For more than a decade, alleged file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees.

These so-called copyright-trolling efforts are fairly straightforward. Copyright holders obtain a list of ‘pirating’ IP-addresses and then request a subpoena from the court, compelling ISPs to hand over the associated customer data.

In recent years, several news reports have appeared on these cases in the US, UK, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere. In Finland, they have been a common sight since 2013.

One of the outfits that spearheaded the practice locally is the Helsinki-based law firm Hedman Partners. Representing a variety of movie companies, it went after tens of thousands of alleged pirates, asking them to pay hundreds of euros in damages each.

One of the firm’s targets was a Ritva Puolakka, While she first appeared to be just another target, Puolakka was not intent on paying the 800 euros in damages the law firm requested. Quite the opposite, she went on the offensive.

Puolakka became an active opponent of the so-called “copyright trolling” practice. She denied any wrongdoing. On top of that, she went after the law firm requesting that it hands over any and all data it had on her, stating that it’s her right to have access to this under local privacy law.

The law film partly complied with this request but also held quite a bit of information back. Handing over all data could cause damage to the business relationship with the rightsholder, the argument was. This undisclosed information was technical evidence of the alleged infringement such as IP-address logs.

The law firm further pointed out that, because the woman had denied distributing films, the information might not apply to her but to someone else.

Puolakka was not satisfied with the limited disclosure and with backing from the data protection officer, she took the matter to the Administrative Court, which sided with her.

The Administrative Court ruled that the law firm didn’t properly justify the limited right of inspection. The law firm’s duty of professional secrecy is not a legitimate ground for restriction, and Puolakka’s right to control her data weighs stronger.

The Court concluded that, under the Personal Data Act, accused file-sharers are allowed to have access to all logging information related to their IP-address, regardless of whether someone else may have used the connection.

While this ruling doesn’t help any defendant to get rid of any settlement demands, it could lead to an administrative overload for the law firm. If tens of thousands of accused pirates request access to all IP-address logs, there’s a lot of paperwork to go through.

TorrentFreak spoke to Puolakka, who also takes part in the local MuroBBS community, which actively helps accused file-sharers. She told us that she’s happy with the outcome and hopes that it will help to frustrate the copyright-trolling efforts.

MuroBBS activist Hasturinpoika, meanwhile, encourages other victims to request their data from Hedman Partners. With the recent ruling and the EU’s new GDPR regulation, the law firm will have to comply.

“I would encourage to all those who have received letters from copyright trolls to use this decision to check out their information because now that GDPR in effect, there is possible to sanction the trolls more severely if they don’t obey with the new regulation,” Hasturinpoika tells us.

The Administrative Court’s decision can still be appealed at the Supreme Administrative Court. However, considering the recent history, Puolakka is not going to back away from her battle against copyright-trolling.

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Every year the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes its Special 301 Report highlighting countries that aren’t doing enough to protect US intellectual property rights.

The format remains the same as in previous years and lists three dozen countries that, for different reasons, threaten the intellectual property rights of US companies.

“The identification of the countries and IP-related market access barriers in the Report and of steps necessary to address those barriers are a critical component of the Administration’s aggressive efforts to defend Americans from harmful IP-related trade barriers,” USTR writes. 

The topics reported in the yearly overview are much broader than online piracy. They also cover counterfeiting and other IP related issues, including patents and protection of trade secrets. Our coverage is limited to piracy, however, which remains one of the key issues. 

The USTR highlights stream-ripping as a significant problem, as well as pirate IPTV services and “illicit streaming devices” in general. The latter are sold throughout the world but are often manufactured in China, which is listed on the USTR’s Priority Watch List. 

“Stakeholders continue to report rampant piracy through ISDs, including in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, the UAE, and Vietnam. China, in particular, is a manufacturing hub for these devices,” the USTR writes. 

Camcording piracy, where people record films at movie theaters, remains a significant problem as well. Russia, India, Mexico, and China are called out as frequent sources, but the problem applies to other countries as well. 

The USTR notes that countries including Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Taiwan do not effectively criminalize unauthorized camcording, and hopes that this will soon change. 

“The United States urges countries to adopt laws and enforcement practices
designed to prevent unauthorized camcording, such as laws that have been adopted in Canada, Japan, and the Philippines,” the USTR writes.

Most of these observations and comments are not new. They are made year after year in some cases. Apparently, it’s a strategy that has some effect. For example, India recently updated is camcording legislation to allow a three-year prison sentence for those who get caught.

The full list of countries which lack proper IP protection totals 36. Eleven are listed on the most severe Priority Watch List with the rest placed on the regular Watch List.

Canada has been downgraded from the Priority to the regular Watch List this year. The most important step forward taken by Canada, according to the US, is signing the provisions in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will extend the local copyright term to 70-years + life.

However, problems remain as well. Among other things, the US sees Canada’s copyright exception for educational purposes as a grave concern.

“The United States remains deeply troubled by the ambiguous education-related exception added to the copyright law in 2012, which has significantly damaged the market for educational publishers and authors,” the office writes.

Switzerland also remains on the Watch List. While the country generally has strong intellectual property protection, the U.S. remains concerned about its online copyright protection and enforcement, as we’ve highlighted previously. This appears to be the only remaining barrier at this point.

If countries fail to address the issues the USTR has highlighted, the U.S. says it will take appropriate actions in response. No concrete measures are mentioned, but they can include enforcement actions under Section 301 of the Trade Act or pursuant to World Trade Organization rules, for example. 

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A copy of USTR’s full 2019 Special 301 Report is available here (pdf).

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The practice of copyright-trolling is now well-established in many countries around the world.

The companies involved often gather IP addresses from BitTorrent swarms, then via the courts, obtain identities of users from their ISPs.

What follows are threats to the account holder, warning that if he or she doesn’t pay a ‘fine’, then court action will follow. This, of course, is boosted with claims that if the process gets this far, things will get much more expensive.

In reality, however, copyright trolls rarely take cases to court and when they do, they tend to head for the hills when people put up a spirited fight. That was demonstrated again earlier this week when a troll targeted an IT specialist, then backed away after claiming his technical knowledge would allow him to cover up any infringement.

Considering the main evidence in most trolling cases is a simple IP address, captured way before the rightsholders even write to a defendant, it raises the question of whether even the trolls have faith that an IP address alone is enough to prosecute a case. Some courts certainly don’t.

Yet that evidence alone appears to form the basis of claims detailed in a letter received by a pensioner in Sweden during March 2019.

The 75-year-old man was told that his IP address (allocated by his ISP TeliaSonera) had been used to share the hardcore porn movie “The Creepers Family Part 7”, which was produced by Girlfriends Films and licensed to MIRCOM International, a company with a long history of involvement in similar cases.

The company doing the tracking was Media Protector International GmbH, which has been providing data for similar cases for more than a decade.

While there can be no doubt that many IP addresses caught in the dragnets of these companies were indeed used to download and share copyrighted content, innocents are regularly caught in the crossfire. The pensioner from Sweden says that’s the case with him.

He shared his story with Bahnhof, a Swedish ISP which acts as a competitor to TeliaSonera and one that offers a sympathetic ear to people targeted by copyright trolls.

“The infringement occurred on Friday February 2, 2018 at 6:43:17, that is, a time that I as a pensioner sleeps,” he told the ISP.

“I am 75 years old and I do not know much about technology, and I wonder if there is anything I can do or if I should just pay?”

This, of course, is exactly the strategy of copyright trolls. Whether their targets are guilty or innocent, they hope their strongly-worded letters will break the resolve of recipients and make them cave in, parting with cash to make the nightmare go away.

“I sleep poorly and feel great concern because of this, I just want it to stop. My wife wants to pay to get rid of the problem, but if we do will it just make things worse?” he added.

“I am afraid that the bills will continue to come from other agencies and companies, it seems to be a business idea that is better than selling movies. This can be my ruin.”

While the mainstream media has largely given up about worrying about those targeted by copyright trolls, history has shown us that cases against pensioners are rarely well received by the public or those in power.

Two years ago, for example, an 83-year-old grandmother from the UK went to the press after being accused of pirating the Robert Redford film The Company You Keep. That attracted the attention of her local member of parliament, who branded the practice “disgusting” and raised the matter with the government.

It is not known whether the woman ever paid up but given the negative publicity and outcry, it seems unlikely. The case certainly never went to court, which is common when those accused by copyright trolls fight back and/or tell their stories in the media and complain to politicians.

For Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung, not enough is being done to protect those wrongly targeted, with citizens currently left to fight for themselves.

“It’s a corrupt system promoting copyright trolls and legal firms that thrive on blackmail. Unfortunately, there is not enough political momentum to change the situation. It’s an ongoing scandal, and I believe that this affects the justice system as a whole,” Karlung told TorrentFreak.

“The only solution is to make this problem as visible as possible. People should also start asking their telecom operators why they save data for time spans of 24 months – Bahnhof only saves for 24 hours.”

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Piracy-configured set-top boxes are the latest in a long line of problems facing copyright holders and broadcasters.

When pre-loaded with custom software they become easily accessible yet formidable piracy tools, providing access to the latest movies, TV shows, live TV programming and live sports broadcasts.

While successful prosecutions have been possible in some regions under existing copyright law, there are plenty of countries that still require a test case. One of those was Singapore, a country that has reportedly become swamped with pirate devices.

In January 2018, it was reported that telecoms, broadcasting, and sporting giants SingTel, Starhub, Fox Networks Group and the Premier League, had teamed up to launch a pioneering private prosecution against those involved in the supply chain.

The complainant in the suit is Neil Gane, who works as General Manager at the Coalition Against Piracy. However, CAP is not involved in this case.

The legal action targeted set-top box distributor Synnex Trading and its client and wholesale goods retailer, An-Nahl. The rightsholders also named Synnex Trading director Jia Xiaofen and An-Nahl director Abdul Nagib as defendants in their private prosecution.

This week, more than a year after the case was filed, Abdul Nagib pleaded guilty to willfully infringing the rightsholders’ copyrights for commercial gain, with a second charge taken into consideration. He originally intended to fight the case.

According to CNA, the 58-year-old admitted to selling a single Android TV box and helping the buyer of that device to access unauthorized copies of copyrighted content, which included soccer matches provided by the Premier League.

In mitigation, Abdul Nagib’s lawyer Mr Srijit said that his client believed that the content offered through the devices, which came with an annual subscription, was licensed by pay TV and IPTV provider Astro Malaysia. He had immediately stopped offering the devices after he received a cease-and-desist notice in 2017.

While Abdul Nagib’s fine of just S$1,200 (US$883) is relatively small given the scale of punishments handed down in other jurisdictions, Mr Srijit said his client had already paid a heavy price after selling his home to finance his defense.

Despite the small fine, the case is also important since this is the first and only successful prosecution of a ‘pirate’ TV box seller in Singapore. However, it is not yet over as the case against Synnex Trading and director Jia Xiaofen is yet to be settled.

Jia allegedly offered to pay Abdul Nagib a small commission for every device sold and an additional fee when customers also purchased a copy of the popular Kodi media player. Abdul Nagib is now reportedly assisting in the prosecution of Jia.

Commenting on the plea and judgment, Louis Boswell, CEO Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA), said that progress against piracy needs to be a team effort.

“In order to combat the serious and growing problem of content theft, a holistic solution is required,” Boswell told TorrentFreak.

“If all stakeholders, government, content producers, distributors, industry associations and intermediaries work together, we believe serious progress in reducing video piracy can be achieved.”

While today’s guilty plea will prove useful to AVIA’s members and other rightsholders, the action is just one of the avenues available to combat piracy.

Last September, Singnet, Fox Networks Group, NGC Network Asia, Fox International Channels (US) Inc, and the Premier League obtained an injunction from the Singapore High Court which required several local ISPs to block access to popular ‘pirate’ apps.

In May 2018, ISPs blocked dozens of torrent and streaming platforms (including The Pirate Bay plus KickassTorrents and Solarmovie variants) following a successful application from the MPAA.

The Hollywood group later obtained a so-called ‘dynamic‘ blocking order which granted it the ability to block sites more efficiently should they attempt to circumvent the earlier order.

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