It has been a rough couple of weeks for people who love cartoons but prefer not to pay for them.

The simultaneous disappearance of Aniwave and the connected Anix last week left a massive hole in the pirate market. The pair serviced at least one, and maybe as many as two, billion visits in the previous 12 months alone.

While those platforms focused on Japanese anime, KimCartoon offered a much wider variety of cartoons. From decades-old classics and sought-after rarities, to modern cartoons and other fan favorites, KimCartoon reportedly came up with the goods. At least it did, before it abruptly shut down this week.

KimCartoon before it displayed the end credits

Visitors to the site today, at least those not running MalwareBytes which currently blocks access to the domain, won’t see the colorful display above anymore. The site is reportedly gone for good with the finger of blame pointing firmly at U.S. copyright law.

Dead Due to DMCA

The screenshot below contains the message that surprised users on Tuesday/Wednesday this week. There has been no other announcement that we know of so the precise nature of the DMCA-related problems is still unclear.

A reference to the DMCA doesn’t necessarily have to be about takedown notices. In their own right, DMCA notices alone aren’t especially well known for their ability to shut sites down, at least not resilient ones like KimCartoon. The site has stayed online using its .li domain since at least 2021. With other domains, much longer than that.

Indeed, if we look at KimCartoon’s entry in Google’s Copyright Transparency Report, we can see that the site weathered at least one huge takedown storm last year and came out largely unscathed.

However, if “due to DMCA” is a reference to copyright law in general, KimCartoon has had more than its fair share of copyright infringement troubles.

Rightsholders Take Action in India and U.S.

In July 2020, just as the world was being turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, Disney Enterprises obtained a dynamic injunction at the High Court in Delhi which compelled local ISPs to block 118 ‘pirate’ domains.

The main targets were streaming platforms offering movies, general cartoons and Japanese anime, along with their proxy sites. Heading that list were 15 domains with KimCartoon and KissCartoon branding, many of which currently redirect to KimCartoon.li, the domain from which KimCartoon operated until earlier this week.

Just a handful of months later, in September and October 2020, the domain KimCartoon.to appeared in two separate DMCA subpoenas served on Cloudflare and the Tonic domain registry by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

Whether those subpoenas resulted in any useful information is unknown but KimCartoon later switched to the .li domain still in use today with the other domains redirecting.

So What Killed KimCartoon? The DMCA or Maybe Something Else?

When a site like KimCartoon still enjoys around 10 million visits per month as it has done for years, shutting it down voluntarily is a pretty big deal.

With the finger pointing toward the DMCA, the shutdown notice fails to mention that an entire legal process in India, followed by not one but two ACE subpoenas, failed to shut down the site. Yet suddenly, ‘the DMCA’ has made it impossible to continue, even after all these years of weathering the storms and staying online.

So who shut the site down, and why was that suddenly possible? We don’t know for certain but if we rewind the years for a moment, an interesting picture emerges.

Diplomatic Moves, Reincarnation

In 2017, Ted Osius, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, held a meeting with Truong Minh Tuan, Vietnam’s Minister of Information and Communications. Vietnam raised concerns about “offensive” content on YouTube and Facebook. Since the content may violate local law, Vietnam felt that ideally, it would be removed or blocked.

Ambassador Osius’s request for assistance from Vietnam concerned three troublesome pirate sites. The United States believed their operators should be criminally prosecuted in Vietnam for pirating American content.

Following these discussions, in March 2017 one of the sites mentioned – 123movies – suddenly went offline. Had the discussions really gone that well?

An incredible chart from a 2017 Danish site-blocking study conducted by Rights Alliance shows that 123movies didn’t really die. An almost perfect mirror image of its carefully controlled demise (red line) can be seen as it rises almost identically once again (blue).

New name: GoMovies.

In the background, a Vietnam-based site called ‘Fmovies’ had been steadily accumulating traffic and in time, took the world by storm. That reign ended with Fmovies suddenly shutting down recently due to action by Vietnamese authorities with assistance from the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.

When 123movies went offline in 2017 (or more accurately, morphed into GoMovies), another site mentioned by Ambassador Osius suddenly went offline too. That site was called KissCartoon and, according to reports, it had run into domain difficulties.. In parallel, a site called KissAnime began taking steps to distance itself from KissCartoon, most likely to avoid trouble itself.

The steps taken included a now-familiar rebranding exercise and the emergence of a new site called KimCartoon which, after many years online and despite enjoying around 10 million visits as recently as last month, suddenly shut down this week.

Probably Just a Coincidence

Coincidentally or not, sites with billions of visits per month, all with connections to Vietnam, all of which have undergone rebranding exercises over the years, shut down only last week; aniwave, soap2day, zoroxtv, bflixhd, animesuge, anix, mov2day, 2flix, sflixtv, filmoflix, flixhive, and vidsrc, to name a few.

In another surprise coincidence, a message identical to that displayed on 123movies/gomovies when it officially shut down in 2018 reappeared announcing this round of shut downs.

None of the sites said they had shut down due to the DMCA as KimCartoon did this week, but it’s rare for anything in the piracy world to appear in a gift-wrapped package with a neat little bow on it.

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The web is riddled with copyright infringing content, ranging from full-length blockbuster films, through small music samples, to reposted celebrity photos on social media.

Not all of these offenses are equally problematic. Law enforcement authorities may go after the operators of large-scale pirate sites or services, but posting short film clips without permission typically doesn’t lead to trouble.

Sharing Nude Scenes of Reddit

Last year, we reported on a Danish case where a then-anonymous person shared small clips of films online in a subreddit. This type of ‘organized’ copyright infringement is seen as more problematic by rightsholders and in this case, the nature of the clips was all-important too.

Instead of posting random clips, the group was dedicated to nude scenes of Danish female actors. These were taken out of context and posted online, for the group’s more than 6,000 members to enjoy. In addition, the same clips appeared on pornographic websites.

The unauthorized activity was considered a slap in the face by the actresses, many of whom complained to local media. They felt violated by the actions and called on Reddit and the authorities to respond.

Actress Andrea Vagn Jensen, who has had one of her explicit scenes shared online, told DR that there’s a huge difference between appearing naked in a film and being posted on Reddit.

“It’s just abuse. You deliver something for the production and the story, and then you end up being molested that way,” Jensen said.

Police Arrest 39-Year-Old Man

The complaints caught the attention of Rights Alliance, which reported the issue to the police on behalf of the Danish Actors’ Association and the respective rightsholders. While these clips may not directly hurt revenues, copyrights also have moral rights which include the right to integrity, which could come into play here.

Rights Alliance also called on Reddit to take the matter seriously. While many of the problematic clips were already removed at that point, the group urged Reddit to implement upload filters to prevent future trouble. That included banning external URLs.

It’s unclear whether these demands were translated into action by Reddit but the police certainly took the matter seriously. This week, the National Unit for Serious Crime (NSK) announced that a 39-year-old man from Valby had been arrested and charged with copyright infringement.

“The arrested person is suspected of being behind extensive sharing of video clips with nude scenes from Danish feature films and series on various pornographic websites and the social media Reddit,” NSK writes.

The r/SeDetForPlottet subreddit is no longer online today. After the earlier media coverage, the group was made private and eventually shut down but for the suspect, this case is far from over.

Real People

NSK Police Commissioner Anders-Emil Kelbæk is pleased with the arrest. Not just in the interest of rightsholders, but also the actresses who felt abused by the unauthorized activity.

“I am satisfied that we have now been able to make an arrest in this case. Both actors and rights holders have rightly felt offended when nude scenes have suddenly been shared in an entirely different context than the one they were intended for,” Kelbæk says.

Rights Alliance Director Maria Fredenslund is happy with the outcome as well, as it sends a clear message that there are serious consequences for posting short copyright-infringing clips out of context.

“The case here deeply affects the rights holders involved and emphasizes what can be at stake when content is shared without permission and out of context,” Fredenslund notes.

“Any film or television production is created by real people with personal boundaries and artistic visions that are seriously violated by this kind of illegal sharing. Great praise must go to NSK for their effort in investigating the case,” she adds.

The r/SeDetForPlottet group, allegedly operated by the suspect, was inspired by the popular English-language subreddit r/WatchItForThePlot. The latter remains online today and has over 1.4 million subscribers.

r/WatchItForThePlot
 

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In 2020, publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, John Wiley and Penguin Random House sued the Internet Archive (IA) for copyright infringement, equating its ‘Open Library’ to a pirate site.

IA’s library is a non-profit organization that, among other things, scans physical books in-house so these can be lent out to patrons as e-books.

This “Controlled Digital Lending” (CDL) practice allows for only one copy of a book to be lent at a time, mirroring the traditional library lending model. At the same time, however, CDL bypasses the publishers’ e-book licensing model.

Publishers vs. Internet Archive

The in-house scanning service at the Internet Archive (IA) differs from the licensing agreements entered into by other libraries. These agreements see libraries license ‘official’ e-book versions from publishers, who charge for every book that’s lent out to patrons.

The major book publishers eventually ran out of patience with IA’s DIY approach, filing a lawsuit that kicked off a major legal battle four years ago. The publishers equated IA’s lending operation to piracy and, last year, a New York federal court concluded that the library is indeed in the wrong.

The court’s decision effectively put an end to IA’s self-scanning library, at least for books from the publishers in suit. However, IA was not giving up that easily; in December the non-profit filed its opening brief at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, hoping to reverse the judgment.

Publishers Win at Court of Appeal

During a hearing in June, both sides defended their positions. At the time, the court didn’t appear to be entirely convinced by IA’s arguments. This was confirmed by an opinion and judgment from the three judge panel published a few hours ago.

After reviewing the evidence, circuit judges Steven Menashi, Beth Robinson, and Maria Kahn, affirmed the lower court’s order. They conclude that IA’s self-scanning approach can’t be classified as fair use under U.S. copyright law.

Affirmed
 

The court understands that libraries are burdened by e-book licensing fees, which can make book lending relatively expensive. However, that doesn’t give IA the right to create its own e-books and lend those out instead.

“IA asks this Court to bless the large scale copying and distribution of copyrighted books without permission from or payment to the Publishers or authors,” the appeal court’s opinion reads.

“Such a holding would allow for widescale copying that deprives creators of compensation and diminishes the incentive to produce new works. This may be what IA and its amici prefer, but it is not an approach that the Copyright Act permits.”

Fair Use?

The Internet Archive hoped to rely on a fair use determination. It stressed that the in-house e-book scanning approach is transformative, because it enhances access to books, especially for those who cannot easily visit physical libraries.

The fact that the organization has no profit motive and only lends out as many digital copies as they have physical copies, should also favor fair use, they argued.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately disagrees. For one, the court emphasized that simply digitizing a book is not transformative, as it does not create a new purpose or character. The digital copies served the same function as the original books – reading.

The court reasons that IA’s free digital lending could serve as a substitute for purchasing or licensing e-books, potentially harming the publishers’ revenue. That also goes against a fair use determination.

The court further stresses that while IA is a non-profit, its activities to have a commercial aspect, as it indirectly benefits from its partnerships and donations. That, again, weighs against fair use.

Harmful

The court of appeal had to find a balance between the interests of rightsholders and IA. In this case, it concludes that the scale tilts in favor of the book publishers.

In essence, the court prioritized the publishers’ right to control the reproduction and distribution of their works over IA’s goal of expanding access to knowledge. While IA’s actions are potentially beneficial in some ways, they ultimately harm the market for the publishers’ books, the court concludes.

“While IA claims that prohibiting its practices would harm consumers and researchers, allowing its practices would―and does―harm authors. With each digital book IA disseminates, it deprives Publishers and authors of the revenues due to them as compensation for their unique creations,” the opinion reads.

The decision means that IA’s e-book lending approach remains off-limits, as it applies to these copyrighted works. This may not signal the end of the legal battle, however.

IA is clearly disappointed by the outcome, but it hasn’t thrown in the towel yet.

“We are disappointed in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of libraries to own, lend, and preserve books,” IA writes.

—

A copy of the opinion from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals is available here (pdf), and the associated judgment can be found here (pdf).

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In June 2022, Canada’s Federal Court handed down a ‘dynamic’ blocking order to prevent live NHL games from being viewed via pirate IPTV streams.

Obtained by companies including Rogers, Bell, The Sports Network, and Groupe TVA, the injunction was the first of its kind in Canada and had flexibility built-in by design. That was only the beginning and just like the UK and other countries in Europe, more applications resulted in more blocking injunctions being granted, each more adaptive than the preceding one.

In April 2024, a new application caught the eye. Led by Bell, Fubo TV, Rogers, and The Sports Network, the rightsholders requested permission to block pirate streams of three different sports; NHL and NBA games, plus matches played in the UK’s Premier League.

Greater Efficiency Through Collaboration

Since obtaining an injunction is a time-consuming and expensive process, the application in April aimed to significantly improve efficiency. Instead of separate proceedings for each sports league’s content and each time new content is broadcast, the applicants bundled everything into a single track process.

An announcement this morning by anti-piracy company Friend MTS confirms that collaboration to increase efficiency in court, also extends to pirate IPTV monitoring and blocking activities under the authority of the injunction.

“Friend MTS, the leading provider of video content security solutions, today reported that numerous video service providers in Canada have uniformly chosen Friend MTS as their partner of choice to prevent piracy with Dynamic Delivery Server Blocking (DDSB),” the announcement reads.

While Friend MTS describes the formation of “an industry-first collaboration” it doesn’t actually name any of the companies involved.

However, it does mention NBA, NHL, and a “nationwide court order to dynamically block access to any servers hosting broadcasters’ pirated content,” which certainly narrows things down.

An additional note, that the collaboration “saves money and time by reducing court application fees and appearances while simultaneously protecting billions of dollars of sports content rights,” leads directly to the following copyright owners or exclusive licensees.

Rogers Media Inc., Rogers Communications, Inc., BCE Inc., Bell Media Inc., CTV Specialty, Television Enterprises, Inc., The Sports Network Inc., Le Reseau des Sports, (RDS) Inc., and Groupe TVA Inc.

The above companies are clearly listed in the April application and the dynamic injunction handed down in July. Interestingly, it appears that the flexibility of the injunction was utilized before the ink even had a chance to dry.

UFC and MLB Enter Pirate IPTV Blocking Arena

On July 9, 2024, the same day the injunction was granted by the Federal Court, the applicants filed a motion to expand the scope of the injunction with additional content owned by other rightsholders.

These received no mention in the injunction but since a provision in the order allows for additional rightsholders to be added, these were somewhat more quietly introduced via amendment.

The addition of UEFA seems to be limited to the coverage of Euro 2024 but in respect of Major League Baseball (MLB) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), ongoing protection of events seems logical, and indeed turns out to be the case.

To the extent of our knowledge, the involvement of UFC and MLB hasn’t been widely publicized. However, the details of content to be blocked by Canadian ISPs (Bell Canada, Eastlink, Cogeco, Fido, Rogers, Sasktel, Teksavvy, Telus, Videotron, and Vmedia) appears as a subsequent amendment to Schedule 1 of the order handed down on July 9, 2024.

Confirmation that rightsholders are working together, and that all monitoring and IPTV target acquisition will take place under one roof at Friend MTS, indicates a blocking program capable of expansion without causing too many headaches.

If other countries’ programs are taken as guidance, expansion is almost guaranteed.

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For a torrent site, TorrentGalaxy is still a relative newcomer. The site is barely seven years of age while others have been around for over two decades.

In that timespan, however, TorrentGalaxy secured a key place in the torrent ecosystem. Not only does it serve millions of users directly, its ‘release’ groups also distribute torrents across other popular sites, including The Pirate Bay and 1337x.

This role has been challenged over the past few days. On Sunday, the site replaced its usual appearance with a cryptic message, “TGX Forever”, without any further explanation. Meanwhile, the site’s health status page was replaced by an even more ominous note: “Executing End-Program.exe…,” it read.

TorrentGalaxy health status / proxy page
 

Without a word from the site’s operators or moderators, users were left guessing. Was this just a temporary ‘outage’, similar to the one a few weeks earlier, or were there serious issues behind the scenes?

TorrentGalaxy Returns

Today, after three days, the site reappeared in its usual form, as if nothing ever happened. TorrentGalaxy.to works just fine, and the same is true for the status page, which makes no mention of the recent drama.

TGx Returns
 

In addition to the websites, the TGx upload bots have also resumed their normal operation, it seems. The TGxGoodies account on 1337x uploaded more than a dozen new torrents in the past hour.

Over the past days, we have received multiple reports citing unconfirmed “moderators” who claimed that the site had indeed shut down. These conclusions were premature, it seems.

Why?

The main question is why TorrentGalaxy’s operators have spooked users. It’s clear that they fancy this ‘mystery’ approach, but they wouldn’t take the site offline without a reason either.

Legal issues and hosting problems are often a reason for outages, but we have seen no signs of either. Maintenance or other technical problems could also offer an explanation. For example, it appears that one of TorrentGalaxy’s SSL certificates expired on August 31, after which it went offline.

Whatever the reason, the next time the site puts up a “TGx Forever” banner, it’s likely not the end of the site. Until it is, of course.

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Pirate IPTV providers have a tendency to come and go, and some struggle to provide consistently high-quality streams.

Through reliability, stability and quality, subscribers were attracted to the SmoothStreams brand; the availability of masses of unlicensed content was obviously the main reason to stay.

SmoothStreams had been under investigation since 2018 and in the summer of 2022, major entertainment industry companies were at Canada’s Federal Court aiming to bring it all crashing down.

After filing a complaint mid-June, by the end of the month Bell Media, Rogers Media, Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures, Universal City Studios, Universal City Studios Productions, and Warner Bros., had the permission they needed.

An interim order containing an interim injunction, required SmoothStreams’ alleged operators, Marshall Macciacchera and Antonio Macciacchera, to shut down the entire SmoothStreams system and hand control of its infrastructure to an independent supervising solicitor (ISS).

The order enjoined the men from dissipating, transferring, or concealing assets, and required them to authorize banks and other financial entities to disclose details of their assets. Court authorization, which allowed the plaintiffs to search premises linked to Marshall and Antonio and seize evidence – without having to give any prior warning – arrived courtesy of a controversial Anton Piller order.

Details of the operation, which spanned the homes of the defendants and other locations, appear in our earlier coverage.

SmoothStreams before being dismantled

Yet despite those events taking place over two years ago, the lawsuit against Marshall and Antonio Macciacchera (dba SmoothStreams), plus companies allegedly under one or the other’s control – Arm Hosting Inc., Star Hosting Limited, and Roma Works Limited – has thus far focused on the alleged conduct of the defendants during the raids, not necessarily the alleged conduct that led to the raid taking place.

Contempt of Court (Antonio): Serious and Expensive

As reported late 2023, after failing in various ways to comply with the Court’s orders in 2022, both defendants faced the prospect of being held in contempt.

By “steadfastly refusing” to permit the Independent Supervising Solicitor (ISS) to enter his home and execute the order, and after he “deliberately deprived the plaintiffs of the element of surprise,” on December 13, 2023, Antonio Macciacchera was found in contempt of court and ordered to pay the plaintiffs over US$70,800 in legal fees and other costs.

Even before this decision, the costs of defending the lawsuit in general were clearly taking their toll. Precise figures are unknown but even if close to the costs being incurred by the plaintiffs, legal bills of hundreds of thousands of dollars are a massive burden for most defendants. For the plaintiffs, still relatively small change, when all things are considered.

Marshall Macciacchera, who is said to have controlled SmoothStreams support companies Arm Hosting Inc., Star Hosting Limited (Hong Kong), and Roma Works Limited (Hong Kong), faced allegations that he failed to comply with the terms of the order which contained, among other things, the Anton Piller order and a range of injunctive relief.

An order handed down by Justice Rochester at the Federal Court in Ontario last month, made available to the public in the last few days, paints a grim picture of what has become a slow-motion nightmare for all parties, and a potentially ruinous money pit for the defendants.

Contempt of Court (Marshall): Serious and Horrendously Expensive

Following the execution of the interim order in 2022, the plaintiffs sought an order charging Marshall Macciacchera, and three of the corporate defendants (Arm Hosting Inc., Star Hosting Limited, and Roma Works Limited) with contempt for refusing to comply with many aspects of the order.

Justice Rochester describes Marshall as the president of Arm Hosting Inc. and the sole director of the other companies [corporate defendants]. In 2022, Justice Lafrenière concluded that Marshall and the corporate defendants had, on a prima facie basis, failed to comply with the order by “deliberately failing to make the required financial disclosures, refusing to answer numerous questions regarding their assets, various login credentials, and certain unauthorized streaming services.”

Marshall and the corporate defendants were charged and a contempt hearing took place in April 2023 before Justice Rochester, with further submissions filed up until January 2024.

Defendants Alleged Bias

The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants “lied, concealed and attempted to conceal evidence” and all remained in breach.

The defendants appear to have built their defense on the alleged misconduct of the independent supervising solicitor; searches that “robbed” Marshall of his dignity, allegations that the ISS is not independent but is biased and therefore lacks integrity, met similar claims including doubts over expert evidence, even suggestions that the Court may not be impartial.

These allegations were examined in detail, but it’s clear from the order they were poorly received.

“The Charged Defendants have failed to call into question ISS Drapeau’s independence and integrity. There is no indication that anything untoward occurred, despite the Charged Defendants attempts to make it appear that way,” Justice Rochester’s order reads.

“Allegations of bias or a lack of independence against a member of the legal profession acting as an independent supervising solicitor should not be made lightly. Such allegations strike at the very core of the duties incumbent on an ISS. In the present case, I consider that not only were they made lightly, considerable Court time was used seeking to call into question the integrity of ISS Drapeau when there was no foundation for doing so.”

Allegations that the Court acted with “partiality, unfairness, and in essence, bias,” faired no better. Justice Rochester notes that the defendants provided “no cogent evidence” and relied on “bald allegations” instead.

Breaches of the Interim Order

Justice Rochester’s 80-page order is detailed; in respect of the details surrounding the execution of the order in 2022, oftentimes excruciatingly so for the defense. The full order is linked below and the Judge’s key findings follow:

• Marshall failed to disclose the required technical information associated with SSTV Services
• Defendants failed to provide credentials for the required accounts, domains, subdomains and servers
• Marshall provided login credentials for the registrar account of armhosting.ca
• Marshall did not provide credentials for live247.tv or credentials for the Live247 streaming server
• Court satisfied that Marshall is able to access the required credentials to comply with the order
• Marshall intentionally failed to disclose information relating to the two Hong Kong companies
• Star Hosting Limited and Roma Works Limited intentionally failed to comply
• Marshall intentionally failed to disclose assets, accounts, and details of overseas cryptocurrency
• Marshall intentionally failed to disclose his computer password

“Having found that the requisite elements of contempt have been established beyond a reasonable doubt, I nevertheless retain a discretion to find the Charged Defendants not guilty of contempt,” Justice Rochester notes.

“I am not satisfied that a finding of guilt would be an injustice in the present case.”

Costs and Penalties

Having found the defendants guilty of contempt of the interim order, the next stage is a hearing to determine the appropriate penalty. But before that takes place, the issue of the plaintiff’s costs needed to be addressed.

“The Plaintiffs seek an all-inclusive lump sum in the amount of $375,312.93 [~US$277,000], payable forthwith, comprised of (i) 50% of their total legal fees incurred for the contempt proceedings; and (ii) their reasonable disbursements,” the order reads.

When deciding the actual amount to be awarded, many factors are considered, including the conduct of the parties involved. The defendants argued they should pay no costs given the manner in which the interim order was executed. Justice Rochester’s order delivers the bad news in a paragraph (item 6).

The Charged Defendants are, jointly and severally, liable to the Plaintiffs for costs, payable forthwith,

in a lump sum amount of $375,312.93, which is inclusive of legal fees, disbursements, and taxes thereon.

With costs of US$277,000 for contempt alone and the “appropriate penalty” yet to be decided, how this case continues to its ultimate conclusion is currently unknown.

SmoothStreams reportedly made around US$1.1 million per year, which sounds like a lot, at least until the unknown costs of the next year, or years, are factored in.

Justice Rochester’s order is available here (pdf)

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Manga and anime have become increasingly popular in recent years. These formats originate in Japan, but they are now popular all over the world.

Available in static and animated form, ‘hentai’ describes the adult versions of the above. With a growing audience of many millions of fans, hentai is also benefiting from the boom.

As with any type of media, not all consumers are paying for access. Anime and manga piracy is more prevalent than music piracy today, and hentai is no exception. The nHentai.net website, for example, had nearly 80 million visits in June this year.

Copyright holders are not happy with the unauthorized distribution of their content. Many take countermeasures, which often involves sending DMCA takedown notices to the ‘pirate’ platforms, but not all recipients respond by taking content offline.

Rightsholder Targets nHentai

California company PCR Distributing is one of the affected copyright holders. The company does business under various brands, including J18 and JAST USA, and sees nHentai as a major threat to its operation.

PCR obtained a DMCA subpoena a few weeks ago, requiring Cloudflare to unmask the people behind the site, which allegedly failed to process takedown notices. As is frequently the case, a court clerk swiftly granted the subpoena, requiring Cloudflare to comply. In this case, however, that wasn’t straightforward.

A few days after the DMCA subpoena was issued, lawyers representing nHentai slammed on the brakes. They argued that no personal data should be disclosed as the subpoena should have never been granted.

At the time of writing, the matter is still pending in court. NHentai’s opposition is well argued and certainly has a chance of success. However, even if the subpoena is quashed, nHentai’s legal issues are far from over, as PCR has just filed a full-blown copyright infringement lawsuit.

PCR Sues nHentai for Copyright Infringement

In a complaint filed last Friday at a California federal court, PCR describes nHentai as a popular ‘pirate’ site with dozens of millions of visitors. The site shares copyrighted material without permission, taken from digital or physical books, while the operators don’t allow users to upload content.

“NHentai.net is a widely visited platform for adult manga and doujinshi content, attracting over 79,000,000 visits per month,” the complaint reads.

“The website hosts a vast collection of hentai works, including commercially produced content, much of which, based on information and belief, is shared without proper authorization from the owners.”

The lawsuit emphasizes that nHentai doesn’t rely on user-generated content. Those types of services can typically rely on a safe harbor under the DMCA. In this case, however, nHentai can’t claim this protection, PCR argues.

“nHentai is not a user-generated content website. There is no user upload capability. Defendants are not ‘service providers,’ are not engaged in the storage of content at the direction of users, and thus are not entitled to any of the safe harbors afforded under Section 512 of the [DMCA].”

Failed Settlement Attempt

The complaint doesn’t identify the owners of nHentai, who have yet to be named. However, PCR and nHentai are certainly no strangers. Last October, attorneys for the alleged pirate site offered to confidentially settle all copyright infringement claims with PCR.

The proposed terms of the agreement are unknown, but PCR declined and insisted that nHentai should take down pirated copies of their works.

“In October 2023, the nHentai Defendants […] attempted to have PCR enter into a ‘HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT AND RELEASE AGREEMENT’ to settle claims, including copyright infringement, between the Plaintiffs and Defendants in this case. PCR declined the agreement and further requested the removal of its works from nHentai.”

Despite these efforts, nHentai allegedly failed to remove any of the infringing works in response to PCR’s takedown requests.

“Plaintiff or its agents sent DMCA compliant takedown notices identifying infringing works on Defendants’ website to the email address provided for reporting abuse. Additional DMCA-complaint takedown notices were sent to nHentai’s known service providers. However, 100% of the reported URLs remain active.”

Damages and a Broad Injunction

PCR accuses nHentai of various forms of copyright infringement and demands damages as compensation. In addition, the company seeks a broad injunction to effectively shut down the site.

The injunction should prohibit the site’s operator from infringing the copyrights of PCR’s works going forward and require the registrar of nHentai.net to transfer the domain to PCR.

If a domain transfer isn’t granted, the proposed injunction requires third-party intermediaries to block the domain in the United States. That would apply to search engines, hosting providers, ISPs, domain name registrars, domain name registries, and other service or software providers.

At the time of writing, nHentai has yet to comment on or respond to the complaint. However, given the site’s previous opposition to the DMCA subpoena request, we expect that it will file a response in due course.

—

A copy of PCR Distributing’s complaint, filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central 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 three newcomers on the list. “Inside Out 2” is the most shared title.

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

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

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Released Time for Religious Instruction (RTRI) is a mechanism in the United States which allows schoolchildren to receive religious instruction during school hours.

The law says that this can only take place off-site, with teachers and authorities’ involvement limited to releasing children into the hands of third-party organizations for instruction elsewhere.

In Ohio, parent Zachary Parrish became concerned by the actions and teachings of an organization called LifeWise, which recently described itself as a “privately funded Christian non-profit” that provides “religious instruction in traditional, character-based, Biblical teaching.”

To raise awareness of LifeWise and what Parrish describes as its spreading of “Evangelical Christianity, Purity Culture, Christian Nationalism, homophobic beliefs, transphobia, and hateful rhetoric,” Parrish and the like-minded Molly Gaines teamed up to found an opposition group: Parents Against LifeWise.

Parrish Publishes LifeWise’s Children’s Curriculum, LifeWise Sues

In the belief that the curriculum contains information supportive of the opposition group’s cause, Parrish obtained a copy of the closely-guarded documents and, in the public interest, posted them publicly online. When he refused to comply with LifeWise’s demands to take the content down, LifeWise responded with a potentially crushing copyright infringement lawsuit.

Filed in the Northern District of Indiana (Fort Wayne Division) on July 2, 2024, plaintiff LifeWise Inc. of Indiana described Parrish as a willful infringer whose goal was to “gather information and internal documents with the hope of publishing information online which might harm LifeWise’s reputation and galvanize parents to oppose local LifeWise Academy chapters in their communities.”

After the complaint was filed, Parrish immediately received an offer to settle. That was perceived as an attempt to bring the matter to an end but on unacceptable terms; no recognition of Parrish’s right to use the material under the doctrine of fair use and a potentially devastating effect on raising awareness and future criticism of the religious group.

These components unsurprisingly attracted the attention of the EFF, which is now defending Parrish against LifeWise’s copyright infringement allegations. That began in earnest last week with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

Copyright Is Not a Tool to Punish or Silence Critics

EFF’s approach to this litigation is encapsulated in the heading above, as explained by EFF IP Litigation Director Mitch Stoltz and Staff Attorney Tori Noble.

“Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically allows copying another’s creative work when necessary for criticism,” EFF begins.

“But sometimes, unscrupulous rightsholders misuse copyright law to bully critics into silence by filing meritless lawsuits, threatening potentially enormous personal liability unless they cease speaking out. That’s why EFF is defending Zachary Parrish, a parent in Indiana, against a copyright infringement suit by LifeWise, Inc.”

A Perfect Example and Classic Fair Use

In a motion to dismiss dated August 26, EFF notes that some infringement lawsuits amount to “baseless shakedowns” where the expense of discovery heightens the incentive to settle rather than defend a frivolous lawsuit.

EFF informed the Court that the lawsuit against Parrish “is a perfect example.”

“As we explained to the court, Mr. Parrish’s posting of the curriculum was a paradigmatic example of fair use, an important doctrine that allows critics like Mr. Parrish to comment on, criticize, and educate others on the contents of a copyrighted work. LifeWise’s own legal complaint shows why Mr. Parrish’s use was fair,” the EFF notes, referencing LifeWise’s claim that Parrish hoped to gather information to publish online to harm the group’s reputation.

“This is a mission of public advocacy and education that copyright law protects. In addition, Mr. Parrish’s purpose was noncommercial: far from seeking to replace or compete with LifeWise, he posted the curriculum to encourage others to think carefully before signing their children up for the program.”

Returning to LifeWise’s assertion that Parrish aimed to harm LifeWise by publishing its curriculum, EFF points out that if a film critic uses scenes from a movie to support a devastating review, that’s considered fair use under copyright law. Likewise, if a concerned parent wishes to educate other parents “about a controversial religious school program by showing them the actual content of that program,” that’s permitted too.

Factors of Fair Use

A. LifeWise Concedes Mr. Parrish’s Transformative and Noncommercial Purpose

According to the motion to dismiss, LifeWise’s description of itself and its mission, of Parrish and his actions, show that LifeWise and Parrish had very different uses in mind for the curriculum.

For a fee, the former allows use of the document for “traditional, character-based, Biblical teaching during school hours.” For no fee, the latter’s use of the document was to “publish information online which might harm LifeWise’s reputationand galvanize parents to oppose local LifeWise chapters in their communities.”

B.The Nature of the Works Is Neither Disputed Nor Dispositive

The second factor of fair use concerns the creativity of the allegedly-infringed work. Creative content receives more protection than factual content, meaning that a finding of fair use is more or less likely depending on the content mix.

According to LifeWise, the curriculum is biblical instruction that includes videos, activity pages, leader guides, cards and printables; it is therefore a mix of creative work, passages from the Bible, plus other factual and non-creative elements.

“Given this jumble of characteristics, the ‘creativity’ subfactor is not likely to offer much illumination to the analysis,” EFF informs the court.

“Moreover, if the disputed use of the work ‘is not related to its mode of expression but rather to its historical facts’ then creativity matters even less to the analysis. Here, Mr. Parrish posted the Curriculum in order to make parents and the public aware of its content, not to appropriate its creative aspects.”

C. Mr. Parrish Used What Was Necessary for His Critical Purpose

It’s often claimed that using only small parts of a copyrighted work is key to a finding of fair use. While that may be helpful in some cases, copying of an entire work can be fair use in appropriate circumstances, when ‘time-shifting’ for example.

In this case, the entire curriculum was published and according to EFF, that was necessary given the purpose of the use. LifeWise provides a public 27-page summary of the curriculum and describes it as “comprehensive” but the EFF begs to differ.

“It is not plausible to infer that a 27-page summary, created by LifeWise itself —not exactly an objective source — would be adequate to fully educate parents or the public about what public school children might be learning during school hours from first grade through fifth grade, any more than a summary of the New Testament could substitute for actually reading it,” EFF informs the court.

D. LifeWise Does Not and Cannot Plausibly Allege Market Harm

The fourth and final factor of fair use considers the effect of the use of a copyrighted work on the potential market for that work. Put differently, whether use of the work deprived the copyright owner of income or undermined a new or even potential market. EFF argues that the complaint fails to show that any harm was caused.

“Where, as here, a use is highly transformative, only a strong showing of harm will weigh against fair use. When a use is transformative and non-economic, as in this case, market harm is less likely to exist or weigh against a finding of fair use,” EFF notes.

“LifeWise would never license the Curriculum for what it describes as Mr. Parrish’s intended use to ‘galvanize parents to oppose local LifeWise chapters in their communities. It concedes it would only license to Mr. Parrish, or anyone else, subject to ‘the restrictions that LifeWise is entitled to and would place on” use of the Curriculum, “including the right to deny permission altogether.”

LifeWise alleged that internet users may have downloaded the Curriculum for the purposes of religious instruction, contrary to the purpose envisioned by Parrish.

“Even taking this alleged harm at face value, Mr. Parrish cannot be held liable for what other people might hypothetically do; the question before the Court is whether Mr. Parrish’s own use is unlawful.”

Conclusion

EFF concludes that the posting of the LifeWise Curriculum “was a self-evident fair use”, and did not infringe any copyright. “This Court should dismiss the complaint and end LifeWise’s improper attempt to punish a critic.”

EFF ends a summary of recent events with a cautionary note that deserves to be highlighted.

Fair use is not the freedom to use copyrighted material with impunity. Fair use is a possible defense in a copyright lawsuit, not an immunity card that makes allegations disappear when waved in the air.

Parrish is fortunate to have EFF on his side; defending a fair use case not only requires legal experts, it can also get horribly expensive, extremely quickly. It’s hoped that the motion to dismiss filed by Parrish and EFF last week may help to end this lawsuit before it becomes unnecessarily costly for everyone, including the plaintiff.

Defendant’s motion to dismiss & EFF’s supporting brief are available here and here (pdf)

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Three years ago, Bungie filed a complaint at a federal court in Seattle, accusing Destiny 2 cheat seller AimJunkies.com of copyright and trademark infringement, among other things.

The same accusations were also leveled against Phoenix Digital Group, the operating company behind the website, and third-party developer James May.

Bungie Wins Landmark Trial

After years of legal back-and-forth, the case went to trial in May, where both sides presented their arguments. AimJunkies, in particular, emphasized that the defendants never accessed or modified any of Destiny 2’s copyrighted game code.

Bungie, on the other hand, argued that AimJunkies’ copyright-infringing activities were blatant and obvious. At the end of the trial, the Seattle jury ruled in favor of the video game company.

After the hearings concluded, the jury found all defendants liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement. Phoenix Digital Group and all individual defendants were ordered to pay damages equivalent to the actual profits they earned, a total of $63,210.

Court Denies AimJunkies a New Trial

The jury verdict was a clear victory for Bungie, but it didn’t mark the end of the legal battle. AimJunkies had previously filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law, contending that it was evident they hadn’t infringed on Destiny 2’s copyrights.

The district court was therefore asked to overrule the jury’s decision and enter a new verdict. Alternatively, the court could order a new trial, offering AimJunkies another chance to defeat Bungie.

Last week, United States District Judge Thomas Zilly denied the request for a do-over. Judgment as a matter of law may be granted if the evidence only allows for one reasonable conclusion, which runs contrary to the jury’s verdict. That’s not the case here.

Judge Zilly writes that Bungie was required to prove that it owned the copyrights and that these were infringed by AimJunkies. The presented evidence supports that, he concludes.

“[A]t trial Bungie needed only to establish that the ‘Cheat Software’ distributed by Defendants had copied protected aspects of Destiny 2. Bungie could show that Defendants copied protected aspects of Destiny 2 with either direct or circumstantial evidence of copying. Both types of evidence were presented at trial.”

For example, both Bungie and AimJunkies agreed that the cheat software affected the audiovisual output of Destiny 2. That alone, is sufficient to support the jury’s verdict that defendants engaged in copyright infringement.

Denied

$4.3 Million Arbitration Award

Before the trial took place, several of the claims presented in the lawsuit had already been resolved by an arbitrator. The arbitration process was conducted behind the scenes and resulted in a resounding win for the game developer. Bungie was awarded almost $4.4 million in damages and fees.

The bulk of the award was DMCA-related damages. According to arbitration Judge Ronald Cox, the evidence made it clear that AimJunkies and third-party developer James May bypassed Bungie’s technical protection measures in violation of the DMCA.

In addition to breaching the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, the defendants were also found liable for trafficking in circumvention devices. Or, put differently, selling and shipping the cheats.

The AimJunkies defendants were disappointed in the arbitration outcome and decided to challenge it at the court of appeal. According to the cheat sellers, the arbitration process was not fair and correct.

The arbitrator relied heavily on evidence from Bungie’s witness, Dr. Kaiser, and denied cross-examination of the same witness, the defendants argued. This prevented AimJunkies from challenging the credibility of this key witness.

Appeals Court Denies AimJunkies’ Arbitration Appeal

Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court denied AimJunkies’ appeal. The court found that the district court did not err in confirming the $4.3 million arbitration award, concluding that the arbitrator didn’t prevent the defendants from challenging the witness.

“The Arbitrator did not entirely dismiss AimJunkies’ attempt or ability to impeach Dr. Kaiser,” Judges Nguyen, Johnstone and Ezra concluded

“For example, AimJunkies’ counsel could have tried to rephrase its question, question Dr. Kaiser about his transcripts, or read Dr. Kaiser’s transcripts into the record to impeach Dr. Kaiser. AimJunkies’ counsel did not attempt to do so.

“Instead, counsel abandoned the line of questioning entirely. This in no way amounts to an error […], especially not an error that was ‘in bad faith or so gross as to amount to affirmative misconduct’ […] and thus deprived the parties of a ‘fundamentally fair’ hearing.”

The arbitrator did not show “a manifest disregard” of law, no clear errors were made, and the scale of the award was not “completely irrational.”

As a result, the court of appeal affirmed the $4.3 million arbitration award.

Affirmed
 

As a result, Bungie emerges the clear winner once again. AimJunkies won’t get a new trial and the arbitration award, which was previously put on hold pending the appeal, can now be collected.

While there may still be further challenges ahead, AimJunkies’ outlook is ever more grim.

—

A copy of the Seattle District Court’s order is available here (pdf). The order from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals can be found here (pdf).

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The demise of pirate streaming giant Fmovies in June, followed by the closure of Aniwave and more than a dozen others in the space of a few hours Monday night, will be remembered for a very long time.

When the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment modestly confirmed on Thursday it had supported Vietnamese authorities to shut down the sites, the focus was on huge but easily digested numbers. When combined, fmovies, bflixz, flixtorz, movies7, myflixer, and aniwave, reportedly drew more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024.

The popularity of these sites obviously made them a target, but significance can also be found elsewhere. For reasons we’re aware of and have reported previously, and likely many more besides, shutting down these sites was never going to be straightforward.

Frustrations date back years but more recently, at the same time domain names were being handed over to the MPA, presumably as part of an agreement, site resurrections were also underway.

The big question is whether Fmovies, Aniwave, and the other sites will attempt something similar.

Giving Up Was Never an Option

Some believed that nothing could be done about the piracy situation in Vietnam in the short term. Both Hollywood and Japan’s major anime studios seemed to have few options left, but that didn’t mean no options at all.

What follows is a sample of events relating to Vietnam that show the type of environment Fmovies and the other sites were up against. To what extent the background to these events affected the outcome, if they did so at all, is hard to quantify. What’s fairly clear is that when business needs are met in a mutually beneficial manner, momentum can take on a life of its own. As part of the overall vision for the Hollywood/Vietnam relationship, the sites’ existence may have simply become untenable.

International Symposium on Copyright Enforcement

As previously reported, Vietnam played host to the International Symposium on Copyright Enforcement starting June 17; those in attendance included the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), Vietnam’s Copyright Office under the Ministry of Culture, the MPA and who’s-who of major rightsholders and specialist anti-piracy companies.

The symposium ended on June 21 and Fmovies reportedly stopped updating June 22/23. One day later, MPA Chairman/CEO Charles Rivkin appeared in a photograph alongside Nguyen Quoc Dzung, Vietnam’s Ambassador to the United States.

Topics discussed over lunch included the importance of Vietnam’s streaming market to the Hollywood studios, and “how to strengthen the bonds between our creative economies and protect the livelihoods of the creative workforce driving this shared growth.”

That was June 24 and just a few hours earlier, Fmovies had suddenly started to fail. On life support for a few days, the world’s most popular streaming site would soon be declared dead.

The obvious beneficiary was Hollywood but as we noted in an earlier report, other meetings were also taking place elsewhere in Vietnam. One event attended by the Vice Chairman of Sony Pictures mentioned potential funding mechanisms for local films.

Vietnam Tourism – Cinema Promotion Program in the United States

Official government documents dated July 2024 show that a “tourism and cinema promotion program” will take place in Los Angeles in the “third and fourth quarters of 2024” with exhibitions on Vietnamese cinema and tourism and a program to “introduce the potential of Vietnam’s cinema scene and policies towards international cinema activities.”

The goals of the program in the United States include the promotion of tourist destinations and potential filming destinations in Vietnam, plus the following:

Attract Hollywood film studios to Vietnam to film movies with great appeal, capable of creating international media attention, to promote and attract tourists to Vietnam.

And there’s more;

– Take advantage of the prestige and influence of Hollywood partners to organize the Program, attract public attention, and widely promote Vietnamese tourism. Promote tourism promotion through cinema, effectively exploit tourism from cinema, and create a breakthrough in tourism promotion.

 

– Introduce the image and brand of friendly, quality, and sustainable Vietnamese tourism destinations. Create opportunities for Vietnamese tourism service providers to meet and connect with US businesses and partners.

 

– Strengthening cooperation and exchange; promoting the signing and commitment to effectively implementing cooperation agreements on tourism and cinema between relevant agencies, localities, Vietnamese enterprises and US partners, contributing to concretizing and deepening tourism and cinema cooperation between the two countries.

 

– Contact, exchange and work with a number of US tourism and film organizations (US Travel Association, Motion Picture Association of America), a number of large tourism corporations and businesses, media corporations, airlines, cruise lines, and relevant US partners to promote cooperation in tourism and film development.

The documents suggest that the MPA agreed to ensure that producers, studio directors, directors, film set directors, and Hollywood stars, attend a special event on an unspecified date. The MPA was asked to make a speech on the same day.

Japanese Animation Movie Screening

As part of the 2024 Japan-Vietnam Copyright Cooperation Project, a meeting took place on July 23, 2024, between staff from the Copyright Office of Vietnam, Japanese publishers, and anti-piracy group CODA.

After a presentation, those in attendance took part in a “lively discussion, during which participants exchanged views on topics such as the Vietnamese government’s anti-piracy measures, cooperation with copyright awareness activities, and Vietnam’s intellectual property laws and their implementation.”

Another Vietnamese government document dated May 2024, details “The organization of the Program ‘Japanese Animation Film Screening’.”

If everything went according to plan, that event took place on Friday, August 23, 2024. Coincidentally or not, the world’s largest anime piracy site Aniwave closed down on August 26, just three days later.

What kind of effect the closure will have on the local anime market is unclear, but for Vietnam’s Beta Media and Japan’s Aeon Entertainment, any reduction in availability of pirated content will be considered good news.

On July 31, the partnership committed to building more than 50 premium cinema complexes across Vietnam under the Aeon Beta Cinema brand by 2035. The first is scheduled to open in 2025 and with overall investment reported as “tens of billions” of yen (one billion yen currently US$64.4 million), confidence in Vietnam’s cinema business seems fairly high right now.

Momentum Builds Pressure

These events are just a few examples of recent activity in Vietnam; when combined, they show that despite the existence of Fmovies, bridge building work has never stopped. Indeed, after U.S. President Joe Biden met with Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, in Hanoi last September, forging closer ties is expected under the U.S.–Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

General reports and details of progress were reported several times in June; Daniel J. Kritenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, spent June 21/22 in Hanoi where he met senior government officials. On June 25, with Fmovies drifting away in the background, Jose W. Fernandez, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, welcomed Vietnam’s Minister of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Chi Dung, to Washington, D.C.

Surfacing Anytime Soon Would Be….Complicated

On balance then, it seems fairly unlikely that Fmovies2 will debut anytime soon. With Hollywood pulling and pushing in the same direction as Vietnam, whatever appears on the table can be obtained or achieved much more easily. That’s something that money can’t buy, at least not directly. Transactions like these often find themselves settled through the bank of goodwill instead.

If pushed to highlight a negative, Vietnamese media reports on Fmovies’ demise seem limited to repeating what has already been reported in Western media. At least far as we can determine, government officials and the police have made no official comments. Government websites, which include news resources, haven’t reported the news at all.

Two people were indeed arrested, but nobody has yet been charged. ACE, meanwhile, has a local trademark application underway; all fingers will be crossed that moving forward, any use for it will be strictly limited.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of August): 3,792 news posts

In little over five years, TorrentGalaxy has grown out to become a leading player in the torrent ecosystem.

The site originally set out to ‘bridge the gap‘ between torrent and streaming sites, and it ultimately became much more than that.

With a dedicated group of uploaders and an active community, TorrentGalaxy provided a safe haven for many avid torrenters. The disappearance of other key torrent sources, including the demise of RARBG last year, has made TorrentGalaxy’s position as a torrent distribution portal increasingly important.

TorrentGalaxy Forever?

In June, many users feared that the site had thrown in the towel, as it directed visitors to a cryptic message that simply read “4ever?” This came as a surprise, even to the site’s moderators, 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 but that didn’t seem to matter anymore; until now.

A few hours ago, TorrentGalaxy started displaying an image from the movie Logan across its website, along with another mysterious message: “TG Forever”. No further information is being provided at this time.

The mysterious message
 

The image in question is titled “johntucker.jpg”. It’s not clear what this refers to, but if we put on our speculation hats, the film “Jason Tucker must Die” comes to mind, of which a remake is currently in the works.

These types of unsubstantiated theories do not give the site’s users much hope. However, it’s also possible that these vague messages are simply intended to confuse people, while regular maintenance is performed on the site. We simply don’t know.

In any case, a message that’s currently displayed on the TorrentGalaxy proxy portal doesn’t instill much hope for the site’s confused users. “Executing End-Program.exe…,” it currently reads.

TorrentGalaxy proxy page
 

TorrentFreak reached out to a TorrentGalaxy moderator, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. As mentioned earlier, during the last downtime, the moderator team was not kept in the loop. If any news comes in, we will update this article accordingly.

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With millions of visits per month, pirate sports streaming site Streameast is a fan favorite among many sports aficionados.

The site is particularly popular in the United States, where even the largest sports icons, including LeBron James, have reportedly used it to stream content.

The appeal of free sports content is understandable, as legal options can cost hundreds of dollars per month. This can lead to legal complications such as those that became apparent earlier this month, when Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized several Streameast domains.

“It is unlawful to reproduce or distribute copyrighted material including sporting events, television shows, movies, music, software, or games without authorization. Individuals who do so risk criminal prosecution under Title 18,” the banner explained.

Domain seizure banner
 

The seizure warrant effectively targeted five domain names, including Streameast’s main home; thestreameast.to. There was no mention of an associated indictment and no further comments from law enforcement that we know of. That remains the case today.

Streameast Plans to Appeal

What is clear, however, is that these initial domain name seizures didn’t take out Streameast. On the contrary, the site’s operators immediately reassured visitors that they would keep going, and are now considering an appeal against the domain seizure warrant.

Streameast’s operator, ‘quick,’ explains that after extensive efforts, the site finally managed to obtain a copy of the seizure warrant. This raised more questions than it answered.

The warrant
 

The order shown above was sent to the Tonic (.to) registry. Streameast eventually obtained a copy but it did not include any other paperwork. The full docket might contain more information where the allegations are discussed in detail, but Streameast hasn’t seen that.

Based on the paperwork provided, Streameast is planning to appeal the matter in court.

“[The warrant] did not provide any reasons for the shutdown, which is quite intriguing. As a result, we have doubts about the legitimacy of this decision, and we will be filing an appeal in the coming days,” ‘quick’ tells TorrentFreak.

No Advance Warning

Streameast wasn’t informed about the legal action beforehand. This is not unusual as domain seizures are intended to come as a surprise, so the operators of these sites can’t take precautionary measures.

The popular sports streaming site further informs TorrentFreak that it has never received direct legal threats from copyright holders either; only DMCA notices, which are standard practice for these types of sites.

“We’ve never received any legal threats in the past. However, we constantly receive DMCA requests, which have led us to change hosting providers several times. This is normal given the nature of the business.

“However, before the shutdown requests, we did not receive any official requests,” Streameast’s ‘quick’ notes.

While it may seem unusual for a ‘pirate site’ to challenge the U.S. government on this matter, Streameast is not the first sports streaming site to appeal a domain seizure. Rojadirecta did the same, twelve years ago, and the U.S. authorities eventually returned the seized domains.

Times have changed, however, and U.S. law enforcement may have upgraded its procedures to prevent the same from happening again. In addition, the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA) effectively criminalized unauthorized streaming services when it became law late 2020.

New Mirror Domains

Despite the looming threat of criminal charges, Streameast remains devoted to keeping the site online. Following the domain seizures, it established several new mirrors, which are shared through the official Streameast Mirror List.

Streameast Mirror List
 

The sports streaming portal previously said that once access to sports streaming is affordable to everyone, it will shut down. While the site doesn’t have a concrete figure in mind, it believes that current prices are too high.

“While we can somewhat understand the need to pay in today’s world, it’s clear that the current prices are unrealistic. If a sports fan wants to watch all sporting events, including UFC and boxing PPVs, the monthly cost is almost $1500,” Streameast’s ‘quick’ says.

Streameast’s motivation to keep the site online stems from its loyalty to the audience, the operator says. While it clearly makes money from ads, the site cares about its users and stresses that it’s not “in it for the money”.

Pirate Streaming Gangs

Sports rightsholders will likely paint a different picture, accusing Streameast of being a criminal operation that generates revenue off the backs of companies that invest in live sports.

Interestingly, Streameast doesn’t deny that there are criminal gangs active in the pirate sports streaming business, but they view themselves differently. Instead, the site points a finger at competitors and copycat sites, some of which abuse the Streameast brand.

Many of these ‘fake’ Streameast domains are still operational today, as they weren’t part of the seizure warrant.

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

According to Streameast’s operator, many sports streaming sites lost their innocence years ago. Some have reverted to dangerous malware-linked ads, while ‘Asian spam gangs’ are launching copycats left and right, trying to outrank official sites in Google’s search results.

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

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of August): 3,792 news posts

Most anti-piracy campaigns of the last four or five decades feature a direct order (Don’t Pirate) followed by some additional information for people to consider before making an informed choice.

The direct order “Don’t Pirate” has never changed, but it only becomes effective when paired with a reason to abstain, ideally something that provokes consideration of the consequences.

Most angles have already been tested. “Home Taping is Killing Music” implied that if piracy continued, people would stop making music. Other campaigns have encouraged people to think of bands just starting out, artists struggling to make ends meet, and people who paint scenery on the set of Hollywood blockbusters.

When none of those hit the spot, “Don’t Pirate” was paired with “….because you’re probably going to get sued.” Yet even when pirates were prompted to think only of themselves, some inevitably continued to pirate.

One Anti-Piracy Strategy Consistently Performs

The best anti-piracy strategy is the accessible content at a fair price strategy, and after a reluctant start, the music industry is still leading the way, and reaping the rewards.

This week’s publication of IFPI’s Global Music Report 2024 includes the chart below which speaks for itself.

Results like these present a dilemma. On one hand they are very, very impressive; on the other, they could be even more impressive if piracy could be further reduced. Unfortunately, when sales are trending strongly in the right direction, pairing “Don’t Pirate” with anything that implies an industry on the financial brink, will probably end in failure.

Any attempt to promote a doom narrative in Latin America right now would run up against the fourteenth consecutive year of revenue growth, per IFPI’s latest report, with recorded music revenues “once again outpacing the global growth rate” with an increase of 19.4% in 2023. When homing in on Brazil, in 2023 there was a double-digit percentage climb of 13.4%.

Fortunately, the latest trend in anti-piracy messaging couples “Don’t Pirate” with something that can be used no matter how well the music industry is performing: “Malware Warning.”

“First-of-a-Kind Operation” in Brazil

As IFPI explained in a separate announcement this week, anti-piracy operations benefit creators but can also benefit the wider public. Case in point, Operation Redirect, a recently launched Brazilian law enforcement initiative supported by IFPI and Pro-Música Brasil.

“Operation Redirect is the first operation of its kind in Brazil to target illegal sites associated with malware distribution. It has already resulted in the identification and deactivation of eight sites that were sharing unauthorized music whilst exposing users to malware and viruses,” IFPI explains.

“This first iteration of the operation targeted a range of infringing websites that collectively received over 12 million visits in Brazil in the last year. They include illegal linking music sites, Stream ripping sites and Torrent search engines.”

Sites ‘Redirected’ end up here (translated)

IFPI says the operation was carried out by The Ministry of Justice and Public Security, through the Cyber Operations Laboratory (CIBERLAB) of the Directorate of Integrated Operations and Intelligence (DIOPI / SENASP), in partnership with the Civil Police of Bahia, Mato Grosso and Pernambuco.

Brazil regularly shuts down pirate sites but the suggestion here – that music piracy and malware have been placed on broadly equal footing – is intriguing.

Pirates may complain strongly when they lose access to free music, but a site operator arrested for deliberately hurting site visitors rather than for just piracy itself, is something new. Not only would that significantly damage any ‘Robin Hood’ imagery, it would show that the authorities are using finite public resources to protect the public, not just the music industry.

That might also help dampen suspicions that “Malware Warning” isn’t simply the latest “Don’t Pirate” add-on. And if things went really well, the overall message might be one that even pirates would find persuasive.

How Things Played Out in Brazil

Within the first few seconds of the CNN report broadcast to millions on live TV, it was clear this was report was, first and foremost, all about music piracy.

CNN went with ‘OPERAÇÃO DERRUBA SITES PIRATA DE MÚSICA’ (OPERATION TAKES DOWN PIRATE MUSIC SITES) to a background video of three unmarked SUVs departing police HQ, with red strobes already blazing from behind blacked-out windows. (English captions from voiceover)

Operation Redirect begins

“The Ministry of Justice is carrying out an operation against pirated music sites,” the studio presenter said, before handing over to a reporter with additional details.

“[T]here are still many pirated music sites on the internet, that is why this operation coordinated by the Ministry of Justice is on the streets with the support of three civil police from the states, for example Bahia, Pernambuco, and also in Mato Grosso,” he explained.

“Three search and seizure warrants were served, and the current assessment is that eight illegal sites that were making irregular music available without due authorization have already been taken down in this operation investigated by the cyberlab.”

Weapons drawn, searches begin

The reporter goes on to note that the operation resulted in just one arrest, and that the suspect was caught in flagrante delicto.

“Inside the house of a person who is responsible for one of these illegal sites, there were a lot of weapons, unregistered weapons. These are the weapons that were seized and why the person was arrested.”

Man arrested for unlicensed guns

So after hearing about the music piracy and the unlicensed weapons, what about the malware?

More About the Malware

Towards the end of the report, CNN did raise the issue of malware, noting that users who visit pirate music sites “become vulnerable because there are many viruses that these criminals are putting them on these sites which then appear on the computers and also on the cell phones of these users of the platforms on the internet.”

Brazil’s government also mentioned the malware angle.

“In addition to appropriating the works, the criminals left consumers who accessed these platforms vulnerable to viruses and malware (programs created to cause damage to computers and servers). As a result, users could have their machines infected and damaged or be redirected to phishing websites, capable of stealing personal, financial and corporate information,” a statement reads.

The big question is whether this relatively new strategy, now deployed across all entertainment industries, can succeed where others have failed. If CNN’s coverage is anything to go by, where malware was mentioned as a footnote, in an operation that was supposed to see piracy and malware given similar priority, not a chance.

Most current campaigns spend very little time ordering people not to pirate. Instead, they focus on associated dangers and then try to persuade people that, on balance, free or cheap content that arrives with malware or other threats to security, is actually poor value for money, not the bargain they were promised.

Unfortunately, without some kind of proof, the messages mean almost nothing. Yet there’s actually no shortage of proof, only a reluctance to share it.

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Pirate sites tend to come and go but in recent months, significant shutdowns have been more frequent than usual.

Fmovies is one of the most prominent casualties. Founded in 2016, the pirate streaming site had been a thorn in Hollywood’s side for years. While rightsholders typically avoid naming pirate sites in public, fearing an indirect promotional effect, Fmovies was a recent exception.

To illustrate how brazen the platform had become, lawmakers in U.S. Congress received a demo of the site late last year courtesy of MPA Senior Executive Vice President, Karyn Temple. This showed how easily the latest movies and TV shows could be illegally streamed inside one of the country’s best-secured buildings.

Something had to be done to prevent this from happening and the MPA already had a solution in mind; site blocking. However, since implementing new legislation is a slow process, that raised the prospect of Fmovies and a myriad of related streaming portals continuing to operate.

Fmovies Empire Falls Apart

Ultimately, however, the Fmovies empire eventually began to crumble. Early cracks appeared in June when the stream of new content stopped appearing on the site. A few weeks later, Fmovies disappeared entirely, without any official explanation from its operators.

The shutdown triggered a domino effect. Several other streaming portals with connections to Fmovies ostensibly shut down too, redirecting to ‘new’ streaming sites instead. A few days ago and without warning, those sites also disappeared.

One of the Fmovies sister sites, Bflixz.to, posted an announcement that was a one-to-one copy of a shutdown notice posted by 123Movies six years ago. That’s no coincidence perhaps; all these sites have connections to Vietnam and Fmovies gained popularity after 123Movies threw in the towel.

The pirate site ‘massacre’ of the past few weeks wasn’t limited to platforms offering traditional movies and TV shows. The same piracy empire included AniWave; a massive anime piracy site with more than 170 million monthly visits at its peak. All told, billions of pirate site visits were wiped out overnight.

ACE and Vietnam Take Credit

While the significant scope of these events was clear, who or what was responsible wasn’t immediately confirmed. The operators of these sites wouldn’t shut down their profitable businesses without a very good reason; significant legal pressure, perhaps, or potentially even worse.

Over the past few weeks the MPA and ACE, who represent various major rightsholders including Hollywood studios and Netflix, made no comment. However, their frequent visits to Vietnam suggested that they probably knew more. Those suspicions are confirmed today.

In a press release, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) confirmed that they collaborated with the Hanoi Police to shut down the Fmovies operation. This includes related sites such as AniWave, Bflixz, Flixtorz, Movies7, and Myflixer, as we highlighted in our earlier coverage.

According to ACE, the operation was the largest piracy ring in the world, attracting more than 6.7 billion visits between January 2023 and June 2024. The Fmovies team was also linked to video hosting provider Vidsrc.to, which went offline this week, impacting hundreds of smaller movie pirate sites that used the service.

Charles Rivkin, MPA CEO and Chairman of ACE, says that the takedown of Fmovies is “a stunning victory for casts, crews, writers, directors, studios, and the creative community across the globe.”

“With the leadership of ACE and the partnership of the Ministry of Public Security and the Hanoi Municipal Police, we are countering criminal activity, defending the safety of audiences, reducing risks posed to tens of millions of consumers, and protecting the rights and livelihoods of creators,” Rivkin says.

Bringing the Operators to Justice

While it’s confirmed that the Fmovies ring was taken down by Vietnamese law enforcement with support from ACE, the press release doesn’t mention any arrests, names, or any other relevant details.

Larissa Knapp, MPA Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection, does praise the international collaboration, however. The former FBI executive says that she’s looking forward to future enforcement efforts where Vietnamese and U.S. authorities bundle their powers.

“The takedown of Fmovies is a testament to the power of collaboration in protecting the intellectual property rights of creators around the world,” Knapp says.

“We look forward to ongoing joint efforts with Vietnamese authorities, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Department of Justice International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (ICHIP) program to bring the criminal operators to justice.”

The latter comment is intriguing. It’s not entirely clear whether it refers to Fmovies directly but if that turns out to be the case, it could mean that not all of those involved with the piracy ring have been identified or caught.

Vietnam / U.S. Collaboration

The press release does signal that after years of lobbying, Hollywood and other U.S. rightsholders are working closely with Vietnamese authorities to tackle the thriving pirate site rings in the Asian country.

This involves U.S. diplomatic efforts too, as a comment from U.S. Ambassador Marc E. Knapper on the Fmovies action makes clear.

“Strengthening intellectual property rights is an important element of the U.S.-Vietnam Comprehensive Partnership,” Knapper said

“These prosecutions demonstrate Vietnam’s commitment to intellectual property rights enforcement, contributing to an economic ecosystem where creators and inventors can thrive.”

The press release adds more collaborative color with a comment from Madam Ngo Phuong Lan, the Chairwoman of the Vietnam Film Development Association (VFDA). She stresses that the Vietnamese movie industry is transitioning and that proper copyright protection is vital to its success.

“The Vietnamese movie industry is at a pivotal stage of development, transitioning from a state-subsidized production model to a rapidly growing phase driven by private sector involvement,” Ngo Phuong Lan says.

“To achieve fast and sustainable growth and integrate into the global film industry, it is essential that we follow the right path. Intellectual property rights protection is a crucial element for our industry’s success.”

Vietnam’s Upcoming U.S. Cinema Promotion Program

Highlighting benefits for Vietnam shows that this enforcement action doesn’t only impact U.S. rightsholders. In this regard, it’s worth mentioning another collaboration, which remains unmentioned in today’s press release.

According to documents published by Vietnamese authorities, the country is currently planning a Cinema and Tourism Promotion Program in the United States.

Vietnam’s U.S. Tourism Cinema Promotion program
 

Hollywood can play an important role in drawing more American tourists to Vietnam. By choosing Vietnam as a film location, more people may be inclined to visit, for example. This plan is now underway and events in Los Angeles are scheduled for later this year.

Translated, Vietnam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism describes the goal as follows:

“Take advantage of the prestige and influence of Hollywood partners to organize the Program, attract public attention, and widely promote Vietnamese tourism. Promote tourism promotion through cinema, effectively exploit tourism from cinema, create a breakthrough in tourism promotion and promotion.”

The Motion Picture Association, under which ACE is managed, is in the loop too. According to the paperwork, an unnamed representative of the movie industry group is scheduled to give a speech at the event.

How the MPA will benefit from this tourist promotion program remains undiscussed. That being said, with the Fmovies piracy ring effectively shut down, the event will likely be quite a cheerful one. That may even have been part of the plan.

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

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

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

The most torrented movies for the week ending on August 26 are:

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

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 With an estimated 190 million visits in March 2024 alone, few pirate streaming sites have ever come to close to the popularity of Fmovies.

How it was even possible for an unlicensed platform to attract so much traffic is closely linked to Fmovies’ uncanny ability to stay almost perpetually online, year after year. Potential answers to these questions lie in a rich pool of circumstantial evidence; one that promises much but always seems to fall short when it comes to the crunch.

Fmovies and Associated Sites Fall Like Dominoes

Whether the full and unedited Fmovies story will emerge anytime soon is unclear. However, perhaps the most intriguing aspect, and potentially the most sensitive, is how in a matter of months, Fmovies went from being almost impossible to shut down, to literally shutting down overnight.

We outlined a few of our theories last month, concluding that Fmovies was almost certainly pushed. The precise circumstances under which that pushing took place are elusive, but we’re certainly looking forward to finding out.

Likewise, it will be interesting to learn how the demise of Fmovies in the middle of June, led to many sites connected to Fmovies changing domains (presumably in an effort to stay online), only for those sites and others to collapse so dramatically during Monday night.

Interestingly, others much closer to this pivotal event claim to be in the dark too.

Radio Silence

Posting on Reddit a few hours ago, an individual posting under the heading “from Aniwave admin” said that they’re also being kept in the dark.

“The Site’s owner has always been pretty disconnected from us, rarely giving us a heads up or any information in advance. Could the site have actually gone down? Yes, it’s possible- some sister sites have closed down recently. But it’s also possible that something happened and they lost control of the site,” Sorrow-San explained.

“None of us here have direct contacts with the team responsible for the site outside of intermittent emails once in a blue moon…..Those of us capable have reached out to our contacts to get information on what’s going on, but- frankly- for the time being we just don’t know.”

The true course of events may not see daylight anytime soon. However, after sifting through the wreckage today, we’ve put together a summary of sorts, detailing the casualties linked to the events of Monday evening and other data that aims to explain their significance.

Billions of Annual Visits

The exact nature of the Fmovies network isn’t easily explained. Fmovies itself hasn’t been too difficult to track over the years; however, sites either run by the same operators or those connected by platform or content, have had a tendency to become a maze of domain and/or brand changes.

The existence of clones and imposters doing roughly the same thing hasn’t made things any less complicated, so it’s entirely possible that the table below is incomplete or will require other amendments. That being said, the traffic volumes of these sites speak for themselves, especially when considering that some didn’t even exist a few weeks ago.

Without full knowledge of the circumstances and background to the shutdowns, predicting what may come next would be little more than guesswork. What seems almost guaranteed, however, is a sudden influx of sites claiming to be the official replacement or reincarnation of those in the table below, ready to pick up where everything left off.

Whether any of those claims have any basis in truth is an entirely different matter.

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Pirate streaming sites are a major problem for Hollywood and according to rightsholders, several of the largest sites are operated from Vietnam.

Vietnam has been a focal point for more than half a decade. It was also the home country for the 123Movies streaming empire before it was shut down in 2018.

Initially, little was known about the reasons behind 123Movies’ demise but after a few months, the MPA and ACE confirmed that the Vietnamese streaming site had been targeted in an international criminal operation.

Fmovies –> Fboxz.to Shutdown

In recent weeks, action targeting streaming sites appeared to flare up again. As discussed in previous articles, Fmovies suddenly threw in the towel while several ‘sister’ sites remained operational or redirected to ‘new’successors. That didn’t last.

A few hours ago Fboxz.to called it quits. This site, which was linked to the Fmovies cabal, received over 55 million monthly visits in recent months, mostly as a result of Fmovies shutting down.

Unlike Fmovies, which simply disappeared, a few hours ago Fboxz.to informed its users that the site is shutting down. A message posted on the site notes that “it’s time to say goodbye.”

“We’ve been providing links to movies and shows for a long time. Now it’s time to say goodbye. Thank you for being our friends and thanks for staying with us that long,” the notice reads.

Interestingly, the site’s operators appear to have had a sudden change of heart when it comes to piracy. After providing pirated movies and TV series to millions of people over many years, they now urge users to show respect for creators by paying for the content they consume.

“PS: Please pay for the movies/shows, that’s what we should do to show our respect to people behind the movies/shows.”

Familiar Message, Familiar Players?

The tone of the message stands out; those who have been following piracy news for a few years have likely seen it before. The exact same farewell message was also posted by the operators of 123Movies more than six years ago, as shown below.

The old 123Movies farewell message
 

The identical language is noteworthy. 123Movies shut down after an international law enforcement operation and then shortly after, Fmovies emerged as the new pirate streaming king. Now, Fmovies is gone, and its sister sites are shutting down too, with a message linking right back to the closure of 123Movies.

It seems likely that some type of enforcement action is behind these recent events but at the time of writing, there is no official confirmation. What can be said with complete confidence is that MPA and ACE saw the Fmovies sites as the largest piracy threat, and those concerns were discussed with Vietnamese Government officials earlier this year.

Fboxz.to, when it was still online
 

Just a few days ago, ACE and the MPA maintained the pressure by trying to uncover the identities of the people behind several Fmovies successors, including theflixtor.to, mov2day.to, and 2flix.to. All of these sites shut down overnight, but without any notice or farewell message like the others.

It’s perhaps not a coincidence that associated video streaming source vidsrc2.to is unreachable too.

AniWave and Others Wave Goodbye

As we were writing this article, another Fmovies-linked site disappeared. Aniwave.to, formerly known as 9anime, serviced a mind-blowing 170 million visits a month; that won’t be the case for long.

A message posted on the site suggests that with the arrival of improved legal alternatives, now is an opportune time to stop pirating.

“Now that everything has improved… it is also time for us to say goodbye…It is difficult to part with something we have invested so much effort and passion into, but it is something we need to do.

“Every game must have an end…and life is about experiences. Every mistake teaches us lessons that help us grow,” the AniWave team adds.

The team end with the same advice displayed on Fboxz, which urges people to choose legal alternatives from now on.

“If possible, please use legal paid services. It’s something we should do to show our respect for creators and content producers.”

AniWave Farewell
 

AniWave’s shutdown announcement isn’t unique. The same message is posted on related sites including AnimeSurge.to and Anix.to. At this point, it is safe to say that if a few weeks ago the Fmovies empire was crumbling, today it’s showing all the signs of a collapse.

Given the impact of these shutdowns, it seems likely that more information will trickle in during the coming days. We will keep an eye on the situation and cover the fallout in due course.

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Early June 2024, Italian media reported on comments made by the head of telecoms regulator AGCOM at the Serie A Festival a few days earlier.

During the panel “The metaverse of piracy” Massimiliano Capitanio reportedly brought those in attendance up to date on Piracy Shield, Italy’s controversial and by then already failing anti-piracy blocking system.

Piracy Shield has had its fair share of problems but on a fundamental level, it appears to have been designed for a much smaller job. The volume of blocking wasn’t anticipated, which is an altogether more valid reason than catering for just 60 to 70 ISPs when the country has 300+.

The reason for not meeting obvious demand isn’t clear; plans for AC Milan’s new stadium indicate a spectator capacity of 70,000, not an initial ~15,000 followed by a rebuild when fans immediately run short of elbow room.

All New Piracy Shield 2.0

Faced with a relentless flood of domain names and IP addresses reported for blocking (Feb to July, pdf), Capitanio said that the system had begun to timeout.

“There are two upgrades to be made. An infrastructural one; this platform which has done its job very well until today suffers the weight of this mass of data,” the AGCOM chief said.

“Phase 2 will be implemented with a new platform by the end of the year, the current one will be expanded.”

With a new platform supposedly just a few months away, other details began to emerge. They included an estimated two million euros per year in running costs set to be financed from the public purse.

New Season: Unblocking to Keep On Blocking

The legislation that supports Piracy Shield presents puzzles of its own. Placing an IP address or domain on the blocklist is relatively easy, yet there’s no provision to revoke blocks. Not only is that problematic when IP addresses are blocked in error, the perpetual blocking of finite IPv4 addresses amounts to a potential time-bomb waiting for the worst possible moment to go off.

That the Piracy Shield system itself would run into problems first, only adds to the list of problems that could’ve been avoided. A pre-established limit of 18,000 blocking records was reached more quickly than anticipated, meaning that when the new season launched this month, blocking should’ve ground to halt, at least in theory.

In reality, an unspecified number of old blocks were revoked to make way for fresh blocking, regardless of the regulations.

According to La Repubblica, the rules will be updated at a later stage, but the report contains other surprises too.

Piracy Shield 2.0 May Not Even Exist Yet

Consip is an Italian state-owned company responsible for procurement of public goods and services. If the state needs something significant, Consip typically reports the details on its website so that interested companies can bid for the work. So, to a background of Piracy Shield 2.0 will arrive later this year, this is how La Repubblica described the state of play late last week.

“On behalf of [telecoms regulator] AGCOM, Consip will call for a tender for a private supplier to create ‘Shield 2’,” the publication reported.

Use of the future tense strongly suggests that rather than being on schedule as previously claimed, it’s possible that a schedule doesn’t even exist, at least one with terms that have been agreed with a supplier.

In comments reported Wednesday last week, Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo noted that AGCOM “…is now about to make further improvements and technical updates to [Piracy Shield] and we trust that these implementations will allow us to obtain even more important results, as it will increase the number of blocks of pirate signals that can be achieved.”

So, with no indication that a contract has been awarded, much less a supplier having committed to delivering everything in four months, Piracy Shield 2.0 may not even exist. Stranger things have happened but attempting to build Rome in a day rarely ends well.

AGCOM Prepares to Target a VPN

It’s no secret that ISP blocking can be instantly defeated using a VPN, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the first VPN protocol (PPTP in 1996) predates pirate site blocking in Europe by a decade (AllofMP3, 2006). Relakks, one of the earliest commercial VPN services as they’re understood today, predates site-blocking in Europe by a few months. It was promoted for anonymity, no sites needed to be unblocked back then.

Showing that AGCOM’s public attitude to VPNs has changed in recent months begins in October 2023. In response to some IPTV providers making VPN use mandatory, AGCOM chief Capitanio welcomed the news.

“The fact that criminal organizations, which run the piracy business, are inviting their ‘customers’ to hide behind #vpn systems is positive news,” he said, adding that in his opinion, the use of a VPN makes it easier to prove intent.

Later that month, an AGCOM document stated that “[A]ll parties in any capacity involved in the accessibility of illegally disseminated content – and therefore also, by way of example and not limitation – VPN and open DNS service providers, will have to execute the blocks requested by the Authority [AGCOM]…”

AGCOM Wants Smart TV Manufacturers to Ban VPN App

An Italian court recently confirmed that AGCOM’s blocking powers aren’t as broad as those envisioned above, and that “in any capacity” is certainly a step too far. AGCOM, meanwhile, seems undeterred, as La Repubblica reports.

“In these hours AGCOM is studying apps that are legitimate in themselves, but that also end up in the wrong hands. These commonly used apps protect our browsing on the Net from the prying eyes – for example – of search engines, hunters of personal data,” the report reads.

“The same apps, however, allow subscribers to the pezzotto [piracy devices] to watch pirate channels anonymously, without leaving traces of their paths on the web.”

The report suggests that AGCOM is currently interested in a specific VPN app available on smart TV app stores. The app isn’t named but AGCOM says the company behind it has an office in the European Union.

Copyright Law or Something Else?

Whether AGCOM views specific EU legislation or regulations as a point of leverage is currently unknown. During September, however, two smart TV manufacturers will be asked to prevent their customers from installing the VPN app on their respective TV sets.

While the devil can often be found lurking in the detail, in broad terms targeting a piracy-promoting VPN provider is vastly different from targeting a legitimate VPN service that a) has never been sold for infringing purposes and b) meets its general legal obligations.

If we assume that no rightsholder intends to sue the VPN provider in question, one has to wonder why AGCOM is getting involved and what it hopes to achieve.

AGCOM has no standing on copyright grounds, but the Digital Services Act may yet conjure up a surprise or two.

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Those who follow mainstream tabloid media in the UK and Ireland should be familiar with online streaming piracy by now; whether they like it or not.

The harms and threats of illicit streaming devices or using the preferred term in Ireland, dodgy boxes, have been discussed at length in hundreds of news articles. Additional reports on prison sentences for resellers of these services, make clear that these are serious offenses.

Intriguingly, despite all the attention, millions of people continue to use these ‘cheap’ pirate options. This logically means that there are plenty of active sellers who are still willing to take the risk.

Report Streaming Piracy Campaign

To address the ongoing problem, anti-piracy group FACT has teamed up with the Crimestoppers charity to launch a new social media campaign. Instead of simply warning the public, it’s now calling on people to “speak up” and report piracy peddlers 100% anonymously.

“Running over six weeks on Facebook and Instagram, the campaign aims to gather intelligence on individuals or groups involved in advertising or selling illegal streaming subscriptions, modified firesticks or so called ‘dodgy boxes’,” the groups announce in a press release.

“Digital piracy is a serious crime, often run by organized criminal groups. Information provided anonymously to Crimestoppers will be thoroughly investigated by FACT and could lead to further actions, including prosecution,” they add.

Example of a social media ad
 

These types of ‘report piracy’ initiatives aren’t new. Crimestoppers has worked on similar campaigns with FACT in the past, with Crimestoppers’ accounts revealing that Sky paid the bills. Together with rightsholders and the UK Government, all three are involved in the BeStreamWise campaign as well, which also asks the public to ‘report a pirate.’

In other industries ‘piracy snitching’ is common too. Best known are the Software Alliance (BSA) initiatives, where people were offered hard cash in return for useful piracy intelligence. That could be handy to pay off credit card debt or to book ski trip, social media ads suggested.

No Bounty

The BSA’s bounty program was very successful according to an insider, who previously said that hundreds of people shared information. This reportedly helped to lower piracy rates at the corporate level.

The new piracy streaming campaign run by FACT and Crimestoppers doesn’t offer any hard cash. Instead, the groups are appealing for people to “do the right thing.” Pirate streaming operations are run by criminals, they suggest, and therefore pose a security threat to the public.

“This campaign is an important step in our ongoing efforts to combat illegal streaming in Ireland. By working with Crimestoppers, we aim to empower communities to act against digital piracy and protect themselves from the associated risks,” FACT CEO Kieron Sharp notes.

The potential harm to rightsholders’ profits remains largely unmentioned. Instead, a Crimestoppers spokesperson mostly focuses on the risk to consumers.

“The dangers to the family home are real for those who take the risk of using these criminal services. We should all pay our way fairly. Speak up if you know about the criminals involved. You’ll be helping to protect people from putting themselves in danger.”

Matter of perspective

Since the campaign exists to serve business interests, it makes sense that the focus is on consumer risks rather than corporate losses. Whether the public will be compelled to serve as informants has yet to be seen.

Most people are likely to agree that crime should be stopped but those who know about pirate streaming services may have a different perspective, as they are part of the problem.

This isn’t merely an informed guess. It’s one of the conclusions of a survey conducted by the UK Intellectual Property Office last year. It found that people were reluctant to report piracy for three main reasons.

A. They would not personally benefit from reporting someone.

B. It would seem hypocritical if they used unofficial sources themselves, or there could be a danger of vindictive behavior against them.

C. The police have higher priorities to be dealing with than IP crime.

Of course, these reasons don’t apply to all people and the campaign may ultimately pay off. After all, this isn’t the first time that the public has been asked to help and, if other attempts yielded no results, it would be pointless to try again.

Those who do plan to share information are assured that they can do so 100% anonymously. Their IP-addresses and locations won’t be recorded so they won’t have to fear retribution from angry pirates or their customers.

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“Game of Thrones” and its prequel “House of the Dragon” have proven very popular in pirate circles.

The fact that episodes repeatedly leaked before their official premieres made them even more appealing.

This summer, HBO released the second season of House of the Dragon, and the series is already confirmed for a third. To the disappointment of some, however, there were no leaks this year. Or were there?

After the eighth and final episode was released in early August, there was some online banter about a ninth episode. Many people shared their visions of a hypothetical follow-up episode, enough to confuse those who were not up to speed on the inside jokes.

House of the Dragon S02E09

On pirate sites, meanwhile, confusion had also set in. As it turns out, House of the Dragon S02E09 had been uploaded to several reputable torrent sites; masquerading as the real deal, it came with an evil twist.

Fake torrent on BTDigg
 

TorrentFreak spoke to one person who spotted the ‘episode’ in their list of torrents. The release ‘House.of.the.Dragon.S02E09.1080p.WEB.h264-ETHEL.mkv‘ came from a torrent site and was added through an RSS feed monitored by FlexGet.

On a superficial level the release mimics a genuine release. For example, the file size matched expectations and since the torrent originated from TorrentGalaxy, the source didn’t raise any red flags either.

The massive giveaway for hardcore House of the Dragon fans, of course, is that a ninth episode doesn’t exist. For others not yet completely up to speed on the length of the season, the glaring ‘error’ may simply pass them by. And it’s not difficult to accept that some people may be inclined to download and open the release regardless, which comes with something extra: a .LNK file.

Compromised LNK

Files with an LNK extension are pointers used by Windows to quickly open a file, folder, or application. When maliciously configured, which was indeed the case with this particular torrent, the .LNK triggered a Trojan horse disguised as a Dragon. That’s not something anyone wants on their computer.

Antivirus vendor McAfee previously warned about a rise in LNK files being used to spread malware. The small files seem harmless but can trigger other programs to run, inviting malware to penetrate the operating system with potentially disastrous results.

A quick glance at one of the VirusTotal scans for fake TV show torrents is self-explanatory. Antivirus vendors don’t all agree on what it is, but a “Fragtor” trojan is repeatedly mentioned.

Fragtor Alert!

The fake House of the Dragon torrent was spread across multiple sites, and there are also equally fishy alternatives. This includes ‘House.of.the.Dragon.S02E09.720p.WEB.H264-NHTFS.mkv‘, which also comes with an LNK file.

Torrent Sites and HBO Respond

The person who ‘caught’ the torrent in their RSS feed didn’t fall for the scam. They also noticed that the rogue file had already been deleted by TorrentGalaxy. This makes sense, as the site typically deals with these malicious uploads relatively quickly.

In response to this and similar uploads, we’re informed that TorrentGalaxy has banned LNK files from being added to torrents. That should prevent this attack vector from being abused going forward, at least on that site.

Interestingly, HBO also noticed this bonus episode through its anti-piracy partner Marketly and took action in response. A takedown notice posted in the Lumen Database shows that the company asked Google to remove an “infringing” link to the non-existent release earlier this week.

HBO Takedown
 

HBO likely didn’t remove the torrent because it contained malware. The naming of the file must have triggered the anti-piracy filters, even though a ninth episode doesn’t exist.

Pirates are Popular Malware Prey

These types of malware torrents, disguised as pirated TV episodes, are not uncommon. In recent weeks, several others have appeared online, targeting other series as well. This makes sense, as pirates are popular prey.

Popular TV series are downloaded millions of times. Scammers take advantage by spreading malware disguised as new episodes, or even non-existent ones, hoping that people will fall for it.

At the time of writing, the fake 1080p release of House of the Dragon S02E09 is still being actively shared by roughly two dozen people. In total, it has been downloaded many hundreds, or even thousands of times.

While well-moderated torrent sites tend to remove these files quickly, they continue to float around elsewhere. And indeed, the aforementioned malware copies of House of the Dragon are still available on some sites today.

In the past, we have criticized some reports from rights holders that seemed to exaggerate the malware problems on pirate sites. However, the fact that these threats are sometimes blown out of proportion doesn’t mean that there are no issues at all. Pirates have always been a popular target for malware and viruses.

While hardcore pirates have probably learned to be cautious, people who randomly start searching for pirated content online can easily walk into malware traps.

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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is arguably the world’s most active anti-piracy coalition.

The group systematically hunts down key piracy players on behalf of the major Hollywood studios and other prominent entertainment companies such as Apple, BBC, and Netflix.

It’s safe to say that ACE had a hand in the demise of most large piracy operations of recent years. The group took down several key players including the original 123movies, Openload, Rapidvideo, Vader Streams, Animeflix, and pirate release group EVO, to name a few.

The Fmovies Cabal

ACE has enjoyed numerous successes and continues to expand its operations. However, in the case of the sudden demise of Fmovies, arguably the largest pirate site shutdown in recent history, the group has remained remarkably quiet.

Fmovies began to unravel toward the end of June. Without an official explanation, the site stopped adding new movies and TV shows and it eventually went offline a few weeks later.

Details of the shutdown are still shrouded in mystery but as we highlighted earlier, ongoing enforcement efforts alongside political and diplomatic pressure may have played a role. The fact that the MPA visited Fmovies’ alleged home country, Vietnam, right when the trouble started, is definitely noteworthy.

What also stood out is that other pirate streaming sites, which were linked to Fmovies, all closed their doors at the end of July.

Disperse, Shutdown, and Redirect

A few days after Fmovies shut down, several ‘sister sites’ decided to throw in the towel as well. Instead of simply pulling the plug, these sites redirected to new pirate streaming portals, ostensibly operated by different people.

These simultaneous shutdowns took place at more than a dozen sites, some of which had millions of monthly visitors. They include flixtorz.to, movies7.to, and swatchseries.mx, which were redirected to theflixtor.to, mov2day.to, and 2flix.to respectively.

Some of the redirects
 

“The site has been closed. To continue watching free movies, you will be redirected to other site [insert domain here] (managed by other team),” a brief message on the domains explained.

The message suggests that the original operators wanted to signal that they are no longer involved. That’s odd, since the owners have always been anonymous, at least to the wider public. Maybe the message wasn’t intended for the sites’ users, but for anti-piracy groups who were getting close to the fire?

ACE Targets ‘Successors’

ACE and MPA have previously indicated that they know who’s behind Fmovies, having previously located the operators in Vietnam. The anti-piracy groups likely know a thing or two about the sister sites too, which were presumably operated from the same region.

What ACE thinks about the recent domain redirection efforts is unknown, but the group is certainly eager to find out more about the people behind these new pirate streaming portals.

This week, MPA obtained a DMCA subpoena requiring the .TO domain registry Tonic to share all information it has on the registrants of several domain names. This includes the websites that took over from Fmovies sister sites; theflixtor.to, mov2day.to, and 2flix.to.

ACE Subpoena exhibit
 

The subpoena request follows a familiar format, asking for all usable personal information Tonic has on file.

“[Y]ou are required to disclose to the Motion Picture Association, Inc. (on behalf of the ACE Members) information sufficient to identify the infringers. This would include the individuals’ names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account history,” it reads.

Whether this subpoena will result in any actionable data is unknown. By now, the operators of major pirate sites are well aware of the subpoena option, which is why they often use false information.

That said, ACE has had success with this strategy in the past, and even smaller traces, fake or not, might turn out to be useful. In any case, the subpoena indicates that whether these are new operators or not, ACE intends to press on.

—

A copy of the legal paperwork for the DMCA subpoena, addressed to Tonic, is available here (1, 2). A list of all the targeted domains can be found below.

– filmoflix.to
– papadustream.to
– animesuge.to
– vidsrc2.to
– flix2day.to
– 2flix.to
– theflixtor.to
– mov2day.to
– fboxz.to
– cinezone.to
– aniwave.to
– anix.to
– zoroxtv.to

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A cursory skim through blocking records for Italy’s Piracy Shield system reveals that pirate IPTV servers can operate from almost anywhere.

Asia-linked servers and services make regular appearances in the AGCOM list with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan-based platforms causing issues for rightsholders all over the world.

Within China itself, enforcement actions take place far less often than rightsholders believe they should, but in Taiwan, raids are reported more frequently, with foreign rightsholders also likely to benefit.

IPTV App Sold Online Leads Investigators to the Source

In a report detailing events that culminated last month, Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) says that searches of online auction platforms revealed sales of an app known as Qingtian TV / Sunny TV. In common with similar TV piracy tools, Sunny TV offered live TV streams culled from legitimate broadcasters, bundled together in a mobile app.

Organizations and TV companies with interests in that content include Taiwan’s Satellite Radio and Television Business Association, and members of Japan-based anti-piracy group CODA, which include TV stations TBS, Fuji TV, NTV and TV Asahi. Rightsholders estimate that over a two-year period, the market value of the content offered via the app amounted to at least one billion Taiwan dollars, around US$31.2m.

Their case was referred to the Taichung District Prosecutor’s Office in Taiwan and following an investigation, authorities targeted addresses in Taichung City and Yunlin County early last month.

Suspects Rented an Empty House

Along with others, one of the two main suspects, identified by CIB under the surname Li, reportedly rented an empty house in which to conduct business.

“The appearance of the place was low-key, like a house that had been abandoned for many years,” CIB says.

Photographs taken inside the house during the raid tell a different story.

Image credit: CIB

According to labels displayed next to the equipment post-seizure, the relatively small units in red cases are cable TV set-top boxes, while the units in black cases are marked ‘signal encoders’.

Image credit: CIB

CIB says 72 set-top devices and 72 signal encoders were seized, along with two servers, two hosts, six network switches, plus nine bank books and several mobile phones. In total, 279 pieces of equipment and other items were seized as evidence.

Structure of the Piracy Operation

CIB’s report indicates that Li and another suspect identified as Chen, were both arrested, noting that the latter is also suspected of “using various online markets to sell the illegal OTT software, and often changing accounts to avoid police investigation.”

CIB also references two additional suspects; who they are and what roles they played in the operation go unmentioned.

Finally, the law enforcement agency has published a diagram which provides an overview of the IPTV operation; from receiving, capturing and encoding streams for distribution, right through to consumption by end users. The original slide is in Chinese and our translations here aim to reflect the original as closely as possible.

Image credit: CIB

The prominent inclusion of Cloudflare in the slide doesn’t really come as a surprise, and appears to be part of a growing trend.

Placing the company’s name and logo within a piracy chain arguably lacks context. However, if informal talks on how to mitigate piracy are perceived to be going nowhere, moving the discussion into the public arena may serve to increase the pressure.

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In 2021, Germany joined a growing list of countries that have an institutionalized pirate site blocking scheme in place.

Several large ISPs teamed up with copyright holders and launched the “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” (CUII), which is responsible for handing down blocking ‘orders’.

While CUII doesn’t rely on court judgments, there is some form of oversight. When copyright holders report a pirate site, a review committee first checks whether the domain is indeed linked to a website that structurally infringes copyrights.

What Sites are Blocked?

If a website overwhelmingly hosts or links to pirated material, the site can be nominated for a blocklist entry. This can apply to torrent sites, streaming portals, and direct download hubs, as long as piracy is front and center.

Germany doesn’t publish an official overview of the domain names subject to blocking. The decisions are public and often mention the target ‘site’ by name; domain names, URLs, and even the requesting rightsholders’ names are all redacted.

This ‘secrecy’ is not an oversight but a feature that’s codified in the agreement between rightsholders and Internet providers.

“The domains of the blocked [pirate sites], other domains and mirror domains, the applicants and their violated rights, as well as the names of the auditors are not mentioned,” it reads.

Transparency ‘Leak’

Secrecy surrounding blocked domains is frustrating for journalists and others who have a watchdog function. After all, without knowing which domains are blocked, it’s impossible to check for errors and overreach.

While there haven’t been any obvious errors that we’re aware of, access to information related to blocking would provide much needed transparency. With no information available from official sources, Damian, a 17-year-old German student, got together with some friends and embarked on a mission to fill in the blanks.

After sifting through the data and running domains though extensive DNS resolver tests, Damian launched CUIIliste.de, effectively lifting the blocking veil by exposing all URLs without redactions.

“The CUII blocks domains. Which ones exactly? The CUII does not reveal this. But don’t worry – that’s why we’re here. We’ll do our best to collect and publish all blocked domains,” the site explains.

CUIIliste.de (translated)

275 (sub)Domains Blocked

Thus far, CUII has published 21 blocking recommendations on its official website, without disclosing any domains. According to CUIIliste, this resulted in 275 blocked domains, including subdomains.

The blocking transparency portal offers a searchable list of the domain names, which will be updated after new blocks are discovered. For the shadow library Sci-Hub, for example, all main domains (sci-hub.se, sci-hub.st and sci-hub.ru) are off-limits.

The 275 number is a bit inflated, however, as it includes many subdomains such as ww11.kinox.to. ww14.kinoz.to and ww15.kinos.to, which likely exist to counter blocking measures. If we delete all duplicates, we end up with a list of 104 domain names.

Transparency & No Censorship

According to CUII, the blocking efforts don’t amount to censorship, as they only target structurally infringing domain names. However, without transparency, that claim is difficult to verify.

Damian and his friends make this task easier and their goal doesn’t stop there. In addition to providing transparency, they also advocate against censorship and for freedom of expression. The German blocking efforts go against this, they argue.

“CUII is a private organization that blocks websites that it believes violate copyright law – without any court orders. In addition, their approach seems very non-transparent in my opinion,” Damian writes.

To address the alleged censorship part, the site also links to various options available to the public to circumvent the blocking efforts. This includes switching to third party DNS resolvers.

Netzpolitik reports that Damian spent his summer holiday working on the site. While this was a fun project, it has a serious undertone and is regularly disregarded by the mainstream press.

While it’s understandable that CUII doesn’t want to offer a portal with clickable hyperlinks to pirate sites, keeping the URLs secret is far from ideal. Or as the German news site Tarnkappe puts it: ‘It’s only metadata’.

When it comes to transparency, Germany and many other countries can learn a thing or two from Uruguay, which offers dedicated and complete transparency when it comes to pirate site blocking.

—

The full list of all unique domain names blocked by German ISPs, as reported by CUIIListe, is available below.

astrotheque.net
bs.to
buffsports.me
buffstreams.sx
burningseries.ac
burningseries.tw
canna-power.to
canna.to
cine.to
filmfans.org
filmpalast.to
harleyquinnwidget.com
harleyquinnwidget.live
harleyquinnwidget.net
israbox-music.com
israbox-music.org
israbox.com
isrbx.com
isrbx.me
isrbx.net
jokerguide.com
jokerlivestream.net
jokerlivestream.org
jokerlivestream.vip
kinos.to
kinox.am
kinox.bz
kinox.click
kinox.cloud
kinox.club
kinox.digital
kinox.direct
kinox.express
kinox.fun
kinox.fyi
kinox.gratis
kinox.io
kinox.lol
kinox.me
kinox.mobi
kinox.pub
kinox.sh
kinox.space
kinox.sx
kinox.to
kinox.tube
kinox.tv
kinox.wtf
kinoz.co
kinoz.to
megakino.biz
megakino.cab
megakino.co
megakino.ink
megakino.com
megakino.vin
megakino.ws
newalbumreleases.net
newalbumreleases.unblocked.co
newalbumreleases.unblockit.app
newalbumreleases.unblockit.bet
newalbumreleases.unblockit.blue
newalbumreleases.unblockit.buzz
newalbumreleases.unblockit.cam
newalbumreleases.unblockit.cat
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ch
newalbumreleases.unblockit.club
newalbumreleases.unblockit.day
newalbumreleases.unblockit.dev
newalbumreleases.unblockit.how
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ink
newalbumreleases.unblockit.is
newalbumreleases.unblockit.kim
newalbumreleases.unblockit.li
newalbumreleases.unblockit.link
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ltd
newalbumreleases.unblockit.me
newalbumreleases.unblockit.name
newalbumreleases.unblockit.nz
newalbumreleases.unblockit.onl
newalbumreleases.unblockit.uno
newerastreams.com
nsw2u.com
nsw2u.in
nsw2u.net
nsw2u.xyz
nswgame.com
romslab.com
s.to
sci-hub.ru
sci-hub.se
sci-hub.st
serienfans.org
serienjunkies.biz
serienjunkies.eu
serienjunkies.info
serienjunkies.org
serienjunkies.us
serienstream.to
streamkiste.tv
taodung.com
tazz.tv
tennis.stream
ziperto.com

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Free advertising-supported streaming television services, such as market leader Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, and Samsung TV Plus, offer a traditional linear TV viewing experience, via an app, at zero cost to the consumer.

Despite most internet users being constantly spoiled by the availability of free content, as a value proposition FAST services are undoubtedly impressive. Had something similar been available to the public a couple of decades ago, it would’ve been fascinating to see the effect on unauthorized content consumption. Thousands of TV shows and movies for free would’ve gone down a storm.

In reality, however, propositions like FAST take time to mature and need to make commercial sense. Whether FAST services will overtake subscription services as some are predicting remains to be seen, but the formula does seem to be working.

Yet among certain consumers, platforms like Pluto TV are even better when subjected to a few tweaks. These help a good product realize its potential to become something better, they suggest. Rightsholders disagree.

Pluto TV Plays On Pretty Much Any Device

Edge cases aside, Pluto TV does indeed play on pretty much all platforms but becomes much more pliable when iOS and Android apps are ditched in favor of an M3U8 playlist. Since Pluto TV doesn’t supply a playlist, using software such as TVHeadend, NextPVR Jellyfin, or Kodi to view channels, requires outside help.

Other solutions exist but none are as popular or stable as those offered by developer Matt Huisman. His software generates .m3u8 playlist files for many FAST services; all users have to do is copy the playlist’s URL from Huisman’s site, and then paste the URL into a device that can handle m3u8 playlists. By linking to a live remote file, any updates to the playlist are also updated locally.

Or at least that used to be the case. On Wednesday, Huisman revealed that his playlists for Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, Stirr, Plex and PBS, have run into trouble.

Copyright Complaint Filed at Cloudflare

Posted as an issue in the Pluto TV playlist repo on GitHub, the title reveals that after receiving a DMCA takedown notice, playlists for Pluto TV, Samsung TV Plus, Stirr, Plex and PBS, are no longer available.

No DMCA complaints were sent to GitHub. On this occasion, anti-piracy outfit Markscan, on behalf of Warner Bros., sent a DMCA takedown notice to Cloudflare. Despite the length of the notice and considerable attention to detail, Markscan appears to have omitted the basics.

The allegedly infringing URL appears clearly but, after detailing its relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery, Markscan’s “proof to show that our client is the owner of certain rights to the copyright work(s)” amounts to a link to the Warner Bros. website but no mention of any copyrighted works.

The anti-piracy outfit then asks Cloudflare to intervene “to get any infringing content removed,” and to ban Huisman from using Cloudflare ever again. The notice goes on to reference a URL that doesn’t exist and then swears (on penalty of perjury) that the information in the notice is accurate.

Huisman: I Can’t Be Bothered Trying to Fight This

Since the takedown notice failed to identify any infringing content, it’s impossible to know what specific content it intended to target, if that was ever the intention at all. Huisman is in the dark too.

“To be clear, this playlist only contained: image urls and the channel urls pointed to an external domain. You can see they don’t even mention what the copyright material is,” he explains.

“However, i cant be bothered trying to fight this. The playlist stuff is just a pain in the butt anyway and I don’t want to risk what I really enjoy (Kodi addons) for the sake of some playlists.”

After DAZN targeted the playlists in January, it appears that a deficient DMCA notice filed at Cloudflare has somehow managed to finish the job. Or maybe not.

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