Any regular reader of these pages will be familiar with the term “copyright troll”. These companies have made a business model out of monitoring file-sharing networks for alleged copyright infringements, tracking down alleged offenders and then demanding hard cash to make supposed lawsuits go away.
The practice is widespread in the United States but also takes place in several countries around Europe. Wherever the location, the methods employed are largely the same. ‘Trolls’ approach courts with ‘evidence’ of infringement and demand that ISPs hand over the details of their subscribers so that the copyright holder can demand money from them.
During September 2014, TorrentFreak became aware of a UK court case that had just appeared before the Chancery Division. The title – TCYK LLP v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd – raised eyebrows. From experience we know that TCYK stands for The Company You Keep and is the title of the film of the same name directed and starring Robert Redford, appearing alongside Susan Sarandon and Shia LeBeouf.
While the movie itself is reportedly unremarkable, the response to it being unlawfully made available on file-sharing networks has been significant. In the United States TCYK LLC has filed dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits against Internet subscribers in many states including Illinois, Colorado, Ohio, Florida and Minnesota, to name a few. Those interested in their U.S-based activities can read about them extensively on ‘troll’ watching sites DTD and Fight Copyright Trolls.
The big news today, however, is that TCYK LLC is about to start demanding cash from customers of the UK’s second largest ISP, Sky Broadband. TorrentFreak approached Sky back in September for information on the case but after several emails back and forth the trail went cold. We can now reveal what has transpired.
Tag: Copyright
Aussie Anti-Piracy Plans Boost Demand for Anonymous VPNs
Australia has been called out as the world’s piracy capital for several years, a claim that eventually captured the attention of the local Government.
After negotiations between ISPs and entertainment companies bore no fruit, authorities demanded voluntary anti-piracy measures from Internet providers. If that failed, the Government threatened to tighten the law.
Faced with an ultimatum the telecoms body Communications Alliance published a draft proposal on behalf of the ISPs, outlining a three-strikes notification system.
Titled ‘Copyright Notice Scheme Industry Code‘, the proposal suggests that ISPs start to forward infringement notices to their subscribers. After the initial notice subscribers are warned that copyright holders may go to court to obtain their identities.
Several groups have voiced their concerns in response. Australia’s leading consumer group Choice, for example, warns over the potential for lawsuits and potentially limitless fines.
These threats haven’t gone unnoticed by the general public either. While the proposals have not yet been implemented, many Australians are already taking countermeasures.
Over the past two weeks many file-sharers have been seeking tools to hide their IP-addresses and bypass the proposed monitoring system. By using VPN services or BitTorrent proxies their sharing activities can no longer be linked to their ISP account, rendering the three-strikes system useless.
Data from Google trends reveals that interest in anonymizing services has surged, with searches for “VPN” nearly doubling in recent days. This effect, shown in the graph below, is limited to Australia and appears to be a direct result of the ISPs proposals.
.SO Registry Bans More “KickassTorrents” Domains
With millions of unique visitors per day KickassTorrents has become a prime target for copyright holders, many of whom would like to see the site taken offline.
Among other tactics, copyright holders ask domain name registries to suspend pirate site domain names. For a long time the Somalian .so TLD appeared to be a relatively safe haven, but this changed last month when the Kickass.so domain was “banned.”
Initially the action appeared to be an isolated incident, but the .SO registry wasn’t done with the Kickass brand yet.
A few days ago the .SO registry targeted a new round of “Kickass” related domains. Kikass.so, Kickas.so, Kickasstorrent.so, Kickasstorrents.so, Kickasstorrent.so, Kickassmovies.so and Kickassmovie.so were all added to the ban list.
Interestingly, none of the domains were affiliated with the notorious torrent site. Kickassmovies.so, for example, was a relatively low traffic streaming site that simply used the Kickass brand to gain traffic.
Piracy Lawsuits Dominated By Just Three Movie Companies
Thanks to the development of advanced file-sharing systems and fast Internet connections, lawsuits aimed at alleged Internet pirates have become commonplace over the past decade and are showing no signs of disappearing anytime soon.
The statistics behind the threats have been documented periodically but now a detailed study of IP litigation as a whole has painted a clearer picture of trends during the past 10 years.
Published by Matthew Sag, Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, IP Litigation in United States District Courts: 1994 to 2014 provides a review of all IP litigation in U.S. district courts over the past two decades to include copyright, patent and trademark lawsuits over 190,000 case filings.
Perhaps unsurprisingly one of the paper’s key findings is that Internet file-sharing has transformed copyright litigation in the United States, in one area in particular.
“To the extent that the rate of copyright litigation has increased over the last two decades, that increase appears to be entirely attributable to lawsuits against anonymous Internet file sharers,” the paper reads.
In broad terms the paper places lawsuits against alleged pirates into two categories – those with an aim of discouraging illegal file-sharing and those that exist to monetize online infringement.
Category one is dominated by lawsuits filed by the RIAA against users of software such as Kazaa and LimeWire who downloaded and shared tracks without permission. Announced in 2003, the wave seriously got underway during 2004 and persisted until 2008, straggling cases aside.
Category two is dominated by the so-called copyright trolls that have plagued file-sharing networks since 2010. These companies, largely from the adult movie sector, track down alleged file-sharers with the aim of extracting cash settlements.
“Canada Remains A Safe Haven For Online Piracy”
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has just published its latest submission to the U.S. Government, providing an overview of countries it believes should better protect the interests of the copyright industry.
The IIPA, which includes a wide range of copyright groups including the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and ESA, has listed its complaints against a whole host of countries. As in previous years, Canada was discussed in detail with the recommendation to put it on the 2014 Special 301 ‘watch list’.
One of the main criticisms against Canada is that the country offers a home to many pirate sites. The country recently revised its copyright law but that has done little to address this problem, IIPA believes.
“Although there has been some improvement in recent years, Canada still has far to go to rectify its reputation as a safe haven for Internet pirates. Indeed, a number of the world’s most popular Internet sources dedicated to online theft of copyright material retain connections to Canada.”
Among others, the report lists the popular torrent sites Torrentz.eu, Kickass.to and streaming portal Solarmovie.is as partially Canada-based.
Canada’s inaction against these websites has forced copyright holders to request website blockades in other countries, IIPA claims. In addition, these pirate sites hamper the growth of legal services.
“As long as these sites continue to use Canada as a base, efforts to provide a space within which legitimate, licensed services can take root and grow are undermined, not only in Canada, but around the world,” the report reads.
Good Man Productions, Inc.: a zombie troll plaintiff
A copyright shakedown outfit lead by M. Keith Lipscomb and his German counterparts recently filed 99 Bittorent cases “on behalf” of Good Man Productions, Inc. Those lawsuits were filed in eight districts in November-December 2014, and the plaintiff alleged infringement of a direct-to-DVD movie Good Man featuring Steven Seagal.
On 1/14/2015 it came to our attention that querying Good Man Productions, Inc. information on the web portal of California Secretary of State revealed that this entity was dissolved. As soon as I reported it, the company suddenly re-appeared, albeit with a different entity number.
Naturally, we were skeptical about the fact that registering a new corporation with the same name would solve a potentially fatal problem.
Can a dissolved copyright holder corporation continue litigating as a plaintiff in infringement cases?
A CA corporation filed dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits in Nov-Dec 2014. On 12/22/2014 it was voluntarily dissolved. Nonetheless, the cases continue, and the courts were not notified.
Are any laws or regulations broken here?After those who actually steer the litigation made aware of publicity in this matter, they re-registered this corporation on 1/16/2015. The name and the agent remained the same, yet the entity number is different.
So the second question: did this move “cure” the issue? Is it a matter of interest for the tax authorities?
One of the answers from an experienced business attorney from California, Frank Chen, confirmed what we suspected (emphasis is mine):
Nope. I assume the corporation was voluntarily dissolved (as opposed to being suspended or involuntarily dissolved through a court decree). A suspended corporation can be revived by paying back taxes, penalties and interest, and filing back tax returns. However, a dissolved corporation cannot be revived. A dissolved corporation would no longer have standing to pursue a lawsuit. Re-registration creates a new corporation, but even if the name and agent for service of process are the same, the entity is not the same entity which was the plaintiff in the lawsuit. The move does not “cure” the issue.