The increasing popularity of specialized “pirate boxes” has become one of the main anti-piracy priorities in recent years.
These devices often ship with the popular Kodi media player installed. While Kodi itself is a neutral platform, the devices can turn into a powerful pirate tool when they’re “fully-loaded” with third-party add-ons
During the spring of 2016, a group of prominent Canadian rightsholders decided to take action to stop the sale of these devices. Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Videotron and others, took several retailers of such “fully-loaded” set-top boxes to court.
It didn’t take long before the Federal Court in Canada issued an interlocutory injunction against several companies, prohibiting them from selling “fully-loaded” boxes with pirate addons. A subsequent attempt by several vendors to have this ban lifted failed.
In its initial order, the court allowed the rightsholders to add similar vendors to the lawsuit, an opportunity they gladly seized. The list of defendants has since grown to more than 125, including ITVbox.net, MTLFreeTV, WaveTVBox, SOLO IPTV, and Infinity TV.
A few days ago, the Ontario-based company Infinity TV agreed to settle the case with the rightsholders. The company admits its wrongdoing in a consent judgment signed by Federal Court Judge Denis Gascon.
Infinity TV operated from infinitytv.ca, which no longer lists any products. It previously sold a pre-loaded streaming box called the “ITV Unit” through which it offered access to “over 300,000+ MOVIES – 20,000+ TV SHOWS – LIVE SPORTS” for a one-time price.
Infinity TV
According to the consent judgment, the vendor “induced and authorized users of Pre-loaded Set-top boxes to infringe the Plaintiffs’ right to reproduce the Plaintiffs Programs,” which is in violation of the Copyright Act.
The order also states that Infinity TV sold and distributed equipment that was used to receive “encrypted subscription programming” after it was decoded, which is contrary to Canada’s Radiocommunication Act.
What stands out the most in the mutually agreed judgment is a ‘settlement’ fee of CAD$5 million, which Infinity TV must now pay to the copyright holders to cover various damages and costs.
CAD$5 million…
This is the first consent judgment in the case according to the Wire Report, which picked up the story late last week. There may have been other monetary settlements in the past, but these are not public.
In addition to the CAD$5 million Infinity TV now owes, the consent order also includes a permanent injunction. This prohibits the company from selling any infringing fully-loaded set-top boxes, infringing IPTV subscriptions, including its “ITV Unit.”
Just a few months ago, Infinity TV’s website promised that something would be “coming soon,” but this message has since disappeared.
—
Copies of the consent judgment (pdf) and the amended Statement of Claim (pdf) were obtained by TorrentFreak with help from attorney James Plotkin and stagiaire Fabienne Lajoie.
Hundreds of thousands of German citizens (and quite possibly more) have been hit with settlement notices over the past 15 years.
The country is one of the most risky places in the world to share files without the permission of copyright holders, as plenty of Internet users have found to their detriment.
One such case, dating back to 2011, saw Universal Music send a letter to a family whose Internet connection was used to share the Rihanna album ‘Loud’. However, the case wasn’t straightforward.
The parents, to whom the letter was addressed, stated that they had no interest whatsoever in the R&B star. However, one of their three children did, and the parents actually knew which one had committed the infringement.
Relying on a local law that protects family members from having to testify against each other, the parents refused to hand over the identity of their infringing offspring. However, after the case was heard by the Munich Court of First Instance, they were themselves held liable and ordered to pay almost 3,900 euros.
The case then headed to the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) which resulted in another win for Universal.
The BGH upheld the decision of the Munich Court in 2017 and held the parents liable for infringement, reasoning if the parents knew who had committed the offense but refused to identify them, they should pay the fine themselves. But the show wasn’t over just yet.
The case then progressed to the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgerichts – BVerfG ) which handed down its decision Wednesday.
Siding with the judgments of the lower courts, the BVerfG said that if the parents don’t want to identify which of their children committed the offense, then it is they who must be held liable and face the consequences.
“The fundamental right to respect for family life under Article 6 (1) of the Basic Law does not preclude a civil-procedural obligation on Internet access holders to disclose which family member used the connection if copyright infringement was committed via the connection,” the decision reads.
“On the basis of this ruling, the 2nd Chamber of the First Senate, with a decision released today, did not accept the constitutional complaint of a parent against a conviction for damages and reimbursement of charges, who knew which of their children had made copyrighted music available to the public, but in a civil case had not revealed that.
“Family protection is not intended to escape tactical considerations of personal liability for infringement of intellectual property rights,” the Court added. “The mere fact of living with other family members does not automatically lead to a disclaimer for the subscriber.”
While this sounds very much like a defeat for the parents in question, the ruling also clarifies points of law which may prove of importance to others who might find themselves in a similar position in the future.
Knowing who committed an infringement and refusing to hand over their information leads to liability, but not knowing who did so may produce a more favorable outcome, says Cologne-based lawyer Christian Solmecke.
“The Internet subscriber is not obliged to make any specific inquiries within the family. However, if he himself determines who the perpetrator is, then he must also name them – even if they come from his family environment,” Solmecke notes.
“The ruling leads to the conclusion that parents are now better off if they theoretically entertain the possibility that their children have committed the crime, but at the same time declare that they do not know the true culprit.
“If the parents know the culprit, they must betray him or they are liable themselves. If they do not know the culprit, the parents are released from liability,” the lawyer concludes.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court2-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-04 08:45:222019-04-04 08:45:22German Court: If Parents Cover For Their Kid’s Piracy, They Become Liable
With the rise of sites of YouTube, anyone can stream videos and songs directly to their browser. It’s convenient, quick, and should generate revenue for the site and copyright holders.
However, many people prefer to have content saved on their local machines, so millions turn to so-called ‘stream-ripping’ sites.
In basic terms, these platforms allow users to download or ‘rip’ content for offline use, something which negates the need to return to YouTube for repeat plays.
While this helps with bandwidth costs and might even be good for the environment, copyright holders – music labels in particular – tend to lose revenue as a result. Furthermore, users having a library of offline songs can reduce the need for services such as Spotify, for example.
This has led to the practice of stream-ripping being labeled not only as piracy, but one of the most serious forms of piracy facing the music industry today. As a result, platforms that offer stream-ripping services are now seen in the same light as torrent sites once were.
In an effort to prevent stream-ripping by Australian citizens, Music Rights Australia, backed by the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), Sony Music, Universal Music, and Warner Music, are requesting a block of several stream-ripping services.
The application first became public in January and the parties were in Federal Court again today, arguing for ISP blocks against four sites – 2conv, Flv2mp3, FLV.to, Convert2mp3. All are based overseas, one of the requirements for blocking under Australian Copyright Law.
Convert2mp3 is Germany-based and was previously declared illegal and blocked in a first-of-its-kind case in Denmark. The other three are all based in Russia and have recently been embroiled in legal action with labels in the United States. Thus far, they have emerged on top, but not without controversy (1,2).
According to barrister Rob Clarke, licenses are not available from APRA for anyone in Australia to download music content for free from YouTube, neither have the owners of YouTube been granted licenses to facilitate that.
ComputerWorld reports that in Court, Clark read from 2conv’s description of its own service, declaring that the service “converts your videos to mp3 and other formats from YouTube in just a couple of clicks.”
“They’re not your videos!” he said.
While some people may indeed download videos they own from YouTube, the music groups contend that the vast majority of people are doing so in order to amass offline libraries of music. This is particularly assisted by desktop apps published by the Russian sites that allow people to process downloads from YouTube in batches, Clark added.
The barrister also noted that the terms of service on 2conv (and indeed Flv2mp3 and FLV.to) require users to have “necessary licenses” to download content but according to ComputerWorld, Clarke poured cold water on the statement.
“We say that that’s a meaningless warranty,” he said. “The owners of this website know very well that, given they’re telling people to copy URLs from the YouTube website, those people don’t have any licenses, permissions and so on to go about downloading those videos.”
Before recent amendments to the Copyright Act, “online locations” outside Australia with a strict “primary purpose of infringing” could be blocked by ISPs. That definition was expanded last November so that sites “with the primary effect” of infringing or facilitating infringement could also be blocked.
The labels clearly hope that the Federal Court will find in their favor in this stream-ripping application and there is no doubt that the chances of that will have been increased following the recent changes to the law.
The domains requested to be blocked by ISPs in the original application are as follows:
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court2-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-03 17:44:082019-04-03 17:44:08Aussie Music Industry in Court to Demand Stream-Ripping Site Blocks
According to a December 2018 report, the video games industry was set to generate around $135 billion last year.
It’s undoubtedly a huge market, and a growing one too. The 2018 forecasts outperform 2017’s figures by almost 11%.
Of the three major sectors – mobile, PC, and console – the latter enjoyed the largest growth, with revenues increasing around 15% on the previous year. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the latter is the least affected by piracy, with most major consoles relatively secure against pirate players.
The same cannot be said about PC titles, however. This sector accounts for 25% of the global market, according to market analysts Newzoo, but still managed growth in 2018, increasing revenues by 3.2% to $33.4 billion. Nevertheless, PC games piracy is widespread, largely due to the relatively open nature of its native platform.
To combat this issue, games companies often deploy (to a greater or lesser extent) some kind of Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution. These software-based systems are designed to defeat attempts to ‘crack’ gaming titles, but evidence shows that effectiveness can vary greatly.
One of the most formidable and notorious systems is Denuvo. Countless articles have been written about the DRM solution, with many arguing it harms the gaming experience and only has a negative effect on genuine buyers.
Many publishers, however, see it as the last line of defense against pirates determined to download free games whenever they can. The big question, of course, is whether it achieves that goal.
While Denuvo is undoubtedly fiendish and impossible for Joe Public to defeat, dedicated cracking teams see it as a mountain to be climbed and time and again they’ve shown that it can be scaled – quickly too. On the other hand, Denuvo claims that AAA games not using its technology face huge losses.
Interestingly, anti-piracy company MUSO published a piece today that suggests that there may be a more consumer-friendly alternative to DRM.
Titled “DRM, The Cracks Are Starting to Show” and written by Adam Hitchen, Technical Services Executive at MUSO, the piece questions whether DRM is the right approach to PC game piracy, especially given both the apparent ease it’s now being cracked and the restrictions it places on genuine players – such as having to remain online for a game to play.
Highlighting the leak of what would’ve been a Denuvo-protected Devil May Cry 5 recently, which fell to pirates on the very first day of its release (while revealing a performance advantage without the protection), Hitchen asks:
“With this precedent set, combined with the frustration it induces in players, is DRM really worth it?
“Games studios and distributors need to protect their content online, and take a stand against piracy, but the chosen strategy should not undermine the core product or hijack the conversation around a release,” Hitchen adds.
“Gaming creates huge and passionate fan bases which need to be nurtured; fans should not be left feeling as though their gameplay is being hindered.”
Given that Denuvo is arguably the most successful DRM around today, the fact that it’s regularly being cracked close to ‘Day One’ for major AAA gaming titles must be a concern for those who believe that DRM is the only way to protect their investment. MUSO, however, believes there is another way.
“With immediate availability of cracks to work-around DRM, and hackers choosing to proactively target releases using DRM, it’s time to change the conversation,” the company says.
“Content protection strategies should be non-invasive and data-driven. Rather than embedding mechanisms within the games themselves, studios can effectively remove illegal content as it appears by crawling for copies.
“Taking this approach keeps fans onboard, doesn’t impact gameplay and still ensures that piracy is stamped out – the things that really matter,” Hitchen concludes.
There’s no doubt that this is a highly controversial topic that has no simple solutions or indeed any perfect ones. One way or another it appears that PC content is going to be pirated. But MUSO’s piece definitely raises some good points.
If DRM, like Denuvo, is going to regularly fall very close to a game’s release date moving forward, it becomes somewhat useless. While some titles will remain protected, it currently seems like the cracking groups are the ones with the power.
They increasingly appear to be the arbiters of whether time gets put into cracking games – or not. This is not the balance of power games publishers relish when investing millions into their new creation.
However, will they be prepared to take MUSO’s advice by releasing DRM-free content into the market to keep paying customers happy, in the hope of rendering pirate copies inaccessible with takedowns?
MUSO clearly hopes so – but then it would because this is one of the company’s areas of expertise. The company is right that this problem for the gaming industry perhaps needs a fresh set of eyes but in the meantime, many eyes will be turning to Google’s Stadia.
This cloud-based gaming system seems to have the potential – one day in the distant future – to deal with the piracy problem once and for all. Until then it’s takedowns or DRM or both – and pirates don’t like either of them.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/game-featured.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-03 02:42:522019-04-03 02:42:52Anti-Piracy Firm MUSO Argues Against DRM, In Favor of Takedowns
ABS-CBN, the largest media and entertainment company in the Philippines, has scored yet another legal victory in the United States.
This week, a Florida district court issued a default judgment against 27 defendants who operate websites that offer links to copyright-infringing streams of ABS-CBN content.
The lawsuit, filed last December, targets more than three dozen domain names, including dramaofw.ch, vidco.su, pinoyflixtv.com, pinoytvlovershd.com, and tambayand.com.
The domains are connected to streaming portals that specialize in Philippine content. These sites attract visitors from all over the world, including the United States, where they target people of Philippine origin.
“Defendants’ websites operating under the Subject Domain Names are classic examples of pirate operations, having no regard whatsoever for the rights of ABS-CBN and willfully infringing ABS-CBN’s intellectual property,” the company wrote in its original complaint.
One of the sites
Despite facing hefty damages, none of the site operators turned up in court. This prompted ABS-CBN to file for a default judgment which was granted by US District Judge William Dimitrouleas this week.
In his verdict, the Judge orders the 27 defendants to each pay $1 million in damages, for willfully violating ABS-CBN’s trademark. In addition, four of the defendants received an additional $30,000 in copyright infringement damages on top, as requested.
The order
ABS-CBN’s most recent win follows a pattern of similar verdicts in recent years. With these lawsuits, the company has managed to score dozens of millions in damages from a wide variety of streaming sites with relative ease.
While this sounds like a success story, it is unknown whether the Philippine media company has managed to recoup any damages from the defendants, who are generally not known by name.
In order to get at least some money from the defendants, ABS-CBN also obtained an injunction against the advertisers of the pirate sites. These services, including Google Adsense, RevenueHits, and Popads, will have to hand over the outstanding revenue of these sites to the media giant within a week.
The permanent injunction further requires the domain name registrars and registries of the sites to transfer the domain names to ABS-CBN.
At the time of writing, many of the domain names, including the .net and .com ones, redirect to a “serving notice” page with the case details. Websites with the former Sovjet Union’s .SU extension, remain accessible for now.
Whether the $1 million in damages and the injunction will deter all defendants from continuing remains to be seen.
Some of the names of the websites in this lawsuit are similar to ones ABS-CBN targeted previously. If the operators remain unknown, they may simply continue their business with a new domain.
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A copy of the default judgment is available here (pdf). A list of all the affected domain names, with the associated defendant number, is available below.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/court1-featured.jpg00Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-04-02 11:42:002019-04-02 11:42:00US Court Orders 27 Pirate Site Operators to Pay $1 Million Each in Damages
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Internet users who download and share copyrighted content are prone to being tracked.
If a copyright owner or its agents see such transfers, it’s possible they’ll follow this up to prevent further infringement, as is their right under the law in most major jurisdictions.
In Canada this is also the case. Under the country’s ‘notice-and-notice‘ regime, copyright holders are granted permission to send complaints to users’ ISPs, who are then required to forward them to their customers.
However, after abuse by some copyright holders, last year the government stepped in with new rules. Such notices can no longer contain offers to pay cash to make supposed lawsuits go away, via an embedded hyperlink or other means. Neither can they demand a user’s personal details.
Unfortunately the new rules – as predicted – are being abused by companies who feel the law doesn’t apply to them.
As reported by TF earlier this month, anti-piracy outfit Digital Millennium Forensics (a Canada-based company), in conjunction with Elevation Pictures, is continuing to send notices that breach all of the rules, especially the demands for cash settlement.
Since the publication of our article, TF has received numerous additional copies of notices sent to even more customers of Eastlink, the ISP featured in the piece. The government says that ISPs don’t have to pass abusive notices on but Eastlink told us they don’t have the capability to filter them out, since there are so many of them.
Since then, the flow has continued. TorrentFreak has received even more copies of abusive notices sent by Digital Millennium Forensics and forwarded by other ISPs. They include Shaw, one of Canada’s most prominent providers, through to Xplornet, the country’s “leading supplier” of rural high-speed Internet.
In Shaw’s emails to customers, the company acknowledges that “a notice does not necessarily mean that you have in fact infringed copyright or that you will be sued for copyright infringement”, adding that it is “unaware of the full details and merit of the infringement claim.” It also adds the following important text:
The Notice and Notice regime does not impose any obligation on an internet user who receives a notice of alleged infringement to do anything or to contact the copyright owner or its representative who is alleging infringement. More particularly, there is no legal obligation to make any settlement payment requested by a copyright owner. Such settlement proposals are sometimes included in a notice.
While this is perfectly accurate information, the company still forwards abusive notices to its customers when the law does not require it to do so. The same can be said of both Eastlink and Xplornet, with the latter noting the following:
In accordance with section 41.26(1)(a) of the Copyright Act, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is required to forward any notice received from the copyright holder in a work (such as music, videos, books or games) alleging infringement of that work in connection with the Internet or other digital networks. As a result, we are forwarding to you the attached notification related to your account.
We are unaware of the details or merits of this infringement claim. If you have questions concerning this matter, please contact the copyright holder directly using the contact information in the attached notice.
This statement is problematic. While 41.26(1)(a) does indeed require an ISP to forward a notice, the notice must also comply with 41.25(2) and (3) to be valid – and parts 3(a) and 3(c) prohibit notices that include settlement demands or links to the same.
The rules are crystal clear
Furthermore, part 3(b) also prohibits demands for “personal information” (this is because the government wants to protect consumers) yet the advice from Xplornet is for customers with questions to contact the sender of the already abusive notice in person. This is not contrary to the law but does raise more problems.
While the ISP is correct in noting that it can’t help with the details of the complaint, subscribers who contact the anti-piracy company directly will invariably give up their anonymity and with claims like this, that rarely turns out well. The law is clear – consumers do not have to respond in any way to these notices.
Unfortunately, Xplornet did not respond to TorrentFreak’s request for comment. Shaw Communications did, however, and a spokesperson indicated that it’s aware of the issue and is calling for measures against senders of abusive notices.
“Unfortunately, some rightsholders and their representatives may continue to disregard the requirements of the notice-and-notice regime. Shaw makes it clear to our customers that they are not obligated to comply with settlement demands,” Shaw said in its response.
“At the same time, we are urging the introduction of measures in the Copyright Act to end this practice – such as monetary penalties applicable to rightsholders who issue notices that include settlement demands or other prohibited content.”
A deterrent is apparently necessary in this case since it seems clear that companies like Digital Millennium Forensics and Elevation Pictures have little respect for the new rules. Not to mention that ISPs don’t appear to have any choice but to keep sending abusive notices to their customers.
TekSavvy, an ISP with a reputation for standing up for its customers, told TF that the problem is so big and the potential liabilities so huge, ISPs are terrified to intervene in the notice-sending process.
The company says that it faces similar issues to those that have been highlighted in Europe recently – how is it possible to deploy copyright filters 100% accurately?
“TekSavvy receives hundreds of thousands of notices from scores of senders in dozens of formats that change frequently. In order to comply with the Notice and Notice obligations, ISPs have had to develop automated tools that can assess whether each notice is compliant before forwarding it, with potentially huge liability if we do not forward compliant notices,” a spokesperson said.
“Notice forwarding is an expensive and difficult service TekSavvy provides to rightsholders at no cost, and for which we are expected to provide a 100% service level. This has created a problem in Canada similar to the concerns we have constantly heard over Article 13 (now 17) in the EU.
“The obligation to filter out noncompliant notices amounts to a requirement that ISPs have perfect algorithms, but there is no standard right now that any algorithm could work from,” TekSavvy added.
Professor Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, agrees that there are issues with the system.
“The problem is that the government’s approach does not penalize sending settlement notices via this system. Instead, it merely states that ISPs are not obligated to send such notices,” Geist told TF.
“However, given that ISPs are still required to send compliant notices under threat of penalty, many ISPs will send all notices because it is too difficult to manually distinguish between compliant and non-compliant notices.”
Like the ISPs, Geist says there are potential solutions, such as the standardization of notices or establishing penalties for sending non-compliant notices, as suggested by Shaw. As things stand, however, things are likely to continue as they are.
“There is real concern that rights holders will continue to send settlement demands knowing that many will still be passed along,” Geist added.
There is hope, however. Canada is currently working on a Statutory Review of the Copyright Act, with ISPs such as Shaw, Bell, and Rogers – supported by Google – calling for (among other things) the standardization of notices.
“The Government should use its existing authority to enact regulations requiring that notices be submitted electronically in a form that is based on the ACNS 2.0. Mandating the use of these standards will eliminate the risk of ISPs forwarding non-compliant notices,” their umbrella group Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright (BCBC) says.
TekSavvy told TF that Internet users who want to contribute to this change should take the opportunity to write to their MPs and the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, who oversees the Copyright Act.
Worringly, it also warned that customers who receive non-compliant notices in the interim may be having their privacy breached.
When copyright notices are sent to ISPs, they store information about that complaint in order to identify alleged infringers, should that be necessary in the future. Due to the problems highlighted above, this happens even when a notice is abusive and non-compliant. For concerned customers, there is a solution, however.
“To address that privacy risk, until a standard is adopted, customers can contact us if they receive a notice that includes a settlement offer or that is otherwise not compliant with the Copyright Act, and we can remove the preserved information from our systems,” TekSavvy confirmed.
In summary, Canada-based users who receive an offer to settle in a copyright complaint do not have to contact the copyright holder and do not have to pay any settlements. They should, however, contact their ISP to ensure that the notice is scrubbed from the record and deleted from their account.
By offering free access to millions of ‘paywalled’ research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as “The Pirate Bay of Science”.
The site is used by researchers from all over the world, to access papers they otherwise have a hard time accessing.
Academic publishers are not happy with the service. They see the site as a threat to their multi-billion dollar businesses and have tried to shut it down through several lawsuits.
While Sci-Hub lost its US court battles against Elsevier and the American Chemical Society, the site didn’t fold. Instead, all the media attention only appeared to make the site even more popular.
This left the publishers with few other options than to have the site blocked by ISPs. This previously happened in Sweden, for example, as well as Russia. This month France joins the list following an order from the High Court of Paris, which also targets several Library Genesis (LibGen) domains.
Following a complaint from academic publishers Elsevier and Springer Nature, Internet providers Bouygues, Free, Orange, and SFR have been ordered to block access to Sci-Hub and LibGen sites for the year to come.
In its decision, picked up by Next INpact, the French court ruled that the two sites “clearly claim to be pirate platforms rejecting the principle of copyright and bypassing publishers’ subscription access portals.”
Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, who had no say in the matter, is disappointed with the outcome. While she believes that the blockade will have “some effect,” those who are determined to access it still have plenty of options to bypass it.
“The blockade will have some effect, though not very profound. The people who are using Sci-Hub because they need access to research can still unblock it using VPN, TOR and etc,” Elbakyan informs TorrentFreak.
The court order targets a total of 57 domain names, including various mirror sites. The academic publishers had asked the court for a more flexible blocklist, which they could update whenever new domains would become available, but this was denied.
If the publishers want to expand the blocklist, they will have to go back to court. This ensures that there remains judicial oversight over local website blockades.
Also, a request for a specific IP-address block was denied. The court sided with the ISPs, who argued that they should have the freedom to choose their own blocking method, including DNS blocking. That does mean, however, that the ISPs will also have to bear the costs.
Sci-Hub’s founder is not happy with yet another blockade but also highlights a positive note. The verdict made “Sci-Hub” a trending topic in France, which has made even more people aware of the site.
Ultimately, Elbakyan believes that there should be no mechanism for courts or governments to mandate website blockades, particularly against a site that provides free access to research, which is used by some of the smartest people in the world.
“It’s interesting that, although many French researchers are using Sci-Hub and see nothing wrong in it, this fact doesn’t affect law and court decisions, which is somehow fundamentally wrong,” Elbakyan tells us.
“Researchers are considered to be smartest people, and the government should take their opinion into account – which is not happening.”
It’s unlikely that France will issue a ban on site-blocking anytime soon, whether it’s research related or not. On the contrary, the Government has plans to expand its site-blocking capabilities in the near future by implementing a national pirate site blocklist.
— A copy of the order requiring ISPs to block access to the Sci-Hub and LibGen domains is available here (pdf).
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After the EU Parliament rubber-stamped Article 13 (renamed Article 17 in the final text) this week, speculation began in some media outlets that this signals the end of The Pirate Bay, ‘pirate’ streaming sites, and ‘pirate’ Kodi addons.
Copyright law is complex, as the recent controversies over the Copyright Directive have firmly underlined, but a fairly detailed outline can be found in the adopted text (pdf) published this week.
Teams of professional lawyers working for legal and mostly corporate platforms will undoubtedly spend hundreds of hours going through the text to fully understand what the future holds for various platforms that will defined as Online Content-Sharing Service Providers under the Directive.
What is an Online Content-Sharing Service Provider?
To begin, we can presume that most public torrent sites that operate like The Pirate Bay do not store content (only links to content) and most illicit Kodi add-ons are reliant upon sites that do host content – some or potentially most of it illegal.
“The definition of an online content-sharing service provider laid down in this Directive should target only online services that play an important role on the online content market by competing with other online content services, such as online audio and video streaming services, for the same audiences,” the document reads.
One can argue, strictly in this context, that both torrent and hosting/streaming sites (especially with piracy ambitions) fit that definition, but let’s continue.
“The services covered by this Directive are services, the main or one of the main purposes of which is to store and enable users to upload and share a large amount of copyright-protected content with the purpose of obtaining profit therefrom, either directly or indirectly, by organising it and promoting it in order to attract a larger audience, including by categorising it and using targeted promotion within it,” the final text reads.
Again, while torrent sites organize and promote links to content, they tend not to store it, but hosting and cyberlocker-type sites do. On the other hand, most platforms commonly used by pirates in the latter two categories don’t always organize and promote content on their platforms. This obviously excludes dedicated ‘pirate’ streaming portals that often display content in a Netflix-style interface.
So how is it determined whether a platform can be considered an Online Content-Sharing Service Provider under the Directive?
“The assessment of whether an online content-sharing service provider stores and gives access to a large amount of copyright-protected content should be made on a case-by-case basis and should take account of a combination of elements, such as the audience of the service and the number of files of copyright-protected content uploaded by the users of the service,” the text adds.
Again, this is open to legal interpretation but it seems that most hosting platforms that are dedicated to piracy will have servers packed with pirated content. They will also be heavily frequented by pirates. As a result, such services will always be viewed as pirate sites by rightsholders and treated as such, i.e with contempt.
This means that even if platforms do appear to qualify to be labeled as an Online Content-Sharing Service Provider, major rightsholders will never legitimize them by striking content licensing deals as required under Article 13 (now 17). First-run movies, for example, are simply impossible to license.
On the flip side, dedicated ‘pirate’ sites themselves are extremely unlikely (even if they could) to begin full-scale cooperation with rightsholders to take content down and then demonstrate “best efforts” to keep it down “in accordance with high industry standards of professional diligence.” If they did, what would they offer?
While some hosting sites do have takedown regimes, in the majority of cases rightsholders see ‘pirate’ sites as criminal operations that unfairly compete with their businesses.
The bottom line is that under existing EU law, piracy-focused torrent and cyberlocker-type sites are already operating outside the law. One only has to look at the various blocking orders around Europe that have declared The Pirate Bay – and sites like it – to be illegal.
Scooping platforms like this into Article 13 (now 17) doesn’t seem to be the key intention of rightsholders. The idea was to close the so-called “Value Gap” and the gap between paying something (in YouTube’s case) and paying absolutely nothing (in the case of torrent and streaming sites) is a gap that cannot be bridged.
There may be some borderline cases open for legal debate and even negotiation but, at the moment, there are bigger fish to fry – YouTube and YouTube-like sites, in particular.
Additionally, the Directive also includes a note that “to ensure a high level of copyright protection” the liability mechanism in the Directive “should not apply to service providers the main purpose of which is to engage in or to facilitate copyright piracy. “
There is still a lot of water to go under the bridge before the dust settles on this momentous occasion but it seems safe to say that the operators of The Pirate Bay and similar sites won’t really be extra-worried about Article 13/Article 17, because they’re on the wrong side of existing law already.
TorrentFreak sought the opinion of Tim Kuik, the boss of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, who has more experience than most when it comes to taking action against pirate sites.
We put it to him the theory that these kinds of platforms probably won’t be too affected by this week’s events, because they are already illegal under existing law, are unlikely to want to “go straight”, and rightsholders wouldn’t license or cooperate with them anyway.
The European Parliament sent a clear signal this week when it adopted the Copyright Directive.
While some MEPs state that they mistakenly pushed the wrong button on the close vote to allow changes to the text, the ultimate vote was clear.
With 348 votes in favor, 274 against, and 36 abstentions, Parliament adopted the Copyright Directive, unchanged. There is still a small chance that negotiations could be reopened if the Council doesn’t approve, but that’s really the last straw.
The French Government, however, is done waiting and is moving full steam ahead.
In a speech at the Series Mania Festival in Lille, French Minister of Culture Franck Riester described the outcome of the vote as a breakthrough. Despite fierce protects, Europe stood tall and seized a historic opportunity to bring copyright into the digital age, he said.
“Despite intense and unprecedented pressure from the tech giants, despite massive campaigns of misinformation on social networks, Europe has held up well. Europe has not yielded. Europe has resisted.”
The Minister sees the Copyright Directive as an essential piece of legislation. It won’t change anything for Internet users, he told the audience, but it will change the lives of millions of creators.
Article 13, which was confusingly renamed to Article 17 in the final text, will ensure that Internet platforms, YouTube in particular, will have to pay fair compensation to rightsholders.
“This is the first step towards greater accountability of platforms; towards a better sharing of the value that’s linked to the distribution of works online, for the benefit of creators,” Riester said.
“In the future, YouTube will have to correctly compensate the creators whose works are broadcast on its platform,” the Minister added.
France could have implemented similar legislation without Europe. However, the Minister of Culture stresses that a Europe-wide agreement is important. Large Internet platforms can’t circumvent that by simply blocking a single country.
With backing from the European Parliament, France now plans to move forward, without wasting any time.
“I want us to transpose the Copyright Directive and enter it into force as soon as possible,” Riester noted.
Most of the text will be transposed into the new ‘Audiovisual law,’ an anti-piracy law which the Government expects to present this summer. This includes including Article 13/17.
Under the article, many for-profit Internet platforms are required to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, they have to ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services.
While ‘upload filters’ are not specifically mentioned, that’s what most opponents fear. In his speech, the Minister doesn’t mention upload filters either. However, he does reference the Government’s “mission to promote and supervise content recognition technologies.”
The French news site NextInpact reports that this mission will be entrusted to Hadopi, the National Film Center, and the Superior Council of Literary and Artistic Property (CSPLA). Interestingly, the mission letter is dated March 1st, long before this week’s vote.
Besides transposing the Copyright Directive into national law, the French will also propose a variety of other anti-piracy measures in the new Audiovisual law. According to Riester, it will help to “relaunch the fight against piracy.”
France has been on the anti-piracy enforcement frontline for years and was the first country to introduce a ‘three strikes’ system for file-sharers. Today, however, most piracy is streaming related, which requires a different approach.
Since classic pirate sites are not going to comply with any laws, France will introduce a national blacklist to target the streaming piracy epidemic. This blacklist will cover clearly infringing sites, while making sure that these are not accessible through mirrors either.
The final text of the new anti-piracy law is expected to be introduced this summer.
https://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/piratefeat1.jpg2501200Dimitrologyhttps://dimitrology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/WEBSITE-LOGO-2020-SMALL.pngDimitrology2019-03-30 08:36:532019-03-30 08:36:53France Plans to Add ‘Article 13’ to New Anti-Piracy Law This Summer
By offering free access to millions of ‘paywalled’ research papers, 
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