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Credit to Author: Ax Sharma| Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2022 16:21:42 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Ax Sharma<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n A group of<\/span> over two dozen film studios has repeatedly taken popular VPN providers to court, sometimes extracting judgements worth millions of dollars in damages. While piracy remains the central issue, recent legal arguments<\/a> employed by Hollywood studios have surpassed accusations of copyright infringement and delved into dirtier waters.<\/p>\n Filmmakers attempting to recoup revenue lost to piracy have long alleged that VPN companies both encourage online privacy and have clear-cut evidence that their customers are abusing the privacy and security provided by virtual private networks. But court records show that studios\u2019 legal teams have also accused VPN providers of enabling illegal activity far beyond copyright infringement and, legal experts say, are challenging the notion that VPNs should exist at all.<\/p>\n In March, 26 film companies brought allegations against ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access (PIA), popular \u201cno-log\u201d VPN companies owned by Kape Technologies. The plaintiffs include production companies like Millennium, Voltage, and others behind a slate of popular films. The lawsuit centers on allegations of user privacy. However, court documents reviewed by WIRED reveal plaintiffs arguing that these VPN providers refuse to prevent users from using their services to commit serious illegal acts and run marketing campaigns that openly \u201cboast\u201d that law enforcement is unable to extract any information<\/a> about their users.<\/p>\n Generally speaking, VPNs give users greater privacy protections by encrypting their online activity and rerouting it through the company\u2019s servers, concealing their IP addresses. Many VPN providers, including ExpressVPN and PIA, claim to maintain \u201cno logs\u201d of their users\u2019 internet activities. This means VPN providers can\u2019t access data to turn over to police or comply with copyright infringement claims. Similar to arguments against comprehensive encryption, the film companies paint VPN providers as culpable in any crimes committed while using their services.<\/p>\n \u201cEmboldened by Defendants\u2019 promises that their identities cannot be disclosed, Defendants\u2019 end users use their VPN services not only to engage in widespread movie piracy, but other outrageous criminal conduct such as harassment, illegal hacking and murder,\u201d reads the lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Colorado. \u201cWhen these crimes become public, Defendants use these tragic incidents as opportunities to boast about their VPN services.\u201d<\/p>\n The VPN companies responded in court filings that the \u201cinflammatory topics\u201d plaintiffs evoked are irrelevant to copyright infringement. Allegations as far afield as \u201chacking, stalking, bomb threats, political assassinations, child pornography, and anonymous online message board posts full of hate speech and appearing to encourage violence and murder\u201d are a ploy to portray the VPNs in \u201ca cruelly derogatory light," argue the VPNs\u2019 legal teams.<\/p>\n Beyond vague examples of heinous crimes, the court filing mentions an Express VPN subscriber admitting to downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The film companies also call out the personal political views or activities of those employed by the VPN companies. Specifically, they focus on Rick Falkvinge, who\u2019s known for his political views and arguments that CSAM should be legal<\/a>. Falkvinge is PIA\u2019s Head of Privacy<\/a> and creator of the political Pirate Party<\/a>. He has repeatedly<\/a> advocated for reforms to copyright laws, calling \u201ccopying and sharing<\/a>\u201d a \u201cnatural right.\u201d<\/p>\n PIA\u2019s attorneys argue that these allegations must be stricken from the case because they are completely irrelevant and \u201cserve only to inflame emotions in a misguided attempt to prejudice the Court and the public against the defendants by false association with the non-parties whose conduct is described in these paragraphs.\u201d<\/p>\n ExpressVPN and PIA further denied these allegations in statements to WIRED. An ExpressVPN spokesperson also emphasized that the \u201coperation of ExpressVPN\u2019s service has not been changed or otherwise impacted in any way relevant to the parties\u2019 dispute.\u201d<\/p>\n PIA maintained that this litigation jeopardizes user privacy and that it will therefore keep fighting in court. \u201cWe assert that the use of VPNs is a legitimate way to protect one\u2019s online privacy\u2014a fundamental human right, which is increasingly in jeopardy of infringement,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n Legal counsel representing the movie studios did not respond to WIRED\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n While Hollywood has waged legal battles around the globe for years, its fights against the VPN industry in the US ramped up last year. VPN company TorGuard, for example, landed in legal hot water with the same group of plaintiffs who successfully forced the VPN provider into blocking BitTorrent traffic<\/a> for its US users. And in October 2021, VPN.ht also \u201csettled\u201d with these filmmakers, agreeing to not only block BitTorrent but also to log traffic<\/a> on its US servers. Hollywood studios have also taken providers like Surfshark, VPN Unlimited, and Zenmate to court<\/a>.<\/p>\n Film company Voltage, which is among the group of companies regularly suing VPN providers, goes a step further, mailing letters to internet customers demanding fines for alleged piracy<\/a> and threatening them with legal action.<\/p>\n In March 2021, some of the same production companies suing ExpressVPN and PIA also sued no-log VPN provider LiquidVPN for \u201cencouraging and facilitating<\/a>\u201d piracy. Later, the film companies demanded $10 million in damages<\/a> from the company. A judge issued a default judgment against LiquidVPN this March, ordering it to pay the studios $14 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n That lawsuit largely centered around LiquidVPN\u2019s fiery marketing practices and claimed that the VPN is \u201coptimized for torrenting\u201d and lets you \u201cunblock ISP banned streams.\u201d These tactics, the studios argued, encouraged illicit use of the service by those willing to bypass legal restrictions around accessing online content. They might be right.<\/p>\n According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an internet civil liberties group, Hollywood\u2019s demands are \u201cextreme and not supported by law.\u201d But VPNs are also treading into dangerous territory through their marketing tactics.<\/p>\n \u201cThe studios argued that a VPN provider and its hosting company<\/em> should have had a legal responsibility to monitor what their customers were doing with the service, to see if copyright infringement was going on,\u201d says Mitch Stoltz, a senior staff attorney at EFF. \u201cNot only is that not the law, it would undermine the whole purpose of a VPN service, which is to protect people\u2019s internet communications against eavesdropping.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Stoltz warns, however, that bold marketing language used by VPNs, such as LiquidVPN\u2019s \u201coptimized for torrenting\u201d claim, can very well be considered \u201cinducement\u201d in a legal context and incur liability for copyright infringement. Fearing the possibility of heavy monetary damages, VPN providers may instead choose to shut down some of their services or settle out of court.<\/p>\n \u201cIn contrast, a VPN that doesn\u2019t advertise or encourage infringing uses generally won\u2019t be liable in court even if some users do infringe,\u201d says Stoltz. \u201cThat\u2019s an important legal protection for VPN providers, who provide an important service that would be undermined if they were faced with broad monitoring and blocking requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n