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Anti-Piracy DNS Poisoning Blacks Out Media Group, ISP Refuses to CommentAndy Maxwell, 22 Mar 12:53 PM In a world where clear and independent reporti

Anti-Piracy DNS Poisoning Blacks Out Media Group, ISP Refuses to Comment Andy Maxwell, 22 Mar 12:53 PM In a world where clear and independent reporting struggles to get heard in a sea of sensationalized clickbait, the German Heise group is generally recognized as a reliable and accurate news source. For several days last week, an unknown number of visitors to heise.de were denied access to the company's reporting. Instead, they found themselves redirected to Germany's anti-piracy website blocking portal and statements that had no basis in fact. Silently Blocked For Several Days A Heise analysis, published Tuesday, reveals that the publication first learned of issues affecting access to its website last Friday, March 17. More messages from readers were received on Monday, and all reported the same thing. When attempting to access heise.de, web browsers responded with a certificate error and an explanation. A bright orange splash page informed Heise readers that due to copyright infringement, Heise had been rendered inaccessible. The message usually confronts internet users who attempt to access a specific set of sites previously identified as facilitators of mass online copyright infringement. Heise had no idea why the message was being displayed but did find a common denominator. All of the readers reporting problems were using the same internet service provider – 1&1 AG, a €3.9 billion telecoms group servicing 15.6 million fixed line and mobile customers. DNS Tampering/Poisoning Heise reports that its editors and system administrators were getting closer to the source of the problem on Friday but then a reader provided crucial information. "He had set up his provider's standard DNS server with the IP address 82.144.41.8 as the DNS server in his router," Heise reports. "This temporarily answered a question about www.heise.de with a CNAME entry that referred to the notice.cuii.info page. Other readers also confirmed that they were using the provider's default DNS servers." Under normal conditions, web browsers accessing heise.de receive a response from the Domain Name System (DNS) to visit an IP address defined by the publication. In this case, Heise.de's domain had a surprise CNAME (Canonical Name) entry that mapped heise.de to notice.cuii.info, the location of the orange splash screen carrying the copyright notification. Since Heise itself is a 1&1 customer, staff tried to replicate the issues experienced by customers on a 1&1 DSL connection in the company's editorial office. That ultimately failed and the redirect eventually disappeared on its own. Heise Requests Answers, Receives None In an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery, Heise said it contacted 1&1's press office. The publication was informed that the internet service provider's technical department would investigate but as things stand, Heise has received no response. "The case remains a mystery: Only a small proportion of the queries to 1&1 DNS servers seem to be affected, and it is also not a regional problem. The tips came from Berlin and Hesse, among others," Heise reports. Starting from the position that the Domain Name System shouldn't be tampered with, the question is why that appears not to be the case here. The short answer is that, with assistance from 1&1, Germany has implemented a DNS tampering system that enables rightsholders to redirect 1&1's customers to a blocking page when they attempt to access specific pirate site domains. CUII and Site-Blocking in Germany Copyright Clearing House on the Internet (CUII) was launched in 2021. It operates from cuii.info and its blocking notification page is located at notice.cuii.info, the subdomain/domain that appeared in Heise.de's DNS CNAME records. "The Copyright Clearing House on the Internet (CUII) is an independent body. It was set up by Internet access providers and rights holders in order to use objective criteria to check whether the blocking of access to a structurally infringing website is lawful," CUII explains. Current members of CUII: 1&1 AG (telecoms), German Book Traders' Association, Federal Music Industry Association (BVMI), German Football League (DFL), Freenet DLS (telecoms), German Games Industry Association, Motion Picture Association (MPA), Sky Deutschland, STM (publishers), Telefónica Germany, Telekom Germany, German Film Producers Association (VDF), and Vodafone Germany. "At the request of the rights holder, a review committee will examine and, if the requirements are met, recommend a DNS blocking of this structurally copyright-violating website," the CUII website notes. When a blocking decision is recommended, the matter is then referred to the German government's Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) to confirm that a blockade will not violate net neutrality. Currently a small number of pirate sites are affected. Code of Conduct CUII's stated purpose to recommend blocking of websites whose main purpose is to infringe copyright. The body is limited to handling "clear cases" where platforms have no real interest in supplying legal content. Under its code of conduct, CUII observes the requirements laid down by the Court of Justice of the European Union to prevent internet service providers from encroaching on internet users' freedom to access information online. "For this reason, the Federal Network Agency is also involved in the process as the competent authority so that it can review the recommended blocking based on the requirements of the Net Neutrality Ordinance," CUII notes. Who Will Accept Responsibility? Given all of the checks, processes and systems in place to prevent the blocking system from doing harm, what happened to Heise should've been impossible. As things stand, not only was it possible but nobody seems prepared to offer an explanation. That's a big issue. At the time of writing, Swiss DNS resolver Quad9 is being forced by a German court order to implement blocks after losing a case to Sony Music. Sony Music is a member of BVMI, which in turn is a member of CUII. As things stand, a completely innocent website has lost traffic for 72 hours and the visitors who were redirected to the CUII blocking page were informed that Heise was blocked for copyright reasons. Indeed, as per CUII's own standards, Heise was labeled a "clear" infringer of copyrights with no interest whatsoever in providing legal content. That probably needs to be addressed with a clear explanation, sooner rather than later. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. RIAA Hunts Pre-Release Music Pirates Behind UnreleasedSounds.gg Andy Maxwell, 21 Mar 08:55 PM Human beings have a tendency to want things they can't have. A modest interest in a particular item or activity can inexplicably soar when it's recognized as rare or unavailable. When strictly forbidden, even regular fruit can prove irresistible. Spotify offers 100 million tracks to hear right now, including the vast majority of the greatest pieces of music ever written. Yet for some, the lure of an unreleased track can outweigh every single one of them; unattainable, forbidden and rare is a potent mix and may explain why pirates are paying silly money for leaked, pirated music. Dozens of Avicii Leaks When producer Tim Bergling passed away in 2018, the prospect of never hearing a new Avicii track was suddenly very real. Two albums and various tracks were eventually released, but then – PAB happened. In 2022 the Public Avicii Buy Server (PAB) channel on Discord became a hot location for unreleased Avicii tracks. Faced with having to pay for them, fans worked to 'groupbuy' a long list of Avicii tracks including 'Let's Roll' and 'Lethal Drug V2' which featured Chris Martin & SZA. Sources Unknown But Some Files Were Apparently Stolen How the music was obtained isn't clear; some believed the PAB seller bought the tracks and then sold them to fellow Avicii fans at cost price. Others spoke of hacked accounts and big profits. Late 2022, after another 'PAB' release ('Island') appeared online, a Reddit user jumped in to comment "Hey guys! My name is Jonas Wallin and my alias is The High," the music producer posted on Reddit. "I wrote Island and it's coming out soon in fact. The leaked vocals are mine, my vocal stems. It's the same with Loving Feeling. I would recommend you to not pay someone for these files since they were stolen from me. Thanks." RIAA Investigates Unreleased Sounds According to various sources, the track made its way to PAB via a private leak site called Unreleased Sounds. It's unclear whether the RIAA's member labels have any interests in the dozens of Avicii tracks leaked so far, but they do want to know who runs the 15/16 month-old site. Citing three previously leaked tracks – 'Hot Saturn' by Lil Nas X, 'Rockstar Status' by Juice WRLD, and PnB Rock's 'I Know They Mad' — on March 13 the RIAA filed an application for a DMCA subpoena at a district court in Columbia, Washington. "The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identities of the individuals assigned to these websites who have reproduced and have offered for distribution our members' copyrighted sound recordings without their authorization," the application reads. In a letter to Cloudflare, the service targeted in the subpoena, the RIAA requests several pieces of information. "As is stated in the attached subpoena, you are required to disclose to the RIAA information sufficient to identify the infringers. This would include the individuals' names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history, as available." The DMCA subpoena, which also references two additional platforms (NoTube.net and Aonode.com), has now been issued so it's likely Cloudflare will hand over the information in the coming days, if it hasn't already. Unreleased Sounds It's not difficult to find reports of unreleased tracks being leaked by Unreleased Sounds. Operating from at least two domains – unreleasedsounds.gg and unreleased.gg – the platform became a members-only service last October, meaning that today's prospective members need an invite code to sign up. "Our website is now a closed/invite only marketplace," the site's operator wrote. The screenshot above reveals Kanye West and Avicii as featured artists on Unreleased Sounds. While that doesn't provide hard evidence that the platform was the source of previous Avicii leaks, comments from the site's operator suggest that if fans have the money, more Avicii music is indeed available. The DMCA subpoena also covers Aonode.com and NoTube.net, a stream-ripping platform with tens of millions of monthly visits. DMCA Subpoenas and Links to Infringing Content The RIAA previously sent DMCA takedown notices to Cloudflare asking for the allegedly infringing content to be removed. How Cloudflare responded to those notices is unclear but in one case, it may have been difficult to know exactly what to take down. Unlike the URLs for the other sites, the three Unreleased Sounds links appear to be artist categories rather than links to specific content. Given the overall nature of the platform, that's not particularly unreasonable, but it does raise the question of why the direct links were left out. One possibility is that the links were external and carried the domain of a far less interesting hosting site. Another is that artist page URLs are much easier to guess from outside once the general format is known. But whatever the reason, RIAA subpoenas are relatively rare and being featured in one rarely ends well. The RIAA's DMCA subpoena application can be found here (1,2,3,4, pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Internet Archive's Copyright Battle with Book Publishers Nears Climax Ernesto Van der Sar, 21 Mar 01:09 PM In 2020, publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley and Penguin Random House sued the Internet Archive (IA) for copyright infringement, equating its 'Open Library' to a pirate site. IA's library is a non-profit organization that scans physical books, which can then be lent out to patrons in an ebook format. Staying true to the centuries-old library concept, only one patron at a time can get a copy. These restrictions were temporarily loosened at the height of the Covid epidemic when IA launched the National Emergency Library. Mass Copyright Infringement or Fair Use? The publishers see IA's library as a rogue operation that engages in willful mass copyright infringement, directly damaging their bottom line. As such, they want it permanently taken down. "Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers, IA scans print books, uploads these illegally scanned books to its servers, and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via public-facing websites," their complaint reads. The publishers are not against libraries per se, nor do they object to ebook lending. When lending digital content, 'authorized' libraries typically obtain a license or negotiate specific terms. The Internet Archive has no such license. The Internet Archive wholeheartedly disagrees with the copyright infringement allegations. Stressing that the library offers a vital service, Internet Archive's defense centers on the legal concept of fair use. The Archive states that making a digital copy of a physical book 'transforms' the original work before it is loaned to one patron at a time. That would qualify as fair use, they argue, especially since there is no profit motive. Another factor in favor of fair use is the fact that there are numerous benefits to the public at large. There is also no evidence to show that the book publishers' sales or traditional licensing revenues were impacted. New York Court Hearing Over the past two-and-a-half years, the parties have gone back and forth in court, disputing each other's arguments. This eventually resulted in contrasting motions for summary judgment, with both sides hoping for a ruling in their favor ahead of the trial. Yesterday, IA and the publishers had the opportunity to back up their positions during a New York District Court hearing. Both parties laid out their cases and were questioned by District Court John Koeltl. The publishers' attorney Elizabeth McNamara pointed out that the IA strives to make all knowledge available for free, but doesn't want to compensate rightsholders for their works. "IA does not want to pay authors or publishers to realize this grand scheme and they argue it can be excused from paying the customary fees because what they're doing is in the public interest," she said, quoted by The Register. The publishers' attorney added that IA's lending platform directly harms authors and publishers, but Judge Koeltl didn't see any direct evidence of harm. IA's attorney Joseph Gratz said evidence of harm doesn't exist. "There's no evidence that the publishers have lost a dime," Gratz said, as quoted by Ars Technica. Unauthorized Reproductions The four-factor fair use test that applies in these cases isn't straightforward, but a Reuters report highlights some interesting comments from Judge Koeltl. Koeltl stressed that libraries absolutely have the right to lend books that they own but in this case, IA goes a step further by making a digital copy, a reproduction of the original work. "You avoid the question of whether the library has the right to reproduce the book that it otherwise has the right to possess, which is really at the heart of the case," Koeltl said, noting that "the publisher has a copyright right to control reproduction." IA's attorney responded by pointing out that the reproductions serve a 'transformative' purpose in this case, while adding that every fair use case deals with copies or reproductions by definition. Battle For Libraries The above is just a fraction of the legal arguments under discussion. While in essence this is a copyright dispute subject to existing law and jurisprudence, it's exemplary of a bigger problem. The publishers are not only up against IA; a large public movement has formed in support. This includes Fight for the Future's "Battle for Libraries" campaign, which argues that the publishers act as malicious gatekeepers, preventing the free flow of information and undermining libraries' ability to serve their patrons. The general complaint is that publishers want to control and restrict digital access to books through relatively expensive licensing agreements. This serves a commercial purpose, but can also be used to censor content and restrict access whenever they see fit. The issue also attracted the attention of Creative Commons founder and Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who describes this as a critical moment in the history of culture. "The lawsuit that the Internet Archive faces will determine whether the business model of culture is the commercial model alone, or whether there will continue to be a place for libraries," Lessig notes. Lawmakers have taken an interest in the dispute too. A few months ago, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo sent a letter to the major publishers, asking them about their restrictive lease terms for ebooks. "Many libraries face financial and practical challenges in making e-books available to their patrons, which jeopardizes their ability to fulfill their mission," their letter reads. "It is our understanding that these difficulties arise because e-books are typically offered under more expensive and limited licensing agreements, unlike print books that libraries can typically purchase, own, and lend on their own terms." These comments show that this isn't just another copyright lawsuit. Whatever the immediate outcomes of the pending motions and trial, this matter is likely to be contested all the way to the Supreme Court. 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