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. 

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Downloading movies and music is currently prohibited under Japan’s Copyright Act, meaning that anyone who does so is liable to criminal prosecution or civil suits.

Over the past several months, rightsholders and authorities have been seeking to make the downloading of any copyrighted content a crime, something that has raised alarm bells in the country of 127 million citizens.

While many can see the benefits of preventing people from unlawfully duplicating or sharing full copyright works (if that deprives creators of their income), the proposals currently on the table go way beyond what many citizens see as reasonable.

As the wording currently stands, even those making screenshots of copyrighted content would be criminalized, as would those reproducing song lyrics or snapshots of manga publications, for example. With penalties of two years in prison and fines of two million yen (US$18,000) on the table, it’s no wonder that people are concerned.

Last month more than 80 academics, researchers, lawyers, and other experts issued an ‘emergency statement‘ urging the government to reconsider the scope of new proposals. It’s not clear whether this alone prompted a review but it seems that the rush to criminalize large numbers of Internet users is causing those in power to pause for thought.

The planned copyright amendments were set to be submitted to the Diet on March 8, 2019 but according to local sources, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP or Jimintō) put the brakes on the proposals the day before they were due to be submitted.

Reports suggest that the party had such serious concerns over the scope of the law that its implementation might mean that “use of the Internet would be atrophied.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly held a telephone call with Keisya Furuya, the former National Public Safety Commissioner and chairman of the bipartisan MANGA (Manga-Animation-Game) parliamentary group on March 6, 2019. According to AnimeNewsNetwork, this led to the decision to remove the proposals from the agenda.

The bill will now be presented for further discussion during the Diet’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s next meeting. However, there are no clear indications whether there will be any amendments, ones that might calm the fears of those who feel these overzealous proposals are not only several steps too far but potentially unenforceable.

Scholars and other experts are suggesting that the best route is to only criminalize actions that cause real financial damage to content owners.

The general consensus among the academics is that making infringement criminally punishable may be acceptable, but only when full copyright works – such as movies, music, manga publications, and books – are exploited in their entirety.

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While many pirates appear to get along with each other just fine, parts of the Kodi addon community regularly descend into chaos.

This so-called ‘drama’ happens on a regular basis and gets covered on various blogs that cover the scene far more closely than we do here on TF.

However, every now and again an issue raises its head that’s worthy of additional coverage, particularly when it has the potential to affect a broad range of users of popular Kodi addons.

Developers of Kodi add-ons, of all types and intent, regularly host their tools on coding platform Github. The US-based service is ideal for development and when users sign up, they’re allocated a unique URL, which can be referenced (just like a regular URL), all over the Internet.

These URLs can also be used to pull updates to add-ons that are installed on users’ machines. However, there is a loophole that can allow add-ons to pull updates that weren’t supplied by the original developer.

The problem was highlighted at least a couple of years ago when famous Kodi add-on developer MetalKettle deleted his Github repo. Shortly after, a third-party signed up to the platform with the same username (something which Github expressly allows) to obtain the same URL.

This meant that this third-party was allowed to push updates to people using MetalKettle add-ons in their Kodi setup. It’s not difficult to see the problem when a previously-trusted URL is suddenly placed in the hands of a potentially malicious third-party.

This ‘hijacking’ of accounts has happened several times since but things boiled over again recently when the popular ’13Clowns’ repo was deleted by its developer, only to be quickly re-registered on Github with the same name and, indeed, the same URL.

As the pair of images below show, the original repo (first) and imposter repo (second) are quite different, despite having the same username and appearing on the same URL.

The software hosted in the new repo began sending updates to former users of ’13Clowns’, which included a fork of the Exodus add-on and, controversially, tools that originate from TVAddons, the under-fire Canada-based Kodi add-on indexing site.

Those familiar with the add-on scene see TVAddons as what the Brits might describe a ‘marmite’ resource – people either love it, or hate it – and there is no shortage of Kodi users expressing both opinions.

Those that hate the site immediately claimed that the existence of TVAddons tools in the update means that the site was logically involved in the ‘hijack’, with KodiTips going as far as publishing a guide on how to remove the software pushed by the update. The software doesn’t seem malicious as such, but it does help TVAddons.

In response, those in support of TVAddons claimed that anyone could’ve ‘hijacked’ the repo (which is true, of course), with TVAddons itself going to great lengths to deny the allegations.

They state they have nothing to do with it, while suggesting that a TVAddons supporter could be responsible. Or, alternatively, it might be a “copyright holder trying to destroy the Kodi community through the most effective method to date: in-fighting.”

The truth is that only the people behind this somewhat underhand tactic know exactly what has happened here, so we’ll leave the speculation to other publications. However, perhaps of more interest is the manner in which this situation came to pass via Github allowing people to re-register accounts with not only the same username as a former user, but also granting access to the same URL.

As a law-abiding company, Github is known for quickly responding to takedown requests, fully in line with the requirements of the DMCA. That being said, this loophole can also be exploited by developers of completely legitimate add-ons too, should they decide to delete their accounts.

TorrentFreak contacted Github with an outline of the problem and asked whether it would be possible to implement measures that might reduce the risk, such as disallowing the re-use of usernames and identical URLs for a period of six months following deletion.

While the company didn’t respond directly to this suggestion, TorrentFreak was informed that systems are already in place to deal with this type of abuse.

The company’s repository namespace retirement policy supports mitigating this issue while its Acceptable Use Policy prohibits any kind of exploit. We can confirm that reusing a previously registered repo name to deliver add-ons to Kodi in the manner highlighted above is considered an exploit.

Therefore, this problem – which has caused so much conflict recently – can be dealt with under Github’s existing systems. Anyone sending a detailed complaint to Github via this form can have it investigated by the company, with offending repos being taken down.

In the meantime, it appears that those holding much of the power here are the developers themselves. By not deleting their Github accounts they constantly remain in charge of their own repos, meaning that no imposters can come in to masquerade as them.

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Dealing with the flood of infringing content placed on the Internet for public consumption is a key aim of rightsholders around the world.

In both the United States and Europe, this is largely tackled via a notice-and-takedown regime, whereby copyright holders file complaints and hosts, search engines, and other platforms respond by removing content.

Under huge pressure from rightsholders, last year a ground-breaking agreement was reached in Moscow, one that would see much tougher measures to deal with the problem in Russia.

The voluntary agreement – signed by major rightsholders, Internet platforms, and search providers – aims to create an ever-growing centralized database of infringing content to enable web companies to take down media and links both quickly and efficiently.

Signatories who host and index content are expected to query the database regularly for designated content and links while deleting the same from their sites within hours.

It isn’t yet clear how complete the database is, or which companies are already interfacing with it, but it’s understood that the participants are now conducting takedowns broadly in line with the agreement.

The memorandum is valid until September 1, 2019 but the plan from the beginning was to make the arrangement a legal obligation by writing its terms into law. Plans for that are now underway.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor reports that an “extended meeting” was held on March 6 with rights holders, search engines, and video hosting site operators in attendance. Also present was Roscomnadzor deputy head, Vadim Subbotin.

“The meeting discussed the most optimal version of the concept for the bill. Thus, the basis for the new legislation will be the provisions of the Memorandum of Cooperation in the field of protection of exclusive rights in the era of the development of digital technologies,” Roscomnadzor’s press office confirmed.

The plan is for the terms of the currently voluntary memorandum to be written into law before it expires on September 1, 2019. However, if an agreement cannot be reached before the anniversary of its signing, it’s suggested that the memorandum could be extended beyond its initial one-year term.

Channel One, the National Media Group, Gazprom-Media, the Internet Video Association, the Association of Film and Television Producers, Yandex, Rambler Group, Mail.Ru Group, vKontakte, and RuTube, are all signatories of the current memorandum.

“The memorandum lays the foundations for sectoral self-regulation within the framework of the execution of the ‘anti-piracy’ law. The document introduces a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes between copyright holders and search engines regarding the illegal placement of links to pirated content,” Roscomnadzor re-emphasized this week.

Google did not sign up last year and there has been no clear indication that it intends to participate moving forward. However, there have been multiple suggestions that other companies and groups may be allowed to join the voluntary agreement, such as publishers, for example.

Should the memorandum be written into law as planned, it’s likely to be the toughest – if not the toughest – anti-piracy regime seen anywhere in the world. Add Russia’s site-blocking regime into the mix, and the country is on course to become a world leader in online infringement mitigation.

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