MPA Escalates Pirate Site Blocking in Philippines, Targeting Sflix and Myflixer

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) continues to play a key role in expanding global site blocking efforts. After helping to establish a voluntary site blocking agreement in the Philippines, the MPA also filed the first complaints under the new rule. Torrent site YTS was the first target, followed by popular pirate streaming sites SFlix and MyFlixer this week.

 It’s no secret that the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has anti-piracy tentacles all over the world.

The group, which is backed by Hollywood, Netflix, and Amazon, is actively involved in enforcement and policy efforts in dozens of countries.

The MPA’s work mostly takes place behind the scenes, but the results are hard to miss. This includes the Philippine pirate site blocking program, which officially launched in January this year.

The Philippine blocking scheme is the result of a memorandum of understanding, overseen by the local Intellectual Property Office (IPOPHL). Under the agreement, Internet providers will voluntarily block sites that are deemed to be copyright infringing; no court order needed.

MPA-Assisted Site Blocking Agreement

While the agreement is a local endeavor, it was made possible thanks to assistance from the MPA and its affiliated anti-piracy arm ACE. Among other things, the movie industry group provided technical expertise.

For example, ACE helped with site-blocking training to equip IPOPHL employees with the technical knowledge to launch a successful site-blocking operation.

The MPA was happy to play a key role in the expansion of global site blocking efforts. Before the scheme was officially live, it marked the achievement by handing an ‘award’ to the Philippines Intellectual Property Office, applauding the country’s innovative anti-piracy effort.

The MPA itself played a major role in shaping the site blocking efforts, but its involvement is far from over.

MPA Complaint Results in First Blockades

In March, the MPA was the first rightsholder representative to file a copyright infringement complaint under the new administrative site blocking rules. The complaint identified several YTS domains, which were blocked in May after IPOPHL’s IP Rights Enforcement Office completed its review.

The review concluded that yts.mx, yts.rs, yts.do, ytsuproxy.to, yts.dirproxy.com, yts.unblocked.love, ytssss.jamsbase.com, yts.lt, yts.ag, yts.am and torrents.yts.rs, all violate local copyright law. IPOPHL then instructed ISPs to block the domains.

IPOPHL Director General Rowel Barba characterized the YTS blockade as a victory for the entertainment industries and encouraged other rightsholders to submit their own complaints.

“Millions of netizens visit this website so this a major win for the creative industry. We encourage more stakeholders to come forward, file a complaint and further disrupt access to piracy websites,” Barba said.

MPA Follows Through

In conjunction with national anti-piracy month, this week IPOPHL announced follow-up blocking action. No new rightsholders are involved since once again the instigator is the MPA.

In two separate complaints, the MPA requested blocking actions against popular pirate streaming sites SFlix and MyFlixer. This MyFlixer is not to be confused with the Fmovies-affiliated site of the same name, which was shut down this summer.

The MPA lists six domains in total; sflix.to, sflix.se, and sflix.is, plus myflixerz.to, myflixertv.to, and myflixer.today, noting that these domains shared pirated copies of many films including “Shazam!”, “Jumanji: The Next Level” and “Top Gun: Maverick”. After a careful review, IPOPHL decided to grant both requests.

“A thorough examination of the evidence presented and the evaluation report submitted reveals that all the cited websites are hosting pirated versions of movies or TV shows, allowing users to access these illegal copies by downloading or streaming them,” IPOPHL writes.

Block and Repeat

Under the voluntary agreement, participating Internet providers including Globe Telecom, SkyCable, and DITO, will implement the required blocking measures. These include DNS, URL, and IP address blocking.

We haven’t seen an official comment from the MPA on this latest achievement, but the movie industry group will likely be happy with the outcome.

Thus far, it seems that MPA’s collaboration with the Philippine authorities has been quite fruitful. And based on comments IPOPHL sent to the U.S. Trade Representative earlier this month, the partnership will continue.

“MPA committed to continue to work closely with the Philippine government and creative industry in the fight against the scourge of digital piracy,” IPOPHL wrote.

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Copies of IPOPHL’s blocking decisions, which were published through official channels, are available here (SFlix, pdf) and here (MyFlixer, pdf).

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