A high-quality copy of the Steven Spielberg movie ‘Super 8′ has turned up online and is spreading like wildfire. While it is hardly unusual for preview copy DVD screeners to become available in this way, it is unusual for them to carry watermarks which appear to identify the source of the leak. Come Monday morning, Howard Stern might have some questions to answer.

Back in June, Paramount Pictures were setting their lawyers on Todd Blatt, a mechanical engineer from Baltimore.

Blatt had used his design skills and 3D printing company ShapeWays to come up with replicas of the strange cube-shaped objects seen in the Steven Spielberg movie, Super 8.

While that confrontation appeared to end fairly bloodlessly, a new copyright controversy surrounding the movie may not.

Poor-quality cammed copies of Super 8 started turning up online as soon as the movie premiered, but during the last 24 hours the game has gotten a whole lot more interesting. Several P2P release groups have uploaded the movie in high-quality, each one apparently sourced from the same studio-issued DVD Screener.

As can be seen from the screenshot below, the copy has the usual watermarks across the bottom of the screen stating that the movie is the property of Paramount Pictures. However, in the top right hand corner is another watermark which appears to indicate who the copy was given to – H STERN.

The watermark runs throughout the entire copy and although it’s possible that someone is trying to have some fun at Mr Stern’s expense by putting it there, it seems unlikely that a release group would do such a thing.

Furthermore, if that was the case and a clean ‘unpranked’ copy was available, it would turn up very quickly indeed. At the moment it seems that all release groups are using the same source.

A few hours ago Stern stylist Ralph Cirella denied having anything to do with the leak.

The other possibility of course is that there is another H STERN on the DVD Screener list. Likely? We’ll probably find out on Monday.

Source: Super 8 Screener Leaks – With Howard Stern’s Name All Over It

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In June 2010, several well known websites that linked to movies and TV shows lost their domain names as the U.S. Government’s ‘Operation in Our Sites’ bared its teeth. But the war against linking sites has been going on for some time, much of it off the mainstream radar, with site owners being hit by negative decisions and damages awards running to millions of dollars.

As part of a initiative cracking down on Internet piracy and counterfeiting, at the end of June U.S. Immigration and Customs and the Department of Justice took action against nine web portals suspected of linking to first-run movies. Seven sites had their domains seized – TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org and ZML.com. Raids were also carried out against the popular NinjaVideo site.

But these were only the most recent steps taken by movie industry companies and their agents to take down such websites. Action against a significant number of others has been going on for some time. Several large linking websites operated by mostly U.S. citizens have been sued in recent times.

In this article we take a look at some of them, and the large damages awards ordered against operators. The summaries below are followed up with some analysis and the uneasy realization that although cases are being ‘lost’ all the time, the law remains untested.

Paramount Pictures / Universal Studios v Omegatube.com / Atomicmovies.com

These two sites were sued in December 2008. The studios got a court order and discovered the owners’ idenitities – they were Canadians. The studios could not discover any contact information for Pilippe Bruno and 9190-3864 Quebec Inc. The third defendant, Michaud, was served but did not respond to the studios’ letters or emails. Since Michaud did not reply but was served, he lost by default. In the end, the studios simply dismissed the lawsuit against all parties, most likely because the owners were not U.S. citizens.

Warner Bros. / Paramount Pictures v Movies-On-Demand.TV ( Began 2008)

Salman Haque, the owner of Movies-On-Demand.TV, entered negotiations with the studios. He pleaded guilty to contributory copyright infringement and agreed to pay 2.1 million USD to the studios. The trial ended in January 2010.

Warner Bros. / Paramount Pictures v Watch-movies-online.tv (Began 2008)

‘Vladimir Kramskoy’ lost by default, since no one was able to discover his true identity. Assumed to be in Russia. Studios did nothing, trial ends 2010.

Universal City Studios v VideoHybrid.com (Began 2007)

Defendants engaged in contributory copyright infringement and inducement of copyright infringement by identifying, organizing, and indexing on the website (www.videohybrid.com) links to infringing material, which had been posted on third-party websites. Defendant was found liable for damages of $1,075,000.

Disney v FOMDB.com (Began 2008)

Defendant found liable for damages totaling $300,000.

Universal City Studios Productions LLLP et al v. YouTVpc.com et al (Began 2007)

Defendants Billy Duran and Sam Martinez lost their case by not defending themselves. They were ordered to pay statutory damages of $875,000.00, attorneys fees of $21,100.00 and plaintiff’s costs of $6,017.17.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. et al v. Nabolister.com et al

Based on Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and Disney Enterprises, Inc.’s Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, which was filed on February 22, 2010, the Court dismissed the case without prejudice. Owners were Canadians, and later closed the site.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. et al v. Peekvid.com et al

The MPAA hired private investigators who presented testimony in the trial. Defendant Frank Meadows represented himself, did not have a lawyer and was unable to defend his point of view. A Default Judgment was issued against Peekvid. Frank Meadows was found liable for damages totaling $2,500,000.

Disney Enterprises, Inc. et al v. 66Stage.com et al

Defendants were found liable for damages to the studios of $500,000 after a ‘consent judgment’. This meant that both parties agreed to settle without a trial.

Discussion

All lawsuits listed above called for the determination of the same question of law. Each lawsuit involved claims of “contributory copyright infringement” because the owners of the sites provide links to copyrighted TV shows or movies.

Initially, studios do not know who owns a site so they obtain a court order to find out. This is an action that cannot take more than 60-90 days. If they fail to identify and serve the owners, the lawsuit will be dismissed due to lack of prosecution. After the owners are discovered, they are added to the lawsuit.

All of the cases that had a favorable outcome for the studios involved US citizens who operated the sites in the US. The lawsuits against websites with Canadian owners were dismissed voluntarily by the studios.

In all of the cases presented, the websites lost by default judgment or they decided to settle in favor of the studios in order to avoid a lawsuit. This means that a crucial question of law remains unanswered:

Is it contributory copyright infringement to provide links to copyrighted content?

There are many facets to this question but all remain unanswered because a full trial did not take place. Among the faces and facets of this question are;

Is it infringement if:

- You link to copyrighted content but you don’t know it’s copyrighted?
- You operate a search engine which links to vast content, some copyrighted? (Google says no!)
- If you use and apply all the directions of the DMCA?

Furthermore, how do the safe harbors for Search Engines apply in such cases? (see OCCILA)

The problem is very complex and we still have no answer even in the US, the most litigious country and the spearhead of copyright/intellectual property law. Instead, new questions have to be answered.

How are ICE/US Customs able to seize domain names when there is no legal precedent and no judgment (even in the US) on the legality of such websites? This seems more like an abuse of power. Also, why is a taxpayer-funded institution serving the interests of private industry and studios?

An interesting side note is that the UK site TV-Links.co.uk was sued in UK and won it’s lengthy trial. This would set a precedent at least in the UK/European Union that in some conditions, these website owners do not do anything illegal. In relation to Section 17 of the European Commerce Directive 2000, TV-Links was a conduit of information and was afforded a complete defense in criminal proceedings for linking to other websites.

Despite extensive legal action, the question of legality of linking websites in the United States still remains unanswered.

This was a guest post from Searchfreek, a keen observer of developing linking sites and law. Editing by TorrentFreak.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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Last month TorrentFreak exclusively revealed that Disney Enterprises and Paramount Pictures in association with Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. (collectively as the MPA) had begun threatening CyberBunker owner CB3ROB Ltd with legal action over their hosting of The Pirate Bay.

The MPA stated that since CB3ROB knows that The Pirate Bay is “an infringing site”, then the company had to take responsibility for bringing those infringements to an end – in other words, stop providing the site with hosting and bandwidth. Failure to comply would result in the MPA taking legal action against CB3ROB in Germany.

After receiving new information from a previously reliable source, we can now confirm that the MPA have made good on their threats.

It appears that Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures,Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. have obtained a preliminary injunction against CB3ROB Ltd from the Regional Court of Hamburg.

The injunction, which was granted without an oral hearing, states that the CB3ROB company (and its Managing Director Mr. Sven Olaf Kamphuis personally) are hereby prohibited from connecting The Pirate Bay website and associated servers to the Internet.

The injunction relates specifically to The Pirate Bay offering torrents which allow users to download the following movies – The Bounty Hunter, Alice in Wonderland, Our Family Wedding, Green Zone, Repo Men and Cop Out.

The Court agreed that CB3ROB and Sven Olaf Kamphuis are liable for infringements on the above movies pursuant to the “Störerhaftung” principle. Also known as “disturber” or “interferer” liability, it means that someone who is knowingly connected to infringements can become the subject of an injunction, without actually carrying out those infringements themselves.

From the information currently available, in order to satisfy the Court it appears that CyberBunker have to either disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet, or the operators of the site have to do something that has never happened in the site’s history – remove the torrents listed in the injunction on copyright grounds.

The penalties for failing to comply appear to be very severe indeed.

The Court can fix a fine of up to 250,000 euros for each recorded case of infringement on the above movies. In the event that the fine cannot be enforced, it appears that Sven Olaf Kamphuis is being threatened with up to 2 years in jail.

At the time of publication, CB3ROB were unavailable for comment.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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In early October 2009, The Pirate Bay was forced to move outside its native Sweden and find a new host in Ukraine. Their stay in Eastern Europe didn’t last long though, and soon they found a new and fairly unorthodox home.

CyberBunker is a former nuclear warfare bunker in The Netherlands. The facility was built by NATO in the 1950s and was designed to survive a nuclear war. After that threat largely subsided the bunker changed owners and is now believed to be used as a webhosting data center and is the presumed (in reality this is almost impossible to prove) home of The Pirate Bay.

At the time, Sven Kamphuis, one of the owners of CB3ROB/Cyberbunker, said there were initial difficulties with setting up The Pirate Bay in its new location. Several carriers refused to assist following threats from local anti-piracy group, BREIN. Those problems were soon overcome but although The Pirate Bay continued to function and even grow, we can now exclusively reveal that there are turbulent seas ahead.

According to detailed information received by TorrentFreak, Disney Enterprises and Paramount Pictures in association with Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. (known collectively as the MPA) have been threatening CB3ROB Ltd with legal action over their hosting of The Pirate Bay and several other prominent movie-related sites.

Via its lawyers, in November 2009 the MPA sent CB3ROB a written “copyright warning” which stated that its members own the exclusive rights to a list of movies. The MPA further noted that CB3ROB is the Internet service provider for not only The Pirate Bay, but also movie streaming giants including Watch-Movies-Online.tv, Movie2K.com, TVShack.net, NovaMov.com and MovShare.com. Those sites, they say, are infringing their exclusive rights.

The complaint went on to detail the mechanics of The Pirate Bay, the guilty verdict delivered to its operators in a Swedish court in 2009 and the injunction placed on the site in the Amsterdam District Court in October the same year. Information on the nature of the streaming sites detailed above was also included.

The MPA warning then went on to suggest that since CB3ROB are aware that The Pirate Bay and the other sites are infringing, it is their responsibility to ensure that those infringements stop – i.e, bring an end to providing them with hosting and bandwidth or, as appears to be the case with The Pirate Bay, filter out torrents relating to MPA member works. Failure to do so would result in the MPA taking CB3ROB to court in Germany.

A very tight deadline of a few days was set for a CB3ROB respond, which appears to have been adhered to. The response, however, was not what the MPA had hoped for.

Through their lawyers, CB3ROB rejected the claims of the MPA on several grounds including what they term as an incorrect description of The Pirate Bay’s business model.

As readers will remember, last year the site “went magnetic” by dumping its tracker and relying on DHT and PEX instead. Therefore, CB3ROB argued, the rulings against TPB in Sweden and The Netherlands related to a time when the site’s operations were conducted in a different manner. The complaint is further rejected on grounds that as an ISP, CB3ROB aren’t responsible for the activities of its customers.

TorrentFreak spoke with Sven Olaf Kamphuis from CB3ROB who confirmed our information is correct.

“Once again [Disney] tried to infringe upon the right to provider immunity and the concept of net neutrality by claiming that by providing the Pirate Bay (and others) with Internet connectivity we (CB3ROB Ltd. & Co. KG) would be ‘assisting them in engaging in copyright violations’, which, should our customers be doing that, remains to be proven in court anyway,” he told us.

“They tried this (as usual) by means of an injunction, which we have had our attorneys block by means of a schutzbrief sent to all courts, basically saying they can’t get an injunction without going through the usual court case process,” he added.

Kamphuis says that he believes German law is quite specific in granting provider immunity, with data communications receiving protection under the law in pretty much the same way as postal mail. He explained:

“Providers are immune to any liability claims as long as they:

1: Don’t initiate the transfer of data (which we don’t, the user’s browser does)
2: Don’t select the addressees (IP addresses in this case) of the information to be transferred (Which we don’t, even Disney is free to use the PirateBay as far as we’re concerned )
3: Don’t modify or select the information to be transferred (which we don’t)”

Kamphuis told TorrentFreak that if Disney and friends have a problem with the activities of CB3ROB clients, they should start a court case against them, a route he notes that has been traveled before, without success.

“If they’re too lazy (or don’t have valid arguments) to win court cases against individual parties and force them to terminate their activities, that cannot and will not be made the problem of the Internet industry, we simply cannot tolerate that,” he insists. “They’re trying to blackmail ISPs into cleaning up the mess caused by their dysfunctional business model, which the Internet industry, of course, will not do.”

The information we received detailing CB3ROB’s rejection of the Swedish and Dutch decisions was also confirmed.

“Disney apparently also can’t read Dutch, nor Swedish, as all court verdicts so far are for the Pirate Bay WITH torrent trackers, which they seem to keep messing up with torrent-files. It would help if they would pick some attorneys to represent them who at the very minimum know what they’re talking about, and stop babbling nonsense.”

Kamphuis insists that his company will accept anyone as a customer who can pay the bills and they will do everything required to deliver Internet connectivity to them – period. As an ISP, he says, they provide this service indiscriminately, “..but you know what,” he adds, “I’ve got a great idea.”

“Why don’t all ISPs just give them what they want and drop all packets that contain the word ‘Disney’ from them, including the ones from and to -their- websites, let’s see how long they last without using OUR internet for promoting and selling their shitty crap,” he concludes.

Article from: TorrentFreak, in the morning.

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