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ACE/MPA Shut Down Pirate IPTV & Card Sharing OperationAndy Maxwell, 16 Jul 06:32 PM The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a global anti-pir

ACE/MPA Shut Down Pirate IPTV & Card Sharing Operation Andy Maxwell, 16 Jul 06:32 PM The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a global anti-piracy group that counts the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and dozens more giants among its members, is continuing its drive against pirate services of all kinds. Following the news last week that ACE and partners the MPA had been to court in the United States in an effort to identify the operators of many pirate streaming sites, just days later it appears that ACE is broadening its list of targets. Pirate IPTV and Card-Sharing Service Shut Down Earlier this week, TorrentFreak learned that ACE and the MPA had taken control of a number of domains that appeared to be related to both pirate IPTV platforms and so-called card-sharing services. The latter enable users of satellite services to receive premium channels over the air and then use the credentials from legitimate cards to unscramble programming. In an announcement a few hours ago, ACE confirmed that it has taken fresh action against 'Premiumcccam', a card-sharing and pirate IPTV operation that operated in violation of ACE members' rights. According to ACE, Premiumcccam provided access to more than 6,000 TV channels and content from various satellite platforms, including Sky, Viacom Media, and Canal+. In addition, the service offered Video on demand (VOD) content from all ACE members, including 3,000 movies and 16,500 TV show episodes, at rates ranging from 7 euros per month up to 50 euros per year. Promotional material distributed by Premiumcccam in 2020 indicated that it classed itself as "Europe's top card-sharing provider" but that show now appears to be over. "ACE executed a cease and desist operation near Belgrade, Serbia, followed by immediate cooperation from the operator. Currently, all domains have been transferred to ACE and are redirecting to the Watch Legally section on the ACE website," ACE says. Jan Van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Chief of Global Content Protection for the Motion Picture Association, welcomes the closure of the Premiumcccam service and warns that ACE can strike anywhere on the planet. "This action marks another success and precedent in ACE's ongoing fight against piracy across the world. Actions such as this reinforce ACE's reach and impact and that there is no place in the world out of reach. We will continue to enforce in new territories as necessary," he says. Many New Domain Seizures In addition to the Premiumcccam.net domain reported by ACE, this week the anti-piracy coalition appears to have taken control of many more – some of which are obviously related to this operation and others that are less clearly linked. They include the following: Best-cccam-server.com, oscamserver.net, cccam-server-extra.com, premium-cccam.net, cccam-server.org, cccam-server-in-europe.com, universalcccamserver.com, cccam-reseller.com, cccamservers.net, cccamtest.net, premiumcccam.net, oscam.best and cccamline.org. In addition, galactovision.com and loginto.tv appear to be connected to pirate IPTV operations, as does b-radtv.com, which previously advertised the availability of 3,000 channels of live tv, cable network channels, sports networks, PPV events, plus a selection of so-called 24/7 channels. The precise use of jktv3.xyz isn't immediately clear, although the domain did previously share a server with many pirate IPTV platforms hosted by a company in Ukraine. All domains listed above now divert to an ACE seizure banner which in recent weeks underwent a makeover. More than 160 former pirate domains are now operated by ACE following dozens of actions against site operators. The current list of ACE members reads as follows: Amazon, AMC Networks, Apple TV+, BBC Worldwide, Bell Canada and Bell Media, Canal+ Group, Channel 5, Charter Communications, Comcast, Constantin Film, Discovery, Fox, Foxtel, Grupo Globo, HBO, Hulu, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, SF Studios, Sky, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Star India, Studio Babelsberg, STX Entertainment, Telefe, Telemundo, Televisa, Univision Communications Inc., ViacomCBS, Village Roadshow, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, and Warner Bros. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. 'Upload Filters' Don't Violate Freedom of Expression, Advocate General Finds Ernesto Van der Sar, 16 Jul 09:56 AM In 2019 the European Parliament adopted the new Copyright Directive that aims to modernize how copyright is protected in the online environment. After the directive passed, individual EU member states began working on implementing the text into local law. This includes the controversial Article 17, which requires online services to license content from copyright holders. If that is not possible, these companies should ensure that infringing content is taken down and not re-uploaded to their services. Many opponents fear that this language will effectively lead to broad 'upload filters' that will take down more content than needed. This worry has been reiterated by several experts over the years. Polish Opposition After massive protests failed to stop the legislation, Poland was the last beacon of hope for the opposition. The country petitioned the EU Court of Justice to annul Article 17, as it would violate the freedom of expression of European citizens. Yesterday, this hope was quashed. In a lengthy opinion, Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe dismissed the action brought by the Republic of Poland. According to the AG, the European Commission already made it clear that Article 17 should only be used to target manifestly infringing material. "Article 17 of Directive 2019/790 contains sufficient safeguards to delimit the scope of the limitation on the exercise of the right to freedom of expression resulting from the contested provisions," the AG writes. Ambigious Uploads Shouldn't be Blocked The text of Article 17 clarifies that online services can only block content that's "identical" and "equivalent" to files that have been flagged by copyright holders. This doesn't include media that only uses a short piece of copyrighted content in a broader context. Saugmandsgaard Øe stresses that in these "ambiguous" situations where fair use and other copyright exceptions could apply, online services shouldn't block content preventively. "In all ambiguous situations – short extracts from works included in longer content, 'transformative' works, and so forth – in which, in particular, the application of exceptions and limitations to copyright is reasonably conceivable, the content concerned cannot be the subject of a preventive blocking measure," he writes. False Positives a Bigger Problem than False Negatives The EU Parliament, the Council, and the Commission stressed that for online services it's more important to prevent legitimate content from being blocked than to stop potential copyright infringements at any cost. This should properly protect people's freedom of expression. "In other words, the legislature considered that 'false positives', consisting of blocking legal content, were more serious than 'false negatives', which would mean letting some illegal content through," Saugmandsgaard Øe writes. While this sounds clear, there are still several open questions. There is no clear definition of when something is clearly infringing, and when it's not. The AG acknowledges this in his opinion but doesn't provide any clear answers. What is clear, however, is that individual member states must ensure that their Article 17 implementations include sufficient safeguards to prevent over-blocking. Early Responses Patrick Breyer, MEP for the Pirate Party, is a fierce opponent of Article 17. In response to the opinion, he notes that upload filters may still result in a lot of errors. "While the Advocate General calls out the Member States' responsibility to only target illegal content, the software won't able to recognize which content is manifestly infringing and which is not, as it is undoubtedly error-prone," Breyer argues. In addition, several countries have already implemented Article 17 without all the mentioned safeguards, so these could still violate freedom of speech. "Moreover, countries which implemented the copyright directive according to the Commission's guidelines would now be, based on the Advocate General's opinion, violating freedom of expression online," Breyer writes. That last point is shared by Communia which, in an initial response, notes that several EU member states will have to go back to the drawing board. "Most (if not all) national implementations that we have seen so far clearly fail to meet this standard and if the CJEU follows the AG they will need to go back to the drawing board (or face legal challenges," Communia wrote. This commentary suggests that the Article 17 uncertainties are expected to last for a while, and the finer details may have to be fleshed out by the EU Court of Justice. The Advocate General's advice is not binding. However, in most cases, the recommendations are followed by the EU Court of Justice, which will likely issue its final verdict later this year. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2021 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