When pirate site-blocking measures have hit Cloudflare in the past, those responsible responded in various ways when news of collateral damage began to spread.

A swift and relatively silent ‘CTRL-Z response’ seemed most effective at subduing criticism, mostly because it solved the problem.

When blunders were to blame, a quick-fix while pretending to know nothing was reasonably effective too. Flat-out public denials, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, has rarely shown to be effective. Bald-faced denial isn’t without its merits, however.

Denial tends to show that while blocking still took place, those responsible prefer not to be associated with the collateral damage making the headlines. In the grand scheme of things, only a tiny minority care about pirate sites being blocked because, in the grand scheme of things, only a small minority of people are pirates.

When paying customers end up paying the price, site-blocking successes are no match for widespread feelings of injustice.

Viva España

In Spain, LaLiga has torn up the metaphorical site-blocking etiquette rule book and challenged Cloudflare to a public fistfight instead. By admitting last weekend that it deliberately blocked Cloudflare to block a webpage run by a piracy app, and by extension many innocent websites and countless internet users, LaLiga publicly owned its actions and sailed into unchartered waters.

Paraphrasing Cloudflare, LaLiga blocked Cloudflare to get at piracy app Duckvision because it believes it has authority from a local court to do so. Having weighed its interests against those of pirates, Cloudflare, and all internet users in Spain, LaLiga’s interests came out on top.

LaLiga paints Cloudflare as an uncooperative villain who must now take responsibility for the consequences of its own inaction. And LaLiga has every right to take that position, just as Cloudflare has the right to refute the allegations.

In many parts of Spain, meanwhile, fundamental EU rights may face challenges: Article 11: Freedom of expression and information, and Article 16: Freedom to conduct a business, for example. Article 17: Right to property, which includes intellectual property, is the base upon which site-blocking measures ultimately stand, so at least everyone isn’t losing out.

Meanwhile on the Internet

So, in the all-important court of public opinion, Judge Disposable Income presiding, who will shoulder most blame for the disaster depicted in the image below?

Posted to X by a user in Spain, the image shows Uptime Kuma, a great tool easily configured to point towards most online services for the purpose of monitoring their availability. After pointing the software at a Cloudflare IP address, a series of successful ‘pings’ build to create the horizontal green line seen in the middle, with a history of what went before displayed in the chart at the bottom.

The huge block of red sits in a space where there was no connectivity for the user, at a time when a LaLiga match was airing on live TV. Cloudflare wasn’t offline, local ISPs were responsible for blocking Cloudflare under instruction from LaLiga. In a statement issued last weekend, LaLiga vowed that blocking Cloudflare would continue.

Google, Cloudflare, VPN providers, and other entities facilitating piracy are responsible for the illegal activities they enable and profit from. LALIGA, backed by the justice system, will not relent in its efforts to protect football and the interests of its clubs against criminal action related to audiovisual fraud and digital laundering.

LaLiga Makes Good On its Word

A new statement from LaLiga celebrates the successful blocking of two additional pirate IPTV services, DazcFutbolios and RBTV77, both of which reportedly used Cloudflare as a “digital shield” to stay online.

“In its ongoing commitment to protecting intellectual property rights, LALIGA has successfully blocked illegal broadcasts from the DazcFutbolios and RBTV77 platforms this weekend,” LaLiga’s statement reads.

“These illegal platforms, which allowed the unauthorized transmission of football matches, operated both on the Web and in Apps, and used Cloudflare’s infrastructure and resources to hide their criminal activity alongside legitimate domains, which are used as a digital shield, in order to try to evade security controls. Between them, they account for more than 400,000 unique monthly users in Spain.”

Addressing Public Concerns

From a business perspective, LaLiga’s recent statements address most of the key talking points underpinning the current controversy. The league says it obtained authority from a court but also understood that cooperation from Cloudflare would make a difficult job a lot easier.

As a result, Cloudflare was given every opportunity to cooperate but refused to do so, LaLiga notes, leaving it with no other choice or than to block Cloudflare in order to block the IPTV providers. Any suggestion of reckless behavior is incorrect, LaLiga adds.

“These blocks, which are neither massive nor indiscriminate as LALIGA has previously stated, have also disabled a series of IPs specifically identified as hosting pirate services and unauthorized streaming services that operated in parallel,” the statements adds.

No Backing Down, But at Any Cost?

In disputes of this magnitude, the devil can often be found in the detail. Before LaLiga obtained the court order, it knew that Cloudflare is generally opposed to blocking; hardly a revelation for a company with a mission to improve online connectivity. In the knowledge that collateral damage was inevitable, LaLiga had a choice too. Having made that choice, Cloudflare is framed as the party responsible for the collateral damage, despite the power to avoid that ultimately belonging to LaLiga.

Describing the blocks as neither massive nor indiscriminate is completely accurate, at least without context. The image to the right shows that LaLiga carefully selected its targets by blocking not one but several IP addresses, each with an unknown number of innocent sites behind them, in addition to the intended targets.

LaLiga wasn’t indiscriminate when it selected the IP addresses, nor did it block a massive number of them. That simply isn’t required; Cloudflare services a huge number of important websites in Spain using relatively few IP addresses.

No Peacemakers Available

Given that this dispute looks set to continue and backing down has been ruled out, the question of intervention raises its head and who might be responsible for preventing a potential national disaster. If malicious hackers had caused a similar loss in connectivity, Spain’s Ministry of Communications would be a logical choice. Thus far, we’re unaware of any action, or indeed any interest from groups that may have any power to step in.

Historically, ISPs have ensured that blocking orders “do no harm” in their quest to block pirate sites. The mechanism in Spain is unclear but at least thus far, the ISPs involved are informing the public they’re not to blame and are simply obeying orders.

Of course, attending court to negotiate the terms of blocking is always part of the process, just as it is for Cloudflare now, LaLiga insists. The truth is, choices are available in every direction but the only ones suitable for consideration put Spain’s internet users first.

Credit: @Sergio_deLuz

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have four newcomers on the list. “The Gorge” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 17 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Decade after decade, Hollywood studios have produced many of the greatest movies ever committed to celluloid, together telling some of the most inspiring, terrifying, beautiful, outrageous, spectacular, and funny stories ever told.

Movies make the impossible, possible, and when the Fmovies piracy empire was shuttered in 2024, the MPA showed that with enough time, effort, resources, and persistence, impossible achievements aren’t necessarily confined to the silver screen.

The MPA described the event as a “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe,” and in many respects it was.

Rightsholders aiming to deter use of pirate sites, often use the phrase “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Even after years of painstaking work, the circumstances of the sudden implosion of the world’s largest piracy ring could’ve been described using similar terms.

Yet evidence to the contrary, not least the disappearance of the sites, was both compelling and publicly verifiable. The only remaining question marks concerned almost everything else.

Arrests, Prosecutions, and Indictments

After two arrests were reported in the wake of the shutdown operation, Vietnamese authorities confirmed that two men would be prosecuted; alleged “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” Phan Thanh Cong (34) and accomplice/assistant Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34, both residents of Capitaland, Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

Taken on face value, two arrests, two confessions, and then an announcement last November confirming two prosecutions, sounded like good news for the MPA. An earlier case targeting the operator of Phimmoi had taken years longer to fail at an earlier stage.

Yet the MPA doesn’t seem especially pleased, all things considered. The operation to shut down the sites still receives obligatory praise, but it’s clear that the MPA would like a more predictable legal environment and “suitably deterrent” sentences in Vietnam.

Punishment Should Fit the Crime

In the Fmovies case specifically, the request is for a sentence that “reflects the unprecedented scale of the criminal activity.”

In broad layman’s terms, any punishment would balance out 6.7 billion visits to the site in a single year, mainly for the purpose of watching Hollywood movies. Then another three years or so of between 70 and 130 million visits to just one of the sites, every single month.

That would leave Fmovies’ first three years of traffic, the planning for which began in 2015.

At Aptech, Defendants Hatched Plan to Exploit Foreign Content

The indictment claims that Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh studied together at vocational school ApTech (we’re not linking, site may have been hacked) and in 2015, hatched a plan to launch a site specializing in foreign movies to attract a worldwide audience.

On the site that would eventually become Fmovies, Nguyen Tuan Anh had responsibility for ensuring the site had content to offer – movies mainly – stored on Google Drive accounts according to the indictment.

Phan Thanh Cong was the programmer and manager, who also took care of advertisers and through that, handled the money; he allegedly took 90% of the spoils, leaving just 10% for his partner.

The indictment focuses on one type of revenue, from a single source. It claims that before a movie could be watched, visitors to the site had to view an advert delivered by an overseas partner called MGID Advertising Company.

An investigation cited in the indictment concluded that since August 2016, Phan Thanh Cong received a total of ~US$400,000.

Case Headed in the Wrong Direction?

Mindful of the MPA’s request that the punishment should fit the crime, early estimates suggested that the Fmovies site ring offered around 50,000 video titles. The allegations specifically concerning content owned by the MPA relate to just thirty films.

The indictment states that the benefit to the defendants on Fmovies overall was around US$400,000. Mainstream movies were available from the very beginning, but the indictment seems to consider the 30 movies in isolation and estimates low benefit to the defendants. VND 406 million in total, split ~VND365 million to Cong and ~VND41 million to Tuan Anh.

That’s a benefit of around ~US$14,300 for Cong and ~US$1,600 for Tuan Anh. And it gets worse.

Of the movies taken into account, it appears that 13 were the subject of further inquiry in respect of the cost of distribution rights for those movies in Vietnam. If this figure had been made available, damages would’ve been calculated accordingly.

The MPA didn’t provide that information. As a result, any damages may concern just 17 movies rather than the original 30. Definitely not the thousands that actually appeared on Fmovies and its sister sites for roughly eight years, that much is certain.

And there’s something else severely muddying the waters; we’ll return to that in just a moment.

Much Worse? Indeed

When Fmovies originally went offline last summer, as first reported by TF in July, the reason is easily explained according to the authorities.

No drama – Cong just failed to pay the server bill – potentially the first time since 2016. Why that’s of any importance is unclear.

The importance of what could happen next, however, was demonstrated last year in a case brought by the Premier League. In that matter involving sales of illegal IPTV subscriptions, the defendant reportedly paid back the entire amount of ‘benefit’ he made from the illegal sales. The court appeared to view that as a very good thing, which had a positive effect (for him) at sentencing; in practical terms, no prison time.

The indictment claims that both men in the Fmovies case have already returned the full amount of benefit received from pirating the studios’ films. How this will affect sentencing is unknown, but any hope the MPA has of a deterrent sentence seems distant at best.

Unclear and Very Unusual

In foreign cases where court documents may never become available, reporting can be difficult. A unique feature of this case in Vietnam are the videos released to the public featuring police, the defendants, and interviews etc. Whether it’s deliberate or not is impossible to say, but documents are often visible on desks or when being handled in some obvious way.

With patience, some can even be made legible. A fleeting view of the document below appeared in one of the police videos published last year but since it contains no mention of Fmovies, the relevance to the matter in hand wasn’t clear to us at all.

The only thing we were able to decipher at the time was the possible existence of a copyright complaint of some type involving a film or films, sent to Vietnam-based streaming platform Galaxy Play early 2024. Galaxy Play may have sought further clarification, including film titles and/or other details such as terms of service.

The context remains difficult to decipher, but the 17 films mentioned in the indictment are said to have been “copied, posted, and illegally distributed to Galaxy Play Joint Stock Company, Vietnam Satellite Digital Television Company Limited, and ITB TV LTD,” causing a loss of more than VND920 million. (emphasis ours).

Last year the shutdown was described as a “stunning victory” for Hollywood. Today it looks a lot like something else but what exactly is up for debate. The suggestion is one of infringing movies somehow being supplied by the defendants for commercial use; nothing like that has ever been mentioned by the studios.

Why that’s never been mentioned is a mystery to us. It may even raise doubts over what this prosecution is actually about.

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 Founded in 2018, TorrentGalaxy has grown to become a leading player in the torrent ecosystem.

However, the past few months have been far from smooth sailing and last Thursday, TorrentGalaxy become entirely unreachable once again.

Attempts to access the popular torrent site stopped short of their intended destination. With one exception (torrentgalaxy.mx which points to 127.0.0.1) the site’s domain names are working just fine, but the route to the site’s servers clearly isn’t.

This site can’t be reached
 

As usual, there is no word from TorrentGalaxy’s operators. The site’s regular staff and administrators are also left in the dark, which means that it’s not clear if or when the site will return.

Site Down, Bots Up

Occasional downtime is not unusual for these types of sites and TorrentGalaxy has had more than its fair share since new owners took over the site last year. The prolonged downtime is newsworthy, however, as the site is one of the largest torrent communities in existence today.

The site is also important as a key content supplier to other torrent sites though its upload bots. Interestingly, those bots are still operational, unlike during previous downtime periods.

TGx Uploads Elsewhere
 

While these troubles are a concern for pirates, copyright holders will be pleased to see the site gone. Last month, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) flagged TorrentGalaxy among the most notorious pirate sites. According to the report, the site was one of the main beneficiaries of RARBG’s shutdown in 2023.

Money, Ukraine & Anti-Pirates

Whether recent ‘technical’ troubles are the result of targeted enforcement action isn’t clear, however. The site appears to be hosted, or more likely proxied, though the Ukrainian company Virtual Systems LLC, which has a reputation for providing connectivity and staying out of third party disputes.

As a result, Virtual Systems was also branded a “notorious piracy market” by the USTR, for allegedly offering “DMCA Ignored” hosting services.

Interestingly, a few weeks ago, TorrentGalaxy claimed that it had trouble paying the bills. When the operators asked users to chip in, hundreds of dollars were donated in Bitcoin.

While some might connect the current troubles to a lack of funds, there’s no evidence for that either. If the site shut down voluntarily, it would likely put up a message one way or another, which isn’t all that hard. In fact, TGx has quite a bit of experience with spooky messages by now.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 If the dismantling of Megaupload in 2012 hadn’t turned into a legal quagmire, Real-Debrid’s statement concerning new anti-piracy measures may have arrived somewhat sooner.

Ostensibly legal file-hosting services don’t exist in a legal gray area, but when platforms are mindful of conduct that could strip away eligibility for safe harbor-style protection, allegations of infringing conduct can always be countered. Not always successfully, of course, but a solid judgment and punitive sentence in the Megaupload matter could’ve meant fewer people willing to try.

Pirate Platforms or Platforms Pirates Like?

There’s nothing inherently illegal about Real-Debrid, or several rival platforms offering similar functionality. The fact that they’ve proven increasingly popular with pirates doesn’t necessarily render them illegal either. Yet even without solid evidence, there’s still a risk of similarly ambiguous factors combining to form a credible argument.

Public comments from rightsholders, including by anti-piracy group AVIA in a 2023 submission to the USTR, can be just as ambiguous.

Real-Debrid is a popular premium link generator service in Asia-Pacific that allows users to access and download files from various file hosting websites more efficiently and at higher speeds. It essentially acts as an intermediary between users and these file hosting services, providing premium access to them, which results in faster and more reliable downloads.

On one hand, this was part of a ‘notorious markets’ submission by an anti-piracy group linked to the MPA. On the other, the summary of excellent features and zero mention of piracy could almost be mistaken for endorsement. A sign, perhaps, that the platform was worthy of a strategic nomination, but one that stopped short of causing alarm.

November 2024

Real-Debrid’s announcement last November delivered both good and bad news. Pressured by FNEF, the Federation of Film Distributors (members below), Real-Debrid announced new measures to tackle piracy committed by its users.

• Blocked: Cyberlockers on the USTR’s Notorious Markets list
• Blocked: Cyberlockers on the EU’s Piracy Watch List
• Filtered: Content nominated by FNEF and identified by filename
• Blocked: Private tracker torrent hashes mentioned in cases before the Paris judicial court
• Purged: All content currently cached meeting the above criteria
• Deactivated: API endpoint/instantAvailability
• Blocked: Kodi and Stremio addons, if they can be identified.

For some users of the service, the fact that Real-Debrid wasn’t shutting down, wasn’t exactly good news. For a minority, taking the theoretical consequences of the above measures to their logical conclusion, led to frayed tempers and predictions of doom.

So after the dust settled, what happened – if anything – to the Real-Debrid service?

Traffic Takes a Sizeable Hit

While a number of factors may have contributed to the fall in traffic to Real-Debrid.com, the bottom line is an almost 16% reduction versus levels reported early November before the anti-piracy measures were announced.

SimilarWeb traffic data is reported a month late, so there is still potential for a further decline when February’s data is published in early March. How much of that decline can be attributed to less content being available, or available by the usual technical means, is unknown, but one has a tendency to affect the other.

Real-Debrid Traffic Down

Since Real-Debrid is primarily a service that makes life easier, greater inconvenience does have the potential to lower consumption. That being said, early predictions of a dramatic decline in service either didn’t live up to the claims, or were smoothed out by ongoing work by third-party developers.

Real-Debrid’s API is apparently functional and reports suggest that third-party streaming apps are mostly operating as intended. That they are doesn’t come as a surprise, but what that means in respect of the issues with FNEF remains to be seen. In theory, retaining existing users and attracting new ones may prove more difficult than it was before; or it may make very little difference at all. While technical discussions are common, events of last year appear much less often.

Being Polite Costs Nothing

For some, however, their relationship with Real-Debrid may be over for good. Fear and panic that Real-Debrid was about to shut down last November, led to things being said in the heat of the moment that can’t just be taken back.

Determined to prevent Real-Debrid fleeing across the border with their less-than-two-euros-per-month subscription investment, some demanded immediate refunds, and weren’t particularly cautious about the language they used.

On what basis a refund was warranted isn’t clear, nor is it entirely clear why some users found their requests rejected, and their accounts immediately banned.

Just a wild guess, but when dozens of movie companies are scrutinizing every move, anyone who complains that they can no longer pirate mainstream movies amounts to an instant liability. Fortunately, just a single click away from being neutralized.

FNEF member companies as follows:

Adav, Alba Films, Alfama Films, Apollo Films, Arp Selection, Art House, Asc Distribution, Bodega Films, Cinétévé Distribution, Collectivision, Dissidenz Films, Dulac Distribution, Epicentre Films, Europacorp Distribution, Eurozoom, F.F.C.M, Facility Event, Films Distribution, Films Du Centre Et Du Leon, Films Sans Frontieres, France Televisions Distribution, France Vision Services, Gaumont, Gebeka Films, Golden Film International, Grands Films Classiques (Les), Kapfilms Distribution, Kmbo, Metropolitan Filmexport, Moonlight Films Distribution, Nour Films, Paname Distribution, Paramount Pictures France, Pathe Films, Saje Distribution, Snd, Sonis, Sony Pictures Entertainment France, Studiocanal Distribution, Swank Films Distribution, Tandem, Tf1 Droits Audiovisuels, Ugc Distribution, Universal Pictures International, Warner Bros Discovery

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Fifteen years ago, Google processed 250,000 takedown notices in an entire year. Today, it only needs 36 minutes to reach the same number.

Despite several attempts to make piracy less visible in its search engine, the problem isn’t going away. On the contrary, takedown notices continue to increase at a rapid pace.

From 250k to 3.5bn

Last February, we reported that Google had processed its 8 billionth DMCA takedown. A year later, the number of notices processed surpassed 11.5 billion. That translates to nearly 10 million takedown notices per day, every day.

The graph below shows that it took more than a decade for Google to process 6 billion DMCA notices. After that, the proverbial floodgates were open.

Takedown notices (2012-2025)
 

The absolute number should be seen in perspective, of course. Google likely indexes hundreds of trillions of pages, so a few billion here or there is little more than a blip. That said, the recent rise stands out and is a significant increase from earlier years.

Google typically doesn’t comment in detail on these milestones. The company informed us that it complies with the law, while offering full transparency on what is taken down and by whom.

The large number of requests is undeniable, but Google notes that this partially covers content that wasn’t indexed yet.

Publisher Driven

Looking at the data itself, there are a few noticeable changes as well. As highlighted earlier, most of the recent takedown requests come from publishers, including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, and Princeton University Press.

These organizations are represented by the anti-piracy firm Link-Busters.com, which leads all competitors in takedown volume. In recent weeks, the company has sent more takedown notices to Google than all other senders combined.

Most of this takedown activity targets shadow libraries such as Anna’s Archive and Z-Library. These sites index millions of books and articles, across multiple domain names. That brings us to the next explanation for the recent takedown surge.

Anti-Piracy Measures Fuel Takedowns

Ironically, it appears that anti-piracy measures are partly responsible for the takedown notice surge. While this sounds contradictory, it makes complete sense.

For example, a few years ago, music companies started to mass-delete URLs of MP3-rippers from Google search results. The sites responded to the removals by continuously changing their URLs, resulting in a perpetual whack-a-mole that continues to this day.

The purge wasn’t especially visible in Google’s overall numbers, as the number of URLs was limited for these sites. However, it showed that a single homepage of a site can trigger dozens, if not hundreds, of takedowns.

URL variations
 

The same theory applies to site blocking efforts. When websites are blocked by ISPs, they typically release alternative domain options to bypass the restrictions, at least temporarily. As a result, there can be hundreds of domains, effectively linking to the same content. These are all subject to takedown notices.

The same logic also applies to domain name seizures. When Z-Library’s domains were seized by U.S. authorities in 2022, many alternative domains began to surface. Several months later that led to another round of domain seizures and the appearance of yet more additional domains.

As a result, Google’s crawlers picked up hundreds of Z-Library domains, prompting rightsholders to send millions of additional DMCA takedown notices.

Multiple Domains
 

All in all, we would conclude that the recent takedown surge is the result of increased activity by publishers, paired with the response of pirate site operators to anti-piracy measures. Whether this will continue at this pace is hard to predict, but for now Google has its hands full.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Copyright holders see pirate site blocking as an effective and proportional anti-piracy measure.

Over the years, courts and lawmakers in dozens of countries have agreed, resulting in a patchwork of blocking regimes around the globe.

Initially, these efforts focused on residential ISPs as the key intermediaries. While these companies were not blamed directly, they were the go-to parties to implement blocking. But as time went on, that wasn’t enough.

More recently, DNS resolvers have been targeted with blocking orders. Since services such as Cloudflare, Google and OpenDNS, can be used to bypass ISP blocking efforts, courts in Germany and France have determined that DNS resolvers should take responsibility too.

Piracy blocking through DNS resolvers could expand further still since the U.S. FADPA bill, if approved, covers DNS blocking by default. That would be a breakthrough, but it wouldn’t necessarily mean the end of blocking expansion.

Next Target: VPN Providers

After courts granted injunctions against DNS resolvers in France, rightsholders lined up VPN providers as their next target. As reported last week, sports rightsholders Canal+ and LFP requested blocking injunctions that would require popular VPNs to start blocking pirate sites and services.

The full requests are not public, but the details available show that Cyberghost, ExpressVPN, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Surfshark are listed as respondents.

The injunction request has yet to be approved. A hearing scheduled for next month will give both sides have a chance to have their say but based on early responses, the VPN providers are planning to fight this issue tooth and nail.

Threatening Internet Freedom

Soon after the news broke, the VPN Trust Initiative (VTI), which represents ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark, among others, was quick to dismiss the blocking request. VTI said that its members oppose any illegal activities on their networks but will rally against site blocking.

“Imposing blocking on VPNs in France risks significant overreach, where legitimate and non-infringing content can be summarily cut off. This raises alarms about unjustly limiting individuals’ rights to freedom of information and expression.

“Given VPNs do not actually host content, it is misguided and disproportionate to block access to the entirety of these tools that have many proven additional benefits to end users,” VTI added.

The VPN Trust Initiative is urging rightsholders to reconsider their approach. Instead of focusing on intermediaries, they should go after pirate services directly and find ways for stakeholders to ‘collaborate’ without compromising privacy and security.

ProtonVPN Rebukes Piracy Blocking Push

ProtonVPN took longer to respond, but in a detailed response issued a few hours ago, it vehemently opposes the push for a blocking injunction.

According to the Swiss company, the request sacrifices online freedom for corporate interests. Instead of going after intermediaries, Canal+ and LFP should target pirate services directly.

“This case is unprecedented in Western societies and represents a dangerous attack on internet freedom on the altar of corporate greed,” ProtonVPN says.

“If we acknowledge that the fight against piracy is legitimate, the case should be tackling illegal IPTV services, not providers that allow secure and private browsing to millions of people worldwide,” the VPN provider adds.

Implementing piracy blocking would require major changes, according to ProtonVPN, and would ultimately undermine users’ privacy while paving the way for more ‘dangerous attacks’ on privacy and free speech.

Meanwhile, these blocking measures won’t be bulletproof. On the contrary, they may result in people using more dubious VPNs that fall outside the scope of French jurisdiction.

“Moreover, censoring a single VPN service — or even dozens of them — will not prevent people from downloading a VPN from some other country, with the security and privacy risks it represents, that doesn’t acknowledge French jurisdiction.”

European Court of Justice

With their blocking request, Canal+ and LFP Media are crossing a red line, ProtonVPN says. Similar to the other VPN companies, the Swiss provider plans to oppose the injunction request in court.

Even if the French court sides with rightsholders, this matter is unlikely to be resolved. If necessary, ProtonVPN is prepared to take this case all the way to Europe’s highest court and will likely find other VPNs on its side.

“[Canal+ and LFP Media] are carrying out a plain sight raid on users’ online freedom for their own commercial interests. Proton is determined to fight this lawsuit up to the European Court of Justice,” the company concludes.

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 The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has around 65 members including Sony, Universal, and Warner. For good reason it’s seen as the local equivalent of America’s RIAA.

The global music industry is currently in good health and Japan is no exception. In a recent report, RIAJ Chairman and Sony Music Entertainment CEO Shunsuke Muramatsu said that 2024 marked the 11th consecutive year of growth in the domestic market. In common with Western markets, streaming is the driving force. Somehow, Japan’s love affair with the CD is still producing steady sales too.

New Records, Old Problems Revisited

With 2024 expected to produce more sales than any year in history, including eight “Diamond Certified” tracks and at least one track achieving “Double Diamond” status with over a billion plays. Things could hardly be better, but this is the recording industry, where existential threats are rarely far away.

Concerns over copyright-skirting generative AI and its potential effect on the future market for music, is perhaps the most obvious example. Yet for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, BitTorrent pirates – who mostly departed for the legal market years ago or found more recent solace in YouTube-ripping platforms, are now being tracked down in Japan by the RIAJ.

Success at the Tokyo District Court

This week the RIAJ reported success following legal action at the Tokyo District Court. In what appears to be action designed to send a deterrent message, RIAJ members requested information held by a local ISP on subscribers identified by the labels as prolific uploaders of pirated music.

“On February 7, the Tokyo District Court handed down a ruling ordering Internet service provider KDDI to disclose the names, addresses, etc. of users of IP addresses who have been illegally uploading large amounts of music files to the Internet using the file sharing software BitTorrent,” the RIAJ announcement reads.

“Member record companies of the Recording Industry Association of Japan hold the rights to these audio sources. The same court handed down a similar ruling against [ISP] SoftBank on January 23.”

The RIAJ says that the aim was to identify those behind just 25 IP addresses, spread across a total of 20 internet service providers. Whether a similar number of alleged pirates could’ve been spotted at fewer ISPs isn’t clear. The signs suggest that the RIAJ may be preparing for a larger campaign with ISPs’ cooperation established in advance.

Legal Basis and Purpose

The requests for disclosure were made pursuant to Article 5, Paragraph 1 of the Act on Limitation of Liability of Internet Service Providers; the record companies say they intend to file damages claims for copyright infringement and violations of neighboring rights, including the right to make content available for distribution

From a total of 20 ISPs, two refused to disclose subscriber information. The RIAJ responded by filing a complaint at the Tokyo District Court in 2024, with its request for disclosure of subscriber information now a confirmed success.

“The association’s member record companies are currently in discussions with illegal uploaders through their attorneys regarding ‘pledges not to infringe copyrights in the future’ and ‘payment of damages’ based on the identities disclosed by internet service providers linked to the 21 IP addresses.”

As of February 12th, the RIAJ says it had reached settlement agreements with 11 uploaders, with average damages of approximately 500,000 yen, around US$3,300.

Claims for damages against illegal uploaders are reportedly part of the mix, with the RIAJ stating it will continue to target file sharers and pirates using other means, to protect the market and “eradicate violations of copyright law.”

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Exclusive rightsholders and broadcasters have always complained about piracy and probably always will. Complaints are often directed towards a common target; a legitimate platform perceived as uniquely positioned to have a significant impact, for example.

A dispute over piracy involving two rightsholders in France is on a different trajectory. Neither are uniquely positioned to do much about piracy beyond work underway already but, in a break from the norm, have turned on each other instead.

DAZN Unhappy With French Football League

In common with all football leagues around the world, the organizers of France’s Ligue 1 have a significant piracy problem. Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) appears to tackle illegal streaming sites and IPTV providers in much the same way as its overseas counterparts. Early this month LFP announced that it had recently obtained several blocking orders from the Paris Judicial Court, in a format consistent with the best currently on offer.

Issued on January 16, the orders include site-blocking measures at local ISPs, whole site deindexing from search engines, and mitigation of anti-circumvention measures via blocking at third-party DNS providers. Quickly becoming the standard in France, these measures have only been available since September last year, meaning that LFP is close to the bleeding edge; not quite close enough for some, however.

Broadcaster DAZN has piracy problems too, in this case identical to those experienced by LFP. DAZN acquired the rights to air Ligue 1 matches in a deal announced last August but is reportedly unhappy with the results of LFP’s anti-piracy work. Reports suggest a deterioration in business relations, rather than a single event triggering the events of this week. Or indeed, the events that began in silence over a week ago.

DAZN Withholds 50% of February’s TV Rights Payment

News that DAZN had taken the dispute up a gear appeared in a L’Équipe report late Tuesday. The publication said that DAZN paid just 50% of the amount owed to LFP for February, with the remaining 50% placed in an escrow account. There’s no official comment on DAZN’s strategy, but the escrow option will likely settle nerves that DAZN actually has the remaining €35m and mostly likely intends to pay. Under what terms is more difficult to say.

Reports that Ligue 1 had called an extraordinary board meeting to take place Wednesday night came as LFP issued a press release. It described DAZN’s part payment as an “unfounded refusal to honor its financial commitments.”

“For its part, the LFP scrupulously respects all of its contractual commitments and will do everything possible to assert its rights. In particular, the LFP has decided to refer the matter to the interim relief judge in order to obtain an urgent order for DAZN to pay the sums stipulated in the contract and an injunction to perform all of its contractual obligations,” LFP noted.

“The LFP intends to firmly defend the interests of French professional clubs, while hoping for an amicable outcome to this dispute, which it hopes will be temporary.”

LFP Reportedly Wasted No Time

While the meeting arranged for yesterday (February 12) was described as “unfortunately urgent,” a report from l’Informé suggests that LFP responded to the part payment as early as last week. It’s claimed that LFP subsidiary LFP Media, which handles the league’s marketing and IP rights, initiated legal action on February 7, ostensibly to put DAZN under pressure to pay the full amount owed.

That doesn’t appear to have worked; a source cited by l’Informé claims that DAZN may seek to renegotiate the terms of its contract with LFP. An outline of that contract, which also involves beIN Sports (beIN paid as usual this month), appeared last summer.

The ambitious target of 1.5 million subscribers for DAZN may prove elusive; it currently has around 500,000. Beyond the piracy allegations, DAZN’s case for holding LFP responsible for disappointing subscription uptake is unknown. DAZN Group’s latest strategic report mentions Ligue 1 only once in what amounts to a paragraph of achievements.

“Through 2021-22 DAZN significantly strengthened its offering of the most popular domestic sports in Germany, Italy and Spain. In 2023 DAZN acquired Eleven Sports which deepened its proposition in Belgium, Portugal and Taiwan. In 2024 DAZN become the home of French football acquiring the domestic rights to Ligue 1. DAZN is now the largest broadcaster of sports in Europe,” it reads.

Piracy Risks?

Among the usual disclosures relating to potential risks to DAZN’s business, piracy of course makes an appearance. DAZN’s tone isn’t especially alarmist, if anything it seems to have things under control.

“The digital ecosystem brings with it an inherent risk of content piracy and rights/IP infringement. If substantial piracy of certain elements of the Group’s content were to occur this may diminish demand for, or the value of, some of the Group’s services. The Group monitors infringement of its content, brands and intellectual property rights and continues to develop a range of strategies with which to respond where required,” the report reads.

Information that might explain DAZN’s disappointment in LFP’s anti-piracy work is elusive. Small pieces of information can be found in EU lobbying documents where pound-for-pound (or rather euro-for-euro), LFP’s spend sees it punch above its weight on piracy-related matters.

When declaring affiliations, LFP and DAZN both reveal Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) membership, while the former also reports affiliations with the Sports Rights Owners Coalition (SROC) and Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS), among others.

DAZN Group’s latest accounts, filed January 23 and covering the year to December 31, 2023, are available here. Losses continued to mount in 2023, £1.4 billion for the year and an overall deficit of £8.7 billion, give or take.

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In an effort to make online piracy less visible, search engines actively downrank and de-index pirate site domains.

This works, in the sense that it makes it harder for prospective pirates to bump into these sites though searches. It also created new problems and exacerbated others in the process.

Scams Galore

Since the top positions in search results are relatively free of well-known and generally more trusted pirate sites, malicious actors use this void to get piracy-related scams featured instead. To do so, they create keyword-filled pages using titles of high-demand content, paired with keywords such as ‘download’, ‘stream’, ‘free’, and so forth.

To increase the effectiveness of this tactic, the scammers try to get their shady promotions featured on reputable domain names, such as universities, IMDb, and social media platforms.

This is a problem we’ve highlighted previously, including frequent targeting and abuse of official European Union websites (europa.eu). The EU is taking countermeasures to limit the abuse but ending it permanently appears to be a challenge.

EU Subdomain Exploited

This week we discovered what is likely one of the more egregious exploits of the Europa.eu domain. As it turns out, scammers found a way to use a subdomain of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) website, mgmt-test.efsa.europa.eu, to promote their dubious schemes.

What was particularly concerning was the automatic redirection of users who clicked the link, to a scam website where they could ‘sign up‘ for an account. Those sites typically ask for credit card details, which may then be abused in the future.

Over the weekend, a site offering free access to a Super Bowl stream was particularly popular. Different variations appeared in search results, as shown below.

Super Bowl scam
 

Similar promotions were seen from the same EFSA subdomain, linking to adult content including Onlyfans leaks, and traditional copies of pirated movies. Needless to say, people who stumbled upon these through search engines, didn’t get what they were looking for.

Moana
 

Previous scams typically involved uploaded PDF files or user-generated content containing links to scam sites. The recent exploit redirected visitors automatically, which presumably made it more effective.

EFSA Leak Fixed

After alerting EFSA, the organization was quick to address the issue and the affected subdomain was taken offline in a matter of hours. At the time of writing, the redirects are no longer active, and the associated pages have started to disappear from search engines.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that all will be fine from now on. Caution is certainly advised. Over the past few days, dubious content has been posted to other EU websites as well, including the European Social Fund+ and the Interoperable Europe website. And there will likely be more holes to patch going forward.

More Problems (all addressed)
 

This problem isn’t limited to the EU websites either. GitHub continues to be targeted, and it wasn’t hard to spot these scams on other reputable sites, including those of the University of Melbourne and Taylor County in Texas.

Looking at the big picture, it’s ironic that piracy downranking measures by search engines like Google have inadvertently created an opportunity for scammers. They are now leveraging those same search engines by exploiting third-party sites.

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Site-blocking is controversial and has been right from the beginning. The idea that powerful companies could gain authority from the courts to interfere in residential access to the internet, was initially dismissed as insane.

In time, those who protested the loudest were the ones dismissed as deluded. Their warnings, that handing internet blocking powers to rightsholders would eventually end in disaster, were subsequently dismissed by governments and national courts all around Europe. Politicians often dismissed these concerns, citing safeguards and suggesting such problems were impossible.

If the events of the past week are connected, as the evidence suggests, Spain faces a significant problem. While some may call for intervention to de-escalate the situation, this could be a missed opportunity to address the underlying issues.

A Week of Disruption at ISPs

To prevent piracy, Spain’s top football league LaLiga has permission from the courts to compel ISPs, including Movistar and DIGI, to block access to pirate sites. For roughly a week, customers of Movistar and DIGI have been complaining that seemingly random sites were refusing to load for no obvious reason. Tests conducted on mobile phones, however, showed no problems.

Some pointed out that Cloudflare might be the root of the problem, since the platform had been identified as the common denominator in all instances of sites refusing to load. That claim also faced challenges. Cloudflare was working just fine for some sites, but not for others. A growing consensus suggested that the problems only affected a specific Cloudflare IP address or addresses.

The situation was worsened by the ISPs’ apparent lack of information; they provided no useful responses about the cause of the problems or when they might be resolved. These telecommunications companies depend on their ability to provide communication services. The suggestion that they were unaware of the cause is highly unlikely.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that some complaining customers were given additional mobile data to access the blocked sites. As compensation for a technical issue, that might work. In reality, the ISPs likely knew more than they were giving away.

Cloudflare Customers Also Affected

In parallel, Cloudflare customers were reporting similar issues; more specifically, Cloudflare customers who are also customers of Movistar, or Cloudflare customers who run websites that customers of Movistar could no longer visit.

With no (initial) official response or announcement from Cloudflare, sysadmin @jaumepons posted a link on X showing how a tracert (or traceroute) launched from over 200 locations in Spain, from different operators, revealing significant issues with two specific ISPs.

“I leave you here a tracert to a Cloudflare IP launched from 230 different points in the country, from different operators. Then you go to “Results”, sort by operator “ASN” and you will see what those from @movistar are doing, and also @digimobil_es,” @jaumepons wrote.

Those interested are invited to check for themselves but the stream of red crosses in the ‘SUCCESS’ column shows that AS3352, registered to Movistar parent company Telefonica, had major connectivity problems. The fact that these issues did not affect all Cloudflare IP addresses complicated the situation but also strengthened suspicions of IP address blocking.

LaLiga ‘Deactivates’ DuckVision

When enforcement action shuts down pirate sites in the physical world, press releases tend to reference towns, cities, the number of officers involved, potentially the arrests of those who operate them, plus any evidence seized in the operation. When less typical words are used to describe a site’s demise, it’s worth considering whether ambiguity serves any purpose.

In an announcement published on the LaLiga website late Sunday, the country’s top football league led with the headline below.

Image credit: LaLiga

“LALIGA remains committed to fighting against audiovisual fraud and the consumption of illegal content through various initiatives and legal actions,” the announcement began.

“Now, thanks to the coordination of a specialized team, LALIGA has managed to deactivate DuckVision with immediate effect. This is a pirate platform that offered illegal access to live sports content, including the Spanish competition, to more than 200,000 people in Spain alone.”

Deactivate

The decision to use the word ‘deactivate’ rather than ‘shut down’ gains relevance when, seemingly out of nowhere, Cloudflare finds itself mentioned in the same breath.

“DuckVision consisted of a web application that invited people to download an Android app that had more than 200,000 active users in Spain during the month of January 2025, according to data.ai, and was covered by the service of the American technology company Cloudflare, which intentionally protects criminal organizations in order to make a profit.”

In the absence of ISPs making a clear statement, and previous comments that Cloudflare’s protection can’t be beaten, we can assume that DuckVision was dealt with differently. It wasn’t shut down, clearly, but it was ‘deactivated’ which sounds like a euphemism for blocking measures.

A less ambiguous statement wouldn’t have been difficult to put together. However, a reasonable person might get the impression that, since Cloudflare is considered part of the problem, and DuckVision’s IP addresses were successfully protected by Cloudflare, the only way to “deactivate” DuckVision was to block Cloudflare IP addresses.

While offering a potential explanation for the woes at Movistar, this theory still lacks confirmation that the two events are connected in any way. Or at least that was the case; not any more.

Telefonica, Movistar, and Cloudflare Break Silence

After declining Xataka’s request to explain connectivity problems at Movistar, Telefonica and Movistar have provided statements of sorts; hardly detailed but clearly enough to answer the big question.

“[A]s an operator we comply with any type of court order received regarding illegal content,” Telefonica said.

“[A]s an operator we comply with any type of court order received regarding illegal content,” Movistar said.

“As we have pointed out on previous occasions in this regard, DIGI respects and complies with court orders,” DIGI explained.

Cloudflare had much more to say and its testimony couldn’t be any more damning.

Cloudflare: LaLiga Understood Dangers, Went Ahead Anyway

Cloudflare’s statement in full (emphasis added):

Cloudflare provides security and reliability services to millions of websites, helping to prevent cyberattacks and make the Internet safer. Like virtually all major cloud service providers, Cloudflare uses shared IP addresses to manage its network, meaning that thousands of domains can be accessed with a single IP address.

 

Cloudflare has repeatedly warned about the consequences of IP blocking that fundamentally ignores the way the Internet works. Indeed, other governments in Europe have acknowledged these concerns and concluded that IP blocking violates net neutrality. Although LaLiga clearly understood that blocking shared IP addresses would affect the rights of millions of consumers to access hundreds of thousands of websites that do not break the law, LaLiga went ahead with the blocking. This appears to reflect a mistaken belief that its commercial interests should take precedence over the rights of millions of consumers to access the open Internet.

 

At the same time, Cloudflare regularly speaks with rights holders and policy makers about better ways to combat illegal piracy and online abuse. While Cloudflare cannot remove content from the Internet that it does not host, we have well-developed abuse processes in place to help by connecting rights holders with service providers who can take effective action. We will continue to push for rational solutions to combat illegal piracy that do not impact the rights of millions of Europeans to browse the Internet.

Cloudflare’s statement needs no explanation, but two issues deserve highlighting.

Massively Disproportionate, Deliberate Action

According to LaLiga’s statement, its target behind Cloudflare was a webpage with instructions on how to download an Android app. If that app was the means of accessing the content, that raises an important question;

When Cloudflare’s IP address was blocked, did that ‘deactivate’ both the app and the pirated content available through it? If not, blocking many innocent websites appears to have been weighed against the benefit of blocking an instructional web page.

Cloudflare’s suggestion this was done deliberately could make this a matter for the European Commission, at minimum.

Perhaps even more remarkable is the unwillingness of the ISPs to do anything, despite having the power to do so. The complication, of course, is that Telefonica and Movistar have licenses to distribute LaLiga content, and very little incentive to step in.

Ultimately, customers of Movistar have suffered the most as individuals. This means that a decision was made to block Cloudflare, in the knowledge that Movistar subscribers would face the most disruption, and then Movistar was instructed to carry out the blocking against its own customers.

As the court envisioned, apparently.

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 Artificial intelligence is everywhere today. It almost seems as if there’s no problem it can’t solve.

While a breakthrough use case for the public at large has yet to emerge, many companies and governments are incorporating AI into their workflow. That ranges from automating customer responses to gathering national intelligence.

It’s no surprise that copyright holders are experimenting with AI as well. Several anti-piracy groups and services are using the technology to their advantage. Specifics are rarely shared, however.

AI-Powered Anti-Piracy Tools

AI also came up last week during a meeting of WIPO’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement, in relation to novel technology that can help to address online piracy.

Portuguese company NOS Technology presented its anti-piracy toolkit, which aims to leverage new digital tools to combat piracy. With a description including terms such as generative AI and blockchain, it wasn’t difficult to grab attention.

The anti-piracy toolkit was highlighted by Pedro Bravo, NOS Technology’s Head of Content Protection, who shared a written presentation in advance. Piracy is described as a sophisticated global problem which is difficult to combat with ‘manual’ monitoring. That’s where the anti-piracy tool comes into play.

“These solutions harness AI, generative AI, machine learning, blockchain and automation to detect, confirm and respond to piracy incidents in real time, protecting IP at every stage,” Bravo writes.

While this sounds impressive, without context and detail, it is little more than a collection of buzzwords. The added explanation that the tool relies on “open-source intelligence” collected by “automated agents” is appealing, but not particularly enlightening either.

TorrentFreak reached out to NOS, hoping to learn more about the toolbox and its applications in the real world. However, at the time of publication we have yet to hear back. The good news, however, is that there are some pointers that show a concrete use cases.

Automated Blocking

In a section discussing the benefits of real-time detection, NOS says that the Ai-powered toolbox automatically issues takedown requests and blocks pirated streams.

Automated takedowns based on simple algorithms are nothing new. Many anti-piracy companies use these systems while YouTube and other large platforms are likely to use machine learning to detect infringements. Some of these systems can be considered AI, depending on the definition used.

In addition to standard takedowns, AI technology can also be leveraged to detect and block pirated streams. UK company Friend MTS has experience with automated blocking, for example, but it also urged restraint in the use of these tools, as mistakes can prove costly.

NOS Technology doesn’t share any technical details but a small-print footnote reveals one way its AI-powered toolbox is used to block streams.

“Administrative and Legal procedures in Portugal allow IP rights owners to request takedowns in real time or permanently by Domain or IP. The anti-piracy tool detects, validates, and sends an order to a blocking gateway that connects through API to the ISP.“

More important than its placement suggests, the footnote indicates that the toolbox is used to block pirated content automatically, as part of Portugal’s site blocking system. This presumably happens through a direct connection at the ISP level, without human intervention.

The anti-piracy tool apparently aims to be so powerful that it can prevent piracy before it happens. There are no finer details on how this would work, however.

“[T]he tool is capable of monitoring thousands of platforms, networks and users simultaneously. Predictive analytics ensure that piracy can be prevented before it takes place,” Bravo writes.

Hollywood is Interested

While it’s easy to overlook such reports due to a lack of detail, this one stood out because it sounds similar to a technology mentioned by MPA Senior Executive Vice President Karyn Temple at the same WIPO session last week.

The Motion Picture Association is the driving force behind global site blocking efforts and a major supporter of US site blocking bill FADPA. When the bill was made public, Temple discussed the MPA’s site blocking “best practices” where automated blocks were explicitly referenced.

The MPA believes that automated solutions are preferred in the fast-changing piracy ecosystem. This includes real-time monitoring of IP addresses and DNS servers.

This is not a pipe dream, as these systems are already in place. Without mentioning Portugal or any other country, Temple describes an automated blocking system that has a direct connection at the ISP level.

“[A]utomated communication systems have been put in place between rightsholders and ISPs that allow the first ones to swiftly communicate the updated online locations that should be blocked, subject to a dynamic court order or under the supervision of competent authorities,” Temple wrote.

NOS clearly states that its anti-piracy tool is AI-powered, but it’s not clear to what degree that applies to the automated blocking aspect. Whatever the case may be, it is undeniable that AI will be part of future anti-piracy tools, much like pirates will use AI to their advantage.

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The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have three newcomers on the list. “Wolf Man” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 10 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

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 Filed in the Southern District of Texas, Nagravision’s complaint alleged that Gotech International Technology Limited and Zhuhai Gotech Intelligent Technology Company Limited, were the operators of an illegal online network that facilitated TV piracy online.

Nagravision alleged that the network captured and then rebroadcast decryption keys, allowing users to circumvent the company’s anti-piracy technology and watch its clients’ TV shows, without paying them a penny. Nagravision alleged violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Federal Communications Act (FCA), which continue to feature in more recent IPTV piracy lawsuits filed alongside partner DISH.

The Same But Critical

The lawsuit against the Chinese companies claimed they had stolen/copied and then defeated Nagravision’s security technology, including watermarks used to track the original source of pirate broadcasts.

On paper, the case had everything; stolen anti-piracy tech deployed on servers in the United States, used to undermine both the owner of the tech and its customers, before pilfering their premium content and making it harder to track.

When the companies and a Hong Kong-based affiliate failed to defend, Nagravision was gifted a relatively easy win. A default judgment and damages award of $101,851,800, was widely reported alongside a permanent injunction, and a seizure order which included the defendants’ website.

The defendants’ belated appearance saw the judgment upheld on appeal to the Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court.

In the wake of GoTech’s apparent defeat, mainstream interest in the case faded away. A notable case, of course, but the $101m ‘surprise’ had already been and gone. This was a copyright lawsuit after all, not unexpected competition for the last few minutes of The Usual Suspects.

So why are rightsholders still complaining about the same issues almost a decade later?

beIN and AVIA Bemoan GoTech’s Tech

In its recent submission for the USTR’s Special 301 Report, anti-piracy group AVIA outlines China’s lack of progress in tackling many aspects of online piracy. Issues that continue to affect the legitimate video market include hardware and software services allegedly operated by crime syndicates in China, AVIA notes.

Examples include “internet key sharing” (IKS) infrastructure targeting conditional access satellite broadcasts, and consumer use of pirate set-top boxes making use of shared keys to avoid paying for a legitimate subscription. AVIA highlights a familiar company as a significant player in the IKS market.

“One such enterprise, Zhuhai GoTech Intelligent Technology Company Ltd., was unmasked in a 2016 civil suit in Texas and a significant monetary penalty awarded; however the Chinese piracy syndicate that owns GoTech has been undeterred by that judgment – it continues to quite publicly offer – from its base in China – IKS piracy services on its international social media pages, under various brand names,” AVIA informs the USTR.

Another troublesome GoTech product may also sound familiar. Capable of identifying hidden security markers present in legal video streams, MKTech-branded GoTech encoders can render such codes useless. In the wrong hands, the source of subsequent pirate broadcasts or streams can become harder or even impossible to identify and shut down.

AVIA doesn’t mention a specific model number but does mention MKTech-branding. Since they’re not exactly top secret, images of a likely candidate and its sales pitch (but not the model number) are shown above.

“As watermarking is a technology implemented by content owners to aid in detection and termination of pirate video streams, it is patently clear that a watermark removal function is aimed at undermining the interests of legitimate content suppliers and content owners alike,” AVIA continues.

“There is no legitimate reason to remove watermarking from video; in marketing these capabilities, the Chinese manufacturers are providing essential technical capabilities for pirates around the world.” A submission by beIN and Miramax continues on similar lines.

How the devices are able to detect the otherwise invisible watermarks is explained in basic terms on the seller’s website; it compares signals from two set-top boxes and detects differences in the output. It sounds almost too easy but if the rightsholders say it’s a problem, it probably is.

That said, marketing for the encoder does reveal similar functionality that doesn’t involve removing watermarks. For those who happen to have a logo baked into ‘their’ legal streams but for some reason need to switch to a different one, the MKTech encoder can handle that on the fly.

Isn’t a $101m Judgment Supposed to Act as a Deterrent?

As the screenshot from a company marketing video reveals, GoTech’s innovation in this field has been acknowledged with almost “100 independent intellectual property and patents.[sic]”

Yet in light of comments made by AVIA, beIN and Miramax, recognition of valuable IP rights seems to meet challenges. Did the $101m judgment carry no weight? Was the loss of a critical domain name simply brushed off as meaningless, even as part of a deliberately punishing injunction?

Having conceded that answers may only exist in Chinese, finding out what happened was surprisingly easy. Zhuhai Gotech Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd produces highly detailed reports on the company’s activities. The lawsuit in the U.S. appears in several reports; as far as we can tell, the main aim was to keep those with an interest or potential interest in the company up to date on developments.

Declarations in the reports appear to be no more biased than one would typically expect from a party in a lawsuit; the core issues are mostly stated matter-of-fact. The dispute goes far deeper than coverage here suggests, but suffice to say the sudden appearance of a threat to the whole world, meant that 2020 was no ordinary year.

Esteemed business partners

A Zhuhai Gotech report notes that the coronovirus pandemic disrupted hearings in the case; regardless of who was to blame, mention of a hearing led to apparent acceptance things had gone in the wrong direction. At this point the company went into significant detail explaining why a foreign case had almost no chance of being enforced in China, but wasn’t ruling it out.

“The company cannot reliably estimate whether the above litigation case may result in losses and the amount of likely losses, so it has not recognized estimated liabilities and possible losses.”

The $101m Judgment That Never Was

In an order handed down in January 2022, a district court judge in Texas vacated the final default judgment handed down by his own court in 2016. After also vacating a contempt order and all monetary fines, the judge dismissed the case against Zhuhai Gotech with prejudice, meaning it could never see the light of day again.

Confirmation of a settlement appears in a GoTech report, available in even greater detail here (pdf).

Whether COVID-19 played a small or significant part in the decision to settle is unclear. Yet against the odds, while most of the rest of the world descended into chaos, sometimes verging on madness, pirates and pirate chasers were able to see past industrial scale piracy allegations and appreciate the finer things in life.

Not just $4 million in hard cash but also something much more precious.

The full terms of settlement are unknown to us, but the video below indicates that GoTech now views Nagra as a valuable partner. Despite having dozens of other companies it could’ve chosen to put first in its glossy promo video, it didn’t.

The details of the case in the context of complaints made to the USTR may need some dramatic license to rival the big reveal at the end of The Usual Suspects.

That said, making a $101m judgment disappear wasn’t just the greatest trick, it was remarkable for its ability to definitely exist while at once never actually existing at all. A shout-out to Nagra, meanwhile, absolutely exists around five minutes into the video below.

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Last night, well over hundred million people tuned in to the Super Bowl, which is traditionally the most watched television broadcast in the United States.

In addition to the impressive number of legal views, some prefer to watch the game through unauthorized live streams, which presents a major problem for rightsholders.

This type of piracy isn’t a new concern. Fourteen years ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were already on task, seizing major sports streaming domain names, coinciding with the Super Bowl.

While a lot has changed since then, sports streaming piracy remains a problem. In fact, it’s arguably bigger than it ever was. Rightsholders and authorities are aware of this and over the past 24-hours, the feds took dozens of domains offline.

Super Bowl Seizures

This latest round of seizures took place as the Philadelphia Eagles played the Kansas City Chiefs. While all eyes were on the game, the feds were cutting off unauthorized viewers.

At the time of writing, there is no press release from the authorities, but at least 40 domain names of popular brands such as Streameast, Crackstreams, and Totalsportek, all became inaccessible overnight.

Some of these sites have millions of monthly visitors who stream sports content for free. That is no longer an option from these domains. Instead, visitors are welcomed by a seizure banner, displaying the seals of U.S. law enforcement outfits.

“This domain name has been seized by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) pursuant to a warrant issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana under the authority of, inter alia, Title 18, United States Code, Section 2323.”

“It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute copyrighted material including sporting events, television shows, movies, music, software, or games without authorization,” the message adds.

It’s not immediately clear whether the seizures were carried out through domain registrars, which include some foreign companies, or associated domain name registries. The latter seems more plausible, as these include American companies like Verisign and Registry Services.

Familiar Targets

The seized domains are now pointing to the SEIZEDSERVERS.COM nameservers, which are controlled by the U.S. Department of Justice and often used to shut down websites as part of criminal proceedings.

The same nameservers were also used in similar crackdowns against Streameast last summer. Despite losing several domain names, the site remained online, vowing to appeal the seizures. Likewise, the latest actions show the feds have no intention of reconsidering their enforcement efforts.

Other sports streaming brands have also been targeted by U.S. law enforcement actions, but eventually recovered and reappeared online. This cycle seems to repeat itself, as many targets continue to operate from backup domain names despite the threat of criminal action.

—

This is a breaking story. We have thus far linked the following domain names to the latest seizure rounds, but there might be many more. If additional information becomes available we’ll update this article accordingly.

– boxingstreams.buzz
– buffstream.buzz
– cfbstreams.biz
– crackstream.buzz
– crackstreamss.biz
– f1streams.biz
– gostreameast.biz
– gostreameast.club
– gostreameast.live
– gostreameast.my
– gostreameast.net
– methstreams.buzz
– mlb66.biz
– mmastreams.club
– mystreameast.biz
– nba66.biz
– nbabite.biz
– nbastreamlinks.biz
– nbastreams.blog
– nflstreams.blog
– nhl66.biz
– nhlbite.biz
– mystreameast.app
– mystreameast.cc
– mystreameast.co
– mystreameast.live
– mystreameast.my
– mystreameast.xyz
– papahd.biz
– soccerlive.biz
– streamgate.biz
– streameast.co
– streameast.sh
– thestreameast.live
– thestreameast.me
– thestreameast.cc
– thestreameast.net
– thestreameast.org
– totalsporteks.biz
– vipboxtv.biz

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 How events of the last four decades shaped Gazprom-Media into the business it is today, justifies an article in its own right. Complexities aside and details for another day, the company appears to enjoy state approval and recognition for its work.

Under parent company Gazprom and subsidiary Gazprom Bank, Gazprom-Media Holding describes itself as the largest media holding in Russia. Gazprom-Media was established in January 1998 and today claims to “shape the future of media technologies in Russia.”

From its glossy website, portfolio of almost 40 TV channels, to its media production facilities and assets that include local YouTube analogue, Rutube, Gazprom-Media looks and sounds like its Western counterparts.

“All of us — producers, engineers, designers, cameramen, developers, scriptwriters and directors, analysts, actors, radio and TV presenters, accountants and lawyers — make the lives of millions of people exciting and rich every day, set trends and move the media industry forward,” the company notes.

Similarities can also be found in the company’s anti-piracy strategies.

Piracy: Borderless and Universally Understood

In its work to protect valuable intellectual property rights, Gazprom-Media left no stone unturned in 2024 tackling copyright infringers.

The company’s latest annual report reveals a preference for site blocking measures. During the course of last year, Gazprom Media says it blocked 17,400 websites & 5,700 Telegram channels for piracy. The company filed over 900 IP lawsuits in 2024, with the holding company emerging the winner from 770, the report adds.

Gazprom-Media’s copyright enforcement strategy sees the company tackle piracy on various fronts. Online platforms are considered a priority, with the company always ready to take action but not averse to negotiating with its unlicensed adversaries. Agreements with “several” pirate sites in 2024 led to the removal of infringing content, Gazprom notes.

Proactive action against messaging platforms in 2024 also led to success. Director of IP protection Pavel Rusakov says that daily monitoring and rapid blocking helped to reduce interest in Telegram, and that led to a decline in use.

Search Engine Takedowns

In common with most major media companies, Gazprom-Media believes that search engine results are better when no pirated content appears.

With requests to remove over 6.2 million infringing links, local search engine Yandex received most attention in 2024. With requests to remove around five million infringing URLs, Google was last year’s runner-up.

Whether Yandex is simply better at indexing Russia-focused pirate sites, leading to the appearance of more links in general, is currently unknown. It’s certainly possible that rightsholders’ takedown notices in the US and EU, including whole site deindexing based on local site blocking orders, have an effect on content appearing.

Whatever the reason, those who use Yandex regularly or even for just a few minutes, notice an immediate difference in performance, regardless of content. In some cases, searches for exactly the same content produce results that are so different, a Groundhog Day of tedious daily searches can find itself transformed.

Reasons for the disparity aren’t easily pinpointed, but if site downranking , deindexing, and URL removals play any role in the situation at Google, the same can’t be said about Yandex.

Is Gazprom-Media Winning?

With the definition of ‘win’ subject to change and often used without context, figures published by Gazprom for 2022 and 2023 are listed below. The data provided isn’t always consistent and terminology can shift too. The descriptions and figures are therefore Gazprom’s own, provided here as-is.

2022

Blocked: 7 million links to pirated content, 67% more than the 4.2 million blocked in 2021.
Removed: 4.6 million links removed from Yandex search results vs. 2.6 million removed in 2021.
Removed: 2.8 million links removed from Google search results vs. 0.9 million removed in 2021.
Blocked: 7,500 Telegram channels.

2023

Blocked: 8.5 million Internet pages, a 19.3% increase over the previous year.
Blocked: 16,000 sites hosting pirated Gazprom-Media content, 8.5% more than in 2022.
Blocked: 6,000 Telegram channels, 16% less than in 2022.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 A little over a week ago, Rep. Zoe Lofgren introduced the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA).

Should it become law, FADPA would allow rightsholders to obtain site blocking orders in the United States aimed at piracy sites believed to be operated from overseas. The no-fault injunctions envisioned by the bill would require local ISPs and public DNS providers to prevent their users from accessing these illicit foreign platforms, without being held liable for customers’ infringements.

No Sign of Opposition

Negotiations over the role of ISPs in FADPA started months ago. Avoiding another SOPA-like conflict is obviously preferred, but also concedes that if ISPs aren’t fully onboard, the entire plan could be rendered unworkable. As far as we’re aware, ISPs in the U.S. haven’t made any FADPA-specific public comments, mentioned any negotiations, revealed their positions on the bill, or discussed implications with customers.

Full transparency at this early stage is obviously a pretty big ask, but the bill itself does recognize its importance. Backed by a set of ‘best practices‘ reported here just a few days ago, the level of transparency suggested in the bill would see blocking orders made available on a “publicly accessible website” and provide details including the petitioner’s name, the foreign website subject to blocking, the date and duration of the order, and a summary of the court’s findings.

While that’s a good start, it provides zero visibility of any actual blocking.

The Hidden Blocking War Should Be Transparent

Based on experiences elsewhere, initial blocking orders represent only the start of what is almost guaranteed to be a prolonged war. The overwhelming majority of all blocking currently takes place in response to countermeasures deployed by pirate sites, and not necessarily in the form described in the initial order, if any description is provided at all.

It’s not uncommon for sites to change their identities from those listed in court orders. Even when they don’t, blocking typically runs for years when large sites are involved.

In the UK, The Pirate Bay has been subjected to blocking for 13 years, during which hundreds or even thousands of domains have been blocked. Having no direct connection to the site’s operators doesn’t prevent blocking of third-party sites, including those with no connections at all beyond a similar name.

Prolific site cloning is currently countered with ‘brand blocking’ and for good reason that also appears in the FADPA proposal. Such blanket measures may be a necessity when tackling the most resilient sites; yet when that doesn’t work, only transparency can provide insight into what happens next. Good luck with that.

Full Transparency Can Easily End in None

After full transparency was promised in Italy, data actually made available to the public is so restricted and untimely, even provisions that promise redress for overblocking are effectively useless. France has an established blocking program too, but ‘transparency’ effectively amounts to announcing the number of sites blocked every few months. Real transparency hasn’t materialized at all and seems unlikely to do so. Only through sheer persistence is it possible to obtain very limited information concerning blocking, and at that point the volumes speak for themselves.

Representing only a sample of blocking in France from January 1st 2025 to date, most if not all domains below have been blocked by ISPs and deindexed by Google, for undermining earlier blocking.

Intentionally difficult to read, at least for the time being

How many waves of blocking have been undermined, reblocked, then undermined again isn’t clear. In many cases the original domains requested for blocking are a distant memory. The sites themselves, though, are clearly still online, hence the need for more blocking. And deindexing. All day, every day, all over the world, soon to include the United States.

No Visibility When Blocking Meets the Private Sector

If FADPA becomes law and site-blocking practices play out in the United States as they have elsewhere, other than the appearance of initial court orders, much of the follow-up could disappear behind closed doors and rarely get mentioned in public again.

Consultations on upgrades and modifications to blocking measures might not play out in court, or within earshot of internet users in general. Initially brought together to meet the requirements of a single blocking order issued by a court, everything that happens between rightsholders and ISPs thereafter, may remain unseen. Under a different name, this is the ultimate goal that has already been achieved elsewhere.

If a Portugal-style administrative site-blocking scheme had been explicitly detailed at the top of the bill, that could’ve caused issues down the line. In practical terms here, once a judge has signed off on an injunction, private companies will begin working together under almost zero obligation to disclose anything. In Europe, that’s worked out exactly as one would imagine.

It’s Now or Never

Given a strict choice between the FADPA proposal and any other major blocking program in existence today, hardcore site-blocking opponents would likely reject both on principle. For those who understood the point of the question, FADPA is the most the sensible answer; the MPA is the most accomplished site-blocking group, and least likely to stray from its own rules laid out in the bill.

The MPA also has impeccable vision; FADPA seems designed to ensure that within legal limits, the MPA’s freedom to do whatever it likes will face zero resistance as it continuously expands and tightens. The real fun? When less well-known rightsholders get involved and their version of freedom plays out.

So, if the bill gives rightsholders everything they need, and ISPs everything they need, perhaps those whose monthly subscriptions enable the very existence of both industries (and will end up paying for the blocking program) should at least be allowed to watch; by default, globally.

There won’t be a second chance, ever.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

The emails show that Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. According to the authors' court filing, Meta torrented at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna's Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen. Furthermore, the company had previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen.

The authors described the magnitude of Meta's unlawful torrenting scheme as astonishing, noting that "vastly smaller acts of data piracy—just .008 percent of the amount of copyrighted works Meta pirated—have resulted in Judges referring the conduct to the US Attorneys' office for criminal investigation."

The emails show that Meta employees were also aware of the legal risks of their actions. In April 2023, Nikolay Bashlykov, a research engineer at Meta, wrote that "torrenting from a company laptop doesn't feel right."

In an internal message, Nikolay Bashlykov expresses concern about using Meta IP addresses “to load through torrents pirate content,” and says, “torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right.”

By September 2023, Bashlykov had stepped up his protests and consulted with the legal team. "Using torrents would mean 'seeding' the files—i.e., sharing the content outside. This could be legally not OK," he wrote.

Despite these warnings, the authors argue that Meta decided to hide its seeding activities, editing settings so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur. The company also allegedly tried to avoid the risk that anyone was able to "trace back the seeder/downloader" from Meta servers by downloading the dataset to non-Meta servers.

Source: Ars Technica

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 In recent years, French rightsholders have expanded their domestic site blocking efforts through the courts.

Traditional blocking measures have been in place for years. They require ISPs to block subscribers’ access to popular pirate sites. The aim is to deter piracy by making sites more difficult to find, but these measures are only partially effective.

In response to blocking orders, many ‘pirates’ resort to workarounds; third-party DNS resolvers, for example, or VPNs that enable access websites from locations immune to ISP-based blocking.

These workarounds are a source of frustration for copyright holders, including Canal+ and French football league LFP. These companies own the rights to popular sports content including the Premier League, the Champions League, Ligue 1, and the Rugby Top 14.

Blockades Expand to DNS Resolvers

To address blocking workarounds, the rightsholders took the matter to court, requesting DNS resolvers including Google, Cloudflare, Cisco, and Quad9 to block dozens of pirate sites.

In a landmark judgment last year, the Paris Judicial Court granted its first DNS blocking order in favor of Canal+. This was followed by several others, gradually expanding the blocking measures and placing pressure on circumvention options.

The court orders were all issued under Article L.333-10 of the French Sports Code and mark a broadening of Canal+’s legal strategy. Despite fierce criticism from major tech companies, French rightsholders are not holding back. On the contrary, they have already moved on to the next set of targets.

New Target: VPN Providers

To maintain and increase their momentum, Canal+ and LFP recently summoned several of the largest VPN providers to court.

The legal paperwork is not available to the public but Marc Rees, a journalist at l’Informé, reports that NordVPN, Cyberghost and ProtonVPN are being targeted by Canal+ and LFP. Canal+ additionally lists ExpressVPN and Surfshark as respondents.

These parties are confirmed by a public record, shown below.

VPN services typically hide users’ traffic from their Internet providers, rendering any blocking efforts useless. As a result, rightsholders want these VPN companies to comply with the blocking measures as well.

Similar to the DNS resolver cases, the legal paperwork cites Article 333-10 of the French Sports Code. This allows rightsholders to demand “all proportionate measures” against entities that are “likely to contribute to remedying” copyright infringement.

Fortifying Existing Blockades

The two cases against VPN providers are aimed at denying access to sports streaming platforms. Canal+ lists IPTV services including boxtv60.com and fmytv.com, and streaming sites such as Ishunter.net, Antenasports.ru, and Rojadirectahdenvivo.com. Several of these targets have already been blocked through other court orders.

The LFP complaint identifies dozens of additional targets such as Popcorn IPTV, Net IPTV, Facto IPTV, Movie Live IPTV, DINO TV, and WhishIPTV.

TorrentFreak reached out to several of the mentioned VPN providers who did not immediately respond to our request for comment. LFP confirmed the legal action, telling l’Informé that they are taking action against VPNs to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to protect their rights.

Hearings for both cases are scheduled for next month, as shown below, so it will likely take a while before an eventual ruling some in.

Update: The VPN Trust Initiative, which represents ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Surfshark and others, is preparing a response. We will update this article when that comes in.

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Last weekend, shadow library Anna’s Archive argued that, for AI companies, access to ‘pirated’ books may be a matter of national security.

The reasoning behind this controversial take concerns the legal implications faced by U.S. companies if they train AI models using data obtained from shadow libraries. Other countries, however, have fewer reservations, which could give foreign companies a technological edge.

American tech companies are well aware of the potential powers of shadow libraries. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has never denied its use of these libraries to train early versions of its AI models.

Sued Over Torrenting Allegations

Meta isn’t unique in this. Chinese AI disruptor DeepSeek also publicly admitted to using data from ‘pirate’ sources. To date, however, it’s mostly the major U.S. tech giants that have been taken to court.

A class-action lawsuit filed by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden is one such copyright infringement case. The authors accuse Meta of using their work without permission.

Last month, they filed an amended complaint which included BitTorrent-related allegations. The plaintiffs see this as particularly problematic because BitTorrent users typically upload content to third parties as well.

“Meta downloaded millions of pirated books from LibGen through the bit torrent protocol using a platform called LibTorrent. Internally, Meta acknowledged that using this protocol was legally problematic,” the third amended complaint noted.

“By downloading through the bit torrent protocol, Meta knew it was facilitating further copyright infringement by acting as a distribution point for other users of pirated books.”

Unsealed: Terabytes of Data

These alleged wrongdoings needed to be proven in court so the rightsholders sought access to torrent client logs and seeding data from Meta. The request was denied.

Nonetheless, the rightsholders still managed to obtain torrent-related evidence during discovery. Many of the details were previously sealed, but unsealed copies added to the docket yesterday reveal new information.

Quoting from an internal Meta email thread, the plaintiffs were about to show that the company attempted to source data through Anna’s Archive. While this was tricky because the number of seeders was low, they successfully obtained many terabytes.

“[T]he magnitude of Meta’s unlawful torrenting scheme is astonishing: just last spring, Meta torrented at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna’s Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen.”

“Meta also previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen,” the plaintiffs state in the unsealed document, referring to an email where Anna’s Archive is referred to by the initials “AA”.

Unsealed email
 

The email, shown above, mentions the Internet Archive as a key source as well, although it’s not a typical shadow library. It provides an overview of the progress made, noting that ‘few seeds’ and ‘slow download speeds’ presented a challenge.

Copyright Concerns?

Meta’s employees were not oblivious to potential copyright concerns. According to the unsealed records, one employee stated: “I feel that using pirated material should be beyond our ethical threshold.”

In addition, there was an internal discussion about not using Facebook infrastructure to torrent, to “avoid[] risk of tracing back the seeder/downloader” to Meta servers.

These comments and references were already known to the plaintiffs, but now enter the public domain. They shed additional light on internal discussions but for Meta, however, these torrenting allegations are not a game changer.

Meta: Fair Use

Last week, Meta filed a motion to dismiss the authors’ claim regarding ‘Removal of Copyright Management Information’ as well as the claim of violating California Penal Code § 502, arguing that neither was properly pled.

Meta did not request dismissal of the copyright infringement complaint, but is confident that it can “debunk this meritless allegation” on summary judgment.

“Plaintiffs do not plead a single instance in which any part of any book was, in fact, downloaded by a third party from Meta via torrent, much less that Plaintiffs’ books were somehow distributed by Meta,” the company writes.

This doesn’t mean that Meta denies using shadow libraries, its argument is that using such data to train its LLM models constitutes fair use under U.S. copyright law.

—

A copy of all relevant documents referenced here are available though Free.law’s Courtlistener

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 With hundreds of millions of annual visits, KickAssAnime (KAA) is one of the larger anime pirate sites.

The streaming portal, which relies on third-party hosted videos, is particularly popular in the United States.

Over the years, rightsholders have attempted to pinpoint the site’s operators, presumably to shut it down. Just last summer, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) obtained a DMCA subpoena, requiring Cloudflare to provide all information the company had on file.

Phishing Concerns

Whether this subpoena yielded any useful information is unknown. However, Cloudflare took action yesterday that significantly impacted KAA’s operations. The company flagged all of the site’s domains for ‘suspected phishing,’ displaying the following warning banner to visitors.

“This website has been reported for potential phishing. Phishing is when a site attempts to steal sensitive information by falsely presenting as a safe source.”

Suspected Phishing
 

Cloudflare allows external parties to flag websites for phishing and other issues, but who was behind the report in this case remains unknown. KAA states that it has not received any further information from Cloudflare.

Pirate sites have been linked to malware and phishing in the past, often due to malicious ads. A check on the main KickAssAnime domain on Virustotal also lists some concerning reports, but at Google Safe Browsing, there are no alarm bells.

‘Mass Abuse Reports’

According to KAA’s operator, Dion, malicious ads are unlikely, as the site has reportedly been ad-free for some time. They are not aware of any potential phishing activities either.

“The funny thing is, we don’t request or ask for any personal information from our users, except for an email when they sign up. Also, the site has been ad-free for weeks,” Dion says.

KAA suspects that Cloudflare’s action might be the result of a brute-force attack using mass abuse reports. The site has a potential offender in mind but, thus far, it has been unable to obtain additional information from Cloudflare.

At the time of writing, the site’s domains are still flagged for suspected phishing. In response, the operator has redirected them to an alternative domain name, KAA.mx.

It’s difficult for outsiders to determine whether this action was based on false reports or if other factors were involved. Regardless of the reason for the flagging, and in addition to the clear copyright concerns, users should always exercise caution when visiting such sites.

More Cloudflare Action

On the topic of Cloudflare, it is worth noting that the company continues to receive requests to assist in identifying the operators of manga and anime websites for copyright enforcement purposes.

As mentioned earlier, KAA have been in the crosshairs for a while. Earlier this week, Japanese publisher Shueisha requested a subpoena to identify the people behind manganato.com, chapmanganato.to, mkklcdnv6temp.com, chapmanganelo.com, manganelo.com, and mangakakalot.com.

Whether that information ‘fishing’ expedition will yield any results has yet to be seen, but the pressure is on.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Years before it happened, the MPA predicted that improved internet connectivity in Vietnam would likely lead to piracy problems down the line.

The MPA’s prediction was fairly detailed and turned out to be extremely accurate. That the country would quickly become one of the safest places in the world to run a pirate site, led to real-world examples of how quickly sites can grow in an environment lacking credible enforcement.

Yet, in 2024, after tens of billions of visits across many sites linked to the infamous Fmovies, everything changed. At least as far as official reporting was concerned, this marked the end of an era and the start of something far better, something that Vietnam as a country could and should celebrate together.

While ostensibly much smaller in scale, the Premier League’s good news arrived in April 2024. A person alleged to be the operator of BestBuyIPTV appeared in a local court to face allegations of infringing the Premier League’s rights on a massive scale. Not only was a simple appearance in court previously considered unlikely, the fact that the Premier League came out on top was nothing short of remarkable, at least in theory.

Premier League Submission to the USTR

The Premier League and MPA/ACE have described the conviction in the BestBuyIPTV case as an important start, since it represents the “first ever criminal conviction in Vietnam for online copyright infringement.” In a submission to the USTR’s latest Special 301 Report, the Premier League mentions the case again, describing it as “positive progress” alongside steps to introduce an administrative site-blocking scheme to Vietnam.

“These are both significant steps forward. However, due to a lack of sufficient protection and enforcement measures historically, Vietnam remains a key center for pirate operators targeting both domestic and international markets.”

“In order to change this, authorities will need to build on the foundations laid by recent successes by continuing to work with stakeholders to improve site blocking, and by demonstrating that successes like the BestBuy decision are not a one-off,” the Premier League notes.

Signs May Indicate a One-Off

According to the most successful club league in Europe, regular and quicker enforcement results are essential if Vietnam is to build confidence in its ability to protect intellectual property. In the absence of both, reality on the ground right now sounds frustrating, to say the least.

“Unfortunately, the Premier League’s experience since the BestBuy decision has not been positive,” the Premier League informs the USTR.

“Rather than building on the result and precedent provided by the BestBuy case, law enforcement agencies have reverted back to querying previously addressed concerns, such as whether copyright has been registered, resulting in severe administrative delays in the processing of cases.”

A Conviction Should Hold Value

Details of the BestBuyIPTV case reveal what appears to be a case taken seriously. Official documents reviewed by TorrentFreak show that through various actions, three people were directly or indirectly involved, with two deemed unsuitable for prosecution on various grounds, from limited involvement and alleged lack of knowledge, to matters related to health.

Previously described as the operator of BestBuyTV, the man did indeed do business from a website with that name. Documents referencing the investigation claim that .M3U playlists were purchased from a forum and restreamed to customers paying $9 per month.

Illegal benefit for the defendant reached 615,188,237 VND ($24,431.62) but filled with remorse and regret, he “voluntarily returned the entire amount.” One payment was made in September 2023 and another in March 2024, just before his court appearance in April. The court viewed full repayment as a clear sign that lessons had been learned, especially for a defendant with no criminal record.

Not Legal For Payments, Not Illegal to Invest – or Lose

Bitcoin trades worth over 19 billion VND ($757,000) were also linked to the same defendant, raising concerns over potential tax evasion. In the field of currency and banking law, virtual currency is “not a legal means of payment” and as such is prohibited, the court noted. Under investment- and business law, however, use of virtual currency isn’t prohibited at all.

As a result, the court found “no basis to conclude that defendants…business [was] an act of tax evasion.” According to the court, one transaction saw 15.6 billion VND transferred from PayPal into a bank account. The defendant “withdrew this amount for business and lost all of it,” the court observed. And that was that.

“The defendant confessed to his crime. The defendant was aware of his illegal behavior and was extremely remorseful and repentant,” the court added, before handing down a suspended sentence, confiscating an MSI laptop, and ordering payment of a fine: 100 million VND, or just under $4,000.

Court records note that if a person serving a suspended sentence “intentionally violates” the obligations prescribed by relevant law “two or more times,” the court may require a suspended sentence to be served. As deterrent messages go, there have been better ones.

With local law enforcement now reportedly hindering cases on the basics, the Premier League may find progress in similar case more difficult. At the start of a process that may offer very little even in the event of a win, it’s no surprise that the Premier League recommends that Vietnam remains on the Watch List.

Hollywood Not Exactly Enthusiastic Either

In a submission to the USTR under the banner of the IIPA (International Intellectual Property Alliance), non-deterrent sentences are just part of the overall mix, drawing criticism on behalf of the movie and music industries, otherwise represented by the MPA and IFPI.

“Notwithstanding a few notable enforcement achievements in 2024, greater clarity and predictability in the criminal process regarding monetary and evidential thresholds and enforcement timelines are necessary for the criminal process to be relied upon. Penalties that are low and non-deterrent in the criminal process do not effectively combat the worsening piracy in Vietnam,” the submission reads.

All Fmovies Operators Should be Held Accountable

Those “few notable enforcement efforts” include the BestBuy case, the apparent dismantling of the Fmovies empire, and the arrest of two people said to be the sites’ operators.

Confirmation that MPA/ACE collaborated with the authorities in Vietnam was confirmed in a wave of reports at the end of August 2024. News that the alleged mastermind had reportedly confessed and would now face prosecution, wasn’t announced by local authorities until mid-November 2024. That announcement contained various undated film clips, one of which included a fleeting glimpse of a document.

After being restored to a readable state, a very basic translation (below, right) indicates a decision to prosecute dated August 14, 2024. That’s two weeks before the initial shutdown announcement and a full three months before local authorities announced that a decision had been made to prosecute.

The IIPA submission suggests that others were involved in the Fmovies operation and all should face a criminal prosecution. Whether promises were made but not honored, or whether this is a brand new request isn’t clear.

“While the takedown of the sites is a positive development, it is now important that the case against the Fmovies operators moves through the criminal process without delay and that a suitably deterrent sentence — one that reflects the unprecedented scale of the criminal activity involved in this case — is imposed on all operators,” the submission reads.

In common with the Premier League, IIPA also recommends that Vietnam remains on the Watch List.

Much more could’ve been said in these submissions but given the complexity of the Fmovies case, now may not be the right time. With politics rarely out of the picture, the right time may not even exist. When balancing halfway across a tightrope, the only viable option lies straight ahead. Just don’t look down; things are not always as they seem.

The IIPA submission is available here (pdf), and the Premier League’s here.

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 Every year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative asks copyright holders to share input for its Special 301 Report.

Based on these recommendations, which center around copyright and piracy problems, the USTR compiles an annual list of countries that deserve extra attention.

By definition, the overview aims to identify foreign companies and policies that may hurt U.S. businesses. However, that doesn’t stop foreign entities from taking the opportunity to call out American companies for the same reason.

U.S. Piracy Facilitators

Last week, LaLiga, the organization behind Spain’s top football league, used the USTR’s request for submissions to point a finger at several U.S. tech companies, including Cloudflare, Google and X.

LaLiga recognizes that its comments go beyond the scope of the USTR’s efforts but believes that highlighting the piracy-facilitating role of these businesses is important.

“While it is not the primary focus of this submission, it is important to highlight the significant role that certain intermediary based in the United States, such as Google, Cloudflare, Coredeluxe and X (formerly Twitter), have played as essential facilitators in the continued rise of piracy throughout 2024.”

“These platforms and service providers offer critical infrastructure or services that enable piracy networks to thrive, including Anonymization, Content Delivery Network (CDN), Domain Name System, VPN, hosting, content indexing and social media promotion,” LaLiga adds.

LaLiga doesn’t go into detail on what it believes these companies do wrong, or how this could be addressed. That said, from previous reports we know some of the most common complaints.

For example, Cloudflare is often berated by rightsholders because it makes it less straightforward to pinpoint the hosting location of pirate sites and services. For its part, X has been criticized for not taking immediate action in response to takedown notices.

Global De-Indexing

We’re unaware of any common complaints against Coredeluxe. Regarding Google, however, LaLiga previously complained about pirated apps on Google Play, and pirate sites and services showing up in Google search.

Google recently decided to de-index pirate domains from search results in countries where these domains are blocked by court orders or administrative action. However, LaLiga said in August that the measure is insufficient.

“The effective solution that Google must implement and enforce is to implement mechanisms that allow for the complete global de-indexing of those websites and domains that accumulate a high number of de-indexing requests,” LaLiga said.

“In addition, it is proposed that Google adopt preventive control measures to prevent illegal streaming, IPTV services from being indexed in its search engine in the first place.”

UK and Germany

After criticizing American companies, LaLiga goes on to recommend several countries for inclusion on the USTR’s Special 301 watch lists. They include familiar names such as China and Russia, but also two clear outliers.

LaLiga recommends that the UK and Germany should be added to the USTR’s Priority Watch List. Reserved for countries with serious intellectual property problems that deserve increased attention, the Priority Watch List is the highest category available.

As justification for this nomination, LaLiga mentions a few examples of pirate sites and services that are presumably linked to these counties.

The UK and Germany are generally not seen as countries with serious shortcomings when it comes to copyright policy and enforcement. After two decades of Special 301 reports, neither country has ever made onto the Watch List, let along the Priority Watch List.

Interestingly, the UK and Germany are also the homes of LaLiga’s closest competitors, the Premier League and Bundesliga. But that must be a mere coincidence.

Whether any of LaLiga’s recommendations will be reflected in the USTR’s final Special 301 report remains to be seen.

—

LaLiga’s recommendations are available here (pdf). They include the following countries.

– Priority Watch List: China, Peru, Hong Kong, Russia, Romania, UK, Germany, Estonia and Ukraine.

– Watch List: Argentina, Macao and Singapore.

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In a world where many things seem vulnerable to change at a moment’s notice, the same world viewed from a more distant vantage point hardly seems to change at all.

Whether for recreation or education, demand for published content in various formats continues to thrive. Yet a closer view reveals bricks and mortar book stores and traditional libraries in decline, and licensed digital libraries invisibly replacing both online. Not from a position of safety, however.

The world’s major publishers claim that unlicensed libraries cast a permanent shadow over authors’ ability to make a living from their work. Those same shadows also make it more difficult to predict whether today’s investments in publishing content will pay off, or find themselves copied at will and distributed for free on the world’s most popular shadow libraries.

Difficult or Impossible to Stop

Stopping these sites has proven impossible, at least to date. Relative newcomer Anna’s Archive faces the usual pressures, but thus far hasn’t been tested under the existential crisis conditions previously weathered by its infamous counterparts.

Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Libgen have consistently emerged relatively unscathed from lawsuits and numerous enforcement measures, despite what should’ve been insurmountable odds.

Libgen looked most precarious recently; its eventual demise may not have been swift, but with no new content aboard a captainless ship adrift, the risk of being invisibly replaced itself seemed increasingly likely. At least until unexpected repairs saved the day.

Site Blocking From the Shadows

In common with the movie and music industries, trade groups in the publishing sector view site-blocking as a useful tool in the broader fight against piracy. In the UK, the Publishers Association represents the interests of publishing companies both large and small. It also supplies a range of anti-piracy services, from conducting research and sharing insights, to the removal of content from various online services.

A significant component of the association’s anti-piracy work receives no mention on its official Content Protection and Enforcement page. Yet behind the scenes, the Publishers Association uses authority obtained at the High Court to compel the UK’s largest ISPs to block access to the shadow libraries mentioned above.

Publishers Elsevier and Springer Nature also engage in site-blocking in the UK. Since last November, all publishers appear to have stepped up their blocking efforts, at least in part due to a series of blocking circumvention measures deployed by Sci-Hub and Libgen, but by volume those attributable to Anna’s Archive especially.

Impossible to Shut Down, But Perhaps More Difficult to Find

In mid-November, Elsevier and Springer Nature identified several domains that facilitate access to Sci-Hub. Among them pismin.com, which immediately directs to a more recognizable domain, sci-hub.se. At the top of that page, visitors are advised of other domains to use (sci-hub.st and sci-hub.ru) in the event that sci-hub.se becomes inaccessible.

Elsevier & Springer Nature already have those domains covered. The list from November covers pismin.com, plus domains and subdomains including ac.cn.sci-hub.ru / ac.ru.sci-hub.ru, pubs.deutsche.orgs.sci-hub.se, and the initially confusing, sci-hub.st.sci-hub.se.sci-hub.st. An update in December added more of the same, including free.read.sci-hub.se.sci-hub.st and pubs.francais1.orgs.sci-hub.se; both likely crafted as blocking countermeasures but now blocked themselves, just like the others.

With responsibility for blocking Anna’s Archive, Z-Library and Libgen, the Publishers Association had a significantly busier period of blocking during November, December, and January. The deployment of dozens of country-specific subdomains under annas-archive.org appears to have been swiftly handled by the Publishers Association, as shown in the small sample below.

A new wave of Z-Library domains/subdomains, including z-library.sk, it.1lib.sk, es.1lib.sk, 1lib.sk, z-lib.gs, z-lib.fm, z-lib.gl, it.z-lib.gd, en.z-lib.gs, and id.z-lib.gs represents just a small sample from an unusually large list.

Easily recognizable Libgen-related domains are numerous too, mostly falling into two categories. The first group consists of straightforward main domains, including libgenesis.net, libgen.mx and library.bz. The second are instantly identifiable as proxy service domains, such as libgen.unblockninja.com, libgen.proxyninja.org, libgen.dirproxy.info, and libgen.pproxy.org.

In most cases URLs with this appearance facilitate access to Libgen, but are commonly operated by third parties as part of a general unblocking service.

While yet to be confirmed, there are signs that the subdomain whac-a-mole may not continue forever. Suggestions that new blocklist entries may be wildcard-enabled would eliminate subdomain countermeasures, while introducing a new requirement for additional domain purchases, potentially in very large numbers.

For some sites, that might amount to an irritant. For those yet to automate such tasks while also on the advertising revenue brink, it might even prove terminal.

Not for the sites mentioned here necessarily (despite mounting bills), but others perhaps, and there’s no shortage of supply.

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The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

Downloading content without permission is copyright infringement. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources.

This week we have three newcomers on the list. “Moana 2” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on February 03 are:

Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend