- YTS took the legal action taken against them by filmmakers seriously and responded to them.
- The piracy movies platform has taken down the infringing titles and asks for a settlement agreement.
- For now, the legal action continues, as the rightsholders have submitted a motion for reconsideration for a rejected subpoena.
The YTS saga continues, as the platform is reportedly discussing a settlement agreement with filmmakers who have been trying to close it down for years now. The particular movies platform is the most popular and most visited pirating website, surpassing even the legendary Pirate Bay, featuring an easy to use interface, thousands of high-quality torrents, and an associated portal with subtitles. The current regime is the one that took over the brand when the original YTS was brought down in 2015 due to the unbearable legal pressure that it was subjected to.
Not only did the new admins managed to continue from where the previous owners left off, but their impact for filmmakers can be considered even greater, as the user base that enjoys its services is vast. However, copyright holders are not giving up, and as we reported more than a month ago, the creators of “Hunter Killer”, “Boyka: Undisputed”, “I Feel Pretty”, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”, “Mechanic: Resurrection”, “Singularity”, and “Once Upon a Time in Venice” have submitted a DMCA subpoena to the US District Court of Hawaii, targeting both the website operators and individual pirates.
In an unexpected move, someone with the name “Segaran” has reportedly reached out to the attorney of the filmmakers’ coalition, Kerry Culpepper, expressing his willingness to discuss a settlement and resolve the matter in an extrajudicial way. In addition to that, the pirating platform has removed the aforementioned titles from its database, so they are no longer offering the titles to the users. Culpepper has affirmed this good-willed move and noticed that the titles belonging to the plaintiffs have now been rendered inaccessible both for regular visitors and for the signed members of the YTS platform. Of course, the damage has already been incurred to the rightsholders, so this move won’t be enough on its own to stop the lawsuit.
The DMCA subpoena that was submitted in May was not signed off by the court, though, as the connection of YTS to the US is not a definitive one. That said, the court cannot determine if it has the jurisdiction to proceed or not. The fact that YTS responded to the plaintiffs, however, shows that the fear about what the continuation of a legal battle would entail for them. For now, Culpepper has submitted a motion for reconsideration, and the case continues on the trodden road of the legal halls.
Are you using YTS to satisfy your piracy yearnings, or do you only use legit streaming services? Let us know where you stand in the comments down below, or leave us a comment on our socials, on Facebook and Twitter.