Kino.to

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Kino.to
Website logo
Best Online Movie Streams
Video-on-Demand - website
languages German , English
operator Dirk B.
editorial staff Dirk B.
Registration not mandatory
Annual income approx. 1.8 million euros
On-line March 2008 (currently offline)
www.kino.to

Kino.to was a German-language video-on-demand - site for movies, series and documentaries. Kino.to was one of the 50 most visited websites in Germany. According to the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office, the website was accessed daily by over 200,000 visitors with around four million clicks; from 2008 to 2011 it was eight billion clicks. According to the Association for Anti-Piracy in the Film and Video Industry, over 96 percent of the visitors came from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In June 2011, the website and a network of share hosts on which the streams were uploaded were taken offline and the operators arrested. Since then, the kinox.to site has been the successor to the site.

concept

Several thousand videos, most of them in German, were available free of charge via Kino.to. The rights holders did not consent to the publication of the videos. According to the operator, 2,625 series, 22,849 films and 7,557 documentaries were online in June 2011 (in February 2009 "18,537 series [to follow], 6,333 films and 481 documentaries online"). The information was not about different films, because almost all films and series episodes were available several times (for example from different release groups on different stream hosts) as so-called dupes or mirrors . Current films were released on Kino.to as soon as a release was available. Usually initially only as so-called screeners , cam rips , telesyncs or telecines . In order to be able to watch films, an Adobe Flash plug-in or DivX web player may be required , depending on the video format and stream host . In contrast to the competitor website Movie2k.to , Kino.to did not offer pornographic content according to its own information . According to statements by the operator, the success of the Kino.to website is due, among other things, to the fact that "with seven million Hartz IV recipients, the prices for any medium are definitely too high," so that entertainment offers competed with other needs. The business model of the site itself was based on advertising, premium offers and subscription traps and brought the operators a profit in the millions. The linked stream hosts were for the most part operated directly or indirectly by the operators of Kino.to.

The operators of Kino.to stated that they did not save any log data .

After the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements (GVU) in association with the Dutch anti-piracy association Brein threatened to take action against Kino.to, the Dutch server of the website was shut down. The company headquarters was unknown. The domain ending .to on the website stands for the South Sea archipelago of Tonga . The registration authority for Internet addresses in Tonga does not provide any information about the data of the domain owner.

Legal position

The legality of the offer, especially for the visitors of Kino.to, is controversial. With the standard settings of the respective player, the streamed films could mostly not be saved on your own computer and thus also not be distributed. However, at least all DivX, FLV and RTMP hosts had the option of extracting web content and thus downloading complete film files in AVI or FLV format.

Germany

Film companies and lobby organizations such as the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements consider the offer to be illegal. As an aggregator, Kino.to must at least act as an interferer . Since 2008 the GVU has been taking action against the Kino.to operators suspected in Germany.

For visitors to Kino.to, the legal situation in Germany was controversial, so far there have been no corresponding lawsuits or lawsuits. The lobby organization Respect Copyrights takes the view that watching video streams from Internet platforms such as Kino.to is forbidden because they are illegal templates. When streaming such files, intermediate storage is carried out on the computer and, from a legal point of view, a copy of an illegal template is created, which is itself always illegal. This is countered by the fact that a volatile copy in the temporary working memory is not an illegal copy in accordance with § 44a UrhG . For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , “the mere retrieval of copyright-protected content is located in a previously unpunished legal gray area”, so that - as Spiegel Online adds - “with regard to stream services, the legal situation is by no means as clear as GVU and Respect copyrights wanting to believe. ”According to a report by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, when a former kino.to employee was convicted by the Leipzig District Court, it was found that even the retrieval of copyrighted works constitutes illegal reproduction.

In June 2014 the ECJ ruled that the mere viewing of copyrighted material in the web browser was exempt from the European Copyright Directive , because the data loaded onto the computer were "temporary, volatile or accompanying and an integral and essential part of a technical process".

In a press release in 2009, Respect Copyrights announced that it wanted to try “to reach a cooperation agreement with Internet service providers” in order to make access to such services more difficult and to block them. "The only problem is that the [provider] is legally prohibited from monitoring the communication and consumption behavior of its customers." (See telecommunications secrecy and Section 7 of the Telemedia Act .)

According to its 2009 annual report, the GVU “continues to pursue its strategy of primarily investigating perpetrators at the top of the illegal distribution pyramid and at the interfaces to illegal mass distribution.” After years of “preliminary investigations”, on April 28, 2011, the GVU filed a criminal complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office Dresden against the operators of kino.to. Under the direction of the integrated investigation unit Saxony (INES), numerous residential and business premises in Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands were searched on June 8, 2011 and 13 people were arrested. The responsible persons at kino.to and their helpers are being investigated on suspicion of the formation of a criminal association for the commercial commission of copyright infringements. The allegation of the formation of a criminal organization was later dropped.

Austria

Viewing the video streams on Kino.to was legal in Austria. Since the website operator could not be identified and the kino.to website could not be switched off, the Austrian lobby group, Verein Anti-Piraterie der Film- und Videobranche (VAP) , wanted to force an Austria-wide blocking of the website. At the beginning of October 2010, VAP asked all Internet providers to block kino.to. However, all Internet providers refused to comply with the request, as "there is no legal basis for this".

At the end of October 2010, VAP, with the support of the production companies Wega Film , Constantin Film and Satel Film, filed a lawsuit against UPC Austria , one of the largest internet providers in Austria. This lawsuit was the first time that a website was completely blocked in Austria. However, the ISPA continues to take the position that "providers who provide their customers with access to the Internet are not legally authorized, let alone obliged, to control information transmitted over their lines". On May 17, 2011, the Vienna Commercial Court awarded the VAP an injunction against UPC Austria. This states that "for the time being, UPC may no longer make the Kino.to streaming platform accessible to its customers". After the VAP had deposited € 50,000 as security at the court, the injunction came into effect and UPC had to block the kino.to domain and six other IP addresses. At the time, however, the ban only affected the Vienna area . UPC continues to oppose content control, but “the group will of course respect the court decision”. Just one day later, the Kino.to operators created another mirror page to bypass kino.to's blocking.

Switzerland

In Switzerland, the legal situation with regard to the consumption of copyrighted online streams is clearly regulated. In principle, any download is legal, only uploading is illegal. The federal law on copyright and related rights allows in Article 19 that published works are used for personal use. The use of online streams such as Kino.to is therefore legal in Switzerland.

Financing and Advertising Practices and Risks

The consumer advice center warned Internet users against using Kino.to: With many stream hosts, pop-ups or Windows error messages that were modeled on them indicated allegedly missing or outdated plug-ins or video players from well-known providers, regardless of whether updates or new installations are necessary. In addition, scareware methods were used, which means that false virus reports indicate an alleged threat.

Clicking on such a message led to redirects to websites that promised the user an alleged solution to the problem. However, by registering and supposedly updating the software, a contract for a paid subscription was often concluded. Consumer advocates warned that Kino.to was "one of the worst subscription traps on the web". In addition, some links led to commercial providers.

Legal aftermath

Bans, arrests and successors

Notice from the criminal police after the domain was taken over by law enforcement.

On June 8, 2011, the kino.to website was taken offline. Police investigators in Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands carried out numerous raids on homes, business premises and data centers. 13 people were arrested in this raid, and another suspect was arrested after several months of escaping. The Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating over a million cases on suspicion of the formation of a criminal association for the commercial commission of copyright infringements .

Most of the content, however, was already available on other video-on-demand websites and after Kino.to was switched off, the majority of users quickly switched to alternative offers. The film industry also anticipated the emergence of new follow-up offers, so that, according to the GVU, “similar platforms can also be expected in the future”. These expectations were met a few days later when sites like video2k.tv announced that they were the “official successor” of kino.to. Other streaming portals were also able to attract enormous attention, such as the page at kinox.to , which went online on July 10th and also stated that it was the “official successor” of kino.to, and above all because of the similar appearance was held to be the official successor.

Convictions

In October 2011 it became known that the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office had brought charges against one of the alleged operators. He has been accused of commercial copyright infringement in over a million cases. As the GVU announced, the attorney general is preparing further charges against the other accused.

In December 2011, according to press reports, the fourth court judgment was issued against a member of the core group. He was sentenced to three years and five months in prison by the Leipzig District Court . Previously, the first two judgments were passed against wire-pullers at the beginning of December. One perpetrator was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for jointly committed commercial copyright infringement. A few days later, another trial resulted in three years in prison for the site's main administrator. In mid-December, another member of the core group received a sentence of one year and nine months, which was suspended on probation, also for jointly committed commercial copyright infringement.

On April 11, 2012, the Leipzig Regional Court imposed a sentence of three years and ten months in prison for a programmer on the site. The court assessed the comprehensive and complete confession and his willingness to cooperate further as mitigating.

The founder and operator of Kino.to was sentenced on June 14, 2012 by the Leipzig Regional Court to four and a half years in prison. He may serve the sentence in open execution. At the same time, he has to pay up to 3.7 million euros to the state, which he earned through his Spanish company with advertising on the platform.

Advertising broker

In July 2012, the Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office announced that there were house searches of residential and business premises in Hamburg, Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein at the advertising agents of Kino.to. Two young men who ran a company that specialized in promoting warez sales were arrested. The Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating the relationship between providers who have placed advertisements on Kino.to and the operators of the platform. According to information from GVU, the offer was backed by a whole network of advertising agents who had primarily advertised illegal film and erotic portals as well as filehosters.

literature

  • Janina Brandes, Adrian Schneider: kino.to: The criminal liability of users in detail . In: Telemedicus . 2011.
  • Thomas Busch: On the copyright classification of the use of streaming offers . In: GRUR . 2011, p. 496- .
  • Kathleen Fangerow and Daniela Schulz: The use of offers on www.kino.to - A copyright analysis of film streaming on the Internet . In: GRUR . 2010, p. 677-682 .
  • Friedrich Radmann: Kino.ko - watching films can be a sin. On the illegality of the use of (obviously) illegal streaming film portals . In: ZUM . 2010, p. 387-392 .
  • Hendrik Wieduwilt: Can watching films be a sin? In: FAZ . 2010.

Web links

 Wikinews: Kino.to forced shutdown / kinox.to goes on air  - message

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Fagel and Lars-Marten Nagel in Welt am Sonntag, November 2, 2014, pp. 22-25 ( online )
  2. ↑ http://www.justiz.sachsen.de/lentschweb/documents/Urteil_kino_to.doc
  3. ↑ n-tv NEWS: What threatens Kinox.to users? Retrieved October 19, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Peter Schilder: "Sometimes even a lot of money." In: faz.net of June 7, 2012
  5. ↑ Are internet service providers obliged to block illegal websites? Film industry starts model trial ( Memento from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) “Association for anti-piracy in the film and video industry” November 3, 2010
  6. ↑ a b kino.to FAQ ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). According to the information there, 22,849 films, 7,557 documentaries and 2,625 series
  7. ↑ a b c d Interview with the operators of Kino.to ( memento from January 24, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). In: Gulli.com , February 12, 2009.
  8. ↑ kino.to: Police action against film pirates in: heise.de from June 8, 2011
  9. ^ A b Christian Heger: Feature films on the Internet. The dream of the global video library . In: FAZ.net, December 25, 2009.
  10. ↑ a b Beware of the trap: Warning about web cinema . In: Spiegel Online, April 6, 2009.
  11. ↑ Pirate copiers: Kino.to instead of cinema . In: Focus.de, March 16, 2009.
  12. ↑ a b c d Frank Patalong: Entertainment industry: Copyright lobby targets streaming . In: Spiegel Online, December 25, 2009.
  13. ↑ a b Kino.to stream legal / illegal? - Law firm Wilde Beuger & Solmecke Cologne YouTube video, April 29, 2011
  14. ↑ What is forbidden and what is allowed when handling copyrighted media? Respect Copyrights.de FAQ
  15. ↑ Thank you for looking at the original rather than the copy (PDF; 350 kB) Flyer from Respect Copyrights.de : “ Current, complete cinema films are generally not available as streaming services on the Internet with the consent of the rights holder. Therefore, such files are illegal templates. When streaming, an intermediate storage is carried out on your computer. Legally, you are creating a copy. And a copy of an illegal template is always illegal itself. "
  16. ↑ in an older version of RespectCopyrights.de: “ Complete current movies are never legally on streaming sites such as YouTube. If you look at such an illegal streaming offer, you are committing a criminal offense , because due to the technology used for streaming, an intermediate storage is carried out on your own computer and thus legally a pirated copy is created. “See also Frank Patalong: Entertainment industry: Copyright lobby targets streaming . In: Spiegel Online, December 25, 2009
  17. ↑ Cinema films as stream - legal or illegal? RA Jens Pauleit, winload.de February 23, 2010
  18. ↑ Video usage on YouTube, kino.to and Co. Till Kreutzer and John-Hendrik Weitzmann, iRights.info December 25, 2009
  19. ↑ Stefan Krempl: Experts warn of legal gray areas in video streaming . In: Heise Online, November 25, 2009
  20. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Streaming is illegal . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 27, 2011.
  21. ↑ ECJ: web surfers protected by copyright exception , heise.de from June 6, 2014, accessed on October 31, 2014.
  22. ↑ Developments in the illegal online market - pirated copies and copyright Respect Copyrights.de press release from December 21, 2009
  23. ↑ GVU Annual Report 2009 ( Memento from November 7, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) GVU press release from November 3, 2010
  24. ↑ International search campaign against the kino.to system. ( Memento of July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Press release in: Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements of June 8, 2011 (PDF; 112 kB)
  25. ↑ a b INES investigations against KINO.TO ( Memento from June 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office, media information from June 8, 2011
  26. ↑ Lawsuits surrounding the operators of kino.to write legal history from January 27, 2012
  27. ↑ so also the VAP: Copyright industry wants to force UPC to block Kino.to by Markus Sulzbacher, Der Standard, November 2, 2010
  28. ↑ Filmwirtschaft wants to enforce website blocking Krone.at, November 2, 2010
  29. ↑ Copyright: Film Industry Sues Provider UPC orf.at, November 2, 2010
  30. ↑ orf.at: Kino.to lock active
  31. ↑ diepresse.com: Kino.to closed from midnight
  32. ↑ Austria: Kino.to bypasses network blocking after only one day (update) ( Memento from January 26, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) gulli.com May 21, 2011
  33. ↑ Kino.to-lock: Website apparently accessible again via a different address heise online May 22, 2011
  34. ↑ admin.ch: Art. 19 Use for personal use
  35. ↑ Alleged anti-virus site rips users off . In: Heise Online, February 18, 2009.
  36. ↑ Kino.to is far from history at 20min.ch, accessed on June 12, 2011
  37. ↑ Film industry expects new illegal offers at handelsblatt.com, accessed on June 12, 2011
  38. ↑ Ghandy: Kino.to successor already online: Video2k.tv. gulli.com, June 20, 2011, archived from the original on January 24, 2013 ; Retrieved July 13, 2011 .
  39. ↑ kino.to is online again ( Memento from July 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at ga-bonn.de.
  40. ^ First alleged operator of Kino.to indicted , accessed on October 21, 2011
  41. ↑ Kino.to judgment: streaming and downloading are the same , accessed December 24, 2011
  42. ↑ Marin Majica: No more kino.to. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . April 13, 2012, Retrieved April 13, 2012 .
  43. ↑ Kino.to founder convicted. In: heise online . June 14, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2012 .
  44. ↑ Annika Demgen: Kino.to: Nationwide raids against advertising agents. In: netzwelt. July 18, 2012. Retrieved July 19, 2012 .
  45. ↑ http://www.taz.de/!97621/