Takedown notices are a particularly useful tool for copyright holders who want to make sure that infringing copies of their work are not widely distributed.

Every single day, rightsholders and their representatives scour the web for references to pirated content, which generally aren’t hard to find.

These links are then reported to various online services, such as Google, with requests for their operators to remove the allegedly infringing content. This system works well in most cases, but it’s far from flawless.

We have documented a wide variety of mistakes in the past, ranging from movie studios who target their own content to outright censorship attempts. Today we can add another unusual example to the list.

The DMCA notice in question was sent to Google on behalf India’s oldest record label, Saregama. At first glance, it appears to be fine, listing dozens of domain names where its work is published without permission. On closer inspection, however, one URL definitely stands out.

The record label requests Google to remove a link to SpicyIP, a widely respected and well-known blog among copyright experts and lawyers, frequently rated as one of the top sources in the field.

The site was founded by professor Shamnad Basheer, a legal scholar from India, who’s helped by a team of ten other copyright specialists. Not a site one would typically associate with hosting pirated songs, as the label suggests in its takedown notice.

And indeed, no pirated content was linked on the site. Still, Google informed SpicyIP that it received a takedown notice, with which it had to comply.

“Google has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that some of the material found on your site allegedly infringes upon the copyrights of others,” Google wrote.

SpicyIP author Divij Joshi, who also happens to be a lawyer, notes that the search engine went ahead and removed the page from its index. If the site disagreed with this decision, it could file a counter-notice or reach out to a legal expert, the search engine noted. In this case, that wasn’t a problem.

“Thankfully, we don’t have to look far in these parts to find a lawyer to handle this process, and our counter-notice was successful. Our post was eventually reinstated on January 21,”  Joshi writes. 

SpicyIP notes that it’s “funny” and “appropriate” that the takedown notice was sent to a copyright law blog. However, it also gives rise to critical notes about these automated takedown systems.

“Had it happened to a non-lawyer, or even someone who had ceased to take interest in their old blog, as it often does, it would result in the permanent removal of public information from an index which serves as the gateway to the internet, due to the ‘mistakes’ of private parties whose interests do not coincide with public access,” Joshi cautions.

The implications for the future of access to knowledge shouldn’t be ignored according to the copyright blog. Especially at a time where “upload filters” become more prevalent. Also in India, where the Government recently proposed a law that imposes automated takedowns requirements, much like Article 13.

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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Like the majority of commercial broadcasters around the world, Sky has genuine competitors, eager to capture the company’s market share.

However, with the rise of unlicensed IPTV providers, which are offered either directly or through a staggering number of re-sellers and affiliates, Sky also faces huge competition from pirates. It is not difficult to see why.

While Sky subscriptions start at somewhat affordable prices, enhanced packages that involve premium movies and sports can escalate to sums that many households simply cannot muster. Pirate IPTV services, on the other hand, are cheap and offer channel packages that eclipse all legal offers.

To that end, companies like Sky are keen to wipe such platforms from the map but there’s currently a huge deficiency in what can actually be done to take them down. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop Sky from trying to make a dent in the volume of eyes landing on their websites.

During the past few weeks, Sky has been sending takedown notices to Google targeting many thousands of URLs that make up the websites of pirate IPTV providers servicing customers everywhere.

A single notice here, for example, attempts wipe 500 URLs belonging to EpicIPTV, Enjoy-IPTV, TalentIPTV, BestIPTV, and many, many more. Another, sent just this week, targets the websites of a dozen more, systematically attempting to delist every URL. A third, sent at the beginning of February, attempts to remove 500 pages belonging to just a single provider.

The list of notices (mainly sent by Sky in Italy, followed by Sky UK) goes on and on (1,2,3,4,5,6,7) but most have something in common. Despite the fact that a regular DMCA takedown notice should list URLs containing infringing content, the vast majority of those sent by Sky do not.

Instead, they target the sales portals, information databases, FAQs, and other ancillary pages that support infringing activity carried out elsewhere. None of the services targeted appear to offer pirate streams from the websites listed in the takedown notices, meaning that from a strictly technical perspective, none should be removed by Google.

While Google does indeed reject some of the notices for reasons unknown, many have been removed as requested. All that being said, it’s somewhat difficult to criticize Sky for not playing strictly by the rules when so many illicit services aren’t playing by them in any capacity.

So, as things stand, it looks like the strategy of targeting providers’ web presences will continue, since it often removes them from view and, as this forum post shows, can cause significant irritation and loss of profits for some people (re)selling IPTV services.

That being said, this removal of web presences does little to stop the underlying IPTV services from continuing, business as usual. That makes this a game of whac-a-mole that will never end, unless the underlying services are dealt with.

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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Little more than three years ago, Elsevier, one of the world’s largest academic publishers, took Sci-Hub to court.

It was a mismatched battle from the start. With a net income of more than $2.4 billion per year, the publisher could fund a proper case, while its nemesis relied on donations.

Elsevier won the case, including millions of dollars in damages. However, the site remained online and grew bigger. Ironically, the academic publisher itself appears to be one of the main drivers of this growth.

In recent years there has been a major push in academic circles to move to Open Access publishing. Instead of locking academic publications behind paywalls, they should be freely available to researchers around the world as well as the public at large, the argument goes.

There has been some progress on this front, but it’s been slow. Meanwhile, Elsevier and other publishers continue to sell expensive subscriptions to universities. So expensive, that many institutions can’t afford them.

This means that their researchers run into paywalls, so they can’t do their work properly. It’s an absurd situation for the academic world, which is built on the premise that researchers build upon the work of others.

In an attempt to force a breakthrough, the University of California (UC), which includes ten campuses, requested that all its research be made available to the public from Elsevier without cost. This was possible, but only if UC’s authors paid extra publishing fees.

This was not an option for UC, which already had to pay a multi-million dollar subscription, so it cut its ties with Elsevier. The university notes that it doesn’t want to pay the rapidly escalating costs when its own work isn’t freely available.

This isn’t a problem that’s limited to UC, many other institutions can’t or are not willing to pay millions in subscription fees. This has reached a point where it’s pretty much impossible, even for wealthy universities, to access all academic knowledge.

“Make no mistake: The prices of scientific journals now are so high that not a single university in the U.S. — not the University of California, not Harvard, no institution — can afford to subscribe to them all,” says Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, university librarian and economics professor at UC Berkeley.

“Publishing our scholarship behind a paywall deprives people of the access to and benefits of publicly funded research. That is terrible for society,” MacKie-Mason adds.

This issue is not new and Elsevier is not the only publisher to demand high subscription fees. As the largest academic publisher, however, the effects of canceled subscriptions are felt most at Elsevier.

Several universities from Germany, Hungary, and Sweden previously let their Elsevier subscriptions expire, which means that tens of thousands of researchers don’t have access to research that is critical to their work.

This is where Sci-Hub comes into play.

The “Pirate Bay of Science” might just quietly play a major role in this conflict. Would the universities cancel their subscriptions so easily if their researchers couldn’t use Sci-Hub to get free copies?

Without access to critical research, their employees can’t function properly, so this ‘pirate’ backup comes in handy for sure.

Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan has always been forthcoming about her goals. Sci-Hub wants to remove all barriers in the way of science. She also made that crystal clear when we interviewed her back in 2015.

“Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal. Also, the idea that knowledge can be a private property of some commercial company sounds absolutely weird to me,” she said at the time.

While Sci-Hub may not be a permanent solution, its existence definitely pays a major role as a bargaining chip in a changing academic publishing world. While it’s early days, Sci-Hub certainly helped to make the paywalls crumble.

A quick look at some traffic stats shows that the site’s visitors continue to grow at a rapid rate, and with UC’s most recent decision to cancel its Elsevier subscription, this trend is likely to continue.

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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At the beginning of the month seven Team Kodi members attended FOSDEM, Europe’s largest meeting of Free and Open Source Software developers that takes place over two days each year in Brussels, Belgium. FOSDEM is a great opportunity to meet up amongst ourselves, and with friends from projects like VideoLAN and FFmpeg.

Day 1 started early with Martijn’s presentation on Kodi v18 in the Open Media devroom. The room was fully packed, so if you couldn’t attend or catch the livestream you can watch a recording of the session here. After that, we hung out in front of the room to continue talking with interested attendees and answering questions.

In a first for the team, we also held a Kodi meet-up in the BoF room. We did not know what to expect or if anyone would show up to chat, but despite some minor room confusion (not the one we advertised on our blog, but FOSDEM got it right) our concerns disappeared when 15-20 people arrived. There was no specific agenda, but several users engaged us on topics like Linux/NVIDIA support or the new RetroPlayer experience. We were also asked how to participate in the project without being a C++ or Python coder, and this led to some of the team members active in the project for a long time sharing some of the backstories behind our efforts. As a small reward for choosing to attend our meet-up instead of one of the numerous alternatives, we handed out free Kodi stickers. Unfortunately, there is no recording of this session, but if you were present and have feedback or want us to do this again next year? Please contact us.

Day 2 had no Kodi-specific events so we could mingle with the crowds, visit the booths of other projects, and watch talks we were interested in. It sounds like a lazy day, but was actually hard work due to the impressive number of people attending this year! We would like to publicly thank the organisers for another awesome FOSDEM weekend, and we look forward to attending again next year!

Lastly we owe thanks to our sponsors and donors whose support enables us to attend events like FOSDEM to represent the project and engage our users. If you want to support Kodi and have some spare change, please consider making a donation.





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The blocking of pirate sites is now common in many countries of the world. In Europe, it’s particularly prevalent but a case just concluded in Switzerland has just bucked that trend.

While Switzerland is located geographically in Europe, it is not in the EU, meaning that the rules that cover the 28 members of the Union do not automatically apply. In a case involving a local film producer brought against a major ISP, that has provided an interesting twist.

In 2015, Zurich film company Praesens-Film filed a lawsuit targeting local Swisscom. It demanded that the ISP prevent its customers from accessing pirate sites but the action was far from straightforward, with the Commercial Court of the Canton of Bern rejecting the action in 2017.

Praesens-Film refused to give up, eventually taking its complaint all the way to the highest court in the land – the Federal Supreme Court. Now, however, that action has also been dismissed due to a reluctance to hold Swisscom liable for the infringing actions of others.

“In order for Swisscom to be obliged to block the Internet sites in question, it would need to be a participant in a copyright infringement by third parties, by making a legally relevant contribution to it. That’s not the case,” the Court wrote this week.

The Court agreed that the operators of the sites in question (and the companies making the movies available via hosting services) are breaking the law, but it refused to connect the ISP to those infringements.

“[S]wisscom can not be accused of making a concrete contribution to these copyright infringements. The activity of Swisscom is limited to offering access to the worldwide Internet,” the Court added.

“The films are not [released by Swisscom] but released by third parties from unknown locations abroad. These Third parties are neither customers of Swisscom nor are they otherwise in a relationship with them.”

The Court said that the fact that Swisscom and other ISPs in Switzerland provide technical infrastructure to enable customers to access the Internet is insufficient to directly link them to the infringement. If it ruled otherwise, all ISPs could be found liable.

It’s at this point it becomes clear why the Swiss Court’s opinion differs from others around the EU, who – with guidance from the European Court of Justice – have found that ISPs can indeed be held liable for infringement of copyright.

The infringements in such cases are not only carried out by pirate sites, they’re also carried out by the customers of ISPs, who illegally stream or download copyrighted content to their home connections. In Switzerland, however, downloading or streaming content – even when that content is from an unlicensed source – is not illegal.

“[T]here is no copyright infringement on the part of the users,” the Court said.

“Copyright law allows this use of published works for personal use, regardless of whether the source is lawful or unlawful. Legislators rejected the copyright revision, which would have prohibited the duplication of works from illegal sources for their own use.”

In conclusion, the Court ruled that any decision on future blocking of pirate sites lies in the hands of legislators.

While tackling the problem of overseas pirate sites is an issue for most countries, it’s claimed that Switzerland is actually home to many. According to a recent submission to the USTR by the MPAA, the country’s copyright laws are “wholly inadequate”, meaning that it has become a significant base for pirate services.

The decision of the Federal Supreme Court can be found here (pdf)

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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We are thrilled to announced that Kodi has been accepted as a participating open source organization in Google Summer of Code 2019!

What is Google Summer of Code?

In Google’s own words, “Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program that matches students up with open source, free software and technology-related organizations to write code and get paid to do it! The organizations provide mentors who act as guides through the entire process, from learning about the community to contributing code. The idea is to get students involved in and familiar with the open source community and help them to put their summer break to good use.

See? Simple as that.

Many open source projects — such as Kodi — have participated in GSoC for years. It has proven to be a very useful program to bring together students that want to get involved with the open source community and open source projects in need of new contributors. Plus, if your friends ask what you’re doing on your Summer break, you get to say you’re working with Kodi and Google. How cool is that?

Student applications

Student applications to GSoC start on March 25, 2019.

We encourage all prospective participants to present their ideas and proposals on the GSoC 2019 forums. Please read our GSoC guidelines carefully before submitting your proposal.

There are several project ideas available on our Wiki. Regardless if you are looking into working on a suggested project or one of your own creation, you are strongly encouraged to engage on the forums or join #kodi-gsoc on Freenode so that the community and potential mentors can learn about it, ask questions, discuss narrowing or broadening the proposal, etc.

Proposals must be submitted following the proposal outline format.

Key dates

The complete Google Summer of Code 2019 calendar can be found here but the most important dates for students are outlined below:

March 25 (18:00 UTC) – Student application begins

April 9 (18:00 UTC) – Deadline to file your student application

May 6 (18:00 UTC) – Accepted student proposals are announced

May 27 – Coding begins. Start your engines!

Please pay special attention to the application deadline. Two weeks fly by in no time. Take time to craft a thoughtful project proposal and discuss it with the community and prospective mentors.

Happy GSoC!





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Hundreds – perhaps thousands – of companies and individuals around the globe provide IPTV services to the public.

It’s a rapidly expanding market but a significant number of providers operate without appropriate licensing, in some cases offering many thousands of channels to subscribers for extremely low monthly fees.

As a result, some of these services attract the attention of rightsholders, who target them with legal action for damages or, in many cases, blocking by Internet service providers to render their platforms less accessible to the public.

In Australia, a new action filed in the Federal Court by TV distributor International Media Distribution (IMD) targets Reelplay, an IPTV provider that specializes in Italian, Greek, and Arabic programming.

The Reelplay offering (from Reelplay.co)

IMD says it’s “the leading aggregator and marketer of niche television services to various ethnic communities around the globe,” with the distribution rights for over 40 premium Arabic and Italian channels.

The company is registered in Luxembourg but has its marketing office headquartered in New York, where a local agent provides customer services under Reach Media. IMD claims to be the single largest provider of ethnic channels to US-based multi-billion dollar TV distributor, Dish Network.

According to court documents obtained by ComputerWorld and shared with TorrentFreak, IMD is joined in the case by two other applicants – Netherlands-based distributor Overlook Management BV and Lebanon-based pan-Arab TV station Al Jadeed (previously NewTV).

Together the applicants claim that Reelplay (which sells its Arabic package for US$150, complete with a ‘free’ Android-based hardware player) offers 15 TV channels for which they are the exclusive licensee. The channels include Al Arabiya, MTV Lebanon, and BBC Arabic. Al Jadeed (the third applicant) is listed as a copyright holder licensing its channel content to IMD.

The applicants claim that Reelplay’s IPTV service infringes their exclusive licenses in Australia so are now asking the Federal Court for an injunction under the Copyright Act to compel local ISPs to block the platform along with various ancillary services, all referred to as “online locations”.

“Without the license or other permission of the Applicants, the owners or operators of the Target Online Locations infringe, or facilitate infringement of, the copyright subsisting in the Applicants’ Copyright Broadcasts by facilitating users of the Infringing Application on the Reel Play Device to access Streaming Locations that, without license or other permission of the Applicants communicate the Applicants’ Copyright Broadcasts to Reel Play Device users…,” the application reads.

Describing the operators of Reelplay as demonstrating “a flagrant disregard for copyright”, the applicants state that disabling access to the “online locations” associated with the service (which include software update servers, an EPG, actual streams of infringing content, and a sales/registration portal) is both proportionate and in the public interest.

‘Online locations’ requested for blocking

Reelplay says it offers a “best-in-class user experience” powered by a “proprietary streaming system, which we built from the ground up.” It also claims extensive logging of subscriber information and activities.

In addition to harvesting IP addresses and WiFi details, Reelplay claims to store users’ search histories (including any voice-activated searches), search results, any advertising viewed, plus channel viewing history including times and duration of reception.

Perhaps of most interest to the applicants in the case, however, Reelplay suggests it has no licenses for the content offered within its subscription package.

“Reelplay [is] not responsible for the content and do not guarantee nor claim any rights to the content. Reelplay devices provide streams of all the channels as they are available on the internet,” its documentation reads.

If granted by the Federal Court, an injunction would require ISP groups Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG, VHA, plus subsidiaries (52 providers total) to block the ‘online locations’ listed in the table above.

While such cases have the potential to become complicated, the Court has previously shown to be thorough, with rightsholders not automatically given an easy ride.

However, under the recently enhanced Section 115a of Australia’s Copyright Act the process is now a familiar one and if the operators of Reelplay fail to defend (or produce licensing), an injunction will be the most likely result.

Court documents (courtesy of CW) here and here (pdf)

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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LibreELEC 9.0.1 (Leia) has arrived based upon Kodi v18.1, the 9.0.1 release contains many changes and refinements to user experience and a complete overhaul of the underlying OS core to improve stability and extend hardware support. Kodi v18 also brings new features like Kodi Retroplayer and DRM support that (equipped with an appropriate add-on) allows Kodi to unofficially stream content from services like Netflix and Amazon.

Changes since LibreELEC 9.0.0:

  • updated Kodi to 18.1
  • updated Kernel to 4.19.23
  • fixed TBS 5520SE tuning
  • fixed Zotac remotes
  • fixed pvr.hts (Tvheadend) timeshift (partly)

Settings Add-on:

  • Changeable SSH passwords!
  • Default firewall (iptables) with simple configurations for Home/Public networks
  • Updates are moved to their own menu, other options are cleaned up a little
  • Safe Mode boot when Kodi experiences startup problems

Changeable SSH passwords and a default firewall configuration have been added to combat the increasing number of HTPC installs that can be found on the public internet. The increase is partly due to simple maths; our userbase has grown so the number of users inappropriately exposing their HTPC to the internet has also grown. The static password for libreelec is present on most/all password dictionary lists so it’s important we start encouraging users to change it (the first-run wizard will prompt when SSH is enabled).

More people are using VPN services for privacy without realising this exposes SSH/SMB/Web services. To combat this problem we have added simple firewall configurations for Home/Public networks; the Home configuration blocks inbound connections from non-private networks, e.g. traffic from the Internet to the public IP address used with the VPN connection.

As the Kodi piracy scene continues to decline we have seen an increase in users with outdated add-ons that cause problems during upgrades so “Safe Mode” counts Kodi startup crashes. After five startup failures it intervenes with a default (clean) configuration and prominent warning so users know there is a problem – but still have a working GUI to troubleshoot from.

Retroplayer:

Kodi v18 brings initial support for retro gaming and the ability to play hundreds of retro games directly from within Kodi. We provide a large number of emulator cores from our add-on repo, but no games (bring your own) although there are a couple of open source test game add-ons (2048 etc.) in our repo. In this first iteration of Kodi retro gaming support the user interface can be a little confusing and we still need to write-up some HOWTO guides for the wiki. Kodi developers are working on a game database (for Kodi v19) which will make the process of managing and using game ROMs easier in the future.

DVB Drivers:

We now offer a larger range of DVB drivers (depending on your platform) to choose from. The “DVB drivers from the latest kernel” option also includes the majority of Hauppage drivers which have been recently upstreamed into the kernel, which is great to see!

Rockchip:

Despite the 8.95.1 release number our Rockchip releases remain in an Alpha state with limited support. The Kodi version is updated but there are no significant video/audio improvements to the Rockchip 4.4 kernel codebase – and none planned. Our work on Rockchip support has refocussed onto the Linux 4.20 kernel to use the modern kernel frameworks needed for the next-generation Kodi video pipeline. This work is progressing nicely, but it means the 4.4 codebase “is what it is” until a future kernel bump.

New Devices:

Amlogic

  • Khadas VIM(1) – requires a clean install if using current community images
  • Libre Computer LePotato

Rockchip

  • 96rocks ROCK960
  • ASUS Tinker Board
  • Firefly ROC-RK3328-CC
  • Khadas Edge
  • PINE64 ROCK64
  • PINE64 RockPro64
  • Popcorn Hour RockBox
  • Popcorn Hour Transformer
  • Radxa ROCK Pi 4
  • Rockchip Sapphire Board
  • Mqmaker MiQi

If you experience problems, please open an thread at our forum. You can also open an ticket at our issue tracker.

Upgrading

On first boot the Kodi media database will be upgraded. Depending on your hardware and media collection size this could take several minutes. Please be patient.

Downloads

Click here to go to the download page.



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Over the past several years, hundreds of thousands of piracy warnings have been sent out to Canadian pirates under the ‘notice-and-notice’ scheme.

While these notices can no longer include settlement demands, following a recent update in legislation, accused pirates can still get in trouble. Several movie companies have filed for Norwich orders, asking the court to subpoena ISPs to hand over customer information, so they can contact these people directly.

These cases lead to the so-called ‘copyright trolling’ practices we’re seeing elsewhere in the world. They are filed by rightsholders of films such as The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Criminal, London Has Fallen, and Dallas Buyers Club. And with hundreds of IP-addresses being targeted per case, their scope is quite broad.

Most ISPs don’t challenge these subpoena requests but in a recent case Internet provider Teksavvy decided to take a stand. When ME2 Productions, the company behind the film Mechanic: Resurrection, requested the personal details of several customers, the ISP decided to appeal.

Among other things, TekSavvy argued that the evidence provided by the copyright holder is not sufficient enough to warrant handing over customer information.

Last week the Federal Court of Canada sided with the Internet provider.  Judge William Pentney concluded that the evidence put forward by the movie company was not sufficient. This is problematic, as it could result in the wrong persons being targeted, he concluded.

“This case illustrates why it is so important for the Court to have the best available evidence,” Judge Pentney writes.

For example, unlike the movie company claimed, it appeared that several of the targeted subscribers never received an initial notice of copyright infringement, which is a requirement in these cases.

“One can easily imagine the reaction of such individuals when this is the first notice they would have received of the matter. This is precisely what Parliament was seeking to avoid when it adopted the notice and notice regime in the Act,” the order reads.

Perhaps even worse, one of the IP-addresses that was listed didn’t even belong to TekSavvy. These and other issues make it clear that subpoenas should only be issued when there’s sufficient evidence.

James Plotkin of law firm CazaSaikaley, who has defended accused file-sharers in the past, notes that this is an important ruling.

“The Federal Court sent a strong message that copyright plaintiffs must put forward ‘the best available evidence’ in order to obtain a Norwich order, or otherwise explain why that evidence is unavailable,” Plotkin says.

Among the issues highlighted in the order is the declaration of Daniel Arheidt, who works for the German BitTorrent tracking outfit Maverickeye. His evidence is at the basis of the clerk’s affidavit, but it’s not a sworn statement, and nor is Mr. Arheidt available for cross-examination.

The court also highlighted the privacy aspect of this case. Specifically, the order states that ISPs have a legal obligation to protect the privacy of their customers. While most ISPs chose not to appeal the order, TekSavvy certainly has an interest in doing so.

“TekSavvy is in possession of the personal information of its customers. It has a legal obligation to protect such information and an obvious commercial interest in doing so,” Judge Pentney noted.

This important angle was also raised by Plotkin, who noted that because the accused file-sharers are no party at this stage, their ISPs are the only ones who can protect them.

“The subscribers are not parties to the motion, so they have no say in whether the Norwich order that would force disclosure of their information should issue. The ISPs are the only ones able to look after their subscribers’ interests,” Plotkin says.

In the present case, the court found that several mistakes were made. If TekSavvy didn’t stand up for its customers, the privacy of these people would have been at stake.

“Mistakes like this can result in violations of privacy on the basis of erroneous information furnished to the court by the plaintiff. This might be accidental and not malicious,” Plotkin says.

“But regardless of intent, the court should not countenance corner-cutting by plaintiffs when the privacy interests of subscribers, who are without a voice in the proceeding, are at stake.”

TekSavvy did not immediately reply to our request for comment (see update below). In a statement to The Wire Report, the ISP’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, said that they are pleased with the decision which confirms that copyright enforcement requires a balance of disclosure and privacy interests.

The Federal Court order is by no means the end of these type of cases. Movie companies and other copyright holders can still request Norwich orders going forward. However, they will have to make sure that they base their requests on the best available evidence.

Update: Shortly after publication, we received the following comments from TekSavvy’s Andy Kaplan-Myrth.

“TekSavvy works hard to protect our customers privacy rights. While we acknowledge that we have a role to play in copyright enforcement, we also have a responsibility to make sure that the privacy interests of our customers are respected. That is especially true in a proceeding like this one where the individuals themselves are not aware of the proceeding until it may be too late. In this case, we reviewed the evidence that the movie studios were relying on to get us to identify our customers, and we didn’t think it came up to the required standard. With this decision, the court agreed with us.”

“This decision builds on a line of earlier decisions that copyright enforcement requires a balancing of interests, in this case balancing the business interest for disclosure against the privacy concerns of subscribers. In this decision, the court outlines the type of evidence that should normally be provided for a Norwich order, and we expect courts and other ISPs to join us in holding plaintiffs to those obligations in the future to protect consumers.”

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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With close to half a billion broadband subscribers, India is undoubtedly a global powerhouse in the connected arena.

Add the thirst of its citizens for free media into the mix and it’s clear why copyright holders are keener than ever stem to tide of pirated content.

Thus far we’ve seen huge numbers of sites blocked following requests to various courts. However, India is now looking to formalize its response to the many thousands of torrent, streaming, and similar sites facilitating access to infringing copies of movies, music, and other digital media.

The latest draft of India’s National E-Commerce Policy outlines various strategies designed to curtail piracy, many of them taken from schemes already active in other regions of the world.

Intermediaries, such as Internet service providers, play a key role in the spread of pirated content but holding them liable for infringement can be difficult. The new draft states that they should “put in place measures to prevent online dissemination of pirate content” although at least for now, those measures are yet to be detailed.

Intermediaries will also be required to identify “trusted entities” who should get priority when it comes to handling copyright complaints. Again, there is no detail on whose those entities might be but one can safely presume that movie companies will be at the forefront, with other content companies close behind.

In any event, “The identification of trusted entity and anti-piracy measures shall be done on a voluntary basis”, suggesting that this element of the draft is not only open interpretation but also might come with an opt-out clause.

The proposed rules seem much tighter when it comes to the actual platforms engaging or facilitating the spread of pirated content.

When notices of infringement are sent by a copyright holder, ISPs will be required to “remove or disable access to the alleged content.” On first inspection, this seems to loosely marry up with the takedown provisions of the DMCA.

India also appears to be mulling a “follow-the-money” approach, which operates on the premise that pirate sites only exist to generate profit for their owners. To this end, stakeholders will first create a list of “rogue websites” that “host predominately pirated content.”

After a verification process, these sites will be added to the “Infringing Websites List” (IWL), an initiative that appears similar to the database of pirate sites operated by the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the UK. This will then allow authorities to take a range of measures to deplete their traffic and reduce revenues.

First up, Internet service providers will be required to “remove or disable access to the websites identified in the IWL within set time-lines.” This differs from the process in the UK where a separate High Court order is required for blocking, even if a site is already present on the list.

Secondly, India seems eager to prevent pirate sites from having access to revenue, whether generated by advertising or via subscriptions. The draft aims to prevent these payments from being processed.

“Rogue websites earn their revenues through online payments made based on a subscription or advertisement revenue models. Such payments have to be routed through Payment Gateways, which shall not permit flow of payments to or from such rogue websites,” the proposals read.

In addition, Indian advertisers and advertising agencies will be forbidden from placing their ads on sites appearing in the Infringing Website List. The proposals don’t indicate how this will be achieved or policed but if models in the UK and Europe are followed, participation is usually via trade group bodies.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, search engines operating in India will be required to “take necessary steps” to ensure that sites listed in the Infringing Website List do not appear in their search results. It is far from clear how this will be carried out or whether foreign companies will be prepared to comply.

Google is by far the dominant search engine in the country with an estimated 95% of the market, so it will be most affected. It has also demonstrated a reluctance to remove links that aren’t clearly infringing but recent movement in Russia shows that the company is prepared to bend, when enough pressure is applied.

Stakeholders are invited to comment on the draft proposals (pdf) by March 9, 2019

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