TorrentFreak Email Update |
- MPAA Joins Google, Facebook, EFF In Repeat Infringer Copyright Battle
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Proxy War Against The Pirate Bay Heats Up
- MPAA / RIAA To Boost Cyberlocker and VPN Revenues
| MPAA Joins Google, Facebook, EFF In Repeat Infringer Copyright Battle Posted: 09 Apr 2012 04:04 AM PDT Flava Works, Inc v. Gunter is an ongoing case involving an adult studio plaintiff and a user-submitted video links/video embedding site. It has become so important that some of the world’s leading Internet companies such as Google and Facebook, rights groups such as the EFF and Public Knowledge, and the biggest entertainment companies through the MPAA, have all become involved in the case. First a little background. Marques Gunter owns a site called myVidster, a site designed for users to upload links and embed videos hosted on 3rd party sites. In 2010, adult studio Flava Works filed a copyright complaint against myVidster and 26 Doe users of its service. Flava Works alleged that Gunter had failed to correctly police his site for infringement. Although Flava did not deny that Gunter had responded to specific takedown requests, the company said that despite being made aware of them, Gunter had done nothing to stop a sample of 26 repeat infringers who continually reposted links to infringing material on the myVidster site. In July 2011, a contributory infringement claim was upheld and a preliminary injunction awarded against myVidster. The company was denied a DMCA safe harbor defense after it was said to have not done enough to deal with repeat infringement. “[Gunter] removes videos from myVidster that are listed in DMCA notices, but goes no further. Beyond his mechanical response to the notices, Gunter refuses to concern himself with copyright protection,” Judge John F. Grady wrote. “It is true that service providers are not required to police their sites for infringement, but they are required to investigate and respond to notices of infringement—with respect to content and repeat infringers," Grady added. Noting the importance of the case, late November 2011 the EFF and Public Knowledge filed an amicus brief. The pair said that Grady had gone too far with his interpretation of the DMCA and noted that the law “….does not say when and how service providers must terminate the accounts of ‘repeat infringers,’ nor does it define ‘repeat infringer’.'” Also in November, Internet giants Google and Facebook signaled their interest in the case and their desire to have the original decision overruled. Their submission is complex, but boils down to a common theme. “Lack of certainty not only harms established businesses like Google and Facebook, but may prevent investment in and development of the next Google or the next Facebook. A [recent study] found that imposing greater liability on Internet intermediaries for the actions of their users would have a devastating effect on investment in early-stage Internet companies,” the pair wrote in a joint amicus brief. With such important issues at stake, and with their interests leaning more towards holding service providers liable wherever they can, on April 4th the MPAA added their amicus brief to the mix. The MPAA wants Judge Grady’s 2011 ruling upheld. “Contrary to the assertions of myVidster and amici Google and Facebook, search engines and social networking sites are not the only businesses that desire certainty in a challenging online marketplace,” MPAA wrote. “MPAA member companies and other producers of creative works also need a predictable legal landscape in which to operate.” “By advertising infringing material, refusing to terminate any of its users' accounts, and failing to identify and stop infringers who repeatedly embedded links to unauthorized video streams and displays, myVidster did not qualify for safe-harbor protection,” the MPAA continued. Again, the brief submitted by the MPAA is highly complex, but it too can be boiled down to a simple interest. “Given the massive and often anonymous infringement on the internet, the ability of copyright holders to hold gateways like myVidster liable for secondary infringement is crucial in preventing piracy,” the MPAA states. In keeping with that theme and according to a statement from Flava Works CEO Phillip Bleicher seen by AVN, Flava Works are also suing the web hosts of myVidster. US-based Voxel.net and Netherlands-based LeaseWeb.com are said to be on the hook “…for failing to remove MyVidster.com from its servers despite dozens of DMCA notices alerting Voxel.net and LeaseWeb.com that Gunter was a repeat infringer. Under DMCA, safe harbor no longer applies to sites that fail to remove repeat infringers.” Flava Works, Inc v. Gunter, currently up before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is one of the most important copyright-related cases around and definitely one to keep an eye on. Source: MPAA Joins Google, Facebook, EFF In Repeat Infringer Copyright Battle
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| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 09 Apr 2012 02:04 AM PDT
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is the most downloaded movie for the fourth week in a row. The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
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| Proxy War Against The Pirate Bay Heats Up Posted: 08 Apr 2012 02:09 PM PDT
The local anti-piracy movement applauded the landmark verdict which opened the doors for further censorship attempts. However, this cheerful mood was short-lived. Countering the court decision The Pirate Bay team registered a new domain name that was not covered by the ruling. This domain, depiraatbaai.be, quickly became one of the most-visited websites in Belgium. And that was not the only effort to circumvent the blockade, several Pirate Bay users also started their own proxy sites. These sites are a thorn in the side of local anti-piracy group BAF, who this week took action against the newly launched thepiratebay.at. The group is demanding that the owner takes the site offline within five days or face legal action. By threatening the proxy site owner with legal action BAF follows in the footsteps of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. This Hollywood funded group has already managed to shut down several proxy sites in the Netherlands, where a similar court ruling compels two ISPs to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. According to BAF’s director it was BREIN who prompted them to take action. “This is the first time we have taken action against a proxy site”, BAF director Van Mechelen told Tweakers. “BREIN discovered the proxy and informed us after they found out that the site is owned by someone from Belgium.” Whether BAF’s threats will be very effective remains to be seen as thepiratebay.at is still up and running. And in the Netherlands BREIN is meeting some resistance as well. Earlier this week the Dutch Pirate Party informed BREIN that they are not going to shut down their proxy site. The Pirate Party is especially irked by the fact that the anti-piracy group is using an ex parte decision against another proxy site, to force others to close shop as well. "Unless someone calls them on their tactics, they will be allowed to continue those tactics indefinitely. Yielding does not make the problem go away. We would preferred to tackle this issue in parliament, where it belongs. However, if we have a chance to stop this ex-parte from being reused again and again, we ought to grab it,” Pirate Party chairman Dirk Poot told TorrentFreak. So instead of caving in the Pirate Party says it will meet BREIN in court. This case will define how far the proxy war against the Pirate Bay, and website censorship in general, can be stretched. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Or are VPN providers next? Source: Proxy War Against The Pirate Bay Heats Up
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| MPAA / RIAA To Boost Cyberlocker and VPN Revenues Posted: 08 Apr 2012 05:23 AM PDT Starting this summer copyright holders will systematically hunt down ‘pirates’ and ISPs will inform account holders that their connections are being abused. It sounds scary, but in reality it’s not much different from what copyright holders are already doing. The big change now is that there’s a formalized process under the name ‘copyright alerts‘. It basically boils down to a warning system that will notify people when their connection is suspected of being used for illegal file-sharing. After six warnings the ISP may then take a variety of repressive measures, which include disconnecting the offender’s connection temporarily. The question remains, however, whether the plan will be effective. While there will be significant numbers of individuals who will not even realize they are being monitored until they get their first warning, others will be more savvy from the start. Somewhere down the road the two groups are likely to converge and begin mulling some of the options available which remove the risk of receiving further warnings. These users have plenty of options to avoid the warnings. BitTorrent proxies and VPNs appear to be the preferred way for people to remain anonymous while downloading. As these services replace a user’s home IP-address with one provided by the proxy service, tracking companies won’t be able to identify who is doing the file-sharing meaning that no copyright alerts can be sent. A recent survey in France, where Internet users can actually lose their connection after three strikes, revealed that only 4% of the polled file-sharers said they stopped pirating. Instead, many users signed up with proxies and VPNs to avoid detection. TorrentFreak spoke to several owners of VPN services who all report a huge increase in clients in recent years, some of which can be directly linked to news about copyright enforcement efforts. It would therefore come as little surprise if their revenues grew even more after the “six-strikes” system is rolled out in the US. And there is another type of business that will benefit from the MPAA/ RIAA anti-piracy plan. Since the alerts system only targets P2P file-sharing, which is pretty much limited to BitTorrent in the US, it means that people who use direct download sites won’t be affected. Over the past several years one-click download sites, or cyberlockers as some call these services, have outgrown even the largest torrent sites by number of daily visitors. As with BitTorrent sites, sites like 4Shared, RapidShare and Hotfile are also used to share copyrighted material. But despite their ever-increasing user bases, sharing on these sites can’t be tracked by third parties. This means that their users wont receive any strikes, ever. This also means that if BitTorrent users make the switch to using cyberlocker sites to avoid receiving warnings, revenues for these companies will go up. Similar to one-click download sites, streaming portals are becoming more and more popular. Several streaming portals are indexing links to copyrighted movies and TV-shows and millions of people use these on a daily basis. Again, outsiders can’t legally spy on the users of these sites so they don’t have to be afraid of receiving a copyright alert. The above is just the tip of the iceberg, and there are a range of other options for ‘pirates’ to get their daily fix and bypass the six-strikes system. We’re not saying that the copyright alert system will have no effect whatsoever, in fact, it may be quite effective in deterring a small percentage of casual ‘pirates’. However, we expect that the overwhelming majority of copyright infringers will simply take measures to avoid being caught, while continuing their downloading habits. Source: MPAA / RIAA To Boost Cyberlocker and VPN Revenues
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This week there are four newcomers in our chart. 
Last October the Antwerp Court of Appeal | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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