German Copyright Troll Sends Thousands Of Shady Demand Letters To Users Of Streaming Porn Site, Redtube
from the this-again? dept
Online porn is big business, perhaps not so much for pornographers as it is for copyright trolls and anxious government entities. Urmann and Colleagues (U+C), a German copyright troll, is continuing the settlement letter tactics it began last year. The difference this time is that rather than pursuing downloaders via torrent tracking and threatening to out them as porn watchers if they don't pay up, U+C is now targeting viewers who have streamed allegedly infringing content from porn aggregator Redtube.
Tens of thousands of German internet users have been sent threatening letters by a law firm apparently acting on behalf of a rights-holder, on the basis that they watched copyrighted material on the pornographic video-streaming site Redtube.According to the source article, a Cologne-based lawyer estimates that, based on the number of calls he alone has received, U+C has targeted 20,000-30,000 viewers.
The letters, issued by law firm U + C on behalf of Swiss firm The Archive AG, demand €250 ($344) per watched clip. The films in question include titles such as “Hot Stories” and “Amanda’s Secrets.”
There are multiple problems with what's going on here. First of all, The Archive AG is itself a "copyright protection" company, meaning it's acting on behalf of the porn producers through U+C, rather than producing the porn. Beyond that, the titles listed in the letters (Miriam's Adventures, Amanda's Secret, Dream Trip, Hot Stories) show up in searches only a) as part of articles detailing U+C's actions or b) as the unrelated names of websites and blogs. If this porn exists other than on Redtube, it's not easily located on the web.
Furthermore, U+C offers no proof that these titles were uploaded to Redtube without permission. On top of that, there's plenty of legal questions surrounding the supposed illegality of viewing infringing streams, especially since users are never fully in possession of the infringing content. Even if they were in possession of the video (however temporarily), German law allows for "private copying" without legal penalty.
Then there's the question of how U+C obtained IP addresses. Data on streaming viewers isn't as easy to obtain as it is with torrent services.
As for how the viewers’ IP addresses were identified, that also remains a mystery for now. The itGuards “Gladii” software mentioned in court records is reportedly only designed for monitoring file-sharing networks. File-sharing is easier to monitor in this sense, as IP addresses are there for the harvesting unless the user deploys a VPN or proxy.According to the source article, U+C apparently misrepresented Redtube as a file sharing site ("swap meet" in the original article) in order to obtain court orders demanding the release of subscriber IP addresses.
Some have suggested that users were targeted with malware that harvested their IP addresses. If so, this would be a new low for a particularly obnoxious facet of the copyright industry.
What this looks like is Prenda-type tactics. Misrepresentation to the court. Possible honeypot deployment (the porn titles seem to be nonexistent). Shakedown letters sent en masse. And, going one step further than the most infamous of porn copyright trolls, the possible deployment of malware to track IP addresses. (Google currently indicates that Redtube "might be hacked.")
With the ownership of the disputed clips almost impossible to verify and U+C's tactics crossing the line from "shady" to "possibly illegal," lawyers in Germany are advising recipients of the demand letters to ignore them for the time being and by no means encourage U+C by paying the legally dubious fee. Of course, it will probably take more than this to discourage U+C. Settlement letters are generally issued on the same principle as mass mailing: a 1% response rate is more than enough to cover the expenses incurred.
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Filed Under: copyright, copyright troll, germany, streaming
Companies: porn, the archive ag, u+c, urmann and colleagues
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This just seems like a case of garden-variety racketeering.
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Watching is illegal...how?
But how in any legal frame of mine is consumption of material (only) considered a violation of copyright?
If someone broadcast a video in Time Square, would they claim that anyone there needs to pay up? (obviously public performance vs your local computer but just food for thought)
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Google ratted them out: logs and tracks EVERY web-site visit.
Since minion states it's a mystery, that's my bet. Google IS the net-wide malware, the hidden FINK. I'm telling ya, kids: your "friend" Google has the goods on you, needs only for name or IP address to be specifically targeted, and then it's all gathered into one pile. With "direct" access to Google as Snowden states, to find and collate these users would take its super-computers a few seconds, tops.
As for minion's assertions that this is a honeypot trap, well, guess we'll see.
Remember pirates: Google can rat you out to RIAA and MPAA!
02:37:49[c-370-4]
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Re: Google ratted them out: logs and tracks EVERY web-site visit.
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Re: Google ratted them out: logs and tracks EVERY web-site visit.
Alas, you once again show you have no interest in any real argument, just a raving lunatic.
"Google has the goods on you, needs only for name or IP address to be specifically targeted, and then it's all gathered into one pile"
You know who else has all your records in one "pile"? Your ISP. They're storing your records RIGHT NOW and you're paying them for the privilege! Quick, get offline and stay there before you're recorded saying something else stupid!
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I already look at them in the same respect.
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Disturbed note: yes, there is eel porn (What. The. Fuck. Japan.)
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Land of the anime.
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Makes no sense
If the viewer is liable regardless of knowledge, no one is safe with any site. Or if it depends on knowledge, is a statement on a website sufficient? Or what?
Maybe someone would say "it's obvious" that a certain site "looks piratey" while another looks legitimate, but any such standard would be very subjective.
Note that the same considerations would apply in principle to images, text, music or other materials, as well as video.
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Re: Makes no sense
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This is why you need to wear protection
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harvesting IP addresses
From this Stern article article it appears that after the existence of these demand letters became public news, some witty clown took advantage of this to send fake demand letters containing malware.
So, the Swiss firm "The Archive" got a court order to obtain account details for thousands of IP addresses. The mystery is how they obtained those IP addresses of alleged streamers of the copyright protected porn that was uploaded to Redtube.com. Now, it's possible that those uploaded porn files were a honeypot that contained an exploit that harvested the IP address of any streamer. That seems risky to me because analysis of the video file could reveal such an exploit. Are any of these video files still available on Redtube? There are a couple of other possibilities:
1) If a webpage with the video in question can contain user comments or located ads, then a script can report back the IP address of anyone visiting the page
2) Suppose that "The Archive" put an ad anywhere on Redtube or on any website that they think such serious users of porn portals [that lovely phrase is from a lawyer looking to defend users] might frequent. This ad could contain a script that is used to query various websites. Suppose the webpages queried are the ones on Redtube for the videos in question. The timing of the response to the query can determine whether that webpage is cached in the users browser. One aspect I am unsure about is the difference between viewing the webpage and actually viewing the streamed video.
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Re: harvesting IP addresses
F�r Nutzer seri�ser Erotikportale
translated by Google translate as:
for users serious erotic portals
which can be modified for better understanding to be:
for serious users of erotic portals
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They already threw the book at a woman who no longer owned a computer, had sold it before the alleged offense, and would never have downloaded the extremist content they claimed had been downloaded on her IP.
The basis of the laws in Germany seem to be if a company says so, it is so.
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