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Wednesday, August 28th, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 8:41a | Eight Men Behind Two Pirate Streaming Services Charged by Grand Jury  Movie and TV show content is widely available on the Internet for no cost but it seems that many thousands of individuals are prepared to pay for the privilege. That has resulted in countless unlicensed subscription-based services appearing, some as part of live broadcast IPTV packages and others as standalone services. Earlier this year it was revealed that the MPAA had made several referrals to the Department of Justice (DoJ), calling for some pirate streaming services to be criminally prosecuted. It now transpires that at least one of those referrals has come to fruition. According to an announcement by the Department of Justice, eight individuals were indicted by a grand jury Tuesday for conspiring to violate criminal copyright law by running “two of the largest unauthorized streaming services in the United States.” The indictment lists the following men as the defendants in the case; Kristopher Lee Dallmann, 36; Darryl Julius Polo, aka djppimp, 36; Douglas M. Courson, 59; Felipe Garcia, 37; Jared Edward Jaurequi, aka Jared Edwards, 38; Peter H. Huber, 61; Yoany Vaillant, aka Yoany Vaillant Fajardo, 38; and Luis Angel Villarino, 40. All are charged with running Jetflicks, a subscription-based TV show streaming service running out of Las Vegas, Nevada. “The defendants reproduced tens of thousands of copyrighted television episodes without authorization, and distributed the infringing programs to tens of thousands of paid subscribers located throughout the U.S. At one point, Jetflicks claimed to have more than 183,200 different television episodes,” the DoJ states. It’s further claimed that one of the defendants, Darryl Julius Polo, who was allegedly part of the Jetflicks programming team, left Jetflicks in order to create his own service, known online as iStreamItAll. According to the DoJ, the service claimed to have 115,849 television episodes and 10,511 movies available for streaming. “Polo allegedly used many of the same automated tools that Jetflicks employed to locate, download, process and store illegal content, and then quickly make those television programs and movies available on servers in Canada to ISIA subscribers for streaming and/or downloading,” the DoJ adds. In addition to the conspiracy charges, Dallman was charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright by public performance and four counts of money laundering. Polo was also charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by distributing a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution, which usually refers to either then-unreleased movies or TV shows, or those that were yet to leave their theatrical window. The alleged iStreamItAll operator was further charged with two counts of criminal copyright infringement by reproduction or distribution, two counts of criminal copyright infringement by public performance and four counts of money laundering. Unsurprisingly, both services are alleged to have obtained their content from other ‘pirate’ sources, including The Pirate Bay and RARBG. The indictment also claims that Usenet and Torrentz were used as sources. The inclusion of the latter is somewhat unusual given that the site closed down in 2016 and even then was only a meta-search engine that offered no direct links to infringing content. Both services were available after paying a subscription, with iStreamItAll claiming it had a greater range of content than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime, accessible on a range of devices from desktop machines through to phones, tablets, smart TVs, games consoles, and set-top boxes. However, neither platform appears to have learned lessons from the still ongoing Megaupload case, where servers containing allegedly infringing content were mainly hosted in the United States. The DoJ claims that content culled from torrent sites and Usenet was made available to Jetflicks and iStreamItAll subscribers via servers hosted in both the United States and Canada. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
| 12:51p | Steal This Show: ‘How To Hack A Democracy’
Tang taught herself programming at an early age of 8 and she says that she’s a ‘civic hacker’ who uses her specialized skills to help rather than harm. Part one includes Taiwan’s 2014 Sunflower Student Movement, which marked the first time the country’s legislature has been occupied by citizens, and which led to a radical new phase for Taiwanese democracy. In part two we discuss, among other things, how the Taiwanese government is using Free Software such as Discourse and Polis to enable its ongoing real-time experiment in direct democracy — Steal This Show aims to release bi-weekly episodes featuring insiders discussing crypto, privacy, copyright and file-sharing developments. It complements our regular reporting by adding more room for opinion, commentary, and analysis. Host: Jamie King Guest: Audrey Tang If you enjoy this episode, consider becoming a patron and getting involved with the show. Check out Steal This Show’s Patreon campaign: support us and get all kinds of fantastic benefits! Produced by Jamie King Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
| 4:39p | Music Companies Sue Internet Provider RCN For Enabling ‘Massive’ Piracy  For roughly two decades, copyright holders have been sending takedown notices to ISPs to alert them that their subscribers are sharing copyrighted material. Under US law, providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances” and increasingly they are being held to this standard. Several major music industry companies have filed lawsuits against a variety of Internet providers. With help from the RIAA, the companies targeted Cox Communications, Grande Communications, and Charter, hoping to recoup damages for their role in the pirating activities of their subscribers. The overall theme of these lawsuits is the same. The music companies accuse the ISPs of turning a blind eye to pirating subscribers. This is also made clear in a new complaint that was just filed against several ISPs that operate under the RCN brand. The lawsuit is again filed by music companies, including Arista Music, Bad Boy Records, Capitol Records, Laface Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music, UMG Recordings, and Warner Records. Some of these are also involved in the aforementioned cases. “This is a case about a leading internet service provider knowingly enabling its customers’ massive online copyright infringement of sound recordings,” the music companies allege in a complaint filed at a federal court in New Jersey. “Defendants operated RCN as a haven for infringement. Defendants promoted RCN’s high internet speeds to customers, knowing that the ability to download copyrighted material illegally using high-speed internet, without repercussions, was a substantial draw for infringers,” they add. The music companies state that RCN, including several local branches, willingly profited from keeping pirates on board. The ISP advertised high-speed internet which would be particularly appealing to BitTorrent pirates, it’s claimed. “RCN provides its subscribers with a fully functioning system that allows them to engage in copyright infringement on a massive scale using BitTorrent networks,” the complaint reads. “And for those subscribers who want to pirate more and larger files at faster speeds, RCN obliges them in return for higher fees. The greater the bandwidth its subscribers require for pirating content, the more money RCN receives.”  We have seen similar claims in related “repeat infringer” lawsuits. Previously it was pointed out that, while it is certainly true that high-speed Internet access is beneficial for pirates, legal users of streaming platforms such as Netflix would benefit as well. The music companies, however, are convinced that the high speeds lure pirates to RCN. On top of that, they accuse the Internet provider of ignoring repeat infringers, so it can continue to profit from this piracy activity. The music companies back up their claims with data from anti-piracy tracking company Rightscorp, which previously sent RCN more than five million infringement notices. These notices identified tens of thousands of alleged pirates. Despite being aware of this copyright-infringing activity, RCN did nothing to stop it, the complaint notes. According to the Rightscorp data, 36,773 subscribers repeatedly engaged in piracy, with hundreds of these being flagged more than 1,000 times. Since Rightscorp doesn’t monitor all activity, this is likely a small fraction of all the infringing activity occurring over RCN’s network, the music companies add. And despite the high number of repeat infringers, RCN did little to stop it. “Defendants failed to take any meaningful action to discourage this “By ignoring the repeat infringement notifications and refusing to take action against repeat infringers, and instead providing those customers with ongoing internet service, Defendants made a deliberate decision to contribute to known copyright infringement,” the complaint adds. In cases like this, Internet providers can generally rely on the DMCA safe harbor defense, which shields them from liability. However, the music companies argue that RCN lost this right by not having a properly functioning repeat infringer policy. “Although RCN purported to adopt a policy to address repeat infringers, RCN in reality never adopted or reasonably implemented a policy that provided for the termination of repeat infringers—despite receiving over five million infringement notices. Its purported policy was a sham,” the complaint reads. The allegations are very similar to the other “repeat infringer” lawsuits we have seen in the past. As in the other cases, the ISP is accused of both contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. The same also applies to RCN’s management company Patriot. The music companies claim substantial losses for which they want to be compensated. They request actual damages or statutory damages of $150,000 per work. With an illustrative list of more than 1,000 tracks as evidence, a list that may grow even longer, the potential damages are already over $150 million. — A copy of the complaint, filed at the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, is available here (pdf). Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
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