Month: April 2023

As Nintendo’s official website for Switch game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom states, “The adventure begins on May 12.” Officially, at least.

The hotly anticipated sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will go on sale next month in digital and physical formats, with the latter also available as a special Collector’s Edition.

Targeted at Zelda connoisseurs, the special edition includes “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (physical version), Artbook, SteelBook® case, Steel Poster, and a set of four pin badges.”

Pre-Release Leak: February 2023

On February 20, 2023, Eurogamer reported that a 200-page ‘Artbook’ had been leaked online, containing details of new characters, enemies, enemy types, and new locations.

“It’s currently unclear how this art book managed to leak, so far in advance of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s official launch date,” the publication noted at the time.

Two months later, it’s clear that a) Nintendo is very aware of the leak and b) they have a specific internet user in mind as the potential leaker.

DMCA Takedown Sent to Discord

On February 21, Nintendo of America sent a DMCA notice to Discord. The complaint targeted a Discord channel named “Tears of the Kingdom Official Discord Server.”

The notice went on to target six specific URLs featuring images or links to images “from Nintendo’s copyright-protected and unreleased special edition art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom video game in violation of Nintendo’s rights.”

Just eight minutes after the takedown notice was sent to Discord, the platform acknowledged the complaint and told Nintendo that the content “will be removed promptly.”

Around ten hours after sending the initial takedown notice, Nintendo followed up with a request for “immediate review and takedown” of the Discord channel, noting that members were still distributing the pre-release artwork using direct messages and links.

“Additionally, some members have been assigned the role of ‘The PDF Pirate’ which identifies them as a source for PDF files of the infringing art book images. For your review, we have also provided screenshots from the server featuring four members and a brief description below highlighting their activity in the server.”

One of the direct download links

Around 18 hours later, Discord said it had “issued a warning to the server for the reported activity.” In its original notice, Nintendo had objected to the term ‘official’ being used in the server name since the “server is not operated or authorized by Nintendo.”

Discord said that if Nintendo was “concerned about potential consumer confusion,” it might want to file a trademark complaint.

Nintendo Goes to Court in California

On Friday, April 4, 2023, Nintendo of America’s attorneys filed an application for a DMCA subpoena at a district court in California.

Referencing the notices sent to Discord in respect of the “copyright-protected and unreleased special edition art book for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom” the company highlights a Discord channel and a specific user.

“[Nintendo of America] is requesting the attached proposed subpoena that would order Discord Inc. …to disclose the identity, including the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and e-mail addresses(es) of the user Julien#2743, who is responsible for posting infringing content that appeared at the following channel Discord channel Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom..[..].

Information available on other platforms, Reddit in particular, suggests that the person Nintendo is hoping to identify is the operator of the Discord channel and, at least potentially, the person who leaked the original content.

A two-month-old comment on the origin of the leak suggests the source was “a long time friend.” A comment in response questioned why someone would get a friend “fired for internet brownie points?”

Nintendo’s DMCA subpoena application can be found here (pdf)

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

Automatisierung von Abläufen ist ein oft gehörtes Schlagwort, aber nicht jeder kann sich etwas darunter vorstellen. Dieser Artikel zeigt praktische und alltagstaugliche Beispiele mit dem Tool n8n. Eine Anleitung von Thorsten Müller (Tools, API)

Was Mitarbeiter in ihrer Freizeit machen, ob sie an Demos teilnehmen oder sich auf Straßen und Rollbahnen festkleben, geht die Firma in der Regel nichts an. In einigen wenigen Fällen aber doch. Von Harald Büring (Arbeit, Wirtschaft)

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The first smart displays to ship with Google Assistant software at their core weren’t made by Google. Both Lenovo and JBL released Google Assistant smart screens in 2018, months before the first Google Home Hub went on sale. Five years later, Google Assistant seems to be abandoning support for third-party smart displays. In an update […]

The post Google Assistant ends support for third-party smart displays appeared first on Liliputing.

It’s the summer of 2008 and the owner of a fairly new streaming site based in the north of England is on his way to a London hotel to meet a potential investor.

Two surveillance teams are already in place; one covertly video recording the meeting from a table in the restaurant, another monitoring the exits. After the meeting, the site owner returns to the north by train, a surveillance team in tow.

After getting off the train, a new surveillance team takes over and shadows the site owner home. No investment was forthcoming; the ‘investor’ was actually a private investigator working for copyright holders. A high-profile police raid followed just a month later, a lengthy prison sentence four years after that.

Piracy Investigations Take Place in ‘Real Life’

Fifteen years ago, covert piracy investigations were mostly the stuff of rumors and rarely documented in public. That the investigation detailed above was conducted by private companies, rather than the police, was controversial but not controversial enough to stop them.

Indeed, private companies conducting their own anti-piracy investigations today have the ability to peer into private lives as they go about protecting and enforcing their intellectual property rights. Since this necessarily involves the collection of personal data, companies like the Premier League sometimes disclose the type of information they collect as part of their privacy policies.

Documentation reveals that the Premier League collects and uses personal data about “individuals who have, might have or are likely to infringe the Premier League’s intellectual property rights.” Depending on the circumstances, that might also entail collecting personal data on others related to them.

Open Source Research, Third-Party Investigators

Given the wealth of information available online today covering billions of people, it’s no surprise that the Premier League leverages ‘open source’ data when defending its rights. The pool of information available online today is alarmingly deep and as long as there is a lawful basis to process personal data, companies are allowed to do so.

The Premier League’s ‘lawful basis’ for processing personal data mainly relies on its ‘legitimate interests’ when conducting anti-piracy investigations. This information spans the most basic of identifiers, such as a name, through to suspects’ leisure time activities.

Prime Data, Ripe for Collection

Being able to put a name to a suspected pirate is crucial in most investigations, but oftentimes it’s not the first piece of personal data to become available. Premier League says that it obtains names using open source research, “on-the-ground” investigations, and via discussions with potential defendants and other third parties. The same is true for contact details, such as email address and telephone numbers. IP addresses are also collected.

Other major pieces of information useful to an investigation include physical addresses, both residential and other premises. Open source research will play a roll but affiliates of infringers may also hand over location data, perfect for when the Premier League needs to hand over important paperwork regarding legal claims.

Affiliates and Social Media

While it’s not uncommon for pirates to operate in groups, any type of close affiliate risks having their information processed by the Premier League.

Friends, family and work colleagues may or may not be part of the scheme but to rule them in or out, the Premier League needs to “understand the relationship between them and who is liable, and to identify residential addresses for service of claims.”

Before identifying any colleagues, it’s possible the suspect’s job will have been scoped out in advance, but sequences of discovery aren’t determined in advance or set in stone. The goal here is to “establish level of involvement/extent of liability.”

Any photographs obtained from the internet, including those posted on social media, could help to “counter claims by individuals denying involvement, and to identify person to be served and prove personal service has occurred.”

Time to Get Personal

Other data that can be legally collected and processed include personal characteristics, such as physical descriptions of age, gender, height, stature, plus skin and hair color. This information helps to “counter claims by individuals denying involvement, and to identify person to be served and prove personal service has occurred.”

Other categories include lifestyle data – hobbies, interests, and expenditures. This type of information can be useful in many ways but Premier League lists only two purposes for collection. “To ascertain ability to make payments in respect of infringements and the scale of an infringer’s operation.”

Finally, in a document dated 2020, the Premier League notes that in order to successfully operate an enforcement program, personal data needs to be shared with third parties including its legal advisors, investigators (including anti-piracy companies Friend MTS and Irdeto), industry enforcement operators (FACT) and law enforcement authorities (Trading Standards and the Police).

Some involved in piracy have tried to challenge the collection, processing and/or use of this type of data. At least as far as we know, most (if not all) attempts were completely unsuccessful.

Image credits: Pixabay/Lenzatic/gerault/lobostudiohamburg

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

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The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending March 25, 2023, are in. An original sci-fi horror film is the top-seller for the week. Find out what movie it was in our weekly DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales stats and analysis feature.

Die Bundeswehr hat in den vergangenen Monaten eine erhöhte Präsenz von Drohnen über ihren Kasernen beobachtet. Nun wird in Gegenmaßnahmen investiert. (Drohne, Spionage)

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