TorrentFreak's Latest News

ResearchGate Wins (& Loses) Scientific Publishers' Copyright LawsuitAndy Maxwell, 25 Feb 09:23 AM ResearchGate is a social networking site aimed at

ResearchGate Wins (& Loses) Scientific Publishers' Copyright Lawsuit Andy Maxwell, 25 Feb 09:23 AM ResearchGate is a social networking site aimed at the academic community. Its users, which currently number around 20 million, are able to upload content to the platform, which at times includes published research papers. In September 2017 the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) wrote to ResearchGate on behalf of 140 publishers. The group said that in its opinion, the platform had a responsibility to address infringing content on its servers. STM demanded that ResearchGate should implement a system to identify copyrighted content but the platform rejected the proposition. Five publishers – Elsevier, ACS, Brill, Wiley, and Wolters Kluwer – which form the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, reported that ResearchGate wanted publishers to send takedown notices so that infringing content could be removed. In October 2017, scientific publishers Elsevier and American Chemical Society (ACS) followed up with a copyright infringement lawsuit against ResearchGate in Germany, seeking clarity on the legal situation plus damages. That decision is now in, with both sides framing the outcome as a win for them yet somehow unsatisfactory for both. Decision of the Court In a release from the 21st civil chamber of the Munich I Regional Court, the basics are made clear. The publishers believed that since they own the rights to the articles (50 were presented in the case), they should not be available without permission on ResearchGate. On the other hand, ResearchGate said that it could not be held liable for making the articles available, since any papers were uploaded by users of the site. The Court found that ResearchGate was indeed responsible for the infringing content being made available and issued an injunction preventing the content from reappearing in the future, despite it having been completely removed several years ago. However, the Court denied the publishers an award for damages, something that was completely omitted from the publishers' press announcement celebrating the victory. Publishers: ResearchGate is Responsible For Illegal Content From the publishers' side, this is a victory for them. ACS and Elsevier say that the Court confirmed that ResearchGate was responsible for content made available illegally on its site and welcome the fact that the 50 papers are now subject to an injunction. The group added that the Court found that ResearchGate wasn't a passive provider of infrastructure and played an active part in illegal sharing by providing "specific tools". "We welcome the court´s decision confirming that it is illegal for ResearchGate to make content available on its site without permission from publishers, which it does for its own commercial gain. ResearchGate's insistence that publishers should send takedown notices for this content is not in line with the law, and it is highly disruptive to the research community," their announcement reads. The publishers add that the Court found its agreements "legally valid" but notable by its absence is any mention of the Court's refusal to award damages. ResearchGate, on the other hand, leads with that as its own victory. ResearchGate: Damages Claim Dismissed While the question of liability is certainly important, an award for damages could've been financially significant for ResearchGate. The reason that the Court refused to award any whatsoever is just as significant. According to ResearchGate, the publishers' standard copyright licensing agreements disclosed as part of the lawsuit revealed that they are typically signed by a single author, despite being authored by multiple authors. According to the Court, these agreements were insufficient to demonstrate the acquisition of rights. "[The] plaintiffs were not able to comprehensively present the granting of rights in even one of the fifty cases in dispute," a translation from the Court's ruling reads. "Overall, the Board has the impression that the plaintiffs, by invoking various indications of their legal position, are primarily trying to cover up the insufficient documentation of the acquisition of rights, which sometimes makes it impossible for them to present the necessary factual circumstances for the asserted legal position." The Court added that it should not be difficult "for a publisher, whose business basis is the legal acquisition of rights" to get something like this right. ResearchGate's opinion is that the publishers could have other related problems moving forward. "This ruling has potentially far-reaching implications for the plaintiffs' ability to assert their copyright ownership in the future," the platform notes. The Question of Liability and Content Removal ResearchGate also addresses the question of liability. The company notes that the ruling requires it to refrain from displaying the "50 articles, abstracts and previews" identified in the suit but says that it has already filed an appeal in that regard. "We removed the articles, which had been uploaded by their authors, as well as the other materials, years ago," the company says. ResearchGate further notes that it has always operated a notice-and-takedown system and more recently, in response to recent changes in German and EU law, has also built a content blocking system. "These measures are available to any publisher who wishes to take advantage of them, and Elsevier and ACS are already using them," the company adds. The publishers make no mention of this, instead reporting that they offered their own "easy-to-use automated solution" that would make the "takedown of articles by ResearchGate unnecessary" – but ResearchGate rejected it. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Iconic Game Cracking Group CODEX Shuts Down Ernesto Van der Sar, 24 Feb 03:11 PM From the day the first computer and video games were published, people have been able to pirate them. In the early days that involved copying cassettes and floppy disks and today most unauthorized copying takes place over the Internet. Over the past decades, a subset of gaming fans have united in Scene groups to ensure a steady stream of cracked games, i.e those that have had their protections removed. Dozens of these groups have come and gone but few managed to rule their niche like CODEX. CODEX Enters The Scene CODEX was founded in 2014, which makes it a relatively young group. Over the years, however, it took the cracking scene by storm. The group was first to release many prominent game titles and cracked the repeatedly strongest protections, including Denuvo, in record time. Most game publishers feared CODEX but some smaller developers also saw it as somewhat of a twisted honor when the group cracked their game. Warhorse Studios, the developer behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, famously framed a massive replica of a CODEX NFO which is proudly on display at its office. Since its inception, more than 7,000 CODEX-branded titles were released, which eventually found their way into the hands of millions of game pirates. However, this prolific stream of releases stopped yesterday. CODEX Retires In the release notes of "The Sims 4 My Wedding Stories," CODEX officially announced its retirement. This decision is not the result of arrests or internal struggles. Instead, the group writes that it achieved its goal, while also being critical of the current state of the cracking scene. CODEX writes that it initially started to compete with RELOADED, the dominant PC games cracking group at the time. However, this competition was only short-lived. "It was a fun and sometimes dirty ride with lots of give and take on both sides. But sadly, it did not last very long and RLD started to crumble and slowly fell apart, making the scene less interesting," CODEX writes. 'Copycats' While the RELOADED tag remained in use CODEX notes that that was done without permission of the real group. And this 'new' version didn't offer much competition either. "From the first day they started releasing in the PC section, they have worked hard to shamelessly destroy the reputation of a once iconic group tag when they really should have closed down years ago after all the spectacular fuckups they are responsible for," CODEX writes. According to the group it has become more and more common for new groups to resurrect and take over tags of old cracking groups. This helps them to quickly get attention, but it doesn't necessarily mean that their quality is up to par. This imposter-type behavior is reminiscent of the piracy landscape where brands such as YTS, EZTV, and ExtraTorrent were hijacked by people who have nothing to do with the original groups or sites. Mission Accomplished CODEX writes that it no longer sees any serious competition to the quality and variety of releases it produces. They don't limit themselves to Steam and Denuvo, but also cover Origin, Epic, Uplay, Bethesda.net, Battle.net and many other platforms. This apparent lack of competition means that they are now the dominant player in the game cracking Scene, exactly as they envisioned eight years ago. As such, it is now time to retire. "So now, years after reaching our initial goal, we feel that it is time to move on. We thank everyone who accompanied and supported us on our journey," the group writes. "Have a good time… Bye from CODEX!" 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

TorrentFreak's Latest News

TVAddons' Adam Lackman Admits TV Show Piracy, Agrees to Pay US$19.5mAndy Maxwell, 23 Feb 11:53 PM Mid-June 2017 and in the wake of a lawsuit filed i

TVAddons' Adam Lackman Admits TV Show Piracy, Agrees to Pay US$19.5m Andy Maxwell, 23 Feb 11:53 PM Mid-June 2017 and in the wake of a lawsuit filed in the United States by broadcaster DISH Network, TVAddons – the largest third-party Kodi add-on repository at the time – disappeared from the Internet. All signs pointed to the events being connected but by August 2017, a bigger picture was emerging. On June 2, 2017, a coalition of Canadian telecoms giants including Bell Canada, Bell ExpressVu, Bell Media, Videotron, Groupe TVA, Rogers Communications and Rogers Media, had filed a copyright complaint in Canada's Federal Court against Montreal resident Adam Lackman, the man behind TVAddons. The plaintiffs' case against Lackman ran to 18 pages and contained claims that he communicated copyrighted TV shows including Game of Thrones, Prison Break, The Big Bang Theory, America's Got Talent, Keeping Up With The Kardashians and dozens more, to the public in breach of copyright, due to him developing, hosting, distributing or promoting infringing Kodi add-ons. Lawsuit Execution Was Highly Controversial On June 9 the Federal Court handed down an interim injunction against Lackman restraining him from various activities in respect of TVAddons. The process took place ex parte, meaning that Lackman was unable to mount a defense. The plaintiffs were also granted an Anton Piller order, a civil search warrant that allowed them to access Lackman's home without prior notice. TVAddons later came back under a new domain name but the damage had been done. After a resurgence in 2019, the site's traffic went steadily downhill to a mere fraction of that achieved during its glory days. The lawsuit filed by DISH was settled months earlier but declining interest in Kodi (plus obvious legal considerations when it came to developing or distributing potentially infringing add-ons) meant that TVAddons was never likely to fully recover. Up until a couple of weeks ago the site was still operational but in a replay of 2017, it once again disappeared along with its social media and Github channels. The site's domain records further suggested something was afoot, with the TVAddons domain suddenly transferred to GoDaddy. We can now reveal that TVAddons is gone for good. Plaintiffs and Lackman Agree Consent Judgment In a letter dated February 18, 2022, the media companies and Lackman told the Federal Court that they had resolved their differences by agreeing to a consent judgment. That was reviewed and issued by Justice Rochester, who laid out the agreed terms in her judgment handed down February 22, 2022. Lackman admits to communicating TV shows owned by the plaintiffs to the public, including by directly or indirectly participating in the "development, hosting, distribution or promotion of Kodi add-ons that provide users with unauthorized access" to the plaintiffs' TV shows, contrary to sections 3(1)(f) and 27(1) of the Copyright Act. The TVAddons founder further admits that he made the TV shows available to the public in a manner that provided access "from a place and at a time individually chosen by them" and induced and authorized users of the infringing add-ons to "initiate acts of infringement of the Plaintiffs' right to communicate the Plaintiffs Programs to the public by telecommunication", again by developing, hosting, distributing or promoting Kodi add-ons. Permanent Injunction The Federal Court issued a permanent injunction to restrain Lackman (and anyone acting with him, under his authority, or in association) from communicating the plaintiffs' content to the public in any way, including via the development or distribution of infringing add-ons such as the 'FreeTelly' and 'Indigo' tools. The terms of the injunction are lengthy and comprehensive, leaving no doubt that TVAddons and all related tools and services are now dead, with Lackman unable to do anything remotely similar in the future. Lackman Must Pay Plaintiffs US$19.5 Million Given how long the case has taken to progress, there was always likely to be a damages and costs component to the judgment, whenever it finally arrived. Whether Lackman really has millions of dollars kicking around is an open question but if nothing else, the judgment should act as a deterrent. "THIS COURT ORDERS the Defendant Mr. Lackman to pay the Plaintiffs the amount of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) in the form of a lump sum for damages, profits, punitive and exemplary damages, and costs," Justice Rochester writes. The judgment is in Canadian dollars but for reference, that's currently around US$19.5 million. The judgment also authorizes the bailiffs and independent supervising solicitor (with the assistance of computer forensics experts) to transfer the evidence obtained during the search of June 2017 to the media companies. Exactly what data was seized is currently unclear but it is likely to be sensitive, particularly if the trove includes user data and/or information about Kodi add-on developers. Finally, it appears the media companies will also be taking control of "login credentials, accounts, domains, subdomains and servers" in order to bring this years-long battle to a conclusion. Adam Lackman announced his relief on Twitter, noting that "It wasn't the outcome I had hoped for, but an outcome nonetheless." Update: The article initially included the wrong amount in USD, we have updated that. The consent judgment can be found here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Reddit Banned 2,625 Subreddits For Excessive Copyright Infringement in 2021 Andy Maxwell, 23 Feb 07:25 PM As one of the more popular user-submitted content sites on the internet today, Reddit and its community moderators have to work hard to keep the platform in order. In 2021, Reddit's users created nearly 5.8 billion posts, comments, private messages and chats across the platform, with 297,161,752 later being removed by moderators (around 175.8k), removed by site admins (108.6K), and the authors themselves (12.6K). Content can be removed for a variety of reasons. 'Content manipulation' is the largest category and encompasses spam, community interference (so-call 'brigading'), vote manipulation, and similar issues. For the purpose of this report, however, we'll home in on the copyright issues faced by Reddit during the last year and how the site responded to them. Copyright Removals In common with the vast majority of large companies based in the US, Reddit has to follow the requirements of the DMCA which means that when it receives a valid copyright notice, it must comply by taking the identified content down. On the other hand, when submitters send notices that are incomplete or invalid in some other way, Reddit does not. "In 2021, Reddit received 177,450 copyright notices reporting 920,672 pieces of content. This represents an increase of 104% from 2020. We removed 665,898 pieces of content in response to these takedown notices," the company reveals in the latest edition of its transparency report. Under the DMCA, Reddit is also required to take "appropriate action" against so-called "repeat infringers", which in the company's case can involve the termination of not only user accounts but also entire subreddit communities, especially ones where "excessive amounts" of infringing content keep getting posted. "In 2021, Reddit permanently suspended 2,813 users and banned 2,625 subreddits for excessive copyright infringement," the company writes. These figures represent a substantial increase over those published for 2020. In that year, Reddit banned just 303 users and terminated 514 subreddits. Although overall copyright complaints are up 104% on the previous year, the site's termination policy doesn't appear to have changed significantly. This may suggest that some users and subreddits simply aren't getting the message that by repeatedly posting infringing content, it can and will result in both them and their communities getting banned. Invalid Copyright Notices Are Rejected Any copyright notices sent to Reddit must comply with various rules. Primarily they must deal with copyright, not other issues such as privacy or harassment. When they do address copyright issues they must meet the requirements of copyright law and include specified information. Furthermore, the submitter must also consider whether the content they're complaining about is being used legally, i.e under the doctrine of fair use. Should a submitted notice fail to meet these requirements, action by Reddit is declined. In 2021 260,884 pieces of content did not qualify for removal due to invalid, incomplete, or duplicate copyright notices. These included a complaint from a video game publisher that requested the removal of posts purported to reveal game mechanics for a not-yet-released game. "Although the notice claimed that 'leaked images of the unreleased game' infringed the publisher's copyrights in the game, the only image found in either of the reported posts was a screenshot of further plain text description of game mechanics. Since the reported content was merely related to the rightsholder's work but did not copy from it in a way that constitutes infringement, we declined to remove the content," Reddit reveals. When someone complains about a specific piece of content and that content is taken down, under US copyright law the targeted user has the ability to appeal via a DMCA counter notice. Such counter notices are required to follow a structure but successful notices can result in content being restored. Content can also be restored if the submitter of the original notice issues a retraction. "Reddit complies with counter notices and retraction requests that are complete, and rejects those that are incomplete or invalid. In 2021, Reddit received 542 counter notices and 72 retraction requests. 285 counter notices were found to be valid, resulting in restoration of all the associated content to Reddit. Similarly, all retraction requests resulted in restoration of the associated content," the company notes. With around 297 million pieces of content removed by Reddit in 2021, the 665,898 pieces removed on copyright grounds represent a small fraction of the overall problem. However, with user accounts and entire communities on the line, consequences can be great when errant users repeatedly and intentionally overstep the line. The 2021 transparency report, which also covers law enforcement requests, can be found here 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

TorrentFreak's Latest News

Hollywood Wins Pirate Site Blocking Expansion in AustraliaErnesto Van der Sar, 23 Feb 08:38 AM Pirate site blockades are the preferred anti-piracy t

Hollywood Wins Pirate Site Blocking Expansion in Australia Ernesto Van der Sar, 23 Feb 08:38 AM Pirate site blockades are the preferred anti-piracy tool for many copyright holders around the world. This is also the case in Australia, where blocking injunctions are commonplace today. This week, a group of prominent Hollywood studios, Netflix, and Village Roadshow, obtained the latest blocking order in Australia's Federal Court. Fresh Blocking Order The complaint, filed in December, targets 34 sites and a total of 54 domain names. Most of the pirate sites are streaming portals, such as 123movies, Yomovies, Soap2Day, Myflixer, Vumoo, and 123Chill. The movie companies also added ETTVCentral.com, a domain that was used by the popular torrent distribution group ETTV. However, that doesn't make much of an impact as the site was shut down due to financial issues a few weeks ago. The court's order is directed at all the major Australian Internet providers including those operating under Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG and Vodafone corporate groups. These ISPs have 15 days to disable access to the listed domains and IP addresses. In addition, Internet providers are required to inform blocked visitors about the underlying court action. This can be done by redirecting traffic to a dedicated blocking page. "[ISPs] must use reasonable efforts to ensure that the webpage informs the user of that Respondent's service that access to that website has been disabled because this Court has determined that it infringes or facilitates the infringement of copyright," the order reads. Whack a Mole In the past, pirate sites have often switched to new domain names in an attempt to bypass blocking measures. This is still an option today, but the rightsholders have the liberty to send updated locations to the ISPs, which then have to be blocked as well. This week's order is initially valid for three years but the movie companies are allowed to ask for an extension if the sites remain operational going forward. In theory, the affected sites have the option to object to the blocking measures but, as far as we know, none of the pirate sites intends to do so. Most of the pirate sites that will be blocked gained popularity after their competitors were targeted in earlier blocking rounds. We expect that this pattern will continue to repeat itself. At the same time, however, there is also research that suggests that the majority of Aussie pirates simply give up instead of looking for alternative sources. A smaller but significant percentage use a VPN to bypass the blocking measures. — A copy of the blocking order, obtained by Village Roadshow, Disney, Paramount, Columbia, Universal, Warner Bros, and Netflix is available here (pdf). A full list of all the blocked domain names, some of which are mirrors, can be found below. – Yomovies.so – Yomovies.is – Yomovies.ac – Yomovies.cs – Yomovies.sh – Cimaclub.cc – Cima-club.cc – Goojara.to – Movamovie.net – Nmovies.cc – 123movies.gy – 123movies.vu – 123movies.page – 123movies.ms – Movieswatch.tv – Putlocker-website.com – Musichq.net – Dopebox.to – Dopebox.net – 123chill.to – 123series.ru – M4uhd.tv – Flixhq.ru – Ummagurau.com – Watchmovieshd.ru – Kiss-cartoon.io – Soap2day.video – Soap2day.film – Swatchseries.ru – Watchserieshd.ru – Watchserieshd.ru – Ettvcentral.com – Vumoo.life – W-123movies.com – 123moviess.sc – New.la123movies.org – La123movies.org – 123movies-official.site – M4ufree.com – Ssoap2day.to – Ssoap2day.art – Moviesjoy.one – Gomovies.fan – Putlockers.li – 7movierulz.lv – 7movierulz.pw – 7movierulz.mg – 7movierulz.vg – 7movierulz.mx – 7movierulz.pe – Myflixer.to – Primewire.es – Putlocker.es From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Hollywood: PrimeWire Pirate Streaming Site is Defying Court Injunction Andy Maxwell, 22 Feb 09:57 PM PrimeWire is a popular streaming portal that provides a database of links to pirated movies and TV shows hosted by third parties. It's been around for at least eight years but in December 2021 it became clear that major movie and TV show companies had seen enough. In a lawsuit filed by Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Disney and Netflix in the United States, the studios accused PrimeWire of massive copyright infringement by encouraging users of the site to upload links to pirated content. They said that this not only infringes their distribution rights but amounts to unfair competition to the detriment of VOD services such as Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount+, and Peacock. Indeed, the studios claim that PrimeWire is effectively an attractive one-stop shop, one that provides all of their exclusive content under one roof. Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Early January 2022, after the studios had demanded millions in damages and a preliminary injunction, the court responded by granting the latter. The order enjoins and restrains the PrimeWire defendants and anyone acting in concert with them from carrying out a number of actions, including linking to, distributing, reproducing, copying, hosting, uploading, and displaying the plaintiffs' copyrighted works. The injunction also ordered PrimeWire to take no action that would transfer the domains primewire.li, primewire.ag and primewire.vc to any other registrant or registrar. Domain name registrars and registries API Gmbh, Gandi SAS, Namecheap, Inc., Nic AG, SWITCH, and Afilias, Inc., were ordered to freeze and disable the three PrimeWire domains. Primewire.ag was subsequently disabled by Gandi, rendering it inaccessible. The others, however, remained functional, allowing PrimeWire to stay up, business as usual. In addition, a new site appeared – primewirestatus.org – which acts as a news portal to give up-to-date information on new PrimeWire domains, should the old ones shut down. We were unable to definitively link this domain to PrimeWire. However, in a call to the court, the studios now state that the people behind PrimeWire are also the people behind PrimeWireStatus, although they currently appear unable to identify any of them by name. Studios Demand Action After PrimeWire Defies Court In a motion for partial default judgment and leave to serve discovery, the studios say that since the operators of PrimeWire have failed to answer its original complaint, the court is entitled to enter judgment in the plaintiffs' favor. They say that the defendants were correctly served but are nevertheless "openly defying" the injunction and have "taken steps to evade its reach." Describing PrimeWire as "prolific copyright pirates", the studios say that on the day the preliminary injunction was served, they discovered that the PrimeWire team had taken countermeaasures. "The same day Plaintiffs served Defendants with the [preliminary injunction] order, Plaintiffs discovered Defendants switched to a domain name registrar that is known for tolerating piracy," their motion reads. "On or around January 10, Defendants transferred the primewire.li and primewire.vc domains to a new domain name registrar, Sarek Oy, which is known for providing domain name registrar services to websites that provide access to infringing content." Then on January 11, the PrimeWire team added a new banner to streaming site alerting users to the existence of primewirestatus.org, "so [they] will always know where to find PrimeWire." Domain Registries and Registrars According to the studios, they served notice of the preliminary injunction on all of PrimeWire's prior and current registrars and registries and requested that they should freeze and disable PrimeWire's domains. Registrar Gandi SAS complied with the requirements and disabled the primewire.ag domain but Sarek Oy, the registrar to which the other PrimeWire domains were transferred, is reportedly being less helpful and "has not responded to Plaintiffs' original or second communications and request for compliance." As a result, PrimeWire is still accessible from its .li and .vc domains, leading to a conclusion from the plaintiffs that PrimeWire is determined to render the preliminary injunction ineffective. Seeking a permanent injunction with the ability to tackle any new URLs, the studios want to seize PrimeWire's domains so that they can be used to deliver an anti-piracy message to PrimeWire's users The Question of Damages While the studios' original complaint demanded millions in statutory damages, they also want to find out how much money has been generated by PrimeWire from advertising. They say they need permission from the court to do so. "Plaintiffs believe a large damages award here will be appropriate given the scale of Defendants' infringement, but need discovery to gather more information regarding Defendants' ill-gotten profits," they write. "While Defendants suggested in limited communications with Plaintiffs that they generate little revenue through the PrimeWire Websites, Plaintiffs are entitled to discover the true facts." That might be easier said than done. The studios say they will need to contact PrimeWire's current and former advertising networks and sponsored link providers to gain that information but since some are abroad and are expected to be uncooperative, it may take as long as six months to obtain the information. In summary, Paramount, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Disney and Netflix seek a partial default judgment against the 10 'Doe' defendants doing business as PrimeWire plus a tough and flexible permanent injunction to take PrimeWire offline. The supporting documents can be found here and here (pdf) 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