Search the Community

The upcoming "Beetlejuice 2" film, starring Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder, is scheduled to premiere in September. However, it appears that someone managed to get their hands on early footage, leaking an 'on set' photo on Tumblr. Warner Bros. is unhappy with this teaser and has obtained a DMCA subpoena, requiring Tumblr to identify the user in question. In 1988, then 29-year-old movie director Tim Burton was widely praised for the iconic comedy horror “Beetlejuice”. The movie went on to win an Oscar and Burton’s career was well underway, with “Batman” and “Edward Scissorhands” his next movie projects. More than 35 years after the Beetlejuice debut, a sequel is about to be released. The upcoming “Beetlejuice 2”, brings back old cast members including Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton, paired with new stars such as Jenna Ortega. It is scheduled for release in September this year. To warm up fans, distributor Warner Bros. has already released a trailer and teaser, which are widely available online. At the same time, however, an unidentified source has leaked previously unseen material from the film online. In a post on Tumblr, someone using the name ‘polly-p9’ posted an alleged ‘on set’ photo from the upcoming film last November. The post didn’t include any other information but came with tags such as #beetlejuice, #timburton, #leak and #warner bros, an archived copy reveals. The post with part of the image (pixelated by us) The image, which has since been removed, doesn’t give away too much. However. Warner Bros. is clearly alarmed by the leak. The movie studio has a history of cracking down on the unauthorized distribution of leaked material and this is no exception. Warner Bros. Goes to Court Warner Bros. recently requested a DMCA subpoena at a California federal court, requiring Tumblr to share identifying information on the person behind the account. The request includes a declaration from Michael Bentkover, Director of Worldwide Online Enforcement Operations at Warner Bros., explaining the situation. “The purpose for which this subpoena is sought is to obtain the identity of the Tumblr user @polly-p9, who posted infringing content that appeared on the Tumblr account. Specifically, without permission, Tumblr user @polly-p9 posted access to Requester’s unpublished, copyrighted image from its forthcoming theatrical film to the Tumblr account, thus infringing Requester’s copyright.” The declaration doesn’t mention “Beetlejuice 2” directly but an accompanying copy of a takedown request, sent by Warner Bros. to Tumblr, leaves no room for uncertainty. Subpoena Targets Tumblr DMCA subpoenas don’t require a review from a judge and a week after the request was filed, it was signed off by a court clerk. Afterward, the movie studio sent a copy to Tumblr, requesting it to hand over the information. The paperwork requires Tumblr to share information that would make it possible to identify the user who, according to Warner Bros., posted the ‘copyrighted’ image that was taken ‘on set’. “Such information would include, but is not limited to, the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history,” the subpoena clarifies. The image may be a photo of another image displayed on a laptop or similar device, but we couldn’t verify this independently. While the photo itself isn’t copyrighted, the “Beetlejuice 2” movie is. Tumblr Responds? Warner Bros. stresses that any information obtained will only be used to protect the studio’s copyright interests. What that entails exactly, was not made clear. Tumblr confirmed to us that it received the subpoena and chose not to object. This suggests that, if any usable information was available, it was handed over to Warner Bros., with the affected user also notified. “While we can’t discuss the specifics of the case, we can confirm that we did receive the subpoena in question, and after assessment of the facts available to us, did not file an objection. “If a user account was identified, we will have notified the impacted account holder with more details – including whether or not information was provided,” a Tumblr spokesperson adds. Tumblr, which is owned by WordPress parent company Automattic, further points out that it’s very critical of potential DMCA abuse. As highlighted in the past, it rejects a large percentage of the takedown notices it receives. “As you know, it is our policy to review every bit of legal process we receive. In addition, we are particularly sensitive to abuse of the DMCA to curtail freedom of speech, and we have regularly pushed back on overreaching DMCA takedown demands,” the company notes. What this means for the current situation is unclear. At the time of writing the @polly-p9 account no longer exists. Interestingly, however, the leaked image hasn’t disappeared from the web completely. Leak Still Floats Around A reverse image search shows that copies of the leaked “Beetlejuice 2” image are still available online through various social media platforms. This includes a copy that was posted on Tumblr before Warner Bros. requested its subpoena. These other leaks are not hard to find but Warner Bros. apparently hasn’t taken action in response. A logical explanation could be that the movie studio isn’t overly concerned about the leaked image, but more about the person who leaked it. After all, this person could leak more sensitive information in the future. TorrentFreak requested a comment from Warner Bros. on the motivation behind the subpoena, but the company didn’t immediately reply. If a response comes in later, this article will be updated accordingly. — A copy of the subpoena, issued at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California is available here (pdf). The associated declaration from Warner Bros. Director of Worldwide Online Enforcement Operations can be found here (pdf). – Note: the unpixelated film footage used in this article is taken from publicly available movie trailers. Source

Warner Bros. asked GitHub to remove a popular IPTV playlist linking portal. The Hollywood major requested the page to be removed as it referred to allegedly infringing Warner channels, including HBO and Cartoon Network. Faced with a potential takedown, the owners of the site swiftly removed all Warner Bros. content from the site. At the time of writing, it remains online. The M3U file format has been around for more than a quarter-century. In essence, it links to a streamable media file that can be loaded through media players. In the early days, it was predominantly used to stream Internet radio though Winamp and other media players. While the format is still used for that today, M3U files have enjoyed a resurgence as a video streaming tool in recent years. The M3U file format is content-neutral, but many people are using it to share IPTV streams, which are often redistributed without permission. Those who look hard enough can find access to pretty much any channel imaginable. IPTV-org.github.io One of the largest repositories of IPTV links is hosted through GitHub Pages. The site, iptv-org.github.io, has roughly a million monthly visits and lists more than 37,000 channels, many of which are streamable. Not all these streams are infringing, but some clearly are. IPTV links The maintainers of the site are aware of the potential copyright issues. However, they don’t see the links to M3U playlists as copyright infringements. Instead, they urge rightsholders to go after the providers that host these files. “Note that linking does not directly infringe copyright because no copy is made on the site providing the link, and thus this is not a valid reason to send a DMCA notice to GitHub,” they explain. This is an interesting take that could be worth defending in court. However, when torrent sites tried a similar defense in court, it failed, mainly because the infringing links are intentionally indexed, curated and categorized. Warner Bros. Takedown Warner Bros. already seems convinced that the links are infringing. A few days ago, the Hollywood studio sent a takedown notice to GitHub though its anti-piracy partner MarkScan, asking it to remove iptv-org.github.io in its entirety. “Based on our investigation, we have determined that “iptv-org.github.io” is providing the Live TV channel of WBD illegally. This site is engaging in copyright piracy by providing unauthorized streams of digital content without the consent of the copyright owner,” the takedown notice reads. Warner Bros. Takedown Notice The takedown notice asks GitHub to remove or disable access to the infringing links. However, before taking any action, the developer platform nudged the maintainers of the site, allowing then resolve the matter on their own accord. Self-Administered Takedown GitHub allowed the developers one business day to remedy the Warner Bros. complaint. In this case, that means removing all WBD content, including HBO, Cartoon Network, and several Discovery channels. GitHub’s Deadline While the developers previously suggested that these types of DMCA takedowns should not be valid, they didn’t file a counter notice. Instead, they swiftly identified all Warner Bros. and Discovery channels, to remove these from the site within the deadline. “Successfully merging a pull request may close this issue,” an internal note reads, after which dozens of links were indeed removed. The self-administered takedown appears to have been too broad initially, as several links – presumably unrelated to Warner Bros. – were later restored. However, the swift action appears to have saved the site. GitHub typically publishes DMCA takedown notices after it has fully processed a matter, which often means that sites or repositories are removed. However, “iptv-org.github.io” is fully operational at the time of writing, minus the Warner Bros. content. Warner Bros. had its takedown notice honored, as the infringing channels are no longer linked. However, instead of simply taking down the entire site, it became a ‘precision’ takedown, merely focusing on the content that it was supposed to target. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every single day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts

GitHub has removed a recent "Mortal Kombat II" source code leak following a request from Warner Bros. Discovery. The leak purportedly reveals unused artwork and an alternative storyline for the iconic arcade game, first released by Midway in 1993. Three decades later, the current rightsholder seems keen to plug the leaks. Classic videogame Mortal Kombat has won the hearts and minds of multiple gaming generations over the last 30 years. Developed by Midway Games, the second release of the fighting game made its debut in arcade halls back in 1993. Ports were later released for multiple home platforms, including MS-DOS, Game Boy, SNES, and PlayStation. The releases were a big hit for American game developer Midway but couldn’t prevent the company from going under. After several financial setbacks, Midway eventually filed for bankruptcy, with Warner Bros. picking up the assets. These assets included Mortal Kombat’s source code and all the copyrights that come with it. Those rights were taken over by the newly founded Warner Bros. subsidiary NetherRealm Studios, which continues to release Mortal Kombat titles to this day. ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Source Code Leak Warner Bros. and NetherRealm are not solely focused on new content, they’re very protective of historical rights as well. That became apparent over the past few days after the 1993 source code for Mortal Kombat II leaked online. The leak was met with excitement by gaming history fans, who discovered unused artwork and an early or alternative storyline. The files in question were posted to a GitHub repository by the user account ‘Historical Source,’ which has leaked many other game assets in the past. While many of those remain online, Warner Bros. was quick to object. DMCA Notice A Warner Bros. Discovery employee sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, asking the developer platform to remove the leaked files posted by ‘Historical Source’. Specifically, the notice claims that the files infringe the intellectual property rights of “The Mortal Kombat series of video games, and all names, characters, logos and original source code”. The request was successful. People who try to access the repository today will see a message from GitHub explaining that the files were removed in response to a DMCA takedown notice. Retaliate? The swift removal was a disappointment to classic games fans who were eager to browse through the historical artifacts. That said, Warner Bros. does own the rights, so ultimately gets to decide what happens with its content. Historical Source must be quite displeased as well. While we haven’t seen a public response to the DMCA notice, a new repository that was published by the same user, shortly after the takedown, is quite telling. The repository is titled “not-mk2” but instead of reposting the leak, it simply contains a copy of a Wikipedia entry, discussing complaints of gender discrimination and a toxic workplace at NetherRealm. These complaints first emerged three years ago following the release of Mortal Kombat 11. Warner Bros. Fights ‘Mortal Kombat II’ Source Code Leak