Business News Digital Labels & Publishers Legal

Stream-ripper Yout continues to fight web-blocks around the world, with mixed success

By | Published on Thursday 3 March 2022

Yout

Stream-ripping site Yout – which is currently fighting a legal battle in the US with the Recording Industry Association Of America – continues to also try to overturn web-blocking orders that have been issued against it in various other countries. Albeit, not entirely successfully.

For the music industry in particular, stream-ripping – where people can grab a permanent copy of a temporary stream – has been a top piracy gripe for some time. Meanwhile, when it comes to anti-piracy tactics, music companies are big fans of web-blocking – where a court orders internet service providers to block access to piracy websites.

With that in mind, it’s not surprising that Yout is among the sites being targeted for web-blocks by the music and other copyright industries in those countries where web-blocking is an option.

Many sites that get blocked in this way don’t formally respond in any legal way, instead hoping that their users will find ways around the web-blocks such as using a VPN or finding a proxy link via Google. However, Yout has been fighting back.

Last year in Brazil, Yout initially had some success. A number of stream-ripping sites, including Yout, were blocked following action by the country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, which was in turn responding to a complaint by music industry trade group APDIF.

But that was a temporary 180 day web-block while the PPO got about investigating the operations of the targeted sites. When those 180 days were up, Yout’s lawyers successfully got the blockade removed despite the PPO asking for an extension. However, the PPO then got round to filing a criminal complaint against Yout, meaning a new web-blocking order went into force.

Similar events have been happening in Peru, where the government’s intellectual property agency INDECOPI recently bragged to the office of the US Trade Representative that it has been busy getting web-blocks against stream-ripping sites, in a bid to get off America’s watch list of countries with bad IP enforcement regimes.

According to Torrentfreak, the web-block secured by INDECOPI against Yout last year was also a temporary measure, in that case for just 30 days. However, most Peruvian ISPs have kept the web-block in force ever since. Yout has just got itself confirmation from the country’s IP court that the web-blocking order against the stream-ripping site has definitely long since expired, although it remains to be seen if that prompts the net firms to remove the blockades.

Meanwhile, Yout has also been web-blocked in Spain. There, Torrentfreak says, Yout has sought to appeal the web-block through the country’s Supreme Court, in part complaining that it wasn’t directly involving in the legal proceedings that resulted in the web-blocking, so it was deprived an opportunity to counter any claims that its website facilitates copyright infringement.

However, the Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal because, well, Yout wasn’t party to the original legal proceedings.

So, that’s all fun.



READ MORE ABOUT: