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.
Last year, a group of prominent record labels filed a piracy lawsuit against the Russian operator of YouTube-ripping sites FLVTO.biz and 2conv.com.
The labels hoped to shut the sites down, but this effort backfired.
In January, US District Court Judge Claude M. Hilton dismissed the case due to a lack of jurisdiction. The Virginia Court carefully reviewed how the sites operate and found no evidence that they purposefully targeted either Virginia or the United States.
The sites are not seen as highly interactive and their interaction with users could not be classified as commercial, the Court concluded. Since the site owner didn’t purposefully target Virginia, the Court ruled that it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the operator.
The record labels didn’t agree with this conclusion and took the case to the Fourth Circuit appeals court. If the verdict stands, the companies believe that Internet pirates will have “carte blanche” to facilitate copyright infringement, as they would be untouchable by U.S. courts.
The labels’ appeal attracted support from other major copyright holders. Through amicus briefs, Hollywood’s MPAA, The Association of American Publishers, and the Copyright Alliance, all argued that the verdict should be overturned.
This week, the Russian operator, Tofig Kurbanov, submitted his answering brief. Through his legal team, he informs the Court that the District Court was right to dismiss the case. He has never been to the U.S. and managed the sites entirely and exclusively from Russia.
Aside from going into detail on all the legal elements of the jurisdiction issue, the response also hits back at the massive piracy claims and “xenophobia-tinged” allegations from the record labels and other rightsholders.
“Cognizant perhaps of the complete absence of a Constitutional basis for the assertion of personal jurisdiction over Kurbanov, Plaintiffs and their amici seek to make up for this omission with a combination of xenophobia-tinged allegations and ‘the sky is falling’ arguments,” the response reads.
The scope of the alleged infringing activity should not mean that the Court can ignore Constitutional limitations, the defense argues. According to the site operator, it should also be noted that the same rightsholders have a history of targeting new technology.
“Plaintiffs and their amici have consistently opposed virtually every technological advance from the 1970s forward including the advent of cassette tapes, compact discs, digital audio tapes, and MP3s.
“In each instance, Plaintiffs and their amici’s cries that the sky was falling were either misplaced or entirely made-up,” the defense adds.
The Russian site operator continues that the rightsholders’ “hysteria” is ultimately irrelevant. The appeal is about whether or not the Court has jurisdiction over the matter. According to the defense, it’s clear that it hasn’t.
Hysteria
The record labels placed a lot of emphasis on the site’s advertisements in their appeal brief. For example, they argued that the stream-ripping sites used geolocation-based advertisements to target specific locations, including the United States and Virginia.
The defense counters this by stressing that all of the advertising activities were outsourced to third party companies, which make it irrelevant.
“Plaintiffs’ attempts to tie personal jurisdiction to the geolocation of ads on the Websites is misplaced, where any such geolocation is accomplished solely by third-party advertising brokers,” the defense writes.
The labels also argued that because the sites are generating revenue from US visitors, there is a “commercial” relationship so the Court has jurisdiction. This ‘free’ advertising model is widely used by other companies such as Facebook, ESPN, CNN, they argued.
In its response, the defense doesn’t dispute that these other sites use advertising. However, it uses that argument to its advantage while noting that Facebook, ESPN, CNN are not automatically subject to any and all jurisdictions in the world.
While it is true that the stream-ripping sites are available in the US, that’s certainly not their most popular user base. For FLVTO.biz, more than 90% of the visitors come from other countries, and for 2conv.com this number is more than 94%, the defense informs the Appeals Court.
It is worth noting that the current issue is not about whether or not the stream-rippers are copyright-infringing in any way. The question that has to be answered first is whether a U.S. court has jurisdiction over the Russian operator of the sites.
Many of the arguments that both sides presented are similar to those put before the District Court earlier. The record labels and other rightsholders hope that the earlier dismissal will be overturned, while Kurbanov and other site owners prefer to keep it in place.
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A copy of the full answering brief of defendant-appellee Tofig Kurbanov is available here (pdf).
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:
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court2-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-12 11:58:102019-04-12 11:58:10Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x & Torrentz2 to be Permanently Blocked in India
There can be little doubt that without revenues generated by advertising, today’s web would be a very different animal.
Many sites live or die by the money they bring in via advertising but a growing number of platforms feel that volume can make up for quality, bombarding visitors with what many consider unstoppable spam.
For the savvy, of course, plenty of options are available to block the most annoying ads. Many use browser plugins like uBlock or AdBlock Plus to limit the number of ads they see, much to the disappointment of those delivering them.
In an effort to put a stop to this ‘freeloading’, digital publishing company Alex Springer has waged a years-long campaign against German-based developer Eyeo GmbH, the company behind Adblock Plus.
The publisher, which owns Bild and Die Welt, among others, claimed that AdBlock Plus and its users undermined its business model. However, after trips through regional and eventually Germany’s Supreme Court, in April 2018 Adblock Plus and Eyeo GmbH came out on top.
Now, a year later, Axel Springer has returned for another bite of the cherry. This time the publisher claims that AdBlock Plus infringes copyright. The company’s complaint, reported on by Heise.de, appears to push the boundaries of what is generally accepted as infringement.
“Advertising blockers change the programming code of websites and thus directly access the legally protected offer of publishers,” says Claas-Hendrik Soehring, head of media law at Axel Springer.
“In the long term, they will not only damage a central financing basis for digital journalism, but will also jeopardize open access to opinion-forming information on the Internet in the long term.”
Until the actual complaint is made available (according to Heise it is yet to be served) the precise details behind the complaint are open to speculation. However, considering the way AdBlock Plus works, it seems unlikely that a browser plug-in could in any way change code on its digital platforms.
It’s a point not lost on Eyeo, which totally rejects the claim.
“The argument that we intervene in the ‘programming code of websites’, I would like to call almost absurd,” Eyeo’s spokesperson said in a statement.
“It does not take much technical understanding to understand that a browser-side plug-in does not make it possible to modify anything on Springer’s servers.”
It’s not totally inconceivable that Alex Springer might attempt to present an argument under other aspects of copyright law, such as circumvention of technological measures put in place by copyright holders to restrict acts they don’t authorize.
Of course, the full details will only become apparent when the lawsuit is eventually made available for public scrutiny.
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When President Trump took office in early 2017, copyright holders hoped to have found a new ally in their fight against piracy.
The Copyright Alliance made this very clear in a public letter stressing that few presidents, if any, have had a more sizable and diverse copyright portfolio.
In the two years that followed not a whole lot has changed in terms of U.S. copyright policies. However, Trump himself has made headlines on a few occasions, being accused of copyright infringement.
This happened again yesterday when the US President posted, what many believed to be, a 2020 campaign video on Twitter. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump’s tweet reads, with the video made up of a variety of news clips underneath.
The video in question has been floating around on YouTube for a few days and doesn’t appear to come from the White House, as some suggested. In fact, it was posted by a Reddit user “knock-nevisTDF,” last week, who says he made the clip himself.
The President appeared to like it though and was happy to share it via Twitter. However, what he may not have realized is that the video in question was set to music from “The Dark Knight Rises”, something that wasn’t well received by Warner Bros. Entertainment.
The movie studio saw it as a clear case of copyright infringement and set its legal team on the ‘case.’
“The use of Warner Bros.’ score from ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ in the campaign video was unauthorized,” a Warner Bros. spokesperson said in a statement quoted by Variety. “We are working through the appropriate legal channels to have it removed.”
Shortly after this statement, Twitter did indeed take the video down, as can be seen below. The copy that was posted on YouTube and shared on Reddit has been removed as well, although it remains available elsewhere.
It’s an understatement to say that the President’s actions are being followed closely, so the removed video made headlines all over the world. Some reports even claim that the Warner Bros. is filing a “copyright infringement suit” against Trump over his “2020 campaign video.”
We haven’t seen any evidence of a pending lawsuit, nor is this an official campaign video, so this may just be another case of what President Trump would call ‘fake news.’
The reality is, however, that this isn’t the first time the President has been called out for sharing copyright-infringing content on Twitter. Just a few weeks ago, a video the R.E.M’s song, ‘Everybody Hurts,’ in the background, was removed by Twitter.
Twitter reportedly took this action after Mike Mills, the bassist for R.E.M., complained about the unauthorized use of the track.
And just last week Electronic Arts reported one of President Trump’s tweets for using copyrighted audio from a Mass Effect 2 game trailer without permission. That is now ‘withheld’ from the public.
And that’s not all. There is also a copyright claim on a tweet about a beautiful evening in El Paso, posted a few weeks ago. While more detail is not available, we assume that the President used copyrighted material without permission, again.
If that’s not enough, there are trademark issues as well. HBO didn’t like it when President Trump used a photo containing the Game of Thrones font and a play on the “Winter is Coming” message in a political context.
The company said in a statement that it “would prefer our trademark not be misappropriated for political purposes,” hinting at trademark misuse, but it’s unclear whether it took any action in response.
For now, none of the complaints are affecting the status of President Trump’s Twitter account.
In theory, Twitter reserves the right to suspend accounts that repeatedly receive copyright complaints. This is clearly stated in the company’s copyright policy.
“If multiple copyright complaints are received Twitter may lock accounts or take other actions to warn repeat violators. These warnings may vary across Twitter’s services. Under appropriate circumstances we may suspend user accounts under our repeat infringer policy,” the policy reads.
How many “offenses” are needed to warrant a suspension is not mentioned, however.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the “Dark Knight Rises” score, titled “Why Do We Fall?” was composed by Hans Zimmer. He previously shared the track on his YouTube account, but the video in question was recently removed, likely by himself.
That said, the same music is used in hundreds if not thousands of other YouTube videos, and it’s widely shared on Twitter as well. Apparently, copyright takedowns have priority when the President is involved.
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More than a decade ago, the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) began putting local ISP Eircom under pressure to deal with online piracy.
The legal action, spearheaded by Sony, Universal, and Warner, was brought to an end after Eircom (now Eir) agreed to implement a so-called “three strikes” regime.
The agreement saw the labels tracking alleged infringers (mainly using BitTorrent networks) and sending notices of infringement to Eircom. The ISP agreed to forward these notices to its subscribers, with those receiving a third facing the possibility of a court process and disconnection from the Internet.
Once Eircom had complied, the labels homed in on other ISPs. After a fight UPC (now Virgin) caved into similar demands, agreeing to hand over details of subscribers who received a third “strike” to the record labels.
Last year, legal action against Sky ended swiftly when the ISP agreed to implement a similar regime after a lawyer for the record labels claimed that schemes operated by the other ISPs were proving successful.
Mr Justice Robert Haughton, presiding, agreed that “the big stick does the job”, suggesting that when infringers are faced with losing their anonymity to the record labels, that is enough for them to correct their behavior.
Now, less than six months later, it has been revealed that another Irish ISP has agreed to implement the same regime.
After Sony, Universal and Warner filed an application against Vodafone Ireland to be heard in the Commercial Court, the ISP voluntarily agreed to adopt a “three strikes” mechanism. While this could be viewed as giving in without a fight, momentum was clearly against the telecoms company.
Mr Justice Robert Haughton said he would make a similar order to the one made in the case against Sky, Irish Times reports. Sony, Universal, Warner and Vodafone will pay their own costs.
The system to be deployed by Vodafone is straightforward. The first two warnings sent to allegedly-infringing subscribers will be for informational purposes only and to act as a deterrent. Subscribers going on to receive a third notice will have their personal details handed to the record labels.
Then, at their discretion, the labels will have the option of taking a case to court to have the accounts of repeat infringers terminated.
Thus far, no such case against a subscriber in Ireland has been publicized.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court2-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-10 14:55:082019-04-10 14:55:08Vodafone Will Implement ‘Three-Strikes’ For Pirates
In 2009, anti-piracy group BREIN took News-Service Europe (NSE) – one of Europe’s largest Usenet providers at the time – to court.
Representing the movie and music industries, BREIN argued that NSE must delete all infringing content from its servers, and in 2011 the Court of Amsterdam sided with the anti-piracy group.
In its initial verdict, the Court concluded that NSE willingly facilitated online piracy through its services. As a result, the company was ordered to remove all copyrighted content and filter future posts for possible copyright infringements.
According to the Usenet provider, this filtering requirement would be too costly to achieve. It shut down its service but appealed the case.
After several more years of litigation, the Amsterdam appeals court then ruled that NSE wasn’t liable for pirating users after all, but that it is required to offer a fast and effective notice and takedown procedure, possibly with additional measures.
BREIN was not happy with this outcome and decided to take the matter to the Dutch Supreme Court. While NSE is no longer a threat, the case could prove crucial for many other Usenet providers.
BREIN has been very critical of some commercial Usenet companies, describing them as a refuge for pirates of all ilks, with uploaders, site owners and resellers working in tandem to facilitate copyright infringement.
The Dutch Supreme Court has taken on the case but it’s struggling with some key questions on the liability side. In an order last week, it, therefore, decided to ask the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for input.
The four questions all relate to the role of Usenet providers, similar to NSE, as third-party intermediaries. NSE argues that its role is no different than a regular hosting service that stores content, in the sense that it merely offers a platform where people can share content.
However, NSE also facilitated the availability of content, which was sometimes synchronized with that of other Usenet providers. In addition, it offered a search functionality which made it easier for customers to find files.
The Supreme Court questions whether NSE is “communicating to the public” and whether it’s liable for the infringements of users. Among other things, this depends on whether it has an “active” or “passive” role under EU law.
To get more clarity, the following questions (translated and summarized) are referred to the EU Court of Justice. These apply to Usenet providers that operate in a similar fashion to NSE. This includes selling subscriptions to its servers and offering a substantial quantity of copyright infringing works.
1. Is such a Usenet provider performing an act of communication to the public under EU law?
2. If the answer to question 1 is yes, is the Usenet provider liable for this act of communication or is it shielded under Article 14 of the E-commerce Directive?
3. If the answer to question 1 is no, is the Usenet provider playing an active role that would make it liable for copyright infringements?
4. If the Usenet provider is shielded from liability, it there anything else it can be required to do?
Interestingly, the Dutch Supreme Court also references “Article 13” (now Article 17) of the new EU Copyright Directive. This article requires online content sharing service providers to obtain licenses, or ensure that infringing content stays off their platforms once notified.
While the legal framework has yet to be adopted and implemented, the Supreme Court states that it’s unclear how this should be taken into account.
All in all, the answers from the EU court will be crucial for the NSE case and the future of many other Usenet providers in Europe that operate in a similar fashion. The Court previously ruled in similar cases against The Pirate Bay and a seller of fully-loaded streaming boxes, which were both held liable.
That liability based on EU law is not limited to pirate sites and media boxes, which became apparent in an order handed down by the Supreme Court of Italy last month.
In a case filed by the TV company Mediaset, the Italian court ruled that Yahoo! can be held liable for broadcasting infringing videos under certain conditions. The Supreme Court set specific guidelines for when a hosting service is seen as operating “actively” or “passively,” and sent the case back to a lower court.
BREIN obviously hopes that the EU Court of Justice will conclude that Usenet providers can indeed be held liable. If that’s the case, the anti-piracy group is likely to put pressure on other providers, similar to what it did with dozens of streaming box sellers last year.
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After close to ten years of legal debate over the thorny issue of pirate site blocking, Austria is now one of many countries in the EU that restricts access to such sites.
The legal path was one of the more difficult ones to date and it took until November 2017 for the Supreme Court of Justice to definitively rule that The Pirate Bay and other “structurally-infringing” sites can indeed be blocked, if rights holders have exhausted all other options.
In January 2018, T-Mobile was asked to block several new sites, including thepiratebay.org, thepiratebay.red, piratebayblocked.com, and pirateproxy.cam. However, the ISP feared the blocking had the potential to violate net neutrality rules since the domains aren’t specifically listed in a court order and are only considered ‘clone’ sites.
As a result, the ISP reported itself to the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR) for a potential net neutrality breach. Several other ISPs including A1, Drei, Kabelplus, Liwest, and UPC later followed suit.
In December 2018, T-Mobile was asked to block more domains – kinox.sg, movie4k.org, movie4k.am, movie4k.pe. The company highlighted no unusual issues, noting that the domains “correspond to those which have already been blocked on the basis of a court decision.”
The company now reports that following a request in March, it has also taken action to block a further 22 domains which are claimed to be involved in copyright infringement.
These include several Kinox, Movie4K and Movie2K-related domains, plus burning-series.net, serienstream.be, streamkiste. tv, serienjunkies.org, and cinemas.to.
The list also includes the popular sites bs.to and s.to, platforms that were recently blocked by Vodafone in Germany without a specific court order, under fear of repercussions from music rights group GEMA.
While it doesn’t want to breach a separate and unrelated court order in Austria, T-Mobile still has concerns over potential net neutrality breaches after blocking the domains listed in the latest batch.
“The listed sites, in terms of their content as well as their design and functionality, are largely the same as those that had to be blocked due to judicial decisions,” it notes.
“At the same time, we have sent a letter to the regulatory authority to have these restrictions checked for compatibility with the TSM Regulation (net neutrality).”
In January 2019, telecoms regulator Telecom Control Commission said it will get involved when an ISP block is requested, triggering a supervisory process and a full review by the agency. Informal blocking of domains following a simple request from rights holders was therefore ruled out.
Moving forward, however, ISPs in Austria are still calling for an “independent judicial body” to confirm the legality of any blocking requests in advance to ensure that a minimum of time and resources are expended on the process.
The list of domains blocked by T-Mobile in the latest batch are:
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.
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With around a quarter of a billion monthly users, Reddit is one of the most important sites on the Internet.
The site plays host to millions of live discussions on countless topics ranging from the mundane to obviously controversial.
Recently we’ve reported on the troubles being faced by /r/piracy, Reddit’s most popular sub-Reddit focused on piracy discussion.
In an article published mid-March 2019, we reported how the moderators of the forum were making best efforts to keep content on the right side of the law and within Reddit’s rules. Just a handful of days later, however, the moderators received notice from Reddit that they were receiving too many copyright complaints from rightsholders.
For a sub-Reddit that has strict rules forbidding anyone posting links to infringing content, the notification came as a disappointment. While some complaints were legitimate (some people simply won’t abide by the rules and some posts do get missed), many were not. This placed the forum’s moderators between a rock and a hard place.
According to some of the copyright notices filed with Reddit, simply posting an alleged pirate site homepage URL warranted a complaint, even when that URL didn’t link to any infringing content. We’ve seen the same kind of issues before, when copyright holders have made attempts to have site homepages delisted from Google, despite their content never appearing there.
Further complicating the process is that the moderators of /r/piracy have no ability to respond to potentially false allegations. If a user makes a post that results in a copyright notice, only that user (or Reddit’s admins) are in a position to dispute the claim with the notice sender, so that rarely happens. Even if it does, nothing is made public.
Meanwhile, the notices keep building up, despite best efforts and whether they’re valid or not. Even people simply posting names of releases are being flagged for copyright infringement, something that isn’t illegal in any form. As a result, those posts too are now being removed, as quickly as the mods can reach them.
“I have begun unofficially removing release posts and it’s quite sad considering that a rather large bulk of our users look forward to them every day, I know I did,” moderator ‘dysgraphical‘ informs TF.
“We have had days when releases were the highlight of the day filled with hundreds of comments of excited people discussing the film. This has all been scrubbed now. We recently had an April Fool’s ‘Avengers: Endgame’ release post hit r/all and while the community was happy to meme on being fooled, a few users were concerned that copyright holders might act on it and have it removed.”
It’s nothing less than self-censorship in response to sloppy and/or fraudulent claims, but these are testing times.
But the really big issue here relates to the huge archive of posts already present on /r/piracy – some ten years’ worth of discussions. Is there anything in there that could warrant a surprise complaint? Apparently so, since rightsholders have been digging up issues from the past and complaining to Reddit.
This left the moderators of /r/piracy with a huge dilemma. Uncertain of what lay in the archives and only being in a strong position to be absolutely certain of the state of play more recently, they asked the community for input on the ‘Nuclear Option‘ – deleting every post older than six months old, just to be sure.
After the votes were counted, those in favor of deleting the archives outnumbered those asking for preservation by ten to one. All that was left was to find a way to begin deleting history, around 9.5 years of posts. A script was created and put into motion and the purge began.
“Given the speed, this might take weeks,” says moderator ‘dbzer0’, a nine-year veteran of the sub-Reddit.
It’s unclear when this sweeping process with be fully completed, but it’s hoped that it can keep the community alive. Not all of the moderators were in favor of the mass deletion since that, of course, deletes the community’s history too.
“The Scrubbing [as the deletion process is now called] is just a poorly, rushed attempt to elongate the community’s lifespan on Reddit,” dysgraphical says.
“We have already seen this performed in other subreddits in which mod teams have bent over backwards to please the administration by implementing their own set of stringent rules. These communities no longer exist.”
But the vote was cast and the final decision appears to have been a democratic one rooted in self-preservation. It does raise interesting points, however.
The recently highlighted situation shows that sub-Reddits devoted to controversial topics – especially those related to piracy – are at risk of being targeted. When they are, the copyright notice and counter-notice process is somewhat undermined.
While users can be banned for repeat infringements, it’s trivial to open a new account. And when the notices start to pile up on Reddit – legitimately or not – whole communities can be banned, despite working above and beyond the requirements of the law.
“The issue at hand is not that r/Piracy distributes copyrighted content, but rather that the discussion of digital piracy is no longer protected; it never was,” dysgraphical adds.
“As copyright holders continue pushing the envelope, by claiming that the mention of streaming sites infringe their IP, Reddit will continue complying and effectively ban r/Piracy. Copyright holders on Reddit no longer need to dig deep to find infringing content, they can pick any thread or comment at random that loosely relates to their IP, and file a DMCA takedown notice.”
To give a school analogy, it appears that if a few kids misbehave, get misinterpreted, or targeted incompetently, the whole class gets kept behind after school – before being permanently expelled. It’s effectively mass punishment based on the acts of a few – or the whims of bots.
Finally, subscriptions to /r/piracy have always been on the increase and are now edging towards 370,000 subscribers but the ongoing purge is having a clear effect on traffic to the sub-Reddit, when the two unusual peaks (including the April 1 surge) are discounted.
Reddit’s /r/piracy traffic stats
Whether the popular forum can fight back from this decline will remain to be seen but it’s clear that deleting most of its history is already causing pain. The big question is whether Reddit’s admins are taking note of this huge olive branch or whether they’ll still choose to chop down the whole tree regardless.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/reddit-feat.jpg3261200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-08 02:51:102019-04-08 02:51:10Reddit’s /r/Piracy is Deleting Almost 10 Years of History to Avoid Ban
When President Trump took office in early 2017, copyright holders hoped to have found a new ally in their fight against piracy. 
In 2009, anti-piracy group 
This week we have four newcomers in our chart.
