US authorities have seized another major Z-Library domain but still haven't been able to wipe the pirate book site off the Internet. From a report: Z-Library claims to offer over 13 million books, up from 11 million since US authorities launched their first major operation against Z-Library late last year. "Unfortunately, one of our primary login domains was seized today," Z-Library wrote in a Wednesday message on its Telegram account. "Therefore, we recommend using the domain singlelogin[dot]re to log in to your account, as well as to register. Please share this domain with others." In November, US authorities charged Russian nationals Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly operating Z-Library. The US said at the time that it seized 250 "interrelated web domains" run by Z-Library and that Napolsky and Ermakova were arrested in Argentina at the request of the US government. Other people continue to operate Z-Library, which remained available on the Tor network and returned to the clearnet in February with a new strategy of assigning personal, secret URLs to each user. Z-Library directed users to singlelogin[dot]me, where they could sign in with their login credentials and receive a unique URL to access the entire pirate library.

Reddit doesn't have to identify eight anonymous users who wrote comments in piracy-related threads, a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on Friday. From a report: US Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler quashed a subpoena issued by film studios in an order that agrees with Reddit that the First Amendment protects the users' right to speak anonymously online. The First Amendment right to anonymous speech is not absolute, but the precedent followed by US district courts only forces disclosure of anonymous users' identities "in the exceptional case where the compelling need for the discovery sought outweighs the First Amendment rights of the anonymous speaker," Beeler noted. After reviewing the facts and arguments, she found that the Reddit users' comments were irrelevant to the film studios' underlying case and that the studios could obtain relevant information from other sources.

Reddit has no involvement in the underlying case, which is a copyright lawsuit in a different federal court against cable Internet service provider RCN. Bodyguard Productions, Millennium Media, and other film companies sued RCN in the US District Court in New Jersey over RCN customers' alleged downloads of 34 movies such as Hellboy, Rambo: Last Blood, Tesla, and The Hitman's Bodyguard. In an attempt to prove that RCN (now known as Astound Broadband) turned a blind eye to customers illegally downloading copyrighted movies, the studios subpoenaed Reddit seeking identifying information for specific users who commented in piracy-related threads. While some of the comments were posted in 2022, other comments were made in 2009 and 2014.

A draft law that aims to criminalize and prosecute those who "create conditions for online piracy" has been approved by Bulgaria's Council of Ministers. The proposed amendments are Bulgaria's response to heavy criticism from the United States, most publicly via the USTR's Special 301 Reports. It's hoped that prison sentences of up to six years will send a deterrent message. TorrentFreak reports: Last week the Council of Ministers approved draft amendments to the Criminal Code that aim to protect authors, rightsholders, and state revenue. "Crimes against intellectual property should be perceived as acts with a high degree of public danger, not only considering the rights and interests of the individual author, which they affect, but also considering the financial losses for the holders of these rights, which also affects the revenues in the state budget," the explanatory notes read.

The stated aim of the bill is to solve identified weaknesses by upgrading substantive law to counter computer-related crimes against intellectual property. The text references those who "build or maintain" an information system or provide a service to the information society for the purpose of committing crimes. The notes offer further clarification. "The bill aims to prosecute those who create conditions for online piracy -- for example, by building and maintaining torrent tracker sites, web platforms, chat groups in online communication applications for the online exchange of pirated content, and any other activities that may fall within the definition of 'information society service' within the meaning of the Electronic Commerce Act (pdf) and which are carried out with the specified criminal purpose."

The Bulgarian government notes that the amendments are part of its response to criticism in the USTR's Special 301 Report. [When countries are placed on the USTR's 'Watch List' for failing to combat piracy, most can expect years of pressure punctuated by annual Special 301 Reports declaring more needs to be done. Bulgaria was on the Watch List in 2015 when the USTR reported "incremental progress" in the country's ability to tackle intellectual property infringement, albeit nowhere near enough to counter unsatisfactory prosecution rates. In 2018 the United States softened its position toward Bulgaria, removing it from the Watch List on the basis that the government would probably deliver.] The fact that Bulgaria has been absent from the 'Watch List' for the last five years is down to "specific commitments" made by the authorities, with progress being monitored closely by the United States in respect of Bulgaria's future status. The draft approved by the Council of Ministers last week envisions sentences of up to six years imprisonment and a fine of up to $5,600. According to the draft, there is no intent to prosecute individual users who simply consume pirated content.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Z-Library appears to be shrugging off a criminal investigation as if nothing ever happened. The site continues to develop its shadow library and, following a successful fundraiser, now plans to expand its services to the physical book market. Z-Library envisions a book 'sharing' market, where its millions of users can pick up paperbacks at dedicated "Z-Points" around the globe. [...] With more than 12 million books in its archive, Z-Library advertised itself as the largest repository of pirated books on the Internet. This success was briefly interrupted late last year when the U.S. Government seized the site's main domain names. The enforcement action also led to the arrest of two alleged Russian operators of the site, who now find themselves at the center of a criminal investigation. A crackdown of this magnitude usually marks the end of a pirate site, but Z-Library appears to be going in the opposite direction. The site has made a full comeback with a more 'censorship-resistant' setup and recently collected tens of thousands of dollars in donations.

In a new message, posted this week, Z-Library thanks its userbase for their generous contributions, noting that it secured all the necessary funds to ensure continued development. Apparently, this includes support for offline sharing. In addition to offering millions of ebooks, Z-Library says that it's working on a new service that will help users to share physical copies with each other. "Books you have read should not gather dust on your shelf -- instead, they can get a second life in the hands of new readers! This helps to preserve the literary heritage and spread the knowledge and ideas contained in books to more people," they write. "[W]e want to organize 'Z-Points' -- collection and storage points for books that will be the link between those who share their books and those who need them. Book owners who are willing to share them with other users can send books to the nearest Z-Point in their region. And those who need books stored in these points will be able to receive them for their use."

This sounds like a P2P competitor for traditional libraries. Interestingly, however, Z-Library believes that existing libraries are ideally suited to become Z-Points. People can also volunteer to run a Z-Point from their own homes. Running a book lending point will require quite a bit of storage space and organizational effort so fulfillment centers and third-party logistics services are also welcome to join in. The Z-Point idea is still in the planning phase. According to Z-Library, users will be able to send books by mail. These can then be loaned by others and/or sent by mail when requested. This proposal is quite different from the traditional pirate ebook library Z-Library offers now. And loaning a book to someone is generally not seen as copyright infringement either unless it's a copied ebook.

A German court has ordered hosting provider Uberspace to take the website of the open-source youtube-dl software offline. The ruling is the result of a copyright infringement lawsuit, filed by Sony, Warner and Universal last year. Uberspace will appeal the verdict and, meanwhile, youtube-dl's code remains available on GitHub. TorrentFreak reports: After hearing both sides, the district court of Hamburg ruled on the matter last week, handing a clear win to the music companies. The verdict wasn't immediately made available to the public but the music companies were quick to claim the win in a press release, stating that Uberspace must take youtube-dl's website offline. According to Frances Moore, CEO of the global music industry group IFPI, the court's decision once again confirms that stream-ripping software is illegal.

"YouTube-DL's services have enabled users to stream rip and download copyrighted music without paying. The Hamburg Regional Court's decision builds on a precedent already set in Germany and underscores once again that hosting stream-ripping software of this type is illegal. "We continue to work globally to address the problem of stream ripping, which is draining revenue from those who invest in and create music," Moore adds. Interestingly, the open source youtube-dl code remains available on the Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub. Whether the music companies have any plans to target the problem at this source is unknown.

Uberspace's legal representative German Society for Civil Rights (GFF) informs TorrentFreak that the decision doesn't come as a total surprise since the court already declared YouTube's "rolling cipher" to be an effective technical protection measure in an earlier case. That said, the defense believes that the order, which effectively amounts to a blanket ban on youtube-dl, failed to take the software's potentially legitimate uses into account. In addition, GFF believes that the court's decision severely restricts the hosting provider's freedom to operate. "If web hosts have to delete an entire website on demand of the rightsholders even in complex situations with no legal precedent, this poses a threat to the business model of web hosts and ultimately to the free flow of information on the Internet." Uberspace says it will appeal the judgement and GFF is confident the hosting provider will ultimately prevail.

Anti-piracy group CODA is reporting the shutdown of B9Good, a pirate manga site that targeted Japan but was operated from China. In response to a criminal complaint filed by CODA on behalf of six Japanese companies, which were backed by 21 others during the investigation, Chinese authorities arrested four people and seized one house worth $580,000. TorrentFreak reports: Manga piracy site B9Good initially appeared in 2008 and established itself under B9DM branding. SimilarWeb stats show that the site was enjoying around 15 million visits each month, with CODA noting that in the two-year period leading to February 2023, the site was accessed more than 300 million times Around 95% of the site's visitors came from Japan. B9Good had been featured in an MPA submission to the USTR's notorious markets report in 2019. Traffic was reported as almost 16 million visits per month back then, meaning that site visitor numbers remained stable for the next three years. The MPA said the site was possibly hosted in Canada, but domain records since then show a wider spread, including Hong Kong, China, United States, Bulgaria, and Japan.

Wherever the site ended up, the location of its operator was more important. In 2021, CODA launched its International Enforcement Project (CBEP), which aimed to personally identify the operators of pirate sites, including those behind B9Good who were eventually traced to China. Pursuing copyright cases from outside China is reportedly difficult, but CODA had a plan. In January 2022, CODA's Beijing office was recognized as an NGO with legitimate standing to protect the rights of its member companies. Working on behalf of Aniplex, TV Tokyo, Toei Animation, Toho, Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), and Bandai Namco Film Works, CODA filed a criminal complaint in China, and starting February 14, 2023, local authorities began rounding up the B9Good team.

After almost 17 years online, file-hosting veteran Zippyshare will shut down at the end of the month. TorrentFreak: Founded in 2006, Zippyshare was known for its free, no-nonsense, no-frills approach to storing files online. Having changed very little over the years, Zippyshare's operators say the platform is now a dinosaur that costs too much to run in a world where ad-blocking is widespread. Zippyshare said, "Since 2006 we have been on the market in an unchanged form, that is, as ad financed/free file hosting. However, you have been visiting in less and less over the years, as the arguably very simple formula of the services we offer is slowly running out of steam. I guess all the competing file storage service companies on the market look better, offer better performance and more features. No one needs a dinosaur like us anymore."

A federal judge on Monday will weigh pleas by four major book publishers to stop an online lending library from freely offering digital copies of books, in a case that raises novel questions about digital-library rights and the reach of copyright law that protects the work of writers and publishers. From a report: Nonprofit organization Internet Archive created the digital books, building its collection by scanning physical book copies in its possession. It lends the digital versions to readers worldwide, with more than three million digitized books on offer. Titles range from Stephen King's scary bestseller "It" to Kristin Hannah's historical novel "The Nightingale." The archive expanded its digital lending during the Covid-19 pandemic, temporarily lifting limits on how many people could check out a book at one time. The move helped prompt the publishers' copyright infringement lawsuit in 2020, which is pending before U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan.

The plaintiffs are Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, John Wiley and Sons, Bertelsmann SE's Penguin Random House, and HarperCollins Publishers, which like The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. They argue the Internet Archive book platform "constitutes willful digital piracy on an industrial scale" and hurts writers and publishers who rely on consumers buying their products. William Adams, general counsel for HarperCollins Publishers, said the archive's approach has no basis in law. "What they're doing is supplanting what authors and publishers do with libraries and have been doing for a long time," he said. The Internet Archive says its lending practices are a fair and legal use of the books, in the same way that traditional bricks-and-mortar libraries have a right to share their collections with the public.

A YouTube star who built a sizable following with slickly produced videos flaunting his fleet of luxury and sports cars, collection of diamond-encrusted bling, and his spacious Swedesboro home will be forced to give up nearly all of it after he was sentenced Tuesday to 5 and a half years in prison for the illegal business that allowed him to amass those trappings of success. From a report: Bill Omar Carrasquillo -- better known to his more than 800,000 online followers as "Omi in a Hellcat" -- pleaded guilty last year to running one of the most brazen and successful cable TV piracy schemes ever prosecuted by the U.S. government. As part of his sentencing Tuesday, he was ordered to forfeit more than $30 million in assets, including nearly $6 million in cash; cars including Lamborghinis, Porsches, Bentleys, and McLarens; and a portfolio of more than a dozen properties he'd amassed across Philadelphia and its suburbs.

"Thirty million dollars is a lot of money [but] tangible objects aren't everything," U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III said in announcing the punishment during a hearing in federal court. "You have a large following and there may be people who think if you can get away with it, they can too." Carrasquillo, 36, apologized to his family, his employees, and the cable companies he'd cheated through his business, which illegally sold content hijacked from cable boxes to thousands of online subscribers paying fees as low as $15 a month. "I really didn't know the significance of this crime until I was picked up [by the FBI] at my home," he said. "I feel like I let everybody down." But while prosecutors described Carrasquillo's crimes -- which included counts of conspiracy, copyright infringement, fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion -- as serious, much of Tuesday's hearing focused on Carrasquillo's remarkable rags-to-riches story.

Reddit is fighting a film-industry attempt to identify users who discussed piracy, telling a federal court that the studios' request for users' real names should be rejected and that one of the studios' arguments is "nonsense." From a report: "Courts have long recognized that the First Amendment protects online anonymity and have established a stringent standard to use in precisely this scenario, where a litigant seeks to unmask users for the purpose of providing evidence in litigation that does not involve those users... Plaintiffs are far from meeting that strict standard here," Reddit said Tuesday in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Reddit has no involvement in the lawsuit that triggered the request for users' identities -- the studios behind films such as Hellboy, Rambo V: Last Blood, Tesla, and The Hitman's Bodyguard sued cable broadband provider RCN in a different court, alleging that RCN failed to terminate Internet subscribers who illegally downloaded copyrighted movies. (RCN is now known as Astound Broadband after being combined with several other cable ISPs in the same ownership group.) In an attempt to prove that RCN turned a blind eye to users downloading copyrighted movies, the film studios subpoenaed Reddit seeking identifying information for specific users who commented in piracy-related threads. After Reddit provided information on only one user, calling the other requests a "fishing expedition," the studios filed a motion to compel Reddit to respond to the subpoena.

A man who rented out servers configured for BitTorrent file-sharing use has been handed a three-month suspended sentence in Denmark. Known as 'seedboxes', these pre-configured servers are not illegal per se, but when customers used the devices to break copyright law on known pirate sites, rightsholders held the server provider liable. TorrentFreak reports: Local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (Rettigheds Alliancen) mitigates all types of piracy but for the past few years, has maintained a keen focus on torrent sites. Working in partnership with the Danish government's SOIK IP-Task Force, Rights Alliance forced several sites to close down and successfully prosecuted site operators, staff members, and users who uploaded content to those sites. In 2021, Rights Alliance targeted specialized servers that not only supply content to torrent sites but also play a role in boosting download times while improving security.

In 2021, news broke that six people had been arrested in Denmark due to their alleged connections to several local torrent sites. Among them was Kasper Nielsen of internet services company HNielsen Networks, a supplier of servers under various brands that could be configured for 'seedbox' purposes. Available information indicated that the servers had been used by an unknown number of users to share content on private torrent sites ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes. [...] When Rights Alliance filed its criminal complaint against HNielsen Networks, the anti-piracy group referenced the landmark Filmspeler case which involved the sale of piracy-configured media players.

According to statements published by Rights Alliance and NSK (Saerlig Kriminalitet) Denmark's Special Crime Unit, Nielsen was convicted yesterday for selling seedboxes in the knowledge they were being used by others to share movies, TV shows, eBooks and other content, without permission from rightsholders. "On February 28, the Court in Aalborg ruled against the Danish owner behind a seedbox company for, in the period November 2020 to May 2021, having sold seedboxes and server capacity to an unknown number of people, knowing that they were used for illegal sharing of no less than 3,838 copyright-protected works on the Danish and Nordic file sharing services ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes," Rights Alliance reports. Nielsen was handed a three-month conditional (suspended) sentence and a confiscation order for DKK 300,000 (around $42,600), the amount users had paid his company to access the seedbox servers. The 35-year-old must also pay compensation of DKK 298,660 to Rights Alliance. "Providers of seedboxes have a responsibility to ensure that their services are not used for illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted content, which the Rights Alliance can clearly see that they are doing," says Maria Fredenslund, Director of Rights Alliance. "Therefore, this case helps to send a signal to other providers that you cannot deliberately sell services to the illegal market."

Since Neilsen took a plea deal at an early stage, none of the claims made by Rights Alliance were needed to be proven in court. "The 3,838 figure and any evidence related to 'knowledge' of infringement carried out by seedbox customers on the sites, were accepted as true," reports TorrentFreak.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) issued a DMCA notice to a GitHub repo that contained a playlist that let viewers watch Pluto TVs streams on their own apps, such as VLC, MPV, and Tvheadend. From a report: The move was first noticed by TorrentFreak, and GitHub has complied and removed the repo, which ultimately does nothing. If you still have a tiny text file, you can still do exactly what the MPA tried to stop. Pluto TV, for those who do not watch it, is a service owned by Paramount that allows users to legally stream movies and TV shows free of charge on many devices. They have a mobile app, apps for Xbox and PlayStation, smart TVs, and dongles. Users do not even need to sign up to use it. In turn, Pluto's business model is predicated on serving ads and tracking user behavior. It's part of a newer breed of streaming product called free ad-supported television, or FAST. The GitHub repo in question contained M3U playlists to watch Pluto TV's content via an app like VLC. The repo basically took links that were already available and gathered them in one place. It should be noted that M3U files aren't torrent files; it's just a simple playlist file that can direct to local files and web sources.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Several independent publishers have had their books removed from Kindle Unlimited because they breached an exclusivity agreement with Amazon. The actions of the book giant are covered by the mutually agreed terms. However, in many cases, it's not the authors who breached the agreement, but pirate sites who copied them, as pirates do. [...] Over the past few weeks, several authors complained that Amazon had removed their books from Kindle Unlimited because they violated their agreement. The piracy angle is front and center, raising plenty of questions and uncertainty.

Raven Kennedy, known for The Plated Prisoner Series, took her frustration to Instagram earlier this month. The author accused Amazon of sending repeated "threats". This eventually resulted in the removal of her books from Kindle Unlimited, ostensibly because these were listed on pirate sites. "Copyright infringement is outside of my control. Even though I pay a lot of money to a company to file takedown notices on my behalf, and am constantly checking the web for pirated versions, I can't keep up with all the intellectual theft. "And rather than support and help their authors, Amazon threatens me. The ironic thing is, these pirates are getting the files FROM Amazon," Kennedy added. A similar experience was shared by Carissa Broadbent, author of The War of Lost Hearts Trilogy. Again, Amazon removed a book from Kindle Unlimited for an issue that the author can't do much about. "A few hours ago, I got a stomach-dropping email from [Amazon] that Children of Fallen Gods had been removed from the Kindle store with zero warning, because of content 'freely available on the web' -- IE, piracy that I do not have any control over," Broadbent noted.

These and other authors received broad support from their readers, and sympathy from the general public. A Change.org petition launched in response has collected nearly 35,000 signatures to date, with new ones still coming in. Author Marlow Locker started the petition to send a wake-up call to Amazon. According to her, Amazon should stand behind its authors instead of punishing them for the fact that complete strangers have decided to pirate their books. Most authors will gladly comply with the exclusivity requirements, but only as far as this lies within their control. Piracy clearly isn't, especially when it happens on an almost industrial scale. "Currently, many automated systems use Amazon as a place to copy the e-files that they use for their free websites. It's completely absurd that the same company turns around and punishes an author by removing their book from KDP Select," the petition reads. From the commentary seen online, several authors have been able to resolve their issues with Amazon. And indeed, the books of Broadbent and Kennedy appear to be back online. That said, the exclusivity policy remains in place. Amazon notes that the books removed from Kindle Unlimited still remain for sale on Amazon's regular store. They also stress that authors are issued a warning with an extended timeline to try and resolve the issue before any action is taken.

"The problem is, of course, that individual authors can't stop piracy," adds TorrentFreak. "If it was that easy, most authors would be happy to do so. However, if billion-dollar publishing companies and the U.S. Government can't stop it, Amazon can't expect independent authors to 'resolve' the matter either."

An anonymous reader writes: Filmmakers have obtained a subpoena to reveal the identities of Redditors who commented on piracy-related topics. The comments can provide relevant evidence in support of a repeat infringer lawsuit against ISP RCN, the companies argue. Reddit disagrees and frames the effort as a fishing expedition that is at odds with the right to anonymous speech.

AmiMoJo writes: Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has signed a new law that legalizes piracy of movies, music, TV shows and software owned by rightsholders from 'unfriendly countries'. The law also allows goods protected by intellectual property law to be imported from any country without obtaining permission from rightsholders.

Lukashenko's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine led to new sanctions being imposed by the EU, U.S. and other countries. In common with Russia, Belarus relies on intellectual property owned by foreign rightsholders that are currently unable or unwilling to supply and/or license it. So, to ensure legal access to pirated movies, music, TV shows and software, the government drafted a new law to restrict intellectual property rights.

Slashdot has covered the legal hijinx of Malibu Media over the years. Now Ars Technica reports that the studio could be destroyed by unpaid taxes: Over the past decade, Malibu Media has emerged as a prominent so-called "copyright troll," suing thousands of "John Does" for allegedly torrenting adult content hosted on the porn studio's website, "X-Art." Whether defendants were guilty or not didn't seem to matter to Malibu, critics claimed, as much as winning as many settlements as possible. As courts became more familiar with Malibu, however, some judges grew suspicious of the studio's litigiousness. As early as 2012, a California judge described these lawsuits as "essentially an extortion scheme," and by 2013, a Wisconsin judge ordered sanctions, agreeing with critics who said that Malibu's tactics were designed to "harass and intimidate" defendants into paying Malibu thousands in settlements.

By 2016, Malibu started losing footing in this arena — and even began fighting with its own lawyer. At that point, file-sharing lawsuits became less commonplace, with critics noting a significant reduction in Malibu's lawsuits over the next few years. Now, TorrentFreak reports that Malibu's litigation machine appears to finally be running out of steam — with its corporate status suspended in California sometime between mid-2020 and early 2021 after failing to pay taxes. Last month, a Texas court said that Malibu has until January 20 to pay what's owed in back taxes and get its corporate status reinstated. If that doesn't happen over the next few weeks, one of Malibu's last lawsuits on the books will be dismissed, potentially marking the end of Malibu's long run of alleged copyright trolling.

The U.S. Copyright Office has completed its public consultations on the use of technical measures to identify and protect copyrighted content online. From a report: For many years, U.S. lawmakers have considered options to update the DMCA so it can more effectively deal with today's online copyright issues. Many proposals have come and gone, without resulting in any significant updates. Calls to change current legislation persist, however. Following repeated nudges from Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy, the Copyright Office launched a consultation on automated tools that online services can use to ensure that pirated content is less easily shared.

The Copyright Office also asked stakeholders whether it's desirable to make certain standard technical measures mandatory for online platforms. Such measures could include upload filters to block pirated content from being reuploaded. This month the Copyright Office presents its conclusions, which are also shared with Senators Tillis and Leahy in two letters. After reviewing thousands of responses and input from stakeholders in plenary sessions, the overall conclusion is one of clear disagreement. Most parties agree that it's impossible to design an error-free takedown process but disagree on what error rate is acceptable when takedowns are automated. Opponents of filtering technology warn that fair use and First Amendment rights are at stake.

Rightsholders did not dispute that but noted that these issues don't play a role when full copies of copyrighted content are shared. When it comes to the implementation of voluntary measures, the Copyright Office doesn't have any concrete suggestions. Instead, it will continue to back existing initiatives, while facilitating dialogue between various stakeholders. "The public comments and the consultations confirmed that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to voluntary technical measures, and that there remains a lack of consensus in this area," the Office writes. "Nevertheless, the consultations served as valuable opportunities for dialogue among stakeholders, which may lead to further voluntary action. The Copyright Office proposed options to continue its role as convener of these conversations in the future."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The UK Government's Intellectual Property Office published new piracy guidance today, and it contains a small, easily missed detail. People who share their Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Disney+ passwords are violators of copyright law. And it gets worse. The IPO informs TorrentFreak that password sharing could also mean criminal liability for fraud. [...] In a low-key announcement today, the UK Government's Intellectual Property Office announced a new campaign in partnership with Meta, aiming to help people avoid piracy and counterfeit goods online. Other than in the headline, there is zero mention of Meta in the accompanying advice, and almost no advice that hasn't been issued before. But then this appears: "Piracy is a major issue for the entertainment and creative industries. Pasting internet images into your social media, password sharing on streaming services and accessing the latest films, tv series or live sports events through kodi boxes, fire sticks or Apps without paying a subscription all break copyright laws. Not only are you breaking the law but stopping someone earning a living from their hard work."

TorrentFreak immediately contacted the Intellectual Property Office for clarification on the legal side, particularly since password sharing sits under a piracy heading. The IPO's response was uncompromising, to put it mildly. "There are a range of provisions in criminal and civil law which may be applicable in the case of password sharing where the intent is to allow a user to access copyright protected works without payment," the IPO informs TorrentFreak. "These provisions may include breach of contractual terms, fraud or secondary copyright infringement depending on the circumstances." Given that using the "services of a members' club without paying and without being a member" is cited as an example of fraud in the UK, the bar for criminality is set very low, unless the Crown Prosecution Service decides otherwise, of course.

Risky and criminal online behaviour is in danger of becoming normalized among a generation of young people across Europe, according to EU-funded research that found one in four 16- to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in three have engaged in digital piracy. From a report: An EU-funded study found evidence of widespread criminal, risky and delinquent behaviour among the 16-19 age group in nine European countries including the UK. A survey of 8,000 young people found that one in four have tracked or trolled someone online, one in eight have engaged in online harassment, one in 10 have engaged in hate speech or hacking, one in five have engaged in sexting and one in three have engaged in digital piracy. It also found that four out of 10 have watched pornography.

Julia Davidson, a co-author of the research and professor of criminology at the University of East London (UEL), said risky and criminal online behaviour was becoming almost normalised among a generation of European young people. "The research indicates that a large proportion of young people in the EU are engaging in some form of cybercrime, to such an extent that the conduct of low-level crimes online and online risk-taking has become almost normalised," she said.

A torrent site user accused of downloading and uploading at least 120TB of movies, TV shows, eBooks, music and software, has avoided an immediate prison term. The 28-year-old was arrested as part of a police operation against DanishBytes. A member of the same site was sentenced earlier this month after he uploaded Netflix content obtained using hacked credentials. TorrentFreak reports: Early November 2021, Denmark's Public Prosecutor for Special Economic and International Crime (SOIK) announced that six people had been arrested following criminal referrals by Rights Alliance. All were members and/or operators of ShareUniversity and DanishBytes. Prosecution of site operators is not uncommon but when it's deemed in the public interest, pirate site users can also face charges. Every case is unique so criteria differ, especially across national borders, but when evidence shows large volumes of infringement, successful prosecutions become more likely. That was the case when a former DanishBytes user was sentenced last week. According to Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, the 28-year-old man was a regular site member and wasn't involved in running the site. That being said, evidence showed that for the period January 2021 to November 2021, he downloaded and/or uploaded no less than 3,000 copyrighted works, including movies, TV shows, music, books, audiobooks and comics.

Information released by the National Unit for Special Crimes (NSK), a Danish police unit focused on cybercrime, organized crime, and related financial crime, reveals that the user's traffic statistics interested prosecutors. "During the period, the man downloaded no less than 100 TB and uploaded no less than 20 TB of copyrighted material," NSK says. BitTorrent trackers operating a ratio model usually insist on a better ratio of downloads to uploads but DanishBytes' situation was out of the ordinary.

The site launched in January 2021 in the wake of other sites being shut down, so had to get going from a standing start with no users. Even when arrests were being made, the site still had a relatively small userbase, which can limit opportunities to upload more. That may have been a blessing in disguise. Faced with the evidence, the man decided to plead guilty and was sentenced last week at the Court in Vibourg. In common with similar prosecutions recently, he received a suspended conditional sentence of 60 days' probation, 80 hours of community service, and confiscation of his computer equipment. The case against the DanishBytes user began with a Rights Alliance investigation and a referral to the police. As part of his sentence, the man must pay the anti-piracy group DKK 5,000 (US$600) in compensation but Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund is focused on the deterrent effect of another successful prosecution.