In the summer of 2017, several of the world’s largest entertainment industry companies teamed up to create a brand new anti-piracy coalition.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) aimed to foster collaboration, share knowledge, and leverage the group’s combined anti-piracy resources to tackle the global online piracy problem.

With dozens of members around the world, including Disney, Netflix, the BBC, beIN, Sony, and others, it lived up to expectations. While piracy has yet to be eradicated, the MPA-led group has claimed several major achievements around the globe.

This success is partly the result of planned resource sharing. As the coalition grew, collaborations expanded from the private to the public sector, forging bonds with governments and law enforcement agencies.

Much of this progress was made under former ACE head Jan Van Voorn, who recently left ACE for a new opportunity. With van Voorn’s departure, valuable experience walked out of the door, but his replacement is certainly capable of filling those shoes.

ACE has a new Boss

Earlier this week, the MPA revealed Larissa Knapp as its new Global Chief of Content Protection and the new head of the ACE coalition. Knapp is a law enforcement veteran who before taking on this new opportunity served as the fourth highest-ranking FBI official.

Knapp is therefore ideally positioned to expand ACE’s international contacts, particularly when it comes to collaborating with law enforcement offices around the globe.

“Her leadership will focus on deepening and broadening ACE’s partnerships with law enforcement agencies around the world, expanding its membership base, and growing ACE’s operational footprint in key markets to support the protection of creators and consumers,” MPA said, commenting on the appointment.

Knapp certainly brings plenty of experience to the table. At the FBI, she handled large-scale criminal investigations, leading teams of thousands of investigators. This included many intellectual property and cybersecurity cases.

FBI Lessons

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Knapp recalls that she handled one of the first federally prosecuted trade secret theft cases in her early career at the FBI. The investigation revolved around a contract employee who stole a billion-dollar proposal from a competitor.

The defendant was caught and sentenced after a private citizen reported them to the authorities. However, because this person sold the trade secrets for a small price, the punishment was rather low.

While this wasn’t a piracy case, the matter underscored the value of proper content protection. This is even more important in the present day and age, where most information is digital, and easier to transfer than ever before.

“For me, the case underscored the fragility of intellectual property and how companies must guard against theft – this multi-billion-dollar document was left in a conference room and taken by an individual who did not have the access or clearance to see such sensitive information,” Knapp tells us.

“It demonstrated the critical nature of partnerships and trust, specifically the willingness of the good corporate citizen to come forward and the victim company understanding what law enforcement would and would not do,” she adds. 

Private & Public Sector Cooperation

Rightsholders, including many ACE members, would ideally like to see the authorities, including the FBI, launch more piracy investigations. This isn’t always possible, as resources are limited, which is one of the reasons why ACE exists today.

The coalition often collaborates with official law enforcement authorities and will continue to do so in future. In addition to going after pirate sites and services directly, it can also assist criminal prosecutions. These partnerships are valuable and key to booking progress, Knapp believes.

“I look forward to working with the IPR Center and the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) in my new capacity to align strategies in the fight against piracy. Content piracy is a global crime, and we need a worldwide coalition with complementary areas of expertise to fight it,” Knapp says.

“Thanks to ACE’s worldwide footprint, we work closely with major enforcement agencies such as Interpol, Europol, the FBI and others. The synergies created by working closely with these partners are what make ACE effective in stopping piracy rings and bringing criminal operators to justice. It’s truly a collaborative effort.”

At the FBI, Knapp collaborated with the MPA and RIAA, and now she will approach the piracy challenge from another direction. The contacts and experience she has, will help to book future successes.

For example, Knapp mentions that she worked closely together with banking cooperations in the recent past. This experience will benefit future anti-piracy efforts, where it’s often key to trace the money flows of piracy operations.

No Borders

ACE’s new head is impressed with the progress the coalition has made in just seven years, and she plans to utilize her FBI expertise to take anti-piracy enforcement efforts to the next level.

This will involve global cooperation, since pirate sites don’t stop at borders. That’s a tough challenge, but Knapp is convinced that her experience will help to bring more pirates to justice.

“ACE works across multiple jurisdictions, each with their own set of laws, which adds a layer of complexity. There are multiple parallels between these scenarios and many of the cases my teams worked on at the FBI, and from experience I know which strategic approaches are most effective.

“I plan on applying similar strategies to address key issues such as live sports piracy with the goal of seeing more piracy operators face justice.

“Just last week, five operators were convicted in the Jetflicks case, and I’m confident we’ll see more victories like this going forward,” Knapp concludes.

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Early last year, a group of filmmakers obtained a subpoena that required Reddit to reveal the identities of users who commented on piracy-related topics.

The movie companies, including Voltage Holdings and Screen Media Ventures, said they were not planning to go after these people in court but wanted to use their comments as evidence in an ongoing piracy lawsuit against Internet provider RCN.

Reddit wasn’t pleased with the intrusion. The company objected, arguing that handing over the requested information would violate its users’ right to anonymous speech. Reddit later responded similarly to a second subpoena request.

The movie companies took these cases to a federal court, asking it to compel Reddit to comply. The court refused to do so in the two mentioned cases, and this year followed a third rejection, related to the case against Internet provider Frontier Communications.

Movie Companies Persist

The courts concluded on several occasions that the movie companies have other options to obtain the type of corroborative evidence they’re looking for. For example, they can target the Internet providers’ subscribers who are central to the lawsuits, instead of commenters on a third-party platform such as Reddit.

The movie companies received the message loud and clear but still don’t agree. A few weeks ago, they asked for a ‘de novo’ review of their request for Reddit subscriber data at the California court. To their disappointment, that was denied as well, without much detail.

The rightsholders clearly haven’t had much success thus far, but they’re not giving up so easily. This week, they informed the court that the matter will be appealed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Protecting Anonymous Speech

The movie companies haven’t filed their opening brief yet and have until mid-September to do so. However, based on earlier filings, we can take a guess at some of the arguments that will be included.

Previously, the rightsholders argued that the comments from Redditors are key evidence to show that Frontier Communications didn’t implement a suitable repeat infringer policy, and that this subsequently acted as a draw to pirating subscribers.

Reddit never rejected this argument, but countered that their users’ constitutional right to anonymous speech outweighs the interests of the movie companies, especially when the rightsholders have other ways to obtain similar evidence.

Anonymous IP-Address?

The filmmakers’ latest request for subscriber data was more focused than previous ones, asking only for the IP-addresses of the Redditors.

In court, they reasoned that an IP address is not necessarily ‘unmasking’ personally identifying information. Therefore, the rights to anonymous speech would not be an issue here.

Reddit countered by pointing out that IP addresses can be connected to subscriber data by the relevant ISP. In that case, it would certainly identify ‘someone’, albeit with an extra step.

To strengthen this argument, Reddit pointed out that the movie companies previously used a Redditor’s IP address to obtain the name and address of a subscriber, requesting their torrenting history and more.

To be Continued

Whether the ninth Circuit will be more receptive to the filmmakers’arguments has yet to be seen. However, this case is far from over, and its outcome will be important for similar cases in the future.

Meanwhile, the filmmakers can also try to obtain similar evidence directly from allegedly pirating Frontier subscribers in the underlying case.

Last month, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Frontier must share the personal details of allegedly pirating subscribers with the movie companies. However, they are not allowed to ‘harass’ them.

In theory, these subscribers may provide the filmmakers with all the evidence they need. For now, however, they are not planning to let the Reddit matter go, and the appeal will move forward.

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Reports seem to vary but if servicing a billion users each month sounds like a lot, TikTok is on a mission to push way beyond that.

Early January 2018, the platform acknowledged it had around 55 million global users then in December the same year, that figure had suddenly grown to 271 million.

A year later, 271 million ballooned to over 500 million, then a year after that, over 700 million users were active on TikTok every month.

While not yet in the same league as Facebook with its user base of over 3.5bn, TikTok’s format is also proving popular among its competitors, many of which drew inspiration from TikTok before launching their own, functionally similar services.

Another thing they have in common is copyright complaints. These are the unavoidable reality of expecting the public to think twice before bashing the like, subscribe, upload, and equivalent buttons, when there’s almost nothing to prevent them from doing so whenever they please.

TikTok Says Creators Are Valued

TikTok’s transparency report has been developing since its first release, covering the first six months of 2019. The platform has weathered many storms since then and, along with owner Bytedance, is currently hoping to overturn what it believes is an unconstitutional ban at the hands of the United States government.

Unsurprisingly, copyright issues have also thrust TikTok into unfavorable light, with numerous rightsholders arguing that the social media platform could do much more to protect artists’ rights. According to a statement alongside its latest transparency report, TikTok exists to help creators thrive.

“The creativity of our community is at the heart of what makes TikTok such an entertaining place. Our platform enables people’s creative expression to shine, and we do our best to protect it,” TikTok writes.

“Our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service prohibit content that infringes third-party intellectual property rights. We honor valid removal requests based on infringements of copyright law and trademark law.”

Copyright Takedowns at TikTok

TikTok says that upon receiving a “valid report of potential intellectual property infringement from a rights holder or authorized representative, TikTok may remove the alleged infringing content and temporarily or permanently suspend the infringing account.”

Released every six months, TikTok’s transparency reports bundle copyright and trademark takedown notices together. Using the raw data made available as part of TikTok’s reporting, we removed trademark-related statistics and homed-in on copyright matters, to produce the charts seen below.

TikTok Copyright Takedowns By Volume (2021-2023)

Data available pre-2021 shows that TikTok tested various types of reporting, such as isolating complaints received from the United States and Canada, and presenting those figures against takedown requests received from the rest of the world. Given the changing nature of the data, anything that pre-dates 2021 is excluded here.

For the first five months of 2021, data includes notices that failed to comply with the DMCA and its European equivalent. That may explain the sudden drop in reported notices but thereafter, reporting from TikTok is consistent.

Almost 50,000 takedown notices were reported in the second half of 2021, a figure that nearly doubles in the following half-year’s figures. Between July and December 2022, takedown notices processed by TikTok increased by 56%, to an all-time high of 168,141 over a six-month period.

Last year saw even bigger increases in the volume of copyright takedown complaints. For the full 12 months, TikTok says it handled 462,120 takedown notices, more than it received during the previous two years combined. Not all of these notices achieved what their senders intended, however.

Takedown Notices vs. Successful Takedown Notices

According to notes accompanying TikTok’s transparency reporting, a ‘successful’ copyright removal request is one that, in the first instance, meets the statutory requirements of the DMCA, its European equivalent (EUCD), or relevant legislation elsewhere in the world.

Having met or exceeded those standards, a takedown notice is deemed ‘successful’ if it results in the removal of the reported content and/or leads to an alleged infringer’s account being suspended.

TikTok ‘Successful’ Copyright Takedowns (percentage of total)

TikTok’s data shows that since the second half of 2021, successful notices have never numbered more than around eight in every ten of the total received. As a general trend, takedown notices have become increasingly unsuccessful over the past couple of years.

Details of why so many notices fail to achieve their aims are absent from TikTok’s reporting. Close to half failing to have any effect in the last six months of 2023 is an all-time low, if we discount the first half of 2021 as a reporting anomaly.

Running Totals Since 2021 – A Drop in the Ocean

It’s perhaps a sign of the times when the 800K+ takedown notices processed by TikTok between 2021 and 2023 seems like a small amount. As reported last week, Google processed over a billion notices in a four-month period in the first half of 2024, albeit thanks to a few billion more users.

That being said, ‘just’ a billion users at TikTok could be reasonably expected to generate more takedown notices than the 800K+ reported thus far. However, those sending ‘unsuccessful’ notices may also need to take note; 500K+ notices appear to have been dumped in the trash since 2021, well over half of the total number of notices processed by TikTok.

TikTok Copyright Takedowns (Running total since 2021)

TikTok’s full transparency report is available here

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From a networking perspective, most Internet providers are generally not thrilled with BitTorrent users.

Historically, torrent traffic has placed quite a burden on the network, which is one of the reasons why Comcast quietly began throttling torrent traffic many years ago.

Another reason to limit torrent traffic is to reduce costs. BitTorrent users transfer large amounts of data that’s not always covered by cheap peering agreements, which can become quite costly.

Today, torrent traffic is a much smaller percentage of total traffic. Internet providers generally are better equipped to deal with it and all-out throttling has become a rarity in most countries. However, in South Korea, an even more concerning anti-torrent tactic was uncovered recently.

Last week, an in-depth investigative report from JBTC revealed that Korean Internet provider KT, formerly known as Korea Telecom, distributed malware onto subscribers’ computers to interfere with and block torrent traffic.

Webhard Torrents

File-sharing continues to be very popular in South Korea, but operates differently than in most other countries. “Webhard” services, short for Web Hard Drive, are particularly popular. These are paid BitTorrent-assisted services, which also offer dedicated web seeds, to ensure that files remain available.

Webhard services rely on the BitTorrent-enabled ‘Grid System’, which became so popular in Korea that ISPs started to notice it. Since these torrent transfers use a lot of bandwidth, which is very costly in the country, providers would rather not have this file-sharing activity on their networks.

KT, one of South Korea’s largest ISPs with over 16 million subscribers, was previously caught meddling with the Grid System. In 2020, their throttling activities resulted in a court case, where the ISP cited ‘network management’ costs as the prime reason to interfere. The Court eventually sided with KT, ending the case in its favor, but that wasn’t the end of the matter.

An investigation launched by the police at the time remains ongoing. New reports now show that the raid on KT’s datacenter found that dozens of devices were used in the ‘throttling process’ and they were doing more than just limiting bandwidth.

KT Reportedly Distributed Malware to 600,000 Users

When Webhard users started reporting problems four years ago, they didn’t simply complain about slow downloads. In fact, the main concern was that several Grid-based Webhard services went offline or reported seemingly unexplainable errors. Since all complaining users were KT subscribers, fingers were pointed in that direction.

According to an investigation by Korean news outlet JBTC, the Internet provider actively installed malware on computers of Webhard services. This activity was widespread and effected an estimated 600,000 KT subscribers.

JBTC’s Report
 

The Gyeonggi Southern Police Agency, which carried out the raid and investigation, believes this was an organized hacking attempt. A dedicated KT team allegedly planted malware to eavesdrop on subscribers and interfere with their private file transfers.

“The team consisted of a ‘malware development’ section, a ‘distribution and operation’ section, and a ‘wiretapping’ section that looked at data sent and received by KT users in real time,” a follow-up report from JBTC explains.

The explosive allegation accuses KT of accessing and altering data on users’ computers to limit torrent traffic. Follow-up investigations have yet to get to the bottom of everything, but police have already identified more than a dozen persons of interest, who have been referred to the prosecutor.

Million-Dollar Questions

Why KT allegedly distributed the malware and what it precisely intended to do is unclear. The police believe there were internal KT discussions about network-related costs, suggesting that financial reasons played a role.

To illustrate what’s at stake, a sales manager from one of the Webhard companies said that torrent transfers save them significant bandwidth costs. This peer-to-peer upload bandwidth goes over KT’s network instead, presumably costing the ISP many millions of dollars per year.

KT, meanwhile, maintains that it merely intended to manage traffic on its network, presumably to keep everything running smoothly. Whatever the truth, that plan clearly backfired.

The JBTC report

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As developers of generative AI models and services continue to progress at a startling pace, it was only a question of when the RIAA would select the perfect litigation candidate, for the purpose of drawing a line in the sand.

Two Targets, Two Lawsuits

The RIAA announced not one, but two copyright infringement lawsuits on Monday, filed against two of the most impressive services in the generative AI music market.

Udio owner Unchartered Labs was sued in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, while Suno, Inc. was targeted in a similar lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Several of the plaintiff record labels appear in both lawsuits; led by UMG Recordings, Capitol Records, Sony Music Entertainment, Atlantic Records and Warner Records seem set for the heavy lifting, along with several smaller but not insignificant industry players.

In common with the RIAA’s claims against the defendants, the lawsuits are generated from common material and in the early stages, they’re almost indistinguishable from each other.

Noting that the music industry has always been at the forefront of technological advancement, “ready to push boundaries” and expand commercial opportunity, the labels say that, since AI technology has enormous potential for abuse, implementation must be carried out “responsibly, ethically, and legally.”

The purpose of these lawsuits, stated separately yet identically in each, is to enforce two basic principles: AI technology is not exempt from copyright law and AI companies must play by the rules.

Those rules were broken, the lawsuits individually claim, when Udio/Suno “copied decades worth of the world’s most popular sound recordings” and then ingested those copies into AI models to generate outputs that “imitate the qualities of genuine human sound recordings” for the purpose of generating profit. (Examples embedded below)

AI Companies “Deliberately Evasive” About Sources Copied

The record labels allege that the foundations of the Udio and Suno businesses are identical; they “exploit copyrighted sound recordings without permission” and then become “deliberately evasive” in respect of what content was copied and from whom.

In Suno’s case, the labels allege that one of its co-founders admitted that the service is trained on a mix of proprietary and public data, using practices “fairly in line with what other people are doing.”

Executives at Udio, the labels claim, admitted that their service is trained on a “large amount of publicly-available and high-quality music” obtained from the internet.

The plaintiffs conclude that the services offered by Udio and Suno would not be able to function as they do without ingesting huge quantities of sound recordings. In many cases, they add, those sound recordings are owned by them.

Responses Suggest Reliance on Fair Use Defenses

Ongoing copyright infringement lawsuits against various AI companies appear set for a showdown on similar, specific grounds; any unauthorized use of copyrighted works is protected under the doctrine of fair use and the copyright holders are entitled to nothing.

Microsoft and OpenAI insist that any use of copyrighted works belonging to the New York Times amounts to protected fair use, with the same applying to other material referenced in a lawsuit filed by other publishers.

Nvidia also appears set to defend lawsuits on fair use grounds, and the same can be said for argument in legal action involving Meta.

After being allegedly evasive on the origins of source material, the labels note that in pre-litigation discussion, both Udio and Suno were directly accused by the plaintiffs of copying their content, but the AI companies’ responses were limited.

The companies “did not deny or proffer any facts to undermine those allegations. It would have been simple to admit that other, legally acquired recordings were used,” the plaintiffs say, adding that responses received were “disingenuous.”

A Fair Use Defense in Either Lawsuit Cannot Prevail

Ultimately, however, the lawsuits note that the defendants did eventually respond by indicating that to the extent there was any coping, that was permitted under fair use.

“[Which] was telling, the labels write, “because fair use only arises as a defense to an otherwise unauthorized use of a copyrighted work.”

As far as the labels are concerned, defenses based on fair use are inapplicable here. “[W]holesale copying of countless recordings” serves none of the classic fair use exemptions such as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.”

Rather, the Suno and Udio services copy and ingest massive amounts of copyrighted works “to create computer-generated imitations of human expression that do not merit copyright protection.” The labels state that the motive is “brazenly commercial and threatens to displace the genuine human artistry that is at the heart of copyright protection.”

In summary, both services are described as for-profit operations, that ingest unlicensed copyright works, for the purposes of imitating established artists and musicians in generated music, that could substitute and compete in the same market as the originals.

The labels’ claims for relief are the same in both lawsuits; willful direct copyright infringement (post-1972 recordings) and willful direct copyright infringement (pre-1972 recordings), for which the labels say they are entitled to injunctive relief and either actual damages and profits, or statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work infringed pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 504(c).

Copies of the lawsuits against Suno and Udio available here and here (both pdf)

Examples of contentious tracks generated by Suno and Udio (404media.co)

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The M3U file format has been around for more than a quarter-century. In essence, it links to a streamable media file that can be loaded through media players.

In the early days, it was predominantly used to stream Internet radio though Winamp and other media players. While the format is still used for that today, M3U files have enjoyed a resurgence as a video streaming tool in recent years.

The M3U file format is content-neutral, but many people are using it to share IPTV streams, which are often redistributed without permission. Those who look hard enough can find access to pretty much any channel imaginable.

IPTV-org.github.io

One of the largest repositories of IPTV links is hosted through GitHub Pages. The site, iptv-org.github.io, has roughly a million monthly visits and lists more than 37,000 channels, many of which are streamable. Not all these streams are infringing, but some clearly are.

IPTV links
 

The maintainers of the site are aware of the potential copyright issues. However, they don’t see the links to M3U playlists as copyright infringements. Instead, they urge rightsholders to go after the providers that host these files.

“Note that linking does not directly infringe copyright because no copy is made on the site providing the link, and thus this is not a valid reason to send a DMCA notice to GitHub,” they explain.

This is an interesting take that could be worth defending in court. However, when torrent sites tried a similar defense in court, it failed, mainly because the infringing links are intentionally indexed, curated and categorized.

Warner Bros. Takedown

Warner Bros. already seems convinced that the links are infringing. A few days ago, the Hollywood studio sent a takedown notice to GitHub though its anti-piracy partner MarkScan, asking it to remove iptv-org.github.io in its entirety.

“Based on our investigation, we have determined that “iptv-org.github.io” is providing the Live TV channel of WBD illegally. This site is engaging in copyright piracy by providing unauthorized streams of digital content without the consent of the copyright owner,” the takedown notice reads.

Warner Bros. Takedown Notice
 

The takedown notice asks GitHub to remove or disable access to the infringing links. However, before taking any action, the developer platform nudged the maintainers of the site, allowing then resolve the matter on their own accord.

Self-Administered Takedown

GitHub allowed the developers one business day to remedy the Warner Bros. complaint. In this case, that means removing all WBD content, including HBO, Cartoon Network, and several Discovery channels.

GitHub’s Deadline
 

While the developers previously suggested that these types of DMCA takedowns should not be valid, they didn’t file a counter notice. Instead, they swiftly identified all Warner Bros. and Discovery channels, to remove these from the site within the deadline.

“Successfully merging a pull request may close this issue,” an internal note reads, after which dozens of links were indeed removed.

The self-administered takedown appears to have been too broad initially, as several links – presumably unrelated to Warner Bros. – were later restored. However, the swift action appears to have saved the site.

GitHub typically publishes DMCA takedown notices after it has fully processed a matter, which often means that sites or repositories are removed. However, “iptv-org.github.io” is fully operational at the time of writing, minus the Warner Bros. content.

Warner Bros. had its takedown notice honored, as the infringing channels are no longer linked. However, instead of simply taking down the entire site, it became a ‘precision’ takedown, merely focusing on the content that it was supposed to target.

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

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

This week we have two newcomers on the list. “IF” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on June 24 are:

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

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Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (GdF), a law enforcement agency operating under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, has often been the source of some of the country’s most dramatic pirate IPTV news.

With a key focus on financial crime, GdF appears to adopt a ‘follow-the-money’ approach. Over several years, GdF claims to have taken down dozens of IPTV providers and resellers, denied scores of millions access to pirate services, and redirected the whole country’s internet traffic to identify pirates.

‘Signal Transmission Obscured’ For Over 1.3 Million Users

A new announcement claims that fresh GdF action running alongside Euro 2024 is responsible for over 1.3 million IPTV pirates having their viewing “blacked out.” In football-crazy Italy, that’s a significant claim.

“The soldiers of the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Milan, coordinated by the local Public Prosecutor’s Office, conducted an important investigation to combat the phenomenon of audiovisual piracy, the so-called ‘IPTV’,” the statement reads.

“In conjunction with the 2024 European Football Championships, the Fiamme Gialle carried out 14 local and IT searches throughout the national territory against 13 suspects, residing in various Italian regions and abroad.”

The IT specialists from the Fiamme Gialle unit have been credited with a number of successful anti-IPTV operations since 2022; 6,500 IPTV pirates identified after accessing a police honeypot, action against 545 Telegram channels, and a more recent operation targeting a provider in Italy, for example.

GdF continues by noting that 13 of the suspects are “accused of managing illegal distribution networks of the major television schedules protected by copyright, illegally decrypting and redistributing the contents of the most important global television players via unauthorized IPTV platforms, causing significant economic damage to legitimate broadcasters.”

No Mention of Any Arrests, No Mention of Equipment Seizures

While it’s certainly possible that this operation led to arrests, details like that are typically present in deterrent messages issued by the authorities, especially in tandem with an event like Euro 2024. Towards the end of the statement, GdF says the investigation “concluded with the identification of 13 people” suspected of various crimes. An operation last December was reported in similar fashion.

A critical eye further reveals other noteworthy details, such as the Fiamme Gialle carrying out “14 local and IT searches” against suspects “residing in various Italian regions and abroad.” Exactly what an “IT search” amounts to is unclear but, if any searches took place physically, there’s zero mention of any hardware seizures, which are usually detailed down to the last thumb drive.

Massive Pirate IPTV Blackout

“The signal transmission was therefore obscured, preventing access to content for over 1.3 million users.” (GdF statement)

The most recent published study on IPTV consumption in Europe arrived in December 2023, so around 18 months ago. The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) estimated that 2.5% of the Italian public accessed illicit IPTV services, around 1.14 million people in total.

Given that these figures relate to consumption in 2021, to obtain an estimate on consumption today, let’s generously double 1.14 million to 2.28 million, and completely ignore Italy’s massive Piracy Shield IPTV blocking program launched this year.

That leads to the conclusion that over half of all pirate IPTV consumers in Italy (1.3 million) had their supply cut off sometime during the last 10 days, since this operation ran “in conjunction” with Euro 2024.

The GdF announcement on X/Twitter currently has around 3,500 views; four people have posted a comment, one of which is an ad for a pirate IPTV service. That seems to be at odds with the number of people said to have been denied access to pirate IPTV services.

Google Trends data suggests more people were interested in the most popular search terms last November; Piracy Shield was expected to launch then, but didn’t. There was no blocking until February 2024; that caused a spike in engagement, but even that dropped off quickly.

Google Trends: Popular search terms

The red line depicting searches for IPTV is on the rise but the kind of apocalyptic event that sees half or more IPTV device users in the country having their service terminated would be a much steeper rise than that. The next few days will provide a clearer view of the data but at the time of writing, interest in ‘IPTV’ is roughly half the peak seen late August/early September 2023 in response to the passing of a new anti-piracy law.

“The investigations, conducted by a team of soldiers from the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Milan, highly qualified in combating computer crimes, coordinated by the local Public Prosecutor’s Office, arose from a complaint from SKY ITALIA,” the GdF statement continues.

The next few lines of detail are something rarely discussed in public, for reasons that will become immediately obvious.

The Suspects’ Operations Are ‘Completely Innovative’

“The suspects operated in a completely innovative way compared to the past, i.e. through the exfiltration of the decoding keys, necessary for the decryption and ‘unencrypted’ viewing of all the channels and television schedules of the main and most important broadcasters..” (GdF statement)

While pirates and others interested in encryption have no problem discussing the above in public, it’s interesting that the authorities and presumably Sky, which this directly affects, are mentioning this in public.

This is a reference to a major weakness in the security meant to protect content at Sky in Italy and other countries around Europe.

Mostly, but not exclusively, impacting the Widevine digital rights management (DRM) system owned by Google, a subscriber to legal IPTV services can extract encryption keys using certain software and ultimately obtain otherwise subscription services for free. Broadcasters have been aware of the problem for years and take action when tools appear in public, at least where they have the ability to take them down.

In respect of IPTV piracy, this raises two key issues. Firstly, while legal broadcasts are often obtained by capturing/recording video streams and rebroadcasting those to the public, this technique allows IPTV providers to capture a digital data stream directly from the source, i.e. the broadcasters’ content delivery networks (CDN).

A positive for broadcasters, in this scenario, is that since streams are rebroadcast from providers’ own servers, Italy’s Piracy Shield system is, in theory, capable of preventing any restreams reaching consumers.

A potentially more worrying issue is when people access this content directly, i.e. they use extracted keys to view the broadcasters’ streams directly from the broadcasters’ servers. If Piracy Shield attempted to block the source, not even legal customers would be able to access a service they actually pay for.

A positive for broadcasters in this scenario is a fairly high barrier to entry; the downside is that software and services to make this easier are becoming more accessible.

A self-hosted software package, to make one aspect of this process much more straightforward, has been attracting interest recently, but with the same and similar tools available via any web browser, it’s not difficult to see where this is headed.

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Following the example of the United States, the EU began publishing its very own piracy watchlist a few years ago.

The ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’ is compiled by the European Commission. Like its U.S equivalent, it relies on stakeholder groups to nominate problematic sites and services for inclusion.

New EU Piracy Watch List

The most recent version of the report was published in late 2022 and the EU is currently soliciting comments from stakeholders for the next release. As in previous years, the focus is on sites and services that are presumably operated from outside the European territory.

“The European Commission services request written contributions from stakeholders identifying online services and physical marketplaces that may fulfil the criteria to be included in the ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’,” the Commission writes.

Based on previous reports, we can expect that torrent sites, stream-rippers, and pirate streaming sites will make an appearance. The same applies to IPTV services, piracy apps, and bulletproof hosting providers.

Not All ‘Pirates’ are Equal

An overview of all sites and services listed in the latest ‘watchlist’ is available below. Many of these are classic pirate sites with anonymous operators. However, the list also includes companies that categorically deny the ‘piracy’ label and any bad intent often associated with it.

For example, tucked in between pirate portals such as Fmovies and The Pirate Bay, we find the Russian social media platform VK.com and the file-hosting service Mega. These services are run by corporations. They typically cooperate with rightsholders, unlike traditional ‘pirate’ sites.

Mega

To add more balance, the EU now specifically invites companies and services that appeared on the previous list, to share their views on the matter.

“Online service providers and physical marketplace operators appearing in the Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List of 2022 are also invited to submit written contributions in which they present the actions they have taken to address IP infringements on their services or while providing their services,” the Commission notes.

Mega Nuance

While The Pirate Bay is unlikely to submit a serious comment, Mega almost certainly will. When the New Zealand-based company was added to the watchlist in 2022, it wasn’t pleased at all.

At the time, Mega’s executive chairman Stephen Hall said he was disappointed the European Commission didn’t reach out to the company beforehand. If it did, Mega would’ve been happy to explain the measures they take to accommodate copyright holders.

“The inclusion of Mega on the watchlist lacks legitimacy and we refute their findings,” Hall informed TorrentFreak in 2022.

“Unfortunately, the Commission never contacted Mega for clarification or comment so they misunderstand Mega and misrepresent our operations. Mega had no opportunity to correct their misunderstandings,” he added.

Mega undeniably faces copyright challenges, as some users abuse the service to share pirated content. However, the company’s transparency report indicates that it isn’t sitting still; it removes millions of files in response to takedown notices, and has thrown out thousands of repeat infringers.

The company now has the chance to share these nuances with the European Commission, as the consultation is now live.

Mega and other stakeholders have until the 15th of August to submit their comments. The new edition of the ‘Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List’ is scheduled to be published in the second quarter of next year.

—

Below is an overview of all the sites and services that were listed in the 2022 Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List.

Cyberlockers
– Mega.nz/.io
– Uptobox.com / Uptostream.com
– Rapidgator.net
– Uploaded.net (ul.to, uploaded.to)
– Dbree.org

Stream-Rippers
– Y2mate.com
– Savefrom.net /ssyoutube.com/sfrom.ne
– Flvto.biz and 2conv.com
– Snappea.com

Linking or referring websites
– Fmovies.to (and related domains)
– Seasonvar.ru
– Rlsbb.ru
– Rezka.ag

BitTorrent and P2P Sites
– ThePirateBay.org
– Rarbg.to
– Rutracker.org
– 1337x.to

Unlicensed download sites
– Music-Bazaar.com and Music-Bazaar.mobi
– Sci-hub.tw; sci-hub.cc; sci-hub.ac; sci-hub.bz and others
– Libgen.onl and mirror sites

Piracy Apps
– IPTV Smarters
– Ievpad.com
– Shabakaty

Hosting providers
– DDoS-Guard.net
– Private Layer
– “Amarutu”, also known as Koddos
– AS-Istqservers / Istqserverses (“Istq”)
– HostPalace Web Solution PVT LTD (“Host Palace”)

Unlicensed IPTV services
– BIPTV.best and BestBuyIPTV.store
– King365tv.com / Theking365tv.pro
– VolkaIPTV.com

Social media
– VK.com

Piracy Supporting Services
– 2embed.ru
– Fembed.com

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Google started keeping track of all incoming DMCA takedown notices at the beginning of the last decade.

In the spring of 2012, Google formally launched its Transparency Report, sharing details on all copyright-related removal requests, including the targeted links and their senders.

In the years that followed, the DMCA takedown volume steadily increased. When it eventually hit a plateau a few years ago, we theorized that Google’s anti-piracy measures were paying off. However, pirates turned out to be stubborn and tricky to defeat.

9 Billion

Today, many pirate sites are well aware of Google’s demotion tactics and the relentless stream of takedown notices. In response, many switched to new domains or URL structures, which triggered a cat and mouse game with Google, as a bystander, yet at the center of it all.

Initially, it took several years before Google processed its billionth DMCA takedown notice, but the resurgence we’ve seen over the past year has broken all records.

Last August, Google reached the 7 billion milestone, just nine months after it received the 6-billionth takedown. In February, after just six months, the 8 billion mark was reached and today, four months onward, the totals exceed 9 billion.

New Players

It’s difficult to tell whether this increase will continue, as the figures are dominated by less than a handful of takedowns companies. This includes Link-Busters, which was averaging more than 200 million takedowns a month earlier this year.

Last year, however, adult entertainment company MG Premium, was the most prolific takedown sender. Recently, Link-Busters appears to have scaled down a bit, so a new player might have to emerge for records to be broken again.

Looking at the targeted sites, we see that some new names have appeared. This includes two domain names from shadow library search engine Anna’s Archive. These domain names are targeted by several major publishers, mainly through Link-Busters.

Most Targeted Domains

Subdomain Bonanza

Another new domain, currently in third place, is 123rutor.su. This site was flagged more than 100 million times in less than a year, almost exclusively by VGTRK, the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company.

The main 123rutor.su name is inaccessible, but the Rutor mirror has hundreds of subdomains, and it can add additional ones as required.

Many subdomains seem meaningless, such as b-eqdl.123rutor.su, 16-new-rutor.123rutor.su, and j-idso.123rutor.su. Others, including bruce-willis.123rutor.su and sylvester-stallone.123rutor.su, sound more familiar.

This strategy is understandably frustrating for rightsholders. By adding new subdomains, all previous takedown notices are moot, which results in a seemingly endless whack-a-mole.

Not Everything is Taken Down

Google only reports the totals for how many ‘pirate’ URLs rightsholders report to the company. Not all of these result in content being removed, as it also includes duplicates and URLs for which Google takes no action.

In addition, hundreds of millions of reported URLs have not been indexed by Google, so these naturally can’t be removed. Google puts these on a separate ‘blacklist’, which prevents them from being added to search results later on.

Overall, it’s safe to say that at the current rate, we’re likely to see the ten billionth takedown notice before the end of the year. Many more will likely follow in the years to come.

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In 2019, eight men from Las Vegas were named in a grand jury indictment alleging they conspired to violate criminal copyright law through two IPTV services, Jetflicks and iStreamitAll.

According to the indictment, the defendants reproduced tens of thousands of copyrighted television shows without authorization, and distributed the illicit content to a vast audience of paid subscribers across the United States.

The scope of their alleged infringement was substantial; Jetflicks reportedly offered access to over 183,200 distinct TV show episodes at one point. iStreamitAll allegedly provided an even more extensive library, boasting over 118,479 TV shows and 10,980 movies in its catalog, surpassing the content offered by Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime at the time.

Five Men Face Trial By Jury in Las Vegas

While some defendants pleaded guilty as far back as 2021, receiving sentences ranging from one year in prison to 57 months, five defendants went on trial before a Las Vegas jury late last month.

Just a few days into the trial, Kristopher Dallmann, the alleged leader of Jetflicks, called for a mistrial, claiming that evidence presented to the jury was both inadmissible and damaging to the defense. That failed to gain traction with the court and this week, all five men were found guilty by a federal jury.

Jury Convicts All Five Jetflicks Operators

Dallmann, Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber, were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann was further convicted of two counts of money laundering by concealment and three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement.

Kristopher Dallmann: Guilty

“Their scheme generated millions of dollars in criminal profits, while causing copyright owners to lose out,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“These convictions underscore the Criminal Division’s commitment to protecting intellectual property rights by prosecuting digital piracy schemes and bringing offenders to justice.”

U.S. Attorney Jason M. Frierson for the District of Nevada noted that the defendants conspired to reproduce and distribute thousands of copyrighted television programs for their own personal gain, but not without consequences.

“This case is another example of our steadfast commitment to combat intellectual property theft and to hold accountable those who violate intellectual property rights laws,” Frierson said.

Aviation Service Ploy Failed to Convince

Commenting on the guilty verdicts, Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office, recalled the unusual response from the operators of Jetflicks when copyright-related complaints began to threaten the business.

“When complaints from copyright holders and problems with payment service providers threatened to topple the illicit multimillion-dollar enterprise, the defendants tried to disguise Jetflicks as an aviation entertainment company,” Sunberg said.

That revelation first came to light in 2020. During questioning by the FBI, Dallmann claimed that Jetflicks MoVi Entertainment System was a service that converted customers’ personal DVD collections so they could be viewed in the air. He later conceded that aspect of the venture had been a failure, so downloading TV shows from other pirate sites and streaming them for a fee had become the main business.

A sentencing date has not yet been set but Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi, and Huber face a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Dallmann, however, is facing the possibility of considerably longer – a maximum penalty of 48 years in prison according to the Department of Justice.

The Motion Picture Association, whose members’ content accounted for much of the infringement on Jetflicks, does not appear to have issued a press release in response to the convictions. That’s quite unusual but if one does appear, we’ll update this article accordingly.

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Referred to in legal papers as simply J.E., the defendant was targeted in Sweden by local anti-piracy group Rattighetsalliansen (Rights Alliance) on behalf of major movie and TV show companies Svensk Filmindustri and Nordisk Film.

The plaintiffs’ claim stated that J.E., either intentionally or with gross negligence, acted alone or in concert with others, to infringe their copyrights in cinematographic works.

They alleged that between August 20, 2020, and May 17, 2022, J.E. made movies available to the public through a popular pirate IPTV service, Scandinavian IPTV. In the alternative, the plaintiffs said that through his conduct, J.E. encouraged someone else to infringe their rights in 19 movies via the Scandinavian IPTV service.

Suspect Arrested in May 2022

On May 5, 2022, Swedish police arrested J.E. in his absence, with a physical arrest executed on May 17, almost two weeks later. During questioning, J.E. initially denied the offenses, but anti-piracy group Rights Alliance had already amassed considerable evidence.

Scandinavian IPTV wasn’t officially registered as a company. However, via a ProtonMail email address, American Express payment cards, and a Stripe account, Rights Alliance was able to link J.E. to the unlicensed platform.

An analysis of various items of seized equipment revealed telephone messages, sent and received by J.E., which discussed the IPTV business. Information on J.E.’s computer revealed similar evidence in the form of IPTV-related account logins.

A financial investigation indicated that payments totaling SEK 5.5 million (~US$5.2m) had been made to J.E.’s two PayPal accounts, with the funds subsequently transferred to six bank accounts he also operated. IPTV boxes and associated invoices were also seized.

Previously, Rights Alliance had carried out test purchases to show that the service infringed the plaintiffs’ rights by making available around 19 sample movies. That period of testing – or rather the months preceding it – would soon limit the scope of the prosecution’s case.

Patent and Market Court Convicts

In its judgment handed down in April 2023, Sweden’s Patent and Market Court found J.E. guilty of violating the Copyright Act. The defendant received a suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay 60 daily fines totaling SEK 34,800, around US$3,300 at today’s rates.

He was also ordered to compensate Svensk Filmindustri (SEK 63,000 / US$6,000) and Nordisk Film (SEK 191,500 / US$18,600), with SEK 5,000 (US$4,760) forfeited to the state as proceeds of crime, and an additional SEK 150,000 (US$14,280) to cover legal costs. These amounts were a far cry from those demanded by the plaintiffs.

Svensk Filmindustri had requested compensation of SEK 910,000 (US$86,700), Nordisk Film requested (Danish) DKK 2,355,000 (US$338,000). Yet, despite what amounted to a confession, both realized much smaller amounts. Something had gone wrong.

Confession vs. Evidence

J.E. admitted launching Scandinavian IPTV in 2019 and a Rights Alliance investigator confirmed that the service had attracted attention after appearing close to the top of Google search results.

By August 2020, a “large number of payments” for IPTV subscriptions had been received by J.E., including a one-month subscription purchased covertly by Rights Alliance on August 20, 2020, which was used to the monitor the service for the next seven days. To the standard required in a criminal case, that was the extent of the evidence, as the judgment explained:

The prosecutor has claimed that the access for which J.E. is to be held responsible has been going on for almost two years. During the preliminary investigation, checks were made to ensure that Scandinavian IPTV’s website was still up and running, but there was no documentation that the films in question had been available on the service after August 27, 2020.

 

Photographs from the search of J.E.’s home on May 17, 2022, show some of the films being played on a TV screen. However, there is no information that the films were played via Scandinavian IPTV’s service, nor has this been alleged by the prosecutor. Under these circumstances, with the strict evidentiary requirements that prevail in criminal cases, it cannot be considered proven that J.E. made the films available after August 27, 2020

The end result was a conviction for copyright infringement, but only for the violations carried out during the evidenced seven-day period. J.E. also had a clean record, with the court noting that “neither the nature of the crime nor the severity of the punishment justifies a prison sentence.”

Calculations presented by the plaintiffs, to demonstrate the value of the film works infringed, were acceptable to the court; however, since infringement could only be established for a week, compensation was reduced to one tenth of the amounts requested.

Patent and Market Court of Appeal

Following an appeal, an amended judgment was handed down Wednesday by the Patent and Market Court of Appeal. Taking into account changes in the wording of the Copyright Act during a now extended period of offending, the Court took a much firmer line.

J.E. was sentenced for violations of the Copyright Act committed between August 28 and August 31, 2020, and during the period September 1, 2020, to May 17, 2022. The Court of Appeal increased the number of daily fines from 60 to 100, for a new total of SEK 58,000 (US$5,520) versus SEK 34,800 (US$3,300) ordered in the previous judgment.

Compensation amounts were also amended in favor of the plaintiffs. (Nordisk award in Danish currency)

• Svensk Filmindustri: SEK 747,500 / US$71,200 | (previously SEK 63,000 / US$6,000)

• Nordisk Film: DKK 2,032,500 / US$291,700 | (previously SEK 191,500 / US$18,600)

The prosecutor’s appeal of the earlier judgment stated that J.E. should be convicted of copyright infringement entirely in accordance with the indictment. Whether J.E. was convicted for the entire period claimed in the indictment or the very short period evidenced in the case, the prosecutor argued that SEK 4,000,000 (US$381,000) should be forfeited as proceeds of crime.

J.E.’s appeal requested the dismissal of the indictment in its entirety, along with the individual claims for compensation and the claim for confiscation of property as proceeds of crime.

Court of Appeal Considered Evidence Obtained During the Raid

In respect of the infringement period, limited by the lower court on evidential grounds, the Court of Appeal disagreed on the scope of the offending by considering evidence obtained by the police.

When J.E.’s home was raided on May 17, 2022, officers searched for the plaintiffs’ films on an IPTV device found on site. All but two of the films existed and were playable. At the time, J.E. claimed that the device used a service other than Scandinavian IPTV, but the Court dismissed that claim as unlikely.

In summary, the Court of Appeal found that, contrary to the conclusion of the lower court, J.E. should be convicted for infringing copyright for the entire period of time stated in the indictment.

The Court also found that the plaintiffs suffered reputational damage, for which J.E. should pay compensation: Svensk Filmindustri SEK 152,500 (US$14,500), and Nordisk Film SEK 252,500 (US$24,000), amounts that are included in the totals above.

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Like many sensible businesses, paying as little tax as legally possible is a priority for corporations in the entertainment and professional sports sectors.

The difference with many of these giants is that some governments work quite hard to ensure that goal is met.

In the UK, tax breaks are on full display at Companies House; when a foreign company engineers, let’s say, a £6 million annual loss when making a movie, the government swoops in with a tax bill that credits £6 million. Or £10 million, or multiples of that over several years.

Since the end result is often a carefully crafted loss, despite massive contributions from the public purse raised through various taxes, no corporation tax is paid, even when a movie goes on to generate a billion at the box office. In Italy, where the government goes to great lengths to accommodate their business requirements, top tier football clubs are in debt to the public purse due to hundreds of millions of euros in unpaid taxes.

IPTV Pirates Blamed For Huge Sums in Lost Revenue

With the leading Italian clubs still spending at unsustainable levels, complaints over lost revenue due to IPTV/streaming piracy continue. Top football league Serie A currently claims that IPTV/streaming piracy costs football around €330m per year, an amount that’s ultimately blamed on Italian football fans and their love of TV piracy devices, locally known as ‘pezzotto’.

That €330m per year headline figure helped to push through new legislation last year that in part supports the operations of the Piracy Shield IPTV blocking system in use today. Its mission is to degrade pirate IPTV supply to the extent that fans are herded back to legal yet expensive subscription packages, thereby reducing the claimed €330m per year piracy deficit to something more reasonable.

Taxpayers’ ~€2 Billion Contribution?

Of course, other factors have also been at play. For the last four years, a government initiative called the Growth Decree aimed to attract foreign talent to Italy with lucrative tax breaks. The main beneficiaries were some of the world’s richest football players and associated staff, who through the scheme paid tax on just half their income rather than all of it. Their new football clubs also benefited by not having to pay the going rate when signing players from abroad.

This recently abolished scheme cost Italy over €670m per year in tax revenue, the New York Times reported last December. To put that figure into perspective, that’s more than double the amount Serie A claims to lose every year due to Italians’ piracy habits.

Legality quite clearly sets these activities apart and one certainly doesn’t justify or cancel out the other. Yet in the cold light of day, some might argue that there are some similarities. In any event, money leaving the public purse to support commercial interests seems here to stay.

Piracy Shield 2.0

As previously reported, the Piracy Shield blocking system currently in place is struggling. The scale of the blocking and number of ISPs expected to connect to the system is causing the system to time out. As a result, upgrades are urgently required and if everything goes to plan, the old system will be retired at the end of the year to make way for Piracy Shield 2.0.

As reported by La Repubblica (paywall), telecoms regulator AGCOM will continue to oversee the system which currently focuses on the protection of live sports, mostly football. With the addition of movies in the near future, other rightsholders are set to become more closely involved; many are likely to be benefiting from current blocking already since most IPTV services carry sports and movies.

Increased Performance, Increased Costs

Running costs for the new blocking system are expected to reach two million euros a year. La Repubblica reports that the money will be used to “strengthen and maintain” the Piracy Shield system which will operate from the cloud via agreements with Amazon and/or Microsoft.

An undisclosed amount will be used to subsidize the costs associated with blocking incurred by ISPs. Currently shouldered by the ISPs themselves, the costs include staff overtime, among other things. When the new system comes into play, it appears that two thirds of their costs could be covered, with the remaining third continuing to be funded from any company profits or by passing costs onto internet subscribers.

The State Pays, Profits Already Destined Inwards

The two million euros each year required to run Piracy Shield will be paid by the state using funds generated through various taxes, with personal income tax the greatest source of income. In 2021, taxes on corporate income and gains amounted to just 4% of total tax revenues in Italy.

La Repubblica reports that Piracy Shield is seen as a tool to help ensure the stability of the football business. It cites unnamed government sources reporting that DAZN may be close to breaking even. To reach that target it reportedly needs to add 150,000 subscribers and hopes are being pinned on Piracy Shield to nudge fans in their direction.

“When DAZN reaches breakeven, having reached certain turnover thresholds, its additional profits will be shared with the Lega Calcio [football league], and therefore with the clubs,” La Repubblica notes.

Cash flow is clearly important for maintaining a healthy football ecosystem; the direction, perhaps even more so.

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Copyright infringement is a global issue and Ghana is no exception. With broadband access on the rise, the country’s online piracy volume has grown by 100% over the past five years.

Even households that don’t have decent Internet may inadvertently contribute to the problem. As it turns out, local TV stations regularly broadcast films without permission from rightsholders.

This type of TV-sponsored ‘piracy’ is not new. In recent years, we have seen more examples, including in Iran, where local state TV didn’t even bother removing the pirate watermark before airing a film. More often than not, however, viewers can’t see whether the broadcaster has paid for a license or not.

Pirating TV Channels

These unauthorized broadcasts are a problem in Ghana too. There have been several reports of TV stations allegedly broadcasting films without the proper paperwork. This applies to content from international film companies as well, including Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood‘ productions.

Last year, Nigerian actress and filmmaker Ruth Kadiri sounded the alarm bell, urging Ghana to stop airing films without a proper license. If not, she warned of legal action.

“I love the country as a whole but I am very disappointed that a major TV station in Ghana would go on my platform, rip my contents apart, show it on TV like they have the license to do that.

“This is the first warning and it is going to be the last one, because the next time, you’re going to hear from my lawyers,” Kadiri added.

Film Authority Issues Warning

As far as we know, these legal threats weren’t effectuated. However, the issue was bought to the attention of the Ghanaian government which, through its National Film Authority (NFA), issued a stark warning yesterday.

The NFA issued a public notice to TV stations, informing them about a series of complaints received from global film distributors. These boil down to the simple fact that local broadcasters air movies without paying for them.

“Broadcasting/airing a movie or film without authorization from the creator/copyright owner constitutes a copyright infringement which attracts both civil and criminal liabilities,” NFA’s letter clarifies.

Ghanaian TV channel operators are instructed to check their broadcasting schedules to see if all films are properly licensed. If not, they have to stop airing these in public immediately.

Whether this warning will be effective has yet to be seen, but it’s clear that the authorities are keeping an eye on the matter. A copy of the public advisory notice, posted by NFA, is shown below.

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Nintendo has been very active on the anti-piracy front recently, targeting emulators, ROM sites, and other piracy-associated services and tools.

Not all alleged pirates are equal, however. In fact, one could argue that some are among Nintendo’s biggest fans.

A takedown request from Nintendo, sent to GitHub a few hours ago, is a good illustration. The DMCA notice doesn’t identify any pirated games or emulators, but targets a fan-created software tool that allows fans of the game Rhythm Heaven to create their own remixes.

These remixes appear to be quite popular among fans of the game, as evidenced by the many videos floating around on YouTube and social media. Unfortunately, Nintendo is no fan of this activity, as the tool also includes copyrighted sprites and sound effects from the official game.

Nintendo Targets Heaven Studio

The popular remix tool Heaven Studio uses these Nintendo-owned items in its software, without permission, which prompted Nintendo to ask GitHub to remove the repository’s sprite and SFX folders.

“The copyrighted works are Nintendo’s Rhythm Heaven video games, including the characters, images, music, and sounds covered by at least the following U.S. Copyright Registration Nos: PA0001791194 (Rhythm Heaven) and PA0001791783 supp. by PA0001397418 (Rhythm Heaven Fever),” the notice reads.

The takedown notice doesn’t target the entire repository, only the sprites and SFX files. In addition, Nintendo wants the same content removed from all forks, more than 250 in total.

Entire Repo Removed

Interestingly, Nintendo got more than it bargained for. In response to the takedown request, GitHub removed the entire Heaven Studio repository and all forks, that’s 291 in total.

This isn’t accidental, as the following statement from GitHub clarifies.

“Because the parent repository was actively being forked when this DMCA takedown notice was received, and the submitter had identified all known forks at the time they submitted the takedown notice, GitHub processed the takedown notice against the entire network of 291 repositories, inclusive of the parent repository.”

Game’s Not Over Yet

The Heaven Studio developers were taken aback by this removal. The team is not entirely sure if the takedown notice is ‘legitimate’ but they don’t seem intent on protesting it directly. For now, they’re making nightly builds of their code available at Archive.org.

“While we are unsure if the takedown is legitimate, at this point we aren’t taking any chances. While the project is currently being restructured, you can get the latest Nightly builds at [archive.org],” they write.

There are some suggestions that the takedown notice could be fake. This seems to be a common theme in response to Nintendo takedowns, but we don’t immediately see obvious signs of abuse.

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time that Heaven Studio has been targeted by the Japanese game company. The developers previously posted full releases of their tool on Itch.io, but these were pulled offline by a Nintendo DMCA notice too.

In the Heaven Studio Discord channel, which has more than 40,000 members, users are encouraged to share their concerns with GitHub. Regardless of whether that will do anything or not, the developers are not planning to give up anytime soon.

There is talk about a “Plan B”. What this entails precisely isn’t clear but if we take Nintendo’s DMCA notice as a guideline, bringing back the software without the copyrighted sprites and sound effect files might work.

In any case, it doesn’t appear to be game over just yet.

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Over several years but much more intensively during the last 18 months, police in the UK have warned that those involved in the supply and sale of pirate IPTV streams will face the consequences.

Whether any suppliers of significance took those threats seriously is difficult to say, but a noticeable increase in reported arrests recently suggests that police are responding as promised. News this week concerning a previously convicted pirate suggests that law enforcement agencies are also working to ensure that those found guilty aren’t allowed to simply disappear when it’s payback time.

Extradition For Convicted Pirate

Between 2014 and 2017, Michael Hornung supplied around 2,700 set-top boxes that provided unauthorized access to subscription broadcasters’ content, notably that to which Sky owned the rights. An investigation led to a private criminal prosecution on behalf of Sky through FACT, who called on lawyer Ari Alibhai, the UK’s leading expert in piracy-related private prosecutions, to do the honors.

Skipping bail is generally ill-advised but faced with a private prosecution, the worst possible scenario for any IPTV pirate in the UK, Hornung failing to answer his bail in March 2020 hardly came as a surprise.

While still hiding out in Northern Cyprus to avoid extradition back to the UK, in June 2022 Hornung was found guilty in his absence. He was sentenced to four and half years in prison for causing a potential loss of £2m to broadcasters, while generating £350,000 in fraudulent income, around £258,000 of which is payable back to the state under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

As reported this week by FACT and the National Crime Agency, Hornung was arrested in Cyprus on June 2 and after a hearing there, agreed to be extradited back to the UK. For jumping bail he received an additional 12-week jail sentence, and he still has to pay back the £258,000. The sum is already long overdue and in the event of non-payment, Hornung could face an additional three years in prison.

Promised Arrests Keep Coming

In addition to Hornung, we believe that at least three other men prosecuted in separate IPTV cases disappeared rather than face the music in the UK.

And let’s not forget, a single prosecution put five men behind bars for over 30 years in 2023; deterrent messaging doesn’t get any better than that. Yet still the arrests keep on coming, including that of a 52-year-old man from Stockton-on-Tees recently, to a background of a school headteacher being sent to prison in the West Midlands.

And There’s More

Adding to the overall total, police and broadcaster Sky have a just announced yet another IPTV-related arrest, after officers executed a warrant at a flat in Queen Street, Nottingham.

Police say that on June 11, a 42-year-old man allegedly involved “in the provision of illegal streams of Sky television content,” was arrested under the Proceeds of Crime Act, Computer Misuse Act, and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, before being released on bail while investigations continue.

Credit: Nottingham Police

As is customary in these cases, Matt Hibbert, Group Director of Anti-Piracy at Sky, thanked the police for their work.

“We’d like to thank Nottinghamshire Police’s Cyber Crime Team for taking this strong action against illegal streaming operators,” Hibbert said.

“We will continue to support law enforcement to protect our content, tackle illegal streaming, and help keep consumers safe from the risks illegal streaming can pose.”

But while Sky says it wants to keep consumers safe, what qualifies as safe for members of the public seems to diverge quite considerably from whatever Sky has in mind.

Policing Isn’t a Popularity Contest….

While it’s possible to assess sentiment across social media posts, social media users tend to group around certain topics which can lead to bias. In this case the discussion takes place on police social media accounts where piracy-related matters represent a tiny minority.

Since last year, those behind the BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign operated by Sky have made extensive use of social media to press home the message that illegal streaming is dangerous, due to malware and other ‘hidden dangers’. Cast the net a little further and people appear to have other things on their minds.

What’s immediately evident when police forces announce this type of action is the wall-to-wall criticism that appears under those posts on police social media accounts. As one might expect, pirates tend not to enjoy services being shut down. However, it’s clear that most complaints have little or even nothing to do with piracy.

In this case, the comments appear to show regular members of the public, expressing frustrations over perceived prioritization of one type of crime, in favor of a foreign-owned corporation (Sky is owned by U.S. company Comcast), when there are no resources available to tackle serious local crime, affecting ordinary local people.

Whether any, all, or none of these comments are accurate or even a reasonable assessment of the reality on the ground, is neither here nor there.

What matters is the belief and how that manifests itself when faced with anti-piracy campaigns and pleas to pay for content instead of pirating it. It’s hard to imagine any scenario where the current mindset would prove beneficial.

Policing Isn’t a Popularity Contest….

From posts like this on Facebook, to others on Twitter/X (and more or less anywhere else these stories appear), people are overwhelmingly opposed to the allocation of precious enforcement resources to assist corporations, when the people whose taxes actually fund the police continue to be underserved.

Obviously the traditional complaints, concerning pricing and the need to buy multiple subscriptions to get just a part of the content, are persistent. However, they only represent just a small part of the overall commentary which is overwhelmingly critical of the police and the allocation of resources.

In one form or another, the police have heard this all before. With limited resources available, various groups will always jostle for position to protect their own interests.

Unfortunately, without public support this campaign and others like it are even less likely to succeed. (More public comments on X here)

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In dozens of countries around the world, website blocking is the preferred way for copyright holders to restrict access to pirate sites.

Originally pioneered in Europe, the enforcement tactic has since gone global, with blockades now in place from Asia to South America, with the United States queuing up too.

Peru’s Blocking Efforts

In Peru, site blocking measures have been commonplace for a few years already. In response to complaints from rightsholders, Internet providers have been ordered to block hundreds of domain names. The targets range from torrent sites, through YouTube rippers, to streaming portals.

These blocking orders are handed down by INDECOPI, the IP protection arm of the government. Last November, INDECOPI collaborated in the latest round of Operation 404, blocking or suspending 328 pirate sites and services. Meanwhile, regular blocking efforts continue as well.

Late last week, INDECOPI issued two new site blocking orders, all targeting sports streaming sites. The blocking orders follow a complaint from the sports company 1190 Peru, which manages and commercializes the rights of several sports leagues, including Peru’s top football competition Liga1.

‘Dynamic’ Pirate Site Blocking Order

After considering the presented evidence, INDECOPI ordered local internet providers including Telefonica, América Móvil, and Entel, to block 23 pirate sites. Those targeted include Rojadirecta, Channelstream.es, Pirlotv, Librefutboltv, and Socceronline.me, among others.

These blocking measures are not new, but the scope of the injunction is. For the first time, INDECOPI handed down a dynamic injunction, meaning that additional domains can be blocked, if site operators switch to new ones to circumvent blocking measures,

“[T]he administrators and/or owners of the website subject to blocking could take actions in order to circumvent the aforementioned measures, which would become ineffective. Such measures could involve, among others, the creation of new domain names..,” INDECOPI writes.

“For this reason, the Commission considers it necessary that this precautionary blocking measure adopts a dynamic nature,” the order adds.

The order references dynamic blocking orders in other countries, including in the European Union, and concludes that a similar approach is also warranted in Peru. If rightsholders want additional domains to be blocked, they first have to back up their request with evidence, however, to ensure proper oversight.

Scrutinized Evidence

The latest injunctions show that rightsholders can’t simply list any pirate site in their blocking requests. INDECOPI carefully considers all presented evidence, and doesn’t shy away from rejecting blockades when it falls short.

For example, 1190 Peru’s original complaint regarding Rojadirecta listed four domain names; rojadirectatv.nl, rojadirectatvhd.com, rojadirectatvhd.ws and rojadirectaenvivo.me. However, three of these domain names were rejected because the presented evidence was not sufficient.

Similarly, of the 47 alleged pirate site domain names in the second complaint, only 22 were ultimately blocked. The others were rejected over lacking evidence, incomplete records, or the absence of any infringing content.

One domain that stands out is sur.ly, which is an outbound link management service. Sur.ly has nothing to do with pirate sites, but third-parties can use the domain to load external websites, much like a proxy. Needless to say, blocking Sur.ly would be rather extreme, and INDECOPI denied the request.

“The site corresponds to a web traffic tool and, by itself, does not carry out acts of exploitation of the contents that are the subject of the claim,” the IP protection authority writes.

TorrentFreak spoke to someone familiar with the matter, who informed us that some of the rejected blocking requests were resubmitted to INDECOPI with proper, notarized evidence. Whether that will include Sur.ly’s main domain, which has plenty of legal uses, is unknown.

—

Copies of the two injunctions are available below, with an overview of all domain names that must be blocked by local ISPs.

Injunction 1 (RESOLUTION N° 376-2024)

– channelstream.es
– fbstreams.pm
– futbolparatodostv.net
– intergolestv.com
– lacasadeltikitaka.net
– librefutboltv.com
– librefutboltv.net
– liga1maxtv.pe
– liga1maxtvhd.com
– liga1maxtv.live
– nbatv.site
– pirlotv.app
– pirlo.run
– sinfutboltv.com
– socceronline.me
– telerium.biz
– peru15.com
– vipleague.im
– viper-play.net
– -viperplayhd.com
– viprow.nu
– zonadeporteshd.online

Injunction 2 (RESOLUTION N° 375-2024)

– rojadirectatvhd.ws

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French telecoms/audiovisual regulator Arcom has released its annual report covering 2023. At 199 pages, it’s a significant read; our narrow focus here will be on copyright and infringement-related matters.

‘Three Strikes’ Still Going Strong

The French graduated response system (previously dubbed ‘Three Strikes’) launched in 2009/2010 to tackle widespread piracy of copyrighted content, carried out by internet users on peer-to-peer networks, predominantly BitTorrent and eD2K networks.

The mechanism involves sending a series of escalating warning notices to subscribers whose connections have been monitored whilst sharing copyrighted content online, mostly movies, TV shows and music.

Graduated response (Credit: Arcom, original in French)

The ultimate goal of the scheme today is unchanged since the scheme’s inception; inform internet users that their piracy activities are being tracked by rightsholders and if that continues despite the warnings, consequences will follow. The big question is whether the mechanism produces positive results.

Referrals Continue To Fall

In general, graduated response warnings are designed to raise awareness and encourage changes in behavior. The data provided by Arcom represent a mixed bag of positives, some assumed positives, and what appears to be a failure to produce any gains in a key area.

As the data below shows, the number of referrals by rightsholders to Arcom has been trending downwards for several years. With the continued popularity of centralized streaming and file-hosting services, mostly at the expense of consumption via BitTorrent, that’s to be expected.

Arcom puts forward the success of the program as the main reason the figures are still coming down, but also acknowledges other factors.

“This decrease results from a plurality of factors, such as the positive impact of the graduated response procedure, the transformation of practices regarding the consumption of cultural works on the internet, the acceleration of the dissemination of legal offers during the year, or even increasing use of workaround solutions (VPNs) by Internet users,” the regulator explains.

Survey data indicates that 38% of internet users on a first warning say they now use a VPN.

Change of Spec Boosts Accuracy, No Fall in Prosecution Rates

2023 was an unusual year for detecting alleged infringers. For the first time, all French internet service providers were required to make identification of their subscribers easier by associating their IP addresses with their connections’ source ports.

The aim here is to reduce complications stemming from IP addresses being shared with other subscribers. Arcom says this change produced a significant increase in the average detection rate; from 56% in 2022 to 77% in 2023.

As a result, French internet users received 137,578 initial warnings, with 32,894 going on to receive a second. Around 10% of those failed to get the message, leading to findings of gross negligence against 3,844 internet users in ‘pre-criminal’ proceedings.

A total of 1,526 cases were sent to the public prosecutor in 2023, versus 1,395 in 2022, and 1,484 in 2021.

At the Punishment End, Very Little Changes

Generally static data for 2021, 2022, and 2023, suggests that the scheme is likely ineffective against a subset of internet users. Given how unusually similar the figures are year-on-year, it’s also possible that processing capacity, referral quotas, or other artificial factors play a role in keeping levels stable.

Taking zero notice of notices?

Nevertheless, at the sharp end of the scheme where persuasion and education run out of steam, only punishment remains. Of the 3,844 internet users labeled ‘grossly negligent’ just 41% (1,526) were referred to the prosecutor; that seems to suggest a better than 50/50 chance of avoiding immediate punishment.

Of the 1,526 cases seen by the prosecutor, just 838 cases result in ‘known legal consequences’ for the subscriber involved. That looks like another 50/50 chance of avoiding punishment, but what actually happens to those involved is unclear.

Relatively Few Internet Users Receive Financial Punishments

Of the 838 cases that didn’t disappear into the ether, less than three in ten cases resulted in a financial penalty.

“In 2023, 838 legal proceedings were brought to the attention of Arcom, of which 28% resulted in financial sanctions (fines or equivalent) whether they were criminal sanctions stricto sensu or alternatives to prosecution accompanied by the payment of a fine (criminal composition) or a citizen contribution (the amount of which, set by the Public Prosecutor, is paid to approved victim assistance associations,” Arcom explains.

If the non-BitTorrent share of the piracy market continues to meet public demand via streaming and hosting services, it’s likely that Arcom will meet diminishing returns in its pursuit of peer-to-peer infringers. That being said, the number of users still sharing rather than streaming content is significant.

Couple that with Arcom’s recent green light from the EU’s highest court to continue monitoring alleged infringers, it’s likely that no changes will be seen in the foreseeable future.

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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. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” is the most downloaded title.

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

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

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Whether it’s Hollywood movies, TV shows, music, or static publications such as books and magazines, millions of people are now very comfortable consuming content via apps.

In many cases, third-party apps simply act as a hub, utilizing content made available by other services. When developers dedicate themselves to a particular content niche, mobile apps can become very popular indeed, especially so when they outgun legitimate apps produced by rightsholders themselves.

Tachiyomi Down, Aniyomi Up

This January, manga reader app Tachiyomi paid the ultimate price for its roaring success. South Korean webtoon publisher Kakao reportedly reached out the app’s developer with an offer they couldn’t refuse, but predictably not the good kind. The developer’s response was to terminate the project, a sensible move under the circumstances.

Since Tachiyomi was an open source project, it would never truly die if any of its many forks were still in play. A fork called Aniyomi ensured a piece of Tachiyomi lived on, in an app that broadened the content scope of the original project. With anime (Japanese cartoons) entering the mix, Aniyomi’s upwards trajectory continued; the downside was another set of rightsholders to contend with.

At this point it’s worth pointing out that the developer of Aniyomi clearly understood the risks associated with supplying infringing content directly to users. When direct infringers find themselves on the sharp end of a lawsuit, most cases end badly for the defendants.

That’s presumably why Aniyomi and its predecessor were supplied ’empty’ to users and relied on third-party extensions to provide content discovery and acquisition functionality. Be that as it may, an email can wipe everything out in an instant.

200+ Aniyomi Extensions Targeted by Sony

When assessing the Sony Pictures DMCA takedown notice filed at GitHub, it seems clear that Sony’s agent understands the requirements of the DMCA, and appreciates how much time it would’ve taken to fulfil its requirements by providing appropriate detail.

The challenge when targeting over 200 different extensions with different uses is that the same claim is unlikely to apply to all 200. That means investigating each one individually and reporting the basis for infringement based on the findings.

So, in response to GitHub’s request to “provide a detailed description of the original content” that has allegedly been infringed, anti-piracy company Markscan provided the Sony Pictures website URL instead. Detailing exactly where to find over 200 extensions proved no problem at all.

A small sample of the extension URLs

Part of the takedown notice is in letter form and it begins by explaining that Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. authorized Markscan to issue a takedown notice to GitHub.

Supporting Evidence

The meat of the notice carefully describes the steps needed to access infringing content using various extensions.

“To access full content, users must install extensions listed in the application settings. By clicking on the settings button, we found an extension option leading to a list of extensions stored within the application. We installed several anime extensions such as Witanime, AnimeOnsen, Egydead, Fasel HD, Animeworld India, and Torrent Anime,” it reads.

“After installing the extensions, we navigated back to the anime page showcasing all anime titles. We selected ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ and clicked on one of its episodes. The option ‘Source’ appeared, indicating the source/extension from which the content can be watched for free. We selected AnimeOnsen, chose the video quality, and successfully watched the content.

“Following the above-mentioned details depicting copyright piracy using various technological measures and utilizing Github services, we would like to request suspension/removal of above-mentioned URLs.”

Details Are Important

If we embrace the ‘spirit’ of the law rather than its requirements, the majority of the extensions do appear designed to infringe, if only because many of the source sites specialize in infringing content. The aspect that stands out here is the high level of detail provided so the extensions could be effectively removed, but almost no detail to show why they should be removed for infringing Sony’s rights.

Considering that accuracy is a persistent problem, and having just waded through yet more DMCA copyright complaints filed by Markscan on behalf of Plex, DAZN, AliExpress, and others, asking Google to take content down for trademark infringement, the details seem especially important (1,2,3).

In this case, the notice seems to suggest that only a handful of the extensions were installed, and just one was actually tested. Based on the provided statement, there’s a good argument that AnimeOnsen infringed Sony’s rights in ‘Jututsu Kaisen’ so it would be completely reasonable to take the related extension down.

Beyond that, the notice mentions a single copyright work and extrapolates that to over 200 extensions, the majority of which weren’t tested. Any suggestion that they all offered ‘Jututsu Kaisen’ or any other unspecified content owned by Sony is a guess at best.

To be clear, this shouldn’t be construed as defending the already precarious legal standing of the repo in question, but as a reminder that vague claims continue to cause damage to non-infringing users and content, despite being regularly called out as abusive.

Collateral Damage

As it turns out, the presumed guess mentioned above was also a bad guess. Three of the extensions relate to legal services, two for Google and another for media player Jellyfin. On paper that might sound like a less-than 2% error rate but not carrying out tests isn’t an error.

Because GitHub cannot disable access to specific files within a repository, it appears that Aniyomi’s developer was provided the opportunity to remove the extensions voluntarily. The alternative would’ve seen the entire repo deleted by GitHub, but after the removal of “some” extensions, only the repo, and the Google and Jellyfin extensions survived.

Chore: Mass delete

That brings us full-circle to the theory that attempting to separate apps from third party (or supposed third party) extensions actually works. That aspect didn’t receive a mention, and yet almost everything came down regardless.

A well constructed DMCA takedown notice would’ve achieved exactly the same end result, of course, but at least everyone would know why.

The alleged DMCA takedown notice is available here

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Worldwide internet infrastructure service Cloudflare serves millions of customers and provides a variety of connectivity and privacy features to the general public.

Internet users can take advantage of the company’s open DNS resolver 1.1.1.1, for example, or use its Ethereum and IPFS gateways to access content on these decentralized web services.

Takedown Notices

When it comes to copyright complaints, Cloudflare makes a clear distinction between content it permanently hosts, and services where it acts as a pass through. In the latter case, DMCA takedown notices are typically forwarded to customers’ hosting providers.

This means that, when rightsholders send Cloudflare a takedown request for Pirate Bay content, Cloudflare doesn’t interfere with its CDN services. Instead, it forwards the notice to Pirate Bay’s hosting provider, which is typically concealed for outsiders.

Cloudflare does take action in the relatively rare cases where it hosts content. According to the latest transparency report, the company received 376 DMCA notices in the most recent reporting period, and took action in 252 instances.

The transparency report is not exactly up-to-date, as the latest figures apply to the first half of 2023. However, one of the trends in this report is very timely, and related to a noteworthy change at Cloudflare’s IPFS service.

IPFS Complaints

Cloudflare’s IPFS gateway doesn’t host or control any content, but there has been no shortage of IPFS-related complaints.

While contentious content is in no way controlled by Cloudflare, the San Francisco company takes IPFS abuse notices, which include copyright complaints, rather seriously. The same also applies to the Ethereum gateway, which offers easy read-and-write access to the Ethereum network.

As Cloudflare can’t remove anything, it disables access to IPFS content though its gateway in response to abuse reports. In the first half of 2022 this happened 1,073 times, followed by 1,142 actions in the second half of that year. After that, abuse reports skyrocketed.

According to Cloudflare’s latest transparency report, the company took action in response to 10,139 abuse reports in the first half of 2023, roughly a tenfold increase compared to previous periods.

The increase in IPFS takedown requests is notable but for Cloudflare, the problem will be relatively short-lived. The company recently announced that it will cease operating its public IPFS and Ethereum gateways. As mentioned in the transparency report, the gateway will switch over to the IPFS foundation.

“In 2024, Cloudflare’s IPFS and Ethereum gateway traffic will be transitioning to IPFS Foundation’s gateway. It will be maintained by the Interplanetary Shipyard team, an independent entity of IPFS core developers and maintainers,” Cloudflare writes.

Interplanetary Shipyard

The gateway transition started last month and is currently in progress. For now, all cloudflare-ipfs.com and cf-ipfs.com links will redirect to ipfs.io or dweb.link, but in August, these old links will cease to function entirely.

“It is important to Cloudflare, IPFS, and Shipyard that this transition is completed seamlessly and with as little impact to users as possible,” Cloudflare previously noted.

“We believe the IPFS gateway transition will boost ecosystem collaboration, increase protocol resiliency, and ensure healthy stewardship and governance.”

Going forward, Cloudflare’s IPFS gateway will switch over to the Interplanetary Shipyard’s version. Interplanetary Shipyard is a community-driven collective made up of core IPFS developers, partly supported by Cloudflare.

The transition likely means that IPFS takedown notices will disappear from future Cloudflare transparency reports, since any copyright complaints will be handled by the Shipyard team.

It’s not clear how the Shipyard will handle copyright complaints. Technically, these gateways don’t store any content. The EFF previously helped the operator of IPFS gateway Hardbin to respond to takedown requests, denying liability for third-party copyright infringements.

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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), arguably the world’s most active anti-piracy coalition, is backed by dozens of major rightsholders.

The group is largely managed by the Motion Picture Association, which has requested many DMCA subpoenas on its behalf over the past few years.

New Subpoena Round

After the MPA’s former Chief of Global Content Protection Jan Van Voorn left for a new opportunity, ACE went quiet on the subpoena front. The legal requests were always signed by Van Voorn, so someone else had to fill this role going forward. But who?

The answer arrived late last week when several new subpoena requests were docketed at a California federal court. The requests are similar to those seen before, now signed by Dani Bacsi, MPA’s Deputy Chief of Content Protection.

Through the subpoenas, ACE asks Cloudflare and the .To domain registry (Tonic) for information related to several domain names. These targets can be broadly divided into three groups – streaming sites, apps, and IPTV services – some with dozens of millions of monthly visits.

Pirate Streaming Sites

Anime site Anitaku is the most prominent target, with more than 125 million visits between March and May. However, other sites such as Goojara and Kickassanime have no traffic shortage either.

The subpoenas target a total of 17 pirate streaming site domains. ACE and the MPA hope that, through their requests for information, they can learn more about the identities and whereabouts of the operators.

Domains with the most traffic (full list here)

Piracy Apps and IPTV

In addition to streaming sites, ACE has also listed domain names of websites that offer downloads to dedicated piracy apps including ‘Gold Core App’, ‘Live NetTV’, ‘RedPlay’ and ‘MagisTv’.

In addition, the subpoenas include domain names of IPTV portals such as Atlaspro, Newtelevision, and Honeybeeiptv. The latter is particularly popular in Singapore, where it’s one of the most visited sites in the Computers and Technology category.

As with the other sites and services, links to show how these domains match to infringing titles are included for each domain.

The goal of these proposed subpoenas is to require Tonic and Cloudflare to share identifying information on the users who maintain the associated accounts. That includes any names, physical addresses, IP addresses, e-mail addresses, payment information, and account histories.

Helpful, Not Perfect

Most operators of pirate sites and services know that ACE can obtain these DMCA subpoenas. They often preempt this by using false information. However, according to MPA’s Deputy Chief of Content Protection, Dani Bacsi, these efforts can still pay off.

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Bacsi says that the subpoenas are part of a legal tool set used to unmask pirates behind mass-scale infringing services. The MPA can’t share its success rate, but subpoenaed information has been fruitful in multiple cases.

Ideally, ACE, MPA, and other rightsholder representatives would like intermediaries to verify their customers’ identities.

Without referring specifically to Cloudflare or Tonic, Bacsi confirms that it would be a positive step if online intermediaries adopted robust ‘Know Your Business Customer’ (KYBC) procedures.

“Applying a KYBC policy will also ensure legal compliance, enhance security, prevent fraud, and protect the intermediary’s reputation by verifying the legitimacy of its business customers and mitigating associated risks,” Bacsi concludes.

—

A full list of all targeted domains is available below. The associated paperwork can be found here (1,2,3,4,5,6).

– vegamovies.to
– goojara.to
– supernova.to
– animesonlinecc.to
– anitaku.to
– ssoap2day.to
– anitaku.so
– braflix.video
– kickassanime.mx
– movieffm.net
– hdtodaytv.icu
– animepahe.com
– animepahe.org
– gogoanime.me
– soaper.tv
– soap2day.tf
– soap2day.qa
– vegamovies.to
– gold.coreplay.tv
– livenettv.bz
– redplaycard.com
– magistv.app
– atlaspro.tv
– atlaspro.io
– newtelevision.online
– best-usahosting.com
– honeybeeiptv.com

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Mirror and clone sites were once deployed to keep popular sites alive as they imploded under the weight of their own popularity and ensuing traffic.

The strategy was famously deployed around Suprnova, one of the original torrent giants. Given how often the whole site went down, unable to cope with unprecedented success, in hindsight it was given an unintentionally appropriate name.

Today, some clone and mirror sites still exist for the same purpose but most fall off the end of a streaming site conveyor belt, to trade on the popularity of sites with known brands, generate confusion with similar domains, or both.

As a leading cybersecurity and anti-piracy vendor, Irdeto will be only too aware of the mirror and clone site phenomenon. Whether it expected its own website to be cloned and placed online is up for debate. As the owner of Denuvo, perhaps the most hated anti-piracy tech currently on the market, it probably didn’t come as a surprise.

DMCA Takedown Notice to GitHub

Irdeto’s DMCA notice was sent to GitHub on its own behalf, which probably doesn’t happen very often.

“We are writing to you from Irdeto B.V. (‘Irdeto’). We own the exclusive copyright to Irdeto.com and its related assets,” the notice begins.

Responding to GitHub’s request to identify the original copyrighted work that had allegedly been infringed, Irdeto pointed towards its own website.

“Irdeto.com and it’s related assets (such as text, website design, and images) is our copyrighted corporate website. The reported repositories have duplicated the Irdeto website code and assets. As this repository contains a direct copy of Irdeto.com, confirm that we own the copyright for all the contents within the repository.”

Cloned Sites Operating Under Two Domains

Irdeto goes on to claim that the owner of the infringing repos, described simply as “this individual” had attempted to impersonate Irdeto. One of the domains used in connection with the cloned website was Irdeto.fr but whether there was a broader plan isn’t revealed in the notice. That being said, the existence of a mail server quite rightly generated additional concern.

After identifying the repos to be removed, Irdeto requested a rapid takedown and action against the alleged culprit.

“We respectfully request that Github removes the infringing content expeditiously and suspends the user. If anything is preventing you from removing the reported content, please let us know what additional information is required,” the company wrote.

The first request was obviously granted by GitHub but whether it took any action against the user is unknown.

Unexpected

Suspended from GitHub or not, taking on a company like Irdeto has the potential to end quite badly. At the very least, there are much less risky targets, so who would choose to take on a corporation expecting to beat it at its own game?

Unable to resist a short look around, we began with basic questions; who owns Irdeto.fr, what other domains do they own, and why are WHOIS records nearly always frustrating?

Yet amazingly, not at all frustrating today. With no blanket of redactions, no wall-to-wall privacy service, Irdeto.fr seems like an image of openness.

Registered on January, 28, 2024, Irdeto.fr offers something most domains do not, personal information – or at least that’s what the information suggests it might be. Unwilling to fall into any mischief traps, or possible registration proxies, details redacted below.

With limited time, the next easy step was to find other domains registered by the same person. Using the email address listed for Irdeto.fr we ran a check and got another suspiciously easy hit.

The same email address is not only listed against another domain, but a .US domain, which are not usually redacted. This was no exception.

At this point completely out of time, we took that as a direct order. Almost certainly, Irdeto will not, despite 121K domains left to trawl.

Irdeto’s DMCA notice is available here

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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, but it 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, made TorrentGalaxy’s position as a torrent distribution portal increasingly important.

TorrentGalaxy Goes Offline

Against this backdrop, it’s no surprise that users are disappointed when the site suffers downtime. When the downtime is accompanied by a somewhat cryptic message, alarm bells start to go off.

A few hours ago, TorrentGalaxy’s main website and mirrors suddenly displayed the following mysterious message.

“TGX is offline. Updates will be posted in case of any changes.”

This message doesn’t have to be alarming; the site may simply return in a few hours after some much-needed maintenance. In that case, however, “TGx is down for maintenance, updates will be posted when more information is available” would have been a more appropriate message.

IF

The wording of the current message suggests that TorrentGalaxy is offline, may not come back soon, and updates will only follow IF anything changes.

We have reached out to our contacts at the site asking for clarification. At the time of publication, we have yet to receive any response. If we hear anything new, this article will be updated accordingly.

In addition to the main TorrentGalaxy.to domain, all official mirrors and proxies are down as well. The domain name of the status page, which showed all mirrors and proxies, is currently parked. That’s not a positive sign for users either.

The TorrentGalaxy downtime is not only felt at the site itself. Since it also provides a steady flow of [TGx] releases to other torrent sites, it will be noticeable there as well. This includes the popular ‘TGxGoodies’ user at 1337x, whose releases have been halted for now.

The current downtime might be related to enforcement actions. TorrentGalaxy has been on the radar of anti-piracy groups for a long time and, earlier this year, the U.S. Trade Representative flagged it as one of the most notorious piracy sites.

With the information that’s available to us presently, we can do little more than speculate. However, we will keep an eye out for updates and changes in the coming hours and days.

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In France, where laws were introduced with site-blocking and similar anti-piracy measures already baked in, entertainment giant Canal+ seems intent on taking full advantage.

Like similar broadcasters with lucrative sports rights to exploit, Canal+ has a subset of viewers who prefer to consume from pirate sources which charge much less, or even nothing at all.

To maximize its existing site-blocking efforts through local ISPs, the French broadcaster has now taken the logical, albeit controversial, next step on the site-blocking ladder.

DNS Tampering at the Local ISP Level

In 2023, Canal+ went to court in France to tackle pirate sports streaming sites including Footybite.co, Streamcheck.link, SportBay.sx, TVFutbol.info, and Catchystream.com. The broadcaster said that since subscribers of local ISPs were accessing the pirate sites using their services, the ISPs should prevent them from doing so.

When the decision went in favor of Canal+, ISPs including Orange, SFR, OutreMer Télécom, Free, and Bouygues Télécom, were required to implement technical measures. Since the ISPs have their own DNS resolvers for use by their own customers, these were configured to provide non-authentic responses to deny access to the sites in question.

In response, increasingly savvy internet users that hadn’t already done so, simply changed their settings to use different DNS providers – Cloudflare, Google, and Cisco – whose resolvers hadn’t been tampered with; at least not yet.

One More Step Up The Ladder: Public DNS Tampering

Use of third-party DNS providers to circumvent blocking isn’t uncommon so last year Canal+ took legal action against three popular public DNS providers – Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), Google (8.8.8.8), and Cisco (208.69.38.205), demanding measures similar to those implemented by French ISPs.

Tampering with public DNS is a step too far for many internet advocates but for major rightsholders, if the law can be shaped to allow it, that’s what will happen. In this case, Article L333-10 of the French Sports Code (active Jan 2022) seems capable of accommodating almost anything.

When there are “serious and repeated violations” by an “online public communication service” whose main objective is the unauthorized broadcasting of sports competitions, rightsholders can demand “all proportionate measures likely to prevent or put an end to this infringement, against any person likely to contribute to remedying it.”

Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco Ordered to Prevent Circumvention

Two decisions were handed down by the Paris judicial court last month; one concerning Premier League matches and the other the Champions League. The orders instruct Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to implement measures similar to those in place at local ISPs. To protect the rights of Canal+, the companies must prevent French internet users from using their services to access around 117 pirate domains.

According to French publication l’Informé, which broke the news, Google attorney Sébastien Proust crunched figures published by government anti-piracy agency Arcom and concluded that the effect on piracy rates, if any, is likely to be minimal.

Starting with a pool of all users who use alternative DNS for any reason, users of pirate sites – especially sites broadcasting the matches in question – were isolated from the rest. Users of both VPNs and third-party DNS were further excluded from the group since DNS blocking is ineffective against VPNs.

Proust found that the number of users likely to be affected by DNS blocking at Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco, amounts to 0.084% of the total population of French Internet users. Citing a recent survey, which found that only 2% of those who face blocks simply give up and don’t find other means of circumvention, he reached an interesting conclusion.

“2% of 0.084% is 0.00168% of Internet users! In absolute terms, that would represent a small group of around 800 people across France!”

Court Rejected Arguments Against Blocking

In common with other courts presented with the same arguments, the Paris court said the number of people using alternative DNS to access the sites, and the simplicity of switching DNS, are irrelevant.

Canal+ owns the rights to the broadcasts and if it wishes to request a blocking injunction, it has the legal right to do so.

The DNS providers’ assertion that their services are not covered by the legislation was also waved aside by the court.

Google says it intends to comply with the order. As part of the original matter in 2023, it was already required to deindex the domains from search results under the same law.

At least in theory, this means that those who circumvented the original blocks using these alternative DNS services, will be back to square one and confronted by blocks all over again.

Given that circumventing this set of blocks will be as straightforward as circumventing the originals, that raises the question of what measures Canal+ will demand next, and from whom.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of May): Nearly 2,400 news posts