From a standing start in 2016, manga piracy site Mangamura (Manga Village) took just two years to become the largest site of its type and the single largest online piracy threat Japanese publishers had ever encountered.

Publishers including Shogakukan, Kadokawa, and Shueisha, and their anti-piracy partner CODA, estimated that in its relatively brief time online, Mangamura had caused a staggering $2.91 billion in losses. In April 2018, in the wake of a government announcement that detailed emergency website blocking against sites including Mangamura, the site suddenly disappeared and was never seen again. Then came the reckoning.

A criminal investigation eventually led to the arrest of the site’s operator, Romi Hoshino, in Manilla. After being deported to Japan and arrested, Hoshino faced a criminal trial and in June 2021, was handed a three-year prison sentence and financial penalties totaling around $650K.

Publishers Sue For Damages

Hoping to recoup some of their losses, in the summer of 2022 manga publishers Kodakawa, Shogakukan, and Shueisha filed a civil action against the former operator of Mangamura. Their lawsuit sought damages of 1.9 billion yen ($12.3 million at today’s rates) from Hoshino, supported by evidence obtained from Google and Cloudflare , among others.

Following his release in 2022, Hoshino hit the headlines last September when promoting the imminent release of his new book, The Truth About Mangamura , which appears to have generated mostly positive reviews on Amazon .

Publishers Handed Big Win in Tokyo

Whether Hoshino’s book was a commercial success isn’t clear. However, a decision handed down today at the Tokyo District Court in the civil action, brought against him by the publishers, carries a damages award big enough to upset even the most successful authors.

According to the publishers’ complaint, around 8,200 pirated copies of manga and magazines (73,000 volumes) were offered on Mangamura. With monthly visits of up to 100 million, totaling 538 million between April 2017 and April 2018, the publishers estimated overall damages in excess of 320 billion yen, around $2 billion at today’s rates.

The publishers’ 1.9 billion yen claim, based on a calculation that multiplied the average number of views by the sales price of each of the 17 infringed works in suit, was the largest ever claim against a pirate site in Japan. Even then, it represented just a small part of the overall damages attributable to the site, the publishers argued.

Judge Masaki Sugiura agreed that Mangamura caused damage to the publishers but awarded less than the 1.9 billion yen requested. The award of 1.7 billion yen, around $11 million, is still believed to be a record amount for a piracy case in Japan.

Hoshino and Publishers Respond to Decision

Outside the Tokyo District Court, Romi Hoshino appeared happy to answer questions about the decision. The full video is embedded below for any native speakers or those who have any confidence in the accuracy of the transcript. While the translation doesn’t feel authentic enough for us to report on directly, there’s no doubt when it comes to Hoshino’s overall opinion of the decision.

He rejects the decision, the amount, and even the result of the first trial that landed him behind bars. In the short term, Hoshino says he may appeal today’s decision. Ultimately, however, he lacks any motivation to balance the books.

“I have no intention of paying anything,” he said, effortlessly closing the loop.

A statement published on Kadokawa’s website notes that the award for damages is appropriate; it also concedes that it will be “impossible to recover all of it.”

“We believe that it is of great significance that the illegality and liability for compensation regarding ‘Mangamura’ have been recognized in the judicial arena. Copyright infringement cases are not limited to pirated sites targeting manga, but also include movies, anime, etc., and the scope of damage is wide-ranging. Our company intends to take a resolute stance in dealing with cases of rights infringement,” Kadokawa concludes.

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

Founded back in 2011, Uptobox rapidly gained popularity by making it easy for users to upload, store, and share files with others online. In April 2023, Uptobox received 34 million visits from users all over the world, around a third of those from France.

At several points in its dozen or so years online, Uptobox faced adversity, mostly due to copyright issues. Last May, the site was blocked by French ISPs but determined to stay online, Uptobox provided its users with advice on how blocking could be circumvented.

On September 20, 2023, not even the most sophisticated techniques allowed users to connect to Uptobox servers. After obtaining authorization from a French court, the world’s largest entertainment companies, including Columbia, Paramount, StudioCanal, Warner Bros, Disney, Apple, and Amazon, descended on two datacenters used by Uptobox.

At Scaleway and OpCore, two cloud service providers based in Vitry-sur-Seine in the southeastern suburbs of Paris, servers were unplugged and seized as evidence in support of a civil action. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment eventually claimed responsibility and in a statement revealed that two French nationals were operating Uptobox from Dubai. It was always inevitable that the ‘criminal operators’ would find themselves shut down, ACE said.

Uptobox Said Little Until Recently

Given the gravity of any legal measures taken by a coalition with a combined worth expressed in triple-digit billions, Uptobox hasn’t said much over the past six months. Last December, via the service’s X account, the company said that all subscriptions had been frozen and would be extended. At a minimum, it would like users to get their files back .

Then on March 7, 2024, Uptobox appeared to offer more positive news. “Our position is to do everything to recover these servers and allow our users to recover their data, and more optimistically to resume our activity. Thank you all for your support,” a post to X revealed .

Dubai-based company Genius Servers Tech Fze is said to be the operator of Uptobox. It filed an appeal in October 2023 and the first hearing was held at the Paris judicial court a few days ago.

Server Costs Running to 75,000 Euros Per Month

Marc Rees of French publication l’Informé attended the hearing and had the opportunity to speak with Thomas Chalanset, Uptobox/Genius Servers’ attorney. He was critical of the seizure and the ex parte nature of the court order behind it.

“This is the first time the operator of the Uptobox/Uptostream service, Genius Servers Tech Fze has been able to present its case. The power of the companies in front of us must not let misleading appearances win the day,” Chalanset explained.

“The service risks being asphyxiated by server costs and the length of the proceedings, even if Genius emerges unscathed in terms of a conviction.”

Uptobox’s server bill currently runs to 75,000 euros per month and the current process has already been running for seven months. The nature of the case, currently in the hands of the public prosecutor, features parallel criminal proceedings for infringement filed by the plaintiffs. There are fears the process could run for years.

“Blocklist Inclusion Supported Seizure Operation”

Documents seen by l’Informé indicate that the movie companies used Uptobox’s inclusion on blacklists as justification for the seizure operation to go ahead. The first, the European Commission’s Counterfeiting and Piracy Watch List , mentioned Uptobox in its 2022 edition.

However, as the service’s attorney Thomas Chalanset points out, the European Commission “does not take any position” on any of the rightsholder allegations, including those below, that appear in the report. In any event, the Commission has never contacted Uptobox, Chalanset says.

Other actions against Uptobox all involved French regulator ARCOM; in respect of the first in 2023 , Uptobox claims to have received no correspondence and is now taking action to have the decision reversed. Two other judgments that resulted in the Uptobox domain being blocked by ISPs last year, are also being appealed.

No Different to Google Drive or Dropbox, Court Hears

According to l’Informé’s report on the proceedings, Thomas Chalanset informed the court that his client’s service is no different to Google Drive or Dropbox; if a complaint is received requesting the removal of infringing content, there’s an obligation to take it down.

Lawyers for the entertainment companies rejected the comparison; Google and Dropbox sell storage space, whereas Uptobox offered premium subscriptions with “18 features, only one of which relates to storage spaces. All the others aim to unblock access, downloading, and viewing of hosted files, for example to break the waiting time limit between two downloads or for viewing files.”

As for the comment about actioning takedowns in common with Google Drive and Dropbox, the studios highlighted a feature on Uptobox that restored files following receipt of a takedown notice. A test involving 68 infringing files revealed that half reappeared within two hours.

Some Users Are Pirates, Non-Infringing Files Get No Publicity

Chalanset conceded that pirates did use Uptobox, but these were just a tiny minority who wanted to accumulate enough ‘Premium’ points to pay for their five euro per month subscription. Uptobox also called on a pair of expert reports to counter claims from rights holders that 84% of the files on the platform were infringing. As per l’Informé (translated from French)

“[T]he Dubai company also produced two reports, one written by In Code We Trust, a consulting company, the other by Hubert Bitant, a legal expert at the Paris Court of Appeal. Their analysis shows that the vast majority of files hosted on Uptobox are not downloaded or viewed. In essence, 73.5% of the hosted files were not downloaded, while the rights holders estimate that 84% of the files are infringing.”

The statistical method used by the rights holders to identify pirated content stored on Uptobox also came in for criticism. Their approach reportedly involved visiting pirate sites that typically link to files hosted elsewhere, Uptobox included. However, by visiting pirate sites, most of the content on offer would obviously be infringing and shared in public; non-infringing content that isn’t shared in public, users’ personal files and photographs, for example, by their very nature simply wouldn’t appear on a pirate platform.

Whether the court found Uptobox’s appeal credible will be revealed when its decision is handed down in two months. It’s unclear if users will be able to retrieve any family photos at any point, but a stampede to discuss the matter in person before the court seems unlikely.

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

Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related sources.

The site launched in the fall of 2022 , just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of ‘free’ books and articles to the broader public.

Late last year, Anna’s Archive expanded its offering by making information from OCLC’s proprietary WorldCat database available online. The site’s operators took more than a year to scrape several terabytes of data and published roughly 700 million unique records online, for free.

This ‘metadata’ heist was a massive breakthrough in the quest to archive as much published content as possible online. However, OCLC wasn’t pleased and responded with a lawsuit at an Ohio federal court, accusing the site and its operators of hacking and demanding damages.

The non-profit says that it spent more than a million dollars to respond to Anna’s Archive’s alleged hacking efforts. Even then, it couldn’t prevent the data from being released through a torrent.

“Defendants, through the Anna’s Archive domains, have made, and continue to make, all 2.2 TB of WorldCat® data available for public download through its torrents,” OCLC wrote in its complaint.

Who’s Anna?

Following the alleged hacking efforts, OCLC tried to identify the perpetrators. This investigation led them to Maria Dolores Anasztasia Matienzo, a resident of Seattle, Washington, who was listed as the only named defendant.

The complaint mentioned that Matienzo describes herself as an “archivist” and uses the handle “anarchivist” on social media. The defendant allegedly works as a software engineer at an AI startup and previously worked as a catalog librarian at a direct competitor of OCLC.

For OCLC, these and related findings were reason enough to sue Matienzo as part of the Anna’s Archive conspiracy. However, in a motion to dismiss filed yesterday, Matienzo denies any involvement with the shadow library or the hack.

“I am not affiliated in any way with Anna’s Archive and had no involvement in the alleged hacking and/or scraping of data from WorldCat.org that was allegedly orchestrated and carried out by Anna’s Archive,” Matienzo writes in an accompanying declaration.

Motion to Dismiss

The motion argues for the dismissal of the claims on several grounds. For one, it notes that the Ohio court has no jurisdiction over the defendant, who has never conducted business in the state.

Secondly, the complaint only sparsely mentions Matienzo. There are six paragraphs with individual allegations and two others where she is mentioned as part of the Anna’s Archive group. However, none of these include factual evidence, the defense argues.

“A review of these paragraphs reveals that the allegations contained therein are nothing more than conclusory statements that are unsupported by any factual evidence,” the motion to dismiss reads.

“[T]he conclusory and unsupported allegation that ‘Matienzo owns, operates, and/or controls Anna’s Archive,’ is not sufficient to state a claim against Ms. Matienzo.”

‘No Shred of Evidence’

In total, OCLC asserts twelve claims against Matienzo including breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and trespass of chattels. The defense notes that these all fail, as no claims are specifically linked to her with concrete evidence.

“OCLC does not allege that it traced any of the attacks to Ms. Matienzo, that OCLC discovered any shred of evidence demonstrating Ms. Matienzo’s alleged ties to Anna’s Archive, or that Ms. Matienzo herself committed any wrongful act against OCLC. This is because no such evidence exists.”

The defense adds that the similarity between defendant’s social media handle, ‘anarchivist’, and Anna’s Archive is insufficient to support the claims. The same applies to other facts, including her previous occupation as a catalog librarian.

Matienzo consistently denied any association with Anna’s Archive and informally cooperated with OCLC in an attempt to resolve the lawsuit before spending money on a defense. However, that didn’t lead to any agreement.

The defense therefore urges the Ohio federal court to dismiss all claims to prevent Matienzo from having to invest more time and money on the matter.

“If this case is not dismissed, Ms. Matienzo will be forced to litigate a case in which she should have never been named as a defendant in a venue thousands of miles across the country from her state of domicile,” the defense adds.

—

A copy of the full motion to dismiss, filed yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, is available here (pdf)

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

In a complaint filed at a Nashville federal court last spring , Universal Music, Sony Music, EMI and others, accused X Corp of “breeding” mass copyright infringement.

The social media company allegedly failed to respond adequately to takedown notices and lacks a proper termination policy.

“Twitter routinely ignores known repeat infringers and known infringements, refusing to take simple steps that are available to Twitter to stop these specific instances of infringement of which it is aware,” the complaint alleged.

Motion to Dismiss

X vehemently disagreed and filed a motion to dismiss the case, hoping to shut down the legal battle at an early stage. The attempt was partially successful; last month, the court dismissed the music companies’ direct and vicarious copyright infringement claims.

The labels’ contributory infringement claims were partially dismissed . Judge Trauger concluded that X can’t be held liable for making it very easy to upload infringing material or for monetizing pirated content. These characteristics are not exclusive to infringing material and apply to legitimate content too, she argued.

However, some elements of the contributory infringement remain intact and the lawsuit will continue on those grounds. Among other things, this includes claims that X’s repeat infringer policy was inadequate and that it willingly turned a blind eye to pirating users, especially those who have a blue checkmark.

“Particularly striking is the allegation that X Corp. enforces its copyright policies less stringently against individuals willing to pay for its ‘verified’ service,” Judge Trauger wrote in her order.

X Answers Complaint

With the case moving forward, X was required to formally answer the complaint, which it did yesterday. In a 29-page response, X denies any wrongdoing, including allegations that its repeat infringer policy is inadequate.

The music companies’ claim and the concise reply from X shown below are exemplary.

Claim: “Twitter has not adopted, reasonably implemented, nor informed subscribers or account holders of, a policy to terminate users engaging in repeated acts of copyright infringement.”

X’s Response: “Defendant denies the allegations in Paragraph 154 of the Complaint”

In response to other allegations, X notes that the music companies are quoting and paraphrasing out of context. This includes a statement from X owner Elon Musk, who previously criticized copyright law and stated that an overzealous DMCA is a “ plague on humanity “.

This is how that statement was used by the music companies in their complaint.

X notes that this was taken out of context. The company doesn’t mention how, but the music companies didn’t mention that Musk was responding to a news article about a bill that would limit the copyright protection term for rightsholders including Disney.

“Defendant admits that Plaintiffs purport to characterize, paraphrase and quote, selectively and out of context, a post by Elon Musk, and that the content of any such post, considered fully and in context, would speak for itself. Defendant otherwise denies the allegations in Paragraph 182 of the Complaint,” X writes in its answer.

Affirmative Defenses

Aside from denying the copyright infringement allegations point-by-point, X’s formal answer to the complaint doesn’t respond in detail. This is typical for this stage of the proceeding. The answer does, however, raise a series of affirmative defenses.

For example, it counters that the remaining contributory liability claim is barred because any copyright infringement was “innocent and not willful.” In addition, X describes the requested damages, which in theory could reach $250 million, as “unconstitutionally excessive and disproportionate”.

X’s response to the complaint isn’t the endpoint, it kicks off the rest of the proceeding where both sides will have to argue their positions on the merits. There is a case management conference scheduled for next month, where the court will likely set a trial date.

—

A copy of X’s answer to the music companies’ complaint is available here (pdf)

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

Internet provider Cox Communications has been on the sharp end of several piracy lawsuits in recent years.

The biggest hit came three years ago when the Internet provider lost its legal battle against a group of major record labels.

A Virginia jury held Cox liable for pirating subscribers because it failed to terminate accounts after repeated accusations, ordering the company to pay $1 billion in damages . This landmark ruling was appealed and while Cox remains liable for contributory copyright infringement, the damages award may change.

New Damages Trial ‘Delayed’

The court of appeals recently dismissed the vicarious liability claims and vacated the $1 billion damages award. A new trial will determine the scale of the damages given these new circumstances.

When the court of appeals issues its mandate, the lower court can start a new damages proceeding. However, Cox believes that it’s best to put the brakes on this process, as there is another appeal pending that could influence the outcome. That has to conclude first.

The record labels don’t object to this reasoning and have informed the court that its mandate could be stayed until the second appeal is finalized. The court of appeals subsequently granted the request last Friday.

Cox Works on Supreme Court Petition

These procedural issues typically aren’t very exciting but, in this case, Cox also revealed that it plans to file a writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to take on the piracy liability battle. That’s notable, as it would be the first time that a “repeat infringer” case ends up at the highest court United States.

Cox asked the court of appeals to also stay its mandate pending its Supreme Court application, as this could steer the legal battle in yet another direction.

According to Cox, the Supreme Court has substantial reasons to take on the case. For one, there are currently conflicting court of appeals rulings on the “material contribution” aspect of copyright infringement.

The Supreme Court could give more clarity on when a service, with a myriad of lawful uses, can be held liable for infringers.

In addition, Cox also cites the recent ‘Twitter vs. Taamneh’ Supreme Court ruling, which held that social media platforms aren’t liable for terrorists who use their network. While that’s not a copyright case, it’s relevant for the secondary liability question, the ISP argues.

“Though Twitter was not a copyright case, it confronted a directly analogous theory of secondary liability: that social-media platforms, including Twitter and YouTube, could be liable for continuing to provide services to those they knew were using them for illegal purposes,” Cox writes.

Termination Risk

Finally, Cox notes that the Supreme Court should hear the case because it deals with an issue that’s ‘exceptionally important’ to ISPs as well as the public. If the present verdict stands, Internet providers may be much more likely to terminate Internet access, even if the subscriber is innocent.

“This Court’s material-contribution standard provides powerful incentives for ISPs of all stripes to swiftly terminate internet services that have been used to infringe— no matter the universe of lawful uses to which those services are put, or the consequences to innocent, non-infringing people who also use those services.

“That is why a chorus of amici urged this Court not to adopt this standard at the panel and en banc stages, and will likely urge the Supreme Court to grant review as well,” Cox adds, referring to the support it received from third-parties previously.

No Supreme Court Stay

Cox hasn’t filed a writ of certiorari yet and still has time, as it’s due June 17, 2024. The intention to go to the Supreme Court would be another reason to halt the new damages trial, according to Cox, but the court of appeals rejected the request.

This means that the new damages trial can start, even if the case is still pending at the Supreme Court. However, it’s clear that this legal battle is far from over yet.

—

A copy of Cox’s motion to stay the mandate, with the Supreme Court comments, is available here (pdf) . The Appeals Court’s order on this motion can be found here (pdf)

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

Private torrent trackers with Danish roots have long been the go-to place for file-sharers in Denmark. Not anymore.

Starting in the fall of 2020 , Danish law enforcement toppled several thriving torrent communities.

With help from local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance , DanishBits, NordicBits, ShareUniversity, Asgaard and others were systematically dismantled.

Sting Operation

When the first trackers fell, preparations for the operation had been ongoing for years. It all started when a former lawyer working for Rights Alliance went undercover at the private tracker DanishBits in 2016. As a quiet user, the infiltrator mapped the site’s internal relationships and identified key individuals in the wider Danish tracker ecosystem.

The details of this sting operation read like a film script but for many involved, it turned into a real-life drama. Not only were several trackers subsequently shut down, a number of community members were prosecuted too. More than two dozen people, from prolific uploaders to ringleaders, all had their day in court.

After the tracker dominoes fell, more than two dozen suspects were investigated and taken to court. This resulted in a wide range of sentences, with most of the tracker admins receiving conditional prison sentences of a few months. Some were ordered to carry out community service.

Conditional Prison Sentence

This week, the National Unit for Special Crimes ( NSK ) announced the final sentence related to the ‘Asgaard’ tracker. The Court in Horsens sentenced a 48-year-old man from East Jutland, who pleaded guilty to copyright infringement, to a suspended prison sentence of 60 days.

The defendant was the last of seven Asgaard tracker administrators to go before the court. The man helped to get the torrent site off the ground in 2019 and served as an admin of NordicBits before that; both offenses were accounted for in the conviction.

Asgaard became immensely popular in Denmark toward the end of 2020, after DanishBits and NordicBits shut down. The site had an estimated 1.5 million monthly visits at its height, making it the biggest pirate site in the country for a while.

Harsher Punishment Wanted

The guilty verdict is good news for Rights Alliance, but a bittersweet victory. While the crackdown effectively decimated the torrent tracker problem, the sentences handed down have been relatively ‘mild’. The tracker operator and many other “ringleaders” don’t have to serve time in prison, as the sentences are conditional.

Rights Alliance Director Maria Fredenslund notes that copyright and IP-related crimes are historically not viewed as severe crimes in Denmark, adding that a tougher sentence would be more effective.

“Sentences for IP crime are in general too low in Denmark, to have a sufficient deterrent effect. We believe the sentences in many cases should have been much harder,” Fredenslund informs TF.

“The reality is that IP crime has not been seen as a severe crime in Denmark historically, so we are starting from a low point and building from there to obtain adequate sentencing that will keep others from committing similar crimes.”

NSK prosecutor Hans Bohn Sørensen is content with the verdict, however, which marks the end of the Asgaard prosecution.

“I am satisfied with the verdict, which now ends the proceedings against the founders and administrators behind one of the largest illegal file sharing services we have had in Denmark,” Sørensen says.

Threat Neutralized?

The recent sentence and those that were handed down earlier are not the harshest on a global scale and unlikely to spook hardened criminals. However, deterrence is not solely determined by the harshness of a punishment .

Another factor that plays a key role is the likelihood of getting caught. With a multi-year crackdown on several trackers, Danish police and NSK have shown that this risk is, perhaps, higher than ever.

Commenting on this aspect, Fredenslund praises the authorities’ invaluable efforts, which helped to ensure that Danish file-sharing services no longer pose a significant threat to Danish rights holders.

Of course, new trackers will always emerge but Rights Alliance sees these as marginal problems in the grander scheme.

“The current trackers only harbor the very hardcore illegal users in Denmark. They don’t pose a threat that’s comparable to Asgaard, ShareUniversity, DanishBits, etc.,” Fredenslund notes.

With the final conviction of the last Asgaard admin, all cases related to the tracker are closed. Cases against other trackers are still pending, however. In the meantime, Rights Alliance maintains its focus on emerging threats, including those related to Artificial Intelligence.

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

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.

Online piracy continues to present massive challenges for the entertainment industries.

It’s a global issue that’s hard to contain, but the major U.S. record labels and several movie companies believe that Internet providers can offer a helping hand.

For roughly a quarter-century, rightsholders have sent copyright infringement notices to ISPs, informing them about alleged copyright infringements carried out by subscribers. While many providers forwarded these notices to their customers, they rarely led to follow-up action.

This is a problem according to some rightsholders, who want ISPs to terminate the connections of subscribers repeatedly linked to pirating activity. They point to the DMCA, which states that online service providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

In an earlier case, Internet provider Cox was ordered to pay a billion dollars in damages after a jury found the ISP liable for copyright infringement. This damages award was recently reversed but the liability finding remains. Meanwhile, other ISPs are fighting similar legal battles.

Frontier vs. Music and Movie Companies

Most of these lawsuits take place in federal courts, but the New York bankruptcy court is dealing with a similar dispute. In two separate cases, one filed by several movie companies and the other by record labels , Internet provider Frontier Communications stands accused of failing to terminate repeat infringers.

The financially challenged Internet provider emerged from bankruptcy and is trying to rebuild its business. However, ghosts of the past continue to follow the company, including piracy liability allegations.

Last December, Frontier hoped to sway both cases in its favor. The ISP submitted a motion for judgment on the pleadings, asking the court to dismiss the claims from the movie and music companies, noting that these fail “as a matter of law.”

The motion’s central argument stems from the ‘ Twitter vs. Taamneh ‘ Supreme Court decision, where it was determined that social media platforms were not responsible for ISIS terrorists who used their services to recruit and raise funds. In a similar vein, Frontier believes that it shouldn’t be held liable for subscribers who pirate content.

Based on these and other arguments, Frontier asked the bankruptcy court to dismiss all piracy liability claims. Needless to say, the movie and music companies disagreed and both filed objections, urging the court to keep the claims intact.

Court Denies Dismissal Request

A few days ago, Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn ruled on the motion, which brought bad news for Frontier. After reviewing the matter, Judge Glenn saw no reason to dismiss the copyright liability claims at this stage.

In a detailed memorandum opinion, the court concludes that the Supreme Court ruling in the social media case doesn’t directly translate to the matter at hand. While both deal with third-party liability, terrorism and copyright infringement are certainly not the same thing.

The Supreme Court ruling made it clear that secondary liability for online services doesn’t always apply. However, the court believes that decades of copyright infringement liability jurisprudence can’t be overlooked.

“The Court declines to graft an analysis of secondary criminal liability for aiding and abetting terrorism onto the well-established branch of law governing secondary liability for copyright infringement. Under the relevant standard, Claimants have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim,” Judge Glenn writes.

Pirates vs. Terrorists

The court notes that Internet providers are not automatically liable for everything that happens through their service. Even general knowledge of potentially illegal activity doesn’t automatically lead to a liability finding; context is key.

In the ‘Twitter vs. Taamneh‘ case, the terrorist attacks happened outside of the platform, at a nightclub in Istanbul. While the terrorists may have used Twitter and other social media platforms to facilitate their operations, there was no direct connection to the attack.

The movie and music companies alleged a more direct connection (nexus) between Frontier and the alleged copyright infringement in their case and the bankruptcy court agreed.

“The Reina attack was not carried out on or through a social media platform, but rather in Istanbul by terrorists who had maintained accounts on the platforms; in contrast, the copyright infringement alleged here took place via Frontier’s network itself. Twitter is thus distinguishable and does not compel dismissal,” Judge Glenn notes.

The court further clarifies that this doesn’t mean that ISPs are automatically liable for everything subscribers do through their connections. The DMCA has set clear guidelines Internet providers must adhere to if they want to rely on safe harbor protection.

In addition to simply providing an Internet connection, contributory copyright infringement also involves specific knowledge of infringement and the continued provision of the means to infringe. These issues play a role here too and, based on the pleadings, a dismissal is premature.

All in all, the court denies Frontier’s request to dismiss all the movie and music companies’ piracy liability claims. This is important for the present dispute, but it may also foreshadow what other courts may conclude in similar cases going forward.

—

A copy of Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn’s order is available here (pdf) . Frontier’s originating motion can be found here (pdf) and the music and movie company responses are available here ( 1 , 2 )

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

Starting last year, various rightsholders have filed lawsuits against companies that develop AI models.

The list of complainants includes record labels, book authors, visual artists, and even the New York Times. These rightsholders all object to the presumed use of their work to train AI models without proper compensation.

The New York Times lawsuit targets OpenAI and Microsoft , who have both filed separate motions to dismiss this month. Microsoft’s response included a few paragraphs equating the recent AI fears to the doom and gloom scenarios that were painted by Hollywood when the VCR became popular in the 1980s.

VCR Doom and Gloom

The motion to dismiss cited early VCR scaremongering, including that of the late MPAA boss Jack Valenti, who warned of the potentially devastating consequences this novel technology could have on the movie industry.

This comparison triggered a reply from The Times, which clarified that generative AI is nothing like the VCR. It’s an entirely different technology with completely separate copyright concerns, the publication wrote . At the same time, the company labeled Microsoft’s other defenses, including fair use, as premature.

Before the New York court rules on the matter, Microsoft took the opportunity to respond once more. According to the tech giant, The Times took its VCR comparison too literally.

“Microsoft’s point was not that VCRs and LLMs are the same. It was that content creators have tried before to smother the democratizing power of new technology based on little more than doom foretold. The challenges failed, yet the doom never came.

“And that is why plaintiffs must offer more than imagined fears before the law will block innovation. That The Times can only think to dodge this point is telling indeed,” Microsoft added.

‘No Copyright Infringements Cited’

For the court, it is irrelevant whether the VCR comparisons make sense or not; the comparison is just lawsuit padding. What matters is whether The Times has pleaded copyright infringement and DMCA claims against Microsoft, sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.

The Times argued that its claims are valid; the company asked the court to move the case forward, so it can conduct discovery and further back up its claims. However, Microsoft believes the legal dispute should end here, as no concrete copyright infringements have been cited.

“Having failed to plausibly plead its claims, The Times mostly just pleads for discovery. But the defects in its Complaint are too fundamental to brush aside. The Times is not entitled to proceed on contributory infringement claims without alleging a single instance of end-user infringement of its works,” Microsoft notes.

More Shortcomings

Similar shortcomings also apply to the other claims up for dismissal, including the alleged DMCA violation, which according to Microsoft lacks concrete evidence.

As highlighted previously, The Times did reference a Gizmodo article that suggested ChatGPT’s ‘Browse with Bing’ was used by people to bypass paywalls. However, Microsoft doesn’t see this as concrete evidence.

“This is like alleging that ‘some online articles report infringement happens on Facebook’. That does not support a claim. The Times cannot save a Complaint that identifies no instance of infringement by pointing to a secondary source that identifies no instance of infringement.”

Similarly, allegations that The Times’ ChatGPT prompts returned passages of New York Times articles isn’t sufficient either, as that’s not “third-party” copyright infringement.

“The Times is talking about its own prompts that allegedly “generated … outputs … that … violate The Times’s copyrights.’ An author cannot infringe its own works,” Microsoft notes.

Microsoft would like the court to grant its motion to dismiss, while The Times is eager to move forward. It’s now up to the court to decide if the case can progress, and if so, on what claims.

Alternatively, the parties can choose to settle their disagreements outside of court but, thus far, there’s no evidence to suggest that they’re actively trying to resolve their disagreements.

—-

A copy of Microsoft’s reply memorandum in support of its partial motion to dismiss, submitted at a New York federal court, can be found here (pdf)

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