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. “Alien: Romulus” is the most shared title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on October 21 are:

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

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Last year, the NFL asked the U.S. Government’s Patent and Trademark Office to help tackle live-streaming piracy.

Together with the NBA and UFC, the football league asked the government to make DMCA takedown requests more effective.

NFL argued that when it comes to live sports streaming, long delays render takedown requests practically useless, as most of the value of live sports content lies in its real-time nature.

NFL vs. Pirates

Ideally, online services should be required by law to remove infringing content “instantaneously or near-instantaneously”, the sports companies argued. This includes social media platforms, where pirate streams are often openly advertised.

“Pirates have shown increasing sophistication in terms of the quality of their livestreams and now display livestreams in a way that often renders the final product indistinguishable from the legitimate feed,” NFL, NBA, and UFC explained.

“To garner maximum viewership of the pirated content, enterprising pirates will post ‘advertisements’ on major social media platforms that drive traffic to off-platform sites where people can watch unlawful livestreams of live sports event content without paying a dime.”

The sports leagues stressed that widespread piracy hurts their revenues. This impacts everyone involved in the sport, including the highest-paid athletes. However, that doesn’t mean that these players are unanimously rallying against piracy.

NFL Player Tunes in to Methstreams

Even some of the sport’s biggest stars, including LeBron James, have reportedly used pirate streaming sites. And this weekend, another player was added to the list after the injured Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen apparently tuned in to Methstreams to watch his own team play.

This was revealed in an Instagram story where Woolen shared an image clearly displaying the streaming site’s URL.

Tariq Woolen’s Insta story
 

It’s not every day that we see professional players publicly tune into pirate streaming sites. After being picked up by ᴅᴏxx on X, the image was further shared by Tanner, through which it eventually reached the feed of reputable NFL news aggregator Dov Kleiman.

“Seahawks CB Tariq Woolen was using MethStreams to watch today’s NFL games. He makes over $1 million a year,” Kleiman wrote.

‘It’s Free’

The news eventually made it back to the Seahawks cornerback, who didn’t seem all that concerned. Whether NFL bosses share his casual attitude towards piracy is questionable, however.

It’s free it’s for me
 

Ironically, while Woolen was watching the game, NFLs anti-piracy partners were working hard to take pirate streams offline. Keeping an eye on Methstreams.com and other pirate sites with links to unauthorized broadcasts is par for the course.

Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Atlanta Falcons was no exception, as this takedown notice shows. Despite these efforts, some people still found their way to pirate sources.

NFL takedown notice

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 After blocking Cloudflare in February, the reputation of Italy’s Piracy Shield IPTV blocking system found itself on life support; it wasn’t actually dead, though, at least not yet.

Acceptance by those responsible that things needed to improve, with an olive branch extended to the experts previously ignored, would’ve been viewed as a positive step. Instead, initial denial led to reluctant acceptance that something had indeed happened, but it was insignificant and if anything, Cloudflare was largely to blame. Then came the double down; followed by another, and then another.

After suing Cloudflare to compel its participation in Piracy Shield, Serie A lost the lawsuit yet still managed to come out on top. Legal amendments passed into law this month make Piracy Shield cooperation mandatory and for good measure, internet service providers now face a potential prison sentence for failing to report piracy. Italian citizens, meanwhile, were put on notice of automated piracy fines arriving in the mail.

Oppression Will Continue Until Morale Improves

When Google Drive was blocked in error on Saturday night, the mood among observers – some of whom belong to the ‘ignored’ group mentioned above – was one of disbelief. The most famous internet domain ever to exist had simply walked through every security check before blocking measures denied service to millions of innocent Google users.

On Sunday, to a background of lingering blocking still causing issues, a timely live discussion took place on YouTube. Hosted by corporate reputation expert Matteo Flora, participants included (left to right, full list here) former AGCOM Commissioner Antonio Nicita, current AGCOM Commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio, and former member of parliament, IT expert, and founder of Rialto Venture Capital, Stefano Quintarelli.

For context, Quintarelli’s latest blog post is titled “#PiracyShield, 10.19.2024 the largest cyber attack in Italy.” Would Massimiliano Capitanio be able to say anything to assure those in attendance that everything is under control and there’s nothing to worry about?

Blocking Google Drive “Should Not Happen Again”

Capitanio acknowledged the seriousness of blocking Google Drive and said this should not happen again. He characterized the incident as a “distraction” and a “serious problem” but took no responsibility and stopped short of issuing an apology.

AGCOM’s commissioner went on to defend the regulatory framework and technical ability of the Piracy Shield platform. As for the blunder, that was put down to an “erroneous report” filed by a rightsholder, most likely part of a batch of legitimate reports that didn’t cause chaos.

Blocking Blunders Must Not Derail Piracy Fight

Capitanio repeatedly refused to say who was directly responsible but pointed in the general direction of Serie A, Sky, and DAZN, the three entities that currently account for most if not all live blocking in Italy. Pointing out that 600 domains and 200 IP addresses associated with pirate services were disabled on the same day without issues, Capitanio insisted that the blunder must not be allowed to detract from the mission in hand; combating illegal streaming services and the organized crime behind them.

Indeed, Capitanio’s own focus on blocking to protect football was absolute. There was no concern expressed towards Google or the millions of users affected by the extended blackout, only defense of the Piracy Shield system. Ultimately, however, Google was never likely to be considered a victim if there was any chance it could take some of the blame.

Once again, Capitanio criticized Google and Cloudflare for not registering with the Piracy Shield platform. If Google had done so, Capitanio said, the details of Google Drive’s infrastructure could’ve been put on the national “do not block” list in advance, thereby avoiding the negative effects of Saturday night’s blocking blunder.

AGCOM’s chief then went on to complain about Google’s refusal to delete Android apps already installed on users devices and other measures AGCOM regularly demands, none of which are required by law.

A Dire Warning From Stefano Quintarelli

Quintarelli believes that piracy needs to be combated but has little faith that the current reliance on blocking mechanisms through intermediaries is effective. Indeed, reliance on a solution like Piracy Shield is likely to be both ineffective and introduce new problems, such as the overblocking and collateral damage seen last weekend.

Of more concern is his belief that the inherent insecurity of the Piracy Shield platform introduces a “huge systemic vulnerability” that eclipses the fight against piracy. Italy now has a system in place designed to dramatically disrupt internet communications and since no system is entirely secure, what happens if a bad actor somehow gains control?

Quintarelli says that if the Piracy Shield platform were to be infiltrated and maliciously exploited, essential services like hospitals, transportation systems, government functions, and critical infrastructure would be exposed to catastrophic blocking. Stefano Zanero and host Matteo Flora both expressed concern that lives could be at risk if blocking targeted life-supporting services.

That wouldn’t necessarily require a state actor with malicious intent, just someone with access to the current system untrained enough to consider the most popular domain in the world a legitimate target.

None of the rightsholders mentioned by Capitanio took part in the discussion. If any had attended, they could’ve explained why the commissioner’s enjoyment of an entirely legal stream provided by DAZN also faced interruption Saturday night due to the same blocking blunder.

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Every year, the US Trade Representative (USTR) asks interested stakeholders to identify ‘notorious’ foreign piracy markets.

Responses typically list the Pirate Bays of this world, but they also mention websites and services that don’t see themselves as pirate markets.

Polish video-on-demand (VOD) platform CDA.pl falls in the latter category. The video platform has been flagged as a notorious pirate service by the MPA since 2018. While CDA has filed several rebuttals, the movie industry group continues to double down on its claims.

In the most recent recommendation, CDA was highlighted again, with the MPA describing it as “Poland’s most popular piracy website, with traffic levels eclipsing several legitimate video-on-demand services in the country.”

CDA Rebuts MPA’s Piracy Claims

CDA has repeatedly objected to these piracy claims, and it continues to do so. A few days ago, the Polish company sent a new rebuttal to the USTR, repeating much of what it has said before. The main gist is that CDA operates legally and transparently, while minding the interests of rightsholders.

“Cda.pl is not a piracy website, it operates in full accordance with the Polish and European legal regulations,” the rebuttal starts, adding that the company operates in the open and pays taxes, like any other business.

CDA believes that the pirate label is grossly inaccurate. The company is listed on the alternative NewConnect stock exchange, which means that, in addition to tax reporting obligations, it’s also subject to various EU stock exchanges and financial regulations.

Since the company operates a large subscription-based streaming platform, it views itself as a competitor to those offered by the MPA’s members. CDA believes that the piracy comments could therefore be seen as competitive pressure tool.

“MPA’s opinion re. CDA.pl presented to this Office cannot be treated as objective but rather as a means of pressure on competition,” the rebuttal reads.

Copyright Concerns

In addition to operating a VOD platform, CDA also has a section where users can upload content. That can include pirated content, which forms the basis of Hollywood’s complaints.

The company acknowledges that user-uploaded content may include copyright-infringing works but stresses that several anti-piracy mechanisms are in place to minimize abuse.

For example, the rebuttal mentions that the VOD platform has a fully functional notice and takedown system that allows rightsholders to remove infringing content. Some companies, including major Hollywood studios, are even permitted to remove content directly, without CDA getting in the way.

Furthermore, CDA has developed a “fingerprint” system to detect potentially infringing content, which is similar to YouTube’s Content ID system. That should help to further limit abuse.

‘MPA Didn’t Use Takedown Tool’

Interestingly, CDA’s attorney suggests that MPA doesn’t seem eager to remove content. The Hollywood group reportedly reached out in December 2022, mentioning examples of infringing content.

These allegations lacked specificity, but the MPA didn’t provide more concrete information on the alleged infringements when CDA asked for it. The organization didn’t use the direct takedown tool either, after it was granted access.

“(i)n order to meet the needs of MPA, my Client provided this organization with access to the direct takedown tool, creating and configuring an account that allows MPA to freely access content on the platform, search for copyright infringing content and delete it.

“Despite this and despite subsequent reminders, to date MPA has neither provided links to the infringing materials nor exercised the option to remove them on its own.”

False Statements

According to CDA, the MPA has removed some false statements that were included previously. However, it continues to misrepresent the company as a “piracy website” that uses Cloudflare to “mask the IP location” of its domain names.

This is nonsense, the rebuttal notes, as CDA doesn’t use Cloudflare to hide its IP-addresses. Instead, the company stresses that it uses Cloudflare as a cybersecurity provider to protect it against DDoS-attacks, among other things.

In fact, CDA says that the servers where the video files are stored are not behind Cloudflare, suggesting that the MPA could see the IP-addresses where this content is stored.

In conclusion, it’s clear that MPA and CDA have an entirely different opinion on the status of the Polish video streaming service. After years of reports and rebuttals, this isn’t going to change anytime soon.

What ultimately matters is what the USTR thinks of it all. That remains a mystery. What we do know is that MPA’s comments never made it into the Government’s final notorious markets overview, because CDA has never been included thus far.

—

A copy of the rebuttal, sent to the USTR by CDA’s law firm Konieczny Wierzbicki, is available here (pdf)

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RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

 Italy has an administrative blocking mechanism and a technical blocking platform, Piracy Shield, operated by rightsholders in the private sector.

Up until now, AGCOM, Italy’s independent telecoms regulator, has been Piracy Shield’s greatest supporter, at least of those not already benefiting financially from the activities of football league Serie A, currently the only beneficiary of Piracy Shield blocking.

To the extent there’s much of a ‘public’ component to Piracy Shield’s activities in Italy, the ‘private’ absolutely dominates. There’s almost zero transparency and any information of any use is routinely withheld from the public, even when that information relates directly to the public. People who demand access to information are routinely ignored, even punished. The only people never punished are those operating Piracy Shield, no matter how big the blunder or how many people are affected.

After blocking Cloudflare a few months ago, on Saturday night another vital online service was rendered inaccessible. The nature and circumstances of this event should be a signal for the Italian government to remove rightsholders’ ability to meddle in internet infrastructure before it’s too late. The details make for very uncomfortable reading.

Warnings Pile Up, All Ignored, Again and Again

When reporting on the Cloudflare debacle in February, we included commentary from Giorgio Bonfiglio, Principal Technical Account Manager at Amazon Web Services.

Bonfiglio’s expert advice was ignored before, during, and after last year’s introduction of new law to support blocking, despite predicting the Cloudflare problem before it actually became one. As far as we can determine, Bonfiglio was first to link Google Drive’s outage on Saturday evening with Piracy Shield blocking.

“Piracy Shield blocked a Google Drive domain,” Bonfiglio revealed on X, along with the AGCOM notice displayed on the blocked domain.

The domain/subdomain blocked in the image above is drive.usercontent.google.com; not only does this URL clearly identify Google as its owner, the Google product it serves is on full display too. With no prompting a 10-year-old could identify google.com as important on the internet. So, three broad explanations for how it ended up on the system (ticket below) before causing chaos.

1. Domain was accidentally entered into the system, then evaded all subsequent checks
2. Domain was knowingly entered into the system, then evaded all subsequent checks
3. Domain was knowingly entered into the system, and then passed, regardless of risk

The losing ticket….

For good measure, the relevant Google IP address [142.250.180.129] was also entered into Piracy Shield to be blocked by local ISPs; this image shows how access to that IP degraded unlike an adjacent one.

Those hoping to access Google Drive were subject to domain hijacking instead, with requests diverted to a blocking page hosted at different IP addresses depending on the ISP involved; 195.162.95.240 [Sky] and 34.110.214.49 [TIM], for example.

Blocking in 30 Minutes, Unblocking…whenever

The domain/IP address block began to take effect a little time after 6pm and as the image below shows, three smaller ‘downtime peaks’ were followed by an almost total degradation of service around 9pm. This seems to show that blunders take at least three hours to fix, even a massive one like this. More tellingly, the constant claim of blocking internet resources within 30 mins is at best, very optimistic indeed.

We took a look at Google Trends data for Italy during the same period. The top five queries in Italy all relate to Google Drive (right) and on the left, the topic ‘Google Drive’ dominates by a very wide margin. Nevertheless, the results are sensitive enough to identify AGCOM and piracy as connected to the trending searches.

More data is needed to draw firm conclusions but under both columns, Google Drive competitor ‘One Drive’ gets a mention. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude that faced with no access to their files on Google Drive, searching for a replacement would be a logical step. The hidden costs of overblocking are perhaps not quite so hidden here.

Full Unblocking Doesn’t Take 30 mins

A full twelve hours after the block was put in place, around 20% of the Italian population still had no access to their Google Drives due to the lingering IP address block that underpinned the domain-based blocking.

Had this disaster happened on a weekday, who knows the damage it could’ve caused. Luckily it didn’t, and everyone can be grateful for that, but the word ‘luck’ in a sentence to describe an event that should not have happened, period, understates the seriousness of the situation.

Whether there will be explanation of any kind on Monday is currently unknown, but there is no explaining this one away. Explanations for the Cloudflare block began with denial, slowly moved towards claims it was only a tiny, tiny block that didn’t last long, before Cloudflare was blamed for having a customer allegedly pirating football matches.

Drastic Action Required Immediately

Incompetence doesn’t qualify as an excuse, not when a Google domain is part of the equation. So if not incompetence, surely it must’ve been deliberate? Whatever the reason or excuse, the conclusion is the same; this cannot be allowed to continue, and the government must step in before the unthinkable happens.

Since users are about to be fined for piracy, an alternative would be to introduce heavy fines, directly linked to the potential damage to companies, infrastructure or government, plus compensation paid to citizens, for those who overblock.

Let’s say, a population of 59 million in Italy, a conservative 30 million Google users, one euro compensation each, leading to a 30 million euro fine. It won’t stop incompetence, but it should focus the mind during the 30-day ban on any additional blocking or until the fine is paid in full, whichever comes last.

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The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has submitted its latest overview of “Notorious Markets” to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR).

These submissions serve as input for the USTR’s yearly overview of piracy ‘markets’ which helps to shape the U.S. Government’s global copyright enforcement agenda going forward.

The ESA, which represents video game companies including Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, and Ubisoft, hopes that the interests of its members will be taken into account. In the report, the group lists various pirate sites that enable the public to download games for free.

FitGirl Repacks

The most notable newcomer in ESA’s overview is FitGirl-Repacks. The site, commonly abbreviated as “FitGirl” publishes slimmed down copies of pirated games which are easy to distribute and share. These repacks are in high demand and, as one of the most famous repackers, FitGirl became a brand in and of itself.

At this point, many gamers associate FitGirl’s supposed likeness (image above) with piracy, instead of the film Amélie, from where the image was originally sourced. Yet despite being active for well over a decade, FitGirl-Repacks shows no signs of slowing down.

Admittedly, the site’s domains have been blocked in several countries, including Italy and Spain, but rightsholders have yet to identify the person or people who run the site.

According to ESA, FitGirl continues to serve an audience of millions of visitors today. The site doesn’t host content directly but links to pirated content hosted on third-party platforms.

“In July 2024, fitgirl-repacks received 22 million visits, offering visitors access to ESA member personal computer (‘PC’) game titles. Internationally, this website has been subject to scrutiny for its failure to comply with takedown notices reporting infringing content,” the ESA writes.

More Newcomers

Seeing FitGirl listed as a notorious piracy site comes as no shock; it’s more surprising that it was never mentioned in earlier years. The same can be said about Dodi-Repacks, another new entry on ESA’s list this year.

From ESA’s submission
 

Dodi-Repacks hasn’t been around as long as FitGirl and the site doesn’t have as much traffic, but ESA notes that it poses a significant threat nonetheless.

“The site operator is non-responsive to ESA take-down notices and runs a backup version of the site at dodi-repacks.download. Both domains utilize a CDN,” ESA informs the USTR.

Other newcomers highlighted by the ESA are cosmocheats.com, a relatively small cheat seller with a few thousand daily visits, and the online marketplace eldorado.gg that sells game accounts and virtual items without permission.

Eldorado.gg

Emerging Threats Disappear

ESA’s list of notorious pirate sites and services includes other familiar targets, such as torrent site 1337x, hosting sites 1fichier.com and megaup.net, as well as other dedicated game pirate services.

Interestingly, the game companies no longer mention last year’s “growing trends”, which included malware and cryptocurrencies. These issues haven’t disappeared overnight but ESA, apparently, doesn’t feel the need to separately focus on these again.

ESA’s mention of Scene release groups and highly skilled hackers also disappeared from the latest USTR submission. However, according to the group, repackers were part of this category, so this mention might have been replaced by the FitGirl and Dodi listings.

—

A copy of ESA’s submission for the 2024 Special 301 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets is available here (pdf). An overview of the (online) threats is listed below. The bold entries are new, and the ones with a strike-through were listed last year, but removed in 2024.

Hyperlinking Websites (“Linking Sites” or “Link Sites”)
– nsw2u.com
– Game3rb.com
– fitgirl-repacks.site
– dodi-repacks.site

Hosting Websites (“Cyberlockers”)
– 1fichier.com
– megaup.net

Torrent Indexing Websites
– 1337x.to
– Solidtorrents.to

Cheats
– unknowncheats.me
– mpgh.net
– cosmocheats.com

Unauthorized Online Marketplaces
– playerauctions.com
– G2G.com
– eldorado.gg

Malware

Cryptocurrency

Scene Release Groups

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 Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare provides a range of connectivity and security services to millions of customers around the globe.

In addition to Fortune 500 companies and governments across various continents, the American company also provides its services to pirate sites.

In recent years, rightsholders have urged Cloudflare to take a more proactive stance against piracy. Their primary concern is that Cloudflare ‘hides’ the true hosting location of pirate sites, making enforcement actions more cumbersome.

Cloudflare takes a neutral stance, but it does cooperate in certain circumstances. The company has a process in place to disclose hosting information with eligible rightsholders, for example, and will also share details of allegedly pirating customers in response to DMCA subpoenas.

As far as we know, Cloudflare has not terminated any customers solely based on copyright holder complaints. This frustrated Italian broadcaster RTI up to the point where it decided to go to court.

RTI Sued Cloudflare over Pirate Site

April this year, RTI filed a complaint at the Court of Rome in an attempt to compel Cloudflare to take action against ‘Guardaserie’, a site that offers access to pirated TV streams. Guardaserie is already blocked by Italian ISPs, but it continues to operate and repeatedly switches to new domains to evade blocking actions.

Through the court, RTI wants Cloudflare to cease providing its services to Guardaserie and block all associated domain names. In addition, the broadcaster wants Cloudflare to reveal all information it holds that could help to identify the operator or operators.

A random Guardaserie domain

RTI informed the court that Cloudflare took no action in response to a cease and desist letter it sent earlier this year. According to the broadcaster, it is nonetheless undisputed that Guardaserie offers pirated content, which was backed up by an external report by the company SP Tech.

Cloudflare did not appear in court or present a defense against the allegations, but that didn’t stop the court from taking the matter forward.

Court Deems Cloudflare Liable

After reviewing the evidence, the Court of Rome agreed that the targeted website infringes Italian copyright law and that Cloudflare can be held liable due to its failure to respond to complaints.

According to the Court, Cloudflare’s inaction makes it harder for rightsholders to identify and block pirate sites.

“With respect to those infringements, it appears prima facie that the company Cloudflare inc. is a responsible intermediary pursuant to Article 156 of the Italian Copyright Law,” the decision reads.

“It provided services aimed at preventing the identification of the portals and the location of the servers of their owners, as well as technical support services to the portals, without taking any action to end those activities despite the cease and desist letter sent to it by the counterparty.”

From the order

Court: Disconnect, Block, and Identify Guardaserie

The Court of Rome ruled in favor of RTI and ordered Cloudflare to immediately cease providing services to Guardaserie. It further required Cloudflare to disclose any identifying account information connected to the operators of the infringing domains.

Guardaserie is a Cloudflare customer so, technically, domains should become unavailable through its services when the associated account is terminated. However, the court additionally orders Cloudflare to ‘block’ Guardaserie domain names.

And it doesn’t stop there.

The domain blocking order applies to all existing domain names, but also to domains that are registered in the future to bypass blocking measures. When RTI reports future domains to Cloudflare, these should be blocked as well.

“[The court] orders the blocking of said domain names that associate a different top-level domain with the same second level domain, burdening Cloudflare Inc. with notification to RTI of any additional names activated by Cloudflare accounts,” the order reads.

Cloudflare’s Stance

The Court of Rome’s order was issued late May but, as far as we know, hasn’t been publicly discussed until today. Cloudflare hasn’t mentioned it so far, and the company didn’t immediately respond to our request for comment.

At the time of writing, it appears that guardaserie.biz is still using Cloudflare’s nameservers that currently redirect to guardaserie.school. This new domain also uses Cloudflare nameservers.

Guardaserie.school leads to a partly broken website with missing content and a malware warning from Google, so the operators may have moved on by now. There are other domains using the Guardaserie brand that are still functional.

It’s possible that Cloudflare appealed the preliminary order, which could explain the apparent inaction, but we have no information to confirm that.

The Court of Rome’s order includes a penalty clause of €1,000 per day if Cloudflare doesn’t comply, so ignoring the order without proper cause could potentially come at a cost.

This is not the first time Cloudflare has faced legal action in Italy. The company was previously ordered to block pirate site domains though its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver. It complied with this order by implementing a geo-block that only affects Italian users. An Italian court also ordered Cloudflare to terminate accounts of pirate customers in the past.

—

A copy of the Court of Rome’s order against Cloudflare is available here (pdf)

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 The legal battle in Germany between Sony Entertainment Interactive and cheat cartridge seller Datel has been ongoing for well over a decade.

Sony had hoped to end sales of Datel’s Action Replay PSP and Tilt FX. These products enabled users of Sony’s PSP console to modify gameplay by tweaking code, thereby obtaining extra ‘lives’ and similar ‘cheat’ features.

According to Sony, Datel’s software intervened in the ‘program flow’ of its games and, by changing the flow, Sony’s copyrighted game code was modified. Therefore, the software creating an unauthorized derivative work.

In 2012, the Landgericht Hamburg (Regional Court) partially upheld Sony’s claims. In 2021, the Oberlandesgericht Hamburg (Higher Regional Court) overturned the lower court’s judgment, dismissing Sony’s action in its entirety. Sony’s subsequent appeal to the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) led to a stay in proceedings while questions were referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling.

Matter Begins to Turn in Datel’s Favor

On April 25, 2024, Advocate General Szpunar delivered his opinion on the case. It noted that Action Replay modifies variables held in the RAM of Sony’s PSP console during gameplay. However, these values are not elements of Sony’s copyrighted code, but code produced by a console while running Sony’s code.

Source code and object code receive legal protection under Directive 2009/24 because both meet the criterion of originality set out in Article 1(3). Variables in RAM, on the other hand, do not satisfy the criterion of originality; they’re generated by a computer and did not even exist when the game code was created and copyrighted.

At this point, Datel’s chances of coming out on top looked healthier than ever. However, while supportive of Datel’s case, AG Szpunar’s opinion was non-binding and the CJEU still had the freedom to disregard it.

CJEU Decision Best Possible News For Datel

On Wednesday, the CJEU issued its judgment in the case, finding in favor of Datel. The decision clarifies that the content of variable data modified by Datel’s products, falls beyond the scope of protection afforded to computer programs under the Directive.

“The Court finds that the content of the variable data transferred by a computer program to the RAM of a computer and used by that program in its running does not fall within the protection specifically conferred by that directive, in so far as that content does not enable such a program to be reproduced or subsequently created,” the CJEU’s summary notes.

“The directive protects only the intellectual creation as it is reflected in the text of the computer program’s source code and object code. On the other hand, the directive does not protect the functionalities of the program or the elements by means of which users make use of such functionalities, unless they allow that program to be reproduced or subsequent created.”

As a result, the Court’s answer in response to the questions referred by Germany’s Federal Court, reads as follows:

Article 1(1) to (3) of Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the legal protection of computer programs must be interpreted as meaning that the content of the variable data transferred by a protected computer program to the RAM of a computer and used by that program in its running does not fall within the protection conferred by that directive, in so far as that content does not enable such a program to be reproduced or subsequently created.

For additional clarity, the CJEU clearly states that under the specific circumstances of this case, Sony cannot prevent Datel marketing its cheat devices/software.

The Directive on the legal protection of computer programs does not allow the holder of that protection to prohibit the marketing by a third party of software which merely changes variables transferred temporarily to game console’s RAM.

The CJEU judgment clarifies the limits of copyright protection in respect of source/object code, while highlighting an area of freedom (subject to boundaries and conditions) in which data generated by software can be modified without triggering a lawsuit.

What this victory means for Datel after all this time isn’t clear. The company is still selling interesting products, including on Amazon where its CatShark product aims to reduce the catalytic converter theft epidemic continuing to plague the UK.

For those familiar with Datel products, the company’s WiFi Commander retains the essence and traditions of old. Worn on the wrist and looking much like a regular watch, this ‘WiFi management’ tool is reportedly capable of launching a deauth attack on nearby wireless networks. For legal reasons, strictly your own, of course.

The CJEU’s decision, AG’s opinion, and other documents relating to the referral, are available here

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

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

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

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

Meanwhile, users began noticing occasional technical issues with the site, including periods of downtime such as today. Visitors to the site currently see the following message:

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

TorrentGalaxy Down
 

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

‘New Owners’

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

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

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

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

How it All Began

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Police and anti-piracy groups in the UK appear to be following through with a pledge to keep cracking down on those involved in the pirate IPTV ecosystem.

Most arrests recently have targeted IPTV subscription resellers, i.e those who buy subscriptions and sell them on to friends, family, and increasingly anyone on social media, at a profit.

A report from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police suggests that a different type of player was targeted in an operation earlier this week. Photographs taken during the operation appear to back that up.

Target: West Midlands

Police say that the operation began in the early hours of Monday morning with a raid on a residential address in Wolverhampton, West Midlands. No specifics are provided beyond that but ‘dawn raids’ often take place between 6am and 7am, before suspects have had a chance to leave or wake up enough to destroy evidence.

“A 38-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of copyright and money laundering offenses, after he was suspected to have sold illegal streaming packages in bulk for others to sell to the public,” City of London Police report.

While subscription resellers with enough reach could also be described as selling packages in bulk, additional search warrants executed at four business addresses in Wolverhampton and Coventry indicate a more significant player.

Server Seized

According to police, officers from PIPCU assisted by their colleagues at West Midlands Police, seized hardware from one of the locations.

“Officers seized a server, which was used to host the illegal streaming service, at one of the addresses and the service was shut down,” the report adds.

Not shared as often as they once were, PIPCU also provided the following image from the operation. Given the unusual angle, it may actually be a pair of images side by side.

Image Credit: PIPCU/City of London Police

Hardware aside for a moment, the location shown in the image is unquestionably a datacenter. Whether the datacenter is in Wolverhampton or Coventry isn’t revealed, but the image on the right isn’t just a mess of wires hiding a man’s face either.

Satellite Signal Distribution

If we zoom in to take a closer look, the piece of hardware (top right image, turned at an angle, blue cables) apparently of interest the technician isn’t a typical server, but it is used for distribution.

Manufactured by Danish company Triax, the device is known as a multiswitch and is designed for use in homes or other accomodation where one satellite signal to a single receiver isn’t enough.

Signals received at the box can be sent to a number of devices simultaneously by assigning a unique frequency channel to each device. This allows multiple receivers to receive different satellite channels at the same time, which could come in very handy for those with an end use that requires that kind of thing.

Further confirmation that the images were taken in a datacenter appears in the image on the left (above). Not shared as part of PIPCU’s press release, the photograph appeared on social media, in lieu of the more interesting image discussed above.

Pirate Service Used to Pirate Sky TV

Unsurprisingly, the packages allegedly sold provided illegal access to Sky channels but in all likelihood the overall channel availability would’ve been much broader than that, affecting many other broadcasters beyond Sky.

However, as a subscription broadcaster and the central component of the UK’s BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign, this operation isn’t the first and won’t be the last for Sky, as it works to press home the campaign’s mantra of keeping consumers safe, while keeping its own content free from pirates.

“When people illegally stream they provide their personal information to criminals and the risks that result are very real,” says Matt Hibbert, Group Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky.

“We are grateful to the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit for leading this action. We’ll continue to do everything we can to protect our content from theft, and to help keep consumers safe.”

The man arrested on Monday has since been released under investigation.

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 As famously pointed out by The Pirate Bay’s Anakata in response to a Dreamworks takedown notice 20 years ago, the DMCA does not apply to countries outside the United States.

While technically correct, ignoring takedown notices isn’t risk-free; inaction can increase risk where none previously existed.

DMCA notices and equivalents issued under the EU’s E-Commerce Directive, for example, not only aim to counter infringement. They also support ‘safe harbors’ that protect hosts from incurring liability for customers’ infringements. In general terms, takedown notices indicate an allegation of infringement for which the host could incur liability if no action is taken.

A copyright lawsuit, filed by an American company against a ‘DMCA ignored’ hosting provider in Ukraine, provides an up-to-date example of how disregarding takedown notices can lead to escalation.

DISH Network vs. Virtual Systems, LLC

Filed yesterday at a district court in Seattle, the complaint sees broadcaster DISH Network, supported by the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP), take on Ukraine-based hosting provider Virtual Systems, LLC, and its alleged owner and CEO, Vyacheslav Smyrnov.

The lawsuit follows a similar pattern to those filed previously by DISH against other hosting providers. Using monitoring systems deployed at IBCAP, pirate IPTV providers hosted by Virtual Systems were observed distributing copyrighted works owned by the plaintiff, thereby infringing its exclusive distribution and public performance rights.

“The Pirate Services transmitted the Works to Users over the internet using Virtual Systems’ servers and network as part of linear streams of the Channels or on a VOD basis,” the lawsuit notes.

“Users accessed the Works through a set-top box (STB) or a website that links to the Works or provides a playlist used to access the Works. Users often had to purchase a subscription to view the Pirate Services’ content, in addition to purchasing any required STB. DISH did not authorize the Pirate Services to distribute or publicly perform the Works and received no compensation from them.”

The lawsuit describes the scale of the pirate IPTV services’ infringement as extensive. It’s claimed that linear channels containing the works often aired on a 24/7 basis, in some cases continuously for the past several years, with pirated content distributed on a VOD basis adding to already significant infringement.

Efforts to Curtail Infringement

The complaint notes that the pirate IPTV providers were notified of their infringement on multiple occasions but continued regardless. At least three of the services are already the subject of permanent injunctions following legal action in the United States but, since they were based elsewhere, the complaint concedes they have little incentive to comply.

Also indicated as problematic are the efforts deployed to disguise the true identities of those behind the pirate providers, most believed to operate outside the United States. This certainly isn’t unusual, neither is the response from the plaintiff; when IPTV services refuse to comply, pressure is applied to their host.

“Virtual Systems and [CEO/owner] Smyrnov were sent written notices asking that they remove or disable access to Works that the Pirate Services were transmitting from Virtual Systems’ servers and network, thereby infringing DISH’s copyrights,” the complaint reads.

“Virtual Systems and Smyrnov, collectively, were the recipients of at least 512 Infringement Notices. Virtual Systems did not respond to the Infringement Notices and did not take any measures to stop the Pirate Services’ infringement occurring on its servers and network. The Pirate Services kept infringing DISH’s copyrights in Works aired on the Channels, even using the same IP addresses and URLs previously reported to Virtual Systems.”

Based on Virtual Systems’ marketing of its own services, this isn’t a bug – it’s a feature.

DMCA Ignored

The complaint alleges that Virtual Systems appeals to pirate IPTV services due to its “DMCA Ignored” policy. The company states that it ignores DMCA takedown notices concerning servers operated from its Ukraine datacenter; the complaint alleges that similar promotion is applied to Virtual Systems’ servers in Seattle and the Netherlands.

“Virtual Systems acted true to its ‘DMCA Ignored’ policy by disregarding the Infringement Notices and turning a blind eye to the Pirate Services’ infringement of DISH’s copyrights,” the complaint continues.

“Virtual Systems also did not comply with orders from United States courts, entered in lawsuits involving three of the Pirate Services, that permanently enjoined Virtual Systems from providing its servers and network to those Pirate Services because they were using them to infringe DISH’s copyrights.”

As highlighted earlier, the DMCA framework includes safe harbors for hosting providers that are responsive to takedown notices and meet other recognized standards. Failure to meet the requirements introduces greater risk at the lawsuit stage.

No Safe Harbor

The lawsuit was filed in Seattle where Virtual Systems reportedly operates a datacenter and servers, which were utilized by the pirate IPTV providers responsible for the alleged infringement. As far as safe harbors are concerned, the lawsuit claims that the inaction of Virtual Systems means it can avail itself of none.

“Virtual Systems is not entitled to assert any DMCA safe harbor defense because it does not adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for the termination of its services to repeat infringers,” the complaint reads.

“Virtual Systems is also not entitled to assert most DMCA safe harbor defenses because it does not have a designated DMCA agent to receive infringement notices; because when such notices are received or it otherwise has knowledge of infringement, Virtual Systems does not respond expeditiously to remove or disable access to the infringing material; and because Virtual Systems receives financial benefits directly attributable to infringement that is under its control.”

While not illegal per se, other policies and business practices at Virtual Systems are criticized for encouraging pirate IPTV providers to infringe copyright. With no ‘Know Your Customer’ policy, Virtual Systems says that it “do[es] not require personal data [of customers]” when they make a purchase and since they “love and accept” cryptocurrencies, and communicate via anonymous email, customers are “completely protected.”

$41.85m Claim for Damages

As a result, the complaint alleges “willful, malicious, intentional, and purposeful” contributory copyright infringement, inducement of copyright infringement, and vicarious copyright infringement, demanding statutory damages for each of the registered works in suit, as detailed by IBCAP in an announcement this morning.

“The complaint seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 each for the willful infringement of 279 registered works — up to $41,850,000 total; Virtual Systems’ profits attributable to the infringement of thousands of unregistered works; an injunction prohibiting Virtual Systems from providing access to copyrighted works owned by IBCAP members; attorneys’ fees and costs; and pre-and post-judgment interest,” the anti-piracy coalition explained.

“[Virtual Systems CEO] Smyrnov was sued in his personal capacity because he authorized, directed and participated in Virtual Systems’ infringement and failed to exercise his ability to stop that infringement.”

Referencing an earlier lawsuit that resulted in a settlement with CDN provider Datacamp, Chris Kuelling, executive director of IBCAP, says the lawsuit filed this week is part of a strategy to hold non-compliant intermediaries to account.

“This case against Virtual Systems represents the culmination of IBCAP’s strategy to identify non-compliant CDNs and hosting providers and make them not only cease their illicit activities, but also pay for ignoring IBCAP takedown notices,” Kuelling says.

“As we have made clear through other legal actions, CDNs and hosting providers who support pirate services by delivering infringing content over their networks will be held accountable. The Datacamp case’s favorable outcome and the filing of this lawsuit should send a clear message to non-compliant CDNs and hosting providers that supporting pirate services is not worth the risk.”

The complaint, filed yesterday at a district court in Seattle, is available here (pdf)

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Under U.S. law, rightsholders have an option to identify alleged copyright infringers, without directly having to file a lawsuit.

Instead, they can request a DMCA subpoena. These documents are typically signed by a court clerk and don’t require any judicial oversight. Specifically, they allow rightsholders to obtain the personal details of anonymous alleged infringers through third-party service providers.

Foreign companies are also aware of this discovery ‘shortcut’. For example, Korean game publisher Nexon previously used it to identify people who allegedly shared pirated content, including the games MapleStory and Sudden Attack, through Discord, .

Nexon Targets Discord with DMCA Subpoenas

When Nexon obtained a DMCA subpoena last October, Discord initially objected, deeming it “overbroad and unduly burdensome.” After the parties got together, an agreement was reached to confidentially disclose basic subscriber information related to 64 Discord User IDs.

Discord was clearly hesitant to cooperate but, faced with a motion to compel, it eventually chose to do so. However, the company did not envision that Nexon would return to court with similar requests a few months later.

In May, Nexon obtained a new DMCA subpoena, which again requires Discord to share the personal details of alleged copyright infringers. This time, the legal paperwork targets roughly two dozen users who allegedly shared copyrighted material related to the MapleStory game.

When the subpoena was issued, Discord had yet to send over the user details from the first request, which it eventually shared mid-June. However, going forward, the company doesn’t intend to adopt the role of anti-piracy data provider.

Discord Draws a Line

In July, Discord sent a letter to Nexon, informing the game company that it has no intention of cooperating with the latest request, describing it as improper.

“Now, you appear to be demanding additional information for yet more User IDs, which you allege infringe one of the same copyrights you have already asserted. You are attempting to renegotiate a deal that has already been struck and fulfilled. Your actions are improper,” Discord’s attorney wrote.

The letter outlined a broad list of objections and makes it clear that Discord doesn’t plan to invest substantial resources to help Nexon catch online pirates.

“Discord is committed to fulfilling its obligations under the law, but acting as your copyright assertion partner is not one of them. Your firm continues to make improper and overly burdensome demands […] including immediate threats of motion practice in non-existent legal matters.”

Prepared to Fight

The messaging platform wrote that it is prepared to file a motion to quash the subpoena, if needed. It further urged Nexon to withdraw their demands, and cease sending any similar ‘defective’ subpoenas going forward.

To support its stance, Discord made a list of twenty-two general objections and reservations. Among other things, the company wants to protect user privacy and their first amendment right to anonymous speech.

“Discord objects to the Requests as infringing its users’ decisions to remain anonymous, an aspect of their freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. The Requests improperly seek to unmask anonymous speakers and consequently compel disclosure of material protected by the First Amendment,” it reads.

This strongly-worded letter didn’t have the desired result, however. Instead of backing off, Nexon doubled down, filing a motion to compel at a Texas federal court late last week.

The game company refutes Discord’s objections and asks the court to enter an order requiring Discord to produce the requested user data. Nexon says that it needs this information to protect its copyrights.

“Discord’s failure to cooperate discovery has impeded Nexon’s ability to discover relevant, non-privileged information that will support its potential claims against the users who have provided access to the infringing material,” Nexon writes.

While the court has yet to rule on the matter, Discord is expected to file a formal motion to quash the subpoena in response, as indicated in its earlier communications.

The dispute is yet another classic example of the clash between copyrights and user privacy, with online service providers in the middle. The fact that Discord’s compliance requires operational (time and money) resources, makes it even more complex.

This isn’t just an isolated issue that affects these two companies. The outcome of this brewing legal dispute could have a direct impact on similar DMCA subpoena efforts in the future.

—

A copy of the motion to compel, filed at the Texas federal court by Nexon Korea Corporation, is available here (pdf)

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 Six years ago when attention was focused elsewhere, the MPA warned that lacking legislation and rising broadband penetration would eventually transform Vietnam into a major online headache for rightsholders.

Yet perhaps not even the MPA expected sites like FMovies and Aniwatch to attract hundreds of millions of visitors every month. Coupled with a complex and politically sensitive environment in Vietnam, where established anti-piracy principles seemed to carry little to no weight, at times Hollywood’s prospects of countering this unique threat seemed uncharacteristically hopeless.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, after FMovies and sister sites Bflix, Soap2day, and Sflix had switched to another set of fresh domains, technical issues at FMovies led to its disappearance mid-July. Sites linked to FMovies shut down just a few weeks after.

Historic Win For MPA/ACE, Familiar Morning After Headache

With seemingly relevant information pointing to MPA/ACE involvement, official confirmation arrived late August.

Shutting down the world’s biggest movie and TV show sites in such difficult circumstances was undoubtedly a big win for the studios; yet in some respects, they’d been here before.

Most likely operated by the same group in Vietnam, 123movies shut down in 2018 only to reappear stronger than ever. Another example involved anime giant Aniwatch; ostensibly shut down by ACE while operating as Zoro in 2023, it simply rebranded to Aniwatch and casually pulled in record-breaking traffic.

Track Record of Deviating From Agreements

Whether anything similar is happening now in respect of FMovies and the other brands is difficult to say with complete certainty. However, with a few hundred million visits per month instantly available, it’s safe to say that sites with similar branding to those recently shut down are fighting for a share.

Some domains quickly scooped up millions of extra visits but keeping track of so many moving targets, especially those involving domain switches and/or rebranding, can be extremely challenging. Luckily, the MPA employs people to do the heavily lifting.

Threats Revealed in Site-Blocking Actions

Not long after Fmovies, Bflix, Soap2day, Sflix, and other connected sites switched domains late May, the MPA moved to have domains blocked by ISPs in the UK.

Around 100 of those domains seem potentially relevant to events in Vietnam due to the nature of the sites and familiar naming conventions. A further 100 potentially relevant domains were blocked in July, and after a break in August, 33 domains were blocked in September and a further 84 thus far in October.

The scale of the problem is illustrated below, although not every domain requested for blocking appears here.

Some domains blocked by the MPA

The majority feature well-known branding, either directly linked to the shuttered domains (FMovies, Bflix, Soap2day, etc), historically linked (such as 123movies/movies123 and gomovies), or linked by single/mixed branding also used by other sites operating in the same niche.

To make the list manageable, domains with low traffic, no obvious link to events in Vietnam, or operating in a different niche, were removed in advance. Those that remain must be operating as full pirate sites since that’s a requirement for blocking in the UK.

While FMovies was the most popular single site ever seen in the movie and TV show streaming sector, it appears that isn’t enough to detract from the popularity of 123movies/movies123 branding which takes the top slot at considerable distance.

Another surprise is an apparent lack of interest in Bflix, at least in respect of domains that become popular enough to be considered a blocking threat. It’s worth pointing out that while Bflix may seem insignificant here, more than 300 domains are currently listed as registered, with the majority still unexpired.

For Fmovies the number of domains previously registered rises to 1,400 and for 123movies/movies123 variants, around 3,500 seems like a reasonable estimate.

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Popular Internet infrastructure service Cloudflare has come under pressure from copyright holders in recent years.

The company offers its services to millions of customers including multinationals, governments, but also some of the world’s leading pirate sites.

These pirate sites have proven to be quite a headache for Cloudflare. For example, rightsholders continue to complain that the company helps pirates conceal their hosting locations and identities, as was made clear again in recent submissions to the European Commission.

In some countries, rightsholders are using the legal system to address their gripes. This resulted in site blocking orders in Japan, Italy, and Germany. At the same time, Cloudflare has also been sued directly for its association with pirate sites.

Cloudflare’s Moldovan Piracy Lawsuit

In Moldova, for example, book authors Eugeniu and Radu Turuta, sued Cloudflare and several of its customers, including the anonymous operators of file hosting platform doku.pub. The authors accused these services of sharing pirated copies of their book “5000 Integrated Circuits Power Audio Amplifiers”.

When the authors sent Cloudflare a takedown notice, the company responded that it doesn’t host any content for doku.pub, clarifying that it operates as a ‘pass-though’ CDN provider. Instead of taking any direct action, Cloudflare said that it would inform its customers about the allegations.

This response is typical for Cloudflare. The company generally forwards DMCA takedown notices and only takes direct action if it permanently hosts the allegedly infringing material.

However, in the Moldovan case, the authors argued that Cloudflare had the technical capacity to block access to the infringing content on doku.pub, but failed to do so despite being notified. This inaction, they claimed, made Cloudflare complicit and directly contributed to their financial losses.

In 2022, the Chisinau Court dismissed the authors’ claim. The court held that Cloudflare, as a CDN provider, merely acted as an intermediary and was not directly involved in hosting or distributing the pirated content.

This ruling was appealed, with the higher court taking a different stance, emphasizing the responsibility of CDNs to actively combat copyright infringement within their networks.

$1.4 Million Piracy Judgment

The Court of Appeal’s ruling puts Cloudflare on equal footing with other Internet providers. Essentially, it concluded that it doesn’t matter whether Cloudflare merely passes on traffic or if it hosts content as well.

“The company Cloudflare Inc does not provide data transmission services over the internet to the https://doku.pub website, but it does provide data transmission services between the https://doku.pub website and the end users, and this fact is confirmed by Cloudflare Inc., which claims to be a pass-through network.

“[T]he court finds that, by reproducing the content of the works (books) in dispute, without the consent of the authors, there has been a violation of the patrimonial copyright of the plaintiffs,” the Court of Appeals added.

Based on these conclusions, the Court held that Cloudflare is liable for copyright infringement, ordering the company to pay €1.27 million (approximately $1.4 million) in damages to the authors.

Authors Ask U.S. Court to Enforce Judgment

The judgment was undoubtedly a major setback for Cloudflare. In particular, it conflicts with the different types of safe harbors for Internet providers in the United States, where pass-through services are treated differently from hosting platforms.

Despite the court of appeal’s order, the issue isn’t fully resolved yet. According to the authors, Cloudflare has yet to pay any damages. To ensure that this will happen, they took the matter to the U.S. legal system.

At a U.S. federal court in California, the rightsholders point out that the judgment from the Chisinau court of appeal is final, adding that Cloudflare has yet to pay. They therefore ask the court to recognize this foreign order as a valid judgment, so the damages can be collected.

The case was initially filed at the Superior Court of the State of California but was transferred to the federal court this summer, where it’s still pending. Cloudflare has yet to file a detailed response, but it will likely point to the safe harbor protection U.S. copyright law provides.

In theory, the outcome of this case could have far-reaching implications for copyright holders and CDNs worldwide. If the US court recognizes and enforces the Moldovan judgment, it could inspire other copyright holders to pursue similar legal actions against CDNs.

However, enforcing foreign judgments in the U.S. is complex and certainly not guaranteed. The U.S. court will consider various factors, including whether the Moldovan court had jurisdiction and whether the judgment violates U.S. public policy.

In addition to the liability and jurisdiction questions, Cloudflare will likely protest the scale of the damages award as well. In the United States, the maximum statutory damages for a single copyrighted work is $150,000, which is a fraction of the Moldovan award.

—

A copy of the legal paperwork, which is currently pending at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 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 October 14 are:

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

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 Prosecutions of those involved in the sale of pirate IPTV subscriptions appear to be on the rise, not just in the UK, but also in the EU and beyond.

Resources made available for these cases are in limited supply but by carefully selecting those with the best chance of success, there appears to be a high rate of conviction, despite attitudes to infringement differing in various regions.

A persistent difficulty when attempting to compare similar cases, is whether aggravating or mitigating factors played a significant role in sentencing. Whether a sentence is too harsh, not harsh enough, or simply par for the course, becomes almost impossible to determine when this relevant information is excluded.

Husband and Wife Team Sentenced

On Friday, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) reported on the sentencing of a man and woman from County Londonderry for IPTV-related offenses. Cormac McGuckin (38) and Maura McGuckin (34), a married couple from Bellaghy, had appeared on FACT’s radar before the anti-piracy group referred the matter to the police. That led to a “lengthy and complex investigation” by detectives which FACT says concerned the sale of subscriptions “with more than £700,000 involved.”

FACT’s report notes that on June 4, 2024, Cormac McGuckin pled guilty to charges including participating in a fraudulent business between January 1, 2016 and June 18, 2020. “He also admitted possessing articles for use in fraud on June 18, 2020. He also pled guilty to charges of converting criminal property, possessing criminal property and transferring criminal property,” FACT notes.

At Omagh Crown Court on Friday, Cormac McGuckin received a four-year sentence, two years to be served in prison with the remaining two years spent on license.

On the same day, Maura McGuckin pled guilty to “converting criminal property on holiday-related expenses and car payments, and possessing criminal property,” FACT reports. For these offenses, committed between April 21, 2017 and June 18, 2020, the 34-year-old received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

Too Long, Too Short, Or About Right?

In IPTV piracy cases, how much the offenders “made” is often interpreted as profit by the media but usually relates to the total amount customers paid, with no costs taken into consideration.

In this case, FACT’s comment of “more than £700,000 involved” is a reference to the total sum of money involved in all of the charges to which the defendants pled guilty. Our best estimates suggest the following;

• ~£737,000 was transferred into and out of a joint PayPal account (total amount)
• ~£684,000 of total relates to charges of ‘transferring criminal property’ (five counts)
• ~£367,000 of total relates to charge of ‘possessing criminal property’
• ~£30,000 in seized cash relates to charge of ‘possessing criminal property’
• -Seized laptops/mobile phones relate to a charge of ‘possessing items for use in fraud’

The charges of converting criminal property against Maura McGuckin (and Cormac) initially reported by FACT concerns around £45,000 in finance payments for high-end cars and around £26,700 spent on holidays. When combined, that’s over £70,000 spent on obvious luxuries. The Court didn’t buy the claim that McGuckin failed to grasp her husband’s line of business but with an otherwise clean record, 12 months’ prison suspended for two years isn’t especially surprising.

The same can’t be said about a laundry list of aggravating factors relevant to the sentencing of her husband.

IPTV Offenses Occurred Shortly After Release From Prison

The investigation into McGuckin’s activities led detectives to the El Paso Burrito Bar in Dungannon, a takeaway/delivery restaurant owned by McGuckin at that time. When police eventually swooped, searches took place at both the takeaway and at McGuckin’s home.

Evidence seized included electronic devices and information that showed IPTV sales to around 2,000 subscribers. If 2,000 customers paid £7.50 per month and subscribed every month for four years, that’s £15,000 for 48 months, to a grand total of £720,000. Of that amount, it’s estimated that £475,000 represented profit. In broad terms, the figures sound about right.

Less easily consumed is the fact that McGuckin’s pirate IPTV-related offenses began soon after he’d been released from prison after serving eight months, while still on license for a fraud offense the court described as “shocking.”

In 2012, McGuckin had been working at a company selling wine. There he befriended a customer, a 71-year-old pensioner suffering with Alzheimer’s. Through abuse of the customer’s account at the wine company and writing out fraudulent checks to himself or his soon-to-be wife, the pensioner was conned out of at least £17,000. He only found out when the bank called about a £10,000 overdraft he knew nothing about.

After being arrested and interviewed twice, on both occasions McGuckin claimed the money was a loan. He later admitted that part of the money was used to pay for his wife’s wedding dress and bridal accessories, a local news outlet reports.

Involved in Other Criminality?

Anti-piracy groups like FACT push specific messaging to the public through repetition, but mostly without practical examples that would serve to make those claims more credible. One key claim is that many of those involved in the sale of pirate IPTV are often involved in other criminality too.

Yet despite that clearly being the case here, with previous convictions mentioned in court as an aggravating factor, the above received no mention. The same applies to a one-month prison sentence (suspended for two years) in 2012 for one count of fraud and 13 of theft for using a former employer’s credit card to steal around £1,000.

Not even impersonating a police officer, in order to have his wife’s wedding tiara released from a shop, when the shop had refused to release it because of police inquiries into credit card transactions, made it as background. According to an Irish News report, McGuckin has 23 previous convictions for fraud and dishonesty, including the theft of £17,000 from the 71-year-old which the paper says was partly used to replace money stolen from his then fiancée, now wife.

Conclusion

That the IPTV-related offenses took place while on still on license following another conviction for fraud, is clearly problematic. The report claiming 23 previous convictions for fraud and other dishonesty-based crimes not only shows a prolific offender, but one that the courts could’ve stopped longed ago, but failed to do so.

To that background and the money sums involved, two years in prison seems unlikely to act as a deterrent and tends to make the justice system appear somewhat weak. A comment from Detective Sergeant Robinson thanked FACT for its support and reminded everyone that piracy is not a victimless crime. It also came with a warning, most impactful if read in isolation, less so in the context of the above.

“Users and subscribers of illegal services should also be aware that they too are committing an offense for which they can be identified and prosecuted,” Det Sgt Robinson said.

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Piracy Shield’s first birthday is still several months away so the appearance of a study into its effectiveness came as a surprise but not an unwelcome one.

Commentary by Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM, mirrored by top-tier football league Serie A and streaming service DAZN, hasn’t been at all useful for those seeking answers to the two most important questions:

1) How effective is Piracy Shield at denying access to pirate live sports streams?
2) What is the effect (if any) on new subscriber uptake and customer churn?

Thus far, success has been expressed via the number of domains and IP addresses added to the system for blocking. With roughly 25,000 domains and IP addresses currently blocked, and huge numbers added week after week, the need for more blocking is just as easily framed as a measure of failure.

How Effective is Piracy Shield?

A study to measure how effective Piracy Shield is at blocking was recently conducted at the University of Padua. Graduate student Maffei Davide and Prof. Alessandro Galeazzi, with support from Dr. Giacomo Quadrio and Dr. Enrico Bassetti of the SPRITZ security group, opted for an analysis of network traffic via the university’s VSIX[g] node.

“The project was born from the need to collect information on the functioning of Piracy Shield, as well as on the evaluation of its effectiveness. Through the analysis of network flows, we want to be able to distinguish video flows from other types of traffic and identify the differences between ordinary and pirated traffic,” David Maffei explains.

Using traffic analysis, the researchers examined various characteristics such as communication protocols (TCP, UDP), network ports commonly associated with streaming services, stream duration and size, and packet flags signaling successful transmission and reception.

Through the analysis of these and other characteristics, the researchers aimed to isolate video streaming traffic from other network activity. The next task was to isolate likely legal streaming traffic, from traffic likely to be illegal.

Identifying Legal Streaming Traffic

To identify streaming traffic likely to be legal, the researchers needed to establish which companies hold the broadcast rights for the sporting events being analyzed. After identifying Sky and DAZN, the next step was to discover their Content Delivery Network (CDN) partners; in this case, both Sky and DAZN mainly use Akamai.

The next stage required the researchers to determine the IP addresses generating network traffic coinciding with football match broadcasts. The paper provides additional detail but in broad terms, the researchers considered i) average traffic rate (between 1 and 20Mbps), ii) consistent traffic patterns (to exclude addresses with high traffic peaks unrelated to streaming), and iii) significant difference in traffic during match time, when compared with the two-hour slots before and after a game.

After identifying the Content Delivery Network (in this case Akamai) used for legal broadcasts and finding the corresponding Autonomous System Numbers (ASN), the researchers were able to reconstruct the legal streaming traffic to generate a legal traffic baseline, as illustrated in the image below.

Legal traffic baseline (May 2024)

This baseline allowed the researchers to compare legal traffic with suspected illegal traffic.

Identifying Suspected Illegal Streaming Traffic

The researchers began by identifying the most-used network ports used during the match period; overwhelmingly ports 443 (https) and 80 (http) in the top 50.

The data generated by these high-traffic ports was analyzed to detect network flows with similar characteristics to those associated with video streaming, following the pattern of legal traffic established in the baseline. To facilitate identification, traffic graphs were generated for each port, with port 41122 producing a very similar profile to the legal baseline.

Among many checks carried out to ensure that traffic was actually illegal, the researchers compared this traffic with traffic generated by ASNs linked to websites previously blocked for copyright infringement. Again, the finer details are available in the full report.

Piracy Shield: Effective or Not?

When referencing Piracy Shield, the researchers appear to take the whole system into consideration, from the detection and identification of pirate streams by affected rightsholders, to the eventual blocking of domains and IP addresses by ISPs.

Key metrics the researchers wanted to consider but were forced to leave out, include detection rates, false positive rates, response times, and efficient management of IP addresses and availability. The researchers cite limited data availability and a general lack of transparency throughout the system as obstacles to more comprehensive research.

To evaluate the effectiveness of Piracy Shield, the researchers compared legal traffic with suspected illegal traffic. The image below shows data reconstructed from traffic generated by ASNs associated with IP addresses blocked by Piracy Shield (orange) and separately identified legal traffic (blue).

“The graph highlights that illegal traffic presents significant volume peaks at football match times, indicated by the vertical dotted lines. These peaks coincide temporally with the start an end of sports events, suggesting a strong correlation between presumed pirate traffic and the unauthorized transmission of sports content,” the report notes.

The paper notes difficulties in identifying specific patterns related to illegal video streaming (orange), although a clear pattern typical of streaming did emerge. On the other hand, legal traffic (blue) shows smaller fluctuations.

A more concerning finding for rightsholders is the volume of suspected illegal streaming, which at times overlaps with legal streaming traffic, further complicating the task of distinguishing legal from illegal traffic. More sophisticated algorithms and filtering techniques may be needed to improve identification accuracy.

Conclusion: “Some Effectiveness”

Overall, the results of the traffic analysis suggest that Piracy Shield demonstrated “some effectiveness” in reducing illegal traffic but the scale of the impact – and of course any effect on subscription uptake – is beyond the scope of the study.

The continued availability of pirate sites and the ability of users to circumvent blocking are cited as key concerns, along with strong negatives concerning the platform itself.

Rightsholders’ ability to implement blocking without supervision, meets a lack of transparency and scrutiny in general, and the suggestion of unaccountability. Implications for net neutrality are also raised as a concern.

Whether “some effectiveness” justifies the imposition of the many negatives on everyone except Italian football, will remain a lively topic of debate. There seems little here to inspire confidence that it’s all been worthwhile, but that may be challenged once the first comprehensive rightsholder-funded research sees the light of day.

Evaluation of the Effects of Piracy Shield Through Video Stream Analysis and Its Operation (pdf)

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For well over a decade, Cuevana has been a dominant piracy streaming brand in Latin America.

The original Cuevana site was founded by Argentine Tomas Escobar, who was an engineering student at the time. By offering a Netflix-type streaming experience, with a bigger catalog and without any subscription fees, the pirate service quickly took off.

The Cuevana Whack-a-Mole

It didn’t take long before rightsholders started to take notice of the millions of users flocking to the site. That marked the start of a series of enforcement campaigns that continues to this day.

Rightsholders and their anti-piracy representatives are no longer battling Escobar. The original founder moved on many years ago and now has a legitimate career as an entrepreneur. However, there were plenty of aspiring pirate tycoons ready to fill his shoes.

Over the past decade, many dozens of new Cuevana variants have launched, using creative domain name variations such as Cuevanahd, Cuevana2, and Cuevana3. These sites are a thorn in the side of Hollywood’s MPA and the associated ACE anti-piracy coalition, which structurally try to take these replacements offline.

Three years ago, ACE appeared to have made a breakthrough. The coalition announced that it managed to shut down a major Cuevana operation. However, the problem didn’t go away, as new sites with the same brand continued to surface time and again.

MPA Reports Cuevana.biz to the USTR

Today, Cuevana continues to present a major piracy threat in the Spanish-speaking part of Latin America. This was highlighted earlier this month, when the MPA submitted its latest list of “notorious pirate sites” to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).

With more than 100 million estimated monthly visits in August, Cuevana.biz was mentioned as one of the largest piracy portals in existence today.

“[T]he Cuevana[.]biz/Cuevana3[.]eu group is currently the most popular streaming site group in Spanish-speaking Latin America and is one of the most popular streaming piracy site groups in the world, offering more than 19,000 titles including movies and television series,” the MPA wrote.

This certainly isn’t the first time that a Cuevana site has been reported to the USTR. In most cases these reports don’t yield immediate results but the operators of Cuevana.biz appear to be taking action this time.

Cuevana.biz Announced Voluntary Shutdown

The operators of Cuevana.biz have posted a notice stating that they will voluntarily hand over their domains to the MPA in the near future.

“We are very sorry to see the website closed, but we have to give in to pressure from MPA. We are establishing communication with ACE, where an agreement will be reached to hand over our domains,” the (translated) notice starts.

Cuevana’s notice (translated)

The MPA and ACE have repeatedly tried to identify the site’s operators. A year ago, for example, the MPA obtained a subpoena to compel Cloudflare to share all information the company has on Cuevana.biz. Despite these efforts, the operators suggest that they have not been exposed.

The operators say they are a group of Mexican students, who launched the site when another Cuevana was shut down. The site became an instant success and continues to thrive today but while the students have a passion for ‘Internet culture’, they realize that piracy is wrong.

At the time of writing, the streaming portal remains online, but the notice states that the site will close in the coming weeks. This was presumably triggered by recent comments in the MPA’s submission to the USTR, where it was listed alongside another major pirate site, AnimeFLV. Apparently, that mention hit the wrong note.

“We want to highlight that MPA never contacted us, we only saw a general statement where we are linked to AnimeFLV, our site is not even 20% of AnimeFLV. That is why we are going to hand [the domains] over,” the notice reads.

“We would like to apologize to all independent creators, it should be noted that not all titles shared on this website are copyrighted, we support many students and independent content creators to promote their films or short films,” they add.

Time will tell whether Cuevana.biz will indeed throw in the towel and transfer its domains to the MPA in the near future. The only thing that’s guaranteed at this point is that the popular Cuevana brand will survive, one way or another, as it has done for the past fifteen years.

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The artificial intelligence boom promises progress and innovation but, at the same time, it poses a threat to existing industries.

Over the past two years, dozens of lawsuits were filed against technology companies. Most of these amount to copyright infringement complaints, challenging the unauthorized use of protected works as AI training data.

The RIAA and its members are also involved in these legal battles. The music group is a driving force in lawsuits against the AI companies Udio and Suno, for example, and recently backed a lawsuit against the AI startup Anthropic.

With the strong focus on AI recently, it wouldn’t be a surprise if this topic was considered a priority. However, the RIAA’s latest ‘notorious markets’ submission to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) shows that not to be the case, as it mostly focuses on ‘older’ threats.

RIAA’s 2024 Piracy Threats

The RIAA’s latest submission for the USTR’s notorious markets list starts with stream-rippers. These tools allow people to download music from platforms such as YouTube and, despite their legal use cases, the music group considers stream-rippers a prime copyright infringement tool.

There are dozens of popular stream-rippers including y2mate.com, which reportedly has one of the largest user bases. In the past, Y2mate voluntarily blocked visitors from the US, UK, and elsewhere. However, that’s no longer the case.

“While Y2mate’s traffic has been declining globally due to the many site-blocking orders, the site has still received hundreds of millions of visits in the last 12 months, making it extremely popular globally. Previously, the site had voluntarily limited access from the U.S., UK, Germany, and France, but these restrictions have been lifted,” the submission notes.

The RIAA goes on to list other typical pirate threats, including torrent indexers, direct music download sites, and cyberlockers. Among these, we find familiar names such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x, Newalbumreleases, Dbree, and Rapidgator.

AI Listings Removed

Over the past two years, the music industry group listed several dedicated AI companies among its top threats. For example, in 2022, AI-powered music extractors and mixers were called out, followed by an AI vocal cloning category last year.

In 2024, no specific AI services are mentioned. RIAA does highlight that hosting platforms such as Krakenfiles are abused to store ‘infringing’ AI training data (i.e. pirated music), which remains a key concern.

At the same time, however, the music group also recognizes that AI opens the door to new innovation options, recognizing that the technology can offer new revenue sources.

“[T]he record labels continue to work tirelessly to develop additional innovations and sources of revenue, including use of responsibly trained AI technology to expand artist creativity, reach, and user engagement,” the submission reads.

Intermediaries

In addition to direct threats, RIAA also calls out several intermediaries. For example, hosting companies PRQ, FlokiNET and DDoS-Guard are referenced. These companies are accused of hosting pirate sites and other criminal activity, despite complaints.

PRQ was launched by Pirate Bay founders. While these are no longer involved, as far as we know, RIAA mentions this association in its submission.

“PRQ is a Swedish hosting service headquartered in Stockholm and created by two of the founders of ThePirateBay. It offers offshore hosting options and has consistently hosted criminal content,” RIAA writes.

Last year, RIAA also listed the domain name registration company Njalla, which was started by Pirate Bay founder Peter Sunde. This company is no longer mentioned in RIAA’s latest report, but other domain name companies do get a mention.

RIAA writes that it’s hard to get accurate domain name registration information from companies such as NameCheap and Tucows, as was pointed out in a recent IFPI report. This makes it difficult for rightsholders to identify the operators of pirate sites.

NameCheap and Tucows are American companies, so these are not eligible for a “notorious markets” listing. However, the callout does add pressure, which might be the main reason why they are mentioned.

In conclusion, RIAA’s latest USTR submission doesn’t list many surprises. Many of the targeted sites and services have been called out before. The absence of specific AI threats is most surprising, but with rapidly evolving technology and developing legal jurisprudence, that might just be temporary.

—

The RIAA’s full 2024 list of “notorious” sites and services can be found below, and the full report is available here (pdf). The cursive listings are newcomers and those that were removed are crossed out. The RIAA stresses that this list is a non-exhaustive overview.

Stream-Ripping Sites

– ssyoutube.com
– ytmp3.nu
– mp3juices.cc
– y2mate.com (and related site yt1s.com)
– ytmp3.nu
– savefrom.net (and related site savef.net)
– snaptube app and related domains
– tubidy.cool

Music Download Sites

– newalbumreleases.net
– intmusic.net
– waploaded.com
– hiphopkit.com
– ak47full.com
– fakaza.com
– hiphopda.com
– bazenation.com
– itopmusicx.com

BitTorrent Indexing Sites

– thepiratebay.org
– 1337x.to
– torrentgalaxy.to

Cyberlockers

– zippyshare.com
– dbree.org
– rapidgator.net
– turbobit.net
– krakenfiles.com
– ddownload.com
– pillowcase.su

AI Vocal Cloning

– voicify.ai

Additional Issues

– Bulletproof ISPS: PRQ, FlokiNET, Frantech Solutions/BuyVM/PONYNET, DDoS Guard.
– Domain Name Registrars: NameCheap, Tucows?
– Other intermediaries: Njal.la, A-Ads/Equativ, Softonic/Aptoid.

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 In May 2023, five men behind pirate IPTV service Flawless TV were sentenced at Chesterfield Justice Center in the UK.

After a five-year investigation involving four territorial police forces, three regional Trading Standards units, plus entities from the private sector, the men were sentenced to over 30 years’ prison on various counts, primarily conspiracy to defraud.

Mark Gould, described as the mastermind of the operation, received a landmark sentence of 11 years’ prison following a private prosecution by the Premier League.

The sentences were a significant win for the plaintiff, with each sending a clear message to anyone else considering similar conduct in the UK market.

Flawlessly Affordable Football, Especially on Saturday

Launched in August 2016, Flawless TV obtained subscription TV broadcasts from both legal and illegal sources. After combining live channels into a package, Flawless streamed that content to its own subscribers at a price that dramatically undercut Sky and Virgin Media.

With a focus on providing reliable access to Premier League matches, including those subject to the UK’s 3pm ‘blackout’, Flawless was a smash hit with thousands of football fans and a major headache for the Premier League and its broadcasting partners. While Mark Gould didn’t run Flawless alone, he was identified as the platform’s driving force and the person in charge of business decisions and finances.

Flawless generated an estimated £4.6 million in revenue during its 22 months of operation. Of that amount, £3.7 million was profit, which was split between the individuals involved. Mark Gould received the largest share, approximately £1.7 million.

Gould was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud, one spanning from August 2016 to May 2018, the other from May 2018 to July 2021. He was also found guilty of contempt of court for violating a Restraint Order imposed after his initial arrest in May 2018. Gould continued to offer pirate IPTV subscriptions after his arrest and exceeded his permitted weekly living expenses by £181,800, contrary to the terms of the order.

Court of Appeal

To this difficult background, Gould requested leave to appeal his 11-year sentence. The judgment handed down by the Court of Appeal hasn’t been publicized by the Premier League, but it does shine light on the Court’s view of such a significant sentence in an online piracy case.

First, Gould’s lawyer argued that the trial judge’s calculation of the financial losses, suffered by the legitimate broadcasters, was fundamentally flawed. The judge considered factors such as Gould’s profits and the potential value of official subscriptions in a scenario where Flawless customers opted for legal services instead.

Gould’s appeal argued that only the risk of loss to proprietary rights should’ve been considered. However, the judge could not accurately assess those losses, Gould’s lawyer added, because evidence showing contractual agreements between content producers, owners, and broadcasters, wasn’t presented as evidence.

The second aspect of the appeal argued that while Gould was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud, those two counts actually represented a single criminal enterprise, not two as previously alleged. The difference between those scenarios is striking. When Gould was convicted on two counts of conspiracy to defraud, and a third count of contempt, the sentence for each offense fell to be served consecutively.

At trial, that could’ve meant in excess of 13 years’ imprisonment, but the judge recognized the need to ensure a proportionate sentence, arriving at 11 years instead.

Sentence was Neither Manifestly Excessive nor Disproportionate

After considering the method used by the trial judge to calculate loss, the Court of Appeal posed a rhetorical question. How much would Flawless have had to pay legitimate broadcasters had they negotiated a deal to do lawfully what they actually did unlawfully?

The answer was “something close to what the broadcasters charged their other customers.” Ultimately, however, the Court of Appeal took a more straightforward approach.

“The business model of Flawless and their successors involved breaching the copyright of the legitimate broadcasters. In practical terms they stole the product of those broadcasters. No further technical analysis is required,” the judgment reads.

In respect of the claim that Gould’s conduct should be considered as a single conspiracy rather than two counts leading to consecutive sentences, the Court disagreed. Gould had modified his approach to business after his arrest in 2018, switching to a reseller-based model, utilizing different streaming service names, while incorporating Bitcoin payments.

In the court’s view, these operational changes show that there were two distinct illicit businesses so consecutive sentences were indeed appropriate. All things considered, the Court concluded that Gould’s 11-year sentence was neither manifestly excessive nor disproportionate to the severity of his crimes.

Gould’s application for leave to appeal was therefore denied.

——–

For general comparison, other serious fraud convictions reported by the Crown Prosecution Service in 2023/24

Five member gang, biggest benefit fraud in England’s history (£53m): 25 years prison
Man disguised Ponzi scheme as betting syndicate, thousands of victims (£44 million): 6 years prison
Bernie Ecclestone (F1 fame) failed to declare £416m assets to HMRC, £650m payment: 17 months (susp)
iSpoof fraud tools site operator, 200K UK victims (£43m UK/ £100m worldwide): ~13 years prison
Premier League footballer, investment fraud, targeted friends, family, associates (£15 million): 7.5 years prison

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Throughout the game industry's short history, there's been ample debate about how much piracy actually impacts a game's legitimate sales. On one side, some publishers try to argue that every single pirated download should count as a "lost sale" that they would have logged in a theoretical piracy-free world. On the other side, some wiseacres argue that most pirates would never consider paying for a legitimate version of the game in the first place or that piracy can actually be useful as a word-of-mouth promotional tool.

While the true effect of piracy on sales revenue is likely somewhere between those two extremes, piracy's precise financial impact on a game has always been hard to nail down. Now, though, a recently published study uses post-release cracks of Denuvo's DRM protections as a sort of natural experiment on games sales in pre- and post-piracy worlds. The results "imply an average proportionate loss of revenue of around 19 percent in each week of release if a crack is available," according to the study, suggesting that effective DRM can actually have a significant impact on a publisher's bottom line.

The data dance

In "The Revenue Effects of Denuvo Digital Rights Management on PC Video Games," published in the peer-reviewed journal Entertainment Computing, UNC research associate William Volckmann examines 86 different Denuvo-protected games initially released on Steam between September 2014 and the end of 2022. That sample includes many games where Denuvo protection endured for at least 12 weeks (when new sales tend to drop off to "negligible" amounts for most games) and many others where earlier cracks allowed for widespread piracy at some point.

A majority of Denuvo games studied remained uncracked during the crucial 12-week sales window after release.

Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Crucially, the presence and/or specific timing of a crack's availability couldn't be effectively predicted by characteristics like pricing or critical review scores. That makes the existence of a crack "a practically exogenous event" that can be used to effectively segregate a game's revenues in a no-piracy world (i.e., before the Denuvo crack is available) and a piracy-filled world (i.e., after the crack's release). The variable timing of different crack releases also helps the relative analysis, since "revenue is highest close to the release date, and therefore a crack that appears close to the release date has a disproportionately large effect on revenue," Volckmann writes.

Unfortunately, the lack of good publicly available sales data for most games makes it difficult to measure these revenue effects directly. To estimate a Steam game's relative sales decline in each week after release, Volckmann uses a proxy that combines the number of new Steam user reviews and, for single-player narrative games, the game's average active player count. While Volckmann acknowledges that these imperfect estimates represent "the biggest limitation of this study," any estimated biases away from actual sales data seem likely to cancel out across the various games in the sample.

“The no-crack counterfactual”

After applying some complex statistical models to the underlying data, Volckmann finds that, unsurprisingly, relative revenues in the weeks following a crack's release are lower than the baseline expectation for uncracked games in the same time period. These negative effects of a crack on revenues—which are highly statistically significant (p<0.01)—"impl[ies] that the appearance of a crack reduces revenue relative to the no-crack counterfactual," Volckmann writes.

The longer a game's DRM lasts, the fewer new sales are left to be affected by piracy.

Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Just how much money a publisher can expect to lose from a Denuvo crack, though, depends heavily on how quickly the game is cracked, Volckmann finds. A Denuvo-protected game cracked in the first week after release can expect to make about 20 percent less revenue than if the DRM had remained in place, according to the study, while a crack six weeks after a game's release only costs an estimated 5 percent of theoretical total revenue. After 12 weeks, new sales are so negligible that "developers could eventually remove unpopular DRM schemes with minimal losses (and possible gains from strongly DRM-averse consumers)," Volckmann suggests (and some publishers have done just that after Denuvo is no longer effectively protecting new sales).

Volckmann's data lines up with public statements that Denuvo-maker Irdeto has made regarding the need for DRM to protect a game's crucial post-launch window. "We don't position Denuvo Anti Tamper as being uncrackable—no anti piracy solution is," Denuvo VP of Sales Robert Hernandez told Ars in 2017. "However, our goal is to keep each title safe from piracy during the crucial initial sales window when most of the sales are made."

The difference between a week 1 Denuvo crack and a week 6 crack can be significant amounts of revenue.

Credit: Entertainment Computing / William Volckmann

Overall, according to Volckmann's data, Denuvo is doing just that. The median Denuvo-protected games lose almost no sales to piracy, Volckmann suggests, because the protection "more often than not" goes uncracked in that initial 12-week window. In a world with no DRM, on the other hand, Volckmann projects those games could expect 20 percent less revenue at the median.

Whatever you think of DRM schemes like Denuvo, the potential to protect against that kind of revenue hit is something that major publishers might find hard to ignore. And there are signs that Denuvo's protection is becoming more crack-resistant in recent months; the CrackWatch subreddit lists 28 Denuvo-protected games released so far in 2024, 26 of which remain uncracked and two of which were cracked well outside the 12-week release window. As we see in this study, that kind of robust protection can be worth a significant amount to a piracy-wary game publisher.

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In late 2022, several of the world’s largest music companies including Warner Bros. 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

This September, Grande filed its opening brief in which it again argued that the lower court reached the wrong conclusion. Internet providers shouldn’t be held liable for pirating customers based on third-party allegations, the company noted.

“This appeal presents important questions of first impression in this Circuit about whether, and in what circumstances, an internet service provider may be held secondarily liable for the conduct of users of its service,” the ISP wrote.

The ISP believes that it shouldn’t have to terminate Internet access this easily. This view is bolstered by a recent Supreme Court decision in favor of Twitter and other social media platforms, which held that they’re not liable for terrorist messages.

Grande is not alone in this appeal. Several telecoms organizations agreed that terminations are a drastic and overbroad remedy, which can have severe consequences for non-infringers.

Record Labels Counter

The record labels countered Grande’s appeal. They believe that the jury reached a sound verdict that should be upheld on appeal; the alternative would make it almost impossible to tackle the online piracy problem.

Grande could have avoided liability if it had adopted and reasonably implemented policies to terminate repeat infringing subscribers. However, the music companies argue that the ISP chose to increase its profits instead.

The rightsholders believe that Grande’s decision was financially motivated. The company reportedly terminated the accounts of many subscribers who failed to pay their bills but took no action against repeat infringers.

Appeals Court Affirms Jury Verdict

After hearing both sides, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the jury verdict yesterday. Grande’s arguments, suggesting that the district court mistakenly upheld the verdict earlier, were rejected.

“The district court did not err in upholding the jury’s unanimous liability verdict because Plaintiffs satisfied each element legally and factually,” the decision reads.

“The court correctly interpreted the law and instructed the jury on the relevant legal standards in light of the factual issues disputed by the parties, and Plaintiffs introduced ample evidence from which a reasonable jury could find in Plaintiffs’ favor.”

Material Contribution

To hold Grande accountable for copyright infringement, the music companies had to prove they owned the copyrights to the music in question, and demonstrate that Grande’s subscribers shared that music illegally. After reviewing the evidence, the Court of Appeals found that both elements were sufficiently proven.

Next, the Court had to determine whether Grande is secondarily liable for its subscribers’ infringements. This requires the ISP to ‘know’ about the pirating subscribers. In addition, there should be evidence showing that Grande induced or materially contributed to the pirating activities.

Grande ‘knew’ about the infringements through the piracy notices they received. The crux of the appeal lay in interpreting the ‘material contribution’ part.

The Twitter Precedent

Grande found support in a recent Twitter vs. Taamneh ruling, where the Supreme Court rejected the claim that Twitter aided-and-abetted terrorist activity because it didn’t “consciously and culpably” participate in the illegal activity. According to the ISP, the same logic should apply in this case.

The Court of Appeals, however, doesn’t follow this reasoning. It points out that the Twitter ruling never referenced copyright. As such, that ruling should not be used to change fundamental principles of copyright liability.

In addition, the Court stresses that there’s a key difference with the Twitter case. The social media company was accused of liability for a terrorist attack because its platform was used for fundraising. There was no direct link between the actual attack and Twitter, however.

In Grande’s case, there is a direct nexus between the copyright infringements and the use of Grande’s network, as Internet access was required to share the copyright infringing music.

“Grande provided those subscribers with the tools necessary to conduct those infringements and continued doing so after learning that those subscribers were repeatedly using those tools to infringe, in furtherance of a policy never to terminate subscribers for copyright infringement,” the Court writes.

Grande is Liable

In addition to the material contribution challenge, Grande and its supporters also pointed out that terminating Internet access isn’t a “simple measure”, as the jury concluded. Instead, it is drastic and overbroad, which could also impact innocent subscribers.

The Court of Appeals rejects this reasoning. Instead, it states that the jury could and did conclude that terminations are a simple measure. There is no evidence to reach a different conclusion.

All in all, the Court sees no reason to reverse the jury’s verdict that Grande is liable for contributory infringement. This means that the jury verdict is affirmed.

$47m Damages Award Vacated

While the liability verdict stands, there was some positive news for the ISP as well. The Court overturned the lower court’s decision on how damages should be calculated. A new trial will determine the appropriate amount.

At the heart of the damages dispute, is the question of how to calculate damages when multiple copyrighted songs from the same album are illegally downloaded. The original ruling awarded damages for each individual song. However, Grande argued that the law only allows for a single damage award per album, regardless of how many songs from that album were shared illegally.

The labels argued that it would be best to count all songs separately, as they all have value. This argument was supported by the Copyright Alliance, which informed the court that concluding otherwise would “threaten the livelihood of some copyright owners.”

The Court acknowledged these concerns, but countered that 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.

“In sum, the record evidence indicates that many of the works in suit are compilations (albums) comprising individual works (songs). The statute unambiguously instructs that a compilation is eligible for only one statutory damage award, whether or not its constituent works are separately copyrightable,” the Court notes.

“Accordingly, we vacate the statutory-damages award and remand for a new trial on damages with the proper jury instruction.”

The decision is a major win for the record labels, as the copyright infringement verdict stands. The Court’s dismissal of the ‘Twitter defense’ is also key, as these same arguments are used in many related lawsuits.

The conclusion
 

Whether Grande plans any future challenges is unknown. In any case, it can focus on the new damages trial, where it hopes to substantially lower the $47 million damages award.

—

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, signed by Circuit Judges Higginbotham, Stewart, and Higginson, is available here (pdf)

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Kim Dotcom’s war of attrition, against the governments of New Zealand and the United States, seems to have entered a new phase.

After 12 years of legal action, New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith approved Dotcom’s extradition to the United States back in August.

New Zealand Herald recently obtained a copy of the order. As far as we know, the order still hasn’t been published in full, but it did authorize Dotcom’s immediate arrest.

“I authorize any constable to take Kim Dotcom, who is currently on bail, into custody,” the order reads, as per NZ Herald’s report. The rest of the text matches the standard extradition document format as shown below.

With a reputation for challenging orders from the New Zealand and United States governments, Dotcom’s response was true to form.

“I love New Zealand. I’m not leaving,” he told his 1.7 million followers on X.

“I completely forgot this dude existed”

On Reddit, the decision to extradite was discussed by the Kiwi inhabitants of /r/newzealand. The majority expressed awareness of Dotcom, but several were clearly surprised that after 12 years, somehow he’s still in New Zealand.

Public opinion on Kim Dotcom is sharply divided. He evokes strong reactions, which can broadly be summarized as follows; 1) The man, the myth, the legend. 2) I never really liked him much. 3) I absolutely loathe the guy.

A recent survey in New Zealand revealed that 46% of respondents believe Dotcom should be extradited. Almost a quarter (23%) said he should not, leaving just under a third (31%) confessing that they’re “unsure.”

Whether that means they could be convinced to support the Megaupload founder is up for debate. However, whether people like Dotcom or not, in the Reddit thread many New Zealanders found interesting common ground.

United in Criticism of the Government

Either in connection with Dotcom’s case or for other reasons, the New Zealand government receives withering criticism, even beyond that leveled at the United States.

“The dude has never even been to America and he is being sent to their fucking prison. Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of Dotcom, the situation is really wack,” one commenter wrote.

“The US can fuck off, even though Kim dot com is a massive pile of shit,” wrote another. “This will set a dangerous precedence.(sic)”

And then the apparent common denominator; perceived New Zealand weakness due to the influence of the United States.

“Kowtowing to the powerful is going to be a theme of this government,” one commenter predicted. Another highlighted a point that has had many observers scratching their heads for over a decade; the illegal use of New Zealand’s external spy agency to gather intelligence on a New Zealand citizen, requested by a country the target has never visited.

“A German man, living in NZ, never visited the USA, with a Hong Kong company is somehow convicted and extradited to the USA. Using evidence via GCSB monitoring,” one comment notes.”I feel uncomfy about this precedence.”

The perception that New Zealand remains vulnerable to power and influence wielded from beyond its borders is not uncommon, especially in connection with the Dotcom saga.

It’s a matter of record that Dotcom was the subject of illegal government surveillance. What remains baffling is the sheer scale of the subsequent raid on his mansion: a military-style operation involving the same number of helicopters used to kill Osama bin Laden, and four times the manpower.

For those with a more conspiratorial outlook, fuel doesn’t get much more potent than that.

A Man With a Plan

The details of Dotcom’s “plan” to stay in New Zealand are yet to be revealed. Given Dotcom’s history, exhausting the judiciary with every possible avenue of appeal is pretty much guaranteed, no matter how unlikely the prospects of success.

At the same time, it’s likely that Dotcom will use social media to preach to the existing choir. He will also try to appeal to those who loathe him, and those who merely hate him, by focusing on a common grievance.

“People keep suggesting that I should leave this corrupt US colony like a fugitive on the run. Hell no,” he told 1.7 million X followers recently.

“Corrupt US colony” and the interchangeable “obedient” variant are clearly derogatory, catering to theories of joint complicity and snivelling weakness. This rhetoric has been visible on Dotcom’s social media accounts for some time, but the main theme is Dotcom’s belligerent, out-of-the-blue support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s Usefulness in the Extradition Jigsaw

Dotcom’s ‘support’ for Russia requires nuance. Dotcom frames Russia’s actions as the entirely predictable (and yet completely avoidable) response to the alleged failures of the United States. And, by extension, the untenable position of President Biden, the person Dotcom sees as the architect of his downfall through the destruction of Megaupload.

The crux of the matter is straightforward. In the event the Democrats retain power, Dotcom has no prospect of improving his entrenched position, which in part is the product of his own digging.

What Dotcom can do, however, is indirectly assist opponents of Biden and the Democrats. That destabilization can introduce new room for maneuver in New Zealand, where opportunity is all but exhausted.

Since 2022, Dotcom supported narratives more closely aligned with those of the Kremlin, in particular the claim that United States policy is the root cause of the current conflict. The amplification of anti-Ukraine rumors in the United States, strategically links alleged U.S. policy failures to billions of dollars in military aid, all at taxpayers’ expense.

This toxic mix, Dotcom insists, heralds the collapse of the dollar, the dismantling of the “US Empire”, and ultimately a global human catastrophe; World War 3, no holds barred.

A Complicated Smokescreen to Change the Status Quo

Some people believe that Dotcom genuinely supports Russia and, with his quotes regularly appearing on state-run news channels, arguing otherwise is a pretty tough ask.

A different assessment starts with the things Dotcom values most – his family, his wealth, and his freedom – and applies that to a reputation of doing whatever it takes to protect and maintain those three, non-negotiable aspects of his life. Right now, his best chance is to tilt the chess board via a change at the White House, and then carefully exploit a change in policy.

Dotcom’s colleagues took a plea deal from the U.S. and New Zealand that Dotcom insists he would never accept; certainly not if Biden was in power. A Donald Trump win, on the other hand, would introduce an administration Dotcom could be seen to negotiate with, on previously unthinkable terms, without losing face. Previous reluctance to admit any wrongdoing could suddenly seem trivial after the prevention of World War 3.

Dotcom Disappears After Being Accused of a Serious Crime

Dotcom has been rolling the dice in high stakes plays for some time, the narratives surrounding the murder of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich being one example among many. More recently the controversy surrounding the alleged contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop received considerable attention from Dotcom.

Dotcom’s recent decision to revive the controversy by publishing an image on X, reportedly part of the haul from the laptop in question, led to a long suspension from Elon Musk’s platform. X wanted Dotcom to confirm that he had committed a serious crime before reinstating his account; Dotcom refused.

After X reinstated Dotcom’s account, Dotcom retweeted the tweet that caused his suspension, the image in question intact.

“My Hunter post is now available again. However Elon was informed about my suspension immediately and did nothing for 2 weeks. He did that deliberately. Only Elon knows why,” Dotcom wrote.

“I always looked up to Elon for his innovations. I supported his takeover of Twitter and appreciated his whistleblowing with the Twitter files. He certainly gave me a voice until it was taken away. I thought he was one of the good guys and his stance for free speech was real. I’m not so sure anymore,” he continued.

On Substack, Dotcom explained his position in detail but was soon warning of a looming threat to Elon Musk, should the Democrats remain in the White House.

“Over the last year it has become obvious to most that dark times are ahead of us. Make good use of your time. All the best to you, sincerely.”

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The ban on the instant messaging platform comes after a shocking incident where two women were murdered in Istanbul. Some people on Discord were reportedly praising the murders, which upset many in Turkey.

Turkey's transport and infrastructure minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said:

"Security personnel cannot go through the content. We can only intervene when users complain to us about content shared there. Since Discord refuses to share its own information, including IP addresses and content, with our security units, we were forced to block access."

Turkish officials were also frustrated because Discord did not share important user information like IP addresses that could have helped them investigate crimes. Turkey's Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said this lack of cooperation left them with no choice but to block the app. According to him, the main reason for the ban is to protect children and young people from harmful content on the platform.

Turkey isn't the only country that has recently banned Discord. Russia also banned Discord recently for similar reasons. The Russian government said that Discord was used to distribute illegal content and the company failed to comply with requests to remove such materials.

Discord has acknowledged the incident:

"We are aware of reports of Discord being unreachable in Russia and Turkey. Our team is investigating these reports at this time"

Turkey had previously banned a lot of other online platforms and services as well, especially when there's political unrest in the country. X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube are often blocked during politically unstable periods to control the flow of information. Instagram was also blocked in August 2024 without a clear explanation from the Turkish government. Even the video game platform Roblox was blocked due to concerns about content deemed harmful to children.

Via Reuters

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The anime industry has experienced a surge in popularity, but this growth is not limited to legal streaming platforms.

A significant portion of the demand for anime arrives from unofficial channels, with several major pirate websites dedicated solely to anime content.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) recognizes this as a serious threat and is not sitting idly by.

ACE Crackdown

A few weeks ago, ACE booked one of its largest successes in history with the shutdown of the Fmovies piracy ring. As a result, roughly a billion monthly pirate site visits were wiped out overnight. This included Aniwave.to, previously one of the most popular anime piracy sites.

While Aniwave was immensely popular, the domain was still relatively new. It first appeared on the scene a year ago as a rebranding of 9anime, which was discontinued citing legal troubles. These problems didn’t disappear with a new name, as the recent shutdown showed.

Following AniWave’s demise, much of its traffic went to another popular anime pirate site; HiAnime.to. This portal also has experience with rebranding; it was previously known as Aniwatch, after taking over over from Zoro.to before that. The true motive behind these changes is unclear. However, we can say that it does very little to shake off any legal pressure.

HiAnime: 300 million visits

Today, HiAnime is the most visited pirate site on the web. According to the latest data from Similarweb, the site had more than 300 million visits in September, up from 210 million a month earlier. This massive increase is a direct result of the takedown of its major competitor.

HiAnime today
 

Anime is historically associated with Japan, but HiAnime attracts an international audience. Nearly 40% of its visits come from the United States, with India, the UK, Canada, and Australia completing the top five. The operators, meanwhile, are believed to be in Vietnam.

This traffic surge shouldn’t come as a surprise to ACE. The anti-piracy alliance has targeted HiAnime’s predecessors in the past, and it’s determined to shut down the operation, when the opportunity arises.

Subpoena Targets HiAnime.to

Late last week, MPA requested several DMCA subpoenas at a federal court in California. These subpoenas are directed at Cloudflare and the Tonic domain registry, listing a variety of targets, including HiAnime.to.

The subpoenas were requested on behalf of ACE members with the aim of obtaining the personal details of the people who operate HiAnime.to, Pelisplus.to, Veronline.mov and dozens of other domains.

On behalf of ACE members, the MPA seeks any information that can help identify the infringers. This includes names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history.

Many More Targets

Three subpoenas were requested at the federal court last week. Two target Cloudflare and the other targets the Tonic registry. Both companies are known to comply with U.S. subpoenas once they are signed off by a court clerk.

The three subpoenas target 55 domain names in total and are not limited to streaming and torrent sites. They also list several storage platforms such as darkibox.com and streamtape.com, and IPTV services and apps including Fosto.tv and u-playtv.com.

While these subpoenas have resulted in actionable intelligence in the past, most of the larger site operators are aware that this information can be disclosed though court orders. As a result, several domain name owners have taken precautions to keep sensitive information private.

Whether that also applies to HiAnime has yet to be seen, but it’s clear that the anime piracy site is among ACE’s top targets today.

—

Copies of the letters accompanying the subpoenas are available here (1, 2, 3). An alphabetical list of all the mentioned domain names is available below.

– 123-hd.com
– 24-hd.com
– anime-sama.fr
– animesaturn.mx
– animesaturn.tv
– assistirseries.gratis
– comandotorrents.to
– darkibox.com
– dlhd.so
– dwn.ycndownload.com
– fikper.com
– filman.cc
– filmesxp.com
– filmoflix.dad
– filmoflix.kim
– filmoflix.tel
– filmoflix.to
– filmowo.club
– fosto.tv
– gimy.video
– hianime.mn
– hianime.nz
– hianime.sx
– hianime.to
– imoviehds.com
– inwiptv.com
– kissanime.com.ru
– megacine.to
– megaflix.click
– mizhls.ru
– movielair.cc
– moviehdthai.com
– movierulztv.us
– new-hd.com
– overflixtv.com
– papadustream.to
– pelisflix.pink
– pelispedia.mov
– pelisplus.to
– pobreflix.global
– repelisplus.lat
– serie-day.com
– seriesflix.my
– seriesflixtv2.me
– soaper.live
– srstop.link
– streamtape.com
– superfilmes.blue
– tecflix.vip
– topflix.sh
– topsrs.day
– tuktukcima.com
– tvchak113.com
– u-playtv.com
– veronline.mov

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts