As the RIAA sued thousands of students for music piracy, Hollywood knew that faster internet connections would soon make movies a similarly easy target.

For downloaders in the early 2000s, faster connections couldn’t come soon enough.

In the meantime, ads promising faster downloads began appearing everywhere. Some offered magical ‘internet booster’ software that in reality did little or nothing to improve speeds. Others linked to all-you-can-eat ‘direct download’ portals with flashy names and equally flashy graphics.

As the months and years rolled on, these platforms used content availability as a selling point and through various deceptions, many gave the impression that they offered every piece of content imaginable for a small fee, completely legally.

These platforms deployed various business models, but for consumers who signed up for a short trial, what followed was never good. In most cases there was no content to download. Some sites were selling subscriptions that were structurally difficult or even impossible to cancel, or in some cases incurred an extortionate ‘leaving’ fee.

Due to the presentation, many people believed they were paying for legal content at a discount. What they often received instead was involuntary membership of a ‘subscription trap’ that relieved them of their money while generating millions of dollars for scam site operators. In many cases busy people simply didn’t know that their opportunity to cancel had expired, or that they were being charged $50 or $60 every month for absolutely nothing.

Evolution

Hoping to secure their piece of the pie, new players entered the market in the years that followed. Deception wasn’t just limited to movies either. Hundreds of bogus music download sites promised unlimited legal MP3 downloads, while bogus eBook sites offered extensive libraries of junk. In broad terms the content ostensibly on offer was merely a distraction; underneath they were substantially the same.

What many had in common was their targeting of people prepared to pay for content; people who could’ve used legal services if they’d known any better. But as law enforcement and entertainment industry action shut down pirate sites servicing customers who preferred not to pay, fake ‘legal’ download sites continued to defraud people who actually wanted to pay, year after year.

By 2021, the business model had evolved. Advertising still promised the earth, but instead of receiving nothing for their money, subscribers were given access to obscure and unpopular content; a far cry from the blockbusters promised but a veneer of legitimacy for dubious operators.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is known to report scam sites to ScamAdvisor, but the only major action against these platforms came in the summer of 2021. Radio Canada’s Décrypteurs program exposed what was probably the largest operation of its type in the world with an estimated 1,000+ sites in the network.

Within two months, the business was reportedly shut down, but the idea could never be put back in the bottle. In fact, after effectively ignoring these scams for more than 20 years, new Hollywood piracy studies now describe them as a greater risk to consumers than pirate sites themselves. In itself that’s intriguing but as we explain below, their appearance in piracy studies is problematic.

Studies Funded By MPA

The first study to attract our attention was published on the MPA’s EMEA website in September. Consumer Risk from Piracy in Poland (pdf) discloses that it was funded by the MPA and “produced independently” by Dr Paul Watters at La Trobe University (Melbourne).

The aim of the study “was to quantify the cyber risks faced by Polish consumers who engage with digital piracy websites.” The paper begins by defining what it claims are the four predominant types of digital piracy service operating in Poland; P2P Sites, Illicit Streaming Sites, Fraudulent Piracy Sites, and IPTV Subscription Services.

What is a Fraudulent Piracy Site?

While three of the categories above are self-explanatory, Fraudulent Piracy Sites are defined on page 10 as “presenting pirated content as legitimate” and “tricking users into payments or downloading malicious software”. The study claims that these activities “violate content creators’ rights” and also “carry legal consequences for both distributors and consumers.”

No site of any kind is named in the report so it’s impossible to visually confirm what “presenting pirated content as legitimate” actually means. Perhaps a logical example might see a pirate site dressed up as Netflix, but streaming pirated content rather than the fully-licensed content users paid for. This would make sense; pirated content is close to free, the consumer pays for what they believe is a legitimate product, and the pirate service generates profit from the gap in the middle.

Unfortunately that logical example fails to help here due to a confusing clash of definitions in the study.

The definition of ‘Fraudulent Piracy Site’ on page 10 of the study is followed by another definition of the same term on page 18. When placed side by side, with each definition’s key point highlighted (red), the problem clearly stands out.

The deception described on page 10 sees pirated content presented as legitimate content, with perceived value on the consumer side facilitating the scam; seems viable. The deception on page 18 describes a concerted effort to present zero value nonexistent pirated content, as low value pirated content on a scam site masquerading as a pirate site with no actual content.

The brief history of ‘fake’ download sites outlined earlier suggests that the most successful scam model involves masquerading as a legitimate service. That Canadian operation reportedly generated CAD$100 million doing just that. By presenting as legitimate, it’s likely that victims factored in perceived value.

Since in general only pirates recognize pirate sites, an absolutely flawless imitation would likely fool some pirates. Unfortunately, the value proposition versus a legitimate service falls way short, especially when pirates are then expected to pay for pirated content.

Similar Risk Report For the Philippines

A similar study appeared on the MPA’s EMEA website in November. Consumer Risk from Piracy in the Philippines (pdf) discloses that it was funded by the MPA and “produced independently” by Dr Paul Watters, this time at Macquarie University (Sydney).

“The aim of this study was to quantify the cyber risks faced by Filipino consumers who engage with digital piracy websites, including fraudulent sites, illegal streaming services, proxy sites, P2P sites, or IPTV platforms,” it begins, broadly in line with the Polish report detailed earlier.

The definition of a Fraudulent Piracy Site in this study follows the ‘fake pirate site’ model: “Fraudulent piracy websites masquerade as piracy platforms to swindle users. These sites often mimic the layout, advertising style, and even domain names of popular unauthorized content sharing platforms.”

The graphic below ranks ‘Fraudulent Piracy Sites’ almost as highly as real pirate sites.

The reports covered here are clearly designed to prompt Poland and the Philippines to ensure that site-blocking measures are implemented to counter the pirate site threat. The researcher removes all doubt by making extremely specific recommendations in both reports that fall precisely in line with the MPA’s policy goals for each country.

Once published, studies like these are used to support all kinds of legislation, the global campaign to block sites for copyright infringement especially. As the Polish report confirms, preference is for an administrative site-blocking program in Poland, i.e one that functions without judicial oversight.

The surprise mention of transparency is welcome, however, since administrative programs such as Portugal’s operate behind closed doors. The complication is the introduction of ‘Fraudulent Piracy Sites’ which, incidentally, are just as predatory as any other cybercrime targeting the public today.

Unfortunately, an indisputable fact hasn’t been addressed; these are NOT ‘piracy sites’

There is no precedent anywhere in the world, in any other pirate site-blocking program, that has even discussed blocking these platforms. Quite frankly law enforcement should’ve taken action 20 years ago but here we are, facing a state of emergency that demands a “zero day” response to prevent further exploitation.

So apart from muddying the piracy waters with a new category of pirate site that contains no pirate sites, why is this important?

Once site-blocking is introduced, nobody will spend another second worrying about ‘Fraudulent Piracy Sites’ beyond their usefulness as a lobbying tool. As a result, when all pirate sites are eventually blocked in Poland, for example, what type of site is most likely to enjoy a massive influx of business as people try to find sites that aren’t blocked?

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 In the 1978 movie Midnight Express, there’s a scene where prisoners walk slowly around a wheel in a dark, stone room. Performed instinctively in a clockwise direction, the ritual brings calm and unity to an otherwise nightmarish existence.

When the protagonist suddenly displays free will in an anti-clockwise direction, defiance of the unspoken rule causes confusion and then descends into chaos. At AGCOM headquarters in Italy, Commissioner and board member Elisa Giomi has stood alone in opposition to Piracy Shield’s direction for the last two years. That too has descended into chaos.

After publicly criticizing its failings, including spiraling costs and its apparent toll on public resources, Giomi is now under pressure to return to the officially designated direction while keeping her opinions to herself. That hasn’t happened yet, far from it.

Opposition Was Inevitable

In the wake of the blocking blunder that wiped out Google Drive last month, Giomi called for Piracy Shield’s suspension. Her colleagues all voted in the opposite direction, just as they’d done for the previous two years. With official rhetoric continuing to extol Piracy Shield’s virtues, Giomi publicly distanced herself from the party line. And how.

After criticizing how quickly the platform was approved by politicians, Giomi slammed the absence of transparency pertaining to external consultancy. With mounting blocking blunders on top, Giomi’s evisceration of Piracy Shield and the surrounding culture was unprecedented.

A source familiar with the situation virtually guaranteed there would be consequences for that outburst, but in what form was anyone’s guess.

Distancing From Comments Made to the Chamber of Deputies

In the wake of a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies, during which the president of AGCOM spoke about Piracy Shield, Giomi made her feelings known once again.

“I find myself once again having to make my position on the #PiracyShield platform transparent and distance myself from the statements made by the President of Agcom during a hearing at the Culture Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, statements that were never discussed and much less shared with the rest of the Agcom Council, which the President can represent but certainly not replace,” the Commissioner wrote on LinkedIn. Then point by point, Giomi systematically aired her grievances.

To ensure authenticity, the comments below are unedited and translated from Italian as plainly as possible. Note: Lega Calcio refers to Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A, Italy’s top-tier football league. The Authority refers to telecoms regulator AGCOM, where Giomi is a Commissioner and sits on the board.

Five Devastating Statements

1. Contrary to what the President declared, the re-engineering of the platform for blocking (most well-known) pirate sites and IP addresses was not necessary to optimize the existing system and adapt it to technological evolution, but because it generated a significant and constant percentage of errors that were not compatible with regulatory requirements.

2. These errors are not attributable to defects in the reports, as claimed by the President, but to the functioning of the platform itself, and have led to long resolution times and significant costs for the Authority and for the parties involved.

3. I distance myself from the claim that the donation of the blocking platform by Lega Calcio responded to “the public interest in providing for the provisions of the law in an extremely rapid manner.” It would have been possible to respect these deadlines by also contacting CONSIP, the national purchasing center of the Ministry of Economy, which would also have allowed the identification of a specialized supplier not in #conflictofinterest with the blocking of sites, thus ensuring greater impartiality of the administrative action of the Authority.

4. As a #referee I find myself uncomfortable in contrasting interests that are equally legitimate before the law, but it is worth remembering that the interest of Lega Calcio in combating #piracy contrasts with the equally legitimate interest of the providers of information society services and #platforms , called upon to adapt their networks according to the Piracy Shield standards and to try to prevent erroneous blocks of sites and IP addresses not involved in piracy. There is no charity in the donation of Lega Calcio but rather the desire to pursue private interests in the most effective way possible.

5. The Authority has entrusted the company that created the platform for the Lega Calcio with the evolutionary maintenance service for 12 months. True, but for a fee. Let’s start from a fixed point: the blocking platform pursues the important purpose of combating piracy, however blocks on the #web cannot be implemented by trampling on #fundamentalrights of owners of legitimate sites and IP addresses. The blocking platform should operate, in full, respecting both the right of defense before the block, and the right to immediate restoration of what has been unlawfully inhibited by the Authority. It is unacceptable that a legitimate site is closed in 30 minutes by the platform and that the removal of the block may take even more than 30 days.

Neutral Professionals Support Giomi. Those Involved Do Not

On LinkedIn, professionals overwhelmingly came out in support of Giomi’s unprecedented public airing of her grievances. Several commenters noted that it would’ve been better to have disclosed this information sooner, but the majority expressed their support nonetheless.

In a fresh announcement this week, Commissioner Giomi revealed that her post on LinkedIn led to her receiving “a warning to rectify” and a “threat of a possible compensation action.”

Who sent those threats isn’t made clear, but they don’t come as a surprise.

Contrary Opinions and Criticism Increasingly Unwelcome in Italy

“It is not the first time that I have found myself exposed to similar initiatives when I express a #dissenting opinion in the face of a contrary vote,” Giomi notes.

“I wonder if this does not constitute undue #pressure … a bit like what happens to journalists when they are subjected to #QuereleTemerarie for having reported something inconvenient.”

At the time of writing, the European Centre for Press & Media Freedom has ten articles on its front page, all of them related in some way to attacks on Italian journalists.

Media freedom in Italy has been steadily declining in recent years, marked by unprecedented attacks and violations often initiated by public officials in the attempt to silence critical voices. Political interference in public media and the systematic use of legal intimidation against journalists by political actors have long defined the media-politics relationship in Italy. However, these dynamics have reached alarming levels over the past two years.
Report Launch – Silencing the Fourth Estate: Italy’s Democratic Drift

The full post is available here but regardless of whether people oppose or support Piracy Shield, Giomi says that this dispute comes down to the benefits of diversity to a society where differences are allowed to coexist.

“The Piracy Shield affair brings us back to the importance of giving space to minority voices on issues of collective interest. That is, protecting #pluralism,” Giomi concludes.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Real-Debrid is nifty tool that provides access to premium and unrestricted downloads from a variety of file hosting and torrent websites.

The popular download service operates as a middleman to access file-hosting platforms, for example, and also uses cached content to stream content from torrent sites instantly.

These features appear to be quite appealing to pirates. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by Real-Debrid, which has an active DMCA removal policy to deal with complaints from rightsholders. However, according to French film distribution companies, this didn’t go far enough.

Real-Debrid Goes Full Anti-Piracy Mode

A few hours ago Real-Debrid informed its users that it will strengthen its anti-piracy measures. This drastic measure comes after a formal notice from the French Federation of Film Distributors (FNEF), which previously took several popular file hosting services to court.

Faced with FNEF’s demands, which could potentially escalate into a full-fledged legal battle, Real-Debrid has decided to take several steps to appease rightsholders.

The service says it will block content from ‘a number of’ cyberlockers that are on the US Trade Representative’s “Notorious Markets” list, as well as the EU “Piracy Watchlist”. No names are mentioned, but RapidGator, Mega, Dbree, and KrakenFiles are potential candidates.

Real-Debrid will also deactivate its API, which could be used by third-party services and applications, including media centers such as Kodi and Plex. The same applies to the ‘instantAvailability’ feature, which made it possible to instantly stream and download cached videos, including pirated content.

Upload Filters & More

The service appears to be leaving no stone untouched to combat piracy. It has announced several filtering measures, including keyword filters. Real-Debrid acknowledges that this may lead to false positives, but it appears that the service doesn’t have much choice.

Private torrent trackers aren’t safe either. The download service says it will block all torrent hashes from trackers mentioned in lawsuits filed at the Paris Judicial Court.

Furthermore, Real-Debrid also promises to purge all currently cached files matching these filters. Action to ban “all counterfeit Kodi and Stremio applications” is most likely a reference to any third party tools and extensions that enhance Kodi and Stremio with near-instant playback features.

What’s Next?

As expected, many of Real-Debrid’s paying customers are not pleased with these planned changes. To what degree it will affect the broader user base has yet to be seen, however.

Not all users of the service utilize its ‘instant’ streaming tool. The torrent download functionality is also quite popular. For these people, the impact will largely depend on the breadth and effectiveness of the hash and filename filters.

That said, the pressure applied by French movie distributors will clearly have an impact on Real-Debrid. If the current measures prove insufficient, the same rightsholders will likely come back with new demands.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 In recent years, rightsholders of major sports events have repeatedly complained that piracy of live sports is getting out of hand.

Increasingly, lawmakers and law enforcement were asked to help out. This week, these calls were heard.

247TVStream Shutdown and Indictment

The Department of Justice for the Eastern District of New York announced that it had effectively shut down a major pirate IPTV streaming operation, 247TVStream. The service was allegedly owned and operated by two brothers, Noor Nabi Chowdhury and Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman.

Chowdhury, who’s a New York resident, was arrested on Tuesday and arraigned in the New York court on the same day. His brother Rahman allegedly resides in Bangladesh and remains at large.

The men were charged with four counts; conspiracy to provide to the public an illicit digital transmission service, providing an illicit digital transmission service; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and aggravated identity theft.

1000+ Channels

247TVStream was a subscription streaming service that offered illegal access to live television and sports programming. The service had over 1,000 television channels and was specifically targeted at sports fans.

These pirated channels could be viewed via dedicated devices or Android and iOS apps such as the ‘247 IPTV Player’, for streaming on the go.

“247tvstream.com is a place where sports fans can watch live sports online around the world with an alternative way from the comfort of their PC/Laptop/Smartphone/Tablets or SmartTV,” the service explained in its FAQ.

247TVStream

$7 Million in Subscription Fees

The authorities say that the service had been in operation since May 2017 and caused more than $100 million in damages to copyright holders. The pirate service itself also generated substantial revenues during this time; over $7 million in subscriber fees according to the indictment.

These revenues, typically $10 per month, partially went through payment processors which were presumably unaware of the nature of the business. The operators also made efforts to conceal their true identities through shell companies and false documents.

“To conceal the true nature of 247TVStream, Chowdhury and Rahman falsely described, and caused to be falsely described, the nature of 247TVStream and the identity of its owners on applications to the Merchant Processors,” the indictment reads.

Working with Dutch and UK law enforcement agencies, authorities seized the servers that hosted 247TVStream’s illegal content. They also seized the domain names tvschedule24.com and 247tvstream.com, which now display a banner announcing the seizure.

Seizure Banner
 

“The domain has been seized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations in accordance with a seizure warrant issued pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 981, 982, 1030, and 2323 by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York,” it reads.

Multi-Year Prison Sentences

Commenting on the news, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Breon Peace, thanked Canadian, Dutch, and UK partners for their cooperation. He is pleased with the outcome thus far.

“My Office and the Department of Justice are committed to protecting the rights of intellectual property holders from digital pirates like these defendants,” Peace notes.

After his arraignment on Tuesday, Chowdhury was released from custody with the bond set at $25,000. Rahman has yet to be apprehended.

The brothers could face decades behind bars if convicted on all charges. The penalties for their alleged crimes include a maximum of 20 years for wire fraud, five years for conspiracy related to the illegal streaming service, and a mandatory two-year sentence for identity theft, all of which could be served consecutively.

—-

A copy of the indictment, released by the Department of Justice for the Eastern District of New York, is available here (pdf)

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and academic articles that can be downloaded for free.

The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of two alleged operators in Argentina.

These two Russian defendants are wanted by the United States and earlier this year a judge approved their extradition. However, according to the most recent information we have, the defendants escaped house arrest and vanished into thin air.

The roles of the two Russians remain unclear, but they were not vital to the site’s survival. Z-Library continued to expand its reach despite their legal troubles.

Z-Library Motivations Research

Z-Library users don’t seem to be hindered by the criminal prosecution either, as they continue to support and use the site. For many, Z-Library is simply a convenient portal to download free books. For others, however, it’s a vital resource to further an academic career.

A recent study published in the Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice sheds light on the latter. It looks at the ‘piracy’ motivations of Redditors and students in higher education, specifically when it comes to Z-Library.

The paper
 

The paper, published by Dr. Michael Day of the University of Greenwich, labels the use of Z-Library as ‘Academic Cybercrime’. The findings, however, suggest that students are more likely to draw comparisons with “Robin Hood”.

The research looks at the motivations of two groups; Reddit users and Chinese postgraduate students. Despite the vast differences between these groups, their views on Z-Library are quite similar.

Redditors’ Responses

The 134 Reddit responses were sampled from the Zlibrary subreddit, which is obviously biased in favor of the site. However, the reasoning goes well beyond a simple “I want free stuff” arguments.

Many commenters highlighted that they were drawn to the site out of poverty, for example, or they highlighted that Z-Library was an essential tool to fulfill their academic goals.

“Living in a 3rd world country, 1 book would cost like 50%- 80% already of my daily wage,” one Redditor wrote.

The idea that Z-Library is a ‘necessary evil’ was also highlighted by other commenters. This includes a student who can barely make ends meet, and a homeless person, who has neither the money nor the space for physical books.

Some responses

The lack of free access to all study materials, including academic journal subscriptions at university libraries, was also a key motivator. Paired with the notion that journal publishers make billions of dollars, without compensating authors, justification is found for ‘pirate’ alternatives.

“They make massive profits. So stealing from them doesn’t hurt the authors nor reviewers, just the rich greedy publishers who make millions just to design a cover and click ‘publish’,” one Redditor wrote.

Chinese Students

The second part of the study is conducted in a more structured format among 103 postgraduate students in China. This group joined a seminar where Z-Library and the crackdown were discussed. In addition, the students participated in follow-up focus group discussions, while also completing a survey.

Despite not all being users of the shadow library, 41% of the students agreed that the site’s (temporary) shutdown affected their ability to study and find resources for degree learning.

In general, the students have a favorable view toward Z-Library and similar sites, and 71% admit that they have used a shadow library in the past. In line with China’s socialist values, the overwhelming majority of the students agreed that access to knowledge should be free for everyone.

While the students are aware of copyright law, they believe that the need to access knowledge outweighs rightsholders’ concerns. This is also reflected in the following responses, among others.

– Z-Library, or a similar website, is helpful to students living in poverty (82% agree).
– Academic textbooks are too expensive, so I can’t afford to buy them as a student (67% agree).
– I have limited access to English medium academic books in my country (63% agree)
– I prefer to download books without restrictions, like [paywalls etc.], as it is difficult (77% agree).

All in all, Z-Library and other shadow libraries are seen as a viable option for expensive or inaccessible books, despite potential copyright concerns.

Robin Hood Mentality

This research sheds an intriguing light on key motivations to use shadow libraries. However, the small sample sizes, selection bias, and specific characteristics of the groups, means that these findings should be interpreted with caution.

Dr. Michael Day, nonetheless, notes that the responses show clear signs of a Robin Hood mentality. Z-Library users evade the publishers’ ‘tax’ on knowledge by downloading works for free.

Overall, the paper suggests that universities and publishers may want to reconsider the status quo and consider making more content freely accessible, taking a page from Z-Library.

“There is need for universities to re-consider the digital divides faced by socioeconomically and digitally disadvantaged students, alongside publishers, who must rethink their approach by making open access research more commonplace and thus pro-human,” the author concludes.

The paper provides a good example, as it is published under a Creative Commons license and is freely accessible to all.

—

Day, M.J. (2024). Digital Piracy in Higher Education: Exploring Social Media Users and Chinese Postgraduate Students Motivations for Supporting ‘Academic Cybercrime’ by Shelving ebooks from Z-Library. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Early September, Brazil’s telecom regulator Anatel announced that it would team up with the Hackathon Brazil Community to stage the first ever ‘TV Box Hackathon’.

The two-day event, tabled for September 28 and 29, would see teams of hackers develop “innovative solutions” to block or disable non-certified set-top boxes, typically piracy-configured Android devices installed in people’s homes.

So the challenge is this: by understanding how these non-approved devices work, you must develop an approach that is capable of interrupting the exchange of data that occurs between the devices and their users.

The task ahead was no walk in the park, but if anyone did manage to pull it off, the anti-piracy implications for the entertainment industries would be absolutely enormous.

We Have a Winner

“Hackathon Brasil and Anatel have successfully concluded the Hackathon TV Box 2024, awarding innovative solutions to end the use of illegal TV Box devices in Brazil,” an announcement on the official site now reads.

“The event brought together experts in technology, network security and hardware, focusing on creative and effective alternatives to protect consumers from digital threats, such as malware and spying.”

The winning team, revealed as Juarez J., Aline A., Henrique A., Eduarda L., Daniel S. and Theo W., picked up first prize after their solution demonstrated an “ability to directly impact the fight against TV Boxes not approved by Anatel, ensuring greater security and privacy for users.”

Image credit: Hackathon Brasil

The competitors were judged on how closely they adhered to the details of the challenge, innovation, and ultimately the potential impact of their solution.

Anatel has repeatedly warned that many set-top devices currently in use have poor security, some at the operating system level. The winning team isn’t giving much away, but exploiting these weaknesses may have formed part of the successful strategy.

No Proof Yet, But The Attack Sounds Plausible

Exactly how much team leader/spokesman Daniel Lima is allowed to say in public is unclear, but the details revealed so far seem generally plausible.

In comments to Globo, Lima said the team’s solution is to render set-top devices useless through a software update controlled by them, rather than the manufacturer or whichever entity typically handles that. Ordinarily the first steps would’ve been much more difficult but in Brazil, systems are already in place to provide a helping hand.

In common with many counterparts elsewhere in the world, ISPs in Brazil already hijack DNS requests for the purpose of blocking access to pirate sites. Typically, that involves an internet user attempting to access ‘Blocked Site A’ in their browser, and ISPs’ DNS servers directing the user to a blocking page instead. Assuming that a set-top box tries to access a particular domain name to receive an update, those requests can also be diverted to a different server.

“We were able to add code that completely disables [a device]. Our solution uses advanced networking capabilities to allow the software on the box to be altered, and the user would be unable to access protected content,” Daniel says.

“Since Anatel controls the ISPs, it can force them to implement advanced network features that make it possible for the box to receive a modified package.”

Caveats Always Apply

These hacks are often more easily said than done, but having the ability to meddle with ISP DNS records to divert a device to a rogue server is a great start. If the devices had stronger security by default, even this would face challenges. If a technique regularly seen in ‘pirate’ Android apps was in place, that could’ve really upset the party.

Known as certificate pinning, this networking practice provides much greater certainty that the destination server requested by the host is that to which it connects; certainly not a rogue server carrying a potentially ruinous software update.

Claims in earlier reports have portrayed device security as extremely weak, so updates may not always be delivered via https; if they arrive via unsecured http, that would amount to another big plus. That doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the process would be easy, or that any number of countermeasures couldn’t be deployed to stop the scheme in its tracks. Details on the security of these devices could make all the difference, or not much at all, it’s hard to say.

Strong Confidence Meets Cooler Consideration

Whatever the details, Daniel seems very confident that something big is on the horizon.

“When Anatel implements the solution, there will be a general failure in most of the irregular boxes that are in use,” he insists.

Anatel seems reluctant to say much and its official statement doesn’t say anything about possible use. However, a comment that does catch the eye relates to something we mentioned in our earlier article.

A genuine and workable solution to the pirate set-top box problem could make those behind it impossibly rich, but only if supported by a robust attitude towards their all-important IP rights.

Courtesy of Globo, Anatel’s comments seem to imply that while useful, any solutions should be seen as an extension of Anatel’s existing work, including methods it’s familiar with already.

Anatel is holding meetings with the Hackathon participants in addition to the winners, as all the teams presented solutions that were seen as opportunities for improvement in the process carried out by the Agency. The objective of the discussions has been to adapt the solutions presented to the methodologies already used by the Agency.

 

Many of the proposals are in line with what Anatel already does. In this way, the Agency has considered all the concepts and ideas that were presented as improvements to the Agency’s internal and external processes, which will allow for the optimization of the security of the telecommunications infrastructure and users.

 

The process is already underway, as it is continuous, with Anatel working together with the participants.

Meanwhile, the victorious six-person team picked up a cash prize of R$7,000 for taking first place; that’s around US$1,200 or US$200 each after the split.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Brazil’s enthusiasm for blocking piracy-linked domains and IP addresses is showing no signs of slowing down.

Despite being a relative newcomer to mass blockades on copyright grounds, Brazil’s ISPs will soon find themselves blocking the 15,000th resource since restrictions began in earnest just a couple of years ago.

That the cycle is guaranteed to continue next year, and at minimum a few years after that, celebrating the blocking of the 30,000th domain or IP address is no longer the impossible dream it once was. Whether the constant requirement for more and more blocking is a sign of success, or more like a dream turning into a nightmare, is hard to say. Pirates don’t appear to be deterred by it, that much as obvious.

What if Blocking Works and There are No Blunders?

In a recent interview, a departing board member of telecoms regulator Anatel said that site-blocking is paying off. Artur Coimbra said that customer satisfaction with pirate set-top boxes is in decline and if that continues, one day people won’t want to use piracy services at all.

It’s hard to fault the theory that people dislike spending money on things that fail to perform. Whether that’s how things will actually play out remains to be seen because history has shown that the opposite generally holds true. But Coimbra also had some controversial news up his sleeve about a new piracy countermeasure; he revealed that blocking tests are already underway at the internet’s core routers.

The implications of blocking blunders at the infrastructure level go beyond anything considered thus far. But what if mistakes and the risk to society could be eliminated? What if there was accuracy and transparency and accountability, all at the same time? Given that showing accuracy is largely reliant on full transparency which rarely exists, accountability isn’t a concept closely associated with site-blocking regimes anywhere.

That being said, wherever possible we always try to find out for ourselves and since an unexpected surge of blocking orders covering 250+ domains went live yesterday, now seems a good time to take a closer look.

Brazil’s Blocklist is Not Dissimilar to Many Others

Brazil’s blocklist isn’t available to the public but since ISPs are required to comply and the effects should in theory be visible, various means allow for a decent overview. Right now the list contains over 13,100 domains and around 1,500 IP addresses, most of them piracy-related but not exclusively so.

Blocked gambling sites also feature quite strongly, as do sites selling vapes, although at least for now, relatively sparingly. Even Elon Musk’s X appeared on the list recently; after the entrepreneur irritated a judge, the convenience of having a blocking mechanism to hand made the consequences very predictable.

Movies and Live Sports Piracy

Having been heavily targeted previously, stream-ripping platforms deserve a mention, but largely they get to sit this wave out. The list still contains lots of related domains, including around 50 ytmp3 variants, 24 featuring the term y2mate, and another 50 with conv/convert/converter somewhere in their domain, but the new batch is all about streaming.

The new domains added Monday follow directly after a batch of familiar piracy domains including 123movieswatch4k.com, 123movieslane.com, 123movieses.net, 123moviesking.com, and 123movieszfree.me.

With that naming convention offering no surprises, the same holds true for several recently added bflix domains, accompanied by even more 123movies domains, because why not? They’ll be useless by the end of the week anyway.

The list of new additions is initially dominated by variants of multicanais, a popular live sports streaming platform that refuses to stay blocked. Less easy to explain is the domain highlighted in yellow – danielgarcialeilao.org.

While hiding pirate sites within innocent-looking platforms isn’t unheard of, the site shown above appears to be an auction site for recovered and wrecked vehicles, and we haven’t see anything like that before.

Targeting Dan

Alternatively, if reports elsewhere are to be believed, this may be a fake site impersonating the real Daniel Garcia Auctions. According to reports, the difference is that while one is a business that actually exists, the other takes customers’ money and heads for the hills.

While there will be few complaints if the authorities protect citizens from an alleged scam at the hands of a fake Dan, there’s another Dan on the blocklist that is 100% genuine. Domain sales platform Dan.com is owned by GoDaddy and may not be performing quite as well in Brazil as previously hoped.

The URL https://t.co/rtG5bJ3jkz is also blocked, presumably because it previously linked to FilmesTorrents.net. Today that domain is up for sale on GoDaddy but if anyone from Brazil is interested in it, using a VPN or similar circumvention tool comes with its own risks. We’re informed that circumvention of blockades can be considered an offense in Brazil although under what circumstances isn’t completely clear.

FilmesTorrent fans, meanwhile, must’ve had fun keeping up with domain changes; at the time of writing there are 34 domains on the blocklist with a similar format.

Trying to keep track of domain changes for streaming site Cuevana and its many namesakes would’ve been exponentially more tricky. At the time of writing there are more than 500 variants on the list, including icuevana4.pro, cuevana3z.autos, cuevana3.supply, and the aptly named, cuevanaa.help, which throws in an extra ‘a’ at the end, just to keep things interesting.

Conclusion

Just scrolling through 10,000+ domains is pretty exhausting so detailed checking will likely take us quite a few hours. There’s only so much automated tools can achieve on their own so if other obviously legitimate domains also appear on the list, we’ll report that in due course.

What we can confirm is that after scanning every domain recently added to the list, attempting to take a screenshot, scraping a small amount of text from each, and carrying out some automated security checks, 22 domains had issues related to some type of malware. At least 30 indicated a risk of phishing. In both cases this may relate to a new domain in the event redirects are already in place.

We certainly aren’t recommending that people visit any of the sites but for those who can’t resist, basic anti-virus software is unlikely to detect these types of threats.

That being said, common sense says that Dan.com shouldn’t be on this list. There might be a reason, but it’s unlikely to be viewed in a positive light back in the United States. It’s possible that GoDaddy doesn’t even know that it’s being blocked, but that’s no surprise when transparency becomes a thing of the past.

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Most people know that pirating movies, live sports, and music is against the law. Despite this awareness, millions do so daily.

Norway is no exception. The country offers consumers plenty of legal options, including many streaming platforms. However, that might actually be part of the problem.

Those who want the full spectrum of streaming options, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Max, Apple TV, SkyShowtime, Viaplay, Discovery+, and many others, need deep pockets. In many cases, people subscribe to a selection instead, while pirating on the side.

This week, the Norwegian government released the results of a new Ipsos survey that looks at the public’s attitude toward piracy. These findings show that unauthorized streaming and downloading is broadly accepted, particularly among younger people.

Expensive Streaming Options Justify Piracy

The survey, which involved 1,411 respondents aged 15 and above, shows that 32% agree that is it okay to use pirate sites and services to save money. Among those under 30 years old, half find it acceptable to pirate for cost reasons.

Survey results (translated)
 

When asked specifically whether it’s okay to pirate because legal services are too expensive, acceptance rates are even higher. This is a disturbing trend for rightsholders and various campaigns that have tried to curb piracy in recent years.

While the price of streaming services is seen as a problem, the majority of respondents do pay for legal access. In total, 61% paid for streaming services over the past year. This also applies to young people under 30, of which 64% paid for access.

These figures confirm that Norwegians are not opposed to paying for content but with over a dozen paid options, paying for everything is not seen as viable for all.

Organized Crime?

One of the strategies used to dissuade pirates is the highlighting of negative consequences. Aside from entertainment industry losses, these include potential malware and security threats, as well as the notion that pirate services can be associated with organized crime.

Interestingly, roughly two-thirds of all respondents say that they have considered the potential negative consequences of using pirate sites and services but less than half (47%) agree that piracy supports organized crime.

The organized crime link is most accepted by older Norwegians. However, many respondents say they simply don’t know enough about a possible link between piracy and organized crime, as 24% answered “I don’t know”.

Pirates Would Stop If…

Malware threats and links to organized crime are not of particular concern to pirates. Of those who knowingly pirated in the past year, 7% said that knowing more about the links with organized crime could make them stop, while 18% said that the risk of malware or fraud could deter them.

Instead of focusing on external threats and concerns, legal streaming platforms themselves could make the most progress by changing their pricing.

Among all self-proclaimed Norwegian pirates, the most common reasons to stop were more affordable legal streaming services (41%) and the availability of a broader range of content per service (35%).

All in all, the survey results show that piracy remains prevalent in Norway. While it will be impossible to eradicate completely, these findings indicate that the entertainment industries can make most progress by focusing on the affordability and availability of legal services.

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In September, Apple removed the popular music streaming app Musi from its App Store. The delisting is significant, as the app has millions of users.

Apple’s action didn’t come as a complete surprise. Music industry groups had been trying to take Musi down for months, branding it a ‘parasitic’ app that skirts the rules.

Music group IFPI took the lead, calling on other music industry players and YouTube to complain to Apple as well. This mounting pressure eventually paid off.

The delisting puts the future of Musi directly at risk. The company initially hoped to resolve the matter with Apple behind closed doors. The tech giant was unwilling to reverse its decision, however, so the streaming app took the matter to court.

Musi Sues Apple over ‘YouTube-Triggered’ Removal

In a complaint filed at a California federal court last month, Musi sued Apple for breach of contract, as well as a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The music app believes that the delisting was unjustified and wants Apple to reinstate it immediately.

“Apple removed the Musi app based upon unsupported accusations from a third party who has failed to respond to Musi’s communications. Worse, Apple was fully aware that the third party had failed to substantiate its claims to Musi,” said the company behind the app.

The third-party in question is YouTube. According to Musi, Apple acted based on a five-word complaint from ‘YouTube Legal’ that was sent late July. Attempts by Musi to discuss the matter with YouTube remained unanswered, but Apple removed the app nonetheless.

Preliminary Injunction

For Musi, the matter amounts to an existential threat. The music app built its entire business on the iOS platform and without it being available in the App Store, the service will ultimately perish.

Faced with this conundrum, Musi requested a preliminary injunction to have the app reinstated as soon as possible. The removal has already caused irreparable harm, it argued, but a swift injunction can stop the bleeding.

“By removing the Musi app from its only viable distribution platform, Apple has exiled Musi from its customer base—thereby threatening the company’s survival,” Musi wrote.

“Musi is therefore entitled to a preliminary injunction to stop Apple from continuing to breach the Developer Agreement by refusing to list or otherwise making unavailable the Musi app.”

Apple Opposes Injunction

Apple responded in court last Friday, 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.”

Aside from this contractual freedom, Apple also counters Musi’s allegation that it took action based on little more than a five word complaint from YouTube.

“That is false, and Musi knows that it is false,” Apple writes, mentioning a variety of other complaints, including those submitted by music group IFPI and the music publishers’ association NMPA.

The NMPA letter, for example, went beyond a simple complaint and detailed how Musi allegedly uses multiple free YouTube API-tokens to avoid paying licensing fees, while inserting its own ads.

From NMPA’s complaint
 

Apple says it doesn’t take a position in the legal dispute between Musi, YouTube, and many of the other third parties that complained. However, the provided context suggests that the delisting isn’t the result of just one brief removal request.

‘Existential Exaggeration’

The opposition brief repeatedly stresses that Apple has the right to delist apps based on its own contracts. Even if that’s in doubt, there’s no need for a preliminary injunction.

Apple says that while new users can no longer download the app, existing Musi users are still able to use the installed app. This means that Musi can continue to generate revenue.

The app reportedly generated millions of dollars in advertising revenue per month in the past and there is no evidence that it is in financial trouble now, Apple argues.

“Musi provides no evidence relating to its financial condition and no evidence that it is unable to survive until a decision on the merits in this case,” Apple notes.

“In fact, public reporting suggests that Musi earned more than $100 million in advertising revenue between January 2023 and spring 2024 and employs ten people at most. If true […], Musi is not at imminent risk of extinction.”

From Apple’s Opposition
 

All in all, Apple sees no reason for the court to grant the injunction. In addition to violating Apple’s rights, the proposed injunction also goes against the interests of all parties who complained that their rights are being infringed, the company notes.

Musi has yet to respond to Apple’s opposition. It is clear, however, that the app is fighting a legal battle that will be closely watched by rightsholders, YouTube, and many independent iOS developers.

—

A copy of Apple’s opposition to Musi’s motion for a preliminary injunction, filed as the California federal court, is 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. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 18 are:

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

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 Whenever fans read about football in mainstream European media, carefully crafted deterrent messaging woven into anti-piracy news is unlikely to be too far away.

Suing everyone is impossible, but as rightsholders in Spain warn that fines are on the way, in the context of a reverse lawsuit lottery that nobody wants to win, ‘y si toca aquí?’

A press release issued by Spain’s Ministry of the Interior on Friday is fairly dry by most standards, but by withholding most of the important details (Who, What, When, Where, Why), those reporting on the story are left to fill in the blanks. As a result, arguably more significant developments may have been overlooked.

Operation Blue Corsair

The statement reveals that members of the Technological Investigation Team (EDITE) of the Madrid Command (Guardia Civil), were able to deactivate/disable “the most important streaming channel in Spain” as part of Operación Corsario Azul (Operation Blue Corsair).

Investigators reportedly discovered that a Kodi add-on “created by a developer external to the platform” provided free access to live streams of matches played in the first (and second) Spanish divisions. No straightforward mention of LaLiga, but still.

“Initially, the researchers focused their activity on finding out where the football matches were being broadcast, following the steps of the source code of the extension or ‘add-on’. After various searches for information, they managed to obtain said location, one of the most used instant messaging platforms in Spain,” the statement adds.

Tracking the Culprit

The Ministry says that to determine who is responsible for the unnamed add-on, which streams matches illegally from an unnamed messaging platform, apparently to 78,000 users for free, investigators focused on pseudonyms present in the source code of the add-on.

These investigations led to the identification of an unnamed “user of the platform” as the person responsible, who appears to be in considerable trouble. The 37-year-old was investigated for “a crime related to the market and consumers” with related fraud valued at exactly €42,547,104.

The operation also achieved the “blocking and elimination” of the channels used on the instant messaging app” as well as the “elimination of the programming code used illegally.” One of these claims seems like a bit of a stretch. The other may be more important that it sounds.

Some Meat on the Bones

The Civil Guard separately confirmed that “two well-known companies in Spain” were the victims in the alleged €42,547,104 fraud. Why the names of those companies seem hard to mention is unclear, but they’ll come as no surprise.

The investigation was triggered by a joint complaint filed by top-tier football league LaLiga, and Telefonica-owned broadcasting partner Movistar.

The target was a Kodi add-on called Cristal Azul, as these screenshots from a police video seem to confirm.

The GitHub repo seen in the video still exists, but it contains only a very old version of Cristal Azul (v0.0.12) from four years ago; the latest versions are v3.0.10+.

While not four years old, the news announced on Friday wasn’t exactly fresh either. In fact, those behind the add-on made an announcement on October 7, 2024, which left very little doubt that their position had become untenable, “ugly” even.

News that the addon would be immediately shut down and wouldn’t be coming back, was only the beginning.

Too Hot to Continue

Before those behind Cristal Azul shut the add-on down early October, the software was available from the Luar repository hosted on GitHub. Presumably due to the unwanted attention, soon after Cristal Azul shut down, the Luar repository disappeared in similar fashion, leaving the message “See you soon” behind.

Most likely due to the disappearance of Cristal Azul, the Luar repository received a significant (but useless) traffic boost in October.

“See you soon” (translated from Spanish ‘hasta pronto’)

A slightly longer message on Telegram added: “It’s time to say goodbye. WE CLOSE DOORS. We hope that in these 4 years Luar helped you in some way. Thank you for being there. See you soon.”

Telegram Fears: More Addons Call it Quits

Since the demise of Luar, other add-on related platforms have taken action too. Whether these are true closures, relocations, rebrandings or any other strategy deployed by pirates, is unknown, but TVChopo and Kodivertido began limiting their exposure in the third week of October.

Not long after, Palantir also took steps to improve its security; in fact, all players mentioned above took exactly the same action.

The popular instant messaging app that the Ministry alluded to in its statement concerning Cristal Azul was Telegram; it appears some people are becoming quite nervous about having a piracy presence there.

After Telegram’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France in August, Telegram promised to address abuse on the platform, including being more responsive to piracy complaints. Telegram says it intends to stand by that promise.

IP Addresses and Phone Numbers

When Spanish tech site AVPasion asked Telegram about its change of policy and how that could affect channel operators accused of infringement, Telegram was fairly bullish on the consequences.

“We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy, ensuring they are consistent across the globe. We’ve made it clear that IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules may be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests,” Telegram’s response reads.

For some who believed that Telegram was a safe haven, this may be an unexpected wake-up call. It really shouldn’t have been unexpected though and what comes next month or next year shouldn’t come as a surprise either.

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 YouTube is the world’s most watched streaming platform. The endless library of videos, uploaded by both amateurs and professionals, is simply unrivaled.

This popularity translates into hard cash, with YouTube and its creators generating billions of dollars in yearly revenue. However, the revenue potential is also a magnet for people who try to profit from the work of others.

We’re not referring to the occasional use of copyrighted content in a broader creative context, but systematic copying in order to generate ‘viral’ content. This turns out to be a profitable business model for dubious ‘creators’ trying to ride the wave of YouTube’s algorithm.

These types of channels exist in various gradations. Some have found loopholes to upload Hollywood content, but those more astute typically stay away from well protected footage. Instead, they source videos that perform well on YouTube, often focused on a specific theme.

Running an operation like this requires expertise. It can be quite a challenge to evade YouTube’s copyright checks, including the Content ID system. Evading copyright strikes and related penalties is a top priority.

A Very Explicit Facade

In recent weeks, several of these dubious YouTube channels demonstrated a rather disturbing trend. After generating many millions of views, they suddenly swap their existing channel artwork and video thumbnails for images of hardcore porn.

This sounds bizarre, but we have documented several examples. The MrTech channel, for example, which had more than 170,000 subscribers, originally looked like this. With the post popular videos each generating millions of views, it was certainly doing well.

MrTech
 

Early November, however, the channel was suddenly filled with sexually explicit content. The videos were still the same, but the thumbnails, channel header, and the logo were clearly NSFW.

Mr…? (uncensored version NSFW!!!)
 

This type of footage is strictly forbidden on the streaming platform and within a few hours the channel was banned for violating community guidelines. That wasn’t unexpected at all, of course.

This explicit facade doesn’t appear to be an isolated incident. Others have started to notice similar channel overhauls recently. Internet Archive has a copy of the popular Luckiest People channel (NSFW!!) that shows a similar transformation, and there are many more.

So why do these types of channels display this behavior? Were they hacked? Or is there an ulterior motive behind getting themselves banned?

Porn Shield?

From what we are able to gather, these changes are intentional. We can’t rule anything out at this point, but it seems that the channel operators are deliberately trying to get their channels terminated for community guideline violations.

When channels are hit with several copyright strikes, they are on the brink of being terminated under YouTube’s copyright policy. However, by using porn as a shield, they’re able to preempt the copyright ban. This tactic usually works, as channels with blatant pornographic content are reported en masse and swiftly banned.

This tactic highlights a potential loophole or weakness in YouTube’s enforcement mechanism that malicious actors can exploit. But what do they get out of it?

YouTube channels can be terminated for both repeated copyright infringement and community guideline violations. In these cases, revenues are often withheld as well. It’s possible, however, that linked AdSense accounts are treated differently.

AdSense Nuance

AdSense policies can be confusing, but based on additional information provided by Google’s AI, YouTube copyright bans are most likely to result in AdSense terminations too.

“Google may suspend or permanently terminate the AdSense account linked to the terminated YouTube channel. This is because AdSense policies prohibit users from profiting from content that infringes on others’ copyrights.”

For community guideline violations, triggered by explicit content, Google AI notes that the response is ‘more nuanced’. Associated AdSense accounts are therefore less likely to be terminated.

“Unlike with copyright strikes, a channel terminated for community guideline violations might not automatically lead to AdSense termination. This is because the focus is on the content itself, not necessarily on profiting from illegal activity.”

Apparently, in some instances, revenues that were initially withheld may even be released after an investigation. That would be another major advantage.

This difference in penalties would explain the sudden appearance of explicit material on these channels. While that doesn’t save the existing channel in any way, it may leave the associated AdSense account intact.

An approved AdSense account is valuable, and keeping it intact means that it can then be used by other channels to start the process all over again. Indeed, there are clear signs that the people or groups behind “porn shield” continue their work elsewhere.

For example, we have seen plenty of new channels showing pretty much identical content to that uploaded by MrTech. Without pointing fingers directly, this Google search for one of its video titles is quite revealing.

TorrentFreak reached out to YouTube which couldn’t directly answer our questions. Instead, it provided a general statement, noting that MrTech triggered its Nudity & Sexual Content Policy, and that there’s a separate program for dealing with copyright infringement.

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Under U.S. copyright law, Internet providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances”.

This legal requirement remained largely unenforced for nearly two decades but a series of copyright infringement liability lawsuits, with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, have shaken up the industry.

RIAA Labels vs. Altice

These piracy liability lawsuits have targeted large and small Internet providers across the United States. This includes Altice, which was sued by various parties in recent years both directly and indirectly as the owner of ISP Optimum.

This summer, Optimum settled its lawsuit with some music industry giants, including BMG, UMG, and Capitol Records, but that doesn’t mean its legal woes are over.

Last December, a group of nearly 50 music labels filed a similar yet separate ‘mass-infringement’ lawsuit against Altice. All members of the RIAA, these music companies claim the ISP is liable for copyright infringement, alleging that it failed to take action against repeat infringers on the “Optimum” network.

“Despite Altice’s stated policies and despite receiving tens of thousands of infringement notices concerning Plaintiffs’ works […] Altice knowingly permitted repeat infringers to continue to use its services to infringe,” the complaint read.

RIAA Denies Discovery Requests

Nearly a year has passed since the complaint was filed. Both parties are currently conducting discovery, seeking relevant evidence to support their arguments. For Altice, the RIAA is a key target, as the music industry group was involved in events that led up to the lawsuit.

To find out more, Altice subpoenaed the RIAA for what it believes is relevant information. The RIAA responded to the request, but refused to produce several documents, so Altice filed a motion at the federal court, asking it to compel the RIAA to comply.

The ISP is particularly interested in the RIAA’s dealings with anti-piracy vendor OpSec Online. The company was responsible for tracking subscribers’ piracy activity on BitTorrent networks and alerting the associated Internet providers, including Altice. These piracy notices were then used as evidence in the current lawsuit.

“According to Plaintiffs, OpSec’s system was used to detect all of the alleged downloads by Altice’s subscribers that serve as the basis for Plaintiffs’ secondary copyright infringement case against Altice,” the motion reads.

RIAA’s Dealings with OpSec

The RIAA reportedly responded with standard rejections to many of these requests. The music group agreed to hand over a copy of its 2019 agreement with OpSec, but rejected to share any other communications related to it.

According to Altice, this missing context is vital to its defense. It may reveal more about the accuracy and reliability of the piracy notices, for example, including details of potential errors and inaccurate notices.

In addition, the RIAA should also be required to share reports and other details that provide more insight into the scope and purpose of the piracy notice efforts.

“[T]he broader reports are relevant to, for example, (1) how many notices were sent to other ISPs, (2) how the RIAA directed OpSec to gather evidence of piracy from other ISPs, and (3) whether the RIAA had a strategy for bringing suits against the entire ISP industry, and, if so, its motivations for doing so,” Altice writes.

Altice request, RIAA response
 

Along the same lines, the RIAA should also disclose about how much it paid OpSec for its services. The music industry group already shared payments between 2020 and 2023, but it should hand over older data too. That will help to establish OpSec’s credibility as a witness, Altice notes.

RIAA’s Other Enforcement Efforts

The remaining information mostly relates to other enforcement efforts. The RIAA is asked to explain how it selects the copyrighted works that are used as evidence in lawsuits, for example, and whether it chose to extend the protection of certain titles, while discarding others.

The RIAA has so far refused to share this information. The same also applies to details of any other enforcement options it considered, including actions against torrent sites and potential lawsuits against providers of file-sharing software.

“These requests are directly relevant to the RIAA’s motivations for pursuing actions against ISPS, like Altice, instead of taking action themselves to address online copyright infringement such as sending notices of infringement to torrent site aggregators […] or taking legal action against providers of peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies.”

Altice request, RIAA response
 

Finally, Altice brings up the Copyright Alert System (CAS). This now-defunct voluntary agreement between rightsholders and Internet providers was previously used in an effort to deter infringement. Notably, this industry sanctioned model did not require ISPs to terminate subscriber accounts.

The music labels have sued Altice for its alleged failure to terminate accounts of repeat infringers, so this information is highly relevant to its defense, the company notes. Through the motion to compel, Altice hopes that the court will order the music group to comply.

At the time of writing, the RIAA has yet to respond to the motion. After that, the court is expected to issue a decision.

—

A copy of the motion to compel, as well as an associated request to transfer it to the Eastern District of Texas, is available here (pdf).

Instant update: The motion is transferred to Texas (pdf).

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 At the start of 2024, few would’ve believed that Nintendo had a plan up its sleeve that would turn the Switch emulator scene upside down in a matter of months.

That Nintendo’s core strategy is effective regardless of the target, and appears flexible enough to put pressure on pro-piracy speech, is a rarity in itself. Even the timing and pace seem to have been measured to perfection.

While no action has been able to conclusively end Switch emulation, or even nudge the scene towards an existential crisis, things are not like they were in 2023. It’s possible there will never be a return, but all things considered, mass uptake of emulation for piracy purposes was never likely to end well.

A less shouty and brazen attitude towards the risky side of emulation, may actually end up being a plus for those determined to continue. When mainstream attraction eventually wears off, Nintendo itself may experience diminishing returns; right now, however, there’s still plenty of work left to do.

Undermining Foundations, Limiting Options

After the dust settled on Yuzu’s demise, any software based on Yuzu had already inherited the same poisonous traits that led to its downfall. With those details in hand, Nintendo has had a much easier time taking down developers’ repos.

Suyu, Nuzu, Uzuy and Torzu all faced disruption in July, along with Sudachi, a Yuzu-based emulator whose DNA can also be found in Pomelo, a Switch emulator for iOS devices.

In a DMCA takedown notice filed at GitHub a few hours ago, Nintendo targets eight Pomelo repos. Highlighting that Pomelo code can be traced back to Yuzu, Nintendo’s notice lists everything that Yuzu did wrong and then links that directly to Pomelo.

“The reported repository provides access to the yuzu emulator or code based on the yuzu emulator (specifically, a program called Pomelo),” the notice reads, before complaining about Yuzu’s actions and leaving GitHub to connect the dots.

“The yuzu emulator is primarily designed to play Nintendo Switch games. Specifically, yuzu illegally circumvents Nintendo’s technological protection measures and runs illegal copies of Nintendo Switch games,” Nintendo continues.

“Nintendo Switch games are encrypted using proprietary cryptographic keys (prod.keys) which protect against unauthorized access to and copying of the copyrighted games. During operation, yuzu necessarily uses unauthorized copies of these cryptographic keys to decrypt unauthorized copies of Nintendo Switch games, or ROMs, at or immediately before runtime without Nintendo’s authorization,” the notice adds.

All Switch Decryption is Illegal

On GitLab, where Pomelo currently continues unhindered, the repo has an unmissable notice on the very front page.

Unfortunately the disclaimer isn’t especially useful. Using the Yuzu case for guidance, dumping encryption keys, regardless of the source of those keys, is illegal. In fact, anywhere where encryption is mentioned, decryption is described as illegal, even when users extract keys from their own, legally purchased devices.

When taken together, these factors lead Pomelo and other Switch emulators down a dead end with nowhere left to go.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

There are dozens of recognizable brands in the illegal streaming market, all jostling for position in a chaotic market where trademarks are copied even more readily than movies or live TV streams.

In Latin America, one brand stands out more than most, and not just because it has a bright orange logo. Believed to operate out of China, illegal streaming service Magis TV is consumed via a now ubiquitous Android app, made available on hundreds of websites, including those operated by a very large network of resellers.

Rightsholders in the United States consider Magis TV a priority threat yet despite various enforcement measures in multiple countries, the service remains stubbornly online.

Law Enforcement Operation in Colombia

On the back of action in Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina in recent months, police in Colombia targeted people involved in the supply of Magis TV earlier this week.

Information released by the Attorney General’s Office indicates that two brothers, arrested after being tracked by the Specialized Directorate Against Computer Crimes, had been providing access to illegal TV streams under the brands ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Oficial.’

In common with the majority of similar cases, the pair stand accused of violating the intellectual property rights of multinational entertainment companies.

Brothers arrested (image credit: Fiscalía Colombia)

While operations like these aren’t especially rare, the charges faced by the brothers go beyond copyright infringement.

Piracy and Malicious Software Charges

“The brothers Juan Diego and José Daniel Santacruz Benavidez were arrested following investigations carried out by the CTI and the National Police in Pasto (Nariño). These people were brought before a judge and charged with the crimes of violation of copyright and use of malicious software,” the official statement reads.

“Those interested in acquiring these tools, called ‘Magis TV’ and ‘Magis Official’, accessed two websites to download them and thus access the audiovisual offer; however, they also installed malicious software on their devices that enabled the camera, alerted about the user’s geolocation, and facilitated the transmission of personal data, photographs and videos, to external storage.”

As previously reported, cybersecurity firm ESET previously linked Magis TV to malware and botnets. As far as we’re aware, these data exfiltration claims are new but since the Magis TV app comes in many shapes and sizes, there’s no one-size-fits-all analysis that applies across the board.

Malware Claims Gain Credibility in Colombia

Rightsholders have fully embraced malware warnings as part of their deterrent messaging in recent years. Unfortunately, the manner in which those claims are delivered meets a credibility crisis that’s difficult to overcome.

On one hand, malware and similar issues are portrayed as incredibly serious for consumers. Yet when other piracy risks are discussed in parallel – such as being arrested by the police for simply watching pirate IPTV – the emphasis is suddenly back on a comparatively minor crime for which the police continually find the resources.

The end result is a stream of pirates prosecuted for copyright infringement or fraud repeatedly hitting the headlines. Meanwhile, prosecutions for spreading malware, stealing identities, and other serious offenses, are completely non-existent.

Through this action, malware warnings have just become instantly more credible; they may even find support among the public.

Enforcement Action in Ecuador

The war against Magis TV in Ecuador has been underway for some time, with numerous blocking orders attempting to prevent access to dozens, if not hundreds of websites.

Information released by police on Wednesday announced the arrest of a man in the province of Guayas, said to be behind “one of the largest illegal streaming providers.” When contacted by local publication Primicias seeking clarification, police confirmed that this operation also targeted Magis TV.

A short video posted to X by Ecuadorian Police, is a reminder that the IT Crowd’s parody of ‘Piracy, It’s a Crime’ just a few years ago, is now just one restless finger away from becoming reality.

DETENCIÓN DE CIUDADANO POR EL DELITO DE ACCESO NO CONSENTIDO A UN SISTEMA INFORMÁTICO

 

En #Guayas, labores investigativas permitieron detener a un implicado en la distribución de servicios de una aplicación de streaming a través de una página web, el ciudadano comercializaba el… pic.twitter.com/t0EUTglfkc

 

— Policía Ecuador (@PoliciaEcuador) November 13, 2024

An Extra.ec report published late Wednesday identifies Javier Eduardo López Cassan as the man arrested. He’s described as an “administrator of Magis TV” but what that means here is unclear. Resellers commonly have their own Magis TV-branded websites while others sell via social media; 51-year-old Cassan sold via WhatsApp and other platforms, police confirmed.

In any event, police weren’t taking anything for granted, as the video shows.

“More than 20 agents from different units participated in the operation, including the National Cybercrime Unit, the G3 Tactical Group of Guayaquil, plus Criminalistics and the Law Enforcement Unit (UMO). According to the Judiciary, López Cassan already had a criminal record for concealing stolen objects and had two legal proceedings for failure to comply with alimony obligations,” the publication reported.

Whether copyright charges will feature in this case isn’t made clear but according to the authorities, cybercrime offenses most certainly will. Cassan is facing charges of ‘unauthorized access to a computer, telematic or telecommunications system,’ which carries a potential sentence of between three and five years in prison.

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 After eight years of unprecedented uptime and reliability, the collapse and eventual demise of pirate streaming giant FMovies looked much like the demise of any other.

Cracks first started to emerge in June 2024 when the site stopped updating with new content. A few weeks later in mid-July, FMovies disappeared entirely, without any explanation from its operators or indeed anyone else. An announcement at the end of August confirmed what many had suspected, however.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and anti-piracy coalition Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) revealed that they had collaborated with Hanoi Police to shut down the FMovies operation, which included ‘sister’ sites AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer.

According to ACE, the FMovies empire was the largest piracy ring in the world, attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024 alone. Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, described the dismantling of FMovies as “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

Authorities in Vietnam Break Silence

The MPA/ACE announcement late August contained praise for Vietnamese authorities but no official statement from them. Initial reports late August didn’t provide details on any arrests either, but it later transpired that two people connected to FMovies had been detained.

After more than two months of silence, local authorities have now released additional information on the investigation and the two men previously arrested. They also confirm that a decision has been made to prosecute the case and both suspects.

The Investigation and Identification of Suspects

Responding to allegations made by the Hollywood studios, the Economic Police Department, in coordination with departments of the Hanoi City Police, launched an investigation to confirm the suspects’ identities and relevant background information.

FMovies viewed from the other side (Credit: police video)

Police say that documents and other evidence was obtained to clarify the suspects’ operational methods and to confirm their roles in the FMovies operation.

Hanoi City Police now confirm the following:

• Suspect 1: Phan Thanh Cong, 34, is a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

He is described as the “mastermind, leader, creator, operator, and manager” of the “FMovies website system” which allegedly offered almost 50,000 films to the public, in many cases violating MPA members’ rights.

Alleged FMovies ‘Mastermind’ Phan Thanh Cong (Credit: Hanoi City Police)

Authorities also reveal that the suspect was “administratively disciplined for similar behavior” in the past, but the offending was not described in detail.

• Suspect 2: Nguyen Tuan Anh, also 34 and a resident of Mo Lao ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi, is described as an accomplice/assistant.

Alleged FMovies ‘Accomplice’ Nguyen Tuan Anh (Credit: police video)

It’s claimed he was responsible for illegally copying around 50,000 films and posting them to FMovies and its ‘sister’ websites. In many cases, this violated MPA members’ rights.

Other Findings of the Investigation

According to local police, the offending began in 2016, with the suspects illegally earning “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” before the operation was shut down in August 2024. The authorities claim that during questioning, both men confessed in full to all alleged crimes.

The Investigation Police Agency at Hanoi City Police says it has issued a decision to prosecute the case. Phan Thanh Cong and Nguyen Tuan Anh will be prosecuted for infringement of copyright and related rights under Clause 2, Section 225, Penal Code 2015. What that means for those arrested is currently unclear; the necessary details are yet to be released and almost everything turns on those details.

Commercial Scale Offending?

Section 225 relates to the unlawful copying and/or distribution of infringing copies of audiovisual works, without obtaining permission from rightsholders, on a ‘commercial scale’. That term is not clearly defined. Instead, indications are given in terms of illegal profits, such as VND 50,000,000 (just under $US2,000) or damage to rightsholders of VND 100,000,000 (just under US$4,000).

Profits of “hundreds of thousands of US dollars” does seem to qualify but any predictions on how things might eventually play out would be pure guesswork at this stage and most likely unhelpful.

The framework of penalties is complicated and varies according to the scale and nature of the offending, which isn’t straightforward either. Fines seeem to vary from VND 50,000,000 (just under US$2,000) to VND 300,000,000 (just under US$12,000) and a non-custodial sentence, up to VND 1,000,000,000 (just under US$395,000) and a custodial sentence of between six months and three years, depending on the presence of any specified aggravating factors.

Yet as Phan Thanh Cong apparently knows from experience, the authorities might prefer to impose administrative measures. We just don’t know and the information being made available right now is simply insufficient. It’s possible that MPA/ACE have a clearer idea, but it’s highly unlikely any public comments will be made during an ongoing prosecution.

Letter of Thanks Sent From U.S. to Vietnam

What happens moving forward in this process is clearly very important to the United States and the studios in particular.

A police video released in connection with the news above skims the following letter. We had to stitch it back together to make it readable, but the sentiment is clear; the United States is very grateful for the assistance and at least thus far, satisfied with the direction of the relationship and the case.

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 Pirate site blocking is one of the entertainment industry’s favorite enforcement tools. In recent years, it’s become a common practice in many countries around the world.

In the Netherlands, it took over a decade for the first order to be approved. After detours through the Supreme Court and the EU Court of Justice, the final order was issued in 2020, targeting The Pirate Bay.

With all the legal paperwork in order, the doors were open to more blocking requests, especially after rightsholders and local ISPs signed a covenant to streamline the process. If a court orders one company to block pirate sites, by agreement the other ISPs will follow suit.

After the initial Pirate Bay blockade, a follow-up order targeted YTS, EZTV and other torrent sites in 2022. Last year, the court approved a ‘dynamic’ blocking order against Lookmovie and Flixtor, followed by similar action against popular shadow libraries a few months ago.

New TorrentGalaxy Blockade

Yesterday, BREIN announced that it has won another blocking case. In a recent ruling, the Rotterdam District Court ordered Dutch internet provider Odido to block access to popular torrent site TorrentGalaxy and its associated proxy and mirror domains.

The Court found that TorrentGalaxy facilitates copyright infringement by providing unauthorized access to copyrighted works. As an internet service provider, Odido plays a role in facilitating access to TorrentGalaxy, therefore it’s obliged to take action to limit the piracy activity.

The ISP is seen as an intermediary under Dutch copyright law. Without taking action, it can be held liable, the Court explained. This wasn’t contested by Odido, but the ISP opposed BREIN’s blocking request for other reasons.

ISP Opposition Fails

In court, the ISP mentioned the subsidiarity requirement of the blocking covenant, arguing that BREIN had not sufficiently tested other avenues to shut the site down. BREIN could have done more to address the infringements closer to the source, by going after TorrentGalaxy’s hosting provider, for example.

BREIN had reached out to TorrentGalaxy’s former host FlokiNET in the past, but without any result. However, when the torrent site reportedly relocated this summer, it was weeks before BREIN contacted the new hosting company, Virtual Systems, which typically doesn’t respond to its inquiries either.

After reviewing the arguments from both sides, the Court agreed that BREIN had taken all appropriate steps as agreed in the blocking covenant.

“BREIN not only wrote to the site and the hosting provider, but also to the registrant, registrar and registry of each domain. BREIN has therefore done more than was expected of it,” the Rotterdam District Court’s decision notes.

There are additional steps BREIN could have taken. For example, it could have sued the hosting companies. However, that’s not needed to warrant a blocking order.

“The subsidiarity requirement does not extend so far that BREIN is required to first conduct numerous lawsuits abroad against foreign parties before it demands a blockade in the Netherlands,” the Court adds

500+ Domain Blockade

BREIN director Bastiaan van Ramshorst is pleased with the outcome, which requires other Dutch ISPs to follow suit. Overall, these blocking measures have proven to be effective, particularly since dynamic orders allow new domains to be added later on.

“The websites blocking covenant is working satisfactorily. Dynamic blocking is effective and in the Netherlands it leads to a substantial decrease in visits to the evidently illegal websites that are blocked,” he says.

In addition to ISPs, the order also extends to Google, as the search engine previously decided to voluntarily remove domains from local search results based on ISP blocking orders.

“Moreover, all websites that Dutch access providers must block by court order, Google removes from its search results at the request of BREIN. This cuts both ways,” Van Ramshorst adds.

At the time of writing, the full Dutch pirate site blocklist covers 574 domain names, including proxies and mirrors. In addition to newcomer TorrentGalaxy, it includes The Pirate Bay, YTS, KAT, 1337x, EZTV, LimeTorrents, RARBG (offline), Lookmovie, Flixtor, Anna’s Archive, and Library Genesis.

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 For most of 2024, major football leagues in Spain and Italy have regularly used the media to criticize and then publicly threaten Google. Rightsholders have always criticized Google but this feels a bit different.

More recently, flare-ups have coincided with rightsholders demanding that Google implements new, controversial anti-piracy measures, such as remotely deleting apps from users’ phones. Whether any discussions take place in private is unclear. But from the outside, subsequent one-sided criticism of Google’s response to piracy via the media, suggests that differences still exist.

Recent Allegations

Criticism rose again via Italian media during October, with headlines such as ‘TV rights and piracy, Serie A ready to sue Google‘ and variations thereof. The common theme in these reports are allegations that Google receives takedown notices from football league Serie A but then ignores them; all part of a reluctance to collaborate on anti-piracy matters in general, the allegations claim.

To a background of Google receiving its 10 billionth URL removal request just over a week ago, and limited complaints along similar lines from elsewhere, ignoring takedown notices seems unlikely. At the very least, it’s lacking context in the bigger picture.

Transparency Helps to Settle Disputes

Details of specific complaints haven’t been made public but multiple reports state that Serie A’s complaints relate to Google’s alleged failures in the current season, which started mid-August. The table below shows takedown notices filed by Serie A or appointed agents between May 26 and September 23, 2024.

Serie A appears to use more than one account when filing takedown notices, including Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A and Liga Nacional de Fütbol Profesional, which we’ll return to in a moment.

The complaint at the bottom of the table dated May 26 was sent before the season began but is relevant in the bigger picture. It requested the removal of 84 URLs, of which Google deleted 12% from search results. Since the remaining 88% of URLs in the notice did not actually exist in Google’s search indexes when the notice was sent, removal was impossible.

Google Processes Unnecessarily Confusing Complaints

Here’s where things become unnecessarily complicated. The May 26 takedown notice was sent by an agent; more specifically a company called Sportian, the anti-piracy company previously known as LaLiga Tech, owned by top tier Spanish football league, LaLiga. The full takedown notice, courtesy of the Lumen Database, can be viewed here with a sample of the not-in-index URLs shown below.

At the time of writing, a total of 3,530 individual requests filed with Google under the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional account have requested the removal of 437,524 URLs. Google went on to remove 49.8% of that total, could not remove 23.3% because they did not exist in its indexes and a further 3.3% because the same URLs were duplicates of previously reported links.

The issue here is that Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional isn’t a reference to Serie A; it’s actually Sportiva using the full name of Spanish football league LaLiga in its unlikely capacity as a takedown agent for Serie A.

While there doesn’t appear to be anything nefarious going on here, takedown fraud thrives on convoluted situations not dissimilar to this. If given time to do its job, Google often identifies abuses and prevents them from doing damage.

Despite a hall of mirrors, Google still processed the notices and also took down whatever it was able to take down. According to Google data on all of Serie A accounts mentioned earlier, 70.2% of all URLs requested for takedown do not exist in its search indexes so are impossible to delete.

Season Begins With a Change of Tactics

The Serie A notices dated Aug 22, Aug 27, and September 3, were not sent to Google from its usual accounts. Instead, they were filed by SP Tech, the law firm/anti-piracy company behind the Piracy Shield platform.

Those three notices contain just 12 URLs in total, of which Google removed none.

All three takedown notices

After sending takedown notices listing specific URLs and infringing content as required under the DMCA, there’s a very clear switch here to domain-based takedown notices that appear to identify no infringing content at all.

Indeed, while these domains appear to link to sites that may well offer IPTV packages containing Serie A matches, the DMCA states that takedown notices must contain sufficient information for the recipient to identify and remove the infringing content.

Clash of Legal Requirements

Under Law n. 93 of 14 July 2023, which has been in force in Italy since August 8, 2023, service providers and ISPs are required to block or otherwise prevent access to infringing content within 30 minutes of receiving an instruction from Piracy Shield; a system to which Google is not currently connected.

Even if Google deindexed the domains in Serie A’s notices, that wouldn’t prevent access to any IPTV streams. That’s something this law does not consider. These are blocking and deindexing orders made with no judicial oversight, that have shown to be erroneous on several occasions, with Google itself blocked in error a matter of weeks ago.

The exact reasons for Google currently rejecting domain-only takedown/deindexing demands are unknown. In the UK and the Netherlands, Google has been deindexing entire pirate sites since 2021. The difference is that rightsholders in both countries previously obtained court orders that provide a legal basis for ISP blocking. Google isn’t even mentioned in those orders, but it cooperates because due process requirements have been met.

In Italy, purely on the word of a rightsholder, who may or may not know the difference between Google Drive and a pirate site on any given day, companies like Google are expected to blindly and immediately follow orders. Thirty minutes is a timeframe that encourages no checks whatsoever, the consequences of which have been widely publicized.

Called Out in Public

Resistance, it appears, can lead to blanket accusations of doing almost nothing to assist rightsholders. As highlighted above, Google does process takedown notices; however, depending on the takedown account held up as proof, Google can be shown to be mostly or even totally non-compliant. The Sp Tech account shown below, which was introduced only recently, is one such example.

Describing Google as generally non-compliant, or even “grossly negligent” according to a recent comment, simply isn’t true. Serie A has another account at Google that’s been in use since January 2019. Over more than five years, Serie A filed 56,847 individual takedown notices that together requested the removal of 1,194,826 URLs.

Of that total, 65.5% of the URLs did not exist in Google search, meaning it was impossible to remove them. Google removed 27.9% of the URLs as requested, leaving duplicate URLs already dealt with and 5.4% for which Google took no action.

While that sounds like a minimum compliance rate of 95%, attention will inevitably focus on the remaining 5% and why those weren’t removed as well. There are many reasons behind Google’s refusals to take action, including protecting innocent parties from abusive or simply careless takedown demands.

That Google continues to do that, even while being publicly disparaged for its apparent failings, is commendable. That it prevented Serie A from deindexing its own website on October 27, is ironic, to put it mildly.

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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 one newcomer on the list. “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on November 11 are:

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

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 Like most other countries, South Korea has a persistent piracy problem. Online streaming platforms in particular, have flourished in recent years.

Up until a year ago, ‘Noonoo TV’ was one of the leading players. Despite welcoming millions of monthly visitors, the site shut itself down citing bandwidth costs and other ‘pressure’.

Noonoo & TVWIKI

The self-imposed shutdown was unexpected but it didn’t take long before other streaming platforms filled the gap. One of these replacements was TVWIKI portal, which showed remarkable similarities with Noonoo.

For example, the Android apps of Noonoo and TVWIKI shared code and had the same application signing key. In addition, the two portals shared the same category structure and some videos streamed on TVWIKI had a Noonoo watermark.

TVWIKI’s rapid rise in popularity quickly made it a prime anti-piracy target, with Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association (MPA) labeling the operation a notorious piracy market.

In a report sent to the U.S. Government, MPA wrote that TVWIKI has millions of monthly visitors, who accounted for nearly 40 million visits in August. At the time, it used the tv51.wiki domain but it regularly switched to new homes to evade Korea’s stringent blocking measures.

“This series of domains utilizes ‘sequential domain aliasing’ to evade detection by enforcement vendors, traffic measurement bots, and evade site-blocking efforts,” MPA wrote at the time, adding that the operators are believed to be based in Korea.

Korea Shuts Down TVWIKI, Arrests ‘Noonoo’ Operator

TVWIKI’s reign ended abruptly this weekend, when its domain was forwarded to a shutdown notice hosted by GitHub. A message informed visitors that Korean authorities seized the domain. The site’s alleged operator, meanwhile, was arrested by a special unit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The enforcement action appears to confirm the ties between Noonoo and TVWIKI. The takedown notice, hosted on the url ‘copyright241109.github.io/noonoowarrant‘, mentions that the alleged operator of TVWIKI is the same person who ran Noonoo and OKTOON, another pirate streaming portal.

“The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Copyright Crime Scientific Investigation Unit arrested the operator of the illegal streaming website Noonoo TV on November 9, 2024, and seized the illegal streaming website TVWIKI and the illegal webtoon posting site OKTOON operated by the same operator,” the translated message reads.

The Shutdown Notice (translated)

South Korean news outlet MBN refers to the alleged operator as “Mr. A” but no further details have been released at this point.

The authorities link Noonoo and TVWIKI’s operator to OKTOON, a pirate site that specialized in Korean comics. OKTOON was targeted in a DMCA subpoena obtained by the Naver-owned company Webtoon in June this year, alongside 170 other domain names. Whether this action contributed to the eventual takedown of the site is unknown.

Rumors and Replacements

Given the evasive nature of the pirate streaming portal, some people suggested that the seizure was just a predetermined PR stunt to increase its popularity. This was partly triggered by the GitHub-hosted seizure banner.

However, with every passing hour, reality started to sink in. The Korean authorities likely use GitHub to offload traffic to an external service. The same tactic was used after the webtoon pirate site Agitoon was shut down in August of this year.

In a response to an inquiry from the local news outlet MK, an official from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism confirmed that the authorities are responsible.

“It is correct that the operator was arrested on the 9th, and the notice on the site was also posted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism,” the spokesperson responded.

With the domain seizures and arrest, one of the largest Korean piracy operations has been rolled up. However, as is often the case, others will be eager to take over the brand, as also happened with Noonoo last year.

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In late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies including UMG, Warner and Sony Music prevailed in their lawsuit against Internet provider Grande Communications.

The record labels accused the Astound-owned ISP of not doing enough to stop pirating subscribers. Specifically, they alleged that the company failed to terminate repeat infringers.

The trial lasted more than two weeks and ended in a resounding victory for the labels. A Texas federal jury found Grande guilty of willful contributory copyright infringement, and the ISP was ordered to pay $47 million in damages to the record labels.

$47 Million Appeal

Grande was unhappy with the verdict and appealed. Internet providers shouldn’t be held liable for pirating customers based on third-party allegations, the company noted. This appeal was supported by several telecoms organizations which agreed that terminating accounts of suspected pirates is a drastic and overbroad remedy.

In addition to the liability aspect, Grande also protested the damages calculations. The jury calculated the damages per song, instead of per album, which is the wrong interpretation of U.S. law according to the ISP.

Last month, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a mixed order. The court confirmed that the ISP is liable for copyright infringement but upheld its concerns over damages. A new trial was issued to establish the lower damages award, on a per-album basis.

The Court agreed that, in this instance, awarding statutory damages on a per-song basis “would make a total mockery” of Congress’ mandate. If rightsholders would like this to change, they should ask Congress to change the law.

Record Labels Want Rehearing

UMG, Warner, Sony and the other labels agree with the finding on liability but object to the damages calculation since this substantially lowers the $47m award.

Last week, they filed a petition for a rehearing en banc. They argue that the Fifth Circuit’s decision on the damages’ calculation is too narrow.

The labels note that each song that was infringed is its own “work” under the Copyright Act, and that they are entitled to damages for each individual song.

Their argument is based on the “independent economic value” test, which asks whether the unit of expression has “independent economic value” to the copyright owner. If it does, then the copyright owner is entitled to statutory damages for the infringement of each copyrightable unit of expression.

In this case, songs can have individual value, whether they are part of an album or not. This notion is supported by the fact that most music is consumed via digital streaming platforms, which provide access to individual songs.

“In the digital era, streaming is the primary source of revenue and necessarily involves the commercialization of individual recordings,” the labels write.

Piracy Changed the Music Biz

The labels point out that there’s a certain irony in the Fifth Circuit’s decision. They note that rampant piracy was a primary reason the industry moved from selling physical albums to making individual downloads and streams available.

This means that statutory damages, which are supposed to compensate copyright owners and deter infringers, are based on the old “album” model, which has been disrupted by online piracy.

“Thus, the panel’s decision calculates statutory damages awards based on the remnants of a business model that digital piracy severely diminished,” the petition reads.

One Work?

In addition to the independent economic value test, the labels disagree with the court’s interpretation of Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act, which states that all parts of a compilation constitute one work.

The Fifth Circuit held that albums are compilations, which should therefore be seen as a single work. However, the labels believe that this narrow interpretation only applies if the alleged copyright infringement is an album.

In this case, the labels alleged infringements of individual songs, not albums. Therefore, it should be appropriate to calculate damages per song, they argue.

“Thus, the panel’s rule serves no purpose other than to punish copyright owners for their decision to include their standalone works on compilations in addition to commercializing them individually,” the labels write.

This present lawsuit is based on alleged BitTorrent downloads. It’s not immediately clear whether these were only torrents for individual songs. However, the labels seem to suggest this is the case.

All in all, the music companies argue that there is sufficient reason for a rehearing. If the current verdict stands it will significantly harm their ability to combat rampant online piracy, they conclude.

—

A copy of the petition for a rehearing en banc, which was submitted at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, is available here (pdf).

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 While judicial oversight may be initially unavoidable when site-blocking is first introduced to a country, systems with less friction are strongly preferred.

The law that supports Italy’s Piracy Shield system allows for blocking with no judicial oversight. An amendment passed quietly last year now allows rightsholders to block online resources without any input from telecoms regulator AGCOM. The system has almost no friction at the blocking stage. That comes at the cost of significant blunders, which could been prevented by proper checks and balances.

Details of a complaint alleging more unwarranted blocking reveal an unusual situation where the interpretation of new law and its blocking boundaries appear to be determined by rightsholders alone. There’s no case law to provide guidance and any complaints are handled at a significantly slower pace than initial blocking takes place.

DAZN Files Complaint Against Smart TV Software

DAZN added https://tizen.smartone-iptv.com and https://lg.smartone-iptv.com to the Piracy Shield blocking platform on August 18, rendering both inaccessible in Italy. This action is based on assertions that the domains were violating its Serie A football broadcasting rights.

According to AGCOM, DAZN’s evidence was supported by a declaration that the reported domain names are “unequivocally intended for the violation of copyright or related rights of audiovisual works,” including sporting events broadcast live.

The regulator’s report clearly states that DAZN’s declaration was provided “under its own responsibility.” On face value that seems to indicate that no other entity is responsible when things go wrong.

SmartOne Files Objection

After being placed on the system, Italian ISPs blocked both resources. Two days later, on August 20, SmartOne filed a formal complaint with AGCOM to protest the blocking. An excerpt of that correspondence, translated but otherwise ‘as-is’, reads as follows;

The domains (DNS) belong to a Smart TV application, it’s a player and entertainment application agreed and approved by so many TV manufacturers like Samsung, LG, Hisense, Toshiba, VIDAA OS and so many others.

 

We don’t sell any contents and IPTV data, our domain includes the IPTV word and might cause confusion for so many parties, but we can provide any info or proof to show that we don’t offer any piracy contents or illegal contents. We hereby request to remove our domains from the block system: tizen.smartone-iptv.com, lg.smartone-iptv.com, and any other domain related to smartone- iptv.com […]

The subdomains in the two fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) supplied by DAZN suggest that each brand is allocated its own subdomain.

We can confirm that the subdomains androidtv, webos, foxxum, vestel and others also exist, indicating a typical setup for an app catering for different technical requirements on a per-manufacturer basis. Those FQDN subdomains are not blocked.

In its report responding to the complaint, AGCOM refers again to DAZN’s evidence, which clearly states content being made available, in violation of DAZN’s rights.

DAZN Insists SmartOne is a Pirate IPTV Service

“From the checks carried out on the domain names reported through the relevant documentation attached by the reporting party, it appeared that the live broadcast of the matches of the Italian Serie A football championship were made available in violation of articles 1, paragraph 1, 12, 13, 16 and 78-bis, 78-ter, of the aforementioned law no 633/41,” AGCOM explains.

On September 2, 2024, SmartOne sent counter-arguments to AGCOM for use in the complaint procedure.

“We do not provide any content or transfer any matches or videos that are owned by any other company such as ‘Dazn’ or ‘la Società’ claims, the content operated on the program is under the user’s responsibility,” the communication reads.

“The links https:// tizen.smartone-iptv.com and https:// lg.smartone-iptv.com are links that contain some program operating files and do not contain any link to broadcasts of the Italian League, and we are ready to provide any other clarifications or other information.”

Nevertheless, DAZN had made its position clear and in its counter-arguments, refused to concede even an inch.

“These FQDNs were found to be linked to IP addresses that we reported for suspicious activity. Forensic analysis […] confirmed that the detected IP addresses are unique and directly linked to the illicit IPTV broadcasts,” DAZN said in its response.

“It is important to underline that, although Smartone-IPTV may initially appear as a simple generic player, the evidence collected and uploaded to the Piracy Shield Platform clearly indicates that it plays not only a Player role, but also an active role in the distribution of abusive content.”

Domains Play ‘Active Role’

Our checks on an unofficial Piracy Shield database revealed that both FQDNs were added to the blocklist on August 18, 2024, around 18:40. In both cases the main domain (smartone-iptv.com) operates via Cloudflare IP addresses, but the subdomains do not.

Each subdomain has its own IP address at hosting provider Hetzner Online which link to other domains, each with a reference to LG/Tizen. As DAZN points out, the IP addresses used are indeed unique.

What “active role” they play in the distribution of ‘abusive’ content isn’t immediately clear but neither the IP addresses nor the domains were put on the Piracy Shield blocklist. Why that’s the case given the role they allegedly play only makes things even more unusual.

AGCOM Considers Evidence and Renders its Decision

AGCOM’s summing up of DAZN’s evidence and what that means for the complaint is a bit of a rollercoaster; it begins with good news for SmartOne, then cites information that suggests suspicion of illicit activity, but without sufficient confidence to act accordingly.

The SmartOne IPTV application does not provide pre-configured streaming video content lists, but these must be uploaded by users. In particular, SmartOne IPTV implements the ‘Upload playlist’ functionality via the web with which it is possible to create lists of content and distribute them to specifically accredited SmartOne users.

 

That said, the activity generally carried out by SmartOne IPTV appears to consist in a service for making available an application that allows access to IPTV channels uploaded by users, as well as making available a web control panel to manage the distribution of playlists and the related users associated with it.

 

However, in this case, through the reported FQDNs, SmartOne IPTV has made available its own FQDNs tizen.smartone-iptv.com and lg.smartone-iptv.com to allow access to its server and, through the next part of the address (which determines the complete URL), to access other servers with a presumed role of gateway to illegal IPTV, enabling access to the illegal content present on a third-party server.

Despite these allegations, AGCOM says that there’s no evidence to show that SmartOne is directly responsible for the illicit streams DAZN highlighted in its declaration.

“In fact, the IP source of the illegal video streaming traffic, as it appears in the report, is not directly attributable to the smartone-iptv.com domain but corresponds to companies that manage gateway services, as shown by the reverse DNS query,” AGCOM notes.

“Considering that the company SmartOne IPTV, although having, through the reported FQDNs, enabled access to illegal content present on third-party servers, does not originate said content through its own servers.”

With that, AGCOM accepted SmartOne’s complaint of August 20 and revoked the blocking orders against tizen.smartone-iptv.com and lg.smartone-iptv.com.

A Big Win With a Bigger Caveat

After finding no evidence to directly link SmartOne with the illegal streams mentioned in DAZN’s declaration, to the extent that the blocking measures were revoked, AGCOM’s decision has a sting in the tail for SmartOne.

Regardless of whether SmartOne customers load their own playlists, it must now implement proactive measures to ensure that content owned by DAZN isn’t accessed by end users of its platform, ever again.

Given that any of SmartOne’s users can choose to upload an IPTV playlist providing access to DAZN content, it may mean that compliance can only be achieved by preventing all users – not just Italians – from using its service, period.

AGCOM’s decision can be appealed at the Lazio Regional Court but whether SmartOne will do so is currently unknown.

AGCOM’s decision (110/24/CSP) is available here (pdf)

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

The long-awaited Pirate Bay TV series premiered in Sweden on Friday, through official channel and (eventually also) on The Pirate Bay.

There’s no doubt that the notorious torrent site has made history, but getting everything down on paper and converting it into a TV-series is no easy task.

TorrentFreak has seen the first two episodes. While reviews are not our thing, we requested input from two founding figures, both of whom were featured in the show. This made clear that there is plenty to say.

Fiction

Let’s begin by stressing that The Pirate Bay series is a work of fiction, inspired by facts. The story of the remarkably deviant and resilient torrent site is well known. Never before, however, has it been told this way; by the entertainment industry.

Documenting a historical movement on screen blurs the lines between fact and fiction. It can be tricky to distinguish what really happened from the embellishments introduced under creative license. That’s also the case here.

Viewers shouldn’t confuse the series with reality. It is mostly a collection of scenes that never took place; at least not as portrayed. It’s the interpretation of the writers and directors, based on public information and details shared by insiders.

The three lead characters, Pirate Bay founders Fredrik, Gottfrid, and Peter, were not involved in the project. This means that important context and details are missing. You can’t really blame the creators for this, but it’s important to keep in mind.

Never Happened…

Based on the first episodes, the series presents an entertaining version of The Pirate Bay’s origin story. There is plenty of attention for historical details and some props were meticulously recreated, including the legendary Pirate Bay bus.

The broader storyline, ultimately ending with the founders’ prison sentences, is well documented too. The creators don’t deviate much there. That said, many scenes, timelines, and events portrayed on TV never took place.

For example, there’s a key opening scene where the tracker is officially launched by Piratbyrån’s Rasmus Fleischer at a house party. The event was videotaped and sent to the Swedish anti-piracy bureau, Antipiratbyrån. While the scene is entertaining, it never happened.

The same applies to other details. For example, the suggestion that the Pirate Bay’s key figures were hard to find is overblown. There was a publicly posted bank account tied to the donations, for example, and Pirate Bay’s hosting company PRQ was owned by two of the site’s founders.

These details are largely irrelevant to the broader public. Overall, they provide a good overview of the site’s origins and the main story arc, leaving room for viewers to draw their own conclusions.

For those at the heart of the events, the series is a different story altogether. They see ‘copies’ of themselves playing roles they don’t necessarily identify with. After everything they went through, that can feel like a slap in the face; from the entertainment industry.

Peter Sunde: Disappointed

Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, doesn’t recognize himself in the series. Peter skipped the official advance screener in Stockholm that was organized for key figures but found an unofficial option to watch it before it aired. He wasn’t impressed.

“To be honest, I’m very disappointed. Sure it’s fictional, but what does that really mean when they use your name, quote you on things you’ve said, and then portray you completely different?” he tells us.

For example, Peter’s character is initially portrayed as somewhat submissive to his boss at Siemens, which he doesn’t recognize at all. In addition, the series doesn’t fully grasp the disorganized nature of Piratbyrån either, he says.

What stings the most is that the ‘entertainment industry’ that’s long been The Pirate Bay’s main arch rival, is now commercializing its history.

“My biggest concern with the series is that it’s made by people from the same industry that hates The Pirate Bay,” Peter says. “It’s paid for by organizations that have sued or threatened to sue TPB.”

Peter doesn’t recognize himself or the other founders in the series, not in attitude or wit. To top it off, ‘his’ Norwegian accent is “awful” too, he says, suggesting that this may have been done on purpose.

Peter declined to cooperate with B-Reel Films, the Swedish production company that created the series. While he stands by that decision, he had hoped that the episodes would place more emphasis on the broader impact of the site, instead of the legal drama.

“Honestly, I feel it’s like they put the TPB Wikipedia articles and TPB AFK into an LLM and asked the AI to make a script,” Peter concludes.

Rasmus Fleischer: Copying History

Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån who was closely involved in the Pirate Bay project in the early days, shares some of Peter’s criticism. However, he is more forgiving towards the creators.

“One thing I do not recognize in the fictionalized ‘Rasmus Fleischer’ is that he seems unable to open his mouth without going into a principled speech about freedom of speech and the like.

“While I do and did prefer freedom to unfreedom, Piratbyrån definitely did not talk much in the language of rights and freedoms,” Rasmus adds.

Rasmus chooses not to go into great detail on everything that he believes misses the mark, but he stresses that it was never the goal to piss off Hollywood and its lawyers. He sees it more as an impromptu trolling machine. To him, it almost seemed fictional at the time.

“At times, everything already had a quite fictional character. Or so it felt, watching how our own made-up fictions made headlines around the world,” he says, mentioning the “buy Sealand” project as an example.

Rasmus has a Ph.D. in history and works at Stockholm University, so he has some experience with how history is told. He recognizes that there’s no uniform history here. To create something understandable, one has to pick a scenario.

“To tell the story of The Pirate Bay, based on true events, necessarily means to discard the vast majority of events. Trying to fit it all in would result in a chaotic, non-linear story, hardly understandable for anyone who wasn’t around.”

In the series, the creators focused on the legal aspects, instead of the broader societal impact. This is “a bit boring” according to Rasmus. However, he’s not upset or offended by the end result.

“I am not offended by the fact that it is ‘the entertainment industry’ telling the story, and I also don’t feel that I have any right to control fictional accounts even if it includes a character bearing my name.

“I still like copying. Just let them copy me, let them show what kind of copies they are able to make – and we will show them once again how we copy,” Rasmus adds.

Piratbyrån vs. The Pirate Bay

If anything, the above shows that, after all these years, The Pirate Bay story still moves people. And indeed, the series is food for thought.

Piratbyrån was simply a disorganized group of friends who discovered that they could have a broad impact by destabilizing institutions and rethinking the status quo. These ideas didn’t start at organized meetings, most communication took place on IRC.

In 2003, their focus on file-sharing caught on, and The Pirate Bay was ‘just another’ display of defiance. However, the Pirate Bay quickly grew into something much larger than Piratbyrån.

Ultimately, Fredrik, Gottfrid and Peter silently accepted the ‘founder’ labels. They came together at the right time, with each assuming their own role, for different reasons. They all excelled in these positions and helped The Pirate Bay thrive.

Where other core Piratbyrån members stayed at the sidelines, the trio assumed roles that define their lives up until this day. For other Piratbyrån members, meanwhile, the site is simply a remnant of a somewhat rebellious period of their lives.

Today, the Pirate Bay has served its original purpose, but the site keeps running. The founders cut their ties over the years, but someone is still pulling the strings.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 When Nintendo sued the people behind Switch emulator Yuzu in February, the company knew that establishing certain facts would send the clearest possible message to those considering similar conduct.

The conclusion of that lawsuit declared that an emulator like Yuzu, that circumvents Nintendo’s technical measures, decrypts Switch games using unauthorized copies of Switch cryptographic keys, allowing games to be played on anything other than a Switch, violates copyright law.

Developing or distributing similar software, that ordinarily functions only when used with unauthorized copies of Nintendo cryptographic keys, for the purpose of circumventing Nintendo’s technical measures, is prohibited under § 1201(a)(2)(A) of the DMCA.

With development and distribution boundaries made clear and a $2.4m settlement in hand to clarify the consequences, a more difficult problem was yet to be addressed. How could a similar message be sent to the 99.9% of Switch emulator users who continue to play pirated games, share advice with the like-minded, and may feel the above holds no consequences for them?

Nintendo Sues EveryGameGuru

Filed at a federal court in Colorado on Wednesday, Nintendo’s complaint targets enthusiastic video gamer and Colorado resident, Jesse Keighin. According to Nintendo, Keighin streams gameplay on platforms including YouTube, Discord, Twitch, TikTok, Trovo, Kick, Vaughn, Dlive, Picarto, Nimo, Facebook, and Loco, under the alias EveryGameGuru.

“Defendant is a recidivist pirate who has obtained and streamed Nintendo’s leaked games on multiple occasions. Leaked games (sometimes referred to as ‘prerelease games’) are copyrighted video games which Nintendo has not yet publicly released,” the complaint begins.

The lawsuit claims that since 2022, Keighin has streamed ‘unauthorized gameplay’ from at least ten leaked Nintendo games before their official release, and more than fifty times in total.

To combat unauthorized distribution of the gameplay, Nintendo says it sent dozens of DMCA takedown notices to have Keighin’s streams removed. Due to multiple strikes, both YouTube and Twitch terminated Keighin’s channels, but Nintendo says that the gamer continued to “thumb his nose” at the company, and the law.

Taunting Nintendo, Monetizing Unauthorized Gameplay

On October 24, after unnamed platforms had shut down Keighin’s streams in response to Nintendo complaints, the gamer reportedly sent the company a letter in which he claimed to have “a thousand burner channels” to stream from and “can do this all day.”

The complaint further alleges that after Keighin’s monetized YouTube account was set to be shut down, he added a CashApp handle in order to profit from streaming Nintendo’s games.

Keighn’s streams didn’t simply feature gameplay from pre-release games, these were pirated pre-released games, played on a hacked Switch or an illegal emulator.

At this point, the groundwork established in the Yuzu case falls neatly to describe conduct alleged in this complaint as similarly illegal.

Every Step Requires or Supports Illegality

Nintendo says that Keighin uses emulators to play pirated copies of Switch games on his PC. When lawfully purchased, Switch games are authorized for use exclusively on Switch consoles. When copies of games are obtained illegally, technological measures prevent playback on Switch consoles.

“The use of emulators, which circumvent these technological measures, allow people such as Defendant to play pirated Nintendo Switch games — including leaked games — on PCs, Macs, and Android devices,” the complaint states.

As Nintendo claims it established in the Yuzu case, circumvention of technical measures, including through the use of unauthorized cryptographic keys to decrypt otherwise encrypted Switch games, is a violation of copyright law. Drilling further into the details, Nintendo says Keighin must’ve illegally obtained and then used so-called prod.keys, sourced from an illegal site or through the “unlawful hacking” of a Switch console.

Furthermore, since emulators that circumvent technological measures are prohibited, distribution of such emulators is a trafficking offense under the DMCA.

“In addition to streaming games from emulators, Defendant has also publicly posted links to those emulators — including ones called Yuzu and Ryujinx — thus trafficking in that unlawful software,” Nintendo adds. And it doesn’t stop there.

“In fact, Defendant has posted links to copies of [..] prod.keys, as well as the emulators themselves and repositories of pirated ROMs, further distributing all the necessary piracy tools to his viewers.”

The scope of Nintendo’s claims suggests that it intends to send a clear, unambiguous message to the 99.9%, that the action against Yuzu is very relevant indeed. That the company gets the opportunity to do that in one lawsuit, against a single defendant, is unexpected. But this is Nintendo, a company that has a pre-release spoiler problem it would also like to address.

Five Counts, Various Aspects of Copyright Law

Count One: Unauthorized Public Performance and Reproduction

Nintendo alleges that the defendant streamed its copyrighted games without authorization, including Mario & Luigi Brothership, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and Super Mario RPG. Nintendo states that this type of infringement is particularly serious because the games were “leaked” and streamed to the public using illegal copies before their official dates of release. Nintendo seeks maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each work infringed.

Count Two: Contributory Infringement / Inducement

Nintendo says that since Keighin encouraged and facilitated infringement committed by his viewers, he is secondarily liable. He encouraged the use of illegal emulators, supplied links to ROM repositories, and provided links to other tools while encouraging his viewers to violate Nintendo’s copyrights. Nintendo seeks maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each work infringed.

Count Three: Circumvention of Technological Measures

The game company says that Keighin used emulators such as Ryujinx and Yuzu to stream the games. Since both emulators allow users to play games on unauthorized devices by decrypting the games’ encryption, these tools are illegal. As a result, the defendant violated the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. Nintendo seeks $2,500 for each act of circumvention.

Count Four: Trafficking in Circumvention Devices

Through the sharing of links to emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx, and unauthorized copies of decryption keys, Keighin trafficked in circumvention technology, Nintendo says.

Promoting and encouraging use of these tools, which are designed to circumvent Nintendo’s technical measures, amounts to marketing infringing devices, in breach of the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions. Nintendo seeks $2,500 for each instance of trafficking.

Count Five: Trafficking in Circumvention Devices

The complaint also alleges that Keighin violated the DMCA by distributing software and keys designed to circumvent the technological measures protecting the company’s games. He provided direct links to emulators including Ryujinx, Yuzu, Suyu, and Sudachi, and provided links to prod.keys, Nintendo says.

These actions provided the means for the unauthorized reproduction and use of games by circumventing their technological measures. Highlighting both knowledge and intent, Nintendo claims the defendant willfully trafficked in circumvention devices. Nintendo seeks $2,500 for each instance of trafficking.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

The inception and early years of The Pirate Bay are an intriguing chapter of the Internet’s history.

Founded by the Piratbyrån group, The Pirate Bay and its founders embraced the power of the new BitTorrent technology: to copy culture en masse.

By doing so, they altered the public discourse, openly taunting the entertainment industries in the process.

This chapter didn’t end as planned for the lead characters; Fredrik Neij (TiAMO), Peter Sunde (Brokep), and Gotffrid Svartholm (Anakata), who were eventually sentenced to prison. By then, however, they had sparked a digital and political revolution, the impact of which is still felt today.

TV Series

The Pirate Bay didn’t just trigger a file-sharing bonanza, it was exemplary for the rapid rise of the web. New technology empowered people whose lives were traditionally dictated by mainstream entertainment and publishing companies.

The web created new forms to share news, opinions, knowledge, and media. And few Swedes with keyboards had the power to upset billion-dollar companies.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that this is a good story, perhaps even a movie script? This includes the people at the Swedish production company B-Reel Films, who got the green light to turn it into a TV series a few years ago.

The series premiered at the on-demand platform of the Swedish national broadcaster SVT a few hours ago. International deals haven’t been announced, but pirates can generally get access anyway.

Pirating ‘The Pirate Bay’ Series

Soon after the first two episodes of The Pirate Bay series came out, scene release copies started circulating online. As one would expect.

The Scene group OLLONBORRE, which specializes in Swedish content, was the first to pick the show up. Within minutes, the first 1080p WEB-rips were posted on private scene servers and 720p copies followed a few hours later.

Interestingly, pirate releases have yet to make their way to The Pirate Bay. We haven’t seen any other copies on other public pirate sites either, which is surprising given the topic of the series.

It’s common knowledge that The Scene – a secretive network of release groups – prefers to keep its releases private. Therefore, it wasn’t happy with The Pirate Bay’s public nature and rise to prominence in the early 2003s, which is highlighted in the first episodes of the TV series.

However, we expected non-scene release groups would be eager to pick up the show. Apparently that’s not the case, yet.

Fact-Based Fiction

While the broader international audience must wait for the official release, we can add a disclaimer for viewers. While entertaining and engaging, the series should not be taken as fact.

The script is loosely based on The Pirate Bay story and many of the scenes are fiction. New elements were added, timelines have been changed, and the characters are constructed by the show’s writers, which is not necessarily how they came across in real life.

The Pirate Bay’s founders didn’t participate in the production, which means that the creators had no other option than to fill in some blanks.

In an interview with Drama Quarterly, director Jens Sjögren previously acknowledged that they had to mix facts and fiction to tell the story. He understands that some people won’t like that.

“People are going to say a lot of shit about it. ‘It was not exactly like this, blah, blah, blah.’ No, but we really broke our fucking backs to try to just embrace the feeling of really struggling with something you believe in so hard – so much so you would almost be ready to go to prison for it,” Sjögren said.

It wasn’t the creators’ main goal to create a literal replay of what happened. Instead, Sjögren said that he tried to capture the spirit of The Pirate Bay founders’ ambitions and goals.

Whether this succeeded is up to the viewer, but the series definitely shows the contrasting personalities of Fredrik, Gottfrid, and Peter. They were all in it for different reasons, which may be part of their initial success.

—

This weekend we will publish a follow-up article, sharing some thoughts on the series with input from Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde and Piratbyrån co-founder Rasmus Fleischer.

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