Friday, June 18, 2021

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Triller Sues YourEXTRA YouTube Channel For Jake Paul Fight Piracy
Andy Maxwell, 18 Jun 09:45 PM

TrillerEvery week millions of users upload their own content to YouTube. The platform provides a great way to grow a large audience but for those who don't play the rules, trouble can lie ahead.

In many instances, uploading infringing material to YouTube can go completely unpunished but choose content that is closely monitored (such as music), suspensions and even account closures can be the end result.

And as some individuals are now learning, there are bigger pitfalls too.

Triller Sending a Clear Message to Boxing Pirates

As widely publicized, for the past couple of months Triller has been filing lawsuit after lawsuit against people who allegedly copied, streamed, or otherwise distributed the Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren PPV fight without permission. The litigation hasn't always gone smoothly but Triller seems undeterred.

In addition to filing lawsuits against 'pirate' streaming sites and their operators, Triller has cast its legal net to encompass a growing number of YouTubers who uploaded the fight to their personal channels.

Larger channels such as the H3 Podcast have been targeted, right through to almost complete unknowns who reportedly streamed the fight just 300 times. But Triller is clearly not done.

Triller Files Yet Another Lawsuit Against a YouTuber

In a California court yesterday, Triller named Arvin De La Santos as the main defendant in yet another lawsuit. According to the company, Santos is the operator of the YouTube channel YourEXTRA, which describes itself as specializing in "opinions and views" on trending news plus "drama related topics".

The channel has 113,000+ subscribers and since 2017 has racked up 14 million+ views. As far as we can see the Jake Paul fight isn't currently listed, which supports Triller's claims that it filed a complaint with YouTube to have it taken down. Nevertheless, the fight was uploaded in breach of Triller's rights, the company argues, and YourEXTRA won't be able to rely on a 'fair use' defense either.

"Upon information and belief, Defendants, and each of them, unlawfully uploaded, distributed and publicly displayed, without authorization, and with no supplemental commentary or other attempt at transformation, the Broadcast to the users of the YouTube Channel," the complaint reads.

"Defendants' calculated and reprehensible infringement, theft, and other unlawful acts — committed in knowing violation of the law — has resulted in damages suffered by Plaintiff by stealing and diverting unique viewers of the illegal and unauthorized viewings of the Broadcast from Plaintiff."

The allegations against Santos and YourEXTRA are broadly the same as those listed in a lawsuit filed against Matthew Space, the alleged owner of the 'Eclipt Gaming' channel. Triller describes YourEXTRA as a business entity and 'alter ego' of Santos, which he set up to avoid liability to Triller. Given that the channel was founded well over three years before the fight took place, that may raise questions in court.

The claims for damages are broadly similar too, with Triller demanding compensation for copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement (Triller says Santos profited from the fight) in an amount to be determined at trial, plus $110,000 for each violation of the Federal Communications Act. Triller doesn't say how many times the fight was streamed by users of YouTube but it probably won't be hard to find out.

YouTube is A Bad Place to Upload Pirated Content

With the most recognizable branding on the Internet and traffic to match, YouTube is a great place to upload videos when people own the necessary copyrights. However, those who upload infringing content (and are unlucky enough to find themselves targeted in a lawsuit) might soon find out that a pirate site would've been a much safer option.

At some point, Triller is likely to ask the court to compel YouTube/Google to hand over information about users including Santos and Space. Presuming that goes ahead, there will be no shortage of data to disclose. Quite simply, YouTube has all the information that Triller needs to demand possibly millions in damages, data that pirate sites either wouldn't collect in the first place or would likely refuse to hand over.

All of that being said, Triller doesn't mind pushing ahead with a lawsuit even when evidence of infringement is thin or non-existent. As previously reported, the company is currently suing an Instagram user for watching the fight, based purely on his online confession that he didn't pay for the privilege.

Santos/YourEXTRA has been approached for comment.

Triller's complaint filed against Santos and YourEXTRA can be found here (pdf)

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

Mysterious Malware Blocks The Pirate Bay and Other Pirate Sites
Ernesto Van der Sar, 18 Jun 09:54 AM

stopFor a few years now, copyright holders have warned that people who use pirate sites risk running into malware and other malicious content.

These warnings are meant to dissuade people from using these sites. However, a new type of malware already does that in a more direct way.

In an article published this week, British security company Sophos highlights a malware campaign that actively targets pirates. Not to harm their computers, but to block them from accessing pirate sites in the future.

Disguised as Pirated Software

The malware in question is disguised as pirated software and is shared on regular torrent sites and other places. The packages look like regular 'cracked' releases but those who try to install the software are in for a surprise.

Instead of installing a cracked version of the software users were looking for, the malware triggers a fake error message which mentions that a DLL file is missing.

"The program can't start because MSVCR100.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem," the error reads while executing the malware in the background.

pirate error

Once executed, the malware tries to contact the 1flchier[dot]com domain, which is a typo variation of the file-sharing site 1fichier. When successful, it downloads a new payload titled 'ProcessHacker.jpg,' while sharing the filename of the pirated software the victim was planning to use.

It is unclear if this data is being used for anything but at the moment, the malicious domain is no longer accepting requests. However, it appears that the malware has been in use for several months at least, so this may have been different in the past.

Blocking Hundreds of Pirate Sites

Where the malware really shines, is when it actively modifies the 'hosts' file on users' computers. This file can be used to override how domain names resolve. The attackers use it to link a few hundred to over a thousand pirate domain names to the localhost address, 127.0.0.1.

This change effectively blocks victims from accessing the sites, which includes The Pirate Bay and many of its proxies.

Interestingly, this isn't the first time we've seen malware do this. More than a decade ago a similar threat was widely shared on torrent sites. This also modified the 'hosts file' to block The Pirate Bay. In addition, it also triggered popups that played a sound file saying that "downloading is wrong".

Sophos has no idea who is behind the malware and neither have we. While it could be an interesting anti-piracy strategy, it's unlikely that the malware comes from that angle. It could just as easily come from a rival pirate site that is not on the blocklist.

Easily Fixed

In any case, Sophos reports that its software blocks the threat, so its users are safe. Also, people whose computers are compromised can easily fix the problem themselves too.

"Users who have inadvertently run one of these files can clean up their HOSTS file manually, by running a copy of Notepad elevated (as administrator), and modifying the file at c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc\hosts to remove all the lines that begin with "127.0.0.1" and reference the various ThePirateBay (and other) sites," Sophos writes.

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

 
 
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