According to The Numbers , the most financially successful movie franchise of all time is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Generating almost $30 billion at the worldwide box office, its closest rival is Star Wars, with just $10.3 billion.

In 198th place with a still-respectable $840 million is The Expendables franchise. While not at the top of the heap here, none of the competition would have a chance of beating this series if legal action against members of the public was a competition.

Record Breakers

Early 2011 after pulling in $274 million at the worldwide box office, the company behind the first movie targeted 6,500 suspected pirates via a complaint filed at a district court in Columbia. That case quickly expanded to over 23,300 potential defendants in a list that ran to 371 pages ; that made it the largest case of its type in legal history.

While that case was dismissed due to almost none of the potential defendants actually residing in the district where they were sued, every movie in the franchise subsequently released featured lawsuits against alleged pirates. A leaked copy of Expendables 3 triggered legal action against downloaders and pirate sites , and then came the arrests and prison sentences ( 1 , 2 ) for those who obtained and leaked the movie.

Expend4bles Released in 2023, Predictable Plot

If the paperwork filed at Canada’s Federal Court is taken on face value, almost 3,000 Canadian internet subscribers grabbed a copy of Expend4bles after it appeared on BitTorrent networks in 2023. In common with every movie in the series, they were being monitored as they did so.

Whether they were simply oblivious to the history, not especially interested due to being a small child at the time, or merely the bill-payer of an internet subscription used by others, will be a discussion for later. Right now, the company behind the movie, Ex4 Productions, Inc., hopes to receive permission from the Federal Court to obtain their names and addresses from their ISP.

There’s currently nothing on the docket to say that permission has already been obtained but after investigating 500 IP addresses out of the 2,964 in the statement of claim, we can confirm that every one of the 500 is registered to Bell.

There’s almost no doubt that the purpose of obtaining names and addresses will be to write to the defendants with a demand for a substantial cash settlement to avoid ‘unnecessary’ legal action.

The start of what appears to be a proposed letter to those affected is shown below.

The allegations made in the 14-page statement of claim mostly stick to the usual format, noting that all ‘Doe defendants’ were monitored ‘uploading’ or distributing the movie, contrary to copyright law. The plaintiffs acknowledge that they don’t know the identities of those they’re targeting, hence this action.

No Evidence to Identify Infringer

After making their case in the strongest terms against internet subscribers they do not know, asserting in the clearest terms that these people are direct infringers, there’s the usual switch to account for just one of several alternative scenarios.

After acknowledging that the bill payer may not be responsible and someone else with access to the connection may be the culprit after all, the bill payer is painted as responsible for other people’s infringement regardless.

Alternatively, some of the Defendants may not be the direct infringer, but through negligence, willful blindness or indifference has authorized others (“Direct Infringers”) to do the foregoing acts, including the Unlawful Acts, acquiesced to the Direct Infringers doing of the foregoing acts, and/or has acted in concert with the Direct Infringers with a common design with respect to their activities set out herein, including the Unlawful Acts.

To add weight to the claim that the bill payer is negligent, the plaintiffs point out that each subscriber was sent a warning notice in advance, which allegedly they did nothing about.

Each Defendant was provided with prior notice (the First Notice) that such Defendant’s internet account was being used in a way that infringed the Plaintiff’s copyright, and yet such Defendant did nothing to prevent or cease the infringement. Each Defendant therefore knew or should have known that their internet account was being used contrary to s. 27(1) of the Copyright Act.

No further detail is provided about the warning notices, how they were sent, or when, but it seems likely they were issued as part of the notice-and-notice scheme operated via Canadian ISPs.

Since the defendants’ IP addresses are listed in the statement of claim, and we needed to extract those for the purpose of identifying the internet provider as mentioned above, we took the opportunity to geo-locate each one.

Since geolocation by IP is not always accurate, the usual caveats apply. Nevertheless, the map below should provide a very general overview of where the defendants reside. The larger the dots, the more defendants located in that region.

The statement of claim is available here (pdf)

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

Three years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing Destiny 2 cheat seller AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also made against Phoenix Digital Group, the operating company behind the website, and third-party developer James May.

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

Landmark Trial in Seattle, Washington

After years of legal twists and turns, the case went to trial this week , where both sides presented their arguments. AimJunkies, among other things, stressed that the defendants never touched any of Destiny 2’s copyrighted game code.

In addition to deciding over the copyright infringement claims, the jury also had to rule on a counterclaim from third-party developer James May. May denied being responsible for coding the cheat and alleged that Bungie ‘hacked’ his computer.

After the hearings were finalized, the jury released its verdict late Friday, finding all defendants liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement. Phoenix Digital Group and all individual defendants are ordered to pay Bungie damages for the actual profits they reaped, totaling $63,210.

This is the first trial in U.S. history where a cheat seller was found liable for copyright infringement. As such, it is bad news for other companies who operate in a similar niche.

Counterclaim Fails

The jury denied the counterclaim from developer James May, who argued that Bungie circumvented technological measures under the DMCA, by accessing his hard drive without permission. No further details on any of these decisions were provided.

The jury verdict is a big win for Bungie although not the first.

Previously, the non-copyright-related complaints were referred to arbitration, including allegations that AimJunkies’ cheats violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. This resulted in a resounding win for the game developer for a total of nearly $4.4 million in damages and fees .

It’s Not Over Yet

The $4.4 million arbitration outcome is still under appeal and AimJunkies can also appeal the jury verdict, so the legal battle is not necessarily over just yet. Bungie clearly won the first rounds, however.

At the time of writing, the AimJunkies website remains online, but those looking for Destiny 2 cheats will be disappointed. The cheats were already removed from the online store years ago.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

Millions of people regularly pirate movies and music. While this is against the law, most don’t get into trouble.

Some people feel so comfortable about their piracy habits that they openly discuss them online. On Reddit , for example, where most people use a semi-anonymous handle.

Admissions of anonymous Redditors typically go unnoticed by copyright holders and, even when observed, it’s rare for companies to take matters further or ask any questions. A group of independent film companies in the United States set out to buck that trend last year.

The film companies and their attorney Kerry Culpepper say they’re not planning to take Reddit users to court. However, they do want to use public piracy-related comments as evidence in a lawsuit against their Internet provider.

These lawsuits don’t target individual pirates. Instead, the film companies have sued Internet providers including RCN , Grande , and Frontier , for failing to disconnect ‘repeat infringer’ customers.

Trying Once, Twice….

The independent film companies first reached out to Reddit roughly a year ago, asking the company to disclose names, IP addresses, and emails of various users. These people all made piracy-related claims in comments on Reddit, with several indicating that their ISP did little to stop this activity.

Reddit was unhappy with the subpoena, characterizing it as overbroad and more akin to a fishing expedition than regular evidence gathering. Reddit only handed over the details of one user whose comment mentioned RCN directly, denying the rest to protect users’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

The court eventually agreed with this defense, concluding that Redditors’ First Amendment right to anonymous speech outweighs the interest of rightsholders . According to Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, the filmmakers have other options to obtain this type of information, including through RCN itself.

After this setback, the rightsholders filed an adjusted request in their case against ISP Grande. This second attempt wasn’t successful either, as Judge Beeler again concluded that the Redditors’ right to anonymous speech weighs stronger than the rightsholders’ need for additional evidence.

Third Time’s The Charm?

This week, attorney Kerry Culpepper returned to the California federal court with a request for Reddit to comply with another subpoena. This time, it’s part of the case against Internet provider Frontier Communications .

Broadly speaking, the request looks similar to those seen before. The film companies, Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, highlight several comments from Redditors that could help to prove that the ISP didn’t take proper action against repeat infringers, or that lax enforcement acted as a draw to potential pirates.

“In the Reddit ‘Piracy’ forum, Reddit user’Cyb3rR****’ admits to using Frontier’s service to pirate from the notorious piracy websites 1337x and PirateBay and that ‘I’ve been torrenting unprotected for like a decade and never gotten [a DMCA notice]’,” the companies write.

Other Redditors made similar remarks, suggesting that using the ISP to pirate movies shouldn’t result in any trouble.

‘This Time is Different’

In common with the earlier cases, Reddit is refusing to comply. Last week, it objected to the subpoena, arguing that the request violates its users’ rights to anonymous speech. This prompted the movie companies to go to court again, with a new plan of attack.

The requested information is relevant and proportional to the needs of the case, they argue before the court. Contrary to the earlier cases, the subpoena no longer seeks any names and email addresses, only the IP address logs.

“Reddit asserts that the information Movants request is not permissible under the First Amendment. However, Movants’ subpoena does not request anonymous users’ identities.

“Rather, the subpoena is limited to requesting the Reddit users’ IP address logs. Accordingly, the analysis of Reddit I and Reddit II is not applicable,” the movie companies add.

‘Users Are not the Target’

According to the rightsholders, Reddit didn’t identify any potential harm to the affected users. They further note that there are no plans to go after these people directly.

“Movants are not seeking to retaliate economically or officially against these Reddit users. Rather, Movants wish to use their comments as evidence that Frontier has no meaningful policy for terminating repeat infringers and this lax or no policy was a draw for using Frontier’s service.”

Reddit previously sent a letter to the movie companies’ attorney questioning whether the IP-addresses are relevant to the copyright infringement claims. In addition, it suggested that there might be other sources of evidence available to prove the same.

The request doesn’t disclose why IP addresses are needed, since the anonymous comments are public. One theory would be that the rightsholders will check these addresses for repeat infringements, which might add extra weight to their claims.

Reddit has yet to respond in court but, based on its earlier responses, it will do all it can to keep users’ information private.

This results in a similar standoff as before, albeit with a twist. Since Frontier is not planning to disclose customer identification information, the filmmakers see these comments as important evidence, and this time they hope that the court agrees.

Ultimately, it will be up to the court to decide whether it’s indeed different this time, or not.

—

A copy of the motion to compel Reddit to respond to the subpoena is available here (pdf) . A copy of Reddit’s letter to the attorney can be found here (pdf)

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

In recent months, rightsholders of all ilks have filed lawsuits against companies that develop AI models.

The list includes record labels, individual authors, visual artists, and more recently the New York Times. These rightsholders all object to the presumed use of their work without proper compensation.

Several of the lawsuits filed by book authors include a piracy component as well. The cases allege that tech companies, including Meta and OpenAI, used the controversial Books3 dataset to train their models.

The Books3 dataset has a clear piracy angle. It was created by AI researcher Shawn Presser in 2020, who scraped the library of ‘pirate’ site Bibliotik. This book archive was publicly hosted by digital archiving collective ‘ The Eye ‘ at the time, alongside various other data sources.

The general vision was that the plaintext collection of more than 195,000 books, which is nearly 37GB in size, could help AI enthusiasts build better models, which would spur innovation.

AI Boom Triggers Copyright Troubles

Presser wasn’t wrong, but the dataset didn’t just help garage AI startups. Several of the world’s largest tech companies discovered it too and used it to improve their own language models.

For years, Books3 continued to be freely and widely available, aiding AI researchers and enthusiasts around the world. However, when the AI boom reached the mainstream last year, book authors and publishers took notice, then took retaliatory action.

For example, Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance demanded The Eye to remove their copy of Books3, which it did. The dataset also disappeared from the website of AI company Huggingface, citing reported copyright infringement , while others considered their options.

As previously reported by Wired, Bloomberg informed Rights Alliance that it doesn’t plan to train future versions of its BloombergGPT model using Books3, and other companies likely made similar decisions behind closed doors.

Meta Admits Books3 Use

These are noteworthy developments but not all complaints can be resolved with promises. Several lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta remain ongoing, accusing the companies of using the Books3 dataset to train their models.

While OpenAI and Meta are very cautious about discussing the subject in public, Meta provided more context in a California federal court this week.

Responding to a lawsuit from writer/comedian Sarah Silverman, author Richard Kadrey, and other rights holders, the tech giant admits that “portions of Books3” were used to train the Llama AI model before its public release.

“Meta admits that it used portions of the Books3 dataset, among many other materials, to train Llama 1 and Llama 2,” Meta writes in its answer.

This admission doesn’t come as a massive surprise as several sources, including research papers, basically reached the same conclusion. While the use of Books3 is not contested by Meta, the question remains whether the company was in the wrong when it did so.

Meta Denies Copyright Infringement

Meta’s answer admits the use of Books3 but denies various other allegations and claims. For example, the authors alleged that Meta trained its AI on copyrighted works without permission. The answer doesn’t directly deny this but notes that consent or compensation is not necessarily required.

“To the extent a response is deemed required, Meta denies that its use of copyrighted works to train Llama required consent, credit, or compensation,” Meta writes.

The authors further stated that, as far as their books appear in the Books3 database, they are referred to as “infringed works”. This prompted Meta to respond with yet another denial. “Meta denies that it infringed Plaintiffs’ alleged copyrights,” the company writes.

Fair Use

Meta’s response doesn’t provide much additional detail and the full defense will be revealed as the case progresses. It is clear, however, that the company plans to rely on a fair use defense, at least in part.

“To the extent that Meta made any unauthorized copies of any Plaintiffs’ registered copyrighted works, such copies constitute fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107,” Meta notes.

The fair use angle is expected to be a key part of this and other AI lawsuits. This doesn’t only apply to ‘pirate’ sources but also to the use of content that’s published through official channels, but used without explicit permission.

These legal battles are still in their early stages, but may ultimately find their way to the Supreme Court if needed. AI companies have stressed that progress will be hampered if rules and regulations are too strict.

Earlier this week, OpenAI mentioned that fair use is both necessary and critical to building competitive AI models , noting that news organizations can opt out if they wish. Needless to say, this option didn’t previously exist, certainly not for the Books3 database.

We presume that when Presser created Books3, he never envisioned the dataset to be at the center of landmark lawsuits that could define the future of AI. However, the stakes have changed, and the well-intended ‘archiving’ effort is now part of a major copyright clash.

—

A copy of Meta’s response to the author’s first consolidated amended complaint is available here (pdf)

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

Rick Falkvinge founded the first Pirate Party on January 1, 2006, and then rallied the masses in Sweden six months later in the wake of the first police raid against The Pirate Bay.

At the European Elections of 2009, Swedish Pirates won over 7% of the vote . Christian Engström went on to become the first Pirate Member of the European Parliament, with Amelia Andersdotter taking the second seat in 2011.

When Felix Reda of the German Pirate Party was elected vice-president of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament in 2014, and was given the job of copyright reform rapporteur , that was a moment for the archives. It wouldn’t be the last.

Czech Pirates and Czech Piracy

A string of notable events in the Czech Republic, including three Pirate Party politicians taking seats in the European Parliament, culminated in 2021 when Pirates won three ministerial positions in the country’s coalition government.

Set to a background of intense Pirate politics and the movement’s roots in file-sharing communities, news that a 60-year-old Czech Republic man is facing up to two years in prison for file-sharing feels a little out of place. Of all things that were never supposed to happen when Pirates got into power, this was one of them.

Czech police say the man had a collection of almost 1,000 commercial music albums stored on a server, which is quite a lot. The server wasn’t protected in any way, so passing internet users could download whatever they liked. Unfortunately, those passing by included unnamed rightsholders who filed a criminal copyright complaint with the police.

Authorities Take Matter Seriously

According to a statement released by police in the Moravian-Silesian region, criminal investigators in the city of Karvina responded to the complaint by launching “an extensive multi-month investigation.” After establishing that the albums had been available for download from October 2013 until November 2022, police charged the man with criminal copyright infringement offenses.

“The accused stated that he downloaded the music mainly for his own use, but also for other users to download,” the statement reads.

“He testified that he was aware that by uploading works without the permission of the copyright owners, he was violating some legal standards, but he did everything mainly because he liked music. It is his lifelong hobby.”

When the man was informed he’d been making copyrighted content available to the public, he began deleting the files. Police say that he has still been charged with copyright offenses under Section 270 of the Criminal Code :

Anyone who unlawfully interferes, not insignificantly, with the legally protected rights to an author’s work, artistic performance, sound or audio-visual recording, radio or television broadcast or database, will be punished by imprisonment for up to two years, a ban on activity or confiscation of property

A sentence of up to five years would’ve been available had the man generated any profit. Fortunately, he made nothing whatsoever, so that should run in his favor. Indeed, the record shows that making no profit helped other local pirates avoid convictions.

Pirates Cleared of Piracy Crimes

The operators of several piracy sites in the Czech Republic were prosecuted in 2016 after they deliberately linked to thousands of movies and TV shows. In 2017 they were cleared after a court determined they had made no money.

“Our goal is to change the copyright monopoly law so that people are not fined millions for sharing culture with their friends. However, until we achieve that, we will fight in courts over interpretation and enforcement of the law,” the operators said at the time.

The operators of movie download sites Tipnafilm.cz and Piratskefilmy.cz, and TV piracy site Sledujuserialy.cz, were the Czech Pirate Party. Unlike the man recently charged with music piracy offenses, these sites only linked to copyright-infringing material, rather than hosting it directly. For end users, these mechanics were mostly irrelevant.

That Was Then, This is Now

Given the history detailed above, it’s interesting that someone is facing prison in the Czech Republic for sharing files at a time when Pirate Party members are part of the government. In both cases, semantics over links or direct links still underpin the non-commercial use of copyrighted content. Or in Pirate Party parlance, “sharing of knowledge.”

Given the connections, the police statement prompted a few immediate thoughts. Do the Czech Pirates still approve of non-commerical piracy? As responsible politicians, do they now reject copyright infringement on any scale? Do they even have an opinion on the topic this far into government?

Since Pirate parties built their reputations standing up for non-commercial pirates, we asked the Czech Pirate Party if that’s still the case when a party finds itself in power.

We also asked whether the extremely capable, tech-focused Ivan Bartoš , Czech Pirate Party leader and current Deputy Prime Minister for Digitisation and Minister of Regional Development, has an opinion on the case.

Finally, we asked whether cracking down on non-commercial pirates is considered a priority for the Czech government. At the time of publishing, we were yet to receive a response.

Realities of Government Meet Ideology

Elevating questions such as these to members of a sitting government might seem trivial given the enormous challenges faced by every country in Europe today. But a general principle stands regardless of the topic.

Should a party that makes a particular stand be held to those promises years into the future, and if so, for how long? In this specific case, should someone who followed an example set by some of those now in power, be held to account in a way they were not?

These are just some of the quandries faced by every party operating in a democracy, and especially those in a minority coalition. It’s nobody’s fault, simply the cold reality of getting into power , struggling to stay there, and the realization that there are always much bigger issues competing for limited time.

As Rick Falvinge wrote here on TorrentFreak more than 12 years ago, there really is nothing new under the sun .

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

Over the past two decades, online piracy has proven a massive challenge for the entertainment industries.

Copyright holders have tried to go after individual pirates and pirate sites in court, but third-party intermediaries are now increasingly seen as targets as well.

Several active lawsuits in the United States feature rightsholders accusing Internet providers of not doing enough to stop piracy. One of the main allegations is that ISPs fail to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in ‘appropriate circumstances’ as the DMCA requires.

These lawsuits have resulted in multi-million dollar judgments against Cox and Grande . Meanwhile, more companies at risk too, such as WideOpenWest (WOW!), which was sued by a group of smaller movie companies, including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures.

The filmmakers accused the Colorado-based ISP of failing to terminate the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for sharing copyrighted material. They argue that WOW! is liable for these piracy activities and are demanding millions of dollars in damages.

WOW! Wants ‘Troll’ Case Dismissed

The ISP challenged the claims and filed a motion to dismiss the case. WOW! addressed the substance of the allegations and described the film companies and their anti-piracy partner Maverickeye as “copyright trolls”.

“Plaintiffs and Maverickeye are part of a well-known web of copyright trolls. Until now, Plaintiffs’ modus operandi has been to file John Doe lawsuits in the hope of securing quick settlements and to dismiss them at the slightest resistance,” they wrote.

Indeed, several of the plaintiff film companies have filed cases against individual file-sharers, but they have also sued hosting providers, site operators, and app developers.

Responding to the substance of the allegations, WOW! argued that an IP address is not sufficient to prove that subscribers downloaded or shared any infringing material. And if that’s not clear, the ISP can’t be held liable either.

Something More?

To back this up, WOW! cites the Cobbler Nevada v. Gonzales case, where the court held that an IP-address alone is not sufficient to identify an infringer.

In the present lawsuit, WOW argues that IP-address evidence (~30,000 piracy notices) doesn’t prove that its subscribers pirated content; it could also be someone else using the network. To build a valid case, rightsholders should have ‘something more’ than just IP-addresses.

“Plaintiffs do not allege facts showing that any WOW subscriber committed direct copyright infringement; that WOW had knowledge of the specific alleged infringements at issue; or that WOW encouraged, induced, or profited from any alleged direct infringement,” the ISP wrote.

“But here, Plaintiffs only identify the alleged direct infringers by IP address; there are no additional allegations demonstrating that the activity at that IP address came from a WOW subscriber, and not some other user of WOW’s network.”

Court Refuses to Dismiss Copyright Claims

A few days ago, Colorado District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico ruled on the motion to dismiss and rejected most arguments. For one, the Judge doesn’t believe the “Cobbler” ruling is directly relevant here, as that was a case against an actual infringer, not an ISP.

For this lawsuit, the provided IP-address evidence is sufficient to allege that WOW! can be held liable for the copyright infringements of its subscribers. The court doesn’t rule on the merits yet but notes that the filmmakers’ arguments are good enough to move the case forward.

“Taking Plaintiffs’ factual allegations as true in this early stage of litigation, Plaintiffs have plausibly stated that Defendant had knowledge of its subscribers’ direct infringement, if not from the 30,000 notices, then from the correspondence between counsel.

“It is reasonable to infer that such notices and correspondence gave Defendant enough knowledge to have done something about the alleged direct infringement,” Judge Domenico adds.

Ability to Stop Infringements

The court also believes that the movie companies sufficiently plead the various copyright infringement allegations. They include contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims.

To allege vicarious liability, for example, the filmmakers have to plead that WOW! had the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity and had a direct financial interest in the activities of pirating subscribers. According to the court, that’s the case here.

“Plaintiffs in this case have sufficiently pleaded that Defendant’s advertisements for high download speeds and known practice of ignoring or failing to act on notices of infringement serve as a draw for subscribers.

“Likewise, Plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded that Defendant has the legal ability to stop and limit copyright infringement by its subscribers,” Judge Dominico writes.

Based on these and other arguments, WOW!’s motion to dismiss the copyright infringement claims is denied,

Grande’s Motion to Dismiss also Strands

In addition to the WOW! case, the filmmakers also lodged a complaint against Grande Communications . Grande lost a similar case against several music companies last fall but hoped to have this lawsuit dismissed.

The motion to dismiss is largely the same as WOW!’s, which makes sense as both parties are represented by the same attorneys. Unfortunately for Grande, the ruling on the motion to dismiss is similar as well.

In January, a Texas federal court issued a report and recommendation, concluding that the motion to dismiss the copyright claims should be denied.

“Plaintiffs have alleged in their pleadings that Grande has received Notices about specific infringing uses of its services, but failed to take measures to prevent such uses, and failed to investigate the piracy,” Magistrate Judge Howell wrote.

“The undersigned finds that Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to state a plausible claim of contributory copyright infringement against Grande, which is all that is required at the motion to dismiss stage.”

District Court Judge Robert Pitman adopted the recommendation last week. This means both WOW! and Grande will have to defend themselves against the piracy liability claims.

No Pirate Site Blocking Injunctions, Yet

The motions to dismiss weren’t denied in their entirety, however. In both cases, the filmmakers also requested pirate site-blocking injunctions, to limit piracy activity on the Internet providers’ networks.

In addition, the movie companies requested broad injunctions requiring the ISPs to identify pirates and suspend the accounts of subscribers who receive three unique DMCA notices in 72 hours.

The federal courts in Texas and Colorado both granted the motions to dismiss these injunction requests, as these proposed measures are remedies, not causes of action. However, they could be reintroduced at a later stage.

“I agree and will grant Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ ‘claim’ for injunctive relief. I note, however, that dismissal of this ‘claim’ does not preclude Plaintiffs’ from seeking injunctive relief if appropriate as a remedy should they prevail on the merits of one or more of their claims,” Judge Domenico writes in the WOW! case.

All in all, the recent orders are a win for the movie companies, as they can continue with their piracy liability claims. However, there is still a long way to go before there’s a final decision on the merits of those claims.

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A copy of Judge Domenico’s order on the motion to dismiss in the WOW! lawsuit is available here (pdf) . The recently accepted report and recommendation to largely deny Grande’s motion to dismiss can be found here (pdf) .

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