option. 

It is now up to the court to decide whether this case will be dismissed or whether McManus and his company will have the chance to clear their names and request compensation. 

—

A copy of the defendant’s opposition is available here (pdf). The matter is currently scheduled to be discussed in a court hearing later this week.

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During the summer of 2017, several of the largest entertainment industry companies in the world teamed up to create a new anti-piracy coalition.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) brought together well-known Hollywood outfits including Disney, Warner Bros, NBCUniversal, media giants such as Sky and BBC, as well as the streaming-based newcomers Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu.

This is without a doubt one of the most prominent copyright enforcement groups in history and one with a clear mission. ACE wants to bring a halt to all forms of piracy but with a specific focus on online streaming, which it sees as a major threat to its industry.

The organization has filed several lawsuits in the US, for example, targeting vendors of pirate streaming boxes. This has been quite effective so far, with Dragon Box settling for $14.5 million TickBox TV agreeing to pay $25 million in damages.

However, behind the scenes, there have been many less visible enforcement efforts as well. ACE regularly reaches out to developers who create ‘add-ons’ and ‘builds’ that are specifically designed to access pirated content through streaming boxes, including those running Kodi.

These efforts are not made public by ACE, but the targeted developers sometimes speak about them in public. Last week, for example, when the Hydra9 repository was targeted, among others. 

“Some in the community got served ACE letters yesterday, including myself. My letter specifically mentions most of my builds, and the Hydra9 repo,” developer ‘Terror’ informed people on Telegram, sharing a cease and desist letter. 

“I have made so many friends in this community and the Hydra9 team has been the highlight of my time making builds. I will likely continue as a skinner/teacher only, after I’m done dealing with ACE,” he added.

The letter in question is similar to those that have gone out to many other developers since 2017. As can be seen below, it comes with a rather impressive list of logos from entertainment industry companies, to which Discovery Inc., Channel 5, and Telefe have yet to be added.

It appears that these efforts have been quite successful but thus far ACE hasn’t said much about them in public. To find out more, we asked the organization whether it could share any data on how many of these requests it has sent out over the past two years. 

While we didn’t get any exact figures from ACE, which clearly doesn’t want to give away too much, the group said that a “significant” number of developers and site operators cooperated after being notified. 

“ACE has sought and obtained voluntary cooperation from a significant number of owners, operators, and developers of sites, add-ons, and services that facilitate piracy,” ACE spokesperson Richard VanOrnum told us. 

ACE targets people throughout the world and says it prioritizes voluntary measures over lawsuits. Through these efforts, it hopes to boost the legal market. Thus far, the media companies behind the group are happy with the results.

“Our members are pleased that the overwhelming majority of owners, operators, and developers of sites, add-ons, and services that facilitate copyright theft voluntarily comply with copyright law upon contact with ACE representatives,” VanOrnum tells us.

“We will execute more planned global actions along these lines and look to continue our success protecting creators around the world,” he adds.

If a cease and desist order is ignored, legal action remains an option. While ACE hasn’t shied away from that in the past, it aims to address issues out of court where possible.

Cease and desist letters are only part of its strategy though. ACE also seeks cooperation from many other players in the ecosystem, including advertising networks, payment processors, cyberlockers, domain name registrars and registries, search engines, online marketplaces, and social media services, to name a few.

ACE hopes to promote legally available content while addressing illegal add-ons and streaming boxes. However, it also has its eyes set on other streaming services, including apps and websites. 

“We are continuously reviewing our strategy and will consider new outreach and enforcement efforts where appropriate,” VanOrnum tells us, again, without giving away any concrete targets.

The group does explain that it has a comprehensive “piracy reduction plan” which tries to incorporate all the major streaming threats.

While the early signs suggest that this plan is paying off, work is far from done yet. New investigations are being launched on a regular basis, which means that the cease and desist letter Hydra9 received, was certainly not the last.

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