[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View]
Sunday, November 17th, 2019
| Time | Event |
| 1:06p | KodiUKTV Considers its Future Following FACT Cease & Desist  This week, news began to filter through that the shutdown of a pair of Kodi add-on related resources had taken place under serious legal pressure. KodiUKTV and OneNation weren’t specific in their announcements but TorrentFreak was able to confirm that the Federation Against Copyright Theft was behind both actions. Indeed, the anti-piracy group told us that other groups were targeted too but at this stage, we haven’t been able to identify them. What we do know is at the end of October, FACT sent out cease and desist notices titled ‘Unauthorized Distribution of Film, Television and Sport Subject to Copyright’. The letters stated that FACT investigators had established that the platforms were “providing or facilitating access without authorization, to broadcasts or premium pay channels” containing content belonging to Sky, BT Sport, and The Premier League. Demanding an immediate end to “unlawful activity”, the notices added that “all infringing links, listings and information from webpages, social media and any other medium” should be permanently removed. If not, a criminal investigation might get underway. A recipient of one of the cease-and-desist letters, Matt – founder of KodiUKTV – told us that if he’d have received a simple takedown notice at any point in the past, he would’ve been happy to investigate and take action if any add-on breached copyright. Instead, it appears that FACT went for straight for the jugular. Part of the problem for Matt, at least from our discussions, is that he doesn’t believe he was doing anything wrong. His platform didn’t develop or host any add-ons but offered a tool so that Kodi users could download and install them from elsewhere. “Ultimately it was at the risk of the add-on designers and end-users, should such add-ons contain possibly infringing content that we had absolutely no control over,” he explains. Matt says that he contacted FACT within an hour of receiving their cease-and-desist notice with a request for more information. He also gave FACT a commitment that the site will not deal with add-ons or builds in the future. At the time of writing, he is yet to receive a response. As a result and at least for now, his entire site remains down, which Matt feels is both disproportionate and frustrating since much of the content the site offered (guides etc) had nothing to do with any of the companies mentioned by FACT. “We didn’t actually host anything for the add-on guys and we don’t make any add-ons ourselves. We just offered a place for people to put their add-ons to be installed by the end-user, which is very common for many repos,” Matt explains. “This means we were just a hub for the community for help and guides. This was always my key focus for KODIUKTV – creating guides & voicing our opinion on issues within the community to help others. “We do not want to kiss goodbye to the website and the community we have been so involved in over the past five years. We are hoping we can continue the website on a publication standpoint and move forward.” The site was founded by Matt in 2014 after he found himself “tinkering” with XBMC (as Kodi was formerly known) on a Raspberry Pi, installing add-ons, and eventually coming up with a ‘build’ “I’ve always been interested in publications & running a media site. So once the community started to rise we needed a home for our guides and tutorials, our news, and even the odd giveaway over the years,” he explains. “We grew at a rapid rate which gave me and the team a huge learning curve of what it took to manage and maintain a website/project of this size. We became the go-to for people looking for help.” At KodiUKTV’s peak last year, Matt says it was receiving around eight million users per month, a figure that’s dropped a little this year to a still-impressive six million. But with this growth has come problems, not only in respect of FACT and its clients, but with various claims against the site’s social media accounts, and even strikes against Matt’s personal pages that had nothing to do with the project. Now, however, he is hopeful that things can move forward. Matt says he’s just a hobbyist doing what he loves, one that also cares about freedom on the Internet. He has no desire to get into a fight with big media companies and hopes this dispute with FACT can be dealt with quickly while keeping the community intact. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. |
| 8:10p | Steal This Show S05E02: ‘‘On The Frontline Of The Code War’’
What does it mean to wage war in the era of distributed networks? How do networks change the very idea of ‘Command and Control’ towards leaderless, non-hierarchical memetic structures? We dig into crowdsourced terrorism’ of Al Qaeda and look at some similarities with Anonymous and the QAnon phenomenon. Finally, we discuss the widespread idea that there’s a kind of break with authority going on in the online era—what could be described as an ‘epistemological crisis’ created by our hyper-informational environment—one that’s being exploited and amplified by various lords of chaos to create new and unpredictable political realities. 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: John P. Carlin 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. |
| 8:33p | Judge Recommends Denial of $150,000 Piracy Judgment Against APK Download Site  In April, a group of movie companies filed a lawsuit against the operators of various websites that promoted and distributed the Showbox app. Showbox and similarly named clones are used by millions of people. These apps enable users to stream movies via torrents and direct sources, using a Netflix-style interface. The tools are a thorn in the side of movie companies, including those behind “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “London Has Fallen,” and “Hunter Killer.” In a complaint filed at a U.S. District Court in Hawaii, the companies pointed out that Showbox facilitates massive piracy. “The Defendants misleadingly promote the Show Box app as a legitimate means for viewing content to the public, who eagerly install the Show Box app to watch copyright protected content, thereby leading to profit for the Defendants,” the 58-page complaint read. The movie outfits went after several defendants suspected of having ties to one or more piracy-related sites. This includes a Vietnamese man named Nghi Phan Nhat, who allegedly operates the APK download portal ‘apkmirrordownload.com.’ The site stood accused of offering the ShowBox and Popcorn Time apps, which have since been removed, but the defendant never responded to the allegations in court. This prompted the movie companies to file a motion for a default judgment. In September, they requested $150,000 in statutory damages, as well as thousands of dollars in attorney fees and costs. In addition, they asked for an injunction ordering third party services such as hosting companies and domain registrars to stop doing business with the site. While the defendant remained silent, the Court referred that matter to a magistrate judge for a recommendation. Although default judgments are often easily granted, in this case, Hawaii’s Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield advises denial of the request. In their motion, the filmmakers argued that the Court has personal jurisdiction over the operator of the site. This requires a relationship between the foreign defendant and the US. To establish this, it has to pass the three-part minimum contacts test. The first part of this test is to show that the defendant purposefully directed activities to the United States or purposefully availed himself of the privileges of conducting activities there. According to the movie companies, this is certainly the case, since the site is quite popular in the US and also presented entirely in English. However, that’s not enough to establish personal jurisdiction, according to the Judge. “That the APK Site is in English does not show purposeful direction, as the United States is not the only country with English as an official language. Nor is Plaintiffs’ allegation that the United States is the country with the second most traffic to the APK site evidence of purposeful direction,” Judge Mansfield writes. The filmmakers further argued that the defendant purposefully availed himself to the State of Hawaii by conducting business with US-based companies, domain registrar Namesilo and CDN provider Cloudflare. However, the Magistrate Judge disagrees again. “While Defendant Nhat may have contacts with California and Arizona pursuant to his registration with United States companies, such contacts are not extensive enough to invoke nationwide jurisdiction such that it is reasonable to subject Defendant Nhat to litigation in any United States federal forum,” the Judge writes. The fact that the APK download site references the US DMCA law on its site is not good enough either. According to the Judge that merely means that the site is in compliance with the DMCA, not that the defendant subjects himself to the jurisdiction of US courts. Based on these and other arguments, Judge Mansfield concludes that the Court doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the alleged site operator. Without even considering the other two elements of the minimum contacts test, he recommends denying the motion for a default judgment. The recommendation is a setback for the movie companies. If the Court adopts it, they will not get their $150,000 damages through a default judgment. Neither will they get an injunction to take the site offline. The filmmakers had more success a few weeks ago when they reached an agreement with the Pakistani operator of ‘latestshowboxapp.com,’ who agreed to pay a $150,000 settlement. Whether that will be paid in full is another question. — A copy of Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield’s findings and recommendations 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. |
In this episode Jamie meets up with | << Previous Day |
2019/11/17 [Calendar] |
Next Day >> |