TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Document Reveals When Copyright Trolls Drop Piracy Cases
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 04/07/14
- The Next Five Years Could Determine Our Liberties
| Document Reveals When Copyright Trolls Drop Piracy Cases Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:01 AM PDT
Today, however, we have a much clearer idea of what happens behind the scenes at Malibu Media, one of the main companies in the United States currently chasing down BitTorrent users for cash settlements. The company was required by Illinois Judge Milton Shadur to submit a summary of its activities in Illinois and, as spotted by troll watcher SJD over at Fight Copyright Trolls, there was an agreement that it could remain under seal. Somehow, however, that document has now became available on Pacer and it reveals some rather interesting details on Malibu’s operations. Overall, Malibu Media reports that it filed cases in Illinois against 886 defendants. According to the company, just 174 have paid up so far, with 150 of those hiring a lawyer to do so. While 100 cases are still open (including 42 still at discovery stage and 30 in negotiations), for various reasons a total of 612 defendants paid nothing at all and the cases against them were dismissed. Malibu reveal the reasons for this in their filing, and they’re quite eye-opening to say the least. Hardship “Hardship is when a defendant may be liable for the conduct, but has extenuating circumstances where Plaintiff does not wish to proceed against him or her,” the Malibu document explains. “Examples are when a defendant has little or no assets, defendant has serious illness or has recently deceased, defendant is currently active duty US military, defendant is a charitable organization or school, etc.” Out of 886 defendants, Malibu reports that cases against 49 were dropped on hardship grounds. Insufficient Evidence It has long been said that an IP address alone isn’t enough to identify an infringer and Malibu’s own submission to the court underlines this in grand fashion. “Insufficient evidence is defined as when Plaintiff's evidence does not raise a strong So, in an attempt to boost the value of the IP address evidence, Malibu says it investigates further to determine whether the account holder is in fact the infringer. The company says it looks in three areas. 1. Length of the infringement, i.e. how long it took place, when it began, when it ended, whether it took place during the day or night, and any other patterns. 2. Location of the residence where the infringement occurred, i.e. whether it is in a remote location or with other dwellings within wireless access range. 3. Profiling suspected pirates using social media (Facebook, Twitter) The third element is of particular interest. Malibu says that since July 2012 it has been monitoring not just its own content online, but also piracy on music, movies, ebooks and software. It compares the IP addresses it spots downloading other pirate content with the IP addresses known to be infringing copyright on its own titles. The data collected is then used to profile the person behind the IP address and this is compared with information gleaned from sites including Facebook and Twitter. “Oftentimes, a subscriber will publicly admit on social media to enjoying sports teams, So in what circumstances will Malibu dismiss a case on evidence grounds? In the company’s own words: -Multiple roommates within one residence with similar profiles and interests share a single Internet connection -The defendant has left the country and cannot be located -The results of additional surveillance do not specifically match profile interests or occupation of Defendant or other authorized users of the Internet connection -The subscriber is a small business with public Wi-Fi access, etc From a total of 886 defendants, cases against 259 were dropped due to insufficient evidence. The Polygraph Defense In the absence of any other supporting evidence, how can a subscriber prove a negative, i.e that he or she did not carry out any unlawful file-sharing? Quite bizarrely, Malibu says that it will accept the results of a lie detector test. “[M]alibu will dismiss its claims against any Defendant who agrees to and passes a So has anyone taken the bait? Apparently so. “Out of the entirety of polygraphs administered within the United States by Malibu, no Defendant has passed and all such examinations have subsequently led to the Defendant settling the case,” Malibu writes. No discovery In order for Malibu to pressure account holders into settling, it first needs to find out who they are from their ISPs. Malibu’s submission reveals that this is not always possible due to: - ISPs not retaining logging data for a long enough period From a total of 886 defendants, cases against 304 were dropped due to failed discovery. Cases dismissed due to settlement / actual judgments obtained In total, 174 cases were settled by defendants without need for a trial but the amounts paid are not included in the document. However, the submission does reveal that two cases did go to court resulting in statutory damages awards of $26,250 and $15,000 respectively. Conclusion Malibu’s submission points to a few interesting conclusions, not least that the vast majority of their cases get dismissed for one reason or another and a significant proportion simply do not pay up. The document also suggests that Malibu are working under the assumption that an IP address alone isn’t enough to secure a settlement and that additional social media-sourced evidence is required to back it up. This information, plus the reasons listed by Malibu for not pursuing cases, should ensure that even less people are prompted to pay up in future. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 04/07/14 Posted: 07 Apr 2014 12:53 AM PDT
Ride Along is the most downloaded movie this week. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Next Five Years Could Determine Our Liberties Posted: 06 Apr 2014 01:19 PM PDT This European Parliament was elected in June 2009. Its term is coming to an end, and new elections are coming up in six weeks. As a movement for net liberty, we’ve had unprecedented successes holding the corporate forces of darkness at bay during this term – but the next term is going to give us a chance to reverse the trend of bad things and start making good things happen instead. It’s no secret that I’m the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, and that we’ve delivered during our term in the Europarl since 2009, as one important part of this liberty movement. We stopped three strikes in Europe – most people don’t even remember that it was a real danger that the copyright industry could do something as unthinkable as actually shut people off the Internet en masse by just pointing fingers. Our people on the inside were also critical in stopping ACTA. Our line with strong Net Neutrality, going against the European Commission, just won an important first reading on the European Parliament floor. We managed to get mainline support for a radical copyright monopoly reform proposal that would, as part of the package, fully legalize noncommercial file-sharing and ban DRM. This is not news, just background. For the past five years, we’ve seen important battles being fought where we – we as a liberty movement and pretty much as a whole generation – have managed to keep dark forces at bay. The next five years will give us an opportunity to go on the offensive and actually start improving the legal state of things, rather than just preventing them from getting worse. I cannot overemphasize how great this opportunity is. However, this obviously requires that we have people in the European Parliament who can outvoice the corporate lobbyists. Outvoicing lobbyists isn’t actually a very hard thing to do, if you’re a Member of Parliament yourself. Lobbyists have a strong voice when, and only when, MPs and MEPs don’t have a good view of the subject on their own. When people on the inside of Parliament are able to call out the lobbyist bullshit as just that, those lobbyists lose an enormous amount of influence. That’s why it’s absolutely critical to have people – individuals – in office who understand the issues and are able to do so. The issues for the coming five years will be an opportunity to go on the offensive for liberty. We’ve already had a first reading of strong Net Neutrality in Europe, locking down the fundamental principle of the net that everybody’s an equal, and denying the telcos the right to seek rent for running a business. This is absolutely critical – it’s a matter of whether we want free enterprise in Europe or not. We’ve won in a so-called first reading, but this issue will bounce a bit between the EU institutions until determined, so it will spill over past the election and be finalized by the next European Parliament. Net Neutrality will be finalized in the next five years. On an even stronger note, the entire copyright monopoly will be rewritten in the European Union in the next five years. Literally everything is up in the air, and many lobbyists will be fighting for the corporate clampdown on liberty and freedom of speech. But we’ve learned how to outvoice and outcompete those activists now. There is a very real possibility that we can finally settle that freedom of speech, messenger immunity, and the civil liberties we exercise through the net (mostly all of them) totally, unequivocally, and unambiguously supersede the copyright monopoly – a distribution monopoly for a powerful but basically unnecessary entertainment industry. Legalized file-sharing and a ban on DRM can be a reality in the next five years. The future of the net is being determined in the next six weeks. And what happens in Europe, will necessarily spill over to the rest of the world – if file-sharing is legal in Europe, no country is able to effectively outlaw it, as it only takes one country to undo today’s ridiculous monopoly. Once file-sharing is completely legal, and I really want to underscore that this is within reach now, any lobbyism from the copyright industry for harsher penalties will be for absolutely nothing, as you can’t penalize a legal action to begin with. Obviously, I’m not going to use a TorrentFreak column to tell people to vote Pirate. That would be abuse of column privileges, and besides, most everybody know I’m the founder of the Pirate party movement, so people would read it like that anyway. But the reason I founded this movement is because I think there was and still is a critical shortage of politicians who take these issues with the gravity they deserve – no, let’s say there’s a shortage of net liberty activists in office who understand the importance of the net. So what I am going to do, if you live in Europe, is to ask you to vote in the European Elections, and to do so for a candidate who does take these issues seriously. It doesn’t much matter what party they’re running for – all the good forces cooperate on an individual level in the European Parliament, regardless of party affiliation, and we need individuals in parliament who understand net neutrality, basic liberty, and the problems with Industrial Protectionism (IP) at a deep level. After all, if you’re reading TorrentFreak, odds are overwhelmingly in favor of you understanding the crucial importance of these issues to every aspect of our common future. In May, that future is in your hands. What I ask is that you participate.  About The Author Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Book Falkvinge as speaker? Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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