In a world where users can have their own ChatGPT-like AI instances up and running on their own PCs, in just a handful of minutes, for zero spend and completely legally, the app experience on smart TVs rarely fails to disappoint.

Yet when smart TV users somehow manage to clunk their way through, say, LG’s menus, and then avoid the avalanche of distractions that exist purely to break their will, only disappointment lies ahead for the IPTV-curious.

If, against all odds, they find an app that resembles the thing they actually searched for, the high probability of being presented with the app “Smart IPTV” is something thousands before them will attest to.

More Disappointment

It’s not that Smart IPTV is a poor product, it’s not. The fact that most of the time people have to pay to use it isn’t to blame either. The problem is the expectations of those who bought the software in the belief it contains illegal streams. It doesn’t, and that can be very disappointing.

Most likely due to the number of complaints from misinformed buyers, listings for the app on the LG, Samsung, and Google Play stores are now very clear: Smart IPTV does not provide access to playlists or streams, so don’t even ask.

LG TV App Store

The reason for the confusion among prospective buyers isn’t immediately clear. Smart IPTV seems like it’s been around forever and at no point has anything stuck out as being especially misleading or offering any suggestion that more might be on offer.

Yet now, even those who purchased Smart IPTV in full knowledge it offered no content, are being disappointed too.

Smart IPTV Website Blocked in Spain

During the past few days, reports have surfaced indicating that the official website of Smart IPTV has been blocked by Spanish ISPs. Visitors to siptv.app are instead redirected to an alternative page displaying the following text:

“Contenido bloqueado por requerimiento de la Autoridad Competente, comunicado a esta Operadora”

When translated to English, the message reads: “Content blocked at the request of the Competent Authority, communicated to this Operator.

In common with many countries around the world, particularly in Europe, Spain has a site-blocking system that restricts access to sites and services deemed to infringe copyright. Some prominent cases receive publicity as they travel through the legal system, most notably when top tier football league LaLiga and its broadcasting partners obtain injunctions to block pirate IPTV services.

While Spain does put together a report every few months to show the extent of blocking in the country, its usefulness is limited to a review of blocking already in place. As a tool to explain what is happening now, much less why a site or service was deemed infringing, the report is effectively useless.

As a result, which company declared the Smart IPTV app as copyright-infringing is unknown. What we can do, if only as a thought exercise, is use existing information to establish the most likely candidate based on motivation and past statements.

LaLiga – Who Else?

When it comes to blocking measures, especially those related to pirate IPTV, no rightsholders anywhere in the world are more aggressive than those behind the most popular football leagues.

The Premier League (England), Serie A (Italy) and LaLiga (Spain) are widely considered to be the leading proponents of blocking measures. Through a basic process of elimination, LaLiga is the only entity from the three likely to have targeted Smart IPTV in Spain, but there are more compelling reasons than simply being an aggressive blocking proponent in a specific geographic area.

In a 2022 submission to a then-upcoming edition of the European Commission’s Counterfeiting and Piracy Watchlist, LaLiga submitted a list of apps that, from a technical perspective, could play illegal streams of LaLiga football matches.

More accurately, the majority simply allowed the users of the apps to play content referenced in .M3U playlists that were not supplied with the apps themselves .

Terrifying Text Files From The 90s

Being able to play an .M3U playlist is a basic functionality offered by media players including VLC. For those sporting gray hair today, the same ‘technology’ was available in Winamp. Those who remember .M3U playlists starting to gain popularity in 1996 will be able to explain this incredible technology in a few words; it’s a text file containing locations where information can be found, on a hard drive (c:\playlists) or a network, mostly using a domain or IP address.

Instead of accusing the apps of infringement directly, LaLiga used broad strokes to paint a picture of infringing capability.

“It is important to note that all of these player applications allow the consumption of an innumerable amount of audiovisual contents such as sports, movies, series TV channels, etc. In other words, this problem affects the entire audiovisual and entertainment industry in general,” LaLiga added, carefully choosing its words.

As we highlighted at the time, LaLiga’s careful words were supported by carefully presented evidence, which in one case took an IPTV developer’s documentation and used it against them, after cropping the screenshot to disappear a line that began: “This app doesn’t contain any built-in channels…”

Again, we must reiterate that Spain’s blocking mechanism fails to offer enough transparency to identify who is behind the blocking of Smart IPTV. This means that we cannot say with any certainty that LaLiga is actually behind the blockade, but we can offer a generalized conclusion.

Any system that allows participants to mark their own homework in relative secrecy, can never be fit for purpose when other people’s basic rights begin to suffer. The fundamental right to conduct a legal business throughout the Union, for example.

Blocking Began Around April 12

To find out more about recent events, TorrentFreak spoke with the owner of Smart IPTV.

“The website domains siptv.app and siptv.eu have been blocked at some of Spain’s ISPs since approx. 04/12. Some ISPs still allow access to the website,” he explains.

“I have not received any correspondence from the officials or ISPs, I only started receiving messages from angry users from Spain that they couldn’t access the website. I conversed with a couple of them and it turned out the blocking is on the domain level, where ISPs are redirecting using 451 HTTP error, which also threw SSL certificate errors for those using HTTPS.”

With the blocking clearly causing access and security issues, Smart IPTV’s owner says that blocking can be avoided using a VPN but for him, it’s “not a very good solution.”

Instead, he’s having to make modifications to his apps to mitigate the problems.

“Since the App is operating on the same domains [as the website], the only way to work around this is to release updates of the appropriate Apps on devices, which I have already submitted and waiting for approval from Apps Stores (this can take a while),” he explains.

“A manual Android install is already operating normally, confirmed by Spanish users. The problem is that older devices that won’t get the app update (I am talking 10-year-old devices) will not be able to benefit from the app any longer.”

Of course, it’s likely that angry users who don’t understand the situation will blame the developer, then expect a new version of the app for free. But, as the MPA highlighted recently as it prepares its own proposals for blocking in the United States, blocking never, ever goes wrong.

As everyone else knows, that’s absolutely true, except for when it does.

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

Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances.”

Many ISPs have been reluctant to take such drastic measures, which triggered a wave of copyright infringement lawsuits in recent years with WideOpenWest ( WOW! ) as one of the targets .

The Colorado-based Internet provider was sued by a group of movie companies including Millennium Media and Voltage Pictures. The filmmakers accuse the ISP of failing to disconnect the accounts of subscribers who were repeatedly flagged for sharing copyrighted material via BitTorrent.

The movie companies hold WOW! liable for these pirating activities, which could lead to millions of dollars in damages. The ISP rejects the claims and responded with a motion to dismiss, which was denied last year , and the case remains ongoing today.

Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Expansion

After the case was stalled for over a year, the movie companies requested permission to submit an amended complaint, which would add seven new plaintiffs and more than 300 new works.

The proposals raised the stakes significantly. Instead of 57 works, good for maximum statutory damages of roughly $8 million, an expansion to roughly 375 works would increase the statutory maximum to $56 million.

In addition to the monetary stakes, the proposed update also introduced evidence from two new third-party piracy tracking companies, Irdeto and Facterra. The initial complaint only included piracy tracking information from anti-piracy partner Maverickeye.

WOW protested these additions, but the court allowed the movie companies to go ahead. This week, they filed their second amended complaint at the Colorado federal court, making the changes official.

Same Claims, Higher Stakes

The nature of the claims against WOW! haven’t changed. The movie companies accuse the Internet provider of contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, as well as DMCA violations.

The complaint lists several examples of WOW! subscribers who, according to the referenced piracy tracking data, repeatedly shared copyright-infringing content including plaintiffs’ films.

WOW! purportedly received tens of thousands of infringement notices and was allegedly aware of these piracy activities. However, the ISP decided not to take any action as that could hurt its revenues, the movie companies allege.

“Defendant knew that if it terminated or otherwise prevented repeat infringer subscribers from using its service to infringe, or made it less attractive for such use, Defendant would enroll fewer new subscribers, lose existing subscribers, and ultimately lose revenue,” the amended complaint reads.

Redditors and Site Blocking

In addition to IP-address logs and other evidence, the movie companies also cite screenshots from Reddit users who discussed WOW!’s handling of piracy notices, or its lack thereof. They suggest that this acted as a draw to potential subscribers.

“The ability of subscribers ‘who want it all’ to use Defendant’s high speed service to ‘intensively upload and download’ Plaintiffs’ Works without having their services terminated despite multiple notices being sent to Defendant acts as a powerful draw for subscribers of Defendant’s service,” they write.

Besides terminating accounts of subscribers whose connections are repeatedly used to pirate, the ISP could have taken other ‘simple’ actions as well. For example, by blocking notorious ‘pirate’ sites such as torrent sites YTS and (the now defunct) RARB.

“Upon information and belief, Defendant refuses to block or limit its subscribers from accessing notorious piracy websites out of fear of losing subscriber revenue,” the complaint reads.

Increased Damages and More

To compensate for this wrongdoing, the plaintiffs request statutory damages up to the maximum of $150,000 per work. With roughly 375 titles in suit, damages could reach $56,250,000 for the copyright infringements alone. The DMCA violations could add millions more to this tally, the movie companies note.

On top of the damages increase, the movie companies still seek far-reaching injunctive relief. They specifically request an order requiring WOW! to terminate the accounts of subscribers targeted by three unique infringement notices in three days.

In addition to this mandatory three-strikes policy, WOW! should also block all alleged pirate sites listed in the USTR’s annual overview of notorious markets . This includes the likes of The Pirate Bay, FMovies, and YTS.

Finally, the movie companies request an order that requires the Internet provider to disclose the identities of account holders whose accounts are flagged for copyright infringement. Needless to say, such an order would allow the companies to target the alleged pirates directly.

—

A copy of the movie companies’ second amended complaint, filed against WOW! at the US District Court for Colorado, is available here (pdf)

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

At the start of the 2010s, Movie2K was one of the most visited sites on the web.

The site was an early adopter of pirate streaming and at its peak, secured a spot among the twenty most-visited websites in Germany, beating Twitter and Amazon.

Movie2K’s success generated a healthy revenue stream which its operators converted to a new and exciting ‘currency’ called Bitcoin. It’s assumed that the goal was to keep the haul hidden from prying eyes, but more on that later.

The site’s reign ended with a surprise shut down in the spring of 2013. Many believed that legal troubles had plagued the site, a suspicion that was eventually confirmed years later when Dresden police announced several arrests .

Early Arrests and Prison Sentences

These initial arrests targeted one of the main operators, who received a one-year prison sentence for copyright infringement in 2023, as well as an eight-month sentence for money laundering, fraud, and tax evasion.

In the same criminal prosecution, the site’s financial agent received a ten-month suspended prison sentence. All sentences were suspended and both men issued a full confession. In addition, at least one of the defendants helped the investigation into other suspects.

The authorities had also seized 2,700 bitcoins. These are currently valued at €160 million but were previously exchanged by the authorities in an “emergency sale” for 38.6 million euros. The money remains in custody pending a final decision on the fate of these criminal proceeds.

While 2,700 bitcoins was already the largest seizure in a piracy-related prosecution, this figure was topped by the nearly 50,000 bitcoins the German authorities voluntarily seized earlier this year.

Fresh Charges

This second Bitcoin heist is connected to an ongoing prosecution where the Dresden General Prosecutor’s Office announced its charges this week, more than a decade after the site shut down.

The main suspect is one of Movie2K’s main admins, who remained on the run for a long time. The 40-year-old German man has been listed as wanted internationally since 2019. He was eventually arrested in Spain last year and extradited to Germany to face prosecution.

The defendant now faces charges including unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works and commercial money laundering. The second defendant, a 37-year-old Polish man, is charged with commercial money laundering and tax evasion.

The Polish defendant was a friend of the main suspect and reportedly received a salary in Bitcoin for his work at the pirate streaming portal.

As mentioned by Tarnkappe , the crackdown and investigation into Movie2K also led to a real estate agent from Berlin who allegedly received millions of euros from the site’s operators through a Dutch mailbox company.

The Prosecutor’s Office notes that the Leipzig district court has yet to admit further charges against the real estate agent, who reportedly invested the money in physical properties.

Billions in Bitcoin

While the charges announced this week are significant, the earlier seizure of 50,000 bitcoins stands out most. These are valued at roughly 3 billion euros today and, as far as we know, they’re yet to be sold.

“The investigation into the handling of the seized Bitcoins is ongoing,” the Dresden Prosecutor’s Office notes.

It’s remarkable to see the recent developments in this case, considering that the site itself has been offline for eleven years. That said, with billions in Bitcoin at stake, perseverance seems to have paid off.

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

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

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

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

Publishers Sue For Damages

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

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

Publishers Handed Big Win in Tokyo

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

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

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

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

Hoshino and Publishers Respond to Decision

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uptobox Said Little Until Recently

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

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

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

Server Costs Running to 75,000 Euros Per Month

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

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

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

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

“Blocklist Inclusion Supported Seizure Operation”

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

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

Uptobox summary in the 2022 Watch List

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

No Different to Google Drive or Dropbox, Court Hears

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After almost two decades reporting on the piracy landscape, speaking with hundreds of people involved in all aspects of piracy on the way, those who dodge cinema security to camcord the latest movies are still the most puzzling.

As a deterrent, the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence seems to mean almost nothing. The prospect of sitting quietly for two to three hours, knowing that they’re already being monitored along with the rest of the audience, is just part of the experience, not the nerve-shredding ordeal of those simply imagining it.

Yet, unless ‘cammers’ stop for personal reasons, those operating in the West eventually run up against the law. While they often regret it, some still find it difficult to explain what motivated them in the first place. With cinema workers in the UK being offered cash rewards of around £1,000 for a successful ‘camcorder’ intervention, the odds are stacked against cammers before they even begin. It doesn’t deter them.

FDA Yearbook 2024

The Film Distributors’ Association (FDA) represents the interests of film distributors in the UK and Ireland. The FDA’s website lists 38 members, including “the largest studios and numerous independent players” a sample of which can be seen below.

This week the FDA unveiled the FDA Yearbook 2024 at The Peninsula London, a £1,200 per night 5-star hotel within shouting distance of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Gardens.

With box office sales up again last year – 135,133,635 tickets in 2023 versus 127,794,382 in 2022 – generating over £1.06 billion, there was much to celebrate. Not least 9% of all sales attributable to Barbie, a film made in the UK and as a result, gifted just enough relief by the government to ensure no corporate taxes were payable in the UK.

Piracy – Film Content Protection Agency

After all the glitz and glamour, the FDA’s yearbook soon turns to piracy matters and a report from the Film Content Protection Agency (FCPA). The FDA-affiliated anti-piracy group shoulders the responsibility of preventing movies from being recorded on the UK’s big screens and then shared on the internet.

After an article we published last year , questioning the unlikely industry-wide claim that “90% of films pirated worldwide are sourced from cinemas,” FCPA begins its report with an adjusted claim that’s much more credible.

“Over 90% of pirated versions of newly released films are still sourced in cinemas globally by illegal activity involving the use of compact digital recording devices – mostly smartphones,” FCPA begins.

“Hence the FDA’s Film Content Protection Agency’s over-arching objective is to prevent infringing (pirated) versions of films from being sourced in UK and Irish cinemas, ensuring that the theatrical release lifecycle is protected as far as possible.”

Cammer Arrest in 2022 Results in 2023 Conviction

As previously reported , in the summer of 2022 at least four high-quality cams were traced back to two cinemas in the UK. A 24-year-old man was convicted in 2023 for fraud and copyright offenses yet remarkably only received an 18-month community sentence.

“[T]he sentence was lighter than hoped for, as the defendant had no prior convictions, but the ruling was deemed to have a greater impact on his life than a custodial sentence,” FCPA reports.

FCPA offers no additional detail, but we understand that the extremely high-quality CAM copies of the movies leaked online were directly linked to the defendant’s skills and the career he hoped to pursue somewhere in the film or TV industry. A mere conviction probably ended that dream, regardless of the scale of the punishment.

‘High levels of Anti-Piracy Awareness and Vigilance’

Throughout 2023, it appears that would-be cammers or those who gave that impression at least, kept cinema staff in the UK and Ireland on their toes. FCPA reports that “high levels of anti-piracy awareness and vigilance” resulted in exhibitors reporting 155 security incidents in 2023, a 7% increase on incidents reported in 2022.

“The UK and Ireland’s record for in-cinema vigilance is exemplary with the territory continuing to be recognized as a leading light in the global fight against film piracy,” FCPA says.

“In 2023, successful staff in-cinema efforts to disrupt illegal recordings of films helped to directly protect many FDA member companies’ most high-profile theatrical releases including Avatar: The Way of Water, Barbie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Elemental, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, The Little Mermaid, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Oppenheimer and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.”

As a result, FCPA handed awards to 25 cinema staff last October for their “good disruption work in preventing film piracy incidents.” How much they received is unclear but probably not enough for one night at The Peninsula London.

Given the implications of CAM copies on the multi-multi billion dollar box office revenues of the movies listed above, rewards five times bigger than they are now would still represent ridiculous value for money. As the results below show, the combined effort in 2023 produced the best anti-piracy performance for UK cinemas since 2012.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

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

Without doubt, Reddit is one of the most popular user-generated content sites that exists on the Internet today.

Last month, the community-driven news and discussion platform went public and, with a market cap of more than $6 billion, immediately became one of the larger tech players.

While publicly traded companies operate under a different ruleset than private ones, Reddit remains committed to its transparency efforts. A few hours ago, the company released its latest transparency report detailing the actions it took in the second half of 2023.

779,628 ‘Infringing’ Items Flagged

At TorrentFreak, we are mostly interested in copyright-related actions. In recent years, we have seen an increase in copyright takedown notices on Reddit, partly driven by the platform’s growth. In the first half of 2023, rightsholders requested the removal of nearly a million items, which was an all-time record.

During the second half of the year, this upward trend reversed. Reddit reports that rightsholders flagged 779,628 items between July and December, an 18% decrease compared to the first half of the year.

As shown above, not all of these takedown requests resulted in action. Reddit removed 69% of the reported items, which is the lowest removal percentage of the past two years. This logically means that little over half a million items were removed.

The high rejection rate might suggest that rightsholders’ takedown requests are too broad. However, most takedowns are rejected simply because the content has already been removed. In 29,143 cases, Reddit concluded that there was no infringement; other, less common reasons, include suspected fraud and fair use.

Copyright-Related User Bans

Thus far, there is nothing to show that Reddit’s decision to go public had a major impact on its copyright takedown policies. That said, the company does signal a significant increase in copyright-related user bans.

“From July to December of 2023, Reddit banned 792 users for repeat Copyright Policy violations, an increase of 258% compared to the first half of 2023. This large increase is a result of improvements to our detection methods and increased operational capacity,” Reddit writes.

These user bans are in part the result of legal obligations. Under the DMCA, Reddit is required to implement a reasonable policy to deal with repeat copyright infringers on its platform.

Improved detection methods and increased capacity suggest that Reddit takes repeat infringements seriously. However, if we go further back in time, we see that the number of banned users is far from a record. In the first half of 2022 , Reddit banned 3,859 users over repeat copyright infringements.

Subreddit and Counter-Notices

In addition to removing or banning posts, links, and users, Reddit also took action against entire subreddits. In the last half of 2023, the platform banned 452 subreddits, down 20% compared to the six months prior.

Finally, Reddit points out that users can always object to takedown notices by sending counter-notices. In the final half of last year, the discussion platform received 397 counter-notices, of which 216 were deemed valid.

The number of valid notices increased by 86% since the last report, which Reddit attributed to its increased operational capacity. As a result, 1,331 pieces of content were successfully restored.

While not specifically mentioned in the report, Reddit also continued to object to requests from a group of filmmakers to identify Reddit users. The company does typically respond to U.S. subpoenas, but in this case, it argued that the requests violated users’ constitutional right to anonymous speech.

—

Reddit’s latest transparency report covering the last six months of 2023 is available here

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

During the 6th meeting of the Policy Subcommittee of the Copyright Subcommittee of the Cultural Affairs Council in Japan last month, representatives from Google and ByteDance were invited to give presentations on the topic of appropriate compensation.

As the meeting progressed, the topic sparked discussion on connected matters, sometimes with legal implications. Neither company had lawyers present but, with plenty of scope to challenge the video platforms on piracy issues, including how some manage to benefit more than others, there was no shortage of conversation.

Google/YouTube

Takeya Kito, Head of Music Content Partnership for YouTube in Japan, began with some background. Used in over 100 countries with support for 80 languages, YouTube’s platform grows at a rate of over 500 hours of uploaded content every minute.

More than 71 million people, including two-thirds of the adult population, use YouTube every month in Japan, with the streaming service committed to providing four freedoms to each and every one: Freedom of expression, freedom of access to information, freedom of opportunity, and freedom of participation.

Mr. Kito spoke of YouTube’s commitment to transparency, including via its Copyright Transparency Report. When working with music partners, rights holders and artists, YouTube provides reports detailing how their content is consumed. In some areas, however, YouTube would like to see more transparency from its business partners.

“In order for YouTube to obtain a correct understanding of the royalties received by rights holders, we believe it is important to ensure transparency between the labels and copyright management organizations with whom we do business and license our works, and the individual artists, performers and songwriters who come after them,” Mr. Kito explained.

“This is because, unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how the distribution is actually handled between the individual rights holders, performers, and songwriters, so it is important to ensure transparency in this area as well.”

So, the Music Industry Gets Paid. What About Us>

Given Mr. Kito’s job title, it was perhaps inevitable that YouTube’s work with the music industry would dominate his presentation. Content ID, the content recognition / monetization system that currently handles over 99% of copyright claims and to date has returned $9 billion to rightsholders, mostly in the recording industry, received plenty of coverage.

The first question from those in attendance came from Mr. Ito, a representative of Authorized Books of Japan (ABJ), who thanked Mr. Kito for his presentation and then got right down to business.

“I found it very interesting to hear about how the music industry is successfully using Content ID in various ways. By the way, I belong to an organization called ABJ, and I work in anti-piracy measures at a publishing company [TF: Shueisha], and I’ve been using Content ID for about 14 years,” Mr. Ito explained.

“On YouTube, there are cases where publications, mainly still images of manga, are uploaded as videos like picture-story shows, or picture books, which are read aloud by users while turning the pages on their own. A large number of videos like this have been uploaded. Regarding Content ID, Content ID has no effect on illegal videos published by publishers, so publishers have to hire specialized companies or search on YouTube themselves to find infringing videos. I’m working on erasing them.”

Mr. Ito noted how representatives from the music industry spoke of being rewarded through Content ID, citing a “huge amount” of around $1.8 billion. But then, the inevitable; if the music industry has the ability to turn copyright claims into profit, what about everyone else?

“I strongly feel that publishers are not receiving any return from capturing pirated copies regarding Content ID. My first question is, what do you think about the situation where Content ID cannot be used to deal with pirated copies of publications?” Mr. Ito asked.

ABJ’s representative didn’t get the answer he was hoping for.

“Thank you very much,” YouTube’s representative responded. “As to your question, please understand that I am not in a position to answer it, as my role is limited to music partnerships in Japan.”

Mr. Ito accepted the position but still wasn’t quite done.

Time For TikTok

Representing TikTok at the meeting was Mr. Tomiji Kato, Senior Manager of Global Music Business Development & IP Rights at ByteDance Inc.

Mr. Kato’s presentation was very long but at one point he also touched on Content ID. TikTok doesn’t have a comparable system but the question here, it seems, is whether TikTok needs or even wants one. Something like that could be too restrictive for TikTok.

“At TikTok, we have not yet introduced a system like YouTube’s Content ID for original recordings, but what we need to consider is whether a system like Content ID is better, or whether we should have a pre-decided, all-inclusive contract like we are doing now with the labels,” Mr. Kato explained.

“By introducing a system or mechanism, we must not, for example, impair the creativity of music development or competition in music use, and so we must consider how the platforms and users can best use new music. We are considering how we can best contribute to new music use and development on the platform side and on the users’ side, and this is something that both the rights holders and the platforms should consider.”

When the presentation was opened up for questions, Mr. Ito of ABJ (and of publisher Shueisha) initially had considerable praise for TikTok; users of TikTok who introduce publishing content to their followers have a “ripple effect” and as a result, “there are many things to look forward to.”

Unfortunately, there are other things too, none of them good.

YouTube Used to Have Most Pirated Content, Not Any More

“For many years, I have been taking measures including on YouTube, and when it comes to video posting sites, YouTube has by far the most pirated copies, with the largest number of pirated copies being deleted in a month, around 20,000,” Mr. Ito said.

“However, starting around the summer, TikTok has finally overtaken YouTube, and now, depending on the month, TikTok has two to three times as many pirated copies being uploaded. We are also in serious trouble, and although the person in charge and the person at the anti-infringement company are deleting the information every day, the situation is not going away.”

Mr. Kato was then asked four questions: Is TikTok aware of so many pirated copies of publications, including manga? Does the company know that pirated copies often appear in recommendations? Does TikTok know that, when compared to YouTube, malicious accounts are less likely to be suspended? And finally, does TikTok appreciate how little copyright awareness is shown by its users?

“First of all, thank you for your positive comments,” said Mr. Kato. “I’m sorry, but I would like to refrain from answering any questions regarding pirated copies or takedowns, as this is outside of my scope of work.”

For those interested in how the discussion developed, the full minutes of the meeting ‘令和5年度第6回（2024年3月13日’ are available here (pdf). In summary, there might be a little more work to be done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who’s Anna?

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

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

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

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

Motion to Dismiss

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

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

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

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

‘No Shred of Evidence’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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