Successes over the past year in combating piracy included shuttering Fmovies and associated video piracy sites (see 2408290025), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said Wednesday in the latest annual Notorious Markets list. Fmovies was on the list since 2017, it said. USTR said the wide use of cyberlockers and "bulletproof" internet service providers that are particularly lenient toward piracy remain areas of concern. The reliance on bulletproof ISPs makes it increasingly difficult for rights holders to remove infringing content, especially when ISPs disguise their ownership and locations and won't respond to rights holders’ takedown requests, USTR said. The 38 online piracy markets highlighted in the 2024 report include video piracy sites 1337X, GenIPTV, MagisTV and Vegamovies.

A large, Vietnam-based video piracy operation has been taken down, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment said Thursday. The operation's sites logged 812 million visits over the past 12 months and was the largest sports piracy ring ACE has taken down so far, it said. The ring's shuttered sites include bestsolaris.com, streameast.to and markkystreams.com. ACE said the operators have agreed to transfer 138 domains to the ACE coalition.

The Motion Picture Association will broaden its anti-piracy efforts on detection and deterrence, with the trade group planning to broaden its visibility into global piracy networks, Chief Content Protection Officer Larissa Knapp blogged last week. She said it also will look at "new ways to put 'sand in the gears' of the criminal enterprises" behind video privacy. Live sports piracy will be a major focus, Knapp added.

The U.S. Supreme Court is asking the solicitor general to weigh in on the related Cox Communications and Sony Music cert petitions pending before the high court, according to a notation Monday. Cox and an array of music labels led by Sony have dueling appeals regarding a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision. The court upheld a district court jury’s finding of willful contributory copyright infringement against Cox for the piracy of some of its internet customers.

The U.S. Supreme Court should resolve circuit court confusion about how contributory liability applies to the internet "before it is too late," petitioner Cox Communications said in a reply brief Monday (docket 24-171). Cox is seeking SCOTUS review of a 4th U.S. Circuit decision upholding a jury's $1 billion verdict of willful contributor copyright infringement against Cox for piracy by some of its internet subscribers (see 2408160034). In its reply brief, Cox also urged SCOTUS to rule that internet service providers "are not required to police everything that happens online." Cox said the music label respondents don't deny there are circuit splits. It disputed the appellant music labels' argument of hypocrisy. Cox acknowledged it stops providing services for nonpayment, but that "does not justify forcing every ISP to conduct mass internet evictions for infractions worth, on average, $1 each." The music labels are petitioners and Cox the appellant in a related cert petition. It concerns a circuit court split over how a defendant must benefit from direct copyright infringement to be vicariously liable (docket 24-181) (see [Ref:2409170001).

In its legal fight with Cox Communications, the music industry is trying to make the carrier liable for anything its internet customers do online because it has a financial interest in offering the service to subscribers, Cox told the U.S. Supreme Court Monday. In a docket 24-181 opposition brief, Cox urged SCOTUS to reject the music industry petitioners' cert petition regarding a circuit court split over how a defendant must benefit from direct copyright infringement to be vicariously liable (see 2409170001). There is no circuit split and the case itself is a poor vehicle for the labels' proposed rule because ISPs don't have the right or ability to supervise what their customers do online, Cox said. The docket proceeding, and an accompanying cert petition Cox brought in a separate docket proceeding, stem from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' affirmation of a jury's finding of Cox's willful contributory copyright infringement (see 2402210027).

Virtual Systems (VS) provides the servers and networks that multiple video pirate streaming sites employ, EchoStar's Dish Network said in a federal complaint last week against the Ukrainian company and CEO Vyacheslav Smyrnov. Dish told the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (docket 2:24-cv-01683) that it had asked VS -- which operates a data center and servers in the Seattle area -- on "hundreds of occasions" to stop copyright infringement of nearly two dozen international channels for which Dish owns exclusive broadcast rights in the U.S. The plaintiff said VS advertises that its policy is to not react to Digital Millennium Copyright Act take-down notices "unless the situation conditions force us to." As such, it didn't respond to Dish's infringement notices. Dish said VS was materially contributing to and inducing copyright infringement. It asked for a permanent injunction and damages of $150,000 for each work infringed. VS didn't comment Friday.

Neither of the issues Cox Communications wants to bring before the U.S. Supreme Court -- the right standard for material contribution to copyright infringement and the willfulness standard for secondary liability -- "is worthy" of SCOTUS consideration, Sony told the high court Wednesday. In a docket 24-171 opposition to Cox's cert petition (see 2408160034), Sony said Cox's appeal of a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a finding of willful contributory copyright infringement against Cox for the piracy of some of its internet customers makes "contrived [and] disingenuous" arguments about the 4th forcing it to kick masses of subscribers off the internet. "Cox has no problem severing the 'internet lifeline for tens of thousands of homes and businesses'" when it comes to subscribers not paying their bills, it said. It urged rejection of the cert petition. Multiple internet service providers have backed Cox's cert petition (see 2409170001).

Altice's objection against moving a music piracy lawsuit against it from a Texas federal court to one in New York (see 2410040004) should be denied, record label and music publisher plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on Tuesday (docket 2:23-cv-00576). The plaintiffs said Altice hasn't identified any clear error in U.S. Magistrate Judge Roy Payne's ruling that would justify its objection.

Altice is asking a U.S. District Court in Texas to reconsider a U.S. Magistrate Judge's decision not to move litigation against Altice to a federal court in New York. In a docket 2:23-cv-00576 objection last week, Altice told the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas that the Magistrate Judge erred in finding that the balance of factors weigh against transferring the 2023 suit from record labels and music publishers alleging contributory copyright infringement (see 2312080050). The Magistrate Judge should have ended the court's analysis by recognizing that the bulk of relevant witnesses are in New York, and that moving proceedings to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York would be most convenient to them, Altice said.