Month: December 2020

Music publisher BMG is best known on these pages for its aggressive copyright infringement action against ISP Cox Communications in the United States.

After filing a lawsuit accusing the ISP of doing little to prevent its customers from pirating music time and again, the case went through a tortuous process that eventually led to a “substantial settlement.”

Given the nature of its business and a history of picking over the intricacies of copyright law, it was a surprise to see BMG named as a defendant in a US copyright lawsuit this week. Unusually, however, it’s not simply the copyright aspect of this case that makes it so unusual and interesting.

Singer Aled Jones Releases Album in November

Last month, Welsh singer Aled Jones, who shot to fame as a youngster in the 1980s, teamed up with BMG to release a new album titled ‘Blessings’. The album aims to be religiously inclusive by bundling songs associated with Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, and Quakers. But trying to appeal to everyone can have its pitfalls, especially where religion is concerned.

The problem lies in a song on the album called “Listen, Obey and Be Blessed”, a work owned by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the supervising body and publisher for the Jehovah’s Witness religious group. The appearance of this song on a commercial album immediately raised alarm bells among the religion’s followers who, through their teachings and knowledge of their faith, knew this track shouldn’t have been used in this manner.

Multiple Blunders Considered Antithetical to The Faith

First of all and despite its attempts to be inclusive, Blessings is fairly obviously an album aimed at the Christmas market. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas, believing that the festival has pagan origins. Second, the religious group doesn’t allow its works to be exploited commercially, as per its own interpretation of the bible. Finally, Jehovah’s Witnesses reject all other religions, so being represented as a group alongside them in the album is offensive, to say the least.

Indeed, these topics and more have been the subject of intense discussion on various Jehovah’s Witness forums over the past several weeks. Many followers have been openly wondering why their leaders haven’t been following the rules, or at the least, why they aren’t doing anything to counter this affront to their religion.

As it turns out, those in command knew all about it well in advance and have been preparing a lawsuit.

Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Filed in the US

Filed this week in a New York district court, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania names BMG Rights Management (US) LLC, BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited, plus John Does and various corporations as responsible for infringing its copyrights.

“Without authorization, Defendants have recorded Plaintiff’s original and registered musical composition of ‘Listen, Obey and Be Blessed” in a sound recording, have reproduced, distributed and publicly performed Plaintiff’s musical composition in the infringing sound recording and are causing and purportedly licensing others to do the same,” it reads.

The complaint alleges that the song was published as part of a song book, for which the copyrights were officially registered in the US. To date, Watch Tower has only licensed other parts of its organization to use the work, and that necessarily does not include BMG. Nevertheless, BMG included the song in its album and listed itself as the copyright owner on cover art, while allowing various streaming services to offer the work too.

Aled Jones Was Warned Not To Use The Song

According to the complaint, before the album was released Watch Tower contacted Aled Jones’ manager to say that no permission had been granted to use the song in any manner. In a response from BMG UK, the company said that it had been given permission to use it by German rights society GEMA, another entity known for its own copyright infringement lawsuits.

Despite the claims from both music outfits, Watch Tower insists it never approved licenses. This appears to be supported in a response from GEMA, which told the religious group that BMG UK had asked for a license but the request was denied because GEMA had no rights to license the work.

The buck was then passed to BMG in the US, who were apparently in the process of obtaining a compulsory mechanical license to use the song. However, Watch Tower says the necessary procedures weren’t followed so that licensing opportunity failed. As a result, BMG is guilty of copyright infringement and causing reputational damage to the entire religion.

“Defendants’ infringing acts have caused and are likely to cause numerous Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the public to believe mistakenly that Defendants’ use of the Composition on the Infringing Sound Recording was licensed or otherwise authorized by Watch Tower,” the complaint reads.

“As noted above, such license or authorization would be antithetical to the teachings and practices of Jehovah’s Witnesses, including a literal interpretation of the Bible, including by commercializing the Composition, allowing the Composition to be used in conjunction with works of other faiths on the Album and allowing the Composition to be used in connection with the Christmas holiday.”

Demand For Damages and an Injunction

As a result of the above, Watch Tower is now seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction to prevent any further distribution of “Listen, Obey and Be Blessed” plus either statutory damages or BMG’s profits generated by the infringing activity.

Whether BMG will be able to show the court it actually obtained some kind of license and therefore acted legally will be shown in due course. But even if that’s the case, the publisher should’ve known that religion is not only extremely complex, but the concept of an ‘inclusive’ album probably requires informed input from, or at least knowledge of, those being included

Unfortunately, as history painfully shows, it’s not uncommon for religions to mandate the rejection of all others. And not even copyright law can do much about that.

The full complaint can be found here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.

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Die deutsche "Willkommenskultur": ihre Freunde, ihre Gegner und ihr Ende (Teil 1)

The now-defunct Prenda Law firm became notorious for taking alleged BitTorrent pirates to court.

These copyright lawsuits were not illegal in themselves, but Prenda became a criminal enterprise when it lied to courts and trapped people by uploading self-made adult content on The Pirate Bay. They were effectively running a honeypot scheme.

The matter landed on the desk of the FBI and with help from The Pirate Bay, eventually resulted in two criminal convictions. Last summer, Prenda lawyer John Steele was sentenced to five years in prison, and his colleague Paul Hansmeier received a 14-year sentence.

The different terms in part reflect the lawyers’ cooperation with the authorities. Steele was remorseful and admitted guilt while Hansmeier fought back, something he continues to do to this day.

Rebooting the Pirate Honeypot

Fighting for freedom is not the only thing Hansmeier does, he hasn’t completely given up the honeypot scheme either. In fact, it appears that those two issues appear to go hand in hand.

As we revealed earlier this year the disbarred attorney intended to reboot his pirate chasing efforts from prison. This wasn’t merely an idea either as more recent court documents show that the honeypot is already active.

In a ‘pro se’ complaint that was originally filed at the Hennepin County District Court in Minnesota, Hansmeier lists a “John Doe” defendant. The case, which has since been moved to a federal court, reveals that this Doe defendant is a user of the adult torrent site Bootytape.com.

Bootytape.com

Instead of concealing his own involvement, Hansmeier is now an open book. He states that he is the copyright holder and that an investigator helped him to share his video on the adult-oriented torrent site Bootytape.com.

“Hansmeier is the owner by assignment of the copyright in a short video (the ‘Video’). Hansmeier asked an investigator to publish the Video on the Internet. The investigator published the video on the Internet via the website: Bootytape.com.”

After uploading the torrent file, the honeypot was in place and it didn’t take long before someone, the John Doe, took the bait.

“On June 24, 2020, John Doe, acting via Internet Protocol Address 186.94.203.80, logged onto the website, browsed the website until he found the Video and used specialized software to access the investigator’s computer and make a copy of the Video for himself,” the complaint reads.

Thus far this reads like an ordinary copyright troll lawsuit but this case is different. Listed alongside the John Doe are several federal defendants, including Erica MacDonald, the acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota.

Hansmeier Fears Federal Wrath

Instead of going directly after the alleged pirate, Hansmeier first wants the court to ensure that he’s not breaking the law. In other words, he intends to sue the Doe defendant but is being held back by the fear of another criminal prosecution.

“Hansmeier is chilled and prohibited from doing so by the credible threat of jeopardy he faces under the federal mail fraud, wire fraud and extortion statutes,” the complaint reads.

This isn’t the first time that this angle has been brought up. A few months ago Hansmeier targeted U.S. Attorney General William Barr in a similar case in the district of Columbia. However, at the time the honeypot hadn’t started yet.

That case was eventually dismissed after a few weeks with the court concluding that the Attorney General has absolute discretion in deciding whether to investigate claims for possible criminal or civil prosecution.

In the present lawsuit, Hansmeier again asks the court to rule that his planned legal action won’t get him in trouble again. In addition, he requests an order that prevents the federal defendants, including US Attorney MacDonald, from enforcing or threatening to enforce the criminal mail fraud, wire fraud, and extortion statutes.

Pirate Honeypot as a Defense

Without going too deeply into the legal arguments, Hansmeier appears to be using the honeypot and this lawsuit to help his appeal. He basically wants to show that the honeypot scheme they ran earlier wasn’t all that bad.

To achieve this goal, he also filed another case claiming that he intends to go after the Lookers Gentlemen’s Club for discriminating against people with disabilities. In this matter, he will encourage people with disabilities to obtain settlements from the club. Just like Hansmeier obtained settlements from alleged pirates.

United States Attorney Erica MacDonald responded to the two cases, asking the court to dismiss the claims. She described Hansmeier’s attempt as “artful pleading” but wants the cases thrown out.

US Attorney Wants Case Dismissed

Among other things, MacDonald stresses that Hansmeier’s “plans” don’t raise any issues which the court should decide over at this stage. The cases are not identical to the Prenda matter, far from it.

In fact, Hansmeier himself emphasizes that his new ‘honeypot’ scheme is different as the court is aware of it from the start.

“In other words, Hansmeier proposes a new strategy to pursue copyright and CFAA claims against John Doe than that for which he was prosecuted, and he offers nothing whatsoever to support a conclusion that there exists a credible rather than a hypothetical risk of prosecution in connection with this new strategy,” MacDonald writes.

“Hansmeier fails to plead facts that there is a credible threat of future prosecution or civil enforcement for the ‘planned’ or ‘anticipated’ activities he describes in his complaints.”

In addition, Hansmeier’s attempts to attack his own conviction through civil lawsuits are barred by the Heck doctrine, MacDonald argues.

“Hansmeier’s latest effort is exactly what the Heck doctrine proscribes: a collateral attack on a conviction through the vehicle of a civil suit. For this additional reason, the constitutional claims should be dismissed.”

It is now up to the court to decide if Hansmeier has a valid case or not. Whatever the outcome, we don’t expect that his legal endeavors will stop. And yes, the people at Bootytape are on notice.

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A copy of the motion to dismiss, submitted by United States Attorney Erica MacDonald is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. We have some good VPN deals here for the holidays.