Pornhub Sister Company Wants to Expose Video Hosting Site ‘Pirates’

MG Premium has requested three new DMCA subpoenas targeting the operators and uploaders of video hosting sites Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to. Pornhub’s sister company requests information from Cloudflare in the hope of identfiying those who share its copyrighted material without permission.

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

uploadThe online porn industry is rather diverse but there is only one company leading the charge – Mindgeek.

The company, formerly known as Manwin, owns one of the most visited adult websites, Pornhub, and is also the driving force behind YouPorn, Redtube, Tube8, Xtube, and dozens of other sites.

Many of these tube sites became big by offering access to a wide variety of content, some of it posted without permission. However, that doesn’t mean that Mindgeek is turning a blind eye to pirates. On the contrary.

Mindgeek’s imperium also includes companies that create content. MG Premium, for example, which owns thousands of copyrighted adult videos, is the driving force behind popular brands such as Brazzers and Digital Playground. These videos are often pirated and shared through external sites, which is a problem for the company.

To address this issue, Mindgeek’s daughter company regularly goes to court. Last week, it requested three DMCA subpoenas targeting the video-hosting services Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to.

The proposed subpoenas are not directed at these sites but at Cloudflare, which acts as a third-party intermediary. MG Premium hopes that the CDN provider can help to expose the personal details of the people who shared its videos, providing hundreds of URLs that point to infringing content.

Specifically, MG Premium wants Cloudflare to hand over all documents and account records that can identify persons or entities that caused the infringements or who unlawfully uploaded the content. This includes names, email addresses, IP addresses, user history, telephone numbers, and any other identifying information.

MG premium DMCA subpoena

While Cloudflare generally doesn’t know who uploaders at external sites are, the request appears to be broad enough to also cover the site owners themselves. MG Premium may want to use that information for possible follow-up legal actions.

“The purpose of the DMCA Subpoena is to obtain information sufficient to identify alleged infringers who, without authorization from MG, posted material to the webpage GoUnlimited.to, which infringed copyrights held by MG. The information received as a result of the Subpoena will only be used by MG to protect its rights under Title 17 of the United States Code,” MG Premium informs the court.

According to data from SimilarWeb the three sites all have a decent audience. With over 23 million monthly visits, Gounlimited.to is the biggest target.

Court records don’t indicate that the subpoenas have been granted but that’s generally not the main stumbling block. DMCA subpoenas only require a stamp from the court clerk. Whether Cloudflare has any information that can help MG Premium is another question.

This is not the first time that the company has gone after sites where pirated content is posted and has requested similar subpoenas in the past. In addition, MG Premium has gone after individual BitTorrent users, requesting financial settlements.

Earlier this year the company also took direct action against two allegedly pirating sites. The company filed a lawsuit against YesPornPlease and VShare.io in a Washington federal court, after which both sites disappeared.

Here are copies of the DMCA subpoena requests targeting Tapecontent.net, Netu.tv and Gounlimited.to respectively.

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

Google says it’s working hard to address YouTube Music complaints

Google Music is shutting down soon, but Google wants users to stick around.

Google says it’s working hard to address YouTube Music complaints

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Google Play Music is shutting down soon, and the transition to YouTube Music currently leaves a lot to be desired. For users with uploaded music, the transfer tool will port your music over seamlessly, but once you're in the YouTube Music interface, you'll discover that plenty of features have gone missing, and things that used to work on the free tier suddenly don't. If my email inbox is any indication, hordes of people are searching for alternatives.

Google isn't turning a deaf ear to the concerns of the Google Music migrators, though. In response to articles we've written here like "YouTube Music is holding my speakers for ransom," Google got in touch with us and sent over a statement:

We understand that uploaded content is an integral part of the listening experience for many of our users across YouTube Music. While several features for uploaded content aren't currently working in the free YouTube Music experience, we’re working hard to address these feature gaps and bring additional functionality to our free tier user. We look forward to sharing more updates soon.

While this is a bit vague, the shoutout for users of uploaded content is a change of tone from what the company was saying in June. Our YouTube Music article was mainly about the free-versus-premium feature changes in YouTube Music and Google Music, including the requirement of a monthly fee in order to play purchased and uploaded music on Google Home speakers. Before publishing that article, we double-checked with Google to ask if charging to use a Google Home from YouTube music was really what it was planning, and all the company would do is reaffirm the current restrictions.

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Why movie theaters are in trouble after DOJ nixes 70-year-old case

The end of Paramount could eventually make your local theater a Disneyplex.

Disney logo adorns a container of movie theater popcorn.

Enlarge / The House of Mouse is the shadow lurking in the future of movie theaters. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

If you went to the movies in 2019, you probably saw a Disney movie. Seven of the top 10 highest-grossing films released in the United States last year were distributed by the House of Mouse, and hundreds of millions of people went to see them on thousands of screens. Some weeks it felt like the entire film industry was Disney: Captain Marvel and the rest of the Avengers (Endgame) competed for your attention for a while, as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Toy Story 4 kept up a steady drumbeat of animation until Elsa dropped back onto hapless households in Frozen II. In amongst that morass, though, there were still other movies shown, many of them popular with audiences and critics alike.

But now, the rule that prevented a studio from buying up a major theater chain is now gone—opening up the possibility that your local cinema could go whole hog and become a true Disneyplex before you know it.

On Friday, a federal judge agreed to the Department of Justice's petition to vacate the Paramount Consent Decrees, a landmark 1948 ruling that forbade vertical integration in the film sector and ended the Hollywood studio system. In isolation, the decision could raise some concerns. In a world where theaters are decimated thanks to a pandemic and consolidation among media firms is already rampant, the future for independent theaters looks grim.

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Homeoffice: Liebe Firmen, lasst uns spielen!

Die Coronakrise hat gezeigt, dass Homeoffice machbar ist. Damit es auch gut funktioniert, muss es aber noch viel mehr Raum für soziale Kontakte geben. Von Marvin Engel (Homeoffice, Server)

Die Coronakrise hat gezeigt, dass Homeoffice machbar ist. Damit es auch gut funktioniert, muss es aber noch viel mehr Raum für soziale Kontakte geben. Von Marvin Engel (Homeoffice, Server)