In October, Musi filed a lawsuit against Apple after the company removed the music streaming app from the App Store.

Filed at a California federal court, the Musi complaint states that the takedown was unjustified and accuses Apple of breach of contract, among other things.

Wasting no time, Musi requested a preliminary injunction to compel Apple to reinstate the music app. While existing users still have access to the software, it’s no longer available for new users to download which directly impacts revenue. If this continues, Musi will eventually be put out of business.

Apple Justifies ‘Removal’

Last month, a response was filed in court by Apple, opposing Musi’s request for a preliminary injunction. The company argues that the terms of the Apple Developer Program License Agreement (DLPA) allow the company to delist apps “at any time, with or without cause.”

While claiming neutrality in these disputes, Apple stated that multiple complaints led to its action, including legitimate concerns aired by YouTube and music industry rightsholders.

“Apple’s decision in this instance followed numerous, credible complaints alleging that the Musi app violates the legal rights of third parties,” Apple wrote to the court, mentioning complaints from various music industry parties.

Musi Sees a ‘Backchannel’ Removal Scheme

Last Friday, Musi filed a reply brief in support of its request for an injunction, countering Apple’s stance. According to the app developer, Apple isn’t as neutral as it would like the court to believe.

Unfair & Tainted
 

On the contrary, Apple allegedly engaged in private discussions with stakeholders including Google and this alleged ‘backchannel’ influenced the removal decision.

“Apple positions itself as exercising this power as a neutral party that does not favor one app developer over another, but Apple’s Opposition reveals that it used its power over the App Store as part of a larger backchannel scheme with music-industry conglomerates bent on Musi’s destruction,” Musi writes.

As an example, Musi notes that YouTube’s ‘five-word’ app store complaint was preceded by direct discussions between Apple and the music streaming platform. Musi was never involved in these discussions, and YouTube didn’t reply to Musi’s outreach after the complaint either.

Misinformation?

Apple cited numerous app disputes in its opposition brief, but Musi argues these were misrepresented to the court. For example, IFPI’s complaint expressly disavowed any claim under U.S. copyright law, Musi notes.

In addition, Apple references a 2023 complaint from Sony Music Entertainment (SME). However, that dispute didn’t come from Sony at all, but from IFPI. This was confirmed by the music company over email, as shown below.

“[W]hen Musi attempted to open a dialogue with SME, SME stated that it had no complaint, and that the complaint belonged to IFPI,” Musi writes.

A letter sent by the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) to Apple further added to the ‘tainted backroom’ picture, as Musi highlights that it includes various false claims.

Alleged False Claims

All in all, Musi contends that Apple’s decision is based on a one-sided view. This includes numerous claimed inaccuracies, as well as “hit pieces” by the press, which were allegedly commissioned by the music industry.

“Those articles signify nothing other than a one-sided press push by the same players involved in the backroom discussions with Apple, seeking to conjure up an image of support for Musi’s removal,” Musi writes.

(Note TF: These supposed hit pieces include one of our previous articles, which detailed the music industry’s plans to put pressure on the app. For the record, this article was independently written and certainly not commissioned, directed or approved by anyone else.)

‘A Damaging Backroom Deal’

If copyright concerns were the primary motivator, Apple could have taken action against the YouTube app as well, Musi notes. After all, YouTube receives an astronomical number of copyright complaints and has been involved in various copyright lawsuits.

Musi was never sued, not even by IFPI, which previously considered taking legal action. Instead, Musi was removed after a five-word complaint from YouTube, without a real opportunity to defend itself.

This, Musi argues, puts the future of its business at risk. Musi is currently missing the typical inflow of over 886,000 new users a month. In addition, a future iOS update may render the app inoperable even for current users.

All in all, Musi believes that the removal decision was not the result of a neutral review process. Therefore, the app should be reinstated through a preliminary injunction while the legal challenge unfolds.

“Apple removed the app because a select few music industry conglomerates saw the Musi app as a threat and, using unique access to Apple, engaged in backroom conversations to ensure that the Musi app could no longer compete on the platform.

“Apple’s claim to unfettered discretion is only a quest for power to operate the App Store for the benefit of a few powerful stakeholders, and at the expense of small developers—exactly what happened here. Granting Musi’s motion avoids that outcome.

—

A copy of Musi’s reply in support for the preliminary injunction is available here (pdf)

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

TorrentGalaxy has had its fair share of issues over the past few months.

Update December 9: The troubles continue for TorrentGalaxy. After a few days with technical issues, the site is currently unreachable. Perhaps more updates or maintenance? No further information is known but the site’s owners have not informed the staff.

In June, many users feared that the site had thrown in the towel, displaying only a cryptic message that read “4ever?” to visitors. This came as a surprise, even to the site’s top staffers, who had no clue what was going on.

The site eventually returned as if nothing ever happened and resumed its operations. The purpose of the downtime was never clarified and most people forgot about it until the site went offline again in September with another cryptic message.

With the rumor mill in full swing, claims from ‘moderators’ about the site’s demise started to circulate. However, those turned out to be unfounded as the site made yet another comeback after a few days.

Meanwhile, users began noticing occasional technical issues with the site, including periods of downtime such as today. Visitors to the site currently see the following message: (site’s back on October 18)

“Site is temporarily unavailable due to automated maintenance or some mook spilling coffee in the wrong places.”

TorrentGalaxy Down

These recurring issues are unusual for TorrentGalaxy which never suffered from long stints of downtime in previous years. So, why is this happening now?

‘New Owners’

After speaking to several sources, we can now offer some broader context. Apparently, the site has changed owners recently. The initial ‘maintenance’ was presumably part of this handover and could also play a role in other recent issues.

TorrentFreak spoke to one of the TorrentGalaxy’s original founders, who confirmed the change of ownership. We tried to get in touch with the new operators to hear their side of the story, but they haven’t replied.

Takeovers of pirate sites are not uncommon, but given TorrentGalaxy’s community-driven history, this is a noteworthy event.

Finding out more details about the takeover appears impossible, however. The co-founder we spoke to claims not to have been involved in selling the site and the person who was in charge of the sale can’t be reached.

How it All Began

While we don’t know where the site is heading under its new owners, the co-founder did provide some more background on how TorrentGalaxy got started. That, by itself, is a story worth sharing.

The co-founder prefers to remain anonymous, so here we refer to them using the fictitious nickname “Genesis”. For the record, what follows is the account of one person and should be interpreted as such.

The origin story takes us back to late 2017, when ExtraTorrent had just shut down. At the time, Genesis came up with the idea to start a new torrent site. A developer was approached to code it from scratch, but the end result wasn’t satisfactory, so that initial project stranded.

During this time, many former ExtraTorrent members stayed connected, often using the chatbox of another popular torrent site, 1337x. When Genesis shared their plans for a new torrent site there, “Cameron” (another pseudonym), also a former ExtraTorrent user, offered assistance.

Both founders brought something essential to the table. Cameron had plenty of coding experience and took care of all the technical aspects. Meanwhile, Genesis helped out with the finances until the site could sustain itself though advertisements.

Within months, an idea born in a chatbox became TorrentGalaxy, which quickly built a thriving community. In just a few years, ‘TGx’ grew into one of the largest torrent sites, serving millions of visitors each month.

It was already public knowledge that former ExtraTorrent members founded the site, but this backstory adds some more color. What began as a simple chatbox conversation, triggered a transformation worthy of ‘notorious pirate site status‘, and the associated legal pressure that comes with it.

The reason for the site’s sale remains unknown. We understand that Genesis and Cameron are no longer in contact. Perhaps they prefer to leave the past behind, regardless of TorrentGalaxy’s future.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 The DMCA takedown procedure may not be perfect but, for those intending to use it, there’s an unambiguous step-by-step process that’s been in place for a quarter of a century.

Needless to say, entities that deviate from the established rules can make life difficult for themselves as well as the intended recipients of takedown notices. That includes entities that attempt to use DMCA takedown notices to enforce trademark disputes, or prefer to avoid the DMCA altogether by portraying copyright complaints as something more serious.

Itch.io Taken Offline By Bogus Complaint

In a post on X.com early this morning, indie videogame storefront Itch.io said its platform had been effectively taken offline following a “bogus phishing report” that resulted in the disabling of its domain by the platform’s domain registrar.

“I kid you not, @itchiohas been taken down by @OriginalFunko because they use some trash ‘AI Powered’ Brand Protection Software called @BrandShieldltd that created some bogus Phishing report to our registrar, @iwantmyname, who ignored our response and just disabled the domain,” the company complained.

The events that led up to this disaster (at the time of writing the domain has still not been reinstated) seem to highlight an imbalance. While platforms swiftly respond to complaints, they seem far less eager to address the consequences of erroneous takedown requests.

Copyright Complaint Was ‘Upgraded’ to Fraud/Phishing

In a post on HackerNews hoping to draw attention to the situation, ‘Leafo’ from Itch.io explains the origins of the complaint. From their knowledge of the initial trigger, a DMCA complaint was the obvious mechanism to achieve the desired result. Instead, a company called BrandShield Ltd took a different approach.

“I’m the one running itch.io, so here’s some more context for you: From what I can tell, some kid made a fan page for an existing Funko Pop video game (Funko Fusion), with links to the official site and screenshots of the game,” Leafo explains.

“The BrandShield software is probably instructed to eradicate all ‘unauthorized’ use of their trademark, so they sent automated reports to our host and registrar claiming there was ‘fraud and phishing’ going on, likely to cause escalation instead of doing the expected DMCA/cease-and-desist.”

Leafo confirmed that around five to six days ago, Itch.io’s host Linode and its domain registrar iwantmyname.com, forwarded reports of the complaint. In response, Itch.io took the disputed page down with Leafo sharing his concerns with both companies, presumably over the way the problem had been addressed.

“I expressed my disappointment in my responses to both of them but told them I had removed the page and disabled the account. Linode confirmed and closed the case. iwantmyname never responded,” Leafo notes.

Domain Suspension Prevents Itch.io From Doing Business

On Sunday evening, Leafo received an alert and went on to discover an ominous status for the Itch.io domain.

“(i) noticed that the domain status had been set to ‘serverHold’ on iwantmyname’s domain panel. We have no other abuse reports from iwantmyname other than this one.

“I’m assuming no one on their end ‘closed’ the ticket, so it went into an automatic system to disable the domain after some number of days. I’ve been trying to get in touch with them via their abuse and support emails, but no response likely due to the time of day, so I decided to ‘escalate’ myself on social media.”

So Who Takes The Blame?

Despite identifying a possible failure on the part of iwantmyname, Itch.io appears to be pointing the finger of blame at BrandShield, the originator of the initial complaint.

Leafo believes that incorrectly stating that Itch.io was engaged in “fraud and phishing” was an escalation attemp to obtain a more significant result than usually available under the DMCA takedown process.

“I honestly think they’re the malicious actor in all of this. Their website, if you care: https://www.brandshield.com/,” Leafo wrote.

In these types of cases, intent can be difficult if not impossible to prove. However, if the BrandShield promotional document on the right remains current, the anti-phishing service offered by the company operates as SaaS and may allow its clients to initiate action too.

Whether the entire system was automated in this case is unclear. The type of nefarious identity-stealing phishing activity portrayed on the BrandShield website is clearly a big step up from the fan page content created by the user on Itchi.io. In any event, an incorrect enforcement tool prompted an incorrect takedown mechanism, and seems to have led to a disproportionate end result.

Google Transparency Reports

Numerous takedown notices sent previously by Brandshield to Google are available for browsing within the company’s Copyright Transparency Report. As seen here, successful takedowns are vastly outnumbered by those that fail, usually after being rejected by Google.

Without drawing any conclusions on whether the takedowns were warranted, in many cases it appears that Google refused to take action because BrandShield attempted to use the copyright takedown mechanism offered by Google to address alleged trademark infringement.

While that would be convenient, it’s impossible to send a valid DMCA takedown notice for alleged trademark infringement.

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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 two newcomers on the list. “Juror #2” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on December 09 are:

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

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Cloudflare, a global internet infrastructure company, offers various services to millions of users, including connectivity and privacy tools.

While primarily a conduit for internet traffic, Cloudflare occasionally hosts content permanently on its servers.

The company’s approach to copyright complaints differs based on the role it plays. If Cloudflare merely passes traffic along (for a website using their CDN), they forward DMCA takedown notices to the actual hosting provider, which is often hidden from public view.

When Cloudflare actually hosts reported content, it will remove or disable access to it, following the procedures set forth in the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. § 512(g).

Cloudflare Copyright Takedowns on the Rise

Historically, Cloudflare hasn’t hosted much content. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the number of takedown requests for this type of content has been rather minimal, averaging between 1 and 3 reports per year between 2018 and 2020.

In the years that followed, this number started to pick up. According to Cloudflare’s latest published transparency report, the company received 376 DMCA reports in the first half of last year. More recent data is not available yet.

Cloudflare DMCA Reports
 

In addition to the transparency report, which is published with a delay of more than a year, Cloudflare also started sharing takedown requests with the Lumen Database. These are updated weekly, and suggest that the takedown volume is growing.

Pirate Sites Targeted

Thus far, Cloudflare has shared more than 2,000 takedown notices publicly, most of which are from 2024. These notices target URLs from Cloudflare pages, Images and R2, including links that are typical pirate sites, such as yts.cx, ytsmovie.cx, limetorrents.unblockedstream.online, and movielair.cc.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, for example, reported several domain names that are currently blocked by local court orders. Through these notices, the group asks Cloudflare to inform the website owner and the hosting company to shut these sites down.

“This letter is to a) inform the owner of the Website of the infringing and illegal character, with the demand to immediately cease the operation thereof, and b) inform the hosting provider concerned of the infringing and illegal character, demanding to immediately cease its services in relation to this website,” the notice reads.

Takedown notice

These types of notices are not new. Cloudflare has received complaints for many large pirate sites, including The Pirate Bay. In this case, however, Cloudflare appears to be involved in hosting.

HTTP Error 451

Takedown notices for passthough services are not recorded as valid takedown notices. In hundreds of recent instances, however, Cloudflare did take action, replacing the reported URLs with an HTTP error 451 notice.

Unavailable For Legal Reasons (Error 451)

The HTTP 451 Error code was invented for situations where content is made inaccessible for legal reasons. Cloudflare uses this for DMCA takedown removals, linking these to the Lumen Database reports.

For example, the yts.cx link to a pirated copy of “Bad Boys II” is made inaccessible by Cloudflare, honoring the takedown request. This is a targeted intervention, as all other yts.cx URLs remain accessible.

The same applies to the URLs of other pirate sites that are presumably hosted by Cloudflare. The company makes the reported URLs unavailable, as requested, while keeping the other URLs untouched. The 451 error notice is Cloudflare’s way to inform the public that it complied with a copyright complaint.

In addition to the classic pirate site URLs, Cloudflare also made plenty of other content unavailable, including streaming sports stream playlists reported by beIN, and an infringing Zelle Pay app.

The full extent of Cloudflare’s presumably increased takedown activities remains unknown, but the company’s forthcoming transparency reports are expected to provide more details.

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 After investing huge resources into tackling pirate IPTV platforms as significant as the one reportedly taken down last week, a little stagecraft should be as expected when authorities and rightsholders declare victory.

Information suggests that the blackout impacted supply across Europe and beyond, so a small amount of window-dressing on the number of users affected and profits generated don’t really have a misleading impact. There’s no denying the importance of the operation either; a lot of information was shared by the authorities and while difficult to confirm, in general most things felt coherent and unforced.

As previously highlighted, negatives related to these types of operations usually receive no mention, even when so serious that they completely undermine statements made just hours previously.

There’s nothing like that following last week’s operation, but it will be a serious concern that end-users whose providers relied on those streams were mostly without service for just 48/72 hours, several sources suggest.

Clearly, users of these services need to be dissuaded.

The Importance of User Attitudes

There are well-publicized efforts to convince users of pirate services that they’re incurring various risks, up to and including being sent to prison.

In Greece right now there are hundreds of news articles (unrelated to the events of last week) reporting on a “landmark” and/or “historic” decision by a local court to send a pirate IPTV subscriber to prison for five months. We reviewed a total of 62 of these articles and selected two for illustration purposes within this article (translated from Greek).

Leaving aside that a casual reader might believe the sentence was connected to events last week (zero action reported in Greece by Europol), the article is consistent with the majority of dozens of others in claiming a “historical precedent” (first time a user has received a custodial sentence), a “significant shift” in judicial attitudes, and interestingly “a return to the rule of law.”

Common Details in the Majority of Articles

There appears to be no question that the defendant was indeed a pirate IPTV subscriber, but pleading not guilty with the defense outlined below seems quite the long shot. There seems no reasonable basis to criticize the Court’s conclusion that the defense lacked credibility, at least how the case is being reported.

“The judges concluded that the consequences of piracy cannot be considered ‘minor,’ given the enormous damage it causes on multiple levels,” a report from Skair.gr reads.

The Skai article is cited on many occasions as the source of this news, likewise a video news report from sister company Alpha TV.

Effectively a Single Source For All Articles

Both Skai and AlphaTV news are owned by broadcaster Alpha Satellite Television SA and in their reports, both state that the trial judges rejected the notion that the defendant’s viewing of pirate IPTV streams was anything other than a serious matter.

“According to the evidence presented at the trial, pay-TV piracy causes serious economic and social consequences, such as revenue losses for the Greek State from the non-collection of VAT and tax revenues and the parallel circulation of ‘black money’,” Skai reports.

“It causes damage to Greek society from the loss of jobs and the non-payment of remuneration to creators. And it increases crime as pirate organizations have a clear criminal organization structure with a multitude of parallel criminal crimes. And finally, piracy causes financial disaster for providers from revenue losses and degradation of the quality of services.”

These talking points are well-worn industry standards across the world. The articles state that these claims were provided in evidence, so these aren’t necessarily the words of any or all of the three judges. Yet this is where things start to get interesting.

The Important Details Are Those That Didn’t Get Reported

Let’s start with the basics that any journalist would include in the most mundane of reports. Despite being central to the entire ‘historic decision’ the defendant almost seems irrelevant.

Privacy issues surrounding real names aside, there is no indication whether the defendant is a 29-year-old man from the Athens area, or a grandmother in her sixties from Thessaloniki. Since this was a criminal case, details such as when the investigation began or even when the person was arrested and what for – nada, nothing.

And there’s the Court where the historic decision was handed down, the Athens Court of Appeals for Misdemeanors. If we assume that having “Court of Appeals” in the title means what it says, logically this can’t be the first trial. So when was the first trial, what were the allegations, in which court did it take place, and what was the outcome?

For that matter, on what basis was there an appeal? Did the defendant get found not guilty? If so, when was the announcement and if not, why wasn’t there an announcement in the interests of balanced reporting?

Given the industry standard evidence in respect of the damage caused by IPTV, it should be safe to assume there is an injured party, such as a broadcaster or similar rightsholder.

Who is that party or parties?

Perhaps more to the point, why isn’t that party and all the other major rightsholders in Greece, all over this landmark decision and wringing every last piece of value out of it? Having got a headsup on the historic event, why isn’t a single source mentioned in the initial report?

Why hasn’t any major rightsholder welcomed the decision in public? This is exactly what many have been demanding for the last few years yet now, all of a sudden, nobody wants to own it, celebrate it, or even give it a mention?

Nobody is Going to Prison

Why many reports insist that the anonymous defendant is going to prison is unclear. A source familiar with the Greek legal system informs TF that a five-month sentence would almost certainly be suspended, likely for a period of three years.

Effectively, if the defendant stays on the straight and narrow, no prison time will be served. Interestingly the issue of compensation hasn’t been reported at all, which is very unusual when the entertainment industries are involved. Again, the suspended aspect of the sentence would likely ensure nothing would be paid anyway.

Of course, all of these issues are extremely relevant and could be easily cleared up in a handful of minutes. Instead, a story with no cited source has effectively become the single source of truth without providing any of the important details that might explain why such a long sentence was warranted.

Previous convictions perhaps, or breaching an injunction? Absconded foreigner, we’ve seen that before. It’s all guesswork really, unlike the details of another anti-piracy initiative that’s stated on record as actually working.

Cosmote TV / Nova Deal Was a Success

In the summer we reported how two of the largest streaming platforms in Greece launched a highly experimental approach to tackling piracy; cheap bundles, to lower the costs for legitimate viewers.

Cosmote TV and Nova signed a new deal designed to provide customers with access to more sports for less money. Starting on August 23, subscribers of one service could get content from the other, for a minimal extra charge. According to a Business in Brief report, that really hit the spot.

The value brought by the summer agreement between Cosmote TV and Nova was pointed out by the CEO of OTE, Kostas Nebis, during the analysts’ briefing on OTE’s figures.

 

Mr. Nebis emphasized that through the agreement Cosmote TV subscribers increased in the third quarter, with the number of new subscribers setting a new record in September. He estimated that this upward trend will continue until the end of this year, while also in 2025 it will give a boost to the company’s figures.

 

He noted that the promotional period, during which Cosmote subscribers had free access to Nova’s sports content, ended at the end of October, while at the beginning of this month, the application of the additional charge of €3 on a monthly basis began. Something that will be seen in the group’s revenues, in the figures it will announce in the first quarter of 2025.

 

Mr. Nebis emphasized that piracy is receding, but many steps still need to be taken. The penetration of legal subscription television in our country is 30%, a much lower percentage compared to the average of European countries.

It’s rumored that Greece will soon begin fining IPTV subscribers €600, payable to the Greek tax office, should they be unlucky enough to have their personal details exposed in the event their supplier gets busted. It’s unlikely that those numbers will be extremely high so perhaps having a prison sentence hanging in the air could prove useful.

Credible sources prepared to go on record are useful too, but the people can’t have everything.

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 Over the past several years, Destiny 2 creator Bungie has pursued legal action against several cheat sellers and cheat makers.

This has resulted in a number judgments and settlements in Bungie’s favor, but the gaming company isn’t done just yet.

Furthering its efforts to protect the integrity of its games, last year Bungie filed a second lawsuit against numerous individuals allegedly involved in cheat maker and distributor operation Ring-1.

Filed at a Washington federal court, the complaint named numerous defendants with others listed as John Does. While it would have been easy to let these ‘anonymous’ cheaters slide, Bungie vowed to leave no stone unturned, stating that the days of cheating “without fear of consequences are over.”

Bungie’s Warning

Relentless Pursuit to Unmask Cheaters

Bungie’s strongly worded warning was no bluff. During the past year, the game company used third-party discovery to gather more information on both the named defendants and the anonymous Does. Over a dozen names and nicknames were added to the lawsuit, and more could follow.

In August, Bungie filed a sealed motion for expedited discovery, requesting permission to subpoena additional third parties for information. The request was granted a month later, but the names of the target companies were redacted.

Discovery Granted
 

The United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken was later confirmed as one of the targets. Kraken is a brand of Payward Inc. and a few weeks ago Bungie sent a subpoena to the company, requesting detailed information on the owner of a Bitcoin wallet.

Bungie Goes After Kraken Bitcoin Wallet

The subpoena doesn’t explain the relevance of the requested information, at least not publicly, but Bungie is asking for details related to the multi-signature wallet 36io3TPCi2i6muiBoiNkkJLCnw38PgrQWs.

According to blockchain data, this wallet was used to send and receive more than ten bitcoins between March 2021 and November 2024. At the time of writing, however, the wallet is completely empty.

Bungie is interested in any and all information relating to the wallet and its owner. This includes personal details, transaction records, access records, withdrawals, deposits, communication, IP-addresses, and more.

Some of the Requested Info

Wallet Owner Objects

The owner of the wallet remains unidentified for now, but the John Doe is not pleased with Bungie’s evidence gathering tactic. This week, they submitted a motion to quash the subpoena, arguing that it fails to comply with federal rules and international privacy regulations.

The “John Doe” explains, for example, that the subpoena doesn’t provide any evidence explaining why the wallet information is relevant for the underlying lawsuit. In addition, it allegedly goes beyond geographical limits, as the wallet owner is a European resident.

The European angle is also important from a privacy standpoint. The wallet owner reportedly used a European affiliate of Payward, which is bound to European privacy regulations including the GDPR. This means that personal information can’t be shared with the U.S. without proper safeguards.

“Apparently, a Payward affiliate located in the European Union that provided services to Objector transferred Objector’s information to Payward in the U.S. It is unclear how the EU affiliate justified such data transfer to the U.S.,” the motion to quash adds.

“Without binding measures ensuring compliance with GDPR standards, any transfer of Objector’s personal data would be unlawful under the EU’s GDPR.”

To strengthen this privacy argument, the filing references several cases where U.S. companies were fined in the EU for privacy violations. Uber, for example, received a 290 million euro fine because it transferred drivers’ data to the U.S.

Responding to the motion, Bungie argued on Thursday that the “John Doe” should reveal their identity. The company argues that parties must presumptively litigate under their real names, and pseudonymous litigation is reserved for “unusual cases.”

The court has yet to rule on the motion to quash, but it’s clear that Bungie’s efforts to unmask alleged cheaters aren’t always straightforward. After years of court battles, this won’t come as a surprise to the video game company.

—

A copy of John Doe’s memorandum of law in support of the motion to quash is available here (pdf)

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

In August, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized several domain names linked to Streameast, a popular live sports piracy site with millions of users.

The seizures were carried out by the book but did not achieve the desired effect, as Streameast remains available through alternative domains.

According to the site’s operators, they won’t stop until sports streaming is more affordable to the public. That message appeals to pirates, but also to opportunistic pirate site operators, who’ve successfully cloned the Streameast brand.

When users search for “Streameast” on Google, the top result is often the copycat site ‘streameast.to’. Official Streameast domains, like streameast.co, are buried deep in search results, making it difficult for users to find the official streaming service. This is a major problem for Streameast but one that may ease, due to the anti-piracy group ACE recently taking action against these copycats.

ACE Seizes Sports Streaming Domains

Over the past few days, dozens of sports streaming domains became unreachable. This includes streameast.to, but also other cloned pirate brands such as crackstreams.dev, crackstreams.biz, nflstreams.gg, nflbite.io, nbastreams.gg, markkystreams.com, methstreams.me, and many others.

Streameast.to can’t be reached
 

ACE has not yet commented on the domain seizures, but TorrentFreak is informed that the Motion Picture Association’s (MPA) anti-piracy unit is indeed responsible. This is also apparent from the ‘ns*.films.org’ nameservers used by the seized domains, which are registered to the MPA.

Streameast.to nameservers

Clones & Copycats

Most of the seized domains, listed at the bottom of the article, are unaffiliated copycats of known brands. This includes thecrackstreams.to, previously known as crackstreams.dev and crackstreams.biz. This is one of the most popular domains with roughly three million monthly visits.

Streameast.to had by far the most traffic. With over 15 million monthly visits, it had more traffic than the official Streameast domains, partly due to the domain ranking higher in search engines.

Clones can be so convincing that even people who hang out in the official Streameast Discord channel can be misled. Yesterday, some people were wondering why the site was down, referring to the seized copycat domain, not the real Streameast.

Down?

Streameast Must be Pleased

While the ACE crackdown is a blow to the copycat sites, it’s also a surprising victory for Streameast itself. Weeks ago, Streameast operator ‘quick’ compared these copycats to criminal gangs and pleaded for action against them.

“It’s perplexing that while the real Streameast domain names are being seized, the sites created by gangs who set up fake Streameast sites are still operational. These gangs replicate every major streaming site, employing spam tactics to rank high on Google, and they have no ethical values,” quick told us at the time.

“I wish the USA would choose to deal with these gangs instead of targeting us,” ‘quick’ added.

Although the U.S. Government was not involved in these seizures, ACE inadvertently gave Streameast’s operator what he wanted.

—

Information gathered by TorrentFreak suggests that the following domain names were seized. The complete list may be longer. These domains will likely be redirected to the “Watch it Legally” page in the near future.

thestreameast.vip, thestreameast.pro, thestreameast.gg, thestreameast.club, streameast.to, sportsurge.io, rnbastreams.net, redditmlbstreams.cc, nhibite.io, nflstreams.gg, nflbite.io, nbastreams.gg, nbabite.io, mmastreams.to, mmastreams.io, methstreams.me, methstreams.club, methstreams.cc, givemeredditstreams.me, footybite.io, boxingstreams.to, boxingstreams.io, crackstreams.club, crackstreams.dev, crackstreams.biz, thecrackstreams.to, streameast.to, markkystreams.com.

Update: we found some more…

methstreams.app , nba-streams.app, nfl-streams.app, nhl-streams.app, soccerstreams.app, nflbite.biz, nflstreams.biz, hesgoals.club, nflstreams.club, thestreameast.club, vipbox.club, viprow.club, bestsolaris.co, boxingstreamlinks.com, boxingstreamshd.com, cfbstreams.com, f1streamlinks.com, mlbstreamlinks.com, mlbstreamshd.com, mmastreamlinks.com, mmastreamshd.com, nba-bite.com, nbastreamshd.com, nflstreamlinks.com, nflstreamshd.com, nhl-bite.com, nhlstreamlinks.com, nhlstreamshd.com, soccerstreamlinks.com, soccerstreamshd.com, sport-surge.com, stream2watches.com, thebuffstreams.com, methstreams.info, buff-streams.net, meth-streams.net, vip-league.net, boxingstream.org, mlb66.org, nbastreams.org, nhl66.org, rnflstreams.org, rsoccerstreams.org, thebuffstreams.org, vipleagues.org, thestreameast.pro, streameast.stream, streameast.tech, nflstreams.top, thestreameast.vip, cfbstreams.xyz, redditsoccerstreams.xyz, soccerstreamlinks.xyz, viprow.xyz, crackstreams.biz, markkystreams.biz, crackstreams.club, crack-streams.com, crackstreams.dev, markkystreams.live, markkystreams.org, crackstreams.soccer

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 Apple’s position on obviously infringing movie and TV show streaming apps is that they’re not allowed on the App Store, period.

Hoping to reach a massive but restricted audience, so-called ‘stealth piracy’ apps employ trickery to circumvent Apple’s vetting process.

Over the past couple of years, stealth apps have made the headlines on a number of occasions and even attracted the attention of an Expert Group at the EU Intellectual Property Office Observatory. In general terms, these apps disguise themselves as a game or some other benign tool then once downloaded, users are able to ‘activate’ new functionality, such as streaming the latest movies and TV shows illegally.

Spreading Secrets

Whether a combination of secret key presses on a predetermined screen, or spinning around six times while holding an iPhone, secrets to unlock stealth apps eventually find their way to the intended recipients. According to Taiwan’s Criminal Police Bureau, there’s money to be made in the secret-spilling business.

In a statement issued today, police say that while investigating various online communities and websites, they discovered that “two prominent internet celebrities” were providing stealth app tutorials and download links. These allowed users to install apps such as “Multiple Choices” and “Shapes Find the Difference” from Apple’s App Store and then unlock them to obtain the pirate booty hidden inside.

In this case, Taiwan deployed a “special task force” to investigate the case and determined that the booty was live broadcast TV content owned by a member of Content Overseas Distribution Association, the Japan-based anti-piracy group also known as CODA.

Investigation and Raids

Authorities say that the investigation unit consisted of the District Prosecutor’s Offices in Taichung and Tainan, and the Intellectual Property Investigation Team of the Criminal Police Bureau.

Searches were executed on September 6 and October 29, 2024, at residential addresses in three locations; Taiping District in Taichung City, Anping District in Tainan City, and Zhubei City in Hsinchu County.

The three key suspects are all men, identified by a single name and their respective ages;

• Liang – 73 years old
• Shen – 62 years old
• Lin – 80 years old

Police say they were able to seize a number of items from the suspects’ residences including the following: 53 articles published on the website backend, 25 illegal video apps, 2 USB flash drives, 1 iPad, 1 mobile phone, 1 memory card, and various electronic records.

“The investigation found that this type of illegal app software initially disguised itself as a legitimate program not associated with video content. It then went through Apple’s App Store verification process before being made available for download,” a police statement reads.

“After installation, users could switch the software to pirated video mode by entering specific keywords or commands. The suspects used a well-known website operated by an individual to publish articles and provide download links, generating advertising revenue through click-through rates.”

Credit: Criminal Police Bureau Operational Diagram

All three suspects were arrested on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act. The case was transferred to the Tainan and Taichung District Prosecutors’ Offices for further investigation.

Large Audiences

It appears that content generated to support stealth app users can attract a decent sized audience. The two famous but currently unnamed influencers reportedly have over 400,000 followers and used their online presence to direct traffic to the stealth app tutorial website.

The articles on those sites were reportedly viewed 553,551 times. The apps linked in those articles allegedly provided access to a wide range of infringing content, from movies, TV shows, and anime, to live TV broadcasts and documentaries.

The unnamed copyright holder behind the complaint estimates the market value of the content infringed at NT$600 million ($18.5m)

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 With the arms race between pirate sites and rightsholders showing no obvious signs of cooling down, the online piracy landscape is becoming increasingly complex.

The existing toolbox of legal measures, such as action against domain names, site-blocking, search engine penalties, even whole-site deindexing, has led to the emergence of a new breed of shape-shifting, measure-evading, pirate sites.

Seemingly able to rebrand almost at will, it’s not uncommon for sites to reappear with new names and a new coat of paint, without any significant damage to existing traffic. Meanwhile, new sites and new brands, sporting multiple new domains, continuously vie for attention, as the illegal content continues to flow.

Human Moderators Can “Barely Keep Up”

In a statement issued this week, Japan’s Cultural Affairs Agency said the proliferation of illicit content online costs the country’s manga and anime industries billions of dollars each year in lost revenue.

Recent figures discussed as part of Japan’s comprehensive plan to combat infringement estimate the damage as somewhere between 1.9 trillion and 2.2 trillion yen (US$12.6bn and US$14.6bn); enough to “significantly increase Japan’s GDP” and “potentially eliminate” the trade deficit in content-related services, documents suggest.

The scale of the problem is well understood, but with an estimated 1,000 sites offering culturally significant manga and anime content for free, monitoring for the availability of pirated content online is a resource intensive task. Human moderators can now “barely keep up” due to the proliferation of illicit content online.

“Copyright holders spend a significant amount of human resources trying to manually detect pirated content online,” said Momii Keiko, a director at the Cultural Affairs Agency’s Copyright Division.

To level the playing field, Japan is looking towards a future where detection of illicit content will be less reliant on human intervention.

AI-Powered Pirated Content Detection System

To improve pirated content detection rates, Japan’s Cultural Affairs Agency has filed a supplementary budget request of 300 million yen (US$2 million) to fund a pilot program that will use artificial intelligence to detect pirated content online. The aim is to detect content using image and text recognition systems.

The proposed pilot is reportedly inspired by a similar program in South Korea. Announced mid-2023 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the program aimed to overcome the limitations of manual work based on human resources, by automatically detecting the emergence of new, cloned, or substitute pirate sites.

At least initially, the pilot program in Japan will focus on pirated manga and anime. If successful it could also be expanded to other content such as films, TV shows, music, and content from Japan’s wider publishing industries.

Success of Automated Systems Totally Depends on Accuracy

The success of automated detection systems lies in their accuracy; nobody benefits if detections lead to false allegations of infringement, or if illegal content slips through the net. These concerns appear to be front and center in Japan as rightsholders continue to tackle pirate sites.

TorrentFreak was recently able to review a transcript of a discussion which focused on international enforcement efforts spearheaded by the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA).

While highlighting anti-piracy successes and challenges in various countries, emphasis was placed on the importance of balancing anti-piracy measures with freedom of expression and the protection of communications privacy.

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In recent years, music industry groups have become increasingly concerned by tools that allow users to download MP3s from online streaming services, including YouTube.

These so-called ‘stream-rippers’ violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision; they argue.

This position resulted in thousands of circumvention takedown requests, which prompted Google to remove millions of stream-ripper URLs from its search engine. These removals also triggered a legal battle between stream-ripper Yout.com and the RIAA, which remains ongoing today.

YouTube hasn’t taken an official stance on the ‘circumvention’ argument but since its sister company Google honors these takedowns, it seems to agree with the music industry. However, not all MP3-related sites are inherently problematic.

MP3.to

A few weeks ago, Spanish music industry group Promusicae flagged hundreds of stream-ripper URLs in yet another anti-circumvention takedown notice. Grouped in with popular stream-rippers such as flvto, Y2mate, and 2conv was a clear outlier: MP3.to.

Promusicae Takedown
 

It’s important to note that MP3.to is not a stream-ripping tool. It cannot download content from third-party sites. Instead, this online tool focuses solely on converting audio files between MP3 and other formats.

MP3.to
 

File-conversion tools that convert MP3s, without built-in access controls such as DRM, are unlikely to violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. However, that didn’t stop Google from honoring the request and removing the URL from its search engine.

MP3.to Fights Back

The removal, which also affected the associated AdSense advertising account, came as a surprise to MP3.to and directly harmed its business.

To remedy the situation, MP3.to’s law firm Boston Law Group sent a cease and desist letter to Promusicae, describing the takedown notice as defamatory and false. The attorney urged the music group to correct the error by issuing a retraction within ten days.

“The Notice’s allegations that the Website provides technology or tools used to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to copyright works is categorically false and the Website unconditionally denies your allegations of wrongdoing.

“The Website does not decrypt any technological controls implemented to protect copyrighted works,” MP3.to’s cease-and-desist letter added.

MP3.to Cease and Desist, sent to Promusicae
 

In addition, MP3.to’s attorney Frank Scardino also sent a notice to Google explaining the situation. This letter explained that MP3.to adheres to relevant copyright law and doesn’t circumvent any protection measures.

Because there are no copyright infringements, MP3.to urged Google to undo all actions it took in response to the ‘false’ takedown notice.

“Therefore, the Website requests that Google disregard Promusicae’s Notice, restore Google’s Adsense account with respect to the Website, rescind any additional negative actions Google may have taken against the Website on account of the Notice,” the letter reads.

MP3.to’s letter to Google

Google Restores MP3.to

After receiving these letters two weeks ago and conducting an internal review, Google eventually reinstated the MP3.to URL. The associated AdSense account is no longer affected either.

A Google spokesperson informed us that all websites impacted by takedowns are allowed to request a re-review, after which errors can be corrected.

“Our DMCA removals process aims to strike a balance between making it easy and efficient for rightsholders to report infringing content while also protecting free expression on the web. We provide extensive transparency and submit notices to Lumen to ensure accountability,” the spokesperson said.

Note: Google previously said that there is no formal counter notification process available under US law for circumvention.

Promusicae has not yet responded to a request for comment. It’s possible that this takedown request was an inadvertent error on their end, confusing MP3.to with a stream-ripper.

Familiar Target & More Backlash

MP3.to operator Johnathan Nader is pleased with the outcome. Regular readers may recognize the name, as Nader is also the owner of stream-ripper Yout.com, and is actively engaged in the aforementioned legal battle with the RIAA.

Nader, who has grown skeptical of music industry groups, finds it “interesting” that he is being targeted yet again. In this case, however, things were resolved in his favor.

This brings us to the final issue with Promusicae’s takedown request. As it turns out, MP3.to was not the only file conversion site targeted. The same notice also lists online-audioconvert.com, video.online-convert.com, and similar tools.

Although these reported websites do not appear to circumvent any technical protection measures, the listed URLs remain removed from Google’s search results at the time of publication.

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 Those who follow mainstream tabloid media in the UK should be familiar with the risks of online streaming piracy by now.

There’s no country in the world where more ‘pirate box’ or IPTV resellers have been prosecuted. Meanwhile, the number of suspects who have received official warnings runs in the hundreds.

Local police, in collaboration with anti-piracy group FACT, carry out many of these enforcement actions. This practice dates back more than a decade and in recent years only seems to have intensified.

New Pirate Streaming Crackdown

Today, FACT announced yet another successful ‘crackdown’ where cease and desist letters were sent to thirty suppliers of illegal IPTV services across the UK. The warning urged them to stop immediately, or face criminal consequences.

The main goal of the two-week enforcement effort was to disrupt and dismantle online piracy. While most suspects received warnings, South Wales Police arrested a 42-year-old man who’s allegedly involved in the pirate IPTV business through sales of ‘illicit’ Firesticks.

The suspect remains under investigation and may eventually face criminal charges. To further combat illegal IPTV services, FACT has also issued takedown notices to various social media sites and online marketplaces.

The latest actions were “highly effective” according to FACT. They follow less than a month after ‘yet another‘ person was sent to prison for their involvement in the pirate streaming business, which shows that consequences can be severe.

‘Serious Consequences’

To emphasize that piracy doesn’t go unpunished, FACT CEO Kieron Sharp issued a stark warning via the press.

“Our cease-and-desist measures are not just warnings — they are the first step toward holding offenders accountable. Many who ignored these notices in the past are now facing arrest and criminal charges. We strongly advise anyone involved in these activities to stop immediately,” Sharp says.

“If you’re supplying or using illicit streaming devices or illegal IPTV subscriptions, take this as a clear warning: you are breaking the law and risk facing serious consequences.”

whack-a-Mole

While reporting in UK media can be dramatic and overblown at times, there’s indeed a real threat, as is exemplified by the many convictions over the years. However, for reasons unknown, the numerous warning campaigns, dating back many years, have yet to solve the problem.

Even rumored ‘Illegal Streaming Detector Cars‘, and ‘home visits’ to as many as a thousand pirate streaming subscribers, don’t appear to have eliminated the problem.

One could argue that without the efforts from FACT and police, things would be even worse today. However, it’s notable that after sending hundreds of warnings, new pirate IPTV sellers continue to surface. It appears to be an endless whack-a-mole.

Finally, it’s worth noting that FACT repeatedly targets Amazon’s Firestick brand in their headlines. This reached the point where the term “dodgy Firestick” has entered the lexicon. While these devices can be exploited, there’s nothing inherently illicit about the hardware.

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In November 2018, DISH Network filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Jadoo TV and its CEO Sajid Sohail.

Jadoo TV distributed self-branded set-top IPTV boxes and later various software apps. The DISH complaint described Jadoo TV’s operation as a “deliberate, multi-year effort” to distribute its exclusively-licensed TV channels without authorization, amounting to direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement under 17 U.S.C. Section 501.

From the beginning, DISH took the position that Sohail could be held personally liable because he authorized, directed, or participated in Jadoo TV’s copyright-infringing activities. Sohail argued to the contrary but in September 2020, the court found “plausible inference” that Sohail “authorized, directed, or participated” in the alleged infringement.

In June 2023, the court granted summary judgment against Jadoo TV and Sohail, finding them liable for direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement, noting that Sohail was personally liable as the “guiding spirit” behind the infringement carried out via Jadoo TV.

Final Judgment and Permanent Injunction

In a joint stipulation filed yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, DISH Network and Jadoo TV, Inc. and Sajid Sohail, filed a request that the Court enter a final judgment and permanent injunction.

“DISH and Defendants agree that a final judgment should be entered for DISH on Counts I, II, and III of the Amended Complaint for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501,” the request reads.

“DISH and Defendants also agree that damages should be awarded to DISH in the amount of $24,969,911, consisting of statutory damages of $14,550,000
for 97 registered Works (calculated at $150,000 per Work) and Defendants’ profits of $10,419,911 for 159 unregistered Works. 17 U.S.C. § 504(b), (c)(2).”

DISH and the defendants also agreed to the Court’s entry of a permanent injunction, effective immediately, enjoining Jadoo TV and Sohail and any other persons acting in concert, from infringing the plaintiff’s rights moving forward.

IBCAP Welcomes Conclusion of Long-Running Litigation

In an announcement welcoming the end of the long-running litigation which dates back to 2018, the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) celebrated the win alongside IBCAP member DISH.

“This final judgment and settlement marks the culmination of a six-year legal battle against one of the most popular South Asian services offering pirated content, Jadoo TV, and its CEO, who was found personally liable for the damages caused by his and his company’s copyright infringement,” says Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP.

“Today’s announcement sends a strong message that the end of the road for a pirate IPTV service is a significant monetary payment and loss of your entire business.”

The statement also revealed the existence of a separate settlement, one that has a financial component but also potential implications for entities that conducted business with Jadoo TV.

“Jadoo TV and Mr. Sohail agreed to transfer all Jadoo TV customer lists to DISH, transfer all Jadoo TV trademarks and domain names to DISH, and pay DISH $1,500,000 by Feb. 20, 2025,” the statement reads.

Details of the final judgment and permanent injunction are available here (pdf)

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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 two newcomers on the list. “Elevation” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on December 02 are:

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

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 Pirates who are into Asian drama and anime were hit hard over the past week.

On Wednesday, Dramacool announced that it would shut down its Asianc, Watchasia, Dramanice and Runasian websites, facing pressure from copyright holders.

These sites catered to millions of users, as is exemplified by the shutdown message on X, which has been viewed more than five million times already. While alternatives still exist, pressure is mounting.

Yesterday, the Spanish-language anime streaming portal AnimeFenix announced that it will also close its doors indefinitely. According to the team, the domain will be terminated following pressure from copyright holders. While exact details are lacking, the operators point a finger at Sony.

“Sony now owns more than 60% of the anime industry with the purchase of Funimation and now also Kadokawa. The call is for you as consumers to be aware of the monopolies that the big companies are creating and through local regulations in your countries,” AnimeFenix writes.

The pirate site is concerned that, by monopolizing the anime industry, legal content will become increasingly expensive. The creators themselves are not necessarily bearing the fruits of this. AnimeFenix’s role is finished, but the operators caution that piracy will prevail as long as the anime industry puts profits before its key assets; the creators and fans.

“Piracy will never go away as long as there are companies with more greed than heart,” the site’s operators warn.

AnimeFenix Farewell
 

With over 12 million monthly visits, AnimeFenix will certainly be missed by many. However, there are even darker clouds forming on the horizon as another anime juggernaut appears to be in trouble. Over the past few days, GogoAnime, also known as Anitaku, has stopped adding new content.

Together, GogoAnime and Anitaku have well over a hundred million monthly visits, making it one of the largest piracy portals to ever exist. While both sites are still accessible today, fresh content is no longer being added.

So far, the site’s operators remain silent. The sites have been linked to Dramacool, which means that it may face similar copyright pressure. However, even the main moderators of the Discord channel, who are typically in the know, haven’t heard from the site’s operators in days.

“No words from operators,” Discord moderator Undo wrote yesterday, dismissing rumors that the operators have formally thrown in the towel.

No Word
 

On the surface, GogoAnime’s downtime is reminiscent of the FMovies troubles that started earlier this year. At the time, FMovies simply stopped updating as well and, after a few weeks, the site shut down completely, together with many other piracy portals. We later learned that the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment helped Vietnamese authorities to topple the ‘piracy ring’.

Regardless of the reasons for GogoAnime’s troubles, they are being felt at many other anime streaming sites that use it as a primary content source. All sites that scrape or mirror GogoAnime face the same dry spell today.

Seeking Alternatives

Rightsholders hope that these enforcement actions will drive people to legal alternatives. While these may get a boost, many former Dramacool, AnimeFenix, and GogoAnime users will simply look for new pirate homes.

As a result, sites that remain online have seen an influx of new traffic over the past few days. This will undoubtedly increase the legal pressure on these alternatives, starting the cycle all over again. After all, an ‘invincible’ pirate site has yet to be invented.

On that topic, it’s interesting to note that the relatively unknown file-sharing software Tribler reportedly saw an influx of Asian content last week. This includes many Korean drama series.

Tribler is a BitTorrent client that’s been around for nearly two decades, developed by a research group at Delft University of Technology. The software uses decentralized search, removing the need for torrent sites, and has implemented ‘anonymity‘ by adding an onion routing layer to file transfers.

This technical setup makes the file-sharing network resilient to external pressure. While we can’t draw any direct connections, the fact that Tribler’s userbase more than doubled this week suggests that the recent Asian troubles drove some people to the software.

TorrentFreak spoke to Dr. Johan Pouwelse, leader of the university’s Tribler Lab, who confirmed that interest in the project surged over the past few days.

“Our network is running red-hot, but thankfully it is fully operational,” Pouwelse says. “We’re completely in the dark why we’re suddenly a hit as we are blind to the anonymous downloads on the network.”

Pouwelse notes that Tribler also witnessed a massive boost in users twelve years ago when Megaupload was pulled offline. At the time, Fox News touted Tribler as ‘invincible’ and the software has survived the rise and fall of many pirate sites since.

Whether any of these alternatives will ‘stick’ has yet to be seen, but the recent shutdowns and disruptions show that anti-piracy tensions remain elevated.

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Nintendo is doing everything in its power to stop the public from playing pirated games on the Switch console.

This involves sending a steady stream of cease and desist letters and takedown notices. If those don’t work, Nintendo is prepared to go to court as well.

Nintendo Sues r/SwitchPirates Mod

In July, Nintendo filed a lawsuit at a Washington federal court against Arizona-resident J. Williams, known online as ‘Archbox’. Nintendo accused Archbox of being involved in several ‘pirate shops’ through which copies of unauthorized games are distributed.

“Defendant is the operator, overseer, and driving force behind several Pirate Shops, through which Defendant has offered massive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games,” the complaint read.

Nintendo specifically named ‘Jack-in-the-Shop’, ‘Turtle in the Shop’ and ‘NekoDrive’, which were shut down following a cease and desist letter Nintendo sent in March. A fourth shop, LiberaShop, remained on Telegram, but shut down soon after the complaint was filed.

In addition to running these pirate shops, the defendant allegedly helped people to obtain and use circumvention software, so they could play pirated games. Nintendo says that this activity was boosted through the SwitchPirates subreddit, where Archbox was a moderator.

“Defendant became a leading (if not the primary) moderator of the SwitchPirates Reddit community, which he helped grow to nearly 190,000 members,” the complaint read.

According to Nintendo, the moderator used Reddit to direct people to pirate shops, show them how to download and install circumvention software, and guide them on playing pirated Nintendo Switch games.

Nintendo Seeks Info From Reddit, Discord, Google, and Others

After filing the lawsuit, Nintendo had trouble serving the defendant, but it eventually managed to do so in August. However, Mr. Williams didn’t file an answer to the complaint, which led to an entry of default earlier this month.

In the absence of a defense, Nintendo can now request a default judgment, ideally based on additional evidence not yet in its possession. As a result, Nintendo is requesting a subpoena to obtain information from Reddit, Discord, Google, GitHub, Namecheap and other third party services.

These companies may hold evidence to strengthen the claims against Mr. Williams and may be able to help identify additional defendants, including members of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit who were also involved in the pirate shops.

“[W]ithout third party discovery it will be impossible for [Nintendo] to ascertain the identity of the unnamed individuals who worked with Mr. Williams in operating the Pirate Shops or otherwise making available to the public pirated Nintendo games,” the company writes.

Nintendo says that it’s looking for limited information that can help to identify account holders and payment streams, as well as traffic and access statistics for the pirate shops.

Namecheap, Tucows, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, GitHub, Discord, Google and Reddit

Identifying More Reddit Users?

In addition to revealing the owners of various accounts, some companies can likely provide more detailed information. GitHub, for example, may know how often ‘circumvention’ software was downloaded, and Google can share Gmail data and traffic statistics for the files it stored.

Reddit may also hold key information, as the SwitchPirates subreddit plays a central role in the accusations. Nintendo believes that the defendant was a moderator there and may have controlled other user handles, or collaborated with other potential defendants.

Through the requested subpoenas, Nintendo hopes to get more clarity and potentially identify any additional defendants.

“Reddit is therefore likely to be in possession of information that will aid in preparation of Nintendo’s anticipated motion for a default judgment against Defendant, and that will assist in identifying any other individuals appropriate to name in an amended complaint.

“Reddit is also expected to have information pertaining to the growth of, and traffic to, the SwitchPirates subreddit during the relevant period of Defendant’s activities,” Nintendo adds.

Reddit Info

At the time of writing, the court has yet to grant the motion. If Nintendo is allowed to proceed, it’s possible that additionally defendants will eventually be added to the lawsuit.

—

A copy of Nintendo’s ex parte motion for leave to take limited early discovery is available here (pdf)

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The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) regularly conducts studies to see how piracy develops over time.

These studies help the public to understand local piracy trends and can be used as input for future policy decisions.

This week, EUIPO released another in-depth piracy report titled “Online Copyright Infringement in the European Union.” The research is part of a recurring series which has tracked European piracy rates since 2017.

Last year’s study, for example, revealed after years of declining piracy volumes, there was a small uptick of 3.3% in 2022. This rise was primarily driven by a surge in illegal TV streaming, which accounted for nearly half of all online piracy.

The latest report finds that in 2023 the piracy numbers have somewhat stabilized in the EU. However, it’s hard to make generalized statements as piracy habits differ greatly from country to country.

New EU Piracy Report

As in previous years, the research is based on data purchased from piracy tracking firm MUSO. This doesn’t measure piracy consumption directly. Instead, it is based on estimated visits to pirate sites.

The main findings can be summarized in one chart (pictured below). This shows that, similar to last year, there were an average of 10 piracy visits per user per Internet month across the EU.

In Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, and Lithuania, the number of visits was more than double the EU average (20+). On the other end of the spectrum, we see that Italy, Germany and Romania are the three countries with the least piracy visits per Internet user, between 7 and 8 per month.

2023 Piracy in the EU
 

The chart also reveals the most popular content categories per country. Across the EU, 50% of all pirate site visits go to TV content. In Malta, this goes up to 61%, while it’s ‘only’ 42% in France.

Software and movies piracy are relatively popular in Croatia, while Ireland has the highest percentage of music pirates. Finally, in France publishing piracy, which includes manga, is relatively popular with 37% of all visits.

Unemployment and Income Inequality

For those interested, the research delves much deeper into these content categories. However, our attention was drawn to the econometric analysis that aims to find drivers of the various piracy habits.

EUIPO reports that countries with higher average incomes and those where people are more aware of legal options tend to have less piracy. This suggests that, when people have more to spend, they pirate less.

On the flip side, factors such as youth unemployment, a larger youth population, and overall income inequality are linked to higher piracy volumes.

Econometric Findings

Digging more into the details, we see that these broader conclusions don’t always hold up. For example, the impact of youth unemployment on piracy varied depending on the type of content. For TV and music piracy, higher youth unemployment was surprisingly linked to lower piracy rates.

The study suggests this might be because unemployed young people may live with parents who pay for legal subscriptions. However, for film and live sports events, higher youth unemployment was still associated with higher piracy rates.

IPTV Surge?

Finally, EUIPO’s report makes an effort to capture some IPTV related trends as well. This has long been a gap in the reporting, as MUSO’s data is based on website visits. However, the research now uses visits to IPTV subscription signup pages as a proxy.

It finds that, in 2023, there was a 10% increase in visits to pirate IPTV registration pages, with an average of 2.14% of internet users visiting these websites each month.

Although the actual number of users who subscribe to pirate IPTV services is unknown, a simulation indicates that, even with conservative assumptions, 1% of EU internet users could have subscribed to illegal IPTV services in just two years.

These percentages are hard to interpret without a historical reference. Previously, research commissioned by Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), estimated that 4.5% of the EU population used pirate IPTV services in 2021. This number presumably went up in the following years.

All in all, the research provides a detailed overview of the piracy landscape. The year-over-year comparisons will help to evaluate policy and to determine where more progress can be made.

—

A copy of the “Online Copyright Infringement in the European union title-level study: Film, Music, Publications, Software and TV (2017-2023)” report, is available here (pdf).

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 Founded over a decade ago, Dramacool became a go-to destination for pirated copies of Asian dramas and related content.

The site was originally started by a group of ‘students’ who wanted to share their passion for this entertainment niche. But what started as a hobby, eventually became a multi-site streaming operation with tens of millions of users.

Most recently, Dramacool operated Asianc, Watchasia, Dramanice, and Runasian. The domain names used by these sites switched regularly due to blocking efforts and other problems.

Updates on these domain changes, as well as news about the latest dramas, were disseminated through Asianwiki.co, which functioned as an unofficial communication channel for Dramacool followers.

Dramacool Shuts Down

Earlier this month, several Dramacool domains ran into trouble again, becoming unreachable. Making matters worse, the Asianwiki.co information portal went offline too, leaving many users in the dark.

These issues didn’t come out of nowhere. The Dramacool sites have been under legal pressure for a while and yesterday, the site’s operators decided that they’ve seen enough drama.

“We are sorry to announce that we will be closing all 5 websites: Asianc, Dramanice, Watchasia, Runasian, Asianwiki. Due to the copyright, we cannot run the sites anymore. We apologize to every fan that always supported and loved DRAMACOOL,” the operators wrote on X.

Dramacool’s Farewell
 

The surprise shutdown came as a major disappointment to the many people who had made these sites a regular visit. This triggered an outpouring of responses on social media, mourning the sites’ demise.

“Oh nooooooo this is such a shame, because dramacool holds such an extensive archive of Asian media, it’s wonderful, stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else. I feel so sad that this will all be lost,” one fan wrote.

Responses

Recent Legal Troubles

The shutdown message doesn’t provide any detail on the “copyright” issues, but there have been a few recent developments that likely played a role. For example, three months ago the Delhi High Court in India granted a dynamic blocking order (pdf) that affected several Dramacool domains.

Domain blocking orders are not new. However, Indian court orders have done a lot of damage this year, also internationally. In this case, the order was requested by Warner Bros, Disney, Netflix, and other major Hollywood players, which adds additional weight.

Following the order, local ISPs blocked domains including dramanice.la, asianc.sh, and runasian.net. The order also applies to all new domains these sites register going forward.

While the legal paperwork doesn’t mention domain registrars as a party, previous blocking orders have. As a result, even international domain registration companies such as Namecheap have suspended the targeted pirate domains.

It’s possible that something similar happened here, as many of the Dramacool domains were indeed suspended. The Watchasia.to and Asianwiki.co domains, for example, now use the blockedforabuse.pleasecontactsupport.com nameserver associated with previous Namecheap suspensions.

Blockedforabuse…

Dramanice.la, Runasian.net, and Asianc.sh, meanwhile, were put on “clientHold status“, which is another way for Namecheap to suspend domain names.

With Namecheap taking a clear stand, Dramacool’s troubles grew, which likely factored into their shutdown decision. There may be much more going on behind the scenes, but it’s a clear signal that legal pressure was building.

Many of the movie companies that obtained the blocking order are part of anti-piracy coalition ACE. While this group hasn’t taken credit for or shared any in-depth information about Dramacool’s demise, we are informed that it will continue to crack down on pirate sites in the region.

“The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment is aware of these developments and will continue to take firm action against operators running illegal streaming services across the region, including operators based in Vietnam,” a spokesperson said.

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 Law enforcement operations targeting pirate sites and services are often enthusiastically described as ‘large-scale’ or ‘major’.

If reports emerging from authorities in Italy hold true, describing the international operation that culminated early this morning as massive, wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

Operation Takendown is said to have targeted what may be the largest pirate IPTV network serving Europe, authorities say, and the numbers involved are some of the largest ever seen.

The District Attorney’s Office of Catania, a Sicilian city with strong links to organized crime, claims that the network served 22 million subscribers and generated an estimated €3 billion per year, causing €10 billion in damages to subscription TV broadcasters.

Operation Takendown: International Cooperation

The operation was carried out through a collaboration between law enforcement agencies, including Europol and Eurojust, and the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA).

A total of 14 searches were executed in the UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, and Croatia. Servers and IPTV panels were traced to the UK and the Netherlands during searches that reportedly took place on Tuesday. In Croatia, police executed precautionary custody orders against 11 suspects.

Across all of these countries, 102 people are suspects in the investigation, including administrators of the IT infrastructure. The authorities say that the main servers in the network were located in the Netherlands, Romania, and China (Hong Kong), although no enforcement was reported there.

The action, which received funding from the European Commission, reportedly took down 2,500 illegally streamed TV channels, plus a number of servers used to manage the IPTV operation. Police also seized cryptocurrency valued at €1,650,000 and an estimated €40,000 in cash.

Prosecutor’s Office Provides Additional Detail

“On the basis of the evidence collected and to be verified in court, it appeared that the subjects from Catania and the Netherlands, with the participation of numerous other Italian and other European countries under investigation, through IT structures spread throughout the world, had carried out the conduct deemed illicit by this Office for a long period of time,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained in a statement this morning.

“These illicit activities were interrupted thanks to the seizure of these structures.”

The authorities describe a transnational organization, operating as a pyramid of suppliers, distributors, sellers, and resellers. The two-year investigation, which also involved intense monitoring of various social media platforms, identified two offices in Romania and Hong Kong, and nine servers said to be responsible for the supply of the illegal streams into Europe.

Three administrators of the service’s IT infrastructure and 80 IPTV panels used to manage subscribers, were traced to the UK and the Netherlands.

Fake identities and false documents were used to register phones, obtain credit cards, subscribe to TV channels, and rent servers. Police monitoring of IPTV forums and various profiles used to advertise the availability of streams, played a part in identifying the suspects.

Andrea Duilio, CEO of Sky Italia, the company that triggered the investigation with an initial complaint, thanked those involved.

“I would like to thank the Catania Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Postal Police, Europol, and the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance for this extraordinary operation in which we are proud to have collaborated,” Duilio said.

“These results are the fruit of great synergetic work that has allowed us to dismantle a criminal organization that operated on an international scale. Actions like this, together with the systematic contribution of Piracy Shield, that allows us to block pirate sites in real time, make the fight against a phenomenon that damages the audiovisual industry by destroying thousands of jobs, much more effective.”

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In 2020, the RIAA infuriated many players in the open source community by targeting YouTube-ripping tool youtube-dl.

The RIAA sent a takedown notice to GitHub, alleging that the software bypassed technological protection measures, in violation of the DMCA.

GitHub initially complied but later changed course. After consulting legal experts, including those at the EFF, it restored the youtube-dl repository. GitHub also launched a million-dollar defense fund to assist developers in similar disputes.

Targeting Youtube-dl’s Host

This episode was a massive setback for the music industry, which had been fighting stream-ripping tools for years. However, instead of laying down their arms, Sony Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music went after Uberspace, youtube-dl’s website hosting company in Germany.

Last year, the music companies prevailed in this lawsuit. The Hamburg Regional Court ruled that youtube-dl violates the law as it bypasses YouTube’s anti-circumvention measures.

Going one step further, the court also concluded that as a host, Uberspace can be held liable for youtube-dl’s activities. The hosting provider received a takedown notice for the website in the past but continued to host it. According to Uberspace, the software wasn’t clearly illegal, but the court ruled that the company should have known better.

Disappointed with the outcome, Uberspace owner Jonas Pasche swiftly appealed the ruling. According to Pasche, the court made a big mistake that could have far-reaching consequences for the hosting industry.

Court Rejects Appeal

While Uberspace hoped to overturn the lower court’s judgment, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg decided to reject the appeal in full. A copy of the order has yet to be made public, but the German Federal Music Industry Association (BVMI) describes it as a clear victory.

“This confirms the judgment of the regional court, which already required the defendants to stop providing the stream ripping software YouTube-DL. At the same time, the general liability for damages was established,” BVMI writes.

René Houareau, the music group’s Managing Director of Legal & Policy, notes that the court sends yet another clear signal that hosting companies of ‘infringing’ services can be held liable too.

“This is another judicial clarification and warning. Not only to the providers of stream ripping tools and the operators of the corresponding services, but also to the hosting providers: violations of the law have consequences and no one should benefit from them,” Houareau says.

Following the unfavorable ruling, Uberspace expressed disappointment with the court’s decision. Owner Jonas Pasche indicated that he is currently consulting with legal counsel to evaluate the viability of further appeals, but a final determination has not yet been reached.

Uberspace’s owner previously informed us that he was willing to fight the matter up to the highest court possible. If the current verdict stands, it’s a threat to all hosting companies, he argued.

“The consequences of this will be that hosting providers receiving complaints will most likely kick out their customers without a court ruling, for things that might be perfectly legal,” Pasche previously told us.

GitHub Hosts Youtube-dl Now

Interestingly, youtube-dl remains online. Uberspace was required to take the website offline last summer, facing a potential a fine of €250,000 or jail time.

At the moment, the YouTube download tool uses GitHub as its main hosting location. In addition to the code repository, the developers also have a GitHub hosted website on the platform.

The current youtube-dl website doesn’t differ much from the one that was hosted by Uberspace. Both have a rather minimalist look, as Tarnkappe notes. Whether the record labels intend to go after GitHub now is unknown. But that won’t be an easy fight.

GitHub previously concluded that the code doesn’t violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, so it’s not likely to take any action without the involvement of a U.S. court.

“We are taking a stand for developers and have reinstated the youtube-dl repo. Section 1201 of the DMCA is broken and needs to be fixed. Developers should have the freedom to tinker. That’s how you get great tools like youtube-dl,” GitHub CEO Nat Friedman said at the time.

—

Update: A redacted copy of the order is now available (pdf, German). We will write a follow-up article next week, when Uberspace’s owner has gathered all his thoughts.

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After Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States earlier this month, the world’s largest democracy confirmed a big win over Kamala Harris and a second term in the White House for the Republican.

Over in New Zealand, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom had spent much of November 5/6 posting to his account on X. Despite never having set foot in the United States, the outcome of the election had become increasingly important.

A Trump win would not only represent defeat for Dotcom nemesis Joe Biden, but also a slither of hope that his extradition to the United States wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a foregone conclusion by the Republicans.

As Dotcom became increasingly confident of a Trump win and excitement continued to build, in his own inimitable style, Dotcom decided to call it.

“It’s over!”

In the hours that followed, Dotcom celebrated Trump’s win, the rising value of Bitcoin, Biden’s demise, the apparent forthcoming demise of leaders in Europe. Only then did he sign off.

After that November 6 post, Dotcom’s account fell silent for the next three weeks.

Kim Dotcom Suffers “Serious Stroke”

On Monday, a post made in Dotcom’s name but most likely not by him personally, revealed that Dotcom had been hospitalized.

“UPDATE: I am recovering from a serious stroke. I have the best health professionals helping me to make a recovery. I will be back as soon as I can. Please be patient and pray for my family and I,” it reads.

According to NZ Herald, Dotcom suffered a stroke on November 7 and was taken to a local hospital. From there he was rushed to Dunedin Hospital for urgent treatment and remained there for more than two weeks. He’s now said to have been moved to a different hospital where his rehabilitation will continue.

Dotcom’s lawyer Ron Mansfield KC predicted that Dotcom is likely to remain in hospital for some time.

“It’s been very serious and we honestly did not know whether he would survive or what that looks like and we still don’t,” Mansfield told NZ Herald.

“Very little is known by us. We’re waiting for reports to come through, but we’re just taking everything day by day at the moment.”

Dotcom’s US Lawyer Confirms News, Declines to Elaborate

When reached by Newsweek, Dotcom’s US lawyer, Ira Rothken, confirmed the accuracy of the statement posted to X but declined to provide additional information. Rothken wouldn’t or couldn’t say whether Dotcom himself published the statement but during the last few hours, the question was answered by Dotcom’s New Zealand lawyer, Ron Mansfield KC.

“Kim’s health prevents him from communicating effectively,” Mansfield said. “Liz, his wife, is with him and she released the tweet.”

Mansfield said that further recovery “is likely” but what recovery will look like is currently unknown.

“Obviously we’re shocked by what’s happened. Hence why the legal team, but more importantly his young family, have been dealing with the health issues before we made it public,” Mansfield added.

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In 2019, Internet provider Cox Communications lost its legal battle against a group of dozens of record labels, including Sony and Universal.

Following a two-week trial, a Virginia jury held Cox liable for its pirating subscribers. The ISP failed to disconnect repeat infringers and was ordered to pay $1 billion in damages.

This case is one of many. Other ISPs have been accused of being similarly lax in their stance against alleged piracy. Rightsholders believe that ISPs are motivated by profit while the ISPs typically argue that they shouldn’t be held liable for the alleged wrongdoing of subscribers.

Landmark Piracy Battle

Cox challenged the verdict through several routes and in August, filed a petition at the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to hear the case. The Internet provider stressed that the current verdict ‘jeopardizes’ internet access for all Americans.

Around the same time, the music companies filed their own petition, hoping to strengthen the verdict at the Supreme Court. Specifically, the record labels argued that the ISP should also be held liable for vicarious copyright infringement.

Both petitions essentially boil down to questions on liability. Are ISPs liable for copyright infringement if they don’t disconnect subscribers accused of copyright infringement? And can ISPs be held liable for infringing subscribers, even if they don’t directly profit from their activities?

Supreme Court Shows Interest

These writs of certiorari ask the Supreme Court to clarify how current law should be interpreted. The Supreme Court typically has a high barrier to accept new cases but, once greenlighted, they could shape the law for decades to come.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court suggested that it is indeed interested in the questions. In an order where dozens of petitions were denied, those submitted by Cox and the music companies were referred to the Solicitor General.

“The Solicitor General is invited to file a brief in these cases expressing the views of the United States,” the brief comment reads.

From the Supreme Court’s order list (pdf).
 

The Solicitor General is a high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice who serves as the federal government’s primary lawyer before the Supreme Court. In the present cases, it can express the government’s position on the presented legal questions.

The referral signals that the Supreme Court considers the case to have significant implications for the federal government or federal law. If the Department of Justice agrees, it is more likely that the Supreme Court will take on these cases.

What’s the U.S. Government’s View?

While it’s clear that the Supreme Court is interested in these cases, the Solicitor General’s view is unknown. Thus far, the government has mostly stayed on the sidelines in these matters.

The most concrete suggestion came in 2020, when the U.S. Copyright Office released a report calling for clearer standards on what constitutes “reasonable implementation” of a repeat infringer policy. The perceived lack of clarity has led to inconsistent practices and legal uncertainty.

Those types of legislative changes are typically something that Congress should determine, but the Supreme Court can help to shape the legal interpretation of the DMCA as we know it today.

With hundreds of millions of dollars in damages on the line, a Supreme Court opinion is poised to provide some additional clarity in the ongoing DMCA “repeat infringer” controversy.

—

Update: A Cox spokesperson shared the following statement in response to the Supreme Court decision.

“We are pleased the Supreme Court has sought the views of the Solicitor General in this landmark copyright infringement case. We asked the Supreme Court to take this case because the lower court ruling would hold internet service providers liable for the conduct of their users, inadvertently harming non-infringing users, and jeopardizing internet access for all Americans.”

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 A man who previously admitted selling pirate TV devices recently appeared at Liverpool Crown Court for sentencing.

Hoping for leniency on three counts of fraud, Jonathan Edge’s defense evoked an image of a Robin Hood character stealing from the Premier League for the benefit of Sky TV-deprived local communities.

That went as well as could be expected, especially in light of the defendant’s previous convictions for fraud. That the piracy offenses took place while the Edge was on license following a three-year sentence for dealing cocaine, didn’t help much either. In that context, none of which was mentioned in the press release, the 40-month sentence handed down by the court doesn’t sound especially excessive.

Edge’s biggest mistake, however, was thumbing his nose at the Premier League. After takedown notices removed adverts for his service from Facebook and Instagram, he simply put them back up. Two years later, after signing a cease-and-desist order, Edge posted on social media that he would carry on regardless; he then went on to ignore multiple additional warnings.

Monitoring for compliance on home soil is trivial for the Premier League, but when similar understandings may have been breached in less predictable jurisdictions thousands of miles away, that brings a new set of challenges.

Notorious Markets: beIN / Miramax Submission

Previously the target of state-sponsored piracy as part of a wider diplomatic conflict, Qatar-based broadcaster beIN now faces similar piracy threats as its competitors. The same holds true for Miramax, the film and TV company 51% owned by beIN.

Every year the companies team up in a joint submission to the USTR’s review of notorious markets, outlining what they believe are the most serious piracy threats. What caught our eye in the submission’s browser-based streaming section is the number of sites that have faced enforcement action but through various means are effectively still in business.

WeCima

MyCima was once one of the largest pirate sites in the Middle East. The operation, which was purportedly operated from Alexandria, boasted over 50 million monthly visits and offered 12,000 movies and 26,000 TV shows. Reportedly taken down in February 2023, less than a month later there were already clear signs of a revival or resurrection, maybe even some kind of rebirth, under the brand ‘WeCima’.

Credit: beIN/Miramax submission

“Although MyCima was reportedly taken down by actions initiated by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) in February 2023, WeCima, a mirror version of MyCima with same content offered, was set up shortly after. It is already recording more than 18 million monthly visits,” the submission notes.

Platforms like MyCima and WeCima use various strategies to stay online, including the use of up to hundreds of domains. The ‘cima’ domains shown below are now under the control of the MPA, which effectively puts them out of action. Under what terms control changed is unknown but it most commonly happens via some sort of agreement.

The USTR submission states that WeCima also uses multiple domains to stay online.

“Apparently as a strategy to evade further enforcement actions, several WeCima domains and subdomains (wecima.click, wecima.co, mycima.wecima.watch, wecima.icu and many more) are continuously registered pointing at WeCima.cam,” it reads.

Shahid4u and Laroza

Further action in Egypt last September led to the reported shutdown of Laroza and the arrests of two alleged operators. Laroza was reportedly the largest pirate site in the Middle East and North Africa.

“Laroza is one of the oldest and most popular pirate websites in the Middle East and has a vast library of Arabic and international movies and series. Despite Laroza [being] reportedly taken down by actions taken by rightsowners in September 2024, new copycat domains have appeared online with the most significant being www.larozaa.net,” the report notes.

“Laroza’s operators have implemented an effective URL redirection strategy with redirections to multiple subdomains and TLD extensions applied daily or every other day. Some of their numerous domains used by the Laroza website are larona.one, laroza.vip, laroza.net, laroza.cam, laroza.tv, laroza.sbs among others. This strategy appears designed to circumvent enforcement and other disruption action taken by rights owners.”

A similar situation surrounds Shahid4u, which was taken down by ACE and Egyptian authorities in February 2023.

“Despite its closure, many copycat websites quickly surfaced. As of this writing, one of the prominent replacements is the domain www.shahid4u.my, which continues to operate alongside other similar domains such as shahid4u.watch, shahid4u.to, shahiid4u.cam, and shahid4u.diy.”

Whether the sites causing issues for beIN and Miramax are run by the same operators, their affiliates, or unconnected third parties, is difficult to prove. That being said, the speed at which they reappear in various forms suggests at least some preparation and does little to dampen suspicion.

To most users of these sites, if they look and perform as they used to, nothing else really matters. Whether that will have an impact on any deterrent effect intended by similar enforcement actions remains to be seen.

And Finally

Popular live sports streaming platform Freestreams-live was targeted by none other than Homeland Security Investigations during the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Pursuant to a warrant issued by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, US law enforcement seized freestreams-live1.com, at the time the site’s main domain.

After what appeared to be an effortless recovery, the site went on to deploy freestreams-live.ga and variants using the extensions .me, .im, .se, .top, .tv, and .nu. The submission notes that despite only being registered in April 2024, freestreams-live.my generated 11.8 million visits in August. Perhaps the seizure of a single domain should be viewed as symbolic of general intent rather than in any way effective.

The beIN and Miramax submission to the USTR is available here

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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 two newcomers on the list. “Smile 2” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 25 are:

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

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 In May, the Paris Judicial Court ordered Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to block access to several pirate websites by poisoning their DNS.

The order, issued under Article L.333-10 of the French Sports Code, compelled the tech giants to prevent users from accessing unauthorized streams of Champions League and Premier League matches.

Applicant Canal+ argued that the alternative DNS resolvers allowed people to bypass the “regular” blocking measures implemented by internet providers.

The tech companies opposed the measures, characterizing the blocking demands as overbroad. They presented a list of concerns and caveats, none of which convinced the court. A request to postpone the measures pending appeal was also denied.

As a result, Google and Cloudflare both implemented DNS poisoning measures in France. Cisco’s OpenDNS service, meanwhile, decided to leave France altogether, impacting all users of its service in the country.

The initial blocking efforts targeted a few dozen pirate sports streaming domains, including Footybite, Hesgoal, and Livekoora. While the additional DNS blocking order made it harder to access these sites, many other pirate sites remained accessible.

DNS Poisoning Spreads

To patch these holes, Canal+ returned to court multiple times in recent weeks, securing multiple DNS blocking orders that add many other pirate streaming domains to the blocklist.

This follow-up action initially went unreported, but Cloudflare recently uploaded three Paris Judicial Court orders to the Lumen Database to provide more transparency. These orders show that once successful, Canal+ continued to expand the scope of the blocking.

In September, the court granted Canal+’s blocking request for 15 domain names, including livetv.lol, sporttune.com, and crvsport.ru. These sites offered access to Formula 1 streams without permission.

Once again the court concluded that DNS resolvers are intermediaries that contribute to the illegal streaming activity. As such, they must take action.

At the time the order was published, Cisco’s OpenDNS service had already left France, so no action was required. Cloudflare and Google, on the other hand, were given just three days to comply.

Following the “Formula 1” order, Canal+ requested two additional orders that were granted last month. These targeted dozens of other sports streaming domains, through which pirated Champions League and Premier League matches were available.

These latest orders only target Cloudflare and Google, which were again required to block the domain names within three days.

Tech Companies Defense

Both tech companies presented a defense in court. Among other things, Cloudflare and Google argued that the blocking measures are disproportionate, costly, and ineffective.

There are simpler ways to block access, they noted, pointing out that the measures would not be effective because users could use VPNs or other DNS resolvers to bypass the blocks.

The Paris Court disagreed, insisting that blocking measures are proportionate and necessary. Canal+ could choose the blocking measures it deemed appropriate and the existence of alternative solutions is irrelevant, the court said.

Cloudflare and Cisco further argued that the legal justification for these blockades, Article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, does not apply to DNS resolvers. They claimed that they do not provide a “transmission function” and therefore are not “intermediaries” under EU law.

Again, the Paris court disagreed. It asserted that DNS resolvers do play a role in transmitting content and can be considered intermediaries under EU law.

Google also mentioned that some pirate streaming domains are customers of Cloudflare’s CDN service, implying that its fellow defendant could take more proactive measures. However, the court ruled that this wouldn’t relieve DNS providers of their responsibilities.

While Cloudflare and Google must comply with the court orders, they will likely try to overturn the decisions on appeal. According to the tech companies, these orders fragment the global Internet, jeopardizing the trust and integrity of DNS as a core global infrastructure

—

Copies of the three additional DNS blocking order issues by the Paris judicial court are available here (1, 2, 3, pdf)

A list of all affected domain names is available below. Some domain names such as livetv807.me, antenasports.ru, and sporttuna.sx, appear in multiple orders.

aliezstream.pro
antenasport.shop
antenasports.ru
antenasports.shop
antenatv.online
antenatv.store
antennasport.ru
aspoitv.shop
livetv802.me
toparena.store
emb.ap1357.me
embx224539.ap1357.me
1qwebplay.xyz
livetv807.me
cdn.livetv807.me
boxtv60.com
infinity-ott.com
vbn123.com
futbolenvivo.ru
centralareana.live
crvspoît.ru
livetv.lol
streameast.buffstream.io
sporttuna.sx
freestreams-live1se.nu
streamonsport.nî
26216.stunserver.net
viwlivehdplay.ru
bestmlb.buffstream.io
1.dlhd.sx
claplivehdplay.ru
sporttuna.com
sporttuna.site
livetv806.me
rojadirectahdenvivo.com
streamsthunder.tv
rojadirectenvivo.me
methstreams.me
antenasports.ru
asportv.shop
toparena.store
lshunter.net
tv1337.buzz
livetv.sx
sporttuna.pro
livetv807.me
embx224539.ap1366.me
cdn.livetv807.me
locatedinfain.com
tvhd.tutvlive.info
stream-24.net
speci4leagle.com
vl.methstreams.me
klubsports.fun
weblivehdplay.ru
buddycenters.shop
olalivehdplay.ru
Iqwebplay.xyz
sporttvls.com
euro2024direct.ru
librarywhispering.com
cdn.livetv808.me
watch.sporttuna.pro
sporttuna.sx
sporttuna.online
lewblivehdplay.ru
viwlivehdplay.ru
r365.city
finytv.com

Source

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