When it comes to digital policy and efforts to regulate online behavior, no topic comes close to the scale of the global content moderation drive.

Tracking carried out by Digital Policy from 2020 currently shows 593 policy changes around the world, with the closely-linked platform intermediary / user-generated content category at 497. Policy changes related to user speech, on the other hand, fade into the distance with less than 50.

Italy’s Gambling Ad Ban

Friction between what citizens believe they have a right to say, do, or see online, and what their governments believe is appropriate, is rarely a product of negotiation between the parties. By focusing on perceived societal ills, at least in the first instance, regulators are able to step in and inform citizens what’s in everyone’s best interests moving forward.

Given that online platforms are regularly seen as best placed to control user behavior, in many cases they’re required to do just that, or face retribution from various authorities as they see fit.

In Italy, it was decided that strict legislation was required to protect 3% of the population considered problem gamblers. In 2019, advertising that promoted games with cash prizes was outlawed on TV, radio, in print, on social media, and all other internet platforms. This doesn’t amount to a total ban, though; lotteries appear to be acceptable and in other cases it depends on the circumstances .

For example, it appears that in some situations, gambling companies are allowed to show their names and domain names. That has enabled 1XBET to continue its sponsorship of top-tier football league Serie A.

When an investigation found over 40 Italian players, including many in Serie A, were involved in illegal betting, that probably wasn’t the result Serie A, 1XBET, or AGCOM had in mind. In the meantime, with much less room for maneuver, tech companies haven’t been doing well at all.

Fines For Tech Company Violators

In the years since the introduction of the near-total ban, YouTube, Twitch, Google, and more recently X, have been found in breach of the rules and together fined millions of euros.

AGCOM’s first sanction against Google in October 2020, related to a breach of the regulations through Google Ads. Monitoring carried out by AGCOM over a 48-hour period in November 2019 noted the appearance of an ad for a casino, stating: ‘Join Now The Brand New Italian Online Casino. Play Over 400 Games Now – Sign Up Now & Register In Less Than 30 Seconds! No downloads. Safe and Secure.’

Since this was a paid advertisement, which only appeared because the monitoring involved typing ‘online casino’ into Google search, AGCOM obtained an injunction against Google and fined the company 100,000 euros, 50,000 for each day monitored. Not unexpectedly, Google filed an appeal.

The regional court of Lazio (TAR) subsequently ruled in Google’s favor, noting jurisprudence concerning the concept of ‘active’ and ‘passive’ online services. Italy’s transposition of the e-commerce directive into national law generally offers more protection to the latter, and since the advertiser placed the ad on an unsupervised ‘self-serve’ basis, that led the TAR to conclude that Google had committed no violations.

AGCOM Appeals the Decision

AGCOM subsequently appealed to the Council of State and earlier this month, its decision was handed down.

In respect of any defense Google may have relied upon under the e-commerce directive or its local equivalent, attention was drawn to the text shown below, which relates to an exclusion that the court determined as encompassing advertising.

Posting on LinkedIn, AGCOM chief Massimiliano Capitanio says the court noted that a defense under the e-commerce directive or local equivalent wouldn’t have applied anyway. Because, in a nutshell, Google’s advertising service can’t be considered passive.

Controlled, Active Involvement

“[T]his advertising service does not see Google as a mere passive hosting provider, since the company carries out, through entrepreneurial management, a service of indexing and promotion of third-party content and therefore does not remain ‘neutral’ with respect to said contents but promoting them on the market and having in this regard its own economic interest in the success of such promotion,” the Council of State’s decision reads.

“Google, in the aforementioned sense, therefore carries out a ‘control’ of the information published and allows its customers to ‘optimize their online sales’. In light of this, it is therefore found that the conditions required by EU and national jurisprudence are integrated in order to qualify an operator as an active hosting provider.”

“Same Line Should Be Adopted to Eradicate Piracy”

For AGCOM, which also has an anti-piracy mandate, the opportunity to tighten its grip on Google’s activities in other areas didn’t take long to come to the surface. For Capitanio, it’s all about the dividing line between passive and active; now he knows exactly where that is, the question of liability comes straight to the front of the queue.

“Control over content is achieved through a series of activities – such as filtering, organisation, cataloging, etc. defined by community and national jurisprudence as ‘interference indices’, which make hosting move from the qualification of ‘passive’ to that of ‘active hosting’ and, therefore, responsibilty for the contents conveyed,” he writes.

“This is a historic ruling which marks another point in favor of the fight against illegal content online and which confirms once again that the large online players have the duty not only not to profit from such content, but also to prevent its distribution.

“The same line should be adopted to eradicate piracy,” he concludes.

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

Over the past several years, game companies have pursued legal action against both cheaters and cheat makers.

Rightsholders have mostly emerged from these lawsuits as victors, but until now, none have gone all the way to a full trial.

The legal dispute between American video game developer Bungie and AimJunkies.com has been fiercely fought, and the long-awaited jury trial is now underway.

Three years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing AimJunkies of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things. The same allegations were made against Phoenix Digital Group, the alleged sellers of the Destiny 2 cheating software.

The case initially seemed set for a quick settlement, but the parties failed to reach an agreement. Instead, Bungie pressed on while AimJunkies went on the defensive, asking the court to dismiss several claims.

AimJunkies stated that cheating isn’t against the law and refuted the copyright infringement allegations; these lacked substance and were ungrounded because some of the referenced copyrights were registered well after the cheats were first made available, AimJunkies argued.

Dismissal, Hacking and Arbitration

In 2022, District Court Judge Thomas Zilly largely sided with AimJunkies . The original complaint failed to provide sufficient evidence for a plausible claim that the ‘Destiny 2 Hacks’ infringed copyright.

This was bad news for Bungie but the court did offer the company the option to file a new complaint to address these shortcomings, which it did shortly after .

Meanwhile, AimJunkies wasn’t sitting idly by. The cheat seller filed a countersuit , accusing Bungie of hacking when it allegedly accessed a defendant’s computer without permission. This hacking counterclaim was eventually dismissed for AimJunkies, but not for developer James May.

Bungie scored its first major win last year in an arbitration proceeding. Judge Ronald Cox concluded that the cheaters violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision and related trafficking restrictions, awarding $3.6 million in damages to the game company. This arbitration award is still under appeal.

At the same time, Bungie continued its copyright and trademark claims. The game company submitted motions for summary judgment to resolve the copyright infringement dispute before trial. However, the court denied these motions, as there is no hard evidence that any game code was copied. Instead, a jury would have to decide.

Jury Trial

After several years, the dispute is about to reach its climax in a district court in Seattle, where a jury trial started this week. This is the first time that a case like this has gone before a jury, making it a landmark event.

While both sides have yet to complete their pleadings, shots were already fired during the first days, as Law360 reports.

In court, AimJunkies’ attorney Philip P. Mann, of Mann Law Group argued that the developers, who allegedly created the cheats, never had access to Destiny 2’s source code. Instead, the cheat accessed object code , which is the ‘compiled’ output of the source code.

While this distinction may be quite abstract for the layman, the defense believe it’s crucial for the copyright infringement allegations.

AimJunkies’ attorney questioned Edward Kaiser, lead engineer of Bungie’s project security team, on the matter, insinuating that the copyright infringement allegations can’t stand if there’s no evidence that the copyrighted code was accessed.

“Would you agree with me that you can’t copy something that you don’t see or that you don’t have access to?” AimJunkies counsel asked.

Kaiser responded by characterizing this as an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison. According to Bungie’s witness, the cheat makers might not have accessed the source code, but they “definitely” had access to the object code, which was key in creating the cheat.

Developer Denies Accusations

The jury also heard from third party developer James May, who isn’t part of AimJunkies’ main team. The developer allegedly had a key role in creating the Destiny 2 cheat, but refuted this in court.

May told the jury that, contrary to Bungie’s claims, he did not code the cheat software. May admitted that he tried to reverse engineer the Destiny 2 code, but added that he “didn’t get anywhere.”

The developer also has an active counterclaim against Bungie, which he accuses of hacking into his computer, violating his privacy. This counterclaim survived the earlier motion to dismiss and remains open for the jury.

Bungie, meanwhile, presented a spreadsheet with logging data that purport to show May’s “relentless” efforts to reverse engineer the code. He allegedly used more than 80 different accounts to do so, often using the ‘swifty’ alias.

“Mr. May distinguished himself as someone who kept coming back, time after time,” Kaiser added, during his testimony.

According to Bungie’s engineer, the game company first noticed the cheat in October 2019, when its internal monitoring systems were triggered. This suggested that players attached reverse engineering tools to explore the game’s memory space, which is often indicative of cheating.

While it’s clear that AimJunkies sold Destiny 2 cheats at some point, it’s undecided whether the company, its directors, or accomplices, broke any laws doing so. That’s up for the jury to decide.

These are just a few of the arguments brought up at trial. Hearings are ongoing and both sides still have several hours of pleading time left. The trial is expected to wrap up this week, after which the verdict will follow.

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

In many countries around the world there are long-established, well-worn legal processes that allow rightsholders to obtain the personal details of suspected pirates.

Requirements vary from region to region but when certain conditions are met, few courts deny genuine copyright holders the ability to enforce their rights under relevant law. One of the most fundamental requirements is that the entity making the claim has the necessary rights to do so, yet over the years there has been no shortage of attempts to the contrary, sometimes with disastrous results.

Law Firm Seeks Rightsholder-Like Rights

In an application submitted to Finland’s Market Court on March 15, 2024, the law firm Hedman Partners Oy sought a court order to compel an unnamed internet service provider to provide the personal details of an unspecified number of subscribers.

According to Hedman’s application, all are suspected of sharing copyrighted movies via BitTorrent, without first obtaining permission from two Danish rightsholders; Mis. Label ApS and Scanbox Entertainment A/S.

Hedman Partners are well known for their work in the piracy settlement business in Scandinavia. The company fully understands the standards required before courts will issue a disclosure order. However, for reasons that aren’t made clear, the law firm would prefer to deal with these cases from a position of greater authority. This application appears to have served as the testing ground to determine whether that’s possible under Finland’s Copyright Act.

Market Court’s Decision

“The applicant is a Finnish law firm whose mandate is to manage and represent the copyrights of its clients’ film works in matters involving the distribution of these film works in a peer-to-peer network. The applicant uses the authority to speak for the right holders of the film works that are the subject of the application,” the court’s decision begins.

“The applicant’s position as a representative of rights holders is established and is based on a long business relationship, in which the applicant has acted as the exclusive representative of rights holders in Finland in matters concerning violations of these rights in the peer-to-peer network. The rights holders have also confirmed in writing their intention to continue this business relationship for the time being.”

The written statements from the rightsholders are substantially identical; their names are the only detail to set them apart.

[[Mis. Label ApS] / [Scanbox Entertainment A/S]] declares that Hedman Partners Attorneys Ltd shall exclusively, for the foreseeable future, supervise illegal online distribution of the works, particularly those taking place in peer-to-peer networks. [Hedman] will take actions to identify the owners of the internet connections used in the infringements, to the extent they are related to infringements from Finnish internet connections.

Hedman’s approach to the court centers on terminology found in Finland’s Copyright Act which, under certain conditions, allows a party other than the main rightsholder to file an application for a disclosure order.

Copyright Act, Section 60a ( pdf )

The Market Court notes that it has consistently interpreted the term ‘representative’ in Section 60a to mean a separate power of attorney, adding that the applicant must have legal authority to file applications such as that filed by Hedman.

According to its decision, Hedman has no legal authority under Section 60a.

Market Court’s Reasoning

The court says that Hedman has not stated that the films’ production companies, Mis. Label, or Scanbox have granted the law firm certain exclusive rights, such as the exclusive right to make the works available to the public via BitTorrent.

It must therefore determine whether the law firm still has ‘legal authority’ to obtain alleged infringers’ identities “as a representative of the authors of the works” as defined under Section 60a.

Citing preliminary decisions of the Supreme Court in KKO 2004:18 and KKO 2018:8 , the Market Court notes that there is no general rule on ‘legal authority’ in the judicial process.

As a result, legal authority in disputes “belongs to the parties to the contested legal relationship, and as a general rule, the parties cannot, by their ordering actions, create a position for a third person in which the third person exercises justice in his own name over the rights of the party in question.”

The Market Court continues by citing the Supreme Court’s preliminary decision in KKO 2022:39 , as shown below.

KKO 2022:39, paragraph 13

“Taking the above into account, the Market Court considers that the reference to the author’s representative in Section 60a of the Copyright Act is not intended to provide an exception to the so-called process mandate prohibition applicable to the present matter,” the Market Court concludes.

Benefits Unclear, But Unlikely to Have Benefited Internet Users

Critics believe that piracy settlement operations that become inseparable from their third-party legal teams are more likely to aggressively push for larger cash settlements, especially as part of a revenue sharing arrangement. In this matter, attempting to transform a law firm into an entity with rightsholder-like powers, may even be unprecedented.

The benefits aren’t immediately obvious, but whatever they might’ve been, they wouldn’t have helped those targeted by the disclosure order, that much is certain.

The decision, issued by Market Court Judges Ville Parkkari, Tobias von Schantz, and Liisa Kauramäki, may be appealed to the Supreme Court before June 18, 2024. The disclosure application itself was not examined.

The Market Court’s decision is available here ( MAO:236/2024 )

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

Back in 2004, when LimeWire was the file-sharing client of choice for millions of users, FrostWire appeared as the new kid on the block.

The application began life as a LimeWire fork but underwent several changes over the years. In 2016, it added support for torrents and, five years later, it completely dropped its Gnutella base in favor of BitTorrent.

Today, FrostWire is a well-established torrent client that’s available across the most popular platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android. While it’s not the most used torrent client, it has built an impressive userbase of 10 million installs and nearly a quarter million reviews in the Google Play Store alone.

The application is content-neutral and nothing is stored in the client. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s immune to complaints from rightsholders. These are relatively rare but when they arrive they can do a lot of damage, as was illustrated recently.

Play Store Takes Down FrostWire

At the end of November last year, Google informed the FrostWire team that its app had been suspended from Google Play due to alleged copyright infringement. While the software doesn’t host or feature infringing content, the Indian Music Industry ( IMI ) reached a different conclusion.

IMI represents the interests of local music companies and record labels, including familiar names such as Universal Music India, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music India. According to the takedown notice, FrostWire infringed the rights of the song “Genda Phool,” released by Indian rapper Badshah.

The YouTube clip of the track went viral around the globe, which was good news for the artists and the label, Sony Music India. This naturally meant that some people were trying to pirate it, which triggered IMI to send takedown notices.

IMI’s actions make sense as far as they apply to sites that host or link to pirated copies of the track. However, FrostWire sees itself as a content-neutral app, more akin to a web browser.

Counternotice

After Google suspended the app on November 27, FrostWire developer Angel Leon swiftly sent a reinstatement request along the following lines;

“It’s important to clarify that our app functions as a BitTorrent client, providing a platform for users to share and download legal content.

We unequivocally condemn copyright infringement. Our platform is designed to respect and uphold the rights of content creators while promoting open and legal digital sharing. We believe that the recent copyright claim against our application stems from a misunderstanding of its purpose and functionality.”

If developers file a counternotice, rightsholders have 10 days to respond with a formal legal complaint. In the event non arrive, the app should in theory be restored. According to FrostWire’s developer, that didn’t happen here.

“Then we didn’t hear back from anyone until December 28th, when the app changed status from ‘Suspended’ to ‘Removed’, and we had to follow a process of reinstatement that was absolutely retarded,” Leon says.

Google flagged several issues that weren’t linked to copyright infringement but required multiple code updates. This included changes to old installers that no longer affected newer versions.

Reinstated After More than a Month

After submitting multiple new updates, Google eventually gave the green light to add the app back into the Play Store .

The question remains whether IMI’s takedown notice was indeed a misunderstanding, or if the music group has a real problem with the software. We approached the group for a comment and further context but have yet to hear back.

For now, FrostWire is happy to move on and has just released an update which celebrates its rise from the ashes.

“This update is particularly special as it comes just after FrostWire’s reinstatement on the Google Play Store. It’s not just an update; it’s a celebration of persistence, innovation, and community spirit.”

Troubled Past, Uncertain Future

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that FrostWire has been booted from the Play Store. A similar incident happened several years ago. At the time, Google initially refused to reinstate the app, which was a major setback.

Most of FrostWire’s users are on Android and in a dramatic move, the torrent client decided to call it quits . The decision was eventually reversed after Google changed course and reinstated the app.

This time, FrostWire didn’t make any drastic decisions, but the removal still had a significant impact on its operation.

While all is good for now, there’s no certainty that the app will remain safe. Another rightsholder could come along and ask for it to be removed, which will start the same process all over again.

Ideally, FrostWire would like to see repercussions for inaccurate takedowns, as every time this happens, the app loses some users.

“Both times this happened, we lost a lot of our active userbase, lost subscribers, and revenue, and as you can imagine it can happen again. All it takes is an accusation from anybody and they don’t have any repercussions for doing so,” Leon tells us.

While this is a grim outlook, FrostWire seems to have a fighting spirit these days. In a recent blog post, it likens itself to an “Ice Phoenix”.

“As we celebrate this rebirth, imagine an ‘Ice Phoenix’ rising majestically from a frosty terrain. This mythical creature, with its crystalline feathers and a shimmering aura, soars upwards amidst swirling snowflakes.

“This Ice Phoenix is not just a fantasy; it embodies the spirit of FrostWire – ever resilient, ever evolving.”

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

TV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ tells the story of the Post Office ‘Horizon’ scandal and the lives torn apart by 700 “successful” private prosecutions of entirely innocent self-employed subpostmasters.

After the miniseries was seen by millions earlier this month, private prosecutions – which allow alleged victims of crime to prosecute their own criminal cases – are now a topic of national debate. As a result, the government is under pressure to act against what some believe is an emerging two-tier justice system.

Where the state lacks prosecution resources, capability, or both, and in fraud cases in particular, those with significant financial resources can obtain justice privately. Regular citizens, on the other hand, can not.

Private prosecutions are known for their high conviction rates; cases brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the Premier League, and those involving Sky, are certainly no exception. While still controversial, Post Office-style scandals are largely avoided due to the nature of the cases; that doesn’t mean they always go to plan, however.

Serial ‘Entrepreneur’ Tests Out Piracy Market

A MEN report claims that 42-year-old Jordan Longbottom ran a ‘successful’ business selling pirate TV devices from his static caravan in Wales. By the time the case got to court, exactly how successful his venture had been was met with a significant difference of opinion.

A private prosecution brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft alleged that Longbottom’s operation ran from August 2015 to May 2017. Using Facebook to attract customers, it was claimed he sold pirate TV boxes to “thousands” of customers at prices ranging from £100 to £175 each. At Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court, the prosecution claimed that Longbottom’s venture brought in up to £1 million; he disputed that with his own estimate of roughly £300,000.

Caravan Static, Longbottom On the Move

Officers from Greater Manchester Police raided Longbottom’s caravan in January 2017, but the entrepreneur wasn’t home, or even in the UK. The Brit was on holiday in Florida and didn’t return to the UK for another three months. When his plane touched down in March 2017, police welcomed him back onto British soil by placing him under arrest.

Successful private prosecutions in piracy cases are often reported in the tabloid media partly as a deterrent. Whether he read the stories, read them but didn’t believe them, or was simply indifferent, Longbottom’s March 2017 arrest had no effect on his pirate TV sales. With assistance from others that allowed him to take more of a back seat, sales continued until at least May 2017.

Guilty Plea, Plea For Leniency

Whether Longbottom’s business scheme generated £1 million or £300,000 or not; private prosecutions brought by FACT, including those involving in the Premier League, have seen people go to prison for much less than that. According to the defense, Longbottom was ‘terrified’ at the prospect of prison, but all things considered, this wasn’t actually the most serious of cases in the current climate, his lawyer argued.

Just as police funding cutbacks and a failure to invest in fraud-specific training has led to a rapid rise in fraud and a rise in private prosecutions , failure to invest means Britain’s prisons are full. As a result, prisoners are being released early and courts are being advised to only hand down immediate custodial sentences in the “most serious of cases.”

The judge’s comments suggest that he believed the conditions had still been met for a custodial sentence, but another factor tipped fortune in Longbottom’s favor. Having been arrested in 2017, it would be another five years before Longbottom was eventually summoned in June 2022.

The explanation for the “significant delay” was partly down to the “small legal team” behind the FACT prosecution having other casework, the court heard. The judge concluded that Longbottom would likely have been sentenced to prison if the case had been brought in a “more timely fashion” but that wasn’t the case here.

After pleading guilty to two offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, and one offense under the Fraud Act, Longbottom was sentenced to 22 months in prison, suspended for 24 months, a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) of 15 days under the Offender Rehabilitation Act, and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Reality Check

For a reality check, the Daily Mail’s latest scare story , part of a campaign that’s produced a series of stories since early December, claims that those who simply use illegal streaming platforms “could even face time behind bars.”

Citing Section 11 of the Fraud Act 2006 which covers ‘obtaining services dishonestly’, a conviction could mean 12 months in prison, the article warns, adding that if the offense “is a serious one”, those involved “could face a maximum sentence of five years.”

Scare Story? Yes. But Consider the Big Picture

Surprisingly, the Daily Mail is correct; that’s exactly what the law says, and it could happen, at least in theory. In practice, there’s some terminology to review first.

A ‘serious’ offense isn’t enough to warrant prison under the current advice, since only “the most serious” of cases qualify. Interestingly the judge had already noted that whether Longbottom had generated £1 million or £300K, the amount wouldn’t have made any difference to the sentence handed down.

It would be extremely foolish to replicate in a real-life scenario, but the standard set here is surprising. Apparently, it’s possible to sell thousands of pirate boxes and generate up to a million, get arrested but carry on for another three months regardless, hope for a delay on the prosecution side, and then just stay out of trouble for a while.

That being said, staying on the straight and narrow can be a challenge for some people.

New Beginning, New Piracy

In March 2017, the same month Longbottom was arrested, the self-professed entrepreneur launched a brand-new company. Companies House records reveal that Sat Tech UK (NW) Ltd was born on March 14, 2017, but just three months later was renamed to Smarterbuyz Ltd. After no accounts were ever filed for the company, it was dissolved via compulsory strike-off in April 2019 but not without controversy.

Longbottom’s new venture saw him enter the retro-gaming market, selling video game consoles pre-loaded with up to 50,000 ROMs containing games from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, among others, under the brand Pi Retro Gaming . According to Trust Pilot reviews , it’s reasonable to conclude that some expectations were not met.

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

At the height of the online file-sharing boom, the phrase ‘Sharing is Caring’ was a reminder that peer-to-peer file-sharing systems lived or died on the availability of upload bandwidth. Its presentation allowed it to be about much more than that.

The ‘give to get’ philosophy forms part of the BitTorrent protocol even today, but Sharing is Caring was a phrase that could influence human behavior, to the benefit of the wider file-sharing movement, with no suggestion of pressure.

Sharing is Caring implied that by freely sharing whatever content file-sharers had at their disposal, downloaders would know that otherwise anonymous uploaders actually cared about them . If everyone felt that way, everyone could show that they cared too . It was simply a case of sharing the content other people had shared with them , with others in need of the same content ; karma and piracy in perfect harmony.

Counterargument: Sharing Isn’t Caring

While that may have been an unlikely piece of utopia for as long as it lasted, rightsholders viewed sharing rather differently. Well known for his work at the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau, Antipiratbyrån, Henrik Pontén – who sadly passed away in 2020 – often signed off emails to TorrentFreak with, “Remember, Sharing is Caring.”

In the context of what was said in the body of those emails, the real message was clear: people should care about creators too.

In much the same way that Antipiratbyrån had its name reappropriated by rival group Piratbyrån (The Pirate Bureau), the phrase ‘Sharing is Caring’ would later be repurposed by Danish anti-piracy group RettighedsAlliancen (Rights Alliance).

Share With Care

Around 2012, agreements between rightsholders and YouTube, which allowed the former to more easily remove infringing content from the latter, prompted discussions in Denmark on how similar arrangements with other service providers could help to fight piracy.

Facilitated by Denmark’s Ministry of Culture, a series of meetings attended by Rights Alliance, various rightsholders, ISPs, Google, Microsoft, and payment providers, concluded with the signing of a Code of Conduct.

Signatories committed to making the internet a safer, better place, based on respect for copyright and the promotion of legal products. In September 2014, members of the Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark (TI) signed a Code of Conduct that ensured pirate site blocking applications, filed by Rights Alliance against a single ISP, would be implemented voluntarily by all ISP members of TI.

To this background and following development work by the Rights Alliance, the Danish Ministry of Culture, the Danish Consumer Council, and ISPs, a new anti-piracy education campaign was born. To find out what Share With Care had to offer, members of the public simply needed to visit a blocked pirate domain and let their ISP handle the rest.

The image above is a translated version of the anti-piracy splash screen that still greets customers of Danish ISP DKTV a decade later.

In general terms, little seems to have changed over the years. It’s still possible to search for movies and TV shows on a platform called FilmFinder which informs visitors where content can be watched or purchased legally. The same applies to eBooks and Denmark-focused new outlets but for less obvious reasons, items of genuine furniture .

A Decade of Share With Care

In a statement this week, Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund said that much has changed since the launch of Share With Care a decade ago.

“The 10 years with Share With Care show how far we have come today in the vision of a regulated internet, where we can block illegal content and guide users along the way,” Fredenslund said.

“With the collaboration around blocking and behavioral regulation measures such as FilmFinder, we in Denmark have shown the way to protect content through measures that regulate both content and consumption. With the permanent extension of Share With Care, we look forward to taking the effect of the collaboration to new heights in the coming years.”

A Decade of Blocking Statistics

Rights Alliance also released a small amount of data related to the pirate site blocking measures carried out by the country’s ISPs over the last decade.

“Over the years, the Share With Care collaboration has resulted in 2,217 blocked websites,” Rights Alliance notes.

As far as we can determine, blocked websites seems more likely to mean blocked domains in this instance.

The blue section above represents websites subject to court-ordered blocking measures, around 250 according to the chart. The much larger green section represents mirror sites, proxies and other platforms that appeared after court-ordered blocking of a specific domain, to circumvent blocking measures.

Since these domains are blocked by ISPs voluntarily, we can conclude that the vast majority of domains blocked in Denmark for copyright reasons, are handled on an administrative, company-to-company basis.

Current State of Blocking

No other blocking data was made available this week but TorrentFreak was able to review the latest blocking list issued to ISPs. At the time of writing it contains 892 domains, the majority of which do indeed appear related to circumvention efforts.

For example, the list contains four basic domains for YTS, probably the most visited torrent site in the world right now. The site’s main domain, yts.mx, is obviously a target and the same goes for the other three. Four other domains, including yts.movie and yts.pm, appear to be non-functional, while another 30 refer to sub-domains on unblocking portals such as Unblocklit, Proxybit, and Unblockproject.

Other sites for which circumvention domains also dominate include The Pirate Bay, TorrentDownloads, Torlock, and well, the list goes on. Two unexpected domains on the list include konsumenttestargruppen.com, which according to reports was used for scams , and a very long URL that allows users to access The Pirate Bay’s onion domain, without having to install Tor.

While Rights Alliance is certainly in favor of site blocking, some believe that meddling with DNS is a step too far. Others believe that nobody should have the right to dictate which sites are available, and which ones are not.

Whether intentional, accidental, or simply a quirk of translating Danish to English, isn’t entirely clear. Whatever the reason, local ISP DTKV operates its blocking page on a sub-domain of its main site (dktv.dk) using the Danish word ‘censur’ or ‘censorship’ in English.

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

For those not fully engaged in the global manga/webtoon phenomenon, the scale and depth can be a little bewildering.

Fans are knowledgeable, passionate, and growing in numbers, with many older enthusiasts having been introduced to the content via pirate sites, at a time when content was impossible to buy legally.

Availability is much improved today but old habits die hard; pirate sites haven’t gone away either, a major challenge for content owners everywhere, in every content category.

One of the companies attempting to reduce piracy of its ‘webtoon’ content is South Korea-based Kakao Entertainment. Unlike other large copyright holders that have coupled strong anti-piracy responses with generally moderate public profiles, Kakao prefers a different approach. The company’s anti-piracy team constantly engages with the public on social media, often with controversial results.

Of course, Kakao is entitled to these freedoms. The company owns the content it seeks to protect and since almost all anti-piracy strategies fail to a greater or lesser extent, trying something different could inject new life and lead to fresh ideas.

That being said, the history books show that some scenarios should be approached with caution; when certain ingredients are combined, there’s a heightened risk of unpredictable results.

Open Source Manga Reader ‘Tachiyomi’ Receives Legal Threats

For the last ten days or so, open source software ‘Tachiyomi’ has found itself under the spotlight following an approach by Kakao’s anti-piracy team. But first, what does the software do? A manga aficionado familiar with the software informed TorrentFreak as follows:

“Tachiyomi is probably the ultimate Android-based manga/webtoon reader with plenty of features and extensibility. The development team behind it has been hard at work for close to 9 years since 2015, and has tirelessly iterated upon it, to create possibly the best kind of reader there is today.”

Tachiyomi is free to use, with the added bonus of being completely open source. In common with similar tools, such as web browsers or torrent clients, Tachiyomi contains no third-party content and makes no attempt to lock users into specific sources.

However, through various extensions, users are free to choose their own, including unofficial sources from where it’s possible to download content, including pirated content, without ever paying a penny.

We’re informed that on January 2, 2024, project contributors received communication from Kakao’s representatives who made several demands in respect of this functionality.

A source familiar with events informs TorrentFreak that the main developer of Tachiyomi was instructed to terminate the nine-year-old project by deleting all versions of the app, including those on GitHub.

He was further ordered to delete any comics uploaded to the app, despite the app carrying no third-party content, period. A further demand sought the immediate removal of all Tachiyomi forks on GitHub.

Tachiyomi Begins Removing Extensions

We understand that later on January 2, Tachiyomi’s main developer advised Kakao that the best way to take actual content down would be to file DMCA notices at problematic sites, over which the project has no control. He also offered to help, advising the company that he was willing to remove individual sources from Tachiyomi’s separate extension repo if those were considered an issue.

Three days later, Kakao reportedly presented a spreadsheet that listed allegedly infringing content available from five third-party sites. For one of those sites, Tachiyomi had no extension; for the remaining four, the Tachiyomi team would soon take appropriate action.

New versions of Tachiyomi were released between January 6 and January 8 without a list of extensions being preloaded. Moving forward, those who download Tachiyomi will find that extensions are no longer part of the ‘out-of-the-box’ experience.

January 9: Official Announcement

An announcement on tachiyomi.org dated January 9 spoke of “extenuating circumstances” and a decision to purge extensions to “ensure the long-term sustainability of Tachiyomi.”

“As of now, Tachiyomi is transitioning to a fully bring-your-own-content model. What this means is that you can still enjoy Tachiyomi for manga reading, but you’ll need to source and add your own content,” the statement added.

24 Hours Earlier

As detailed above, the Tachiyomi team responded to Kakao’s complaints quickly and went on to take significant action. Arguably the new versions of the app could’ve been pushed even sooner absent a 48-hour delay to determine certain details.

However, what appeared to be an amicable solution triggered an unexpected Twitter post by Kakao’s anti-piracy team. It implied that installing Tachiyomi carries a risk of viruses.

The post has now received 59K views and to quickly summarize the first few dozen responses, people didn’t especially appreciate a long-established open source app being described as a virus risk. One of the more polite responses can be seen below.

For reasons that can vary from person to person and sometimes between communities, people often feel protective of open source projects. In some respects, their open nature seems to provide a small oasis of trust and when that’s surrounded by free, open source software, any perceived threat risks an unpredictable response.

It appears two can play that game.

January 10: Kakao Threatens Tachiyomi Forks

Having obtained compliance from the Tachiyomi team without a struggle, and then declaring the software a virus risk regardless, on Wednesday Kakao’s anti-piracy team took to Twitter once again, this time to threaten people who forked the Tachiyomi repo.

With over 154K views, this post reached a considerably larger audience and prompted almost 500 comments. If any weren’t critical, we apologize for missing them; they aren’t particularly easy to find. The same can’t be said about the Community Notes panel featuring user responses to the claims in the original post.

Kakao is a huge company overall so it’s possible that communications policies vary from unit to unit. Anti-piracy issues may even be completely exempt or considered fair game, but it would be interesting to see how the negative results so far dovetail with a report published earlier this month.

According to The Korea Times , reform measures are being prepared to “reverse the negative public sentiment” toward the company in general, not necessarily Kakao Entertainment in its own right, but nothing exists in a vacuum.

At Least Things Didn’t Get Any Worse….Did They?

When any type of site, service, or application is subjected to legal threats, the possibility of unintended consequences or mere fallout is something worth keeping an eye on. From basic DMCA notices through informal discussions to full-blown demands, the overall aim is usually evident from the nature of the requests.

In this case, it appears that a complete end to Tachiyomi or an effective end due to limited functionality, would both amount to the same thing; a massive loss of interest in the software and ultimately, game over. However, while Tachiyomi no longer supports any third-party extensions, it does support third-party repositories, suggesting that extension development and functionality is now the responsibility of others.

Meanwhile, Tachiyomi’s popularity appears to be trending up, not down as intended.

‘GitHub Trending’ is a daily report that features repos trending in popularity on a particular day. Via RSS feeds, trending repos arrive here on a daily basis; this week the Tachiyomi repo has featured in the list, along with at least two others, one of which may have even appeared twice, at least from memory.

Trending Up….

But at least things didn’t get any worse from here, surely? Well….

There are many mechanisms to measure an app’s popularity on GitHub, with some more accessible than others by default. Since receiving a gold star on GitHub is universally considered a positive for most projects, another project on GitHub offers a great way to quickly visualize current and historical star data for a given project.

The image below shows that between December 14 and December 29, Tachiyomi received an average of 15.87 stars each day. In the two weeks that followed, during which Tachiyomi found itself under threat, the daily average more than doubled to 43.92 stars each day.

Despite the efforts to shut the project down and the imposition of decreased out-of-the-box functionality, it appears that support for the software actually increased. While somewhat counterintuitive, targeting open source software always risks unpredictable result.

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Update January 13 : There’s a new statement on tachiyomi.org suggesting that the software will no longer be actively developed.

“Tachiyomi will no longer be actively developed. It may continue to work for you for the foreseeable future but there will be no support for it nor the official extensions,” it reads .

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

The Pirate Bay and search engines are not a happy marriage recently. On the contrary.

For example, we previously reported on Google’s decision to remove thepiratebay.org from its search results in countries where ISPs are required to block the site.

Searching for The Pirate Bay

This type of deindexing is not unique to Google. As highlighted in the past, Bing has effectively wiped all Pirate Bay URLs from its index until only the main homepage was left. That move sunsequently forced DuckDuckGo and other Microsoft-powered search engines to do the same.

Today, there are still some more exotic search engines that are capable of finding Pirate Bay links easily, including non-infringing ones. However, Russia’s Yandex can be scrapped from that list.

Founded in 1997, Yandex is one of the oldest search engines on the web. The service is used around the world but is particularly popular in Russia where it has a majority market share.

It’s known that Russia requires search engines, including foreign ones, to remove results linked to pirate sites . This also applies to Yandex, but these measures don’t typically expand globally.

Today, it’s not hard to find most popular pirate sites on Yandex internationally. This applies to YTS, Fmoviesz, Aniwave, and even the Russian torrent site Rutor. For some reason, however, The Pirate Bay’s official domain appears to have vanished.

The Pirate Bay Vanished

A basic search for “The Pirate Bay” brings up plenty of results but these link to proxies, the Wikipedia page, and other related entries. In the locations we searched from, however, thepiratebay.org is nowhere to be found.

Finding the official domain isn’t rocket science as it’s mentioned on the Wikipedia page that’s linked in the information panel on the right. However, a ‘site: search’, that typically lists all pages from a specified domain name, returns no results at all in our tests.

Interestingly, the same site-specific command does return plenty of links for other pirate sites, so The Pirate Bay appears to be in a league of its own.

Update: After finishing this article the site: search started to show some results for thepiratebay.org again in our tests. It’s still not featured in any of the top results for “ The Pirate Bay “. It’s possible that Yandex changed something and the outcome may also depend on people’s location, so results may vary.

Why Yandex has taken this decision is unknown. We requested a comment from the company, hoping to get an explanation, but that inquiry remains unanswered.

At this point, The Pirate Bay probably no longer cares about yet another ‘blocking’ effort. The site’s traffic has been hurt by similar measures over the past years, but plenty of loyal users still manage to find their way to it.

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Note: For those who are wondering; China’s top search engine Baidu can no longer find Thepiratebay.org either.

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

The UK government’s Criminal Justice Bill had its first reading in the House of Commons on November 14, 2023, followed by its second reading on November 28.

A Public Bill Committee is now in the process of scrutinizing the Bill “line by line” and if all goes to plan, the Committee will report back to the House by January 30 , in advance of the Bill’s third reading.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend criminal law and, in many respects, it signals positive change. New criminal offenses to prohibit devices used in serious crime, theft, and fraud, such as 3D printer firearms templates, tablet presses, encapsulators, and vehicle concealment compartments, have been reasonably well-received.

Measures against universally despised, SMS spam-and-fraud-enabling SIM farm devices are long overdue, but some believe that criminalizing the homeless for “nuisance” rough sleeping isn’t the type of change Britain needs right now. However, with prison sentences of up to a month on the table, such nuisances can be completely eliminated, in theory for up to a month.

Preventing Online Crime

During the debate on November 28, Home Secretary James Cleverly spoke about the need to tackle fraud in its various forms. Published in June 2023, the government’s fraud strategy revealed that fraud now accounts for over 40% of all reported crime in the UK, with police dedicating just 1% of overall resources to tackle the problem.

“The Criminal Justice Bill contains several new measures to tackle fraudsters and the perpetrators of other serious crimes. We are prohibiting the possession and supply of SIM farms that have no legitimate purpose,” Cleverly said .

On the disparity between police resources deployed and the sheer scale of the fraud problem, Cleverly responded that it’s “not quite as simple as mapping the proportion of crime to the proportion of police officers,” since there’s a need to “upskill investigators so that they can focus on those crime types.”

The Home Secretary added that new tools to fight fraud are also part of the Bill.

“Law enforcement agencies will have extended powers to suspend domain names and IP addresses used for fraudulent purposes or other serious crimes,” Cleverly said.

Are Pirate Sites Among the Targets?

The Bill sees domain and IP suspensions as a mechanism to fight fraud and other crime that has an online component. Pirate sites aren’t mentioned specifically, but the same also applies to many other illegal operations that currently exist, or might exist in the future.

According to the Bill, investigative agencies would be given new power to apply to the court for a suspension order. These would compel third-party entities, involved in the provision of IP addresses or domain names, to suspend or deny access to them for up to a year.

According to the Bill’s explanatory notes, law enforcement agencies and entities responsible for assigning domain names or IP addresses currently operate under voluntary agreements. These rely on alleged fraudsters violating the terms of service laid down by their providers, at which point domains and/or IP addresses can be suspended for those breaches.

While that works in the UK, overseas providers “do not always recognize” informal requests and demand court orders before any suspensions can take place. The Bill addresses this with the introduction of two new orders, one to suspend IP addresses and one to suspend domain names, to be served against “Regional Internet Registries, Local Internet Registries, or Internet Service Providers.”

According to the government, these orders “can be served internationally, to ensure that any threat originating from outside the UK can be effectively tackled.”

Suspension Orders Target ‘Serious Crime’

The Bill says that an “appropriate officer” may apply for an IP address suspension order. The definition covers police officers, NCA officers, HM Revenue and Customs officers, members of staff of the Financial Conduct Authority, and enforcement officers in the Gambling Commission.

Before a court issues an IP address suspension order, certain conditions must be met. For example, an IP address can only be suspended when it is being used for serious crime.

Crime is defined as conduct which constitutes one or more criminal offenses, or corresponds to conduct which, if it all took place in the United Kingdom, would constitute one or more criminal offenses. The threshold for serious crime is when the offense(s), committed by a person over 18 (or 21 in Scotland and Northern Ireland) with no previous convictions, could reasonably be expected to be sentenced to prison for three years or more.

The majority of the defendants in the recent prosecution of Flawless IPTV had no previous convictions. In 2023, five defendants were sentenced to over 30 years in prison for offenses including conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Over the last ten years, City of London Police has sent letters to pirate site operators ordering them to shut down or face potential prosecution under the Fraud Act and Serious Crime Act.

Relationship Between IP Address and UK

To show a relationship between the alleged serious crime, an IP address, and the UK, one of several conditions must apply. Most center on the definition of a ‘UK Person’ which broadly covers a person with British citizenship, a person living in the UK, a body incorporated under UK law, or an unincorporated association formed under UK law.

A relationship to the UK is established when a UK Person uses an IP address to commit serious crime, or becomes a victim of serious crime for which the IP address has been used. A relationship can also be established when an IP address is used for crime in connection with unlicensed gambling, or when an IP address is allocated to a device located in the UK.

Using the Flawless case as an example, more than one person used an IP address to commit serious crime, while a UK Person (Premier League) was the victim. Even if the defendants had been located overseas, a relationship could still be established due to the victim’s status as a UK Person.

Reactive and Proactive Suspensions

In respect of domain names, the measures are similar but also include a significant proactive element.

“The domain name conditions also cover instances in which domain names could be used for criminality in the future,” the Bill’s explanatory notes read.

“This is due to the criminal use of domain generation algorithms (DGA) to aid their operations. Once the relevant law enforcement agencies understand the DGA, they can identify domains which could be associated with criminal activity in the future and suspend them before they can be used.”

As previously reported , UK broadcaster Sky is fighting DGAs deployed by IPTV providers who are attempting to circumvent a High Court blocking injunction. While that is a matter under civil law, case law establishes that Sky is a victim of fraud, and a UK Person as defined by the Criminal Justice Bill.

Whether companies like Sky and the Premier League will make use of the provisions in the Bill when it enters into law is unknown. What isn’t in doubt is their determination to use any tool that has the potential to reduce the piracy problem.

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