‘Stream ripping’ the latest target in site blocking piracy crackdown

Popular streaming sites that help breach copyright are being targeted to be blocked for Australian internet users in a new piracy crackdown.

A string of popular websites that let users rip music from online streaming platforms such as YouTube and Spotify are in the crosshairs of the Australian music industry.

Popular among younger internet users, these sites allow people to download an MP3 file from a YouTube clip for free, in breach of copyright.

The Google-owned video streaming platform is a popular way for millennials to listen to music. But a number of these so-called stream-ripping sites could soon be blocked in Australia.

Vanessa Hutley is the general manager at Music Rights Australia, an industry group that is co-ordinating the action along with royalties agency APRA and rights holders like Sony, Universal and Warner Music.

She says the use of these sites proves the convenience and relative affordability provided by streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music do not eliminate illegal piracy.

“The music industry is the perfect example that that’s not the case,” she said. “We’re still finding that people are accessing these stream-ripping sites.”

The case is before a federal court and is primarily targeting three offshore sites and corresponding domains: convert2mp3.net, 2conv.com, and flvto.biz.

“There are many of them, but what we’re trying to do is address the more serious ones,” Ms Hutley said.

“These cases, they’re not cheap to bring. What we’re trying to do is use these cases to create the maximum impact to benefit local musicians and creators.”

The former director of intellectual property at Microsoft said the action was also about sticking up for the licensed services “that actually pay money to the artists”.

This Ariana Grande clip has been viewed more than 160 million times on YouTube in less than a month.

Similar action has been launched in the US and Europe to take down such stream-ripping services and similar online tools, but there are immense difficulties, dealing with logistics and jurisdictional authority. New site blocking laws introduced in Australian in late 2015, and recently beefed up, provide a way for local rights holders to go after sites that facilitate the infringement of copyright.

“The nature of these sites, because you don’t know where they are you can’t file cases all around the world, so the legislation was created to address the worst of the worst types of illegal sites,” Ms Hutley told news.com.au.

A number of these websites carry advertising, and while it is unclear how much revenue they help pull away from artists, similar action taken against them in the US revealed that one site, Russian-based flvto.biz, received over 263 million global visits between October 2017 and September 2018.

Ms Hutley accused them of “making millions without contributing anything”.

After retail music sales dived when the digital age ushered in file-sharing sites like Napster, the music industry has recovered in recent years, largely thanks to paid services like iTunes, Spotify and Apple Music. Last year, ARIA revealed the Australian recorded music industry had achieved its fastest growth in over 20 years.

In 2017, the same band of music labels, rights holders and industry groups in Australia were successful in blocking the website Kickass Torrents and related proxies.

In that case, the music studios were ordered to pay $50 to internet service providers like Telstra and TPG for each domain that was required to be blocked.

While the rights holders bear the financial burden of going through the courts to get permission to have sites blocked, internet service providers must largely shoulder the cost of implementing the scheme.

The application is set to be heard in the Federal Court on April 3, and Ms Hutley is optimistic that a similar outcome can be achieved.

If so, internet users might be seeing a bit more of this:

Stream ripping the latest target in site blocking piracy crackdown.

Originally published as ‘Stream ripping’ the latest target in site blocking piracy crackdown