MPAA Takedown Efforts Target Legal Popcorn Time Spin-Offs

popcorn-butterWhen the MPAA shut down the main PopcornTime.io fork late last year, many of its developers switched to the project’s ‘legal’ spin-off Butter.

Unlike Popcorn-Time, Butter doesn’t include any links to pirated movies and TV-shows. Instead, it acts as a general purpose streaming tool and actively promotes content that’s freely published by indie filmmakers.

Despite this neutral setup, a recent series of takedown requests Hollywood’s MPAA sent to GitHub threatens to pull the project’s code offline.

Correspondence seen by TorrentFreak shows that the MPAA has been asking GitHub to remove the repository of the recently revived PopcornTime.sh, as well as all related forks.

“There are multiple ‘forks’ of Popcorn Time, all of which are 100% unlicensed and infringing, and many of which have been subject to litigation and court orders around the world confirming their infringement,” the MPAA informs GitHub.

“Popcorntime.sh is one of the more recent infringing ‘forks,’ and we attached several specific examples of that site’s infringement to our prior letter. The Project provides to any member of the public the software needed to develop and release additional infringing Popcorn Time forks, and thereby enables infringement on a massive scale.”

Interestingly the notices don’t mention any Butter related projects by name. But since the PopcornTime.sh fork uses code from Butter, Github has also involved several ‘legal’ spin-offs.

In their notices the MPAA lists several files that are “most clearly and unambiguously designed” to deliver or find infringing content, including package.json and torrent_collection.js which are sourced from Butter. Several of the other files that are mentioned have nothing to do with Butter.

MPAA’s takedown request

mpaa-demand

A few hours ago the notices were forwarded to several Butter related projects, including a fork operated by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, giving the operators 24 hours to respond before their entire codebase is pulled.

Leo Germani, a representative of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, informed us that they have already responded to GitHub.

“We answered GitHub clarifying that our project is a fork of the Butter project, not Popcorn Time, which we believe is totally unrelated to Popcorn Time and does not have any code that infringes copyright,” Germani says.

“We have been discussing and researching the use of P2P protocols for content distribution and we were excited when we got in touch with the Butter project, which aims to use the power of P2P to distribute licensed audiovisual content,” he adds.

Brazilian technology company Hacklab informed TorrentFreak that one of their repositories was targeted as well.

“Butter is a great technology that can reduce the cost of distributing videos and has the potential to boost the development of our local film industry. As a digital technology company we have to keep up with the most promising technology trends, and Butter is one of these,” Hacklab’s Luis Fagundes says.

“This notification is insane, as it’s directed to a different project and cites a bunch of files that do no violation at all. Unfortunately, the cost of this irresponsibility is high: it causes harm to developers and businesses who, instead of producing value to society, have to respond to a takedown threat,” he adds.

Talking to TorrentFreak, another developer explained that the MPAA’s description of the files is not totally accurate. The package.json file, for example, is not infringing and merely serves as the main entry point for the application.

The torrent_collection.js file, which isn’t enabled by default, allows users to add random torrent files to Butter but doesn’t link to any specific infringing material. The developers hope that their response will be sufficient to keep the project online.

Strangely enough, the people behind the PopcornTime.sh fork itself have not yet been contacted by GitHub and their repository remains online at the time of writing. (see update)

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that GitHub is treating the issue very carefully. The MPAA has sent several requests over the past several weeks and Github has repeatedly requested further clarification and additional details.

However, despite GitHub’s vigilance the MPAA isn’t giving up, urging the developer platform to go above an beyond the DMCA to help combat potential copyright infirngements.

“We hope you agree that GitHub’s responsibility to not knowingly assist in a massive copyright infringement operation does not end with its DMCA policy,” the MPAA told the platform.

Update: After publication we were informed that the official Popcorn Time repository has also received a takedown notice.

Update: Butter project founder Niv Sardi sent TorrentFreak a copy of the reply they sent to GitHub.

Hello,

It has now been more than 24hours since your Takedown notice, we have still to hear from our previous comment, but there are a few things we’d like to point out.

It has been brought to our attention that you sent this notification to all Butter forks, between them many of our clients that our now asking us for answers, one notable entity that got notified is the Brazilian the Ministry of Culture.

We understand that your quire is with the ‘popcorn-official’ fork of our project, as you know we have no control of what our forks decide to do with our code, we can’t be liable for what they do nor can other people forking us.

Exceding the fact that the DMCA is intended for hosted content violating copyright (here the hosted content is the code, and we have 100% copyright over the code), not to bully activities you don’t like. We Butter Project never released any app, nor had in our history a way to ‘assist in a massive copyright infringement’.

Our project goal is to build great VOD streaming apps, this statement ‘literally all of the Project’s source code “could be used to locate infringing material”—in fact, this is its very purpose.’ is hence plane wrong.

In a nutshell, these massive (and abusive ?) takedown notices are harming us, our reputation, the trust we built with our customers, and our community (went from 720 to 585 forks on butter-desktop).

Any quick analysis will show that there is absolutely no base for the supposed infringements:

– https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop/blob/master/src/app/lib/providers/tvshowtime.js

this a plugin for tvshowtime.com how is that infriging ? should we sent DMCA notices to all of it’s implementations ?

– https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop/blob/master/src/app/lib/providers/ysubs.js

this file has never been part of our project.

– https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop/blob/master/src/app/lib/providers/tvapi.js

that file is a generic plugin for a ‘tvapi’ endpoint that is a freesoftware daemon with many plugins for different data sources, we removed that file as we weren’t using anyway.

– https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop/blob/master/src/app/lib/views/torrent_collection.js

this feature, not enabled by default, allows you to drop a random torrent on butter, we’ll look for that torrent on kat, but we don’t pull content from kat, the torent is user provided.

– https://github.com/butterproject/butter-desktop/blob/master/package.json

how can this be infriging ? this is a standard entrypoint for any node-webkit app…

To make things clear:
– Butter never allowed to distribute copyright infringing content
– Butter is not affiliated in anyway with the popcorntime.sh fork, we
don’t know who they are.
– We ask GitHub to desist from being the tool used by bullies to cripple
free software.
– We ask GitHub to back us up because this sets a stanza of what the
DMCA is for: hosted-content copyright infrigement.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

Police Arrest Cinema Goers Over “Pirate” Audio Recording

popcorn-butterCinemas in many countries are today subjected to high levels of security, meaning that getting a camcorder into a venue and recording a whole movie can prove an extremely difficult task for pirates.

Over the years several ingenious ways have been found to deal with these problems and pirates are often able to record a movie and its audio at the same time. However, to get the best possible result it’s often better to record the video and the soundtrack separately.

For example, in Russia where theater security is less tight, it might be possible to record the whole movie at once. However, a Russian language soundtrack is of much less interest globally than an English one. This means that to reach the greatest audience, pirates need to find an English audio source too.

As our article last week revealed, audio can be obtained from a number of sources, not least US-based drive in cinemas. However, since audio recording devices are more easily hidden from theater staff than cameras, recordings can be made almost anywhere.

Today, however, the Federation Against Copyright Theft is reporting that at least one English language soundtrack of a major movie won’t be hitting the Internet anytime soon following the arrest of two individuals in the north of the UK.

The men, aged 19 and 44, were arrested by Northumbria Police last Thursday following a screening of “The Divergent Series: Allegiant” at the Empire Cinema in Sunderland. Following the performance it’s reported they were found in possession of an unauthorized audio recording of the movie.

According to FACT the arrests follow an investigation which involved the film’s producers, distributors, and the Motion Picture Association. Perhaps of most interest is the revelation that three previous unauthorized recordings had already been made in the same cinema. Investigators love patterns.

Although not mentioned by FACT in connection with this case, audio can be watermarked in the same way video can. This allows investigators to match audio recordings back to a specific cinema. It seems likely that watermarking played a key role in this case.

The men have been released on bail pending further inquiries. The terms of their release include an agreement not to visit any cinema in England and Wales.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

Aussie Pirate Bay Blocking Process Begins in Federal Court

stop-blockedIn common with other countries around the world, Australia envisions a multi-point process to tackle the issue of online piracy.

The first was a so-called “three strikes” warning scheme that would see regular Internet users monitored by anti-piracy companies and then sent escalating warning notices by their respective ISPs. After years in the planning the system was found to be too expensive and has now been shelved.

In parallel, copyright holders have sought to have pirate sites blocked at the ISP level and after new legislation was passed last year, the process was expected to become more streamlined. Today the first cases landed in Federal Court to test out the system for the first time.

Two industry players are leading the charge, with Roadshow Films (the movie division of Village Roadshow) and TV giant Foxtel both seeking to have several pirate sites blocked at the ISP level. The latter wants to render The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, isoHunt and TorrentHound inaccessible in Australia while the former is targeting streaming portal Solarmovie.

Perhaps needless to say, things haven’t been as straightforward as the entertainment companies might have liked.

Part of the blocking process requires that the copyright holders contact the sites in question to inform them that an application has been made. However, due to the existence of dozens of mirrors, clones and proxies (which only exist due to blocking action in other regions) that process has been both labored and fruitless.

Representing both Foxtel and Roadshow is veteran piracy case lawyer Richard Lancaster who also represented iiNet in the long-running and recently ended case against Dallas Buyers Club.

Lancaster told the Court that more than sixty sites need to be addressed to block the handful of key domains in the action yet only two-thirds of them have been reachable by letter. None of the sites responded.

“[For some of the sites] there’s no obvious or indeed unobvious mechanism for getting in touch with the operators of the sites, but we have sent notification letters out to 43 of the 61 domain names that have been identified in the pleadings,” he said.

Also at issue is proving to the Court that the sites being targeted have a primary purpose to infringe copyright. According to counsel for the applicants, that will be achieved by providing screenshots of each of the domains being targeted.

However, since there is zero chance of the owners of the sites turning up to defend themselves, there will be no adversarial process over what the Court is shown.

Furthermore, none of the 50 ISPs cited as parties in the case will mount a defense against the applications so barring any unforeseen circumstances the blocks will eventually become reality. Nevertheless, there are technical issues to be ironed out and some of those were aired in Court today.

For their part the ISPs would like to block the sites in question by interfering with their DNS systems but it appears that Foxtel and Roadshow Films would prefer the blocking of URLs and IP addresses. Additionally, Foxtel would like to add more IP addresses if sites seek to evade a block, which could be a problem with at least one ISP.

“We wish to seek to negotiate an arrangement for DNS blocking. If [Foxtel] were pushing for a broader blocking mechanism that might be an issue,” said counsel for Internet provider TPG.

While agreement will eventually be reached, both sides acknowledged the need for these first two cases to be dealt with in a manner that will build an efficient and cost-effective framework for future applications.

“This will be the first of several proceedings, and we really want to establish best practice from the outset,” counsel for ISP Optus said.

“We are concerned and ISPs are concerned that the orders in this case provide a template for the future,” Foxtel’s counsel added.

“We expect that will be done by careful consideration in the proceedings and by an eye for efficiency in future proceedings.”

The next date of note is May 6, when the copyright holders and ISPs return to Court having attempted to iron out their differences on the technicalities of blocking. That is surely only a matter of time and perseverance.

When the blocks are eventually put in place, future visitors to blocked sites will be greeted by a special landing page that will inform them of the existence of a court order. Those landing pages will be hosted by the studios so they will be able to track the number of visitors to the site and even their IP addresses.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak

BREIN Threatens Pirates With High ‘Fines’, Warns VPN Users

pirate-runningDutch anti-piracy group BREIN has targeted the operators of pirate sites for more than a decade, but more recently it started going after uploaders as well.

Over the past several months the group has tracked down several prolific uploaders and has now announced intentions to take these efforts a step further.

Today the national data protection authority granted BREIN permission to collect the IP-addresses of pirating BitTorrent users, allowing the group to approach uploaders on a broader scale.

According to BREIN Director Tim Kuik they are ready to monitor and crack down on larger groups of file-sharers.

“The trial run is behind us and we will now start collecting IP addresses and evidence. I advise notorious uploaders to think twice, after all, forewarned is forearmed,” Kuik says.

The enforcement efforts will not be limited to pirates who share thousands of titles. BREIN says that people who are found sharing recent titles on a frequent basis are at risk too.

Also, BREIN notes that its enforcement actions are not limited to a specific content category. Those who share films, TV-series, music, books and games are all at risk, Kuik warns.

The magnitude of the proposed settlements will differ based on individual circumstances, but could go as high as 12,500 euros. Those who choose not to settle can look forward a full-blown court case instead.

“Uploading a recent film or an episode of a TV-series you can basically already cost a few thousand euros,” Kuik says. “If there is no settlement, we will go to court to claim full damages and costs.”

Before BREIN can reach out to any alleged pirates they will have to request the personal details from the Internet providers in question.

Several ISPs have already announced that they will not hand anything over without a court order, so this issue will have to be ironed out in court before BREIN can proceed.

Also, there’s a large group of file-sharers who hide behind VPN services, many of which can’t identify their customers through an IP-address. BREIN is aware of this but notes that it’s not always impossible to identify VPN users.

Those VPN users who do get caught using a less secure service can look forward to a higher settlement demand than regular users.

“VPN services can see what you do, you run a security risk and it is possible that you can still be identified, which will result in a higher ‘fine’,” Kuik says.

According to BREIN, VPN users should consider paying for legal content, instead of paying for anonymous access to illegal content, so that creators get properly compensated.

It’s clear that the anti-piracy group is toughening its language. For many years the Netherlands was considered a safe haven for file-sharers, but if left up to BREIN this will no longer be the case.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.


Source: TorrentFreak