For the best part of 15 years, maybe more, Sweden was rarely out of the piracy headlines. Kept busy by the endless antics of The Pirate Bay, there was always some type of chaos to contend with, and that kept everyone very busy.

With an entire generation exposed to piracy thanks to the most notorious pirates of them all, there was always a question mark over Sweden’s ability to turn its back on The Pirate Bay in favor of legitimate services. Spotify, another local phenomenon, played a key role when it specifically targeted pirates; its product is still vastly superior to any music-focused piracy service available anywhere.

While still not averse to dabbling around the main brace of The Pirate Bay, towards the middle of the last decade, Swedes were increasingly turning to an old pirate friend sporting a new coat of paint. Video streaming had been around for years but when packaged up as a consumer-like product, accessed via a living-room set-top box rather than a PC, Swedes had their collective heads turned. They weren’t alone.

Swedes and the New Piracy Boogeyman

Starting around 2016, give or take depending on region, pirate IPTV services exploded globally. Acting as a direct replacement, for some even an antidote to runaway expensive TV subscription packages, the IPTV boom most likely had entertainment companies reluctantly nostalgic for The Pirate Bay.

A study published by the EU Intellectual Property Office in November 2019 revealed ( pdf ) that Sweden and the Netherlands were the most prolific consumers of pirate IPTV services in the entire bloc, with 9% of each population already exposed.

At the same time, legal consumption was trending up but with an overall piracy rate of around 20%, rightsholders could still see potential profit slipping away.

Pressure Increases on Players in the Illicit Market

In common with its counterparts in Europe, Sweden had already been paying more attention to those involved in the supply and sale of pirate IPTV subscriptions. Most investigations fell to local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance which represents the interests of large local broadcasters and film companies, plus those of the majors in Hollywood.

In 2022, a then 23-year-old was criminally convicted and ordered to pay around $230,000 in damages to local rightsholders. Soon after a subscription reseller received a six-month sentence , a step up from the community sentences seen earlier. Other cases came and went, mostly ending in success for the plaintiffs.

Anticipation Following Lengthy Investigation

In 2019, the same year that Sweden and the Netherlands were dueling for top spot on the EU’s IPTV piracy list, Rights Alliance referred an IPTV piracy case to local police. The group believed the man was behind Dreamhost, one of the more popular pirate IPTV brands in Sweden and therefore a priority target.

Regardless of the target, no investigation of this type is ever straightforward. As Rights Alliance reported in 2023, the cross-border nature of the offending can require evidence to be obtained from overseas, meaning that cases can drag on for quite some time. In this case, already four years.

Nevertheless, Rights Alliance described the evidence as extensive. A resident of southern Sweden, the man was the alleged registrant of the service’s domain name. He moderated the service’s chats, for which the logs had been obtained, and he answered questions posed by customers.

On top of IP address tracking evidence and email address data, a financial investigation reportedly identified two bitcoin wallets linked to the suspect, and data revealing that almost SEK 2,000,000 was received in 2020 alone, roughly $189,000 at today’s rates. Police also found payments between the suspect’s accounts and an account linked to Dreamhost.

Sales to Friends and Family, Fear, Remote Control

Last September in advance of his trial, Rights Alliance revealed that under questioning, the man admitted doing some technical work for Dreamhost and selling subscriptions to family and friends. He also claimed that he didn’t know who was behind Dreamhost and at times, since he felt threatened, allowed his computer to be controlled remotely, by a person he couldn’t identify.

Whether the claims had any substance is unclear but the rightsholders behind the prosecution would be requesting serious compensation for damage caused by the service, Rights Alliance said.

Guilty Verdict

In an October 2023 announcement, Rights Alliance revealed that the man had been found guilty. The extensive evidence was noted once again and reference was made to the SEK 2,000,000 the man received in 2020. The sentence itself appeared to come as a disappointment, however.

“The penalty was determined to be a suspended sentence and 100 daily fines,” Rights Alliance reported, a reference to the Swedish system where fines are calculated based on a person’s daily income. The number of ‘day fines’ imposed is meant to mirror the amount lost had the convicted been imprisoned without earnings.

Noting that the man had avoided being sentenced under the much tougher regime now in place, Rights Alliance said little else.

Decision Went to Appeal

A Rights Alliance statement published Thursday summarizes a verdict also handed down yesterdayby the Patent and Market Appeal Court. Rights Alliance didn’t post a copy of the decision and the court is yet to make it public, but it seems likely that the rightsholders appealed against the relatively light sentence handed down last October.

The verdict as reported suggests that the conditional sentence and 100 day fines stands. However, the SEK 2,000,000 in damages payable to rightsholders is now being reported as SEK 1,700,000. A SEK 300,000 reduction transforms the $189,000 award to one just shy of $160,000.

“The verdict shows that it takes a long time from report to verdict, but that despite everything, it is not possible to avoid the long arm of the law,” Rights Alliance concludes.

When searching fruitlessly for a copy of the decision handed down Thursday, we stumbled across another case that appears to challenge the assertion that the long arm of the law is inevitable.

Details Matter

The case involves an appeal of a judgment handed down by the Patent and Market Court in June 2022 and a person named only as L.K., who was accused of copyright infringement in connection with the website swedeniptv.se.

“According to the indictment, L.K.’s involvement in the offense primarily consisted of paying for the domain and administering the website, charging customers, and marketing the website. Secondly, he is alleged to have promoted others’ illegal distribution of the films, which occurred via the website swedeniptv.se,” a decision by the court of appeal reads.

“The Patent and Market Court of Appeal assesses that it is already evident from L.K.’s own statements that he had the primary role concerning the website swedeniptv.se. However, his main objections to the indictment are that the films in question were not available via the website and that he acted as a so-called ‘gatekeeper’ for other individuals who remotely controlled his computers.”

It appears that when L.K. was on trial, the prosecutor (acting for movie company plaintiffs Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney, Universal, and Sony) alleged that the movies were made available to the public via the website swedeniptv.se. In reality, people purchased subscriptions from swedeniptv.se and then received a link via email which linked to servers in the Netherlands.

The court of appeal found that films being made available via an email link to a Dutch website was something “not apparent from the description of the act” provided by the prosecution. As a result it had not been shown beyond reasonable doubt that L.K. committed the act the prosecutor alleged.

The panel did not reach a unanimous decision. In light of the facts presented during case, including the defendant’s admissions, an objective view of the arguments of those who dissented reveals reasonable conclusions that could’ve prevailed anywhere else on a different day.

They appear to have been thwarted on a technicality, one that seems like it should’ve been completely avoidable

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

In the fall of 2019 , Brazilian law enforcement agencies launched the first wave of anti-piracy campaign ‘Operation 404,’ referring to the well-known HTTP error code.

With help from law enforcement in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Argentina, the authorities took down more than a hundred sites and services, while several suspects were arrested.

Following its initial successes, several new waves ‘Operation 404’ were initiated over the ensuing years. Each wave led to raids and takedowns across the country, with assistance from international law enforcement partners. It was clear that Brazil had its enforcement apparatus in order, but the outcomes of these efforts in terms of follow-up actions were largely unknown.

This week, anti-piracy group ALIANZA booked its first ‘404’ related victory in court. Following a criminal complaint from the group, Judge Marina Figueiredo Coelho of the Fifth Criminal Court of Campinas, Sao Paolo, convicted the operator of a pirate IPTV service that was taken down in 2020.

Prison for Flash IPTV Operator

The operator of Flash IPTV, who is referred to by the initials A.W.A.P., was found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced to five years and four months in prison.

Flash IPTV was a relatively large IPTV service with 13,547 active users at its peak. According to local news reports , the service generated R$4,542,034 ($912,000) in revenue over twelve months, before it was taken offline in 2020 as part of the second ‘Operation 404’ campaign .

Speaking with TorrentFreak, ALIANZA says that this is a historic verdict, as it’s the first criminal IPTV prosecution linked to ‘Operation 404’ in Brazil.

“We appreciate the commitment of the police and judicial authorities in resolving this important case. The conviction of A.W.A.P. is a milestone that reinforces our commitment to defending the rights of creators and fighting against illegal practices that harm the creative economy,” says Víctor Roldán, ALIANZA’s executive director.

More to Come?

A copy of the verdict wasn’t released to the public, as is common with these types of convictions, so further details are scarce.

While Operation 404 resulted in many arrests over the years, follow-up prosecutions have been rare in Brazil. Previously, ALIANZA did score a similar victory in Ecuador , where the operator of the pirate IPTV service IPTVlisto.com was sentenced to a year in prison.

Last fall, Brazilian authorities conducted the sixth wave of Operation 404 and more are expected to follow in the future. These enforcement initiatives are broadly praised by rightsholders and the recent conviction will only strengthen their support.

There’s always room for improvement, of course. A few weeks ago, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) recommended Brazil to remain on the US ‘ Special 301 ‘ Watch List of countries with IP-related challenges.

IIPA saw various positive developments, especially regarding Operation 404. However, disagreement between rightsholders over enforcement action could still improve.

“Brazil still suffers from a lack of specific norms and regulations regarding the enforcement of copyrighted works over the Internet and a lack of resources and staff to support enforcement actions considering the reach and amount of content piracy in the region,” IIPA wrote.

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

Sports leagues and their broadcasting partners across Europe believe that their piracy problems begin with the existence of illicit suppliers.

It follows that if those illicit suppliers can be prevented from reaching their subscribers, reasons for buying TV packages from the black market will be mostly eliminated and legal subscription sales will ensue.

As the legal owners of the rights in question, these corporate giants have the luxury to frame the issue however they choose. However, when the war on piracy begins to take a toll on those not even remotely involved, it raises the question of who has the authority to step in and where the threshold for intervention lies.

On Friday, a judge handling a copyright case concluded that since messaging platform Telegram had failed to help rightsholders identify the operators of certain Telegram channels, something needed to be done. Insisting that there was no other option available, the judge issued an order for Telegram to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

The judge described the measure as “necessary” and “proportional” and in a few hours’ time, if not already, around eight million users of Telegram in Spain will have a chance to chime in with their opinions, but not via Telegram, obviously.

Update: March 25, 2024 : Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. See update below.

Media Giants Want to Unmask Telegram Channel Operators

Existence of the order and some general details were revealed by Telecinco on Friday.

The publication reported that as part of a copyright complaint previously filed by anti-piracy group EGEDA, Mediaset España, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus, the rightsholders had demanded information from Telegram that could help them identify the operators of piracy-linked Telegram channels.

Despite the involvement of the court, Telegram failed to respond; Judge Pedraz concluded that since the investigation would now take more time, in the interim Telegram would have to be blocked by ISPs throughout Spain.

Telegram has previously been blocked by Iran, China, and Pakistan, among others, but the addition of Spain came as a surprise. Expecting to find considerable unreported nuance, TorrentFreak tracked down the order; issued by Juzgado Central de Instrucción Número 5 and dated March 22, 2024, it begins with a section marked “Factual Background.”

Case Background as Reported in the Order

The order describes the present proceedings in connection with the “continued infringement of intellectual property rights,” carried out by “owners of various channels created on the Telegram social network,” and an ongoing investigation involving the prosecutor’s office.

In a report dated March 8, 2024, the prosecutor’s office requested a six-month extension of the investigation period. This followed an EGEDA request and a writ filed on behalf of rightsholders Telefónica Audiovisual Digital (TAD), Movistar+, and Movistar Plus+.

After detailing the rules concerning investigations and time limits, the Judge notes in the absence of an extension, the current investigation is set to expire on March 29, 2024, having run for the maximum 12 months allowed under Article 324.1 LECrim .

Request for Judicial Assistance

The order then turns to the corporate entity operated by Telegram in the British Virgin Islands and the letters rogatory (letters of request) sent by the Spanish court to the Virgin Islands seeking judicial assistance.

“For the successful completion of the investigation, it is necessary to carry out the proceedings contained in the rogatory commission sent to the Virgin Islands, but so far there has been no news of compliance with the aforementioned instrument of cooperation,” the order reads.

“Numerous diligence of investigation will be pending depending on the information that will be provided by the execution of the above-mentioned international rogatory commission. Therefore, the period of investigation should be extended for six months in order to carry out the pending proceedings.”

Information Required For a Private Criminal Prosecution

The order reveals that non-compliance with the international rogatory commission sent by the Judge to the Virgin Islands on July 28, 2023, has effectively brought the investigation to a halt. The information sought by Judge Pedraz is required to support a private criminal prosecution brought by the media companies, not the state.

Private prosecutions in criminal cases are favored by sports rightsholders in the UK; as the alleged victim, rightsholders conduct their own investigations, harvest their own evidence, then act as the prosecution in the same case. There are no restrictions on the amount of legal firepower they’re permitted to deploy, meaning that in most cases defendants face the best lawyers money can buy.

Lack of Cooperation from Virgin Islands

Whether this aspect of the request is known to Telegram isn’t clear from the order. Indeed, the order makes no comment on whether Virgin Islands authorities even passed on the request, raising the question of what Telegram knows, or even if it knows anything at all.

“Telegram was requested to inform about certain technical data that would allow the identification of the holders of the accounts used for the infringement of the intellectual property rights of the entities appearing as Private Prosecutor. The lack of collaboration of the authorities of the Virgin Islands, who are only requested to communicate with the managers of the social network TELEGRAM, leads to the adoption of the precautionary measures requested by the private prosecutors,” the order reads.

“This repeated commission of the crime against intellectual property rights justifies the adoption of the requested precautionary measures, since the principles of necessity, suitability, and proportionality are met. The requested precautionary measures are the only possible measures in view of the lack of collaboration of the Virgin Islands authorities. There is no other type of measure that could stop the reiteration of the facts denounced.”

From this statement it’s clear that the rightsholders requested a complete block of Telegram in Spain and the Judge considered that a reasonable request.

Blocking Millions of Telegram Users is Acceptable

“The measure is suitable because its execution could put an end to the infringement of intellectual property rights denounced to prevent access through the TELEGRAM network to the contents of the aforementioned rights. The measure is proportional to the seriousness of the conduct denounced and in this analysis is related to the necessity of the measure,” the order continues, with the legal justification (translated from Spanish) as presented below.

The ISPs instructed to carry out the blocks within three hours of receiving the order are: Vodafone España, Orange Espagne, Orange España Virtual, MASMOVIL IBERCOM, Digi Spain Telecom, Telefónica España, Telefónica Móviles España, AVATEL TELECOM, ADAMO TELECOM IBERIA, AIRE NETWORKS DEL MEDITERRÁNEO, and PROCONO .

The Telegram assets to be blocked are: Telegram Web (https://web.telegram.org/k/), Telegram Messenger (https://telegram.org/), and Telegram Apps for Android and iOS. It appears the rightsholders were well-prepared since they mandate the following:

Apps: disable and block the connection [IP addresses, protocols, ports and any other connection element], to suspend the operation of the ‘Telegram’ application (app) of the connections from Smartphone and/or Tablet of the Operators’ users who have the “Telegram” “app” installed on their devices, operated from any operating system (Android, iOs).

Blocking Telegram or Denying Access to Non-Infringing Users

Judge Pedraz frames these measures as the blocking of Telegram but the mechanism chosen clearly shows that Telegram can still reach Spanish ISPs but the blocks they’re required to put in place prevent Telegram users from accessing the platform. That’s especially the case in respect of the apps where interference is directed towards functionality of apps on users’ devices.

While some may dismiss this as semantics on the basis that blocking pirate sites operates similarly, Telegram is not a pirate site and most Spanish users of Telegram are not pirates.

Whereas it might be reasonable to assert that most Spanish visitors to The Pirate Bay do so to infringe and therefore have no legal basis to visit the site, most visitors to Telegram do not visit the platform to infringe. Even of those that do, only a tiny minority will visit the channels in question. Nevertheless, millions of innocent Telegram users will soon be prevented from going about their entirely legal business.

That raises the fundamental question of the nature of the scales used to weigh the competing interests in this case and, more fundamentally, who is actually being punished here; Telegram as claimed, or non-infringing Spanish users?

Three Days to Appeal, Including Weekend

“An appeal for reform may be filed against this order, within a period of three days, before this Central Preliminary Examining Court, and/or, if applicable, an appeal, in a single effect, before the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court,” the order concludes.

As far as we’re aware there’s no recent news to indicate an appeal. These types of cases have traditionally seen ISPs step in but since the major ISPs in Spain are either rightsholders in their own right or have a commercial interest in blocking going ahead, an appeal from that direction seems unlikely.

We’re currently unaware of any comment from Telegram but given the scale of the response versus the problem to be solved, this matter is likely to attract international attention and scrutiny. Common wisdom suggests that when an adversary is making a mistake, he should be allowed to do so without being interrupted, so we may hear from Telegram in due course.

Update: March 25, 2024 : Amid a huge backlash in Spain, including criticism of the decision and the government by opposition parties, the blocking order has been suspended. National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz has requested a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office (Comisaría General de Información) to provide data on the characteristics of Telegram and an assessment of the impact the measure could have if implemented.

A statement from the Podomos party criticized the government for failing to act in the face of “genuine censorship” at the hands of the “oligopoly of complainant communication companies” whose interests are “taking precedence” over the “freedoms of many citizens.”

Update: Official statement from the communications office of the National Court (translated from Spanish)

The judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz issued an order this Monday in which he agreed, prior to the temporary suspension of the resources associated with Telegram, to request a report from the General Information Commissioner’s Office on the Telegram platform. The magistrate requests information about its characteristics as well as the impact that the temporary suspension, that he agreed to in an order last Friday and whose execution remains suspended, may have on users.

In the aforementioned order, the magistrate ordered the telecommunications and Internet access operators to temporarily suspend Telegram in the framework of a procedure against the owners of various channels created on the social network, for continued violations of intellectual property rights.

In his resolution, Pedraz explained that the measure has legal support contemplated in article 13.2 of the LECrim: “In the investigation of crimes committed through the internet, telephone or any other information or communication technology, the court may agree, as first steps, ex officio or at the request of a party, precautionary measures consisting of the provisional removal of illicit content, the provisional interruption of the services offered by said content, or the provisional blocking of both when they are located in a foreign country.”

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

The Motion Picture Association’s interest in file-hosting platform DoodStream first came to light in a submission to the USTR in October 2022 .

The MPA described DoodStream as a video hosting service offering free storage and premium services including priority encoding and an ad-free experience. Videos uploaded to the platform were embedded on many other streaming sites, the MPA reported, and as a result, traffic was booming.

The MPA estimated the site received 82.7 million visits in August 2022, while using the services of DDoS-Guard in Russia and OVH in France.

“DoodStream operates a partner program that offers financial remuneration, either per download or stream depending on the country of origin,” the MPA informed the USTR in its ‘notorious markets’ submission.

A year later in a new submission to the USTR, the MPA described DoodStream as a ‘top priority’ for its anti-piracy efforts.

DoodStream in the Spotlight

In its October 2023 submission to the USTR’s notorious markets report, the MPA’s cyberlocker and video streaming category listed DoodStream front and center as the priority problem. The MPA still believed the site was operating from OVH in France but also listed other companies as hosts, including Online S.A.S., Hetzner Online GmbH, and Interkvm Host10 SRL.

The MPA noted that the Delhi High Court had ordered ISPs to block DoodStream in 2023, a measure also handed down by a French court during the same year. The Paris court noted that the site “encouraged the infringement of copyright and related rights by setting up tools specifically designed for the mass and illicit sharing of protected content.”

“The operators are located in India,” the MPA informed the USTR.

Entertainment Giants Team Up Against DoodStream

Two months later, Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and MPA Global General Counsel referenced DoodStream before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet ( pdf ) . DoodStream continued, business as usual, until now.

In a lawsuit being heard at the High Court of Delhi, eight plaintiffs are listed as follows: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., Amazon Content Services LLC, Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Netflix US, LLC, Paramount Pictures Corporation, Universal City Studios Productions LLP and Apple Video Programming.

A total of six defendants include the domains doodstream.com, doodstream.co, dood.stream and their underlying websites (defendants 1-3), plus a server (defendant 4) used by defendants 1 to 3 which allegedly facilitates storing and dissemination of illegal content. Defendants 5 and 6, neither of whom have been named, are reportedly site operators.

According to counsel for the plaintiffs, “rogue cyberlocker websites provide an infrastructure specifically designed to incentivize hosting, uploading, storing, sharing, streaming, and authorize the downloading of copyrighted material without obtaining authorization from the plaintiffs.

Claims Against The DoodStream Defendants

The plaintiffs allege that a massive amount of infringing content to which they have exclusive rights, is uploaded by users on the defendants’ websites.

“Counsel for plaintiffs say the studios approached defendants upon noticing this infringing content, first in June, 2023, after they discovered the identity as to who was operating these websites, who happen to be individuals based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, arrayed as defendants nos. 5 and 6,” an order from the court reads.

“This, according to plaintiffs’ counsel, was achieved after some effort since the WHOIS details of defendant nos. 1 to 3 were masked.”

The court notes that the plaintiffs continuously pursued the defendants to take the infringing content down. However, despite promises to comply, a mechanism built in to the site simply generated new links whenever content was supposedly removed.

“Further, uploaded content would also generate a link which could be disseminated by the uploader and therefore, potentially could be disseminated through parallel websites. Thus, as per counsel for plaintiffs, the takedown itself was elusive and of no effect, since the system immediately permitted generation of a new link.”

The court notes that through this mechanism, DoodStream becomes a “hydra-headed monster” that is difficult to police through takedowns alone.

Plaintiffs Want DoodStream Shut Down

The plaintiffs submit that DoodStream should either be comprehensively blocked or a Local Commissioner should be appointed to take over the administration of the sites. However, counsel for the defendants told the court that their clients are prepared to “exhaustively and completely” remove the plaintiffs’ content from the platform.

Due to the link generation mechanism in operation on the site, the plaintiffs expressed concern that content taken down would nnot stay down. The defendants offered assurances that they would “change the features on their websites’ architecture” to ensure that once the process of takedown is complete, regeneration would not be allowed.

In view of this undertaking, the court ordered ( pdf ) all content belonging to the plaintiffs to be taken down within 24 hours, and ordered the defendants to hire a chartered accountant to disclose all revenue generated by the sites since their launch.

The case is listed for hearing on April 8, 2014.

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

In 2007, Netflix shifted from distributing optical media via the mail to streaming content online. Apple released the first iPhone in the same year, but neither were quite ready to start squeezing the modern equivalent of the silver screen onto a 320×480 LCD panel.

From a standing start alongside these innovative products in 2007, within a year SeriesYonkis would establish itself as one of Spain’s most-visited sites. Soon after, as the discontinued iPhone collapsed in the rear-view mirror in the summer of 2018, SeriesYonkis powered on to become one of the most popular ‘pirate’ sites in mainland Europe. That didn’t go unnoticed.

Hyperlinks vs. Hosting

Providing links to TV shows hosted on sites such as Megaupload may have been exciting for fans, but SeriesYonkis and movie-focused sister site PeliculasYonkis would soon feel the heat. When a black and white movie produced in Argentina was spotted by the rightsholder, a criminal complaint escalated into Spanish law enforcement action in 2009, and a search at the home of one of the site’s operators.

The search turned up nothing useful, at least when viewed through the eyes of Spanish law and how it was perceived at the time. SeriesYonkis was fueled by links to content hosted elsewhere, posted by users. There was no evidence to show that the site’s operators uploaded any content, or even checked the links to see if they actually worked.

The big struggle for rightsholders was a lack of clarity in Spanish law; specifically whether the mere provision of links amounted to a ‘communication to the public’, a regular feature of many copyright cases that have ended up at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

Between 2007 and 2014, Spain’s Criminal Code had no definition for ‘communication to the public’ and when efforts were made to utilize provisions in the country’s Intellectual Property law, courts looked at other cases involving hyperlinks. All determined that linking did not amount to a communication to the public.

Court of Justice of the European Union on Hyperlinks

In February 2014, when dealing with the landmark case Svensson v Retriever Sverige AB , the CJEU set out the criteria for a communication to the public. Communication was defined as making works available in a way the public can access them. The term ‘public’ was clarified to mean a large number of people, who were not the original audience rightsholders had envisioned when they made the content available.

Importantly, the CJEU clarified that the provision of hyperlinks to protected content amounts to making content available.

Since making content available constitutes an act of communication, the people behind SeriesYonkis understood that this case, which didn’t directly involve them, certainly did now. Rightsholders did not envision their content reaching the users of SeriesYonkis via file-hosting sites for free, so that qualified as a ‘new public’ as defined by Europe’s highest court.

SeriesYonkis’ fate was sealed; Spain updated its laws with explicit reference to hyperlinks and before that came into force, SeriesYonkis shut itself down. Yet four years later, the men behind the site were on trial, facing years in prison and a claim for over half a billion euros in damages.

Not Guilty and Still Not Guilty

Following relentless legal pressure by several major Hollywood studios and their local proxies EGEDA and the Spanish Anti-Piracy Federation, four men went on trial in April 2019 for their work on SeriesYonkis, PeliculasYonkis and VideosYonkis (Series, Film, and Video Junkies).

Founder and original owner Alberto García and subsequent owners Alexis Hoepfner, Jordi Tamargo and David Martínez, faced a damages claim of 550 million euros and calls from Hollywood for prison sentences of up to four years each. The local prosecutor felt that two years would be sufficient.

For reasons directly linked to the CJEU ruling in Svensson, and the fact that the site’s operators shut everything down before Spain updated its law, Judge Isabel María Carrillo Sáez of Murcia’s Criminal Court said the men would not be going to prison, because they had committed no crimes.

The inevitable appeal, filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios and EGEDA, was subsequently rejected by the Murcia Provincial Court. Three magistrates ratified the decision handed down by the Murcia Criminal Court in 2019; still not guilty, all four remain acquitted.

Yet Another Appeal….

According to a new report by elDiario.es , anti-piracy group EGEDA has filed an ‘amparo claim’ at the Constitutional Court against the acquittal of the men in 2021.

Amparo is one of the main powers conferred by the Constitution to the Constitutional Court. The object of this process is the protection against breaches of the rights and freedoms enshrined in Articles 14 to 29 and 30.2 of the Constitution originated by provisions, legal acts, omissions or simple actions of the government of the State, the Autonomous Communities and other public bodies of territorial, corporate or institutional nature, as well as their staff.

The only claim that can be enforced through the amparo is the restoration or preservation of the rights or freedoms for which the appeal is lodged.

EGEDA’s claim, access to which was obtained by elDiario.es, states that by finding the operators of SeriesYonkis innocent on the basis detailed above, the Provincial Court of Murcia’s decision violated “their right to enjoy effective judicial protection.”

As a result they want the case examined again; the Constitutional Court has accepted.

Carlos Sánchez Almeida, a lawyer for one of the men behind SeriesYonkis, expressed the opinion that if anyone needs protection, his client is a prime candidate.

“Whoever needs effective judicial protection and all the rights of Article 24 of the Constitution is our client,” Almeida says.,

“He designed [SeriesYonkis] when he was a student, and for which he has suffered, is suffering and will suffer a 16-year bench sentence,” his response to the Constitutional Court reads.

“Basically, practically the entirety of his work and family life has been spent dealing with a lawsuit constantly threatening present and future plans, with media, mental, family and economic expenses that would wear down any person. And in the face of such suffering, an accusation puts an imaginary 550 million euros on the scales of justice, invoking the right to effective judicial protection of legal entities that produce cinematographic works.”

It could be several years before the Constitutional Court issues its verdict.

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

Javier Tebas Medrano is the president of LaLiga, Spain’s most prestiguous football league.

Medrano’s position makes him the most powerful man in Spanish football and by extension, also one of the most powerful in European football, a market worth an estimated €30 billion.

In common with key rivals at the Premier League (England) and Serie A (Italy), Medrano has an IPTV piracy problem to solve. In addition to blocking injunctions already in place, rumors of a crackdown on users of pirate IPTV services persist. A post to X on Monday reignited those rumors.

Medrana Posts Partial Court Order to X

When Medrano posted part of a court document to X yesterday, some assumed that the much-promised IPTV piracy crackdown had arrived; the post attracted over 1.2m views and prompted a significant amount of misunderstanding. Here we begin with the post (translated from Spanish) and the relevant text as it appears in the order.

Medrano refers to a statement from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (the document embedded in his post and partially shown below) concerning the outcome of legal action by LaLiga following a piracy investigation.

According to Medrano, the order will see IP addresses collected by LaLiga “that transmit illegal content” sent to Spanish ISPs [Telefónica, Vodafone, Orange, MásMóvil and Digi].

Under the orders of the court, the ISPs will match those IP addresses to the relevant subscriber accounts. The personal details of those subscribers will then be handed over to LaLiga.

The highlighted potato-quality Spanish text relates to the information the ISPs must hand over. When translated to English it reads as follows:

1) IP address assigned to the user when they accessed the Server that enabled the audiovisual content to be shared unlawfully
2) Name and surname of the holder of the Internet access service contract
3) Postal address of the [internet] line installation and billing details
4) Identification document [NIF, NIE, other] regarding the information of the IP Address of the server to which you have connected, port of the server to which you have connected, and time of the request (GMT+0)

What This Case is *Not* About

Before tackling the court order itself and comparing that to how LaLiga presents it, some important background.

This legal action does not relate to people who watch or subscribe to pirate IPTV services, nor does it have anything to do with people who access illicit streams of LaLiga matches, made available by unlicensed websites.

As illustrated in the image to the right, some mainstream Spanish newspapers have opted for the sensational reporting angle that anyone who watches pirated football will receive a fine. There is no evidence to support that claim, but it’s possible from the information made available thus far, that something even more sensational may be underway.

Order Issued By Barcelona Court

Court: Commercial Court Number 8 of Barcelona
Judge: Javier Ramos De La Peña
Applicant: La Liga Nacional De Fútbol Profesional (LaLiga)

In order for LaLiga to obtain customer information from ISPs, ISPs are sometimes considered ‘no fault’ defendants in these types of applications. Five headline ISP ‘brands’ are involved here, but many more ISPs are listed in the order, including some providing mobile internet access:

Orange Espagne Sau, Vodafone Ono Sau, Masmovil Ibercom Sa, Digi Spain Telecom Slu, Telefonica De España Sau, Telefonica Moviles España Sau, Orange España Virtual Slu, Vodafone – Espana Sau

In the words of the Judge as presented in his order, the case concerns piracy of content detailed as follows:

Specifically, it concerns audiovisual content offered live and with exclusive access to residential customers and public establishments on pay television, with customers of the Movistar Plus+ satellite service being the only ones with access for their exclusive consumption, through a satellite dish, decoder terminal, and customer card.

Card-Sharing Piracy

It’s alleged that Movistar Plus+ content is being accessed illegally using ‘card-sharing’. In basic terms, legal subscribers to Movistar Plus+ hand over money and in return receive a viewing card. Once placed in an authorized set-top box, these cards enable scrambled satellite signals to be viewed as intended on a TV.

Such ‘conditional access’ systems provide access to TV content on the condition that the viewer has subscribed and is using a legitimate viewing card. In card-sharing systems, however, the codes that unlock the encrypted TV signals in connection with a legal viewing card are retransmitted via unauthorized equipment over the internet.

Internet users in possession of a suitable non-official set-top box can pay a small subscription fee to an illegal supplier to receive the codes from the legal card. These are streamed continuously over the internet and that decrypts the regular satellite signal usually received.

In summary, card-sharing piracy can involve the purchase of a single legal card and the benefit from that card can be shared among any number of additional viewers via the internet. Only codes are sent and received, all audiovisual content is obtained from regular satellite signals.

LaLiga’s Claim, Judge’s Conclusion

The Judge’s order addresses the two main types of people involved in card-sharing as detailed above: [1] those who purchase a legal viewing card and share the codes to others over the internet in exchange for a fee, and [2] those who pay a fee to access the codes but do not pay anything to Movistar Plus+. ([1]+[2] added for reference)

One of the forms of unlawful access is the so-called “Cardsharing,” which uses the protocols “CCCam and IKS,” presupposing the participation in the piracy network, on one hand, of [1] users who paid for conditional access to a satellite connection, offering them on the internet for illicit profit, and, on the other hand, of [2] users who acquire satellite connection equipment enabled to access original card codes without authorization.

At this point one of the Judge’s comments gives reason to pause. It references IP addresses and how they can be “detected” to show the IP addresses of servers supplying codes and the IP addresses of users receiving codes.

The basic element for identifying connections on the Internet, the IP address, can be detected both to show the identification of servers and the connections of users participating in the piracy platform.

If we use a simple downloading analogy, a computer offering a movie for download and a computer offering codes are essentially the same. Anti-piracy companies can easily identify both by simply requesting the movie or subscribing to the card-sharing server and logging what they receive.

The same cannot be said of those downloading a movie or receiving codes from a server. If there was a way to positively identify downloaders of pirated content engaged in a client/server arrangement that stood up in court, it would’ve been used by now.

Time to break out a hastily-put-together diagram to show why obtaining IP addresses of card-sharing servers is easy, and why obtaining those of customers is not.

The satellite top right transmits an encrypted TV signal (everything in red is encrypted) to a legitimate viewing card top left. From there the extracted codes pass through a regular router/modem (with a public-facing IP address that can be “detected”) and onwards to the subscriber’s internet service provider, depicted here as three blue servers. From there they are further distributed via the internet.

Directly underneath the ISP’s servers are the internet connections of the card-sharing service’s customers who receive the codes. After passing their routers/modems, those codes are received by their unofficial set-top boxes. In exactly the same way the satellite transmitted encrypted TV signals to the legitimate card, these set-top boxes also receive encrypted signals, also shown in red.

However, since these set-top boxes are receiving the codes from a card-sharing server, their output to a TV or similar viewing device (depicted here in purple) is a clear, unencrypted picture.

Anti-Piracy Investigators

Inside the orange box at the top are anti-piracy investigators. Just like any other customer, they have subscribed to the card-sharing service, which means they have direct access to the server’s IP address, shown here using the orange lines/pointers. Bottom right in a second orange box is a second set of anti-piracy investigators and their job is to identify the IP addresses of those receiving the codes.

According to the Judge, the IP addresses of both the server “and the connections of users participating in the piracy platform” can be detected. And herein lies the problem.

From the information made available, LaLiga appears to have no idea who these users are. It appears that while LaLiga has the IP addresses of the card-sharing servers, it has no idea of the IP addresses used by those who accessed those servers.

That seems to lead to a remarkable conclusion; IP addresses are usually the starting point for most online infringement allegations. Rightsholders match known infringements to IP addresses themselves and then move to ISPs, hoping to match those IP addresses to real-life identities. In this case, LaLiga has the IP addresses of the servers, but has no IP addresses for the users.

That necessarily means that no violations have been matched to any user IP addresses. The big question is whether LaLiga has any evidence whatsoever to show that any customer at any ISP has done anything wrong. It doesn’t have their IP addresses, that much is certain.

Let’s Go Fishing

According to the court documents, the information LaLiga wants the ISPs to hand over can be deduced from information LaLiga has in hand. The information was obtained from card-sharing servers, including IP addresses and ports. Here’s how that’s explained in the order (legal conditions unrelated to technical matters have been removed)

La Liga provides in its request the IP addresses and port of the servers, as well as the time of the request, data that has been obtained legitimately. With this starting data, it is possible, after issuing the requirement contained in art. 256.1.11* LEC to the internet service providers listed in the request, to complete the identification of the users of their services participating in the scheme….

That seems to lead to just one conclusion. LaLiga has the IP addresses, port details, and potentially other information related to the card-sharing servers, but may be working on the mere assumption that users of the five ISPs accessed those servers at specific times, but has no evidence to prove it – yet.

If that’s actually the case, and there isn’t some extra dimension to this that hasn’t been revealed or is being hidden, LaLiga may be doing something that to our knowledge has never been done before.

The court order seems to require the five ISPs to go through their IP address logs – not to identify the names and addresses of subscribers behind known/suspected infringing IP addresses – but to identify infringement itself .

When the ISPs match card-sharing server IP addresses with IP addresses that appear in subscribers’ activity logs, that may be the first time that any evidence of potential infringement has been surfaced against any user in this case thus far.

There may be other explanations but with veteran file-sharing defense lawyer David Bravo posting memes to X, he may be already counting the money.

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

News that the Provincial Court of Pontevedra has handed down substantial fines to individuals behind a very large pirate IPTV operation was first reported by ElMundo on Tuesday.

Seven employees and managers of Spanish company Engel Systems SL received fines ranging from 540 euros to 7,290 euros for their part in the sale of pirate decoders, plus IPTV boxes and services, through their company over eight years ago.

Engel Systems as a company was hit hardest; a 673,000 euro fine according to the El Mundo report, plus a total ban on future decoder sales. The company’s directors were disqualified for seven years, but after certain compensation was paid and the lengthy prosecution delay was factored in, none of those convicted received a prison sentence.

Considering the background, that’s fairly historic in its own right.

‘International Organized Crime’

Between 2010 and 2016, Engel Systems sold a range of devices that provided illegal access to pirated TV content. The business initially sold TV decoders reliant on card-sharing systems delivered over the internet, before progressing to pirate IPTV services offering access to around 1,600 channels. Engel Systems worked with international partners, including in Germany and Lithuania, where at least some of its servers were hosted.

A statement by Europol back in 2016 suggested that the illicit operation appeared on the radar of law enforcement when a “legitimate Spanish provider of TV decoders filed a complaint against another company for counterfeiting and selling their decoders.”

More recent information indicates that anti-piracy group EGEDA, Mediapro and Movistar Plus+ “inherited” the case via owner Telefónica’s acquisition of satellite broadcaster (and complainant) Digital+. The companies have since collected around 300,000 euros in compensation from Engel. Another 300,700+ euros should be paid off over the next two years, all thanks to a massive law enforcement operation in May 2016.

Spanish & German Police Assisted by Europol/Eurojust

Operation FAKE began as a joint investigation by Spain’s National Police and tax authorities, with support from German police, Europol and Eurojust, and culminated on the morning of May 18, 2016.

Europol deployed mobile investigation units to the offices of Engel Systems in Barcelona, allowing experts to analyze intelligence in real-time and extract data from mobile phones and storage devices on-site.

Simultaneous raids in seven Spanish cities targeted 38 homes. A total of 30 suspects were arrested in Spain and the authorities reported the seizure of 48,800 decoders imported from China. They were said to contain custom firmware created by the team in Spain. Also included in the haul, 183,200 euros in cash, financial documents, and IT equipment, plus other items of interest.

A Private Plane, 10 Genuine Luxury Vehicles, 1 Counterfeit

The nature of the 10 seized luxury vehicles and the private plane wasn’t detailed at the time while the counterfeit luxury vehicle could’ve been almost anything.

However, during the 2018 International Content Protection Summit in Poland, Chief Inspector Mónica Dopico Martínez, Head of the Intellectual Property Section at Spain’s National Police, revealed the brand of the car, along with other minor details…

Anime piracy site B9Good first appeared way back in 2008, initially operating under B9DM branding. Defying the usual odds, 15 years later the site was still alive and kicking.

Last March, Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA reported an estimate of B9Good’s traffic for the two years running up to February 2023. Based in China, the site had been accessed more than 300 million times and, crucially, around 95% of those visits came from Japan, mostly seeking access to Japanese content.

The China Complication

Rightsholders based outside China have long complained that tackling infringers inside the country can be extremely difficult. Key obstacles include safe harbors for intermediaries viewed as overprotective, and the so-called server principle , which turns on where infringing content is hosted.

This means that when infringing apps, websites and set-top boxes linked directly to China utilize pirated content hosted overseas, foreign rightsholders have limited opportunities to enforce their rights against their operators inside the country.

That raises the question of how Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA, representing several major Japanese anime rightsholders, were able to convince Chinese authorities to shut down B9Good, arrest its operators, and then prosecute them for criminal offenses.

With Planning and Patience, China Became Less Complex

After revealing a few details in 2023 when B9Good was targeted and later shut down , this morning CODA put more meat on the bones. The details arrived as part of an announcement celebrating three first-of-their-kind convictions which, seemingly for legal reasons, CODA has been sitting on for a few weeks.

CODA says that its work against B9Good dates back to 2016 when it filed an administrative complaint in China. In response, however, a site operator referred to as ‘Man A’ implemented geo-blocking measures at B9Good, then operating as B9DM, to give the impression the site had shut down, while continuing to infringe everywhere else.

With the launch of CODA’s International Enforcement Project (CBEP) in 2021, the anti-piracy group set out to personally identify the operators of pirate sites. After being identified in China, B9Good’s operators would soon discover that the country’s borders offered less protection than before.

CODA Levels Up in China

In January 2022, CODA’s Beijing office was recognized as an NGO with legitimate standing to protect the rights of its members, which include anime rightsholders Aniplex, TV Tokyo, Toei Animation, Toho, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), and Bandai Namco Film Works.

CODA filed a criminal complaint with the Public Security Bureau, and starting February 14, 2023, Chinese law enforcement began rounding up the B9Good team. In Jiangsu Province, a 33-year-old unemployed man was held on suspicion of operating B9Good. He was reportedly released a month later after confessing to his involvement. That led to the authorities seizing his home.

In the meantime, a 30-year-old woman living in Chengdu, a 38-year-old man from Shanghai, and a 34-year-old woman from Fuzhou City, were questioned at their homes. It was alleged that the women were paid by the site’s main operator to upload pirated content, while the man uploaded content to file-hosting sites to generate revenue from advertising. In total, 45,880 anime titles were made available via B9Good without permission from rightsholders.

Taizhou People’s Court Hands Down Sentences

On December 26, 2023, the People’s Court of Taizhou Pharmaceutical High-Tech Industrial Development Zone handed down three sentences. The main offender, Man A, was sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for three years and six months. In addition to the seizure of his home, he was fined 1.8 million yuan (38 million yen, US$253,000), an amount equivalent to the ad revenue he earned through B9Good. The conviction is now final after the appeal period ended.

Female B, who was paid by Man A to upload pirated anime to the site, was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for one year and six months, for copyright infringement offenses. Female D, who also received payment for uploading pirated anime, was sentenced to eight months in prison and one year’s probation.

According to CODA, Man C, who allegedly generated revenue from pirated anime uploaded to file-hosting sites, was not sentenced. CODA doesn’t go into detail other than reporting that he was “subject to exemption measures stipulated by China’s criminal law.”

Sentences May Disappoint, But Value Lies in Convictions

For deterrent purposes, it’s likely that CODA would’ve preferred immediate custodial sentences, but this wasn’t simply a routine case that failed to live up to expectations. Under normal circumstances, a case like this wouldn’t have even gotten off the ground, let alone end in convictions.

“In this judgment, the punishment was reduced to a suspended sentence and the conviction was decided based on the fact that Man A was a first-time offender and that he voluntarily confessed, acknowledged the crime, and showed a willingness to accept punishment,” CODA explains.

“However, this is the first time that criminal penalties have been imposed on the operators and uploaders of overseas pirated sites due to an approach from Japan. CODA hopes that the recent crackdown and judgment against such malicious sites will have a significant impact on deterring the operation of similar pirated sites.

“In response to online infringements, which are causing damage worldwide, CODA will continue to proactively develop countermeasures beyond national borders, even if their operations are based overseas, and will continue to eliminate unauthorized use of Japanese content,” CODA concludes .

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

Thanks to a global pooling of knowledge and intelligence, answers to our most difficult questions are just a few clicks away on the internet today.

Since in many cases those answers aren’t necessarily right, or even right at all, that might explain why some seek advice from outer space. For a fee, astrology company Astro Vastu Solutions (AVS) reportedly supply all kinds of advice.

However, when DISH offered the owner of AVS some advice concerning the Sharma IPTV service allegedly being sold, the cease-and-desist notice got lost in the ether and the inexorable march towards conflict began.

Sharma IPTV Receives All The Wrong Signals

In a lawsuit filed at a California court late last week, DISH describes the owner of Sharma IPTV and his company AVS as traffickers of an illegal streaming service.

How DISH managed to link sales to Sharma IPTV is unclear but according to the complaint, flyers distributed in the Bay Area led to its investigators handing over $135 in exchange for an annual subscription.

“The Service is advertised on the flyer as a subscription-based service providing more than 10,000 live channels, sports programs, movies, and pay-per-view events, among other content, all for a low price ranging from approximately $10 to $15 per month,” the lawsuit claims.

“Users can access the Service with their own hardware or purchase a set-top box from Defendants for an extra fee. Defendants’ advertising emphasizes attracting users that may otherwise purchase legitimate television services such as the satellite-based services that DISH offers, stating for example, ‘NO Cable/Dish Needed’.”

DISH says that after signing up for 12 months, Sharma IPTV got in touch to say that the package had been activated. The company claims that it’s “the most sought after IPTV service provider” because its “data centers are strategically located in Danville [where Defendants reside] and across the USA and Canada to bring the live streaming without any delay or freeze.”

Who Supplies Your Content?

Whether the statement above aligns with facts on the ground is unknown, but answering a key DISH question well in advance of a lawsuit even being filed could be helpful.

No such information was provided proactively in respect of Sharma IPTV’s streaming sources, but you don’t have to be David Blane to see that at least some of its content originated from Sling.

“Plaintiffs’ Channels are retransmitted to users of the Service by circumventing the DRM technology that Plaintiffs use to protect the Channels from unauthorized access and copying. Upon information and belief, the circumvention targets at least the Widevine DRM,” the lawsuit notes.

“The Widevine DRM and the copy protection that it affords is circumvented using a specially developed computer program that emulates the behavior of a reverse engineered hardware device.”

Plaintiffs Predicted The Future

Having had a vision of what might happen in the absence of cooperation, the plaintiffs say they shared their prediction with Sharma IPTV in the form of a cease-and-desist, which appears to have proven unconvincing. How DISH and Sling managed to channel Sharma’s comments isn’t explained, but they shared them with the court nonetheless.

Despite an alleged plan to deflect attention elsewhere, certain actions with the potential to negatively unbalance the future were discontinued anyway.

DISH says that Sharma IPTV stopped accepting PayPal payments because “Dish and some other companies have been catching people” and requested online reviews to be deleted because the service “is not legal.” Subscribers were asked not to mention the IPTV service when paying for it, and in some cases were told to reference an astrology consultation instead.

DISH and Sling say Sharma and Astro Vastu Solutions willfully violated 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2) and 17 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(1) when they manufactured, offered to the public, provided, or otherwise trafficked in their infringing service.

Somewhat predictably they demand an injunction under 17 U.S.C. § 1203(b)(1) plus actual or statutory damages of up to $2,500 for each infringement under § 1201.
( The stars predict a settlement, however)

The complaint can be found here (pdf)

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