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Top Russian Official Thanks Pirates For Enabling Access to 'Enemy' ContentAndy Maxwell, 02 Feb 09:55 AM Russia's invasion of Ukraine coupled with re

Top Russian Official Thanks Pirates For Enabling Access to 'Enemy' Content Andy Maxwell, 02 Feb 09:55 AM Russia's invasion of Ukraine coupled with retaliatory measures and dangerous brinkmanship threatens to destabilize the entire planet. When a broad coalition of countries imposed sanctions on Russia last year, the goal was to limit Putin's ability to wage war without resorting to war itself. Sanctions were ostensibly crafted to curtail military capability while meting out punishment to Russia's elite. They were never likely to deliver results overnight or be precise enough to avoid collateral damage, as entertainment and software companies are now acutely aware. Intellectual Property, More Conflict Thus far, diminished access to various types of licensed intellectual property has prompted mostly unofficial responses in Russia. Facing an existential crisis and no support from the government, some elements in the cinema industry began screening unlicensed Western movies, for example. Unlike ally Belarus, which effectively legalized piracy recently, the Russian government has busied itself with proposals to introduce compulsory licensing for 'enemy' content but has faced opposition from within. A current proposal envisages Russian cinemas legally screening foreign movies without rightsholders' permission but with some kind of payment. After President Putin asked for input and opinions, the government department responsible for Russia's economic growth issued its response late last week. "The Ministry of Economic Development of Russia informs that the proposals contained in the appeal to amend the legislation of the Russian Federation are not supported, including due to the fact that they may entail a violation of international agreements to which the Russian Federation is a party, as well as negative assessments of Russian legislation and law enforcement practice in protection of property and property rights," the document reads. Since it "creates legal uncertainty," Russia's Ministry of Culture says the proposal requires significant revision, including assurances that rightsholders will get paid. The Ministry of Justice agrees that rightsholders should be compensated but says the proposals should not be limited to physical cinemas; online streaming portals should be allowed to screen unlicensed movies too. Former Russian President Does Away With Formalities As various governmental departments attempt to balance the reality of sanctions with the needs of the populace and the rule of law, yesterday former president Dmitry Medvedev brushed aside the legislative process by framing the unlicensed use of 'enemy' intellectual property as just one of Russia's responses to Western sanctions. "Enemy countries do not have the courage to admit that their 'hellish' sanctions have failed miserably. They do not work. The vast majority of industrial products and consumer goods were replaced by our own, Russian, and the missing ones – by Asian brands. Parallel imports also work, from which we get the same Western brands, and their owners get nothing," Medvedev wrote on Telegam. While Medvedev fails to recognize that Russia's purchases of Western products in the gray market still generate revenue for Western companies, his role as deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia is to implement Putin's national security decisions. From his statement, it appears that while intellectual property rights may be enshrined in law, legislative amendments will, at best, catch up with the reality of events on the ground. And if they require any payments to rightsholders, that will be too much for Medvedev. Recognition for Pirates Helping Russia "So everything is as always: the Americans make money on a humiliated Europe. Crushed Europe endures and loses money. At the same time, even the IMF predicts economic growth in Russia this year," Medvedev continued on Telegram. "All that remains is to adopt the rules on the use of their intellectual property. Without any licenses and payment of royalties. This, among other things, will be our retaliatory sanctions on their property rights," said the close Putin ally. The current proposal deals with film content, but for Medvedev, that doesn't go far enough. He says the use of unlicensed content should cover "everything" from movies to industrial software – nothing will be off-limits. If Medvedev's use of an old French phrase represents reality and the use of 'trollface' offers no contradiction, Russia may have been making best use of available resources for some time. "Thanks, by the way, to those who have developed various programs for the unlicensed use of their expensive intellectual products. In short, for piracy in a personal sanctions regime, à la guerre comme à la guerre." In a comment posted to state media outlet RIA, Medvedev's statement led to confusion. "I don't understand this, if the second highest person in security in the country thanks the pirates, then why do I still access torrents through a VPN to download the next movie?" From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. U.S. Identifies Top Pirate Sites and Other 'Notorious Markets' Ernesto Van der Sar, 01 Feb 08:34 PM Every year, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes a list of 'notorious markets' that facilitate online piracy and related intellectual property crimes. Drawing on input from copyright holders, the report includes a non-exclusive overview of sites and services that are believed to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting. For more than a decade we have covered the online part of the report. Traditionally, that includes prominent torrent sites, download portals, cyberlockers, and streaming services that offer copyrighted content without obtaining permission from rightsholders. In recent years, the scope of the report has broadened. For example, we have seen hosting companies, advertisers, and social media platforms being added. These don't have piracy as their core business, but they allegedly facilitate infringing activity. 2022 Notorious Markets Review Yesterday, the USTR published its 2022 Review of Notorious Markets. According to Ambassador Katherine Tai, the annual overview will help companies and countries to take proper action, where needed. "The Notorious Markets List is an important tool that urges the private sector and our trading partners to take action against these harmful practices," Tai notes, commenting on the release of the report. The importance and political clout of the report shouldn't be understated. However, the fact that some names have been listed for over a decade, shows that there are no guarantees for improvement. Familiar Names Looking at the 2022 Review of Notorious Markets, we see the usual suspects, including The Pirate Bay, RARBG, Rapidgator, Fmovies, Sci-Hub and 2Conv. These all come with a short description of the sites and why they are deemed problematic by rightsholders. Some dedicated IPTV services and related companies such as Globe IPTV are called out as well, while 'bulletproof' hosting companies (Amaru / Flokinet) and even social media platforms (VK / WeChat) get mentioned too. The same is true for popular foreign e-commerce platforms such as Aliexpress, Baidu Wangpan and Shopee.com. These stores are often linked to the sale of counterfeit goods. Meanwhile, there is no mention of anime piracy sites, which are massively popular. Newcomers This year's overview only delivers a few new names, including torrent sites Rutracker and YTS. The latter was noticeably missing last year, despite being the most visited torrent site on the Internet. Russia-based classified advertisement platform Avato is another newcomer. The same is true for hosting company Amarutu, which hosts many of the largest pirate sites according to rightsholders. The fifth and final addition is an interesting one. The USTR lists Lalastreams / istream2watch.com as a family of sports streaming sites. And indeed, these were reported by the UK Premier League a few weeks ago. What the USTR report fails to mention is that the istream2watch.com domain was seized by U.S. law enforcement authorities last December. Other domains from the same group are not called out and remain online. Dropouts We expect that istream2watch.com won't be used as an example next year. And while we're on the topic, it's worth mentioning the sites that have been removed from the notorious markets list following appearances last year. These are: -Blueangelhost (reason unknown) -Chomikuj.pl (started filtering) -Dytt8.net (reason unknown) -Phimmoi (original site shut down) -Popcorn Time (popular fork shut down) -Private Layer (reason unknown) -Revenuehits.com (reason unknown) -Uploaded.net (shut down voluntarily) Finally, it's worth noting that there are no immediate legal consequences for sites and services that appear on the USTR's list. That said, over the past year, we have seen several requests in US courts where rightsholders asked intermediaries including ISPs to block domains that appear on the USTR's annual list. As far as we know, none of these requests have been granted, but that could change in the future. — A copy of the USTR's 2022 Review of Notorious Markets is available here (pdf). The full list of highlighted online sites/services, including those focused on counterfeiting, is as follows: Torrent Sites -1337x.to -Rarbg.to -Rutracker.org (new) -Thepiratebay.org -YTS.mx (new) Cyberlockers -1Fichier -Rapidgator.net E-commerce -Aliexpress -Baidu Wangpan -Bukalapak.com -DHgate.com -Indiamart -Pinduoduo.com -Shopee.com -Taobao.com -Tokopedia.com PaaS -2Embed Advertising -Avito (new) Streaming / IPTV -Bestbuyiptv.store -Chaloos -Cuevana3.io -Egy.best -Fmovies / Bmovies / Bflix -Globe IPTV -Istar -Lalastreams / Istream2watch.com (new) -Pelisplus.icu -Shabakatv -Spider Hosting -Amaratu (new) -FlokiNET Social Media -VK.com -WeChat Gaming -Mpgh.net Music -Flvto.biz and 2Conv.com -MP3juices.cc -Newalbumreleases.net Publishing -Libgen -Sci-Hub From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. AnimixReplay Shuts Down After ACE Comes Knocking Ernesto Van der Sar, 01 Feb 01:27 PM Late last year, popular anime site AmimixPlay closed its doors, citing technical and motivational issues. The decision was a massive disappointment to its loyal user base, which was good for an estimated 100 million monthly visits. Following the site's demise, several copycats popped up. A group of fans also created a new project to honor the original in a more respectful matter, while giving former users a new home; AnimixReplay. This scenario has worked for other pirate sites and services in the past but it's certainly not without risk. Visiting a pirate streaming site as a casual user is an entirely different ball game to running one, and the legal implications are not immediately obvious to everyone. ACE Investigates AnimixReplay The AnimixReplay team learned this lesson over the past few days. While they were building up their project, including a new app, the MPA-staffed Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was gathering intelligence on the key people involved. A few days ago, ACE boss Jan van Voorn requested two DMCA subpoenas from a California federal court. The first one targeted CDN provider Cloudflare, while the other was directed at the Tonic registry, which oversees all .to domain names. The subpoenas listed a variety of suspected piracy portals, including kool.to, zoro.to, theflixer.tv and gogohd.pro. And indeed, the animixreplay.to domain made an appearance as well. The goal of these DMCA subpoenas is to request the personal details of the domain operators from online intermediaries. This information is sometimes unusable as pirate sites can provide fake details, but with AnimixReplay, ACE hit the jackpot. Legal Threat On Monday, AmimixReplay suddenly shut down "until further notice", mentioning that they had received word from a lawyer. This lawyer, who mentioned prominent ACE backers including Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros, urged them to cease their copyright infringing activity. "You may be wondering whats happening? Well that's because we got a Subpoena from Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros, and more all at once! So yeah thats a thing," the announcement on Discord read. At this point, the implications weren't entirely clear to the AnimixReplay team. Lack of understanding was also apparent in a Reddit post, which suggested jail time was on the horizon. The Real ACE TorrentFreak reached out to Fryz from the AnimixReplay team yesterday, who confirmed that ACE had warned them and sent a copy of the Cloudflare subpoena. This seriously spooked the operators, but they still weren't convinced. After doing some research, the team initially thought that it could all be a prank, so they reached out to Cloudflare to get confirmation. To learn more we reached out to ACE's Jan van Voorn, who informed us that the warning salvo was very real. ACE was indeed behind the subpoenas and although Cloudflare hadn't produced any information yet, the anti-piracy group had tracked down two US-based operators through other means. "[W]hile waiting for subpoena responses, we continued our investigation, and we relatively quickly identified the 2 US-based operators (Kentucky and Ohio) of animixreplay.to and its related website fryz.site through OSINT analysis," Van Voorn said. "Our findings were confirmed via the voluntary cooperation of other intermediaries used by these websites," he added. The above suggests that the subpoenas certainly weren't key in tracking down people connected to AnimixReplay. The alliance has more OSINT tricks and can rely on help from third-party intermediaries. While ACE doesn't mention which ones, it's possible that the 'friendly' Radix registry assisted with providing more information on the .site domain. Shutting Down For the AnimixReplay team, it doesn't really matter 'how' they were tracked down. The potential legal consequences have presented a bigger worry. At this point, no lawsuit has been filed and based on ACE's comments, that's not on the horizon as long as the site remains offline. "Should the websites be brought online again after this initial warning, either in their original or a rebranded form, we will be happy to have our attorneys reach out to them directly," Van Voorn tells us. Fryz and the rest of the AnimixReplay team received the message, loud and clear. Shortly after the confirmation, they announced that the project won't come back online. "This is a legal shutdown on the website, I'm confirming all docs are legit," Fryz wrote, effectively calling the end of the project. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2023 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