Author: Andy

The Spoiling Dead Fans (TSD) is a community of hardcore The Walking Dead fans who have an even greater interest in the show than most. As their name suggests, they’re dedicated to obtaining all the latest information about the hit show – including information not yet in the public domain.

There have been suggestions recently that TSDF might reveal the identity of the individual who Negan killed with ‘Lucille’, his barbed wire covered baseball bat. As the cliff-hanger from the final episode of the last series, it’s pretty important to fans. As it turns out, it’s massively important to makers AMC too.

In a posting on their Facebook page this week, the operators of The Spoiling Dead told their 364,000 followers that AMC had contacted them with legal threats.

“After two years, AMC finally reached out to us! But it wasn’t a request not to post any info about the Lucille Victim or any type of friendly attempt at compromise, it was a cease and desist and a threat of a lawsuit by AMC Holdings, LLC’s attorney, Dennis Wilson. They say we can’t make any type of prediction about the Lucille Victim,” they wrote.

TorrentFreak has obtained a copy of the letter sent to TSDF in which AMC’s attorney at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP lays down the law. Surprisingly for a show that hasn’t aired and potentially hasn’t even been made yet, the law being laid down is copyright in nature.

“AMC is aware that The Spoiling Dead Fans site is promoting your claim that you have received copyright protected, trade secret information about the most critical plot information in the unreleased next season of The Walking Dead,” the letter begins.

“You also state that you plan to distribute this purported highly confidential information despite your knowledge that such distribution, if the information is indeed accurate, is unauthorized and will greatly damage AMC, distributors of The Walking Dead as well as Walking Dead fans awaiting the new seasons’ release who wish to watch their favorite show unspoiled.”

AMC’s claim that any spoilers will amount to copyright infringement are somewhat eyebrow raising but according to the company this ground has been covered before.

“The release of plot summaries and particularly the types of crucial plot elements that you have stated you intend to release, have been found to constitute copyright infringement. Specifically, in Twin Peaks Productions vs. Publications International, the Court ruled that publishing a work that ‘recount[s] for its readers precisely the plot details’ of a fictional work constitutes copyright infringement.”

By citing a specific case one might conclude that AMC’s attorney is confident that the cases are similar, but reading the details casts more than just a little doubt on his claims.

The historical case in question involved the publication of a book by Publications International which covered in detail the first eight episodes of the 1990/91 TV series Twin Peaks. The big question was whether this use of copyright works was protected under fair use but in the end the court decided the publisher had gone too far.

The court found that the defendant’s “detailed recounting of the show’s plotlines went far beyond merely identifying their basic outline for the transformative purposes of comment or criticism” adding:

Because the plot synopses were so detailed, and in fact lifted many sections verbatim from the original scripts, the court found that defendant copied a substantial amount of plaintiff’s original works.

This hardly seems to mirror the situation playing out alongside a potential spoiler of an unaired episode of The Walking Dead. Presumably that spoiler can be achieved by saying a single name too, which by no stretch of the imagination amounts to a substantial part of any show.

Merits of the argument aside though, AMC doesn’t appear in any mood for messing around.

“By advertising the illegal disclosure of intricate plot details of an unreleased episode of The Walking Dead without authorization, you will willfully and intentionally impair the commercial viability of the show and thus AMC’s ability and incentive to continue to produce creative works such as The Walking Dead,” the company’s attorney continues.

“In light of the above, we demand that you repudiate your intent to leak the ‘Lucille Victim’ by confirming that you will cease and desist from that illegal disclosure and/or assisting others in the illegal disclosure.

“Should you fail to do so, AMC will file a lawsuit against you to enjoin your harmful illegal activities and seek to obtain money damages and injunctive relief to address your conduct.”

Whether the threats have any legal basis will probably never be known for sure but in the meantime The Spoiling Dead crew are having a pretty awful time of it. As a result they’ve decided not to take any chances.

“AMC has been harassing us for four days now by contacting our homes, our family members and our employers; even posting on this page and personal social media accounts. We are fans of this show just like you and aren’t a commercial operation that makes profit. We have families and careers to think about,” they explain.

“After consultation with our legal counsel, we have responded to AMC that the TSDF staff will not be posting our prediction on who gets Lucilled on any of our outlets.”

Speaking with TorrentFreak, ‘Shinyfirefly’ of TSDF said that while AMC insist that a disclosure about the ‘Lucille Victim’ was about to be made, no one from the company has provided that detail.

“[AMC} say that we claimed we received some illegal, protected information and that we said we were going to disclose the Lucille Victim based on that information. But they never identified WHERE the claim they say we made was. Even in our response to them we said we could not repudiate that claim because they didn’t identify it. They still haven’t. They are guessing,” Shinyfirefly said.

“It would be stupid of us to say something like that. All we ever said is that we were close to a confirmation and should be able to post who we thought it was in a couple weeks. There are lots of ways to confirm things and plenty of them legal.”

While the identity of the ‘Lucille Victim’ has always been a hot topic among Walking Dead fans, it’s now likely that following the legal threats from AMC the interest will leak over into the wider mainstream, thus making it even less likely it will remain a secret.

It’s understandable that AMC want to protect their storylines, but this is not pre-Internet 1980 and the days of secrets like Who Shot J.R.? are long gone.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Back in 2003, when file-sharing technology was still in its relative infancy, several platforms had aspirations of becoming the next Napster. One of those was Israel-based iMesh, which at four years old was practically a veteran already.

But in September that year an increasingly irritable RIAA said enough is enough and sued iMesh in the United States. At the time, both parties were defiant. The RIAA insisted that iMesh should be shut down, while iMesh’s owners claimed they’d done nothing wrong.

However, in the summer of 2014 an unusual peace was reached, with iMesh paying the RIAA more than $4m in compensation and continuing business as normal. As strange as it may seem, the RIAA appeared to have licensed people they’d already branded as pirates.

There were changes though. iMesh was forced to release a new client that carried filtering technology provided by Audible Magic, with the aim of stopping infringement on the network. From the release of iMesh v6 in October 2005, it’s almost certain that the RIAA had access to vast amounts of iMesh user data.

Now, however, some of that data has landed in the public arena. Following the sudden disappearance of iMesh in recent weeks, LeakedSource is reporting that it has obtained an iMesh database containing 51,310,759 user records.

“Each record contains an email address, a username, one password, an IP address, a Country location and a join date,” the site says.

The breach, which appears to have taken place in September 2013, lists users from 55 countries participating on iMesh. With 13.7m users, the United States was by far the most popular country.

Sadly, as is often the case when such breaches are made public, the password situation on iMesh was pretty bleak.

“Passwords were stored in multiple MD5 rounds with salting. ‘Salting’ makes decrypting passwords exponentially harder when dealing with large numbers such as these, and is better than what LinkedIn and MySpace did but MD5 itself is not nearly hard enough for modern computing. The methods iMesh used, albeit 3 years ago were still insufficient for the times,” LeakedSource notes.

Only making matters worse are the passwords deployed by users. Close to a million of iMesh’s users went for ‘123456’, with more than 330,000 going for the slightly longer variant ‘123456789’.

For what would turn into a largely crippled file-sharing network, iMesh was still attracting plenty of new users. The leak shows that in 2006, just after the release of the RIAA-approved client, iMesh had 4.8 million people sign up. During 2011, 9.4 million jumped on board. The last data available shows 2.5 million new members in 2013.

Now, however, iMesh is suddenly no more. After more than a decade of working with the RIAA (and even the MPAA who had a deal to limit movie sharing on the service), several weeks ago iMesh suddenly shut down. May 5 is the last date an active page is available on Wayback Machine, boasting access to 15 million licensed songs and videos.

Unsurprisingly, the iMesh shutdown is just one of many. At the same time several other platforms closed down including Bearshare, Shareaza and Lphant. Each show an almost identical shutdown message on their homepages since underneath they were all one and the same software operated by the same company.

But while it is customary for file-sharing fans to mourn the loss of file-sharing services, few with knowledge of how this network operated will be disappointed that these have gone, and not just because of the RIAA deal either.

The original Shareaza and Lphant projects were both subjected to hostile action by Discordia, the owners of iMesh, in circumstances that remain murky to this day. The original and safe version of Shareaza continues on Sourceforge, somewhat against the odds.

Users concerned that their data may have been compromised can check here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Like many who first heard the news last weekend, I don’t admitting that I was moved by a video uploaded by YouTuber Lewis Bond. Seeing someone scared – terrified even – isn’t fun.

An aspiring young filmmaker, Bond runs Channel Criswell on YouTube and his work shows excellent promise for a fruitful career. Sadly, his immediate future looks decidedly more gloomy.

The details can be found here, but essentially a 20 minute video analysis of Stanley Kubrick movies created by UK-based Bond has provoked a lawsuit from a company holding the copyrights to some of the music tracks featured in the background.

In a nutshell, Bond appears to have a firm belief that he has a strong fair-use case. Serendip LLC, which owns the copyrights to the music featured in the 1971 movie ‘A Clockwork Orange’, beg to differ. Take a moment or two to listen to the track in question at the start of the video below, it’s important.

The end result is a lawsuit which could see Bond on the receiving end of $150,000 in statutory damages for each infringement. From everything seen to date, it seems unlikely the 23-year-old can come up with that kind of cash. It’s possible he’ll struggle to finance a defense.

Seeing Bond visibly choked was a sad sight and it got me thinking. While undoubtedly a wonderful and timeless piece of music, is a track from 1971 really bringing in the money for Clockwork Orange composer Wendy Carlos today? Has Bond’s fleeting reproduction of a part of this track in his documentary caused real financial damage?

I don’t have the answer to those questions but while researching this case I came across something that surprised even me, a huge ClockWork Orange fan. Although arranged and performed by Carlos, the main theme from A Clockwork Orange isn’t her work at all. In fact, the entire piece – virtually note for note – has been lifted from a piece penned by composer Henry Purcell.

Born in England in September 1659, Purcell developed into what many consider to be one of the country’s greatest composers. His 1695 piece ‘Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary’ was played at the funeral of Queen Mary II, who had died in December of the previous year.

It is an abridged version of this music that forms the entire basis of Carlos’ 1971 work. Arrangement and beautiful synthesizer work aside, it’s virtually identical.

Purcell died in 1695 and quite rightfully his work is now in the public domain. As a result Wendy Carlos was absolutely within her right to take this piece and run with it and as a supporter of remix culture, I salute her efforts entirely.

Sadly, however, I can’t help but note the sad hypocrisy here. Just for a moment, let’s cast aside the legalities of copyright law and instead focus on the notion of artists using the work of others to create new art.

In the 1970s, Carlos took Purcell’s work and modernized it beautifully and there are now millions of people out there who only know her version of the work. By taking his work, she has touched audiences in a way Purcell could not. It’s probably worth noting that Carlos undoubtedly made more money from Purcell’s work than Purcell ever did too, and good for her.

Like Carlos before him, Lewis Bond is also somewhat of a remixer. His Kubrick analysis by Serendip’s own description is a “mélange of brief snippets” and he too is bringing the work of the filmmaker and indeed Wendy Carlos to a brand new audience that Purcell himself could only dream of. I’d like to think Purcell would be pleased for their success.

Importantly, in the same manner that Carlos paid homage to Purcell with her work, by opening his video with Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary the main theme from Clockwork Orange, in turn Bond paid homage to Carlos. It strikes me that rather than having disrespect for each other, all involved in this downward chain deeply appreciate each other’s talents.

Of course, since Bond’s channel is monetized, Carlos believes she should be paid for her work. Bond, on the other hand, is stuck in a fair use dilemma, and will have to fight an expensive court battle to find out who is in the right. Let’s face it, that is not going to happen.

Bond is unlikely to put up any kind of fight and whatever happens – win or lose – Serendip/Carlos aren’t going to get a penny from Bond in the UK. What I’m saying today is that among business people – among artists – in today’s climate there must be a better way to sort this out.

Getting the parties to talk might not be easy, but there are plenty of options if they just take the opportunity. Bond won’t have made much from his video, but paying a small sum to Carlos might be an option, if he doesn’t have the stomach for a fair use war.

The option I like best, however, is a collaboration. Carlos has talents. Bond has talents too. So, as artists, why not do something together? When it comes down to it they have a lot in common. Both have made new creative works on the backs of other people’s efforts without paying them a dime. That alone provides the basis for discussion – they’re already on the same page.

But most of all, why are people wasting each other’s lives with these pointless lawsuits? On YouTube there are plenty of instances where people have uploaded the whole of Carlos’ work, literally a full-fledged pirate copy of everything notable she’s ever done. They’re freely available on the platform today yet Bond – someone who brings something creative to the party – faces financial ruination? That makes no sense.

Although Wendy Carlos and her representatives failed to respond to our requests for comment, there may be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. A TorrentFreak reader managed to make contact with someone on Wendy Carlos’ site who fired back quite an email. It ends as follows:

“There is much bad advice on the internet about copyright and the use of music on YouTube, but some very good advice that should be followed is not to post other people’s copyrighted music on the internet ‘because you like it and want others to hear it’,” the email reads.

“This YouTube user would also be well advised to follow the old saw that ‘when you find yourself in a hole, you should stop digging.’ His problems might go away if he would just ‘undo’ his previous bad choices.”

That sounds like an olive branch. Someone might like to grab it.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

As the former operators of Megaupload are only too aware, hosting user-uploaded content can be a perilous activity, even when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is followed to the letter. Sun Social Media (SSM), a US-based company behind several video platforms, have also had a taste of the risks.

In addition to dating sites, SSM owns four so-called tube sites – Playvid.com, Playvids.com, Peekvids.com, and Feedvid.com. Adult video company Hydentra HLP (also known as MetArt Network), the operator of more than a dozen porn sites, sued SSM claiming that more than 70 of its videos appeared on SSM’s sites without permission.

According to court papers, SSM sites host more than 475,000 adult videos uploaded by their users. Each must agree only to upload videos to which they have the rights. Once uploaded, an independent outside contractor checks every video to ensure they don’t contain criminally illegal content or spam. If they do they are blocked.

In addition to SSM and its four videos sites, Hydentra named two other defendants in the case, SSM director Konstantin Bolotin and Constantin Luchian of IncorporateNow Inc, a company that among other things acts as SSM’s registered DMCA agent. Documents show that SSM accepts copyright claims in various formats, from email and fax, their ‘contact us’ page, through to the unlikely option of posting claims through the mail. Claims are processed within 48 hours.

Importantly, SSM also has a repeat infringer policy operating on a “three strikes in six months and you’re out” basis. To date, SSM has reportedly terminated more than 1,000 users for multiple infringements.

Hydentra hired anti-piracy company Battleship Stance LLC to tackle infringement on various platforms including those operated by SSM. In the majority of cases these were sent electronically and actioned quickly. However, on one occasion the company chose to send 56 DMCA notices to SSM’s DMCA agent IncorporateNow. Printed on paper, delivered through the mail.

The package was signed for on January 20, 2015 by IncorporateNow’s landlord’s receptionist but for reasons that aren’t clear, DMCA agent Constantin Luchian never personally received the package. As a result the content stayed up.

On June 4, 2015, Hydentra filed a complaint against SSM, who at this point became aware of the allegedly infringing content. SSM disabled the files as appropriate but the lawsuit continued.

Hydentra filed claims for direct infringement, contributory infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, inducement of copyright infringement plus various claims related to trademarks.

Later, both parties filed Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment on each of the plaintiff’s claims. At the Federal Court in Miami, things didn’t go well for Hydentra.

“The Court agrees with Defendants that in imposing liability upon an internet service provider for third-party users’ uploading of copyrighted material, Plaintiff must establish that Defendants engaged in a volitional act to cause the illegal copying,” the judge wrote.

“To find otherwise would impose liability upon an otherwise passive internet service provider for conduct that is simply out of its control.”

No such acts were established resulting in SSM’s motion for Summary Judgment being granted and Hydentra’s being denied.

In respect of the claims of contributory infringement, SSM said that it could not be held liable since it had no knowledge of the paper-based DMCA notices. Once notified via lawsuit, all of the videos were removed. The judge said the matter of lost notices couldn’t be resolved during a motion for Summary Judgment.

“Neither party has cited cases, nor has the Court been able to locate cases, where a DMCA Designated Agent lost take-down notices, causing an internet service provider to incur liability for copyright infringement based upon constructive knowledge,” the judge wrote.

Furthermore, for a contributory infringement claim to succeed, Hydentra would need to show that SSM’s tube sites were not capable of “substantial noninfringing uses.” The company failed to do so.

“While the record is clear that at times, third-party users of Defendants’ Websites upload copyrighted material, there is record evidence that the Websites are capable of being used for purposes other than copyright infringement,” the judge noted.

SSM’s motion to dismiss was granted. The claim of Vicarious Copyright Infringement received the same treatment.

“To prevail on a claim for vicarious infringement, a plaintiff must allege that the defendant ‘infringes vicariously by profiting from direct infringement while declining to exercise a right to stop or limit it’,” the judge wrote.

“Plaintiff’s argument that the infringed videos somehow attracted and
drew more visitors to Defendants’ Websites, which allowed Defendants to receive more revenue in advertisements, is not supported by record evidence and is highly speculative.”

The claim of Inducement of Copyright Infringement was dealt with even more swiftly.

“The Court agrees with Defendants that there is no record evidence that Defendants induced the third-party users into uploading copyrighted
material. To the contrary, the record is clear that Defendants operated as passive internet service providers,” the judge wrote.

Val Gurvits of Boston Law Group, who along with local counsel Brady Cobb defended the tube sites, is pleased with the result.

“SunSocial had a strong record of responding to DMCA notices and of terminating repeat infringers. Of note is that in dismissing their copyright claims, the court actually ruled on the underlying merits of the case, and not on DMCA safe-harbor,” he informs TF.

Nevertheless, Gurvits says that the sending of the paper notices was a troubling development.

“Plaintiff intentionally manufactured a DMCA ‘non-compliance’ situation by interjecting paper DMCA notices into an established course of dealings via electronic ones. They first sent all DMCA notices electronically, and SunSocial diligently acted on all of them. Then for some reason they sent 56 paper notices (allegedly in one FedEx package). Then they continued to send electronic notices,” Gurvits says.

“The only reason for Hydentra to interject paper notices into an established exchange of electronic notices is because they hope that recipient will mistakenly miss some of them. It seems they used this process as a pretext for filing some of their other presently pending lawsuits.”

Meanwhile, Hydentra is extremely active taking down content from Google, with more than 2.4 million URLs removed to date.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

For years Internet piracy was the preserve of desktop machines running various flavors of peer-to-peer file-sharing software. Now, with viable computing available in devices as small as a phone, piracy is a do-anywhere affair.

As a result it’s now common for people to stream media to their living room and for that purpose there are few more convenient solutions than an Android device. Whether phone, tablet, HDMI stick or set-top box, the Android platform can bring all the latest movies, TV shows and live sports to any living room, for little to no outlay.

This type of Internet piracy is thriving all around the world and has already resulted in arrests in the UK and civil actions elsewhere. The latest news comes out of Canada, where Bell Canada, Rogers Communications, Videotron and others are taking on several retailers of Android set-top boxes.

The broadcasters’ claims are relatively straightforward. As station operators they own the Canadian rights to a variety of TV shows. The defendants (ITVBOX.NET, My Electronics, Android Bros Inc., WatchNSaveNow Inc and MTLFreeTV) all sell devices that come ready configured with software designed to receive copyrighted content over the Internet.

The plaintiffs began their inquiries in April 2015 and in the year that followed purchased and tested the defendants’ products. They not only found that the devices provided access to their content for free, but also that the defendants advertised their products as a way to avoid paying cable bills.

Unsurprisingly the devices contained at least three sets of software – Kodi (along with the necessary infringing addons), the Popcorn Time-like Showbox application, plus tools to receive pirate subscription channels for a monthly fee.

As a result the TV companies went to court in an effort to obtain an interlocutory injunction to stop the devices being made available for sale. The plaintiffs made claims under both the Copyright Act and Radiocommunication Act, the latter due to the devices receiving “illegally decrypted programming”.

Describing pre-loaded set-top boxes as an “existential threat” to their businesses, the plaintiffs said that piracy and subsequent declining subscriptions are the main factors behind falling revenue. On this basis and as a deterrent to others supplying such devices, an injunction should be granted.

While the plaintiffs showed up in force, court documents reveal that only one defendant attended the hearing. Vincent Wesley of MTLFreeTV told the court that he had nothing to do with the development or maintenance of the installed software. The set-top boxes, he argued, are just pieces of hardware like a tablet or computer and have “substantial non-infringing uses.”

The court wasn’t convinced.

“The devices marketed, sold and programmed by the Defendants enable consumers to obtain unauthorized access to content for which the Plaintiffs own the copyright. This is not a case where the Defendants merely serve as the conduit, as was argued by Mr. Wesley,” Judge Daniele Tremblay-Lamer wrote in her order.

“Rather, they deliberately encourage consumers and potential clients to circumvent authorized ways of accessing content — say, by a cable subscription or by streaming content from the Plaintiffs’ websites — both in the manner in which they promote their business, and by offering tutorials in how to add and use applications which rely on illegally obtained content.”

As is often the case, the defendants’ marketing strategies appear set to haunt them. All imply infringing uses with descriptions such as “Original Cable Killer”, “Cancel cable today”, “Every Movie Ever Made”, “Every TV Show Ever Made” and “Live Sports and Events”.

Granting the interlocutory injunction, the judge said that other companies selling similar devices can be joined as parties to the injunction, should the plaintiffs identify them as defendants.

“This is not the first time a new technology has been alleged to violate copyright law, nor will it be the last. There are questions for the Court to resolve at trial rather than at this interlocutory stage,” the judge wrote.

“For the time being, I am satisfied that the Plaintiffs have established a strong prima facie case of copyright infringement and that an injunction would prevent irreparable harm without unduly inconveniencing the Defendants.”

A full trial will follow but from the evidence and defense presented thus far, it shouldn’t prove a difficult one for the broadcasters to win.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

The Pirate Bay might no longer be the most popular torrent site on the Internet but its story is certainly the most colorful in the history of online piracy.

That history is now inexorably intertwined with that of Sweden, a Scandinavian country that found itself slammed into the middle of the United States’ war on piracy due to the site operating from its territory.

At first Sweden took little action against TPB and its founders, but as pressure built the authorities governing the sub 10 million population decided that enough was enough. Not only would Pirate Bay be forced to its knees, but all similar services that had brought Sweden’s IP policies under the spotlight too.

The resulting crackdown, which has run for more than a decade but has intensified in the past six years, has seen countless torrent sites, Direct Connect hubs, streaming platforms and end users targeted by the authorities.

Once considered a piracy haven, Sweden is now a somewhat risky country to start a file-sharing operation or share large volumes of files. Nevertheless, the authorities report that illegal downloading continues at a pace.

According to stats just released by Sweden’s national police, the most common intellectual property crimes committed in the country relate to unauthorized file-sharing, despite physical counterfeiting being valued at billions of krona every year.

“75 percent of complaints are about copyright violations and file sharing, although we may be seeing some decline,” says Paul Pintér, police national coordinator for intellectual property crimes.

That decline is almost certainly due to the attractive legal services that have been gaining traction year on year. Platforms such as Spotify and Netflix are doing very well in Sweden, with three quarters of the population now using streaming services to consume music and video. The former has impressively tied up around 90% of the paying market.

Still, it’s apparent that Sweden still has work to do if it wants to eradicate the piracy problem. Despite the crackdown of recent years carried out by a dedicated copyright unit embedded in the police force, Pintér says that Sweden sits in third place among European Union countries when it comes to illegal downloads of music.

Quite why that’s the case is unclear, but police say they remain extremely busy when it comes to processing file-sharing complaints. According to Pintér his unit is handling around 120 such complaints every year, that’s roughly one every three days.

Not all reach the prosecution stage of course but those are big numbers for a country with a relatively small population. Still, the revelation is hardly a surprise.

Last month, local ISP Bahnhof revealed that when it comes to police requests for data, 27.5% relate to cases involving online file-sharing. This makes it the most prevalent ‘crime’ committed by users, ahead of other offenses such as fraud, forgery and grooming minors.

So for now it appears that Sweden’s quest to crush file-sharing will continue. Last month it was reported that Sweden’s Minister for Justice has called for even tougher punishments for infringers. And with even those making their own subtitles facing prison, it seems that no one is safe.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

It used to be a little talked about secret but the fact that all Netflix users aren’t treated equally is now well and truly out of the bag.

Due to licensing deals with content providers, most regions in the world are granted access to differing levels of content. Users in the United States get the best deal from a choice perspective while subscribers in many other regions are offered much more shallow libraries.

However, for many years determined subscribers from all over the world have been using various tricks to gain access to the forbidden fruits of the U.S. Netflix library. This has largely been achieved through the use of VPNs and proxies, techniques which worked almost flawlessly until complaints from rightsholders forced Netflix into a crackdown earlier this year.

Nevertheless, other methods to circumvent Netflix blocks do exist. Some savvy individuals have been using something known as a tunnel broker, an online service which provides the user with a network tunnel. One particular type, known as an IPv6 tunnel broker, provides users with a modern IPv6 tunnel to sites via the much older (but massively more prevalent) IPv4 protocol.

One such service is provided free of charge by Hurricane Electric, the operator of the world’s largest IPv6 transit network. Called simply ‘IPv6 Tunnel Broker‘, the company describes the service as follows.

“Our free tunnel broker service enables you to reach the IPv6 Internet by tunneling over existing IPv4 connections from your IPv6 enabled host or router to one of our IPv6 routers. Our tunnel service is oriented towards developers and experimenters that want a stable tunnel platform,” Hurricane explains.

With noble goals at heart, this service is clearly not designed to give Netflix headaches. However, with tunnel endpoints in the United States that was apparently the net result, with people using the service able to access titles geo-restricted to the U.S.

Somehow this situation came to Netflix’s attention and during the past few days the company decided to take action. Numerous reports indicate that Netflix has now blocked users of Hurricane Electric’s tunnel broker from accessing its services, regardless of their intent. They now receive the message below.

A Reddit user called KeiroD contacted Netflix after receiving an identical message with the same error code – M7111-1331-5059. From the transcript of the discussion its clear that KeiroD already had a good idea why he was blocked.

“The only thing that I can think of that would affect us would be using the Hurricane Electric tunnelbroker but we’re US-based as is Hurricane Electric’s tunnel,” he explained. Netflix responded as expected.

“Yes it is possible as they work the same as the VPN or proxies. There is a way to find out if that is the reason, do you have a way to turn it off for a moment so we can try the service again?” customer support asked.

In response KeiroD turned off IPv6 in his router’s tunnel broker setup, rebooted, and played a random movie successfully.

General blocking aside, the sad part here is that KeiroD is based in the United States, so already had access to U.S. content on Netflix. The fact that his account with Netflix was registered in the United States and his endpoint was in Kansas City didn’t help at all.

Interestingly, the topic is also under discussion in Hurricane Electric’s forums. After years of people questioning whether he had access to the U.S. version of Netflix, a Canadian user there reported that his Netflix suddenly stopped working a few days ago.

“Turns out that I did [have the U.S. Netflix] and didn’t even know it! Now Netflix is blocking me, and after a long while I finally figured out that it was because of my IPv6 tunnel. The thing is though, I am in Canada, and I use the tunnel server in Toronto, also in Canada, but Netflix detects my connections as coming from the US!” he explains.

“Well of course this problem only affects traffic coming over the IPv6 tunnel. If I shut it down, then Netflix works fine over native IPv4. I obviously still want my IPv6 connectivity, and don’t have any easy way that I know of to specifically block only Netflix-related traffic from resolving IPv6 addresses and using the tunnel.”

Sadly, however, Hurricane say they can’t help.

“Our [subnet] is registered as part of a US company, and that is the address space being used there. We do not have any IPv6 allocations allocated and designated as ‘Canada’,” a senior Hurricane engineer responded.

“Our [subnet] is used globally, as-is. If Netflix has some sort of whitelisting system in place, perhaps the ranges used there can be submitted, if such a whitelist exists, Netflix willing.”

As an avid supporter of IPv6, Netflix’s decision to block Hurricane users is somewhat disappointing, especially when they have U.S. accounts and are also based in the U.S.

Understandably the company is responding to pressure from rightsholders but interestingly there’s no change in the current situation even when they aren’t a factor. Netflix previously indicated it wanted to improve licensing issues by creating its own shows, shows that can be accessed anywhere in the world without issues. But even they are off-limits, it seems.

“This started happening to me this afternoon. Called Netflix support, and based on that conversation I concluded they consider Tunnelbroker a VPN/Proxy,” another user on HE’s forums explains.

“They’re not wrong, but it’s still frustrating. Ironically the show I was trying to resume is a Netflix original. I wouldn’t have expected that there would be licensing issues on their own content.”

And so the whac-a-mole continues….

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Currently there is a huge and coordinated effort by the world’s major copyright holders to push for changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

In a nutshell, key entertainment industry players believe that the DMCA is no longer fit for purpose and has been twisted out of shape by pirate sites, Google and even YouTube, to work against their best interests.

One of the main problems is taking down infringing content. The legislation allows content to be removed following the issuing of a so-called DMCA notice, but copyright holders say that this descends into a game of whac-a-mole, with content repeatedly reappearing.

To end this cycle they’re pushing for a new mechanism provisionally titled ‘Takedown, Staydown’ or ‘Notice and Staydown’. This would order web platforms to ensure that once content is taken down it will never appear again on the same platform. These proposals are currently under review by the US Copyright Office.

But while copyright holders feel this would be a great tool for them, it’s perhaps unsurprising that content platforms are less enthusiastic. After weighing in earlier in the year, the latest warnings from the Internet Archive, a gigantic public repository of a wide range of media, and are among the sternest yet.

Noting that even the current system is regularly abused by those seeking to silence speech, the Archive says that on a daily basis it receives wrongful takedowns for content that is in the public domain, is fair use, or is critical of the content owner. Therefore, further extending takedown rights could prove extremely problematic.

“We were very concerned to hear that the Copyright Office is strongly considering recommending changing the DMCA to mandate a ‘Notice and Staydown’ regime. This is the language that the Copyright Office uses to talk about censoring the web,” the Archive warns.

The Archive has a number of concerns but key issues involve due process and user monitoring. Once a platform is in receipt of a “staydown” order, it will be required to ensure that content never reappears, regardless of the context in which it does so. This means that users posting content subject to fair use exceptions will effectively be denied their right to issue a counter-notice when their upload is blocked, thus trampling due process.

But of course, blocking content also requires that users are monitored, and the Internet Archive doesn’t like that idea at all.

“The current statute protects user privacy by explicitly stating that platforms have no duty to monitor user activity for copyright infringement. Notice and Staydown would change this – requiring platforms to be constantly looking over users’ shoulders,” the Archive warns.

With free speech potentially at stake here, the Internet Archive says that taking content down and keeping it down has constitutional implications.

“Notice and Staydown has a serious First Amendment problem. The government mandating the use of technology to affirmatively take speech offline before it’s even posted, without any form of review, potentially violates free speech laws,” it says.

Such an automated system would amount to a censorship “black box”, the Archive adds, to which the public would be denied the key.

“It would be very difficult to know how much legitimate activity was being censored.”

Fair use has come up time and time again during this DMCA debate and the Internet Archive is clearly very concerned that it receives protection. Worried that content filtering technology isn’t even up to today’s challenges, the Archive warns that systems that can identify instances of fair use simply don’t exist.

“So far, no computer algorithm has been developed that can determine whether a particular upload is fair use. Notice and Staydown would force many cases of legitimate fair use off the web,” it warns.

“Further, intermediaries are not the right party to be implementing this technology. They don’t have all the facts about the works, such as whether they have been licensed. Most platforms are not in a good position to be making legal judgments, and they are motivated to avoid the potential for high statutory damages. All this means that platforms are likely to filter out legitimate uses of content.”

Finally, there is the not insignificant matter of who is going to pay for all of these systems should platforms be forced to adopt them. While copyright holders would apparently reap the benefits, sites like the Internet Archive would probably be expected to foot the bill.

“Developing an accurate filter that will work for each and every platform on the web will be an extremely costly endeavor. Nonprofits, libraries, and educational institutions who act as internet service providers would be forced to spend a huge amount of their already scarce resources policing copyright,” the Archive warns.

“The DMCA has its problems, but Notice and Staydown would be an absolute disaster,” it concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Undoubtedly the lion’s share of copyright infringement lawsuits filed in the United States concern file-sharing activity, something which inevitably pits large entertainment corporations against Joe Public. David versus Goliath, it now seems, is heading to YouTube channel near you.

Late Friday, TorrentFreak received a tip linking us to a YouTube video posted on Channel Criswell. In it a visibly shaken and somewhat bewildered young man tries to keep his composure while delivering what is clearly upsetting news.

“A couple of hours ago I received a court summons in the post. The reason I’m being sued is for the Stanley Kubrick video that I uploaded in February. I don’t know what to do,” said Channel Criswell operator Lewis Bond.

“I thought all this was over and done with and we could move on and no-one would have to take any legal action. But apparently I am being sued for copyright infringement and the people that have filed this lawsuit against me are after the maximum damages, which if I’ve read it correctly can be up to $150,000. And this….this would ruin me,” he choked.

To understand the nature of this case it’s first necessary to examine Lewis’ work. Watching just a couple of minutes of the video embedded below should leave readers in no doubt that his work is documentary in nature, with masses of commentary and criticism throughout. Lewis Bond is a talented man.

Throughout the five minute video in which Bond reports his plight, the young filmmaker never refers to the people behind the lawsuit by name. However, we have ascertained that the claimants are US-based Serendip LLC and their claim has nothing to do with Kubrick himself.

In a complaint filed in a New York District Court back in March, Serendip LLC explain that they own the copyrights to music created by composer Wendy Carlos. Among other works, Carlos wrote the soundtracks for both A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Shining (1980). The complaint involves the former.

“The three pieces of music at issue in this action were used in the soundtrack of the motion picture ‘A Clockwork Orange’, entitled ‘Title Music From A Clockwork Orange’, ‘March From A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘William Tell Overture’,” the company explains.

“Unbeknownst to, and without permission or license from, Serendip, Defendant Lewis Bond made derivative works of music and sound recording works by Wendy Carlos in the soundtrack of a video, entitled ‘Stanley Kubrick – The Cinematic Experience.’

“On or about February 20, 2016, with the purpose, inter alia, of monetizing the video for his own benefit, Defendant uploaded the video with user name Channel Criswell to YouTube.com and linked to the YouTube video on Twitter.com and Patreon.com.”

Serendip describe the video (embedded above) as a “mélange of brief snippets taken from Stanley Kubrick’s motion pictures” alongside an “aggregate of about 3 minutes of music taken from the three tracks listed in the complaint.

The publisher says that the music used by Bond represents “substantial portions” of the tracks “ranging from 18% of a piece of 7 minutes duration to 45% of a piece of 2 minutes 20 seconds duration.”

Lewis in happier times

There is absolutely no mention of a fair use exception in the lawsuit filed by Serendip however there is a subtle hint that the company might believe that Bond’s commentary on Kubrick’s work not only stopped short of musical analysis, but also presented Carlos’ work out of context.

“With the exception of about 5 seconds of the ‘William Tell Overture’, the music is not synced to picture as in the soundtrack of ‘A Clockwork Orange’, but instead is used behind many unrelated snippets from various Kubrick movies and the video shorts. At no time, does the video commentary discuss the music or its context as displayed in the video,” the lawsuit reads.

According to the publisher it sent a takedown notice to YouTube back in February and the platform responded by disabling the video. In response, Bond reportedly filed a counter-notice, which YouTube passed on with a note that “Serendip must file a federal court action within 10 business days or YouTube may reinstate the video to YouTube.com.”

From this point it’s clear that Bond felt that Serendip had overstepped the mark and according to the publisher he expressed those concerns several times in public. In summary, however, Serendip feel they are absolutely entitled to sue the YouTuber, describing his actions as “willful, intentional, and purposeful, in disregard of and indifferent to Serendip’s rights.”

In addition to an injunction the publisher is also pressing for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement plus attorneys fees.

Only time will tell how this case will play out, but by picking on the easiest of soft targets Serendip is unlikely to endear itself with the Internet masses. The Ludovico technique sickened Alex whenever he heard his beloved Beethoven. This lawsuit might sadly do the same for fans of the brilliant Clockwork Orange.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

As regularly documented in these pages, copyright holders expend a lot of energy trying to protect their work from Internet piracy.

The tried and tested method is to issue a DMCA takedown notice to webhosts and platforms such as Google, Facebook and YouTube. Millions of these requests are sent and processed every week.

However, while copyright holders are fully entitled to protect their work, there are many instances that cause controversy. These cases often amount to ham-handed efforts at taking down infringing content but others arouse suspicions that censorship is the likely goal.

Details of several such cases appeared in the Lumen Database’s DMCA archive this week, having been filed there by Google. They all relate to a wave of copyright claims sent to Blogspot and GoogleUserContent on May 31, 2016 demanding the removal of pictures depicting Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose.

“Copyright image of Axl Rose. Please be advised that no permission has been granted to publish the copyright image so we cannot direct you to an authorized example of it,” the notices sent by Web Sheriff on behalf of the singer read.

Each notice (1,2,3,4,5,6) relates to the same image, an excellently framed but rather unflattering picture of Axl Rose taken at the MTS Centre, Winnipeg, Canada, back in 2010.

Intrigued, TorrentFreak tracked down the photographer who captured this moment to see if he was aware of these takedown efforts. We eventually found Boris Minkevich at the Winnipeg Free Press where his fine work is published in all its glory.

During our initial discussions a few things became clear. Firstly, Minkevich definitely took the photo. Second, Minkevich had no idea that Rose was trying to “cleanse the web” of his photo.

Perhaps the first reaction here is that Rose has no right to take down Minkevich’s photo. Since Minkevich was the one who took it, he must own the copyright, right? Web Sheriff doesn’t seem to think so.

“We can gladly confirm that all official / accredited photographers at [Axl Rose] shows sign-off on ‘Photography Permission’ contracts / ‘Photographic Release’ agreements which A. specify and limit the manner in which the photos can be exploited and B. transfer copyright ownership in such photos to AR’s relevant service company,” the company told TF in a statement.

We contacted Minkevich again and asked whether he’d signed any contracts as suggested by Web Sheriff or had any clear idea of who owns the copyrights. He confirmed that some shows make photographers sign an agreement and some don’t. This event was in 2010, a long time to remember back.

However, even if Minkevich took this photograph in an unofficial and/or unauthorized capacity, Web Sheriff still believes there would be issues surrounding ownership.

“[If a photographer] was there and taking shots without permission or authority, then other considerations / factors would come-into-play as to what such individuals can and cannot do in terms of attempting to commercially exploit the resultant images of someone else’s show,” TF was informed.

So while the waters about who owns what continue to swirl, the big question remains – why target the picture at all? Understandably, Web Sheriff told us that client work is confidential but it’s certainly possible that part of the puzzle lies a quick Google search away.

As can been seen below, the photographs taken by Mr Minkevich all those years ago also triggered a viral Axl Rose ‘fat’ meme – hardly the kind of image someone like Axle Rose would like to preserve.

While poking fun at someone’s appearance is sadly par for the course on some parts of the Internet, sending DMCA notices is hardly likely to cure the problem, if indeed that’s what the aim of the half-dozen notices was. It’s possible we’ll never find out for sure.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that Google hasn’t complied with the requests to remove the images and all remain up and accessible. That may be because Google believes that Axl Rose doesn’t own the photo and that the copyrights sit with Minkevich and/or the Winnipeg Free Press.

Clearly Axl Rose thinks otherwise but as pointed out by Minkevich to TF, the images being targeted on Blogspot are definitely infringing, although perhaps not in the way Axl might’ve hoped.

“Either way the photo was stolen off our website with no permission granted by the Winnipeg Free Press,” he concludes.

Messy? You bet.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.