On Monday, the EU Council of Ministers approved the Copyright Directive, which includes the controversial Article 17 (formerly 13).

The law requires platforms like YouTube and Facebook, for example, to sign licensing agreements with creators in order to use their content.

If that is not possible, the platforms will have a responsibility to ensure that infringing content uploaded by users is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services.

Much of the furious debate leading up to the initial adoption of the Copyright Directive by the EU Parliament (March 26, 348 Members of Parliament in favor, 274 against, and 36 abstentions) centered on the fear that platforms including (but not limited to) the above would have to install upload filters to comply with the take down and stay down requirements.

Proponents, on the other hand, said that the text doesn’t mention upload filters at all, and that those claiming otherwise were being alarmist in order to prevent the Directive from passing. It’s perhaps telling that no one has yet presented any workable alternative to upload filters.

In a statement issued by Germany in the wake of Monday’s vote, the government effectively admits that upload filters are not a great idea but will be required under Article 17 (formerly 13) if no one can come up with a better solution. In fact, it says their use is “likely”.

“There is indeed consensus that creators should be able to partake in the exploitation of their works by upload platforms. Article 17 of the Directive establishes an obligation to ensure the permanent ‘stay down’ of protected content which raises the likely use of algorithmic solutions (‘upload filters’) which have raised serious concerns and broad critique among the German public,” the statement reads.

Noting that that government wants to support performers, authors, and indeed all creators to use technology to create and distribute their work, it adds that the protection of that work and the right to earn revenue from it is paramount.

However, it also wishes to respect fundamental rights wherever possible, while preserving the right to use protected works “where permitted by legislation” on upload platforms.

The government says that the European Commission is “obliged to enter into a dialog with all concerned parties” to develop guidelines for the application of Article 17, but that doesn’t guarantee that “upload filters” won’t be required if all else fails.

“The government, therefore, assumes that the dialog will be borne out of the desire to ensure appropriate remuneration for creators, as far as possible prevent ‘upload filters’, safeguard freedom of speech and preserve user rights,” it writes, as per a translation by Sebastian Schwemer.

So, “..as far as possible prevent ‘upload filters’” is apparently the standard for Germany, probably the single most powerful player in the EU. Given the reputation of filtering technologies to go wrong at the worst possible time, opponents of the Directive will be saying “told you so.”

On the plus side, Germany appears to have listened to some of the general concerns previously voiced by its own Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

It notes that the EU “should support the development of open-source technologies with open interfaces (APIs)” while finding solutions that “counter a de facto copyright register in the hands of dominating platforms via public, transparent reporting processes.”

The German statement also insists that the new rules will only be aimed at “market-dominating” platforms and will specifically exclude sites like Wikipedia, Github, blogs, forums, messenger services like WhatsApp, and cloud storage platforms. But, of course, time will tell – the Internet tends to develop at a pace faster than law and nothing offered in this statement is legally binding.

EU member states will have two years to implement the grand aspirations of the Copyright Directive into local law, and that includes those who voted against it – Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Italy, and Finland – who have negative views of the legislation.

“The objectives of this Directive were to enhance the good functioning of the internal market and to stimulate innovation, creativity, investment and production of new content, also in the digital environment. The signatories support these objectives,” the five countries said in a joint statement.

“However, in our view, the final text of the Directive fails to deliver adequately on the above-mentioned aims. We believe that the Directive in its current form is a step back for the Digital Single Market rather than a step forward.

“Most notably we regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of rights holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies. It therefore risks to hinder innovation rather than promote it and to have a negative impact [on] the competitiveness of the European Digital Single Market.”

While YouTube and Facebook already have filtering systems in place, they aren’t the only players in town. It seems likely, therefore, that the next two years may yet prove as controversial as the two that preceded them. Memes are probably safe, but other content could have a bumpy ride.

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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Yesterday the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones premiered, generating a massive demand on both legal and less-authorized channels.

The first episode came out a few hours early for some people on DirectTV Now, adding to the long history of Game of Thrones leaks.

Not much later, the season premiere was also widely available on various pirate sites. The first pirate releases were not sourced from the leak, however. They came from Amazon and were put online just minutes the show officially became available online.

Traditionally, Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show in history, and it soon became apparent that this may also be the case with the final season.

At the time of writing, more than 120,000 people are actively sharing one of the three most-popular torrents. And at The Pirate Bay, the five most popular releases are all Game of Thrones episodes. 

The most-shared torrent at the moment, with tens of thousands of peers, is a 3.34 GB rip from the group MEMENTO. Like every year, the total number of downloads is eventually expected to run to several million per episode.

Part of this unofficial audience prefers piracy over a paid subscription. However, the fact that pirate copies are available before the official release in many countries doesn’t help either.

TorrentFreak spoke to the operator of one of the most popular torrent sites, who prefers not to be named. However, he informed us that the Game of Thrones premiere resulted in a 20% boost in visitors this morning.

This uptick is similar to what he’s seen with Game of Thrones episodes in the past. On average, the peak goes down a bit throughout the season. Then, for the season finale, there’s a similar increase again.

In absolute numbers, there are fewer people sharing the episodes via BitTorrent than a few years ago. The absolute record dates back to 2015, when over a quarter million people were simultaneously sharing a single file. This is in part because the piracy ecosystem has evolved. 

Torrent sites used to be the main distribution platforms for pirated TV shows, but unauthorized streaming sites are much more popular today. These sites don’t make any viewing numbers public, but they should be good for millions of ‘pirate’ views as well. 

HBO and other related rightsholders are already working hard to take fresh links offline, or at least remove them from search engines, but history has shown that putting a serious dent in Game of Thrones piracy isn’t easy. 

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The movie industry sees online streaming piracy as a prime threat to its revenues.  Whether it’s through dedicated pirate boxes, websites, or apps.

In recent years the major Hollywood studios have mainly targeted sellers of streaming boxes, while a group of smaller filmmakers is focusing more on apps. 

Last week, the companies behind the movies “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “London Has Fallen,” “Hunter Killer,” “I Feel Pretty,” and “Once Upon a Time in Venice,” went after the operators of various websites that promote and distribute the Showbox app.

The Showbox app, as well as many similarly named clones, are used by millions of people. The apps allow users to stream movies and TV shows via torrents and direct sources, all through a user-friendly Netflix-style interface.

In a lawsuit filed at a U.S. District Court in Hawaii, the movie companies point out that many of the films available through the app are published without permission, which they say results in massive piracy.

“Plaintiffs bring this action to stop the massive piracy of their motion pictures brought on by the software application Show Box,” the 58-page complaint begins.

“The Defendants misleadingly promote the Show Box app as a legitimate means for viewing content to the public, who eagerly install the Show Box app to watch copyright protected content, thereby leading to profit for the Defendants,” the companies add.

The movie studios list several defendants, who are all suspected of having ties to one or more Showbox-related sites. The first one is Qazi Muhammad Zarlish from Pakistan, who allegedly operates ‘latestshowboxapp.com.’

Next up are the India-based digital marketing agency Pebblebridge and its employee Vishnudath Reddy Mangilpudi, who are linked to several domains including ‘showbox.fun’. Hoan Phan and Nghi Phan, who are said to be Vietnamese, stand accused of operating ‘showboxofficial.com’ and ‘apkmirrordownload.com’ respectively, complete the list.

The site operators are accused of copyright infringement as well as inducement and false advertising. While the sites are (or were) available worldwide, the movie companies state that they have clear ties to the US.

For example, they used American domain name registrars such as Namecheap, hosting services from U.S. based company Digital Ocean, and email services from Google and Microsoft. 

The website operators are believed to profit by offering the app to a broader public. While the software is not directly hosted by all the sites in question, all of their operators are accused of intentionally inducing visitors to engage in copyright-infringing activity. 

Some of these users may not even know that the Showbox app is ‘illegal,’ the movie companies stress. This may result in innocent people getting sued. This is something these movie makers are well aware of, as most have sued individual users in the past.

“These Defendants have placed hundreds of individuals in Hawaii if not thousands of individuals in the United States in legal peril for copyright infringement while they hide behind anonymous domain registrations, false identities and addresses, and enjoy the gains from their illicit enterprise,” the complaint reads.

The movie companies have been trying to shut some of the sites down for a while now. With help from Namecheap, for example, they gathered IP-addresses and email addressed that were linked to some of the domain names.

This leads to some interesting conclusions. One of the defendants, Hoan Phan, used the IP-address 64.62.174.44 to login to the Namecheap account connected to the site showboxofficial.com. The same IP-address was also used to share copies of the movies “Mechanic: Resurrection and “London Has Fallen.”

The movie companies conclude that Phan must have shared these movies. However, the IP-address in question appears to belong to a proxy or VPN service and could have been used by hundreds, if not thousands of people. 

That said, the defendants are not accused of direct copyright infringement. Instead, the movie companies argue that they knowingly and materially contributed to the copyright infringement of Showbox users, by promoting the use of the app and showing people where it can be downloaded.

With the lawsuit, they hope to shut the sites down. At the time of writing, they have already partially succeeded at that. Without any court intervention, Latestshowboxapp.com and Showboxofficial.com are no longer linking to the app.

The Showbox copy on apkmirrordownload.com is still up, and Showbox.fun remains available the time of writing. The latter site has put up a large red warning notice, urging people to use legal alternatives instead, but it’s still linking to Showbox.

To stop any ongoing activity, the movie companies request an injunction preventing the site owners from contributing to any infringement of their movies. Any Showbox copies hosted on their servers should be removed as well, they suggest. 

In addition, this injunction should also require Internet search engines, hosting companies, domain name registrars, and domain name registries to stop providing access to the domain names through which the defendants distribute and promote Showbox.

Finally, there’s a request for damages as well. In theory, a court could award up to $150,000 in statutory damages for willful copyright infringement, per movie. Provided they are guilty, of course.

Most previous cases against alleged ‘pirate’ site operators have resulted in default judgments where the rightsholders are granted an injunction and a damages award. However, the recent stream-ripper case against FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com show that, for foreign operators, it can pay off to put up a defense. 

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A copy of the complaint from Hunter Killer Productions, Inc., TBV Productions, LLC, Venice PI, LLC, Bodyguard Productions, Inc., and LHF Productions, Inc., and all associated exhibits is available here (pdf). 

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With many thousands of sites now blocked in Russia following allegations of copyright infringement, piracy should – at least in theory – become harder.

Many of the most stubborn sites, such as the infamous RuTracker, are now inaccessible directly via local ISPs, meaning that users must deploy countermeasures such as proxies, VPNs (where they’re still available), and other means, in order to reach their content.

There’s little doubt that piracy is now becoming harder than it once was but pirates have a tendency to be not only persistent, but also creative – even if that means resorting to technologies that are decades old.

According to local news outlet Vedomosti, people are turning the sales of pirate eBooks into a cottage industry, while exploiting a loophole in the law to avoid criminal liability.

Many of these transactions take place on Avito, Russia’s most popular classified ads site and the second largest in the world behind Craigslist. Countless ads for pirate eBooks litter the platform, offering anything from a single book to bundles of many.

This content is offered for prices ranging from just a few cents to a couple of dollars, which is many times cheaper than official offerings. However, little of this activity can land any of the sellers in trouble. The threshold for criminal liability in Russia for what are essentially counterfeit goods is 100,000 rubles (around $1,500). Individual sales tend not to meet those thresholds.

Making matters even more slippery for anti-piracy companies is that those who place the ads for pirate eBooks do not post the content online. Instead, the senders use email to transfer the eBooks to their customers. This means their ads cannot be easily be detected by anti-piracy bots and any infringing transactions remain private.

Furthermore, since there are no links to infringing content, the listings are effectively immune from Russia’s somewhat draconian anti-piracy laws. They cannot be targeted with legal action under the regime so platforms can’t be blocked in the way that normal pirate sites can.

Instead, copyright holders are reliant on platforms like Avito to help take content down. The company does remove listings, but only when they are reported as problematic. However, there are reportedly entire communities thriving on social media platforms dedicated to these sales, so tackling the problem could be time-consuming.

If nothing else, what this shows is that in the piracy world, where’s there’s a will to pirate content, there will probably be a way. And when that way is via email or other hidden techniques, there’s very little anyone can do about it – at least for now.

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Website blocking on copyright grounds has been going on for some time in India, mainly via so-called John Doe orders, where large numbers of websites are blocked temporarily to protect various new movie releases.

As highlighted last year, however, rightsholders have been looking for a more permanent solution. Going back and forth to court is an inefficient process, particularly when the same key ‘pirate’ sites are often in the thick of the action.

Their wishes now appear to have been granted by the High Court in Delhi.

Following a series of eight complaints filed by Twentieth Century Fox and local Disney-owned media giant UTV Software Communications, Justice Manmohan handed down an order Wednesday which targets some of the largest torrent and streaming sites on the Internet.

The Pirate Bay, RARBG, Torrentz2, 1337x, ExtraTorrent, YTS, FMovies and BMovies are all listed, along with several alternative domain names and/or proxies employed by some of the sites (full list below).

The plaintiffs’ arguments were in line with the majority of similar blocking orders requested elsewhere in the world. The sites and their users infringe their copyrights by offering or facilitating access to their protected content, contrary to local law, they argued.

The 99-page order (pdf) is extremely detailed and alphabetically lists successful blocking cases in many other countries – from Australia to Uruguay – adding weight to the argument that they should also be blocked in India.

The Court also noted that despite being served via the contact information provided in their WHOIS details, none of the sites chose to “rebut or challenge” any of the evidence produced by the plaintiffs, which inevitably led to the conclusion that in the opinion of the Court, all are liable for copyright infringement under Section 51 of the Copyright Act.

When making its order, the Court also considered whether handing down a blocking injunction would “make one an opponent of a free and open Internet”. It concluded otherwise, noting that “advocating limits on accessing illegal content online” does not violate the principles of an open Internet.

On the thorny issue of tackling the inevitable appearance of mirrors and proxies after a blocking order is issued, the Court said that the plaintiffs will be able to file an affidavit containing the details. These will be considered and, where appropriate, blocking instructions will be handed to ISPs.

In closing, the Court ordered all of the defendant websites and anyone working with them to stop “hosting, streaming, reproducing, distributing, making available to the public and/or communicating to the public, or facilitating the same, on their websites, through the internet in any manner whatsoever, any cinematograph work/content/programme/show in relation to which plaintiffs have copyright.”

A decree was also passed instructing local ISPs to permanently block the websites in question.

Finally, the Court also published a “suggestion” which could set hearts racing among pirates in India.

Describing website blocking as “cumbersome”, the order states that the majority of visitors to pirate sites are by “youngsters who do not have knowledge that the said content is infringing and / or pirated.”

It’s therefore suggested that the relevant authorities should explore the possibility of sending emails, pop-ups, or other warnings to those who continue to consume infringing content.

“In the event the warning is not heeded to and the viewers / subscribers continue to view, access or download the infringing/pirated content then a fine could be levied on the viewers/subscribers,” the Court added.

The full list of domains to be blocked is as follows:

1337x.to, torrentz2.eu, bmovies.to, bmovies.is, fmovies.is, fmovies.se, fmovies.to, bmovies.se, fmovies.pe, fmovies.io, fmovies.taxi, bmovies.ru, fmovies.world, rarbg.is, rarbg.com, rarbg.to, rarbgproxy.org, thepiratebay.org, thepiratebay.se, yts.am, yts.ag, yts.tw, yts-yify.gold, yts.altorrente.com, yts.gy, yify.is, extratorrent.ag, torrentz.ht, torrentmovies.co

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