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Judge Recommends to Deny $250,000 Claim Against YTS Sites and AppsErnesto Van der Sar, 09 Oct 10:56 PM Earlier this year, Hawaiian anti-piracy lawye

Judge Recommends to Deny $250,000 Claim Against YTS Sites and Apps Ernesto Van der Sar, 09 Oct 10:56 PM Earlier this year, Hawaiian anti-piracy lawyer Kerry Culpepper turned some of the most popular piracy brands into a powerful anti-piracy tool. The attorney, who is listed as director of the company '42 Ventures,' registered several piracy-related trademarks, including 'YTS' and 'Popcorn Time.' The company, which was founded last year, legally claimed these marks and uses them on a website that doesn't draw any significant traffic. What did get people's attention, however, were the enforcement actions that followed. Shortly after the trademarks were granted, Culpepper managed to suspend the Twitter account of a popular Popcorn Time fork. He offered to return it in exchange for a Popcorn Time licensing deal, which failed. Trademark Lawsuits Against YTS Sites and Apps In addition, the attorney also filed a trademark infringement lawsuit on behalf of 42 Ventures. The lawsuit targeted the operators of yst.lt, ytsag.me, yts.ae, ytsmovies.cc, yts.ms, as well as apps such as "Y Movies," "YTS Movies Library" and "YTS movies." The people behind these sites, who are believed to be from India, China and Egypt, used the YTS brand as a promotional tool. This isn't uncommon, as YTS has been a popular pirate brand for years, after originally belonging to a long-defunct release group. Over the past weeks, one of the site operators agreed to settle the trademark infringement matter for $200,000, on paper. The other four didn't respond to the allegations at all, which prompted the lawyer to request default judgments of $250,000 against all defendants. "Defendants purposefully utilize Plaintiff's YTS mark in their domain registrations and app names in order to mislead consumers about the origins of its goods and services as connected to Plaintiff, resulting in a substantial loss of income, profits, and goodwill," Culpepper informed the court. 42 Ventures Requests Default Judgment Since none of the defendants showed up in court there was little to stop a victory, except for the court itself, it now appears. In a 'findings and recommendations' issued this week, US Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter recommends the court to deny the $250,000 damages request and dismiss the complaint because the court lacks personal jurisdiction. For a court to decide over a defendant, it should have the right to do so. This is usually not a problem when a US citizen is taken to court in the US but, in this case, the defendants are foreigners. That changes everything. The court can only issue a judgment when it's shown that the defendants "purposefully directed their activities towards the United States." Here, Judge Porter is not convinced that this is the case. According to Culpepper, the trademark-infringing YTS sites and apps were available in the US, used US-based services including domain registrars, and used US-based payment providers, among other things. Judge Doesn't Believe Court Has Jurisdiction Judge Porter doesn't dispute these facts but doesn't agree that this is sufficient to show that the court has personal jurisdiction. "The Court finds that Defendants' use of United States-based companies for webhosting and domain name services and for paying for those services is insufficient to show that Defendants aimed their allegedly infringing acts at the United States," Porter writes. The Judge notes that in some cases people simply choose to work with US-based companies because they are the biggest brands in their industries, or have a monopoly. Not because they're from the US. "Indeed, as other district courts have recognized 'it is more accurate to say that [the defendant] utilized Apple and Google because they arguably have a virtual monopoly on the channels in which developers can distribute application-based software—not because they have offices in [the United States]'." If this logic indeed applies, then all foreigners with a Gmail account would subject themselves to the jurisdiction of US courts, which is something Judge Porter doesn't agree with. Two of the defendants also used advertising services, cookies and web beacons, to gather information about individual visitors, some of whom are from the US. Culpepper brought this in as another argument to show that the court has jurisdiction but that was disregarded as well. "Finally, the Court finds that Plaintiff's allegations regarding Defendants Mav and Shan collecting information about users on their websites is insufficient to show that these Defendants have done engaged in 'conduct directly targeting the forum'." Judge Recommends Dismissal All in all, Judge Porter concludes that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the defendants. He therefore recommends denying the motion for a $250,000 default judgment and suggests a dismissal of the entire case. This recommendation has yet to be adopted by the court in a final ruling and can be contested by Culpepper. However, the first signs don't look positive for the trademark owner. In closing, it is worth pointing out that YTS.mx, which is by far the most popular YTS site, wasn't targeted in this trademark case. However, the same lawyer previously negotiated copyright infringement settlements with the site's owner, totaling well over a million dollars. — A copy of the findings and recommendations published by US Magistrate Judge Wes Reber Porter is available here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Twitch.tv is About to Get Placed On a WIPO Anti-Piracy Blacklist Andy Maxwell, 09 Oct 09:50 AM Keeping advertising off pirate sites has become one of the key goals of entertainment industry and anti-piracy groups. The theory is that if brands can be encouraged not to place their ads alongside infringing content, pirate sites will be starved of much-needed revenue. To achieve this goal, various coalitions have created their own pirate site 'blacklists' so that known pirate players can be screened out as potential advertising partners. WIPO ALERT Database Initially named BRIP (Building Respect for Intellectual Property), the United Nation's World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) now operates a system known as WIPO ALERT. Founded in 2017 and with early contributions from Italian telecom regulator AGCOM and KCOPA, the Korea Copyright Protection Agency, WIPO ALERT aims to collate national advertising blacklists into one big database. Last week we reported that Russia had thrown its weight behind the project, signing a memorandum of understanding to add its own database of infringing domains to the WIPO ALERT database. Japan and Ukraine Announce Support For WIPO ALERT Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA has now revealed that on September 23, 2020, it too signed an agreement with WIPO, joining Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Spain, and Russia in the program. The difference in CODA's case, however, is that while the other countries' databases are run by governments, the Japanese anti-piracy group is the first contributor from the private sector. At the same time as announcing its membership, CODA revealed that Ukraine had also signed an agreement to integrate its advertising blacklists into the WIPO system. The country's 'Clear Sky' anti-piracy initiative confirmed the news, noting that the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture had signed a memorandum of understanding with WIPO. "Today there are more than 1,500 such [infringing] resources on our list. We are delighted that WIPO has initiated a similar project at the international level," said Vyacheslav Mienko, head of the 'Clear Sky' initiative. "Ukraine, represented by the Ministry of Economy, joined the project, and this gives us the opportunity to declare our resources to the WIPO list, containing claims from Ukrainian rightholders. We are confident that the international status of such a list will create additional motivation for the advertising market to control the placement of advertising." Surprise Transparency From Ukraine With Predictable Results As we mentioned last week, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with advertisers wanting to keep their ads off piracy portals. That being said, with no country prepared to publish its blacklists in public, it's impossible to examine those lists for errors, blunders, or questionable entries. Surprisingly, Ukraine changes all that. Via its Blacklists.org.ua website, Ukraine helpfully provides a Google spreadsheet of all its blacklisted sites, i.e platforms rightsholders feel shouldn't carry advertising from responsible companies so should be boycotted. In the main, Ukraine's list is a fairly uncontroversial read, with various rightsholders complaining about hundreds of known torrent and streaming portals that are clearly engaged in mass distribution of unlicensed content. However, when taking a really close look, there are sites on the list that will raise eyebrows. Twitch.tv Set to Be Blacklisted by the WIPO ALERT System? At the time of writing there are around 1,300 alleged 'pirate' sites in the list but as the screenshot below reveals, not all is well. At position 1098 we can clearly see Amazon-owned Twitch.tv, a platform offering video game live streaming, broadcasts of Esports competitions, and sundry other streams. While Twitch isn't immune to copyright-infringements carried out by a minority of its users, in this database it's clearly labeled as a problematic platform that shouldn't be advertised on. The site's responsiveness to DMCA takedown notices seems to been pushed aside. The text in blue is a reference to the entity that reported Twitch to the blacklist, in this case the Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association. Quite why this anti-piracy group has an issue with Twitch is unclear but given the fact that the list is about to be ported over to the WIPO to advise rightsholders internationally, Amazon might have a problem on its hands. US-based Streaming Platform Veoh.com Also Blacklisted Further down the list is another interesting entry, US-based streaming platform Veoh. The site was placed there following complaints from anti-piracy company 1+1Media but exactly why remains a mystery. Veoh has a strict copyright policy that not only removes infringing content but also terminates repeat infringers. As a major contributor to the Ukrainian blacklist, which will soon form part of WIPO ALERT, no reasons are given for any of the hundreds of platforms 1+1Media has recommended for an advertising boycott. However, if people do have any complaints, they must direct their issues to the anti-piracy company contributors themselves. Clear Sky says that listings are not their responsibility. Finally, there are a significant number of sites submitted to the blacklist by Getty Images. After checking a few at random it appears most are news sites which presumably used Getty's photographs without permission. While that's still infringement, these are certainly not pirate sites in the traditional sense. That raises the question of where the red lines are drawn and whether any sites, not just obvious 'pirate' platforms, are at risk of being placed on these lists at the whim of an anti-piracy company or copyright holder. Exactly Why Transparency is Needed As mentioned earlier, Ukraine is the only country thus far to make its blacklist public and for that, it should be commended. While there some questionable entries, including very significant ones, it is this kind of transparency that will contribute to making more accurate lists that achieve their stated goals. Whether WIPO will go down the same route with a published list of its own is unclear but if there's a chance that blunders like the inclusion of Twitch and Veoh will get noticed, it should be worth considering. The alternative could be a mysterious fall in ad revenue for platforms that have absolutely no idea what is going on, despite complying with all relevant laws. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2020 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company