As one of the most-visited sites on the entire Internet, Reddit needs little introduction.

The site has millions of daily visitors who read and contribute to countless discussions on every conceivable (and often inconceivable) topic.

In the piracy space, Reddit’s /r/piracy sub-Reddit is an invaluable source of information. It has close to 350,000 subscribers, making it one of the largest piracy-focused discussion platforms on the Internet. As such, many users feel the section is precariously placed.

As detailed previously, this often controversial forum is regularly subject to conjecture about its future, with many worrying that it may be shut down for breaching Reddit’s global rules, mainly after receiving too many copyright complaints.

The truth, however, is that /r/piracy is run by pragmatic individuals who work extremely hard to ensure that their baby is run not only in compliance with the law, but actually in excess of its requirements.

It’s important to know that /r/piracy is NOT the Wild West. It has a strict set of rules in place, including that people do not request or link to pirated or copyrighted content. Having this in place is important, since that’s what keeps the section in line with the law and out of trouble.

However, what’s most important is how the sub-Reddit deals with repeat offenders. Most ISPs and service providers now have such policies in place to keep the law from the door but most people won’t appreciate just how tough /r/piracy itself is now being policed.

In a recent discussion, moderator ‘dysgraphical’ revealed that he now effectively operates a zero-tolerance policy, not only for people posting links to infringing content but also people who request the same.

“I’m very proactive in temporarily banning first time offenders of rule 3 [posting or requesting infringing content), and permanently banning any spam or intent to sell/distribute personal information. As long as the community keeps reporting rule breaking posts, we’re fine,” he wrote.

That’s worth highlighting again. Most online platforms will tolerate three, four, or more actual infringements of copyright before taking firm action, while ISPs tend to err on the side of caution by only taking action against subscribers who’ve had multiple infringement allegations made against them.

While this may sound harsh to those who feel all content should be free (and they should have the freedom to both request and obtain it), they aren’t running Reddit, they aren’t in charge of any sub-Reddits, or the ones that will suffer if a section is shut down for repeat infringements.

In addition, /r/piracy has automated tools in place that aim to catch people breaking the rules (which go beyond the requirements of the law) and the law itself. These so-called ‘automoderators‘ aim to catch infringing posts immediately while making the mods’ life that little bit easier.

“Automod catches a ton of request posts and automatically deletes them everyday. All together with manual mod and automod removals, about ~25 posts are removed daily for breaking the rules,” dysgraphical explains.

“The issue is that there will always be people attempting to circumvent the rules by oddly rewording their titles. For what it’s worth, they get the banhammer whenever I catch them.”

Again, this is worth repeating. Those who simply have no respect for the rules of /r/piracy not only face suspension for a first offense, but also face a permanent ban if they attempt to outwit the system that protect the sub-Reddit’s future.

TF has a system in place that’s able to monitor requests and other rule-breaking posts and capture copies of them before they are automatically deleted. It isn’t perfect, but we can confirm that /r/piracy and its mods (both human and machine) are very diligent.

To some, it may seem counter-intuitive for /r/piracy to be so tough on piracy itself, but the entire future of the discussion platform is reliant on strictly policing the platform. If those in charge loosened their grip, there’s little doubt that a minority of people who simply refuse to read the rules would be responsible for the forum being banned by Reddit.

However, it’s clear that since the opposite is true, the reality of the situation is much less precarious than some might assume.

“Contrary to the fearmongering that Redditors love contriving, we have never been contacted by the Admins for any copyright infringement or sitewide rule violation,” dysgraphical adds.

“They have deleted a few posts here and there at their own discretion and have notified the OPs but we (mod team) have never received any complaints or notices for that matter.”

For a community of almost 350,000 subscribers that is some record (especially given the topic), and one the moderators of /r/piracy should be proud of. There are thousands of dedicated platforms to choose from if people want to engage in actual piracy but sacrificing /r/piracy to the gods would only serve to stifle entirely legal discussion.

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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For most people, search engines such as Google are an essential tool to enjoy the web in all its glory.

With clever algorithms, the company offers a gateway to billions of sites, many of which would otherwise remain undiscovered.

This also includes many ‘pirate’ sites. While there are plenty of people who don’t mind seeing these show up in search results, their presence is a thorn in the side of copyright holders.

At the beginning of this decade, this problem was hardly recognized. When Google published its first transparency report, it received just a few thousand requests per day. Today, that number has grown to well over two million.

For years this number kept going up and up. While that trend was broken recently, the total now adds up to an impressive figure.

Google’s transparency report shows that copyright holders have asked the company to remove four billion links to alleged copyright-infringing content. The majority or these requests, more than 90%, were indeed removed or put on a preemptive blacklist.

The four billion links were reported by 168,180 copyright holders who identified 2,283,811 separate domains. These domains also include false positives, including websites of The White House, the FBI, Disney, Netflix, the New York Times, and even TorrentFreak.

Most reported links do indeed point to copyrighted material, however. Google typically takes these out of their search engine softly after a request comes in. This means that the takedown process works as intended. However, it remains controversial.

Several major copyright groups see the huge number of reported links as evidence that their efforts are futile. No matter how many links they submit, there are always new ones to find the next day.

“Every day we have to send new notices to take down the very same links to illegal content we took down the day before. It’s like ‘Groundhog Day’ for takedowns,” RIAA CEO Cary Sherman described the situation previously.

Ideally, the major copyright groups would like Google to remove all results from known pirate sites. However, the search engine believes that this goes a step too far, warning that it could lead to overbroad censorship.

“When it comes to entire websites, Google may demote a site in our search results if we receive enough copyright removal notices for it, but we do
not remove full sites from search results for copyright infringement.”

“Although this would reduce our operational burden, whole-site removal is ineffective and can easily result in the censorship of lawful material,” Google wrote in its latest overview of anti-piracy measures, published late last year.

Google itself is not completely apathetic to the piracy issue. It does ‘demote’ sites for which it has received a substantial number of takedown notices. These will then appear lower in search results. The demotion ‘signal’ can weigh even stronger for specific keywords, such as recently released films.

This demotion strategy gives copyright holders a “powerful tool against rogue sites,” Google notes. When new pirates sites appear, copyright holders can target these with takedown notices, after which Google will demote them.

As such, the four billion reported links will likely be five billion by the end of next year.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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In 2012, file-hosting site Megaupload was shut down by the United States government and founder Kim Dotcom and several associates were arrested in New Zealand.

For the past seven years, the US government has been engaged in a battle to extradite Dotcom, so that he can face trial in the US on several counts including copyright infringement, racketeering, and money laundering.

Dotcom has fought back every step of the way and in 2016, filed an eight-point statement of claim for judicial review, aimed at “attacking the underpinnings of the extradition process” by filing an eight-point statement of claim for judicial review.

In a 22-page High Court ruling (pdf) handed down in December 2017, Justice Timothy Brewer sided with the US and rejected seven out of the eight causes of action, stating they were either not reasonably arguable or were abuses of process.

The eighth point, which wasn’t challenged by the US, concerns the decision by the Deputy Solicitor-General in June 2017 to direct that clones be made of the electronic devices seized from Mr Dotcom’s homes so they could be sent to the US.

Dotcom appealed but the Court of Appeal dismissed the action. Dotcom then sought permission to appeal that decision at the Supreme Court. In a judgment handed down this morning by Justices William Young, O’Regan and Ellen France JJ, the Supreme Court denied leave to appeal.

“The applicant [Dotcom] argues that the criteria for the grant of leave to appeal in s 74 of the Senior Courts Act 2016 are met in relation to the present application either because the application raises matters of general and public importance or because a substantial miscarriage of justice may occur if leave is not granted,” the judgment reads.

“We are not persuaded that the proposed appeal raises matters of general and public importance.”

Dotcom argued that a miscarriage of justice would take place if he was denied permission to appeal. However, the Supreme Court said that was not correct.

“The applicant is seeking to challenge concurrent findings in the Courts below on almost every point that would be in issue if leave were granted. We do not see the arguments foreshadowed by the applicant in his application for leave and the submissions in support of that application as having sufficient prospects of success to justify the grant of leave,” the judgment adds.

After dismissing Dotcom’s application for a hearing at the Supreme Court on the matter, the Court then ordered him to pay $2,500 to the US Government to cover its costs.

Thus far, Dotcom hasn’t commented publicly on the judgment but did find a report published here on TF yesterday darkly amusing. Safe harbor for YouTube, but not him, apparently.

The judgment can be obtained here (pdf)

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On an average day, roughly half a million hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. As with any user-generated content site, this also includes copyright-infringing content.

YouTube processes takedown notices and uses its Content-ID system to automatically remove allegedly infringing content to address this.

However, major copyright holders are not all happy with the platform’s efforts. Record labels want to see more compensation, for example, and others want YouTube to do more to prevent pirated videos from appearing on the site.

In Austria, this led to a lawsuit between the local television channel Puls 4 and YouTube. In an initial order last summer, the court ruled that the video platform can be held directly liable for users’ copyright infringements. YouTube was not seen as a neutral intermediary and should do more to prevent infringing uploads.

The court noted that YouTube takes several motivated actions to actively organize and optimize how videos are displayed. By doing so, it becomes more than a neutral hosting provider. Therefore, it can’t rely on a safe harbor defense.

“Through the connections, sorting, filtering and linking, in particular by creating tables of contents according to predefined categories, determining the surfing behavior of users and creating a tailor-made surfing proposal, offering help etc, YouTube leaves on the role of a neutral intermediary and therefore cannot claim the host provider privilege,” the court wrote.

YouTube disagreed with the ruling and appealed the matter at the Higher Regional Court of Vienna. The video service maintained that, as a neutral hosting provider, it’s protected under the safe harbor provisions of the Austrian E-Commerce Act.

After a careful review of the case, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna agreed with YouTube, overturning the previous order. According to the appeal court, YouTube doesn’t have an “active role” and is therefore shielded from liability through its safe harbor defense.

The Court doesn’t dispute that YouTube provides search, categorization, and advertising services. However, these are seen as part of the normal business model of hosting platforms, which do not make the company liable.

“If it had to forgo structuring and search options in order to avoid a damaging ‘appropriation’ of video content, its video platform would lose all user-friendliness,” the Court writes in its decision.

“The less users are able to find videos of interest to them amid the vast multitude of uploaded videos (several hundred million in this case), the less it would make sense even to visit such a video platform,” it adds.

Puls 4 cited the GS Media/Sanoma case, where the European Court of Justice ruled that posting infringing hyperlinks, during the course of business, can lead to liability. However, that doesn’t apply in this case, the Court notes, as YouTube wasn’t aware of the infringing nature of the videos.

In summary, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna concludes that, as a hosting platform, YouTube benefits from the safe harbor privilege. This means that it’s not liable for uploads of users and Puls 4’s complaint is dismissed as a result.

The outcome is good news for YouTube, as the order from the lower court severely threatened the operation of the video platform. However, it is not the end of the road yet.

Higher Regional Court of Vienna allows the case to be appealed at the Supreme Court and Puls 4 informs TorrentFreak that it will use this opportunity.

Puls 4 stresses that the current decision does not take into account relevant decisions of the CJEU, including the case regarding the infringing nature of The Pirate Bay. Nor does it reference the recent developments regarding liability under the proposed Article 13 of the EU copyright directive.

“Puls4 will therefore definitely file an appeal to the Supreme Court,” a company spokesperson informs TorrentFreak.

A German court referred various copyright infringement related questions to the European Court of Justice a few months ago. Since this involves YouTube directly, the Austrian Supreme Court will likely consider the pending outcome in this case too.

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A copy of the Higher Regional Court of Vienna’s verdict is available here (pdf)

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Last month the European Parliament and Council agreed on the final text of the EU Copyright Directive.

This includes the controversial Article 13 and Article 11, which opponents condemn as “upload filters” and “link tax” proposals respectively.

Many organizations in the creative and publishing sectors are of a different opinion. They see the copyright reform plans as a much-needed step in the right direction of an Internet that treats creators more fairly.

With the final vote just two weeks away, a massive coalition of 243 organizations representing a wide variety of rightsholders is calling on the European Parliament to adopt the plans.

“We, the undersigned organisations, representing authors, composers, writers, journalists, performers and others working in all artistic fields, news agencies, book, press, scientific and music publishers, audiovisual and independent music producers call on the European Parliament to adopt the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market,” the letter reads.

The full list of supporters includes popular names such as Thomson Reuters, The Independent, the Association of Independent Music, Getty Images, PRS for Music, SACEM, Eurocinema, and many, many others.

The different groups have a shared goal of better copyright protection but some elements of the Copyright Directive may apply more to some than others.

The music groups, for example, are likely to be the most focused on Article 13. This requires for-profit Internet platforms to license content from copyright holders or, if that is not possible, ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services.

For their part, news publishers will be more interested in Article 11. This allows these organizations to charge Internet platforms, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter, for displaying snippets of their content to the public at large.

The joint letter the groups released this week mentions neither article, only the Copyright Directive in general. However, they make it very clear that the proposed changes are needed to create a fair and sustainable Internet.

“This Directive has been long sought to create a much-needed level playing field for all actors of the creative sector in the European Digital Single Market, whilst giving citizens better access to a wider array of content,” the letter reads.

“This is an historic opportunity. We need an internet that is fair and sustainable for all. This is why we urge policymakers to adopt the Directive quickly, as agreed in trilogue negotiations,” it adds.

The sheer number of organizations show that there is broad support for the Copyright Directive in the creative community.

But there is plenty of opposition as well. Earlier today we mentioned that the UN’s Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression has raised the alarm over Article 13 and its de facto filtering requirements.

In the days to come, we will likely see more calls for support while protests look set to escalate.

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A copy of the letter including the full list of signatories is available below. 

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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