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Court Orders Domain Termination of Unauthorized Music Site
Pirate Bay Case Goes to Supreme Court Again
US Government Targets Pirate Bay and Other “Notorious” Sites

Court Orders Domain Termination of Unauthorized Music Site

Posted: 13 Feb 2014 03:56 AM PST

In order to combat the many hundreds of file-sharing and streaming sites located in Russia, last year local authorities introduced new anti-piracy legislation.

The new law, dubbed ‘Russian SOPA’, allowed copyright holders to issue complaints against sites that fail to properly comply with copyright notices, with the ultimate sanction of having their domains blocked at the ISP level.

While the new law has reportedly encouraged a wide range of sites to focus on complying with takedown requests, a copyright case just concluded in the Moscow Arbitration Court will be of significant concern to site owners across the country.

At the center of the lawsuit was a site called TracksFlow, a professional looking Spotify-like music streaming service with one notable difference – it is completely free of charge.

With a decent database of music the site inevitably attracted the attention of copyright holders. According to TracksFlow founder Boris Golikov, Warner Music subsidiary S.B.A. Music Publishing contacted him during 2013 to complain that their music was being offered via his site without permission.

Since TracksFlow is only an index, no actual content could be removed, Golikov told the label.

TracksFlow

“We talked and I explained that there are no files and we do not store any on the site, it’s only a kind of aggregator, a music search engine,” Golikov explained.

In response, the label filed a lawsuit in which they complained that TracksFlow was offering music from their 30-year-old singer MakSim without permission. Neither Golikov nor associated company Digital Lab were notified of the case.

Now the Moscow Arbitration Court has handed down its ruling, finding the defendants guilty of copyright infringement and ordering them to pay a total of 1,550,000 rubles ($44,300) in compensation. While these fines are fairly small by modern standards the Court also ordered the termination of the TracksFlow.com domain name, a first-of-its-kind action by a Russian court.

“It was possible to prove that the resource is absolutely pirate in character,” said Leonid Agronov, CEO of the National Federation of the Music Industry. The likelihood of achieving similar results in other cases has now increased, Agronov added.

The big question now, however, surrounds the process which will lead to the loss of TracksFlow’s domain. TracksFlow.com is currently registered with United States company Name.com, so aside from a supporting ruling overseas it is not clear how Russian authorities intend to take control of it. Golikov could hand it over of course, but it appears he is ready to fight the decision.

Speaking with Vedomosti, Golikov reiterated that he was never made aware of the proceedings against him and as such will appeal against the ruling.

“Naturally, as soon as I get access to the documents I will file an appeal,” he said.

According to the Moscow Arbitration Court, he has 30 days to do so.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

Pirate Bay Case Goes to Supreme Court Again

Posted: 12 Feb 2014 01:52 PM PST

peter sunde In 2012 Sweden's Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running criminal case against the founders of The Pirate Bay.

This meant that the previously determined jail sentences and fines handed out to Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström would stand.

Sunde and Neij weren’t prepared to accept this decision and the pair decided to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR), However, the European Court refused to accept the case and ruled that Swedish courts had made the right decisions.

This rejection meant that most legal options are exhausted for the Pirate Bay founders, but not all doors are closed just yet.

Peter Sunde, the former spokesperson of the site, is preparing to submit his case to the Swedish Supreme Court again. Based on a changing legal climate, Sunde hopes the Court will overturn the eight month jail sentence and fines that were handed down earlier.

With help from several law professors, Sunde’s appeal will be submitted by one of his childhood friends who has taken on the case as part of his legal training. Despite an earlier rejection by the Supreme Court, the legal team believes there’s a good chance the case will be heard now based on recent EU rulings.

“There are new cases from the EU that have proven that I should not have any responsibility, so my case should be re-opened and I should win the case,” Sunde tells TF.

“Of course I never really had a fair trial to begin with,” he adds.

While there are no guarantees that the Supreme Court will take the case, the former Pirate Bay spokesperson will exhaust every option to turn the odds in his favor.

“There's a chance it will be re-tried, but it's always hard to say. In any case, it's a shot worth taking just to prove a point,” Sunde explains.

Thus far two of the four convicted Pirate Bay defendants – Carl Lundström and Gottfrid Svartholm – have served their jail sentences. Sunde and Fredrik Neij should have started their prison time in 2012 but both remain free men.

At the moment Sunde is working hard on several of his startups, including the NSA-proof messenger app Heml.is, for which he raised more than $150,000 through a crowd-funding campaign.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

US Government Targets Pirate Bay and Other “Notorious” Sites

Posted: 12 Feb 2014 09:34 AM PST

ustr In its annual "Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets", the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has listed more than a dozen websites said to be involved in piracy and counterfeiting.

The list is based on input from industry groups and copyright holders including the RIAA and MPAA, who submitted their recommendations a few weeks ago. While the USTR admits that the list is not meant to reflect legal violations, the responsible authorities could use the list to take legal action.

“The United States urges the responsible authorities to intensify efforts to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to use the information contained in the Notorious Markets Review to pursue legal actions where appropriate,” USTR states.

One of the prime targets is The Pirate Bay. According to USTR the site continues to facilitate downloading of copyright-infringing material. The Government further highlights the site’s resilience, mentioning recent domain name changes and the release of TPB’s censorship-resistant browser last summer.

“The site released its own web browser designed to evade network controls and reportedly has plans to offer software to circumvent conventional methods of enforcement. Network security experts have criticized The Pirate Bay for failing to follow security best practices in the development of their software,” USTR writes.

The last part feels a little out of place. The Pirate Bay can be accused of a lot of things by the Government, but not following security “best practices” is not the first thing that comes to mind.

While the inclusion of The Pirate Bay comes as no surprise, RapidShare’s listing is quite unexpected. The cloud hosting service has taken extreme measures to deter piracy and as a result was excluded from the most recent “Notorious Markets” list.

Even though visitor counts continued to drop in recent years, the USTR now believes that the site deserves to be included again, mentioning a recent ruling where RapidShare was ordered to pay $26,000 to a Czech movie director.

“Although RapidShare.com's popularity has diminished since its 2012 listing, it remains one of the most active sites worldwide as well as in the Czech Republic, where it is best known as Share-rapid.cz,” USTR writes.

Another surprising mention was given to Aiseesoft.com, a software vendor that sells video converter and ripping tools. While this software may not be permitted in the US, it’s perfectly legal in other countries.

The Government, however, classifies the company as a notorious market and its competitor SlySoft.com was awarded the same label.

“Rights holders indicate that this site's operators, reportedly based in China, develop and make available to customers worldwide various ‘high-quality’ DVD converter tools [...] that, according to the site, allow users to circumvent technical protection measures and view video content in an unauthorized manner,” USTR writes.

In addition to the domains listed above, the US Government is also pointing a finger at the following sites:

PutLocker, Baixedetudo.net, Darkwarez.pl, Ex.ua, Extratorrent.cc, Free-tv-video-online.me, KickassTorrents.com, Kuaibo.com ,Mp3skull.com, Rapidgator.net, Rutracker.org, Seriesyonkis.com, Torrentz.eu, Uploaded.net, vKontakte.com, Wawa-mania.ec, Xunlei.com, Kankan.com, Zamunda.net, Arenabg.com and Zing.vn.

The “notorious markets” list is meant to be a pressure tool on the sites and the countries from where they are operated. Meanwhile, the sites remain accessible in the U.S. itself and thus far no attempts have been made to have local ISPs block any of them.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.