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New Global IPTV Anti-Piracy Coalition Takes on 'Extremely Dynamic' ProvidersAndy Maxwell, 20 Dec 10:27 AM When the Alliance for Creativity and Enter

New Global IPTV Anti-Piracy Coalition Takes on 'Extremely Dynamic' Providers Andy Maxwell, 20 Dec 10:27 AM When the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment launched in 2017 it signaled a new approach to anti-piracy enforcement. Rather than acting in isolation, ACE members pooled their resources, and today the results speak for themselves. Hundreds of sites have either been shut down or disrupted in the last five years, and new casualties are recorded every month, mostly every week. It's no surprise that other industry players are taking notes and coming up with their own plans. New Coalition Sees Benefits of Teamwork Centered around South America-based non-profit organization CERTAL (Center for Studies for the Development of Telecommunications and Access to the Information Society of Latin America), the Global Anti-Piracy Pact (Pacto Global Antipiratería) was officially formed this month. Around 20 entities, including companies from the video and telecoms sector, plus regulators and government representatives, began promoting the initiative in November. A tour of South America was followed by a summit and a signing ceremony this month at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington DC. "The objective of this pact is to demonstrate that isolated actions of the owners or of the participants in the distribution chain of intellectual works are not enough, but that joint and coordinated efforts between private parties and public-private articulation are required," CERTAL explained late last week. Public/Private Partnership How the coalition will function day-to-day is currently unclear, but its mission statement covers familiar anti-piracy tactics. The pact foresees companies in the IP/telecoms sector working with governments (including Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina) to raise awareness of piracy and inform the public of its effects on content production, distribution, and beyond. Global Anti-Piracy Pact will also propose/establish new standards and best practices to protect the legal market from unlawful competition. A key focus for CERTAL is the fight against IPTV piracy, audiovisual content in general, and live sporting events, so tackling illicit providers will be a key aim of the coalition. ISP Blocking Measures Several countries in South America already block pirate sites, but the coalition is expecting much more than that. All governments working with the coalition are required to put administrative blocking procedures in place, i.e only those that require limited judicial involvement. Countries that don't already have administrative blocking must incorporate the issue into their 2023 legislative agendas. Meeting that standard on paper may not be impossible but implementing rapid blocking, especially to cover live events, requires careful preparation. Fortunately, ISP signatories are prepared to make everything as straightforward as possible. Governments must "guarantee an expedited path through specialized entities to order the blocking of Internet service providers in their respective countries. (ISPs) of retransmissions of illegal content over the Internet, whether on demand or live," the mission statement reads. For their part, teleco signatory companies will "actively promote and cooperate with respect to the implementation of the aforementioned blocking mechanisms." Other Anti-Piracy Measures The parties acknowledge that the illegal offer of content has as its ultimate purpose the generation of illegitimate economic income for those who carry out such criminal activity, and there are no altruistic purposes. This extract from the agreement is followed by three common monetization methods – advertising, subscription payments, and the sale of preconfigured hardware devices. Signatories will be expected to establish "effective mechanisms" to demonetize online pirate services in respect of the above and "any other that may arise in the future." The agreement further notes that content watermarking and similar systems are underutilized in South America, meaning that tracking pirated content back to the source can be more difficult. As a result, all rightsholders and distributor signatories must implement this type of technology and actively demand implementation by others in the chain. These solutions should be "mandatory" and should be considered a "basic necessary standard" to operate in the market. CERTAL says that "criminal organizations" are behind today's piracy platforms. They are "extremely dynamic, constantly evolving" so can adapt almost immediately to technological changes. Global Anti-Piracy Pact/Pacto Global Antipiratería's objectives document (pdf, Spanish) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Copyright Holder Wants the Term "Troll" Banned at Piracy Trial Ernesto Van der Sar, 20 Dec 09:13 AM Over the past several years, adult entertainment company Strike 3 Holdings has filed thousands of cases in U.S. federal courts. These lawsuits target people whose Internet connections were allegedly used to download and share copyright-infringing content via BitTorrent. Rare Files-Sharing Trial Many of these cases result in private settlements and are never heard of again. On occasion, however, a defendant decides to push back and a case filed against a "John Doe" at a Florida federal court is now heading to trial. It's unusual for such a file-sharing case to be so heavily litigated. The prospect of a potential jury trial is even rarer but a few days ago the parties submitted their joint pretrial statement, bringing a trial one step closer. The case has plenty of nuances but, in essence, the main question is whether John Doe downloaded and shared 36 of Strike 3's porn videos without permission. According to the adult company, the evidence is clear as day. Strike 3 Piracy Evidence In the pretrial statement, Strike 3 explains that it repeatedly found that an IP address, assigned to John Doe, shared the pirated movies. This is backed up by technical evidence as well as other expert testimony. The adult company further accuses the defendant of destroying evidence by wiping data from his desktop computer, mishandling a hard drive, and reinstalling the operating system on his laptop. "Even if Doe were not the infringer, he made sure to destroy and conceal evidence of his innocence," Strike 3 writes in the pretrial statement. The alleged misconduct is made worse due to the defense's "fee-split" agreement, Strike 3 argues. The lawyers would allegedly submit a higher fee to the court than they billed the Doe, and agreed to "split" the difference between themselves and their client. John Doe Counters The defense characterizes the "fee split" allegations as a red herring. Instead, they draw the court's attention to Strike 3's evidence, suggesting that it's below par. The adult company uses tracking software to monitor the IP-addresses in BitTorrent swarms. Similar to other rightsholders, this is then recorded in 'PCAP' evidence files. However, Strike 3 developed the "VXN" tracking technology in-house. This makes it little more than 'circumstantial' evidence. "Strike 3's computer system: 'VXN' that was used to collect the PCAP's in 2019, was not tested by Strike 3's until 2022. VXN had no user's manual, no design documentation, and was never verified by an independent third party. There is no known false positive rate of VXN, since it was never measured," Doe's attorney writes. The defense submitted a motion in limine asking the court to exclude this evidence from trial. In addition, the defense wants the court to exclude evidence taken from Doe's social media profiles and comments from his neighbors, who testified on the strength of his WiFi signal. Troll Ban Strike 3 has also submitted a motion in limine to restrict information the defendant can use at trial. Among other things, the company doesn't want the term "copyright troll" to be used. The copyright troll moniker is often applied to companies that file many piracy lawsuits against invividuals. Even courts have used the term, even though there's no official definition. According to Strike 3 it is clear, however, that being called a 'troll' isn't something positive and it wants to prevent a jury from being influenced by this type of 'prejudicial' language. "Through the expert Dr. Eric Fruits, Doe has called Strike 3 a 'copyright troll' or 'troll,' a term that has no established legal or dictionary definition, but which is undeniably negative," Strike 3 writes. "Name-calling has no place in civil litigation," the company's lawyers add, noting that the label is inaccurate and thus irrelevant. In a similar vein, the adult entertainment company also wants to exclude blogs, media, and other Internet coverage from the potential pool of evidence, as these contain subjective comments. "The Court should also preclude Doe from referring to any Internet blogs, media coverage, or articles on Strike 3 for any purpose," Strike 3 writes. "The Internet and media articles target Plaintiff and its counsel and contain comments that are biased, slanderous, and prejudicial, and should not be referred to at trial for any purpose." Going Forward The court has yet to decide on these and other requests to exclude evidence before a trial can get underway. In addition, both parties have submitted motions for summary judgment which could still impact the course of the case. Earlier this week the parties attempted to reach a settlement in court through a mediation process, but they eventually reached an impasse. — A copy of the pretrial statements can be found here (pdf), and the motions in limine are available here (1, 2, pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. UK Govt: Netflix Password Sharing is Illegal & Potentially Criminal Fraud Andy Maxwell, 19 Dec 08:15 PM Following a limited launch in 2007 with just 1,000 titles, Neflix now carries more than 6,600 movies and TV shows for the enjoyment of more than 223 million subscribers. There's little doubt that Netflix password sharing contributed to the company's growth and by publicly condoning it, the practice was completely normalized – globally. The message was clear – Netflix loves you, you love Netflix, and now all your friends love Netflix too. Thanks for sharing. Netflix and similar streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime and Disney+, still want you to love them, but password sharing? Not so much. Password Sharing is Not Love – It's Piracy Five years after Netflix's now-infamous tweet, the ground is shifting. For the first time in its history, Netflix subscription numbers decreased earlier this year and competition from rivals Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO and dozens of others is fierce. In the background and across the entire industry, 'password sharing' is receiving a reverse makeover. Nobody loves today's 'password piracy' and within the ACE anti-piracy coalition, which includes all of the streaming services mentioned above, the situation is no different. Given the obvious sensitivities, ACE publicly prefers "unauthorized password sharing" as a descriptor and elsewhere the phrase "without permission" is in common use. In Denmark, anti-piracy group Rights Alliance describes password sharing as "not allowed" but this summer there was a small but significant step forward. "The extent of password sharing among Danes is therefore alarmingly high and eventually on a par with other forms of illegal consumption of content," the group said. UK Government Declares Password Sharing Illegal Since password sharing is almost always a violation of streaming services' terms of service, observers have tended to paint it as such. The general tone is that password sharing is not illegal per se but Netflix & Co. aren't particularly fond of it anymore. In a low-key announcement today, the UK Government's Intellectual Property Office announced a new campaign in partnership with Meta, aiming to help people avoid piracy and counterfeit goods online. Other than in the headline, there is zero mention of Meta in the accompanying advice, and almost no advice that hasn't been issued before. But then this appears: TorrentFreak immediately contacted the Intellectual Property Office for clarification on the legal side, particularly since password sharing sits under a piracy heading. The IPO's response was uncompromising, to put it mildly. Password Sharing is Illegal & Potentially Criminal Fraud has been the key charge in several big UK piracy cases over the last few years, despite the key offenses having a direct link to copyright law. Fraud is a criminal offense in the UK and a conviction could easily prevent or even end a career. On a 'being reasonable' basis, we ruled fraud out. According to the IPO, nothing can be ruled out. "There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright protected works without payment," the IPO informs TorrentFreak. "These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement depending on the circumstances." Given that using the "services of a members' club without paying and without being a member" is cited as an example of fraud in the UK, the bar for criminality is set very low, unless the Crown Prosecution Service decides otherwise, of course. A subscription streaming service pursuing a password-sharing subscriber for fraud might present itself as a legal option, but a PR disaster is never a commercial option, especially when password sharing could be ended today using technical means. So what else is on the table? Other Legal Options Other options mentioned by the IPO are directly linked to contract law and licensing, both of which govern subscriber behavior. So-called 'terms of service' are part of the agreement when people subscribe to a streaming service like Netflix. Of course, few people read every term in detail (including when the terms are varied via email) but Netflix's agreement document grants specific rights to the subscriber under contract and copyright law, neither of which allows password sharing beyond specified limits. It's of some interest that sharing a password can be described as "unauthorized" or "not allowed" by anti-piracy groups and rightsholders yet be considered a serious criminal offense under existing law. Either way, the Intellectual Property Office didn't label password sharing illegal and a potential crime for no reason. Overall, deterrence seems to be the goal here. Criminalizing tens of thousands of people is a self-inflicted headache the UK doesn't need and in practical terms, couldn't begin to cope with. If streaming services really wanted to stop password sharing, they already have the means to do so. Whether they have the will is another matter. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2022 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