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.

Given the ongoing shift in the TV market away from terrestrial and satellite delivery in favor of IP-based services, cloud recording services are no longer the big deal they once were.

When TVkaista launched in Finland way back in 2007, storing video in the cloud certainly wasn’t taken for granted as it is now. The service came with a program guide and allowed users to record and store TV shows from 15 local channels. TVkaista said video would be retained for a month, allowing users to watch their recordings at a time of their choosing.

At the time, similar services were also being offered by several of Finland’s internet service providers but for the members of the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center (CIAPC, also known as TTVK), this was a serious breach of copyright law. In letters sent to around 20 companies, TTVK warned that without proper licensing, these services were illegal and must be shut down.

TVkaista Faces Legal Action

In advance of TTVK’s letters being sent out, TVkaista’s CEO, technical director, and legal advisor, faced legal action for criminal copyright infringement and aggravated fraud. Claims that recording amounted to fair use were brushed aside, not least since the service actually recorded everything behind the scenes, contrary to customers’ belief that any recordings played back via the service were unique to them.

TVkaista said that since its service was similar to a VCR or a DVR, that would be legal under Finnish law since private copying is permitted for personal use. The TV companies whose content was being recorded and fed back to subscribers of TVkaista disagreed, arguing that no permission was granted for this type of use.

The broadcasters claimed that the TVkaista service effectively rebroadcast their content without a license. Copyright holders weren’t being paid for the use of their content and TVkaista wasn’t offering to share any revenue.

Service Deemed Illegal

The TV companies took TVkaista to court in 2012 and, in 2015, the Helsinki District Court deemed the service illegal, a decision confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2017.

The CEO of TVkaista was convicted of criminal copyright infringement and embezzlement, and together with the service’s technical director and the company itself, was found jointly and severally liable for damages suffered by rightsholders. Financial issues would soon complicate the case, however.

In a statement issued by TTVK this week, the anti-piracy group says that after TVkaista was declared bankrupt in February 2014, the service actually continued, first through its Finnish .fi domain and later through a .com variant. The platform eventually shut down in 2015, but the bankruptcy estate had no funds available to pay the compensation owed.

“The trustee made a request to the police for an investigation into the ambiguities related to the bankruptcy estate. The suspect was the CEO of TVkaista Oy, who, however, could not be reached for prosecution before November 2023,” TTVK reveals.

Finally Held to Account

After the matter returned to court, it was determined that since 2011, customer payments to TVkaista totaling 1.8 million euros, including 380,000 euros after bankruptcy proceedings began, had been “diverted past” TVkaista’s accounting.

“The money had been transferred to the account of a company called Charm Noble Ltd in Hong Kong. However, since the contact person for all payment arrangements was the accused CEO, the court did not find credible his claim that the company’s business had actually been sold to a foreign person already in 2011,” TTVK reports.

“In support of its argument, the defense presented a deed of sale dated 2011, which had not been presented in previous TVkaista trials; however, they claimed that the business was sold already in 2009.”

On February 12, the district court of Länsi-Uusimaa found the former CEO guilty of all charges and sentenced him to serve three years in prison for gross accounting crime, gross dishonesty, and gross fraud as a debtor. He was also ordered to pay 409,600 euros (plus interest) to rights holders, plus 59,554 euros (plus interest) to other parties.

“The verdict confirms that copyright piracy is a planned and ruthless economic crime, the sole purpose of which is to collect as much money as possible for its creators,” says Jaana Pihkala, executive director of TTVK.

“Ever since the copyright infringement process started, the users of the TVkaista service paid large sums of money for the maintenance of content, while the authors, producers or legal intermediaries of which, have not been paid a single cent. This kind of activity weakens the opportunities to develop legal services and invest in new content, which is harmful not only to the rights holders but also to society as a whole.”

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

One of the key goals of the Premier League’s prosecution of Flawless TV was to send a clear deterrent message to those considering the same line of work.

When five people were sentenced to an unprecedented 30+ years in prison last May, that was the most powerful anti-piracy message ever sent in the UK, via a private prosecution billed to the taxpayer.

Premier League 6, Rest of the UK 0 (latest score)

Following last year’s convictions, there were a few loose ends still to be tied up in matters connected to the Flawless case. A defendant who failed to appear for sentencing was reportedly recaptured in Thailand last August, but six months later his fate still isn’t clear.

While Flawless sold subscriptions direct to the public for roughly £10 per month, those prepared to sell to their own customers could buy them for roughly £6 and then sell on for £10, or indeed whatever they liked. A person previously described as one of the leading resellers of Flawless TV subscriptions was previously mentioned using the mysterious pseudonym ‘Mr X’.

At his sentencing last week, a less sinister picture emerged.

Dedicated Headteacher, Father of One, Maverick

At Birmingham Crown Court last Friday, 42-year-old Paul Merrell was handed a 12-month prison sentence for reselling IPTV subscriptions to an estimated 2,000 customers.

Between 2017 and 2021, Merrell received a total of £450,000 in customer payments, an amount from which the cost of buying the subscriptions (around £200,000) would have to be deducted before counting up any profits.

The revelation that Merrell built most of this business while working as a deputy headteacher at a school in Coventry, came as a surprise. That the business continued after being appointed headteacher of a school in Stourbridge, was more surprising still. A headteacher, addressed ‘Sir’ during the day, was known as ‘Media Maverick’ online.

According to people who spoke favorably of him in court, Merrell’s positive contribution to society included taking a £13,000 reduction in salary when he became headteacher, because he felt he could turn a failing school around. To cover two decades of six-figure annual losses, Elmfield Rudolf Steiner School sold off its land, but after Merrell’s arrival, things began to improve.

Merrell’s Actions “Require Deterrence”

In a letter to the court requesting leniency, the chair of Merrell’s school council spoke of its plight implying that, should he be spared prison, Merrell might even keep his job. Concerns for his wife, son, and the family home, were also heard, and there’s no doubt the court considered the UK’s prison capacity crisis.

Yet, according to the judge, this was a case where deterrence was required and with that, he sent the headteacher to prison and issued a confiscation order for £91,250.

The situation at the school is unclear but according to Merrell’s barrister, the family will likely lose their home. Upon his release, returning to work as a teacher could prove almost impossible.

So overall then; a sentence that may deter IPTV resellers but will benefit almost no one else, while the taxpayer picks up the bill once again?

A Little Nuance Rarely Hurts

When an otherwise decent person gets deprived of their freedom, while career criminals who contribute nothing receive yet another chance to turn things around, that can undermine public confidence in the justice system. In this case, however, things aren’t as straightforward as they may first appear, particularly when it comes to deterrence.

Mark Gould, the main player at Flawless, was raided at his home in Greenwich on May 22, 2018. News of that magnitude travels very quickly in IPTV communities. Two additional arrests on June 19, followed by two more in July and August, meant that anyone with even a basic interest in IPTV should’ve had at least some idea things were going wrong, Merrell included.

An alternative narrative, where Merrell wasn’t told anything was amiss and had no means of finding out, may suggest he was simply in the wrong line of business. Certainly, the ease with which his online persona could be matched to IPTV sales, his real name, and his home address, may even back that up.

Reselling Continues

Regardless, between January 2017 and up to a week after Gould’s arrest, Merrell paid Flawless just over £100,100 for reseller credits he later sold on. However, despite Gould’s arrest and the likelihood things would get worse, payments to Flawless continued, albeit to PayPal accounts not operated by Gould.

The people behind those accounts have not been named in public, at least to our knowledge, but they were part of a new plan to keep Flawless going despite Gould’s arrest. The identities of these people are well known to the Premier League’s investigators, but their legal position is unknown to us.

Roughly a year later, around July 2019, a FACT investigation was uncovering the transactions detailed above, plus others related to the same operation. That seemed to show that Gould’s arrest and the need to migrate the service into a new form to avoid law enforcement, had no effect on Merrell’s reselling business.

Late January 2021, two-and-a-half years after Gould’s arrest, Birmingham Trading Standards raided Merrell’s home in Sutton Coldfield, triggering a series of events that led to his sentencing last week.

How different things would’ve been if Media Maverick had stopped doing business in May 2018 is unknown. In money terms, given the amounts cited at trial, the overall value could’ve been 50% lower, the period of offending, significantly lower than that.

If nothing else, the judge would’ve had fewer reasons to impose a deterrent custodial sentence, and as a result, the consequences would’ve been much less severe.

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

A DISH Network copyright infringement lawsuit filed in February 2022, demanded $32.5m in damages from UK-based CDN company DataCamp.

The original complaint alleged that DataCamp failed to take appropriate action against 11 pirate IPTV services. DISH claimed these clients were repeat infringers after sending over 400 DMCA notices to DataCamp.

In many respects the lawsuit was not dissimilar to others that have targeted ISPs and various intermediaries in recent years. Allegations that DataCamp failed to act appropriately under a reasonable ‘repeat infringer’ policy, for example, is a hallmark of these potentially ruinous lawsuits.

The Specter of Losing Safe Harbor Protection

If a court determines that an intermediary cannot rely on safe harbor protections, the financial consequences of liability can prove catastrophic. As a result, pressure on DataCamp to settle would have been (or at least should have been) enormous. Instead, DataCamp came out swinging.

After settlement negotiations failed and pressure increased , DataCamp accused the plaintiffs of targeting smaller companies with copyright infringement claims, then aiming for cash settlements as an alternative to expensive lawsuits with unpredictable outcomes.

Given that opposing parties go to court to solve disputes, with settlement one of the more obvious options, in itself the DataCamp claim wasn’t especially unusual. However, the company went on to allege that it had been offered a public consent judgment, ostensibly worth tens of millions of dollars in the plaintiff’s favor, on the understanding that a private agreement meant that nothing would ever be paid.

The value, the company said , was in letting other potential lawsuit targets believe that, since DataCamp had paid, when DISH came knocking, they would have to pay too.

Parties Agree to Settle

In the wake of those extraordinary allegations and others besides, returning to the negotiating table can’t have been easy. The alternative, another one, two or more years of litigation, may have made the decision to carry on talking somewhat easier. In the end, it appears that agreeing to the terms of a settlement was more easily achieved than bridging the chasm of opinion on display in court over the last two years.

A statement issued today by anti-piracy group IBCAP, of which DISH is a member, and a separate statement from DataCamp, sets the stage for the same story and subsequent settlement to be told from two different perspectives.

“On February 2, 2024, IBCAP member DISH Network L.L.C. received a settlement payment of $3,000,000, resolving its lawsuit against Datacamp Limited, a U.K.-based company providing global content delivery network (CDN) services under the name CDN77 and dedicated servers and network services under the name Datapacket,” IBCAP’s statement reads.

“The settlement agreement follows substantial discovery and briefing on Datacamp’s motion to dismiss, which the court denied on July 14, 2023, rejecting Datacamp’s argument that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Datacamp could not be liable for infringement by its customers.”

DataCamp’s statement begins by noting the company’s “persistent compliance” with the requirements of the DMCA.

“Despite our persistent compliance with DMCA procedures, DISH Network made unfounded claims suggesting that we had not diligently policed alleged copyright infringements by some of our customers,” DataCamp says.

“We firmly believe the alleged facts in DISH Network’s complaints are false. Throughout the legal process we vehemently denied each claim and even filed Counterclaims against DISH Network due to their failure to comply with the DMCA process. Despite the difficulty of this decision, we believe that the decision to settle is in the best interest of our company and clients. We maintain our unwavering commitment to the highest ethical standards and DMCA compliance.”

Terms of the Agreement

Given that the terms of settlement agreements rarely appear in public, that they’re being made available here is unusual, to say the least. The details were provided by IBCAP and are reproduced here verbatim.

In addition to Datacamp’s payment of $3,000,000, which has already been received, the settlement agreement requires Datacamp to implement a takedown policy and a repeat infringer policy. These policies will promote the expeditious removal of infringing material and permanently shut down client accounts of repeat infringers. Datacamp further agreed to provide the identity and contact information of its clients that are repeat infringers or those that had their accounts permanently shut down for failure to remove allegedly infringing material. Datacamp agreed to future damages of up to $250,000 per month if it fails to fulfill removal and termination provisions of the settlement agreement.

The terms and conditions as detailed in the full agreement are extraordinary and to our knowledge, completely unprecedented. A small sample is provided below for reference, but essentially this reads like an uncompromising, tightened version of the DMCA, with severe penalties for non-compliance. (For ‘defendant’ read ‘DataCamp’)

– 3(a) Upon receiving a notice from DISH identifying infringing channels or works (whether airing on channels or offered as VOD), Defendant shall identify its client transmitting such channels or works and contact the client to demand that the client remove the subject channels or works and confirm such removal to Defendant by the date that is three (3) Business Days following Defendant’s receipt of DISH’s notice of infringement.

– 3(a)(i) If Defendant’s client confirms the removal within the deadline set forth in paragraph 3(a), Defendant shall inform DISH accordingly by email to the email address that sent the notice of infringement and asking DISH for confirmation.

If DISH provides Defendant notice that the client’s removal confirmation for the complained of content is false and the content has not been removed (in whole or in part), then within forty-eight (48) hours following receipt of such notice from DISH, Defendant shall both (1) permanently shut down and not restart the client’s servers/accounts and (2) provide DISH the client’s identity and contact information by email to the email address that sent the notice of infringement.

The section relating to financial penalties indicates that if DataCamp fails to handle takedowns in a way that constitutes a breach of the agreement, the company will have five days to put things right. At that point, the following financial penalties come into play:

-(2)(b) Defendant shall be liable to DISH for two thousand five hundred United States dollars ($2,500) per channel or VOD title, as identified in DISH’s notices with URLs or other identifying information, per day (or part of a day) that the breach continued (not to exceed two hundred fifty thousand United States dollars ($250,000) per calendar month).

Datacamp provided TorrentFreak with the following statement which addresses the agreement as a whole.

“The settlement agreement between Datacamp and DISH confirms our adherence to DMCA procedures. Additionally, it explicitly defines protocols for clients who persistently violate policies, display uncooperative behavior, and remain unresponsive over an extended period,” says DataCamp CFO, Veronika Siskova.

“Over the years we have readily assisted many content owners in protecting their intellectual property. The settlement terms closely align with standard DMCA procedures and reaffirm DataCamp’s dedication to DMCA compliance, providing a solid foundation for both parties to move forward positively.

“We remain devoted to our clients, and this resolution allows us to direct our resources and energy toward continuing to create exceptional products and services.”

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that DISH and DataCamp do seem to agree on the purpose of the original complaint, as IBCAP suggests.

“This lawsuit and resulting settlement agreement against Datacamp sends a direct message to yet another category of infringers — companies who support pirate services, such as CDNs and hosting companies — that their willingness to deliver infringing content over their networks will not be tolerated,” says Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP.

“Datacamp’s payment of $3 million conveys a strong message that CDNs and hosting companies should not take the risk of permitting infringing content to stream across their networks. The takedown and repeat infringer policies that Datacamp has agreed to serve as examples of policies other CDNs and hosting companies should adopt to help minimize infringements on their networks and minimize their exposure to sizeable damage awards.”

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

Almost half a decade ago, eight Las Vegas men were indicted by a grand jury for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law.

The U.S. government labeled Jetflicks and iStreamitAll as two of the largest pirate streaming platforms in the United States.

Disguised as an aviation service, Jetflicks allegedly offered a library of 183,285 pirated TV episodes. iStreamitAll allegedly made available more than 118,479 TV shows and 10,980 movies to its customers; at the time more content than Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime could muster.

Some Plead Guilty, Others Dig in

Early on, Jetflicks programmer and iStreamitAll founder Darryl Julius Polo (aka djppimp) pled guilty to copyright infringement and money laundering; that earned him a 57-month sentence and a $1m forfeiture order.

Fellow Jetflicks programmer Luis Angel Villarino pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and was sentenced to one year and a day in prison .

The remainder, Kristopher Lee Dallmann, Douglas M. Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Edward Jaurequi, Peter H. Huber, and Yoany Vaillant Fajardo, dug in for the long haul. And what a haul that turned out to be.

COVID-19 Chaos

Why this case has dragged on for so long isn’t easily explained. To say that personal issues played a role would be an understatement. COVID-19 played a role too, and also provided cover for numerous pre-trial release violations that led the government to conclude that at least one defendant, “may as well not be under any supervision at all.”

One defendant refused court-ordered drug tests, informing a pretrial services officer that nothing could be done to enforce compliance. Another found out that wasn’t actually the case and was detained at least twice for violations.

Then there were the allegations of illegal searches, effective denial of Miranda and Fifth Amendment rights, infliction of psychological stress due to the coercive tactics of the FBI, and motions to suppress evidence. Yet this barely scratches the surface when viewed from a whole case perspective.

Trial Scheduled for March 2024

While it would be foolish to completely rule out the possibility of yet more drama unfolding between now and then, as things stand the case is scheduled for trial in Las Vegas starting March 4, 2024.

Due to the “nature of the case” and “the difficulties it presents” counsel for at least two defendants have filed motions seeking the appointment of co-counsel. An earlier filing on behalf of Dallmann provides context on the scale of what lies ahead.

“This case includes a voluminous amount of discovery and a lengthy docket sheet (i.e over 700 filings) in the Eastern District of Virginia. On April 15, 2022, the government provided defense counsel with approximately 423 gigabytes of data including at least 175,000 pages of print discovery (i.e. reports, photos, and spreadsheets),” it reads.

Heavyweight Discovery

For theoretical scale, a single sheet of regular office paper weighs around 5 grams, so 175,000 sheets represents 1,929lb (875kg) of print discovery. Other material in the 423GB haul includes FD-302s (FBI interview report forms), investigation reports, bank records, imaging reports, merchant transactions, emails from six different full Google accounts, search warrants, subpoena materials, audio and video recordings, and web page images.

“Besides this data, the government provided another 18.68 terabytes of data including images of various electronics such as servers, phones, tablets, drives, and evidence obtained from Canada pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request,” the filing adds.

As previously reported , the U.S. requested access to this data in March 2018 under the US-Canada Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT). The data was eventually handed over to the Department of Justice some 21 months later. It reportedly included reports from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, subscriber information documents, a list of tickets and messages pertaining to subscribers, plus five forensic images of servers located at OVH, a hosting provider in Canada.

Last September, Dallmann’s defense team reported that additional discovery-related requests were filed with the government in early 2023. A request made in February that year required the defense to supply their own hard drives in order to receive copies of the data.

“The government estimates it will take at least a couple of months to copy the data. The data requested contains 63.2 TB of storage.”

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