In 2020, YouTube-ripper Yout.com sued the RIAA, asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

The music group had previously used DMCA takedown notices to remove many of Yout’s appearances in Google’s search results. This had a significant impact on revenues, the site argued, adding that it always believed it was not breaking any laws and hoped the court would agree.

That wasn’t the case. Last October, Judge Stefan Underhill ultimately concluded that the service had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. As such, it could be breaking the law.

$250,000 Attorneys Fees

Soon after the court’s decision, the RIAA submitted a request to have Yout pay the $250,000 in attorneys fees it incurred thus far. As the prevailing party, RIAA felt that it was entitled to compensation.

Yout wanted to press on, however. Site operator Johnathan Nader swiftly filed an appeal as he believes that YouTube rippers don’t violate the DMCA. A few weeks ago, his legal team asked the court to put the RIAA’s request for attorneys fees on hold while the appeal is pending.

Postponing the fees decision was important for Yout because immediate payment might undermine its ability to properly fund its legal campaign. It would also harm Yout’s defense and the many other sites and services indirectly impacted by the case, Yout informed the court.

No Money?

The RIAA didn’t buy it. In a response brief, the music group doubted that Yout lacks the means to fund its legal campaign. After all, it was still operational and able to retain a new team of lawyers for its appeal.

“The record in this case suggests that Yout does not lack resources: Yout admits that its service is still operational and it has hired three new lawyers for the appeal,” the RIAA wrote.

Again, Yout disagreed. Backed up by a bank statement, the YouTube ripper showed the court that the site was barely running break-even. In fact, Nader used his personal funds to bankroll the appeal.

“[I]f a judgment on fees is issued at this time, that could severely impact Plaintiff’s ability to fund the appeal whether through company funds, personal funds, or third-party assistance,” Yout argued in court.

Court Denies Fees Request, For Now

After hearing the arguments from both sides, U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill decided to deny the RIAA’s request for attorneys fees altogether. However, the music group can refile it after the appeal. This means that Yout’s request to stay the matter is moot.

“Here, I choose to exercise my discretion to deny the fee motion without prejudice and grant the RIAA leave to re-file the motion upon resolution of the appeal,” Judge Underhill writes.

The Judge argues that delaying the issue saves judicial resources. In addition, the party that wins the appeal will likely request attorneys’ fees as well, so the order also avoids piecemeal adjudication.

To outsiders, the ruling may seem nothing more than an administrative battle, but it may prove to be a crucial one for Yout. Without legal funds, an appeal would have been virtually impossible to win.

—

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill’s order is available here (pdf)

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

There are plenty of options for copyright holders to frustrate the operations of pirate sites, but one of the most effective is to attack their domain names.

In recent years, various entertainment industry groups have called on the domain name industry to help out on this front.

Trusted Notifiers

As a result, the MPA signed a landmark agreement with the Donuts registry in 2016, under which the movie industry group acts as a “trusted notifier” of “pirate” domains. A similar deal was later announced with the Radix registry .

Lesser known is the trusted notifier agreement between the RIAA and the Donuts registry. That company was acquired by the Afilias registry and both have since rebranded to “Identity Digital.”

Identity Digital is a serious player in the domain name industry. The registry oversees close to 300 TLDs, including .movie, .wtf, .rocks, and .legal. In addition, the company also owns domain name registrar Name.com.

Over the past several years, very little information has been released on the use of the “trusted notifier” system. There was an early announcement that the first two domains had been taken down by the MPA, but we haven’t seen any new statistics since.

TorrentFreak reached out to both the RIAA and MPA to get more details, but these groups prefer not to share information, with the latter referencing a non-disclosure agreement. In recent months, however, Identity Digital started to lift this veil.

Domain Suspension Transparency

A few months ago, Identity Digital published its first-ever abuse report, documenting how many of its domain names had been suspended due to unauthorized use.

As the company oversees millions of domain names, it’s no surprise that a fraction are used by bad actors. Indeed, during the third quarter of last year, 3,225 abuse cases were opened, resulting in 4,615 closed domain names. The vast majority were related to phishing activity.

The careful reader will notice that “copyright infringement” isn’t listed separately in the table above. It could fall under another category but Identity Digital actually reports content flagged by “trusted notifiers” separately.

Aside from the RIAA and MPA, these notifiers also include the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which reports sites that are associated with Child Sexual Abuse Material. The table below shows the total number of reported URLs in the third quarter.

As it turns out, there are only a small number of flagged ‘pirate’ URLs per quarter. The MPA reported four URLs while the RIAA submitted none.

No Fluke

This low number isn’t a fluke. The numbers look very similar in the previous transparency report, where the MPA flagged six URLs. The RIAA didn’t submit any domain names for review in the quarter either.

It’s tricky to interpret these findings. In theory, it could mean that pretty much all pirate sites have been dealt with already on these TLDs. We reached out to RIAA to hear their thoughts on the lack of activity but, as hinted before, the music group had no comment.

To double-check, we searched Google and found that it isn’t hard to find some infringing URLs using Identity Digital domain names. However, these are not the most prominent sites, so perhaps it’s simply not a priority?

What we can say for sure is that the trusted notifier system doesn’t lead to mass suspensions in this case. That said, Identity Digital’s transparency only goes so far. We don’t know which domains were suspended following MPA reports or what kind of infringing content they listed.

The relatively low number of reports may be partly due to the fact that Identity Digital’s TLDs are not the most common ones. This would likely be different for Verisign, which oversees many popular TLDs including .com, .tv and .net.

Thus far, Verisign prefers not to actively police content, but U.S. lawmakers have started to increase pressure on the company.

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

A quote attributed to former UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggests that democracy is actually the worst form of government – except for all the others.

It’s a depressing take on the political gold standard, but the full quote adds more nuance. Churchill said that when the people elect ministers and express their needs to them, those in power are shaped, guided, and controlled as servants of the people – not their masters.

People in the multi-billion dollar lobbying industry couldn’t agree more.

Down the Lobbying Rabbit Hole

At this very moment, a GoFundMe campaign launched by the Concept Art Association has the primary goal of raising $270,000. The campaign hopes to pay a lobbyist $187,500 to “educate government officials and policymakers” on a new threat to the creative industries – AI-generated artwork.

At the time of writing, the campaign has raised $203,300, enough to retain a lobbyist for a whole year. The Concept Art Association says that some of the money will go to the Copyright Alliance, which already lobbies the government on behalf of its own members. Some recently expressed concerns that AI-generated works collide with copyright law.

RIAA Lobbying – AI, DMCA, Piracy and Beyond

Other members of the Copyright Alliance include the RIAA, which recently reported several AI-music mixing platforms to the United States Trade Representative, hoping to have them listed as upcoming threats in the USTR’s ‘Notorious Markets’ report.

According to a 2022 lobbying disclosure report , RIAA lobbyists raised AI as an issue with the government. Other issues included the Notorious Markets report, intellectual property ‘theft’ in general, enforcement of IP law, issues related to the DMCA, and proposals related to technical measures, aka content filtering.

According to OpenSecrets data covering the period January 2022 to end September 2022, the RIAA appeared in 15 government lobbying reports with a total declared lobbying expenditure (covered by its associates) of almost $5.4 million.

The last time the RIAA spent more was back in 2018, and before that, 2011.

Pfizer (17), Intel (18), and Comcast (18) appeared in more copyright, patent and trademark-related lobbying reports than the RIAA. None could match the 24 reports that pushed PhRMA , the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America, to the top of the lobbying list, but in third place overall, the MPA wasn’t too far away.

MPA Lobbying – From Copyright to Z

According to reports compiled by Open Secrets, the MPA lobbied on 22 separate issues between January and the end of September 2022.

Copyright, Patent and Trademark reports featured the MPA ten times, Trade seven times, with Defense, Disaster and Emergency Planning, and Immigration chalking up two each.

Specific lobbying issues included illicit streaming devices, technological protection measures, right to repair, voluntary initiatives regarding content protection, and others related to the internet – domain names, ICANN accountability, WHOIS, and domain abuse.

The MPA sent lobbyists to the Executive Office of the President, the State Department, Department of Justice, Homeland Security, the House of Representatives, the National Security Council, and the Senate.

The Department of Commerce also makes an appearance in connection with the MPA’s efforts to weave piracy issues into the cybersecurity order .

The Office of the United States Trade Representative appears in several reports, at least in part linked to the MPA’s Special 301 and Notorious Markets submissions . In fact, no other entity in the United States appeared in more USTR-related lobbying reports than the MPA.

Overall, lobbying expenditure of $2.57m was attributed to members of the MPA, roughly half of the RIAA’s $5.4 million. Both deployed 32 lobbyists each and, as always, the ‘revolving door’ was in full effect.

The Revolving Door

When government regulators, Congressional staff, or individual members of Congress take on new jobs with lobbying firms or private sector organizations (in some cases, those they used to oversee), Open Secrets lists those people as ‘revolvers’. The term also covers ‘reverse revolvers’ – people who leave the private sector to work in government.

Of the 32 lobbyists deployed by the MPA, 71.88% (23) are listed as revolvers. Out of 32 lobbyists deployed by the RIAA, 78.13% (25) received the same label.

RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier previously served as Chief Counsel for Intellectual Property to the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives and according to his bio, has “worked on every major copyright bill considered in the past three decades.”

RIAA COO Michele Ballantyne previously worked as Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton while Chief Content Protection Officer Brad Buckles was head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs. Patrick Kilcur, Executive Vice President of U.S. Government Affairs, served in the United States Senate and was named by The Hill as a “Top Lobbyist” in 2018 and 2019.

Revenues and Tax

The RIAA reported revenues of $28,132,459 in 2020, less than half of the MPA’s $62,895,695 . Since 1953 and 1950 respectively, both the RIAA and MPA have enjoyed tax-exempt status.

The MPA still lobbied the government on tax issues in 2022 because, quite frankly, it would be madness not to, especially given overseas competition these days.

It’s a bit of a complex system for ordinary people to grasp but when the movie industry pays less tax , in part thanks to schemes like these , not only do more films get made, but ordinary taxpayers get an opportunity to help fund films, pay to watch them when they come out, and pay sales tax on top.

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

In 2020, YouTube-ripper Yout.com sued the RIAA, asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

This was a bold move , but not one without consequences. After a legal battle of nearly two years, the verdict meant disappointment for Yout.

Last October, Judge Stefan Underhill ultimately concluded that the service had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures. Soon after, the RIAA submitted a request to have Yout pay $250,000 in attorneys fees incurred by the RIAA thus far.

Motion to Stay

Yout is not giving up on the case. Site operator Johnathan Nader will appeal the case as he believes that YouTube rippers don’t violate the DMCA . A few weeks ago, his legal team requested the court to put the attorney fees decision on hold while his appeal is pending.

The appeal could be crippled if any fees have to be paid right away, Yout argued. This would cause irreparable harm, one of the factors that weigh in favor of granting a stay.

The RIAA has a different outlook on the matter. The music group asked the court to deny Yout’s request because, among other things, it doesn’t believe that Yout lacks the means to fund its legal campaign.

“The record in this case suggests that Yout does not lack resources: Yout admits that its service is still operational and it has hired three new lawyers for the appeal,” the RIAA writes in its opposition brief.

Even if Yout does lack resources, it wouldn’t necessarily be irreparably harmed. It has the option of posting a bond and appealing that decision while the appeal is pending, which will conserve financial resources, the RIAA says.

The RIAA further argues that Yout is unlikely to win on appeal, which weighs against a stay. In addition, the RIAA says that it would be harmed by any further delays because it’s already $250,000 out of pocket after defending itself against the “meritless suit”.

Public Interest?

Yout told the court that staying the matter would be in the public interest, as many other site operators and the public at large are affected by the verdict, which essentially declared commonly used YouTube ripping tools illegal.

The RIAA’s response turns this argument on its head. The music group says that protecting artists’ copyrights is in the public interest too.

“Yout correctly states that copyright protection serves the public interest — but has the analysis exactly backward. Those interests are served by protecting creators of music from the massive circumvention of technological measures for which Yout is liable.”

The Copyright Act allows rightsholders to request attorneys’ fees to deter parties from bringing unreasonable claims without repercussions. That is exactly what’s at stake here, the RIAA believes.

—

A copy of RIAA’s opposition to Yout’s request to stay the motion for attorneys fees is available here (pdf)

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

Two years ago, the RIAA caused outrage by taking down the open source YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl from GitHub.

The RIAA cited the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, arguing that the tool could be used to download their artists’ musical works from YouTube, in breach of copyright.

With little supporting case law in the United States, the RIAA referenced a German court ruling instead. This court concluded that YouTube’s “rolling cipher” should be considered an effective technological protection measure. Therefore any attempt to circumvent it can be classified as copyright infringement.

Not everyone agreed with this conclusion, however. After discussing the issue with legal experts and advisors, GitHub restored the project and placed $1m in a takedown defense fund.

“We are taking a stand for developers and have reinstated the youtube-dl repo. Section 1201 of the DMCA is broken and needs to be fixed. Developers should have the freedom to tinker. That’s how you get great tools like youtube-dl,” GitHub former CEO Nat Friedman said at the time.

Yout Sued the RIAA and Lost

GitHub’s support was a morale boost for operators of YouTube-ripping sites. Among them was Yout.com owner Johnathan Nader, who launched a pre-emptive lawsuit against the RIAA around the same time.

At the Connecticut district court, Yout wanted to confirm that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. That battle was lost a few weeks ago when the court declared a victory for the RIAA.

The music group soon followed up with a request for $250,000 in attorneys fees . This added to Yout’s troubles and could potentially hinder the appeal, which has yet to get started.

Stay Pending Appeal

Ideally, Yout would like to put the attorneys’ fees issue on hold pending the appeal. This was also proposed to the RIAA directly, but the music group refused to play along, leaving the YouTube ripper no other option than to turn to the court again.

In a filing submitted a few days ago, Yout’s attorney asks the court to stay the fees request while the appeal is pending.

The court can grant such requests under certain conditions. Among other things, the decision to delay the fees determination should weigh in favor of the public interest. According to Yout, that’s clearly the case here.

Legality of Youtube-dl Based Software?

Yout explains that its service is based on a modified version of the open source youtube-dl software. The legal status of this software hasn’t been fully litigated and warrants a proper review by an appeal court.

“[I]t is in the public interest that the appellate court determines if services such as Yout, and others that are also based upon the open-source software project youtube-dl (whether commercially exploited or coded and deployed by individual users) constitute circumvention pursuant to the DMCA as held by this Court.”

This issue isn’t limited to Yout; many other projects and developers also rely on the youtube-dl software.

“Given that the reach of this Court’s holding in this matter goes far beyond just this one small business software provider, it is in the public interest that the Second Circuit reviews the merits on appeal.

“This important and necessary review will be crippled if the instant matter concerning attorneys’ fees is not stayed. This factor weighs strongly in favor of granting a stay,” Yout adds.

These arguments clearly suggest that the open source youtube-dl software might play a key role in the appeal and could impact other stream-rippers and the software’s developers too.

Irreperable Harm

Yout goes on to argue that, if he has to pay the RIAA, there will be fewer funds available to finance its appeal. This could irreparably harm Yout by limiting its legal firepower.

The music industry group, meanwhile, is backed by a billion-dollar industry and wouldn’t be financially crippled if the attorneys’ fees question is delayed.

“[I]t would be quite difficult for Yout to satisfy Defendant RIAA’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees while at the same time pursuing this very important appeal which, as noted above, would advance the public interest.

“On the other hand, Defendant RIAA is in a much better financial position to withstand such a stay during the pendency of the appeal,” Yout adds.

Based on these and other arguments, Yout hopes that the district court will grant the temporary stay. The RIAA has yet to respond to the motion, but given its earlier refusal will likely oppose the request.

—

A copy of the motion to stay RIAA’s motion for attorneys’ fees is available here (pdf)

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

In early January 2012, many operators of successful, public file-hosting sites were looking forward to another productive year. Over the space of just a few days, everything changed.

The destruction of Megaupload by the US government had serious implications for sites with a similar business model. Sites that paid cash to uploaders based on file popularity seemed particularly vulnerable, so it was not unexpected when some threw in the towel. For the brave and the bold, another throw of the dice was in order.

RIAA Reports Hellshare and Hellspy

Later in 2012, the RIAA submitted its regular report to the United States Trade Representative, requesting various sites to be branded notorious pirate markets. KickassTorrents, Torrentz and ExtraTorrent were among those nominated but while none of those sites are alive today, two lesser-known sites bucked the trend.

Launched around 2009, Hellspy and Hellshare had successfully weathered the Megaupload storm. Servicing the local market in the Czech Republic, the platforms also rewarded uploaders based on the popularity of their files.

Whether that was a calculated risk or a reckless gamble is up for debate, but eight years later they are still doing their thing across three domains – Hellshare.cz, Hellspy.cz and Hellspy.sk.

No Shortage of Copyright Complaints

According to Google’s Transparency Report, all three domains are regularly reported for carrying infringing content. Companies including StudioCanal, MGM, Columbia Pictures and Sky Italia are regular complainaints, even though an overwhelming number of recent notices sent to Google are not in the search engine’s indexes .

According to messages on Hellshare and Hellspy today, 100 downloads of a 1000MB file earn uploaders 5000 ‘credits’. This on-site digital currency can be spent to enable faster downloads and other features but whether that’s actually the case right now isn’t clear. In 2018, the Municipal Court in Prague informed server operators I&Q Group and Hellspy SE that rewards must not be paid to uploaders.

Nevertheless, traffic appears to be good. SimilarWeb reports an upturn in visitors over the past few months pushing hellspy.cz towards the top 600 most-visited sites in the Czech Republic. Whether that will continue following an announcement yesterday remains to be seen.

Time to Start Filtering Uploads

The Association of Commercial Television (AKTV) represents the rights of broadcasters in the Czech Republic. Founded in 2017 by the Nova, Prima and Óčko television networks, AKTV’s responsibilities include defending the rights of its members and ensuring that everyone respects copyrights.

As reported by the RIAA all those years ago, Hellshare and Hellspy are operated by I&Q Group and Hellspy SE. In an announcement Wednesday, Nova, Prima and Óčko revealed a groundbreaking agreement with Hellshare.cz , Hellspy.cz and Hellspy.sk.

According to the TV companies, the platforms have agreed to implement filtering to prevent TV shows being uploaded, and/or appearing in search results.

Negotiations reportedly took place over several months but the filtering system itself doesn’t sound particularly advanced, at least not when compared to advanced fingerprinting tools like YouTube’s Content ID. Reports suggest that it targets filenames, duration and types of files, whenever they are uploaded or searched for by users.

There is an agreement in place for the system to be tweaked over time in response to user behavior, but that can be unpredictable – sometimes deliberately.

Several Weeks of Testing and Everyone Appears Happy

Jan Vlček, president of AKTV and CEO of TV Nova, says the parties needed to reach an understanding for the good of the TV industry, and to send a message to the sites’ pirate users.

“Our primary goal is to minimize the amount of our content illegally shared online. We invest large sums in the order of hundreds of millions a year in production, and such a massive violation of copyrights, as we are witnessing in the Czech Republic, significantly reduces the return on our investments,” Vlček says .

“The agreement with I&Q GROUP is a good signal for us that a common language can be found that will help prevent massive depreciation of our investments, and that it is not unreasonably time consuming or financially demanding for storage operators. A signal should also be sent to uploaders that sharing protected content is not legal.”

I&Q Group and AKTV cooperated on the filtering system and according to I&Q, everything works as planned – a bonus considering the requirements of the EU’s updated Copyright Directive .

“We developed and deployed the filters prepared in cooperation with AKTV at the beginning of the autumn television season, and we have already spent several weeks testing them in practice,” says I&Q Group CEO, Jan Hřebabecký.

“We can therefore state that they provide relatively easy and effective filtering of copyrighted content, which is especially important for services of our type in light of the upcoming amendment to the copyright law, which imposes new obligations on us in this area.”

Crack Open The Champagne? Not Yet…

According to an entry dated October 31, 2022, on the Official Journal of the European Union, the Supreme Court in Prague is currently seeking advice from the EU Court to help determine the outcome of an important copyright case.

In that matter, the defendants are I&Q Group and Hellspy SE. They’re up against the Czech arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. IFPI is the RIAA’s big brother. Both are known for their persistence – not to mention long memories.

The Supreme Court seeks answers to these questions:

1. Does the spirit and purpose of Directive 2000/31/EC (1) preclude Article 14(1) thereof from being interpreted as meaning that the liability of a provider of an information gathering (hosting) service for the contents of such service includes liability for the manner in which such service is provided?

2. Does the spirit and purpose of Directive 2000/31/EC allow for Article 14(1) thereof to be interpreted as meaning that the rules for limiting the liability of a provider of an information gathering (hosting) service set out therein cannot exclude the private-law liability of such a provider for the choice of a particular business model for the provision of the service, even if that model has the potential to benefit from copyright infringement?

3. Does the liability waiver set out in Article 14(1) of Directive 2000/31/EC apply to the provider of an information gathering service, and selection from it by means of a search engine, in terms of liability for the manner of its provision, if that manner encourages the service recipient to store the information on it without the consent of the copyright holders, but without the active participation of the service provider in the copyright infringement?

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

Three years ago, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. and Sony Music sued Internet provider Grande Communications.

The recording labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers.

Jury Finds Grande Guilty

The case eventually went to trial which, after more than two weeks, reached its conclusion a few hours ago. At the Texas federal court, the jury found Grande contributorily liable for willful infringement of 1,403 copyrighted works.

The guilty verdict comes with a hefty damages award. For willful copyright infringement, a jury can award between $750 and $150,000 per work and here it decided that $33,333 is appropriate. That brings the total damages amount to $46,766,200.

RIAA is Pleased

Music industry group RIAA, which offered a helping hand in the legal battle, is pleased with the outcome. It sees the verdict as yet another confirmation that Internet providers must tackle copyright infringements on their network; they can’t simply ignore third-party piracy notifications.

“This is the latest validation by US courts and juries that unchecked online infringement will not stand,” RIAA’s Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier says.

“The jury’s strong action here sends an important message to Internet Service Providers. Artists, songwriters, rightsholders, fans and legitimate services all depend upon a healthy digital music ecosystem that effectively protects creative works online.”

Opposing Arguments

At trial, Grande argued that it shouldn’t be held liable for alleged copyright infringements committed by its subscribers. The company portrayed itself as a neutral service provider that has never encouraged any type of piracy.

The ISP critiqued the record labels’ piracy monitoring service Rightscorp which, according to Grande, cannot accurately or reliably identify copyright infringements. In addition, Rightscorp allegedly destroyed or failed to preserve key evidence, the ISP said.

The record labels countered that Grande willingly profited from subscribers who downloaded and shared their music. The music companies explained that they sent over a million copyright infringement notices but Grande failed to terminate even a single subscriber account in response.

Appeal?

The $47 million damages award is substantially lower than the labels’ $1 billion verdict against Cox , where both the number of works and the damages per sound recording were higher. That case is still being appealed.

In a similar verdict in favor of music group BMG, Cox was ordered to pay $25 million in damages. That ruling was overturned, after which the parties reached a confidential settlement .

Whether Grande will appeal this jury verdict remains to be seen. TorrentFreak reached out to the company’s current owner Astound Broadband but, at the time of publication, we have yet to receive a response.

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

Popular stream-ripping site Yout.com has been targeted in lawsuits around the world. As a result, the service is now blocked in countries including Denmark, the UK and Spain.

In addition, government agencies targeted the site and its operator in Brazil and Peru , further adding to Yout’s legal troubles.

Despite all of this legal pressure, Yout.com operator Johnathan Nader is convinced that his service operates within the boundaries of the law. To make this clear, he sued the RIAA , asking a Connecticut district court to declare that the site does not violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision.

RIAA Win

The decision to sue the RIAA was a bold one but not without consequences. After a legal battle of nearly two years, the verdict meant disappointment for Yout. Judge Stefan Underhill ultimately concluded that the service had failed to show that it doesn’t circumvent YouTube’s technological protection measures.

The court not only ruled in favor of the RIAA, it also held that “repleading is futile.” This means that Yout is not allowed to amend its complaint to try again at the lower court.

The case is not completely closed, however, as Yout indicated that it would appeal the decision. And indeed, an official notice of appeal was filed at the 2nd Circuit court last week.

$250,000

The RIAA is not pleased to see the case continue so it reached out to Yout in the hope of resolving the matter. That didn’t lead to the desired result, so the music group is back in court this week, demanding $250,000 in attorneys fees.

According to an emboldened RIAA, Yout’s lawsuit was destined to fail from the start.

“Yout’s suit was meritless from the beginning,” RIAA writes, adding that “Yout’s conduct violates the express prohibition in YouTube’s Terms of Service and is textbook circumvention.”

“In the face of these obvious facts, Yout brought an unreasonable suit to achieve a legally unjustified result: publicity for its illegal service and prolonging its ability to offer its users a circumvention device to illegally rip downloads of record companies’ valuable copyrighted works.”

Courts can award attorney fees to the prevailing party under certain conditions. This includes an evaluation of the frivolousness and unreasonableness of the claims, the party’s motivation, and the potential need for deterrence.

Lawsuit as Promotion?

The RIAA argues that Yout filed the lawsuit in part to promote its stream-ripping service. It would also secure the revenue stream it generates, while the legal battle is ongoing.

The case was initially filed because Yout felt that the takedown notices sent by the RIAA to Google defamed the service. However, the RIAA clearly sees a different motive.

“Yout sought money from RIAA based on the false and implausible assertion that RIAA defamed and disparaged Yout when it told Google that Yout was illegal stream-ripping technology. Ironically, Yout then amplified that message by seeking out news coverage of this litigation,” the RIAA notes.

“In reality, it seems that Yout believed it could attract new users and attempt to obscure the blatantly illegal nature of its service by publicizing the lawsuit.”

Considering its magnitude, the case was indeed picked up by news outlets, including TorrentFreak. Yout’s operator then posted these headlines on social media to promote his service, the RIAA claims.

‘Emboldened Yout.com’

This line of reasoning is presumably used to argue that Yout’s lawsuit had an ulterior motive. A screenshot shared by the RIAA aims to drive home this point.

“Mr. Nader has frequently retweeted the articles, proclaiming that he had ‘made the news today’ and that Yout was ’emboldened’,” the RIAA adds.

_{– Sidenote: The article linked in the tweet is actually an overview of RIAA’s arguments against Yout. This isn’t particularly favorable for the service. Also, the “emboldened” part presumably doesn’t represent Nader’s views on the news; that’s a quote from the article pointing back to the youtube-dl issue. We obviously don’t know whether this tweet was meant to “promote” anything but with two likes and no retweets, it certainly didn’t go viral.}

The RIAA further argues that Yout filed the lawsuit in the hopes of having its search results re-listed by Google, which could lead to an increase in users as well.

Deterring Yout.com

All-in-all, the music group believes that it’s entitled to attorneys’ fees. Not just to compensate its costs, but also to deter Yout and other stream-rippers from offering their services to the public.

“Attorneys’ fees are necessary here to deter Yout and similar stream-ripping services from making baseless claims that they do not violate DMCA and to compensate RIAA for the cost of defending this suit.

“RIAA respectfully requests that the Court grant its motion and award it $250,000 in attorneys’ fees thus far, and additional fees incurred in bringing this motion,” the music group concludes.

—

A copy of RIAA’s motion for attorneys’ fees is available here (pdf)

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

Earlier this month, the RIAA shared its recommendations for the USTR’s annual review of overseas notorious markets.

The music group reported well-known targets such as The Pirate Bay, Newalbumreleases, MP3Juices, RARBG, and RapidGator, plus other piracy-related sites and services.

AI Piracy?

The RIAA also carved out a brand new category this year, labeled AI Based Extractors/Mixers . These ‘Artificial Intelligence’ powered sites can extract vocals or musical tracks from songs, or “master” a song based on the style of another.

These technologies don’t have to be problematic, as long as all permissions are in order. However, when the names of some of the world’s top artists are used for promotional purposes, the RIAA typically becomes concerned.

For example, Songmastr promised to “master” songs based on the styles of well-known musical artists, such as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Coltrane, Bob Dylan and James Brown, to mention just a few.

Similarly, acapella-extractor.com showcased links to several YouTube videos with vocals from top artists, whose labels are members of the RIAA. The featured vocals were extracted and published without permission.

Operator Responds

Most of the sites branded as notorious markets by the RIAA remain quiet but Songmastr, Acapella-extractor and Remove-Vocals, which are all operated by the same person, sent a rebuttal to the USTR which was published this week.

According to the person who manages these sites, the RIAA never reached out to share its concerns directly. In addition, they argue that the sites don’t deserve the ‘notorious’ brand for several reasons.

“[RIAA’s] arguments are a mix of factually wrong information, a misunderstanding of how these AI services work, and minor allegations regarding potential trademark infringement (corrected since) which are not piracy or counterfeiting,” the rebuttal reads ( pdf ) .

“The only argument on actual dissemination of copyrighted material on these websites concerns a total of 6 links to Youtube videos (since removed) which were used as examples to illustrate the services.”

Links and References Removed

In response to the RIAA’s concerns, Songmastr removed all mentions of popular artists. Users of the site are now directed to only mix tracks when they have the rights, aspiring producers testing their own tracks, for example.

While the names of popular artists have been removed from the site, the operator astutely mentions that this wasn’t a copyright issue, but a potential trademark violation that’s beyond the scope of the piracy category.

Similarly, the Acapella-extractor website removed six YouTube links where the site’s capabilities were showcased. Going forward, these types of examples will no longer be used on the site.

The Deezer Connection

The services run by the operator mainly rely on third-party open-source technology. This leads to an interesting connection, as Acapella-extractor and Remove-Vocals use the Spleeter algorithm published by Deezer.

Deezer is one of the largest legal streaming services in the world and a key partner of many RIAA labels. On GitHub, Deezer explicitly advertises Spleeter’s music separation features, including the separation of vocals.

Songmastr is also based on third-party open-source software. The service uses the Matchering library, which is also used by the artist-endorsed Moises app .

Dumb AI…

Thus far, there hasn’t been any mention of artificial intelligence. The RIAA wasn’t sure about this element either but said that if the sites are training their AI models using copyrighted music, it would be considered problematic.

In their rebuttal, the operator of the sites offered reassurance that there is no learning involved in these AI platforms.

“The open source ‘matchering’ algorithm is not a trained algorithm. It is a predetermined set of operations, which transform the user input, using general properties of a reference song,” they write, adding that Deezer’s Spleeter algorithm ships pre-trained.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, the operator notes that the term AI is more a marketing term than a technical description. This type of marketing was perceived as a threat by the RIAA but after addressing these concerns the sites hope to stay off the final notorious markets list.

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