Author: Ernesto

In recent years file-sharers around the world have been threatened with lawsuits, if they don’t pay a significant settlement fee.

These so-called “copyright trolling” efforts have been a common occurrence in countries such as Germany and the United States, and last week they started in Sweden as well.

Rightsholders are targeting thousands of alleged pirates. First, they ask the court for a subpoena to expose the personal details of account holders connected to certain IP-addresses, which they then present to the associated ISPs.

Some Internet providers have been cooperating with these requests, but not all. Most notably, the privacy-oriented ISP Bahnhof is doing everything in its power to prevent its customers from being exposed.

This week the ISP explained how its logging policies are tailored to only allow only requests that are made in criminal cases, not civil claims against BitTorrent users or other alleged file-sharers.

In Sweden, ISPs are required to keep IP-address logs for six months under the Electronic Communications Act (LEK). This legislation allows the authorities to demand this type of data in criminal cases, such as those involving murder and terrorism.

To comply with this requirement, Bahnhof has setup a database of logs which are stored for the minimal required period and can be accessed for these cases only. The regular logs are purged immediately.

Bahnhof, illustrating its logging policy

When copyright holders request IP-address details, which they do under the contested IPRED legislation, the ISP simply has nothing to hand over. This is very similar to the non-logging policies of many VPN services.

“We store logs for six months to fight crime, absolutely. But we save everything in a separate system, which is only used for LEK,” Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says.

“My impression is that some other operators have their clients’ IP addresses stored in several different places. They then also become more vulnerable to having to disclose data IPRED rules.”

Bahnhof itself has operated like this for years, but now that mass file-sharing cases have landed in Sweden the value of this policy is becoming apparent.

Rightly so, according to the ISP, which says it has found a good way to fend off copyright trolls.

“If all operators stored data the way we do, we would avoid the extortion letters altogether. Because we have the motto ‘Internet privacy’ we are very careful with personal data,” Karlung says.

Bahnhof’s CEO adds that other companies should think more carefully about where data is stored. The more databases there are, the more likely it is that they can be compelled to share subscriber data.

“The more different databases there are, the greater the risk that privacy is compromised,” Karlung adds.

Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, applauds Bahnhof’s logging policy. He discussed the issue in a recent article and informs TorrentFreak that data retention laws which are supposed to help catch terrorists shouldn’t be used against file-sharers.

“The damage these copyright trolls are doing to society is immeasurable. They were able to get shameless mail-order legislation justified by the war on terror, and are now turning those anti-terrorism laws against defenseless single mothers in order to protect a crumbling entertainment monopoly.

“There is absolutely no reason to tolerate, nor to forgive, this kind of behavior,” he adds

It will be interesting to see whether any of the ISPs currently handing over personal detailed connected to IP-addresses will follow suit and change their policies in the future.

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

Last December a New Zealand District Court ruled that Kim Dotcom and his colleagues can be sent to the United States to face criminal charges.

Judge Nevin Dawson found there was an “overwhelming” case for Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, to be extradited.

This decision was immediately appealed and last week a lengthy series of appeal hearings kicked off at New Zealand’s High Court. Represented by a team of lawyers, the Megaupload defendants say that Judge Nevin Dawson failed to give them a fair hearing.

During the most recent hearing, which was live-streamed on YouTube, Kim Dotcom’s defense lawyer Ron Mansfield argued that the lower court made several errors in its final ruling.

For example, it relied heavily on the writings of U.S. Government lawyers. According to Mansfield, the verdict included copy-pasted text from U.S. contributions to the record of case (ROC) on close to 60% of all pages.

“At [156 pages of his 271-page judgment] the Judge has simply replicated in full passages from the US submissions on the ROC and asserted inferences,” Mansfield noted.

“He has erred by failing to weigh the evidence and to determine whether the asserted inference is available and reasonable. He also fails to even seek to adopt the inferences promoted,” he added.

Dotcom’s lawyer lists numerous errors allegedly made by the District Court, discussing them point by point while noting that not all U.S. evidence should have been taken at face value.

Errors

In essence, the defense’s argument boils down to the question of whether the claimed offenses committed by Megaupload and its employees warrant extradition under the treaty in place between the U.S. and New Zealand.

However, the copyright angle was also widely discussed. Dotcom’s lawyer highlighted that Megaupload was an Internet service provider. ISPs enjoy safe harbor protection and can’t be held criminally liable for copyright infringement.

The High Court will have to make a crucial decision on this issue, he added, which will determine if Internet service providers can be held criminally liable for user generated content. This is crucial to other ISPs but also the public at large.

“Ever since the printing press, the resultant copyright acts have achieved a careful balance between the competing interests of the content holder, new technologies that can be used to copy and the user,” Mansfield said.

“The US is seeking through this proceeding to change the historical and existing obligation imposed by the protection of copyright from the content holder on to a new technology, the ISP.”

To reach a conclusion, the court will have to consider what ISPs’ obligations are when it comes to user-uploaded and distributed works, as far as copyright is concerned.

“Do ISPs have a legal obligation to investigate and enforce copyright infringement, criminal or civil, by its users?” Mansfield questioned.

“Ultimately, are ISPs responsible for user generated content? And, if so, how might that impact on the careful balance achieved by Parliament through the Copyright Act?” he added.

Even if the court disagrees that Megaupload and its employees are not liable for copyright infringement, the extradition request should be denied on the basis that copyright infringement is not an extraditable offense under the U.S. / New Zealand treaty.

“There is no extradition offense under the US-NZ Treaty because….the essence of the conduct is the communication of copyright-protected works through the Internet,” Mansfield said.

Primary submission

The hearing was just the first day for Dotcom’s lawyer, and many more will follow. The prosecution is likely to disagree with many points and while offering counter-argument, a process that’s expected to continue for several weeks.

Kim Dotcom is aware of the stakes but is confident that the appeal will lead to a positive outcome.

“I can’t see how any impartial judge can extradite me. The law is just simply completely on our side. There is not even space for interpretation. That’s how clear the law is,” Dotcom tells TorrentFreak.

“But it’s a political case and there is a lot at stake for people in power. If I win they will fall as a result,” he concludes.

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

Last month many Indian Internet users noticed that their favorite torrent websites were blocked, displaying a rather ominous message.

Those who tried to access The Pirate Bay, ExtraTorrent and hundreds of other sites were informed that they could face up to three years in prison.

Apparently, simply viewing copyrighted content would already be enough to send someone to jail. This was quite an alarming prospect, to say the least.

“Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, […] which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of up to Rs. 3,00,000,” it read.

The blocking message triggered a torrent of news articles, bringing the scaremongering to a new level. Some reporters went as far as claiming that downloading a .torrent file or viewing a copyrighted picture could already lead to trouble.

These reports also reached the Bombay High Court, which oversees the blocking case initiated by the makers of the movie Dishoom. In a recent order, Judge Patel clears up the confusion.

Simply accessing a website or viewing copyrighted content is not the problem, but offering it to others is.

“The offence is not in viewing, but in making a prejudicial distribution, a public exhibition or letting for sale or hire without appropriate permission copyright–protected material,” Judge Patel writes.

“These error pages appear to have confused the penal provisions regarding obscenity with penalties under the Copyright Act, 1957,” the order (pdf), courtesy of SpicyIP, adds.

Judge Patel ordered Internet provider Tata Communications, which manages the blocking message, to remove the viewing part. Instead, the notice now states that “infringing or abetting infringement of copyright-protected content” is an offence under Indian law.

This means that people who distribute copyrighted content via BitTorrent can still end up in jail, technically speaking. However, this has always been the case in India and the same is true in many other countries.

Aside from the blocking language, Judge Patel raised several other concerns which may turn out to be even more important for John Doe blocking orders in the long run. Picking up on a suggestion from Professor Basheer, he calls for the introduction of a neutral ombudsman to resolve blocking disputes.

Installing an ombudsman would resolve a lot of problems which so-called “John Doe” orders have raised in recent years.

“Many John Doe orders are granted without a sufficient checking of the Plaintiffs’ claim. This results in overbroad orders and wholesale site blocking without adequate verification of the legitimacy of all content,” Judge Patel writes.

“These orders often affect innocent third parties not before the Court. The number of those affected is irrelevant. If even one innocent party is affected, the damage is incalculable. The rights being affected are cardinal and fundamental,” he adds.

The order

In addition, the Judge notes that the orders often stay in place for a long time without proper oversight and that subsequent blockade removals are slow, cumbersome and inefficient. He therefore urges ISPs and Bollywood to seriously consider the idea of an ombudsman.

The issues raised are important because the John Doe orders affect all national ISPs, which have a subscriber reach of many millions of people.

Amusingly, Judge Patel concludes his order my mentioning a claim from ISP Tata Communication, which suggests that the orders are somehow targeted at films that are expected to flop, in order to boost their revenues. However, this is something the court might possibly look into at a later date.

“In conclusion, I only note Mr. Tulzapurkar’s submission that these blocks and John Doe orders seem to be sought only for forthcoming or anticipated box office flops. Whether or not this is true, and whether or not it is a relevant consideration in law I leave for another day,” the order concludes.

That’s one to watch for sure.

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

In recent years, file-sharers all across the world have been threatened with lawsuits, if they don’t pay a significant settlement fee.

The process was pioneered in Germany where it turned into an industry by itself, but copyright holders have also targeted alleged pirates in the UK, United States, Canada and elsewhere.

Earlier this year, rightsholders began targeting Sweden, with more details appearing in public last week.

One of the organizations leading the way is Spridningskollen (Distribution Check). Using data gathered by German anti-piracy outfit Excipio, they plan to start by targeting around 1,000 alleged pirates, offering them settlements of around $233 (2,000 kronor).

Spridningskollen spokesman Gordon Odenbark compared the process with speeding cameras, where torrent users risk a ‘fine’ if they get caught. This will generate revenue, but could also act as a deterrent, preventing other people from violating rightsholders’ rights.

Interestingly, however, shortly after Spridningskollen announced its plans the group itself faced allegations of intellectual property rights violations. Swedish ISP Bahnhof is accusing the group of trademark infringement, noting that they have a claim on the “spridningskollen” mark.

“Bahnhof was the first to apply for the Spridningskollen trademark rights at the Swedish Patent and Registration Office,” the ISP announced.

Earlier this year Bahnhof was the first ISP to warn the public about the looming flood of settlement requests. To help the public understand the severity of the issue the ISP launched the site Spridningskollen.org, which they say maps the “spread of extortion letters” from copyright holders.

Bahnhof’s Spridningskollen.org

Now that the anti-piracy group has ‘stolen’ their name, Bahnhof plans to take action over the apparent trademark infringement.

“It is surprising that those who claim to defend intellectual property rights don’t track it better themselves. It says a lot about the quality level of their so-called initiative,” Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says.

The ISP is demanding that the website of the anti-piracy group, Spridningskollen.se, is shut down.

“Our lawyers are looking into it. We see the many different ways that interfere with their operation. Extortion letters are unethical, anachronistic and counter-productive,” Karlung says.

In addition, Bahnhof is calling on the Government to reform copyright law in order to prevent excessive and overbroad enforcement tactics.

Until then, the ISP vows to protect its subscribers from the copyright trolling practice as best as they can. This means that if copyright holders demand IP-address info and user details from Bahnhof, they will fight this in court.

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

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows	6.2 / trailer
2	(1)	Now You See Me 2	6.8 / trailer
3	(7)	Jason Bourne (HDTC/Subbed HDRip)	7.4 / trailer
4	(…)	Captain America: Civil War	8.1 / trailer
5	(…)	The Secret Life of Pets	6.8 / trailer
6	(3)	Independence Day: Resurgence (Subbed HDRip)	5.6 / trailer
7	(2)	Blood Father	7.1 / trailer
8	(4)	The Conjuring 2	7.8 / trailer
9	(5)	The Legend of Tarzan (Subbed HDRip)	6.6 / trailer
10	(…)	Skiptrace	6.0 / trailer

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

The movie industry has gone head to head with Google in recent years, demanding tougher anti-piracy measures from the search engine.

According to Warner Bros. and other major studios, Google makes it too easy for its users to find pirated content. Instead, they would prefer Google to remove sites such as The Pirate Bay from search results entirely.

Warner itself is also taking action, by reporting pirated content to the search engine, asking it to be removed from the index. This year the movie studio intensified its efforts and thus far it has flagged over four million allegedly infringing URLs.

We use the term allegedly with good reason, as not all of the reports are accurate. In fact, this week we stumbled upon recent takedown requests that have some glaring errors.

With help from its anti-piracy partner Vobile, Warner asked Google to censor several of its own URLs from the search engine.

The screenshot below, taken from the following DMCA notice, lists the official Warner page of the 2008 Batman movie The Dark Knight among various reported pirate links.

Dark Knight

The same notice also lists another Warnerbros.com URL for the sci-fi classic The Matrix. Again, Vobile asks Google to remove this link from search results, acting on behalf of the Hollywood studio.

The Matrix

The apparent ‘self-censorship’ is not a one-off mistake either. A few days earlier, a similar DMCA takedown notice targeted Warner’s website, claiming that the official page for The Lucky One is infringing Warner’s copyrights.

The Lucky One

Of course, Warner only hurts itself with these erroneous takedown requests. Unfortunately, however, Warnerbros.com is not the only ‘legitimate’ domain that’s being targeted.

The same notices highlighted above also target a link to the Amazon store, where users can rent or buy a copy of The Dark Knight. In addition, it targets a link to Batman Begins in the Sky Cinema store, as well as the film’s official IMDb page.

In other words, Warner is inadvertently trying to make it harder for the public to find links to legitimate content, which runs counter to their intentions.

Luckily for the Hollywood studio, Google is there to save the day. The search engine spotted their mistakes and decided to take no action for the Amazon, Sky and IMDb links.

The Warnerbros.com URLs are still under investigation though, perhaps to make the studio sweat a little.

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

At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade.

During this time, many torrent sites have shut down, either voluntarily or after being forced to by a court order.

However, never before have we witnessed events like those of recent weeks.

On July 20, KickassTorrents (KAT), the largest torrent site at the time, was shut down after its alleged owner was arrested. A few days later Torrentz said farewell, leaving many more without access to their torrent search engine of choice.

Just like that, two of the largest torrent sites had disappeared, causing much confusion and uncertainty among former users. Both sites had millions of daily visitors who needed to find a new home.

Now that the dust has settled a bit we take a look at the massive migration that took place.

First off, the search for alternative torrent sites is nicely illustrated by Google Trends. Immediately after KAT shut down, searches for “torrent sites” shot through the roof, as seen below.

“Torrent sites” searches (90 days)

While many sites across the board are ‘profiting’ from the shutdowns, most traffic appears to be going to the big players. The Pirate Bay, for example, which recently became the largest torrent site again, as well as runner-up ExtraTorrent.

To get a representative picture of changes we asked Similarweb for an overview of the traffic that flowed to the top five torrent sites over the past months, plus Torrentz. The data is taken from a sample of over 200 million devices measuring desktop visits only.

The graph below shows that traffic to all sites went up after Kat.cr was taken offline. Torrentz initially saw a sharp rise as well, but traffic tanked after its farewell message early August.

Traffic to the top 5 torrent sites (large)

In absolute terms The Pirate Bay benefited the most, adding several million daily visitors, with a relative increase of 67%. ExtraTorrent, however, doubled its numbers with a 101% increase, welcoming a lot of new users after the Torrentz shutdown.

The three other sites in the top five, RARBG, 1337x.to and YTS.ag, saw their visitor numbers go up by 45%, 53% and 44% respectively. Still good hundreds of thousands of extra visitors per day, according to the reported data.

The Pirate Bay team previously told us that they are happy to welcome these new users, which made it the king of torrents once again. Similarly, ExtraTorrent is also motivated to keep expanding.

“We always think and dream of growing and we indeed plan to keep growing,” ExtraTorrent’s SaM tells TorrentFreak, adding that the members of the site make it a success.

Aside from the big players, several smaller sites also saw their traffic rise. Initially, a lot of interest went out to ‘mirrors’ and copies of KAT and Torrentz, some of which are still doing very well traffic-wise.

Torrentz2, for example, greatly benefited from coverage in the Indian press. While the site is not that popular in the West, in India it quickly became one of the largest sites in the country with Alexa ranking it in 127th place locally.

Interestingly, however, there are also several torrent sites that have been ‘hurt’ by the recent takedown of Torrentz. As thelargest torrent meta-search, Torrentz sent traffic to a lot of ‘smaller’ sites, traffic that has now disappeared.

Torlock, for example, initially saw an increase when KAT went offline but after Torrentz folded their traffic tanked. The site currently has half the users it had two months ago.

“After KAT we saw a massive increase but I assume that was because Torrentz received much more traffic when KAT went down,” Torlock’s operator tells TF.

“Because we were very reliant on Torrentz when it shut down, it basically halved our traffic. So currently we are half of where we were before KAT and Torrentz shut down.”

With millions of people moving to new sites, it’s safe to say that the torrent ‘community’ is in turmoil, trying to find a new status quo. Whether the shutdowns will actually lead to fewer people using torrents is unclear though. Thus far we have not seen any evidence that this is the case.

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

Earlier this week we reported on a new piece of software that allows TIDAL tracks to be permanently downloaded to a computer.

The tool is unique, as it doesn’t require people to listen to the entire track in order to copy it, setting it apart from similar download tools.

“This is an actual downloader – you are logging into TIDAL through the tool and you get the direct ‘stream-URLs’ that can then be downloaded,” developer Lordmau5 explained.

The people at TIDAL were obviously not happy with this development and quickly urged their lawyers at Reed Smith LLP to take action, which they did.

In a takedown notice directed at the developer platform GitHub, where the TiDown code was hosted, they state that the open source code is infringing on the rights of their client.

“The code provided by the user can be used to circumvent access controls to copyright protected works,” the DMCA notice reads, asking for its immediate removal.

As a result, people who try to access the GitHub repo, linked on the official TiDown page, now see the following takedown notification.

Tidown’s down

We contacted the developer, who’s surprised by the language used in the takedown notice. The lawyers claim that the tool infringes “TIDAL source code,” which is obviously not the case.

“The DMCA request says that I would’ve used their source code, which is wrong. So *technically* the DMCA is illegal and I could sue them over that,” Lordmau5 informs TorrentFreak.

“However, since I don’t have or know a lawyer in that area, and it would cost a fortune to pay the cost, I’ll just let it rest for now,” he adds.

Perhaps wisely so, as the intent of the application is directly linked to copyright infringement. This gives TIDAL’s lawyers plenty of reason to take it offline, or even worse.

While TiDown’s swift destruction is a disappointment for the developer, part of the motivation for the tool was to expose the vulnerabilities in TIDAL’s API. That part was definitely achieved.

Also, TiDown is not as dead as it may seem at first sight. Lordmau5 notes that the project has been forked several times already and these repositories (1, 2, 3 etc) are still available on GitHub.

And as we’ve seen in the past, it can be difficult to stop this type of code from being shared online…

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

VPN services are a great tool for people who want to increase their privacy and security online.

While most people use them for legitimate purposes, VPNs are also frequently linked to nefarious activity, as criminals prefer to stay anonymous online too.

As a result, VPNs regularly come up when police investigate online crime. This is also what appears to have happened with two servers that were leased by VPN provider Perfect Privacy.

A few days ago the company informed its customers that two of its servers had been seized by the police in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The authorities went directly to the hosting company I3D and the VPN provider itself wasn’t contacted by law enforcement.

“Currently we have no further information since the responsible law enforcement agency did not get in touch with us directly, we were merely informed by our hoster,” Perfect Privacy says.

Despite losing control over two servers, Perfect Privacy assures its customers that no personally identifiable data is present on the seized hardware. Like many other VPNs, the company maintains a strict no-logging policy.

“Since we are not logging any data there is currently no reason to believe that any user data was compromised,” the VPN provider says.

TorrentFreak reached out to I3D, who told us that they can’t comment on any specifics. However, the hoster stresses that it handles these type of requests in compliance with the law, while keeping the interests of their customers in mind.

“When the Dutch police contact us with a subpoena, we work with them in a professional manner and ensure their request and our responses are in compliance with the Dutch law,” I3D informs us.

“We think with the affected customer as well, for example by making temporary capacity available so the customer does not suffer extended downtime during the investigation.”

Perfect Privacy confirms that they are happy with how I3D handled this issue. Two replacement servers were quickly put in place meaning that the seizures didn’t result in any significant downtime.

In any case, it is good to see that the provider in question is being open about what happened. Unfortunately, that’s not always obvious for companies in this position.

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

Can an Internet provider be held liable for subscribers who share pirated files? Yes, a Virginia federal jury ruled late last year.

This verdict caused shockwaves in the ISP industry when several companies suddenly realized that they could become the next target.

Internet provider RCN is among the companies that are gravely concerned. With 400,000 subscribers nationwide, it is one of the larger Internet providers in the United States, and as such it regularly receives takedown notices targeting it its subscribers.

Many of these notices come from BMG and its anti-piracy partner Rightscorp, which accuse RCN of being liable for the actions of its customers.

RCN was not pleased with these allegations and took legal action a few weeks ago. The Internet provider filed a lawsuit against music rights group BMG at a New York federal court, seeking declaratory judgment on the matter.

“The central question for this Court’s determination is whether an Internet service provider should be held liable for copyright infringement simply because it provides Internet connectivity to its customers,” RCN wrote.

The Internet provider argued that it is not liable for the infringements of its subscribers because it is merely passing on traffic, which allows the company protection under the DMCA’s safe harbor provision.

RCN is not the only ISP to have taken action. Their complaint was swiftly followed by a similar case from Windstream, which relies on many of the same arguments.

BMG is not happy with these developments and has started to push back in court. In both cases, the music rights group has now asked the court for leave to file a motion to dismiss the complaints.

According to BMG, there is no concrete dispute or threat of an actual lawsuit on their part. Instead, they accuse the ISPs of trying to get broad immunity without going into specifics, such as their repeat infringer policies.

“RCN appears to seek to resolve only its liability for past instances of infringement, but declaratory judgment actions are not the proper vehicle by which to do so,” BMG’s lawyers write in the RCN case.

“Conversely, to the extent RCN seeks to immunize itself against liability for future infringement, there is no factual record on which to make such a decision. A Court cannot offer a declaratory judgment immunizing purely hypothetical future conduct from secondary liability for copyright infringement.”

As the Cox case has shown, the ISPs’ actions and policies play a crucial role in determining liability. BMG accuses RCN, and in a similar filing Windstream, of trying to escape this responsibility.

“In sum, RCN seeks a broad ruling that it does not infringe BMG’s copyrights at any time or anywhere, regardless of the factual circumstances or its actual knowledge of copyright infringement by RCN subscribers. That is not the proper subject of a declaratory judgment action and does not state a legally valid claim under the DMCA or the Copyright Act.”

RCN does not agree with the music group’s characterization of its request. In a reply, the ISP highlights that it received millions of infringement notices from BMG over the past years, in which it demanded compensation from RCN.

“They present a substantial, real, and immediate controversy in that BMG has accused RCN of specific and continuing instances of copyright infringement and has provided a definitive measure of the damages for which RCN is allegedly liable,” RCN writes in its reply.

“As a result, there is nothing abstract or hypothetical about the relief RCN is seeking in this declaratory action. RCN properly seeks a declaration that BMG’s allegations lack merit and that RCN is not liable for purported copyright infringement occurring through its network.”

As such, RCN asks the court not to allow the motion to dismiss to be filed.

Windstream has yet to reply to the allegations, but it’s expected that they will follow the same course as their colleague Internet provider, as they’ve previously done.

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