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It’s a regrettable reality that there is never enough time to cover all the interesting scientific stories we come across each month. In the past, we’ve featured year-end roundups of cool science stories we (almost) missed. This year, we’re experimenting with a monthly collection. October’s list includes the microstructural differences between regular and gluten-free spaghetti, capturing striking snakes in action, the mystery behind the formation of Martian gullies, and—for all you word game enthusiasts—an intriguing computational proof of the highest possible scoring Boggle board.

Highest-scoring Boggle board

Credit: Dan Vanderkam

Sometimes we get handy story tips from readers about quirkily interesting research projects. Sometimes those projects involve classic games like Boggle, in which players find as many words as they can from a 4×4 grid of 16 lettered cubic dice, within a given time limit. Software engineer Dan Vanderkam alerted us to a a preprint he posted to the physics arXiv, detailing his quest to find the Boggle board configuration that yields the highest possible score. It’s pictured above, with a total score of 3,625 points, according to Vanderkam’s first-ever computational proof. There are more than 1000 possible words, with “replastering” being the longest.

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OpenAI-Chef Sam Altman hat versucht, seine seit 2018 laufende Tesla-Roadster-Reservierung zu stornieren. Das Ergebnis: Sein Geld bleibt vorerst weg. (Tesla, Elektroauto)

The Internet is littered with cheap IPTV services that offer access to a lot of content, for very little money.

These deals often seem too good to be true, and in most cases they are, at least for those who prefer to stay on the right side of the law.

The operators of these services often remain in the shadows, but anti-piracy groups are actively trying to pin them down. For example, members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) identified Mechanicsburg resident Brandon Weibley as the alleged operator of several commercial IPTV services offering pirated streams.

Studios Sue U.S. IPTV Operator

In a complaint filed at a Pennsylvania federal court in March, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and other major Hollywood studios accused Weibley of widespread copyright infringement through various IPTV brands. The companies alleged that Weibley has a long history of illegally profiting from pirated content.

The operator’s infringing activity dates back to 2017, when he allegedly registered the domain beastmodebuilds.com and began selling subscriptions to infringing streaming services. In the years that followed, the defendant was linked to various IPTV brands, such as Beast Mode Live, BTV, Viking Media, and GreenWing Media.

While the defendant made efforts to conceal his identity, investigators followed a digital trail that led to his personal email address.

The movie studios used this lead to confront Weibley in 2023, but instead of shutting down, he switched the operation to a different domain name, vonwik.com. Meanwhile, he continued to offer thousands of TV channels through the rebranded services ‘Shrugs’ and ‘Zing’.

Shrugs and Zing (Vonwik.com)

“Weibley now provides subscribers to the Current Infringing Services with access to more than 9,000 pirated channels, featuring Plaintiffs’ television series and movies, as well as international content and live sports events. This is infringement of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on a massive scale,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.

Defendant Ghosts Lawsuit, IPTV Services Remain Online

Weibley was served in person but filed no answer and failed to appear in court. As a result, the movie studios have now requested a default judgment and $9 million in damages.

In a motion submitted to the Pennsylvania court earlier this month, they note that, despite the lawsuit, the infringing IPTV services remain operational.

“Weibley has known since at least 2023 that his services infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights, yet he continued to operate them. Indeed, even after being personally served with the Complaint and knowing about this action, Weibley continues to operate the Current Infringing Services,” they write.

In an associated declaration, MPA Chief Content Protection Officer Larissa Knapp noted that the defendant is still believed to be in charge of the operation.

From Knapp’s declaration

The plaintiffs hope that a default judgment will change the status quo but if that’s not sufficient, an injunction will help to take the IPTV services offline.

Studios Seek $9 Million and an Injunction

The movie studios request the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per work for a small sample of 60 copyrighted works, totaling $9,000,000. This is the maximum statutory penalty for “willful” infringement, which they argue applies to Weibley’s conduct.

According to the plaintiffs, the operator made the decision not to put up a defense. Therefore, the infringing activity was willful and punitive damages are appropriate.

$9,000,000 (proposed order)

The rightsholders realize that the lack of response is an indication that the defendant might not be inclined to pay any damages. Therefore, they also request a permanent injunction to compel domain registrars and registries to sign over vonwik.com and related domains.

In addition, the proposed injunction compels all related hosting providers to stop serving the IPTV services.

“Plaintiffs similarly seek an order directing the hosting providers of the Infringing Domains […] to suspend services to such domains and to prevent the content on the websites associated with the domains from being transferred to another domain name or hosting service,” the studios write.

At the time of writing, the court has yet to sign off on the motion for default judgment. It will be up to U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane to review the arguments and decide whether the $9 million award and permanent injunction are warranted.

The current lawsuit is one of two parallel cases filed by the ACE coalition back in March. The defendant in the other lawsuit, ‘Outer Limits IPTV’ operator Zachary DeBarr, also failed to formally answer the complaint. In August, a California federal court granted the studios’ motion for default judgment, awarding them $15 million in statutory damages.

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A copy of the memorandum in support of the motion for default judgment is available here (pdf) and the proposed order can be found here (pdf). Knapp’s declaration is available here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.