3 Count: The Long Road

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1: Court Blocks Expedited Subpoenas to Identify Digital Pirates, Dealing Blow to Copyright Holders

First off today, Gene Maddaus at Variety reports that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that rightsholders can not use DMCA subpoenas against residential internet service providers in a bid to unmask suspected pirates.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act provides a subpoena system that allows rightsholders to gather information on suspected pirates without the need for filing a lawsuit. However, according to the courts, that system is only meant for providers who host infringing content, not mere conduits, such as residential service providers.

Rightsholders can, at least theoretically, file copyright infringement lawsuits and then get a subpoena for the alleged infringer. However, this process is more expensive and time-consuming. The Ninth Circuit joins two other circuits, D.C. and the Eighth, in this conclusion.

2: New Cloudflare Pirate Site Blocking May Already Involve Thousands of Domains

Next up today, Andy Maxwell at Torrentfreak writes that, last month, the content delivery network Cloudflare began blocking access to pirate sites in response to orders obtained at the High Court of London. Already, that may include over a thousand domains.

Cloudflare has long resisted efforts to require it to block access to sites. Even though they are now complying with the order, they do so with an error 451, indicating that the site is unavailable for legal reasons.

Although some information about the blocks has leaked, it remains unclear how many domains are involved. They’re made more complicated by the fact that they are dynamic blocks, meaning new domains are added as the sites move around. According to the latest estimates, the number could now be over 1,000 domains despite only a handful of requests being made public.

3: No More Blocktoberfest? German Court Throws Book at Ad Blockers

Finally today, Thomas Claburn at The Register reports that the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has partially overturned an 11-year-old copyright dispute over the legality of adblocking software.

Publisher Axel Springer filed the case against Eyeo GmbH, the makers of Adblock Plus. The lawsuit alleges that ad-blocking software edits the code of a website without authorization, amounting to a copyright infringement. However, Axel has largely failed to convince courts of that argument, facing defeats at the lower courts.

Eyeo has been especially controversial, even among ad blockers. The company blocks website ads but earns money through its Acceptable Ads program, which replaces the ads with its own. The case is now remanded to the Appeals Court, adding still more time to the already long-running case.

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