Wednesday, November 13th, 2019

Time	Event
10:33a	IPTV Supplier Omniverse Agrees to Pay $50 Million in Piracy Damages In February, several major Hollywood studios filed a lawsuit against Omniverse One World Television. Under the flag of anti-piracy group ACE, the companies accused Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo of supplying of pirate streaming channels to various IPTV services. Omniverse sold live-streaming services to third-party distributors, such as Dragon Box and HDHomerun, which in turn offered live TV streaming packages to customers. According to ACE, the company was a pirate streaming TV supplier, offering these channels without permission from its members. Omniverse disagreed with this characterization and countered that it did everything by the book. It relied on a deal from the licensed cable company Hovsat, which has a long-standing agreement with DirecTV to distribute a broad range of TV-channels with few restrictions. As time went on, however, it transpired that the streaming provider was clearly worried about the legal threat. After several of its distributors distanced themselves from the service, Omniverse decided to wind down its business. The streaming provider also filed a third-party complaint (pdf) against Hovsat for indemnification and breach of contract, among other things. Omniverse believed that it was properly licensed and wants Hovsat to pay the damages for any alleged infringements if that was not the case. That there are damages became crystal clear yesterday, when ACE announced that it had obtained a consent judgment against Omniverse. Both parties have agreed to settle the matter with the streaming provider committing to pay a $50 million settlement. “Damages are awarded in favor of Plaintiffs and against Defendants, jointly and severally, in the total amount of fifty million dollars,” the proposed judgment reads. The agreement also includes a permanent injunction that prevents Omniverse and its owner Jason DeMeo from operating the service and being involved in supplying or offering pirate streaming channels in any other way. The damages amount of $50 million is a substantial figure. In the past, however, we have seen that the public figure can be substantially higher than what’s agreed in private. In any case, Omniverse may hold Hovsat accountable, as previously suggested. Karen Thorland, Senior Vice President at the Motion Picture Association, which has a leading role in the ACE coalition, is pleased with the outcome. “This judgment and injunction are a major win for creators, audiences, and the legitimate streaming market, which has been undermined by Omniverse and its ‘back office’ piracy infrastructure for years,” Thorland, says Over the past years, ACE has built a steady track record of successful cases against IPTV providers and services. In addition to Omniverse, it also helped to shut down SetTV, Dragon Box, TickBox, Vader Streams, and many third-party Kodi addons. The consent judgment and permanent injunction (pdf) have yet to be signed off by the court but since both parties are in agreement, that’s mostly a formality. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)
2:54p	EU Academics Publish Recommendations to Limit Negative Impact of Article 17 on Users Despite some of the most intense opposition seen in recent years, on March 26, 2019, the EU Parliament adopted the Copyright Directive. The main controversy surrounded Article 17 (previously known as Article 13), which places greater restrictions on user-generated content platforms like YouTube. Rightsholders, from the music industry in particular, welcomed the new reality. Without official licensing arrangements in place or strong efforts to obtain licensing alongside best efforts to take down infringing content and keep it down, sites like YouTube (Online Content Sharing Service Providers – OCSSP) can potentially be held liable for infringing content. This uncertainty led many to fear for the future of fair use, with the specter of content upload platforms deploying strict automated filters that err on the side of caution in order to avoid negative legal consequences under the new law. While the legislation has been passed at the EU level, it still has to be written into Member States’ local law. With that in mind, more than 50 EU Academics have published a set of recommendations that they believe have the potential to limit restrictions on user freedoms as a result of the new legislation. A key recommendation is that national implementations should “fully explore” legal mechanisms for broad licensing of copyrighted content. The academics are calling for this to ensure that the preventative obligations of OCSSPs are limited in application wherever possible. The academics hope that broad licensing can avoid situations where to avoid liability, OCSSPs would otherwise have to prove they have made “best efforts” to ensure works specified by rightsholders are rendered inaccessible or show that they have “acted expeditiously” to remove content and prevent its reupload following a request from a rightsholder. “Otherwise, the freedom of EU citizens to participate in democratic online content creation and distribution will be encroached upon and freedom of expression and information in the online environment would be curtailed,” the academics warn. The academics’ recommendations are focused on ensuring that non-infringing works don’t become collateral damage as OCSSPs scramble to cover their own backs and avoid liability. For example, the preventative obligations listed above should generally not come into play when content is used for quotation, criticism, or review, or for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche. If content is removed or filtered incorrectly, however, Member States must ensure that online content-sharing service providers put in place an “effective and expeditious” complaint and redress system. The prospect of automatic filtering at the point of upload was a hugely controversial matter before Article 17 passed but the academics believe they have identified ways to ensure that freedom of expression and access to information can be better protected. “[W]e recommend that where preventive measures [as detailed above] are applied, especially where they lead to the filtering and blocking of uploaded content before it is made available to the public, Member States should, to the extent possible, limit their application to cases of prima facie [upon first impression] copyright infringement,” the academics write. “In this context, a prima facie copyright infringement means the upload of protected material that is identical or equivalent to the ‘relevant and necessary information’ previously provided by the rightholders to OCSSPs, including information previously considered infringing. The concept of equivalent information should be interpreted strictly.” The academics say that if content is removed on the basis of prima facie infringement, users are entitled to activate the complaint and redress procedure. If there is no prima facie infringement, content should not be removed until its legal status is determined. In cases where user-uploaded content does not meet the prima facie standard but matches “relevant and necessary information” (fingerprints etc) supplied by rightsholders, OCSSPs must grant users the ability to declare that content is not infringing due to fair use-type exceptions. “The means to provide such declaration should be concise, transparent, intelligible, and be presented to the user in an easily accessible form, using clear and plain language (e.g. a standard statement clarifying the status of the uploaded content, such as ‘This is a permissible quotation’ or ‘This is a permissible parody’),” the recommendations read. If users don’t provide a declaration within a “reasonable” time following upload, the OCSSP (YouTube etc) should be “allowed” to remove the content, with users granted permission to activate the complaint and redress procedure. Rightsholders who still maintain that content was removed correctly must then justify the deletion, detailing why it is a prima facie case of infringement and not covered by a fair use-type exemption, particularly the one cited by the user. A human review should then be conducted at the OCSSP, which should not be held liable for infringement under Article 17 until the process is complete and legality determined. Given that Article 17 has passed, there appears to be limited room to maneuver and there is a long way to go before all Member States write its terms into local law. However, even if the above safeguarding recommendations are implemented, it’s clear that substantial resources will have to be expended to ensure that everyone’s rights are protected. As a result, platforms lacking YouTube-sized budgets will undoubtedly feel the pinch. Safeguarding User Freedoms in Implementing Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive: Recommendations from European Academics is available here.   Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)
8:56p	Disney+ Launched and Pirates Love It, Especially Mandalorian Two years ago, when Disney announced that it would launch its own streaming service, we mused that this would keep piracy relevant. Yes, another paid streaming service would further fragment the legitimate market. This could motivate some to keep pirating, at least part-time. More recently research has confirmed that this is indeed a warranted concern as people have limited budgets, but money isn’t the only problem. When Disney confirmed that the initial rollout would be limited to the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, the piracy lure only became stronger. Star Wars fans in most parts of the world currently can’t watch the highly anticipated Mandalorian series, unless they pirate. With this in mind, we kept a close eye on the official Disney+ launch this week. There was an enormous amount of media coverage which, undoubtedly, led to a lot of legitimate subscriptions. But, at the same time, pirate sites were buzzing too. Shortly after Disney+ opened shop the first pirated releases started to spread. First through private communities and then over at public torrent sites, cyberlockers, and not-so-legal streaming platforms. After a few hours, pirated copies of the Mandalorian were everywhere. This doesn’t really come as a surprise. Disney+ currently uses Widevine encryption, which is similar to what other streaming services use. Downloading or ‘ripping’ these videos doesn’t appear to be too hard. And indeed, a quick glance at various pirate sites reveals that the first Mandalorian episode, which is exclusive to Disney+, is widely available in various formats. Over the past two days, Mandalorian has already become the most pirated TV-show, with hundreds of thousands of downloads and streams, if not more. While it is far from becoming the next “Game of Thrones,” the potential is certainly there. The fact that Disney+ isn’t available in many countries is similar to HBO’s situation when Game of Thrones first came out. This serves as a piracy incentive. After all, people who want to watch Mandalorian in the UK, Australia, and elsewhere, have few other options than to pirate. The limited release of Disney+ may actually breed some new pirates. Even worse, there is a chance that many of these pirates may not go legal when the streaming service officially launches in their country. For now, Disney’s anti-piracy efforts appear to be focused elsewhere though. The company has sent takedown requests for thousands of URLs that host or link to unauthorized copies of Mandalorian. This includes notices that were sent to Google, with requests to delist these pages. As one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, these piracy concerns shouldn’t come as a surprise to Disney. The company probably weighed the pros and cons of its actions, including the limited geographical release, as well as entering an already fragmented streaming landscape. In today’s online streaming business, piracy is a given. Disney probably believes that running its own streaming platform will ultimately bring in more money. Piracy or not. They may very well be right, but it will happen at the expense of others. That may include some of Disney’s competitors, but also consumers who are not willing to pirate, and those who can’t afford another subscription. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)

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