The non-profit Internet Archive (IA) aims to preserve history in a digital format for generations to come.

The organization literally archives key parts of the Internet, copying older versions of websites to preserve them for future generations. This information becomes more and more valuable as time passes by.

IA’s archiving work is not limited to websites either; it also helps to permanently archive video, software, games, and music. This includes efforts to digitally capture the unique sound of old gramophone music recordings, as its physical carriers are subject to decay and will eventually become unplayable.

The Great 78 Project

Six years ago, the Archive teamed up with other libraries and experts to archive the sounds of 78-rpm gramophone records, which are obsolete today. In addition to capturing their unique audio, including all crackles and hisses, this saves unique recordings for future generations before the vinyl or shellac disintegrates.

The ‘Great 78 Project‘ received praise from curators, historians, and music fans. However, not all music industry insiders were happy with it, as the copying took place without obtaining permission from all rightsholders.

The Great 78 Project
 

Last summer, a group of major music labels including Capitol, Sony, and UMG, decided to take action. In a complaint filed at a U.S. federal court in California, they sued the Internet Archive, its founder Brewster Kale, the Kahle-Austin Foundation, and others who they believe are responsible

“When Defendants exploit Plaintiffs’ sound recordings without authorization, neither Plaintiffs nor their artists see a dime. Not only does this harm Plaintiffs and the artists or their heirs by depriving them of compensation, but it undermines the value of music,” the labels wrote.

With 2,749 recordings at stake, the potential statutory damages could run to more than $400 million. However, the Internet Archive sees things differently, believing that the ‘Great 78 Project’ is fair use.

IA’s Motion to Dismiss

Earlier this year, the IA defendants responded with a motion to dismiss. While fair use was mentioned, they argued that the lawsuit should be thrown out because it was filed too late. The defendants were already aware of the alleged infringements more than three years ago, which is past the three-year stature of limitations for copyright infringement.

IA backed up this argument with a letter it received from the RIAA more than three years ago, which specifically complained about the ‘Great 78 Project’. That cease and desist notice didn’t list any specific recordings but referenced artists including Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday. It further characterized IA as a platform that enables piracy on a massive scale, mentioning “thousands” of recordings.

“Your unauthorized reproduction, distribution and public performance of these recordings is a plain violation of the RIAA member companies’ rights under the Classics Protection and Access Act (‘Classics Act’), 17 U.S.C. § 1401, and constitutes nothing less than piracy on a massive scale,” RIAA’s letter reads.

According to the Archive, this clearly suggests that the labels, who are members of the RIAA, were aware of the issue more than three years before they filed their complaint. For this reason, it asked the court to dismiss the case.

Court Denies IA’s Motion

After reviewing IA’s arguments and the response from the record labels, U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney denied the motion to dismiss. According to the Judge, it is not clear that the statute of limitations expired for all works.

The fact that the RIAA’s letter didn’t mention any specific infringements plays a crucial role here. While the music companies were clearly aware of the ‘Great 78 Project’, the letter doesn’t show that they were aware of all specific infringing copies at the time.

“[T]he letter on which defendants here rely does not identify any specific sound recording, let alone any of the Sound Recordings at Issue,” Judge Chesney writes.

“Although, at a later stage of the proceedings, Internet Archive Defendants may be able to use the letter to show one or more of the alleged acts of infringement described in the [amended complaint] occurred outside the limitations period, such showing has not been made at the pleading stage.”

Foundation’s Motion to Dismiss Fails Too

In addition to the main IA defendants, the Kahle-Austin Foundation also filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint (AC). The foundation is a donor to the Internet Archive and argued that the record labels failed to show that it knew of the alleged infringements, let alone that it contributed to them.

After reviewing the arguments from both sides, the court concludes that the Foundation’s motion to dismiss should be denied as well. The fact that the Foundation’s President, Brewster Kahle, also appears to be a driving force behind the Internet Archive’s ‘Great 78 Project’ plays a key role here.

“[T]he AC alleges ‘Kahle established the Foundation as his and his wife’s preferred vehicle for funding his favored projects, including Internet Archive’, and that Kahle ‘create[d]’ Internet Archive’s Great 78 Project, which Kahle described in an article he wrote as ‘[a]ll good” and “[a]ll fun’.

“In other words, the AC alleges that the purposes of the Foundation and the purposes of Kahle, the Foundation’s President, are one and the same,” Judge Chesney adds.

Kahle’s central position is a reason not to dismiss the complaint against the Foundation at this point, as it suggests that the foundation was likely aware of the allegedly infringing activity, and many have contributed to it, according to the letter of the law.

Based on these and other arguments, the court finds that it’s premature to dismiss any of the claims against the parties involved at this point. Of course, the case still has to be argued on its merits, and this ruling says nothing about other defenses, including the fair use arguments.

—

A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Maxine Chesney’s order on the motions to dismiss is available here (pdf)

Source

The Piracy Shield blocking controversy on the boil since February has shown that overblocking in Italy either doesn’t exist, is someone else’s fault, or was too brief to be considered important.

To that background, news this week that Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM has nullified one of its own piracy blocking orders is somewhat unexpected. The finer details reveal that the background to the original blocking order gives cause for concern for entirely different reasons than those that caused the retraction.

Tech Site Unblocked After Appeal to Regional Court

Giardiniblog.it describes itself as a tech information site. It’s been online for over 18 years and with around one million visits per month, most of them from inside Italy, it can consider itself a success.

This week, in a celebratory blog post, the site’s editorial staff “expressed great satisfaction” after a legal appeal filed at a regional court prompted AGCOM to cancel a site-blocking order that rendered Giardiniblog mostly inaccessible for over a month.

SimilarWeb data shows the drastic effect blocking had on the site’s traffic; built up over almost two decades but then over a third of visits wiped out in a matter of weeks.

Hoping to establish why a tech site had been treated no differently than the most egregious piracy portals, we pulled and translated every document AGCOM makes available to the public as part of the site-blocking process. Those records reveal a significantly lowered threshold for site-blocking measures than previously understood.

The Retraction Order

The relevant AGCOM ‘order of annulment’ is dated May 10, 2024, and, like most documents published by the regulator, it begins with a list of relevant laws dating back to 1941 before getting to the crux a page and a half later.

At that point it cites other documents, including a blocking application filed by the Federation for the Protection of Audiovisual and Multimedia Content (FAPAV), an anti-piracy group representing the members below.

The blocking application was filed on behalf of Vision Distribution S.p.A, the holder of “exploitation rights on a significant amount of audiovisual works.”

The claims against Giardiniblog, which would soon lead to its blocking throughout Italy, read as follows (translated from Italian);

The pages indicated in the petition advertise several streaming sites with content not authorized by the rights holders. Some of these sites have been repeatedly reported by FAPAV to AGCOM and blocked by the Authority. The same web pages often include directions on how to change DNS or use VPNs to obviate the blocking of some sites by Internet providers.

 

Most of the pages mentioned in the petition have already been reported to AGCOM in petition DDA/5427. Following the initiation of the relevant proceeding, we noted that the hyperlinks to the offending sites on the pages have been deactivated, but the indication of the updated domain of the various unauthorized streaming sites remains.

From the above, it seems fairly clear that Giardiniblog did not host any infringing content or link to any infringing content owned by the rightsholder in question. Instead, it appears to have provided links (which were removed before the blocking order was issued) to domain names that acted as alternative access points to sites whose domains had been blocked previously by AGCOM.

Pages Now Removed, Wayback Machine Still Intact

From the above, it seems reasonable to conclude that Giardiniblog linked to domain names that were not yet subject to blocking orders in Italy; if they had already been blocked, there would be no point in mentioning them. The site also appears to have provided information on how to change DNS settings or use VPNs to circumvent blocking.

A copy of a typical page is available on the Wayback Machine but, since they’re all quite long, the introduction to a page published in February can be found below.

In a notice published by AGCOM indicating the start of preliminary proceedings against Giardiniblog, the regulator notes the following:

“From the checks conducted, it appears that the petitioned site https://giardiniblog.it, advertises several streaming sites containing digital works that the petitioner claims are owned by its members and therefore disseminated in violation of the law.”

AGCOM further notes that the site offers instructions on how to “circumvent the DNS blocking access inhibition orders” previously issued in Italy.

“These elements lead management to believe that the facts themselves constitute a serious and massive violation,” the notice adds.

Foreign-Registered Domain and Servers

An investigation found that giardiniblog.it’s domain name is registered to OVH Groupe in France, while its servers are located at OVH in Saarbrucken, Germany. According to AGCOM, these elements and the “seriousness of the violation and its massive nature” meant that the Giardiniblog blocking application qualified for rapid processing.

The final blocking order (pdf), dated March 19, 2024, appears to be dynamic, meaning that any and all replacement domains deployed by Giardiniblog also faced blocking; in short, the end of an 18-year-old project.

As mentioned earlier, following an appeal to the Lazio regional court, this week AGCOM annulled its own order, a result for Giardiniblog but not necessarily as positive as it may sound. Anyone thinking that the withdrawal had anything to do with overreach in respect of the site not linking to copyright works, or simply providing unblocking instructions or listing domain names for informational purposes, are likely to be disappointed.

Canceled “Due to a Mere Clerical Error”

Before a site can be blocked under this process in Italy, hosting providers have to be notified. In this case, it appears that the petition was sent to OVH Groupe as the registrar of the domain and the assumed provider of hosting services.

However, due to a “mere clerical error” the notification was not sent to the company Starks srls, the “likely owner of the site subject of the proceeding http://giardiniblog.it and already addressee of two proceedings No. 1382/DDA/GDS and 1993/DDA/GDS concerning the same site.”

The documentation for the first proceeding (pdf) reveals a similar complaint. Filed by FAPAV on behalf of Wonder S.r.l, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Vision Distribution S.p.A, and Rai Cinema S.p.A, it contains similar allegations, i.e. linking to or “advertising” the existence of pirate sites while detailing how to circumvent blockades.

Site-Blocking is Only Ever a Tiny Step Away From Even More Blocking

While there is room for debate on all novel applications of copyright law, we’re unaware of any cases in the EU where a rightsholder has successfully argued a case for damages because someone generically linked to the main page of a website.

Mirror sites are summarily blocked in many countries but an exact copy of a website, likely to facilitate access to over 90% infringing material, seems a far cry from the information made available by Giardiniblog.

We’re also unaware of any copyright infringement cases built on an assertion that providing site-blocking circumvention advice amounts to a violation of a specific rightsholders’ rights.

That’s not to say that no cases exist, but we’re certainly unaware of any being mentioned when highly-targeted site-blocking measures, that will only ever be used against obviously-infringing pirate sites, have been presented to governments as a solution to piracy.

AGCOM’s order instructing Italian ISPs to unblock Giardiniblog can be found here (pdf)

Source

As reported yesterday, the Australian government has just released the 2023 edition of its Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement.

The survey found that 41% of respondents consumed at least one item of pirated content (TV, movies, music, games, or live sports) from an illegal source in 2023, up from the 39% reported in the previous year.

When compared to how many citizens resorted to pirate sources in 2015, the figures for 2023 show improvement almost right across the board. That’s to be expected when considering how desperate many Australians were for new content until Netflix finally launched in March 2015.

Australians’ Use of VPNs

Such were the content-related frustrations before Netflix’s official launch, many citizens had already become familiar with VPNs and custom DNS settings because that allowed them to subscribe to the platform in other regions.

Today, those same tools work in exactly the same way and according to the government’s latest survey, almost a quarter (23%) of VPN users say that accessing geo-blocked content is the main motivator. One-in-ten users said their VPN use is motivated by the ability to “access content for a reasonable price” which sounds like a similar geo-blocking problem finding a solution.

Yet, the main reasons cited by around half of the VPN-user respondents was to “secure my communications and internet browsing details” (52%) and “for the privacy of my communications and internet browsing details” (45%).

Around a third (32%) said their main reason for using a VPN was due to working remotely, another entirely legitimate use completing the three main reasons cited by the respondents.

Given the unblocking capabilities of VPNs, including the circumvention of ISP pirate site blocking injunctions handed down by the Federal Court, the 21% who use VPNs to “access free content” seems quite low. As a reminder, this represents 21% of VPN users, not 21% of respondents or internet users as a whole.

That being said, awareness of VPNs is on the rise. In last year’s survey, 63% of all respondents said they were aware of what VPNs are, a figure up just 1% on the previous year but up 13% when compared to 2020.

In total, 26% of respondents said they had used a VPN, an increase of 1% and 3% over the figures reported in 2022 and 2020 respectively. That suggests knowledge of VPNs is growing at a faster rate than those who are also prepared to give them a try.

Australians’ Use of Custom DNS

Changing DNS settings in a device such as a PC or smartphone, or preferably within a router/modem, is not just relatively straightforward. In many cases changing to a DNS provider other than those pre-configured in devices supplied by an ISP is an easy way to improve privacy, reduce exposure to malware, boost internet performance, and mitigate site-blocking measures.

Mainstream familiarity with custom DNS settings in Australia was given a huge boost when people realized they could access Netflix and similar services when none were available locally.Yet when compared to VPNs, knowledge of custom DNS settings is much more limited.

According to the latest government survey, knowledge of VPNs in 2023 reached 63% of respondents compared to just 25% for custom DNS. Knowledge of custom DNS providers isn’t growing much either; today’s 25% rate is up just 2% from 2022 and 2021, where the rate was static year-on-year.

The top reason cited by users for using custom DNS in 2023 was taking more control of what content is accessed via their own connections.

In common with VPNs, “to access content for a reasonable price” and “to access content from other countries” both appear to be geo-blocking or similar geo-restrictions finding a solution. “To access free content (e.g. music, films, TV series, e-books, etc.)” is a direct reference to evading site-blocking measures.

What Aussies Do When Faced With Site-Blocking Measures

Since site-blocking in Australia mainly takes place within DNS servers provided by ISPs, if users don’t use those DNS servers, they can’t be redirected to a blocking notice. This means that those who use VPNs or custom DNS settings never see a ‘site-blocked’ notice and may have even forgotten that 2,000 pirate site domains should be off-limits.

But for those with vanilla setups who find themselves confronted with site-blocking measures, what do they do in response?

According to the latest survey, most people who encounter a blocked site – almost six-in-ten (58%) – simply give up trying to access whatever it was they hoped to obtain. It’s a figure largely unchanged from that reported in 2021.

While fifteen in every hundred users sought alternative lawful access, when faced with a blocked site, ten in every hundred sought out ways to bypass the blocking measures to gain access to the site. Just 8% went on to try alternative means to gain the content without paying for it, with 3% choosing to pay for the content, albeit via an illegal provider.

Overall, 20% of respondents said they had encountered a blocked website in the three months before the survey, that’s up 3% on the figure reported the previous year and 8% up on 2020.

One Last Thing

Finally, some data that isn’t part of the survey but i) may provide insight into the efficacy of Australia’s site-blocking measures and ii) how any shortcomings would be much less of an issue if content was made available in a timely fashion.

On March 8, 2024, Kung Fu Panda 4 was released in the United States. Yet for reasons that still make little sense, the Australian release date wasn’t until March 28, almost three weeks later.

The image below represents just a sample of the 6,486 Australian IP addresses observed by us (as part of separate monitoring) over a 48-hour period in the days just after release in the United States. Site-blocking may be one solution to piracy but more obvious solutions that might actually work are still being overlooked.

Source

In recent years, music and movie companies have filed several lawsuits against U.S. Internet providers, for failing to take action against pirating subscribers.

One of the main allegations is that ISPs fail to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in ‘appropriate circumstances’, as the DMCA requires.

These lawsuits have resulted in multi-million dollar judgments against Cox and Grande. Meanwhile, more companies are at risk too, including Frontier Communications, which emerged from bankruptcy three years ago.

Frontier vs. Movie and Music Companies

Frontier is fighting not one, but two legal battles. After the company was sued by several prominent record labels including UMG, Sony Music and Warner Music, a group of independent film companies filed a similar lawsuit.

Both cases have progressed slowly and, after the court denied Frontier’s motions to dismiss, the parties are still conducting discovery.

Among other things, the Internet providers shared hundreds of thousands of emails and DMCA notices with plaintiffs, as well as a large database relating to Frontier customers who have received these notices.

The music and movie companies requested this information in part to back up their claims that the ISP’s customers directly infringed their works. However, the shared information wasn’t sufficient. As it turns out, Frontier redacted the personal details of subscribers, making it impossible to link customers to infringement notices.

The movie companies previously challenged this decision and while Frontier shared some details, the issue remained. This was purportedly one of the reasons why the movie companies sought other means to gather evidence for this case, including their failed attempt to identify Reddit users who referenced the ISP’s piracy policies online.

In the Reddit case, the court stressed that the rightsholders had a more straightforward way to get this evidence, by reaching out to Frontier subscribers. However, that would require the ISP has to share the personal information of its subscribers.

At a hearing late last month, the record labels and movie companies requested Frontier to unredact the personal information in their disclosures. Frontier was reluctant to do so, citing federal and state privacy laws, but a court order could change that.

Frontier Must Disclose Customer Identities

Following the hearing, the court concluded that rightsholders have a valid interest in unmasking the Frontier subscribers. As such, it ordered the ISP to disclose the personal details of the allegedly infringing subscribers.

The court makes it clear, however, that no party is allowed to harass the subscribers in question. In addition, it also clarified that the personal information can only be used for the pending lawsuits, nothing else.

In addition to the MariaDB database with DMCA notice information, personal details must also be unredacted in other documents, including support emails.

“Frontier shall, within 3 days of the Effective Date and consistent with the confidentiality designation below, re-produce without redacting PII the following previously produced Documents:”

“(i) all communications between Frontier and its account holders related to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) notices; (ii) all internal Frontier Documents; and (iii) the MariaDB database. “

Restrictions and Safeguards

The unredacted information should help the movie and music companies to link the pirating IP-addresses to subscribers, which is required to establish the direct infringement claim to hold Frontier liable.

While the plaintiffs get access to the personal information, the court has set up some restrictions to guarantee the privacy of subscribers, as far as that’s possible. For example, the data is classified as “highly confidential” and should be destroyed 30 days after the proceedings conclude.

As mentioned earlier, rightsholders are not allowed to “harass” the customers either. In addition, the plaintiffs are only allowed to contact up to 50 Frontier subscribers each. If they have to contact more, a follow-up court order is required.

This week’s order doesn’t apply to the information that Frontier previously shared with the movie companies. It doesn’t immediately affect the filmmakers’ renewed attempt to uncover the identities of Redditors, although that seems less vital now.

—

A copy of the stipulation and order, issued by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, is available here (pdf)

Source

The Australian government has released the 2023 edition of its Consumer Survey on Online Copyright Infringement.

Commissioned by the Attorney-General’s Department, the research aims to better understand internet users’ consumption habits, across five key content types – Television, Movies/Film, Music, Video Games, and Live Sport – and track changes in behavior over time.

The 2023 survey was conducted online from June 27 to July 15 last year, and sought responses from Australian internet users (aged 12+) regarding their online content consumption habits over the previous three months (April to June 2023).

Note: The term ‘Infringers’ refers to respondents who reported consuming any content in a way that was likely to be unlawful. The term ‘non-infringers’ refers to those who reported using methods likely to be lawful. Vertical dotted lines on charts indicate changes in methodology.

Overall Online Consumption 2023

Survey data for overall online content consumption in Australia means respondents’ consumption in total, regardless of whether the sources used were legal or illegal. In 2023, 78% of respondents said they consumed content online, up 6% from the 72% reported in 2022.

Consumption of television content online reached 65% last year, an increase over the 60% reported for 2022. Consumption of movies showed a significant increase in 2023, 64% versus 57% reported for 2022.

Music was also consumed by more Australians in 2023. A total of 54% said they listened via online sources, up from 48% and 45% in 2022 and 2021 respectively. Significant uplifts were also seen in the video gaming arena, with four-in-ten Aussies (40%) consuming online in 2023, versus 37% and 26% in 2022 and 2021 respectively.

Online consumption of live sports events also saw an increase in 2023. Again, around four-in-ten Aussies (39%) said they’d watched live sports on the internet, up from 34% in 2022 and 26% in 2021.

Consumption From Exclusively Lawful Sources

Of all respondents who said they had consumed content online in 2023, 59% reported doing so from exclusively lawful sources. That’s slightly down on the 61% reported in 2022. Across individual content categories, fortunes were varied.

Lawful consumption of music increased to 76% in 2023, up from 74% in 2022. For movies and film, the 72% reported for 2023 represents a slight downturn on the 74% reported in 2022.

Levels for other content types either remained static or displayed a marginal decrease on the previous year: TV (77% in 2023, 78% in 2022), video games (74% in 2023, 74% in 2022), and live sports (75% in 2023, 74% in 2022).

Top Methods of Consumption (Legal / Illegal)

The top three lawful methods of consuming content online in 2023, plus any change from 2022, are reported as follows:

1. Streaming via a paid for subscription service – 75% (no change)
2. Live free-to-air or catch-up TV services – 54% (no change)
3. A free version or a free tier of a video/music streaming service – 44% (+3%)

The top three unlawful methods of consuming content are reported as follows:

1. Subscription services through a shared /unknown account – 15% (-1%)
2. Using a link to download/stream made available by someone else – 11% (no change)
3. Ripping from YouTube/other sites using apps or an online service – 11% (+2%)

Infringer Profile

The 2023 survey found that 41% of respondents had consumed at least some content online in the previous three months, in ways that were likely to be unlawful. Up marginally from the 39% reported in 2022, there seems no major reason for panic. That being said, for rightsholders the figure is still headed in the wrong direction.

On average since 2020, six out of ten infringers are still male, although data from 2023 shows that 43% of infringers were female, up 5 points on 2022 and their largest share to date.

In common with studies conducted elsewhere in the world, most infringers can be found in the 25-34 year-old group, with just 9% and 18% in the 12-15 and 55 years+ groups respectively.

“Compared to non-infringers, infringers were more likely to be younger (aged 12-34), and working full-time or studying,” the survey notes.

Of the respondents who said they were in full-time employment, 42% were identified as infringers compared to just 35% of non-infringers. The researchers note that “no meaningful difference in household income was found in 2023.”

Online Music and Movie Consumption

The slides below the show the fortunes of music and movies since 2015. Over the eight-year period, the number of respondents who consume from unlawful sources has noticeably improved.

For music, the 37% reported in 2015 reduced to 24% in 2023, with 76% of all consumers exclusively utilizing lawful sources.

For movies and film, the results are even more impressive: from 49% in 2015 to just 28% last year, albeit with some earlier gains apparently lost during more recent years.

Nevertheless, 72% of consumers relying exclusively on legal sources is not a bad result; the remaining 28% are not exclusive users of pirate sources, they simply used a pirate source once or more in the previous three months.

At this point it’s worth mentioning that 2015 was an important year for movie and TV show fans in Australia.

Having been massively underserved by international entertainment companies, with late movie releases and at times completely ignored with no releases at all, in March 2015 Netflix arrived in Australia. Unofficial reports indicated that 1.4 million Aussies signed up to Netflix in the first few months after launch.

TV, Video Games and Live Sports

Looking at the positives, 77% of TV show consumers accessed content from entirely legal sources in 2023; that’s a better result than those on display for music and movies. Furthermore, from 33% of consumers obtaining at least some content illegally in 2015, the figure is now roughly a third lower, 23% in 2023.

For the final two categories, the positives are more difficult to find. Video game pirates are most prevalent in the 12 to 24 year-old category with a headline rate of 40%. While gamers under 16 are less likely to have the kind of disposable income today’s AAA titles demand, there’s not much to celebrate among those with more resources.

Overall, 54% of those who obtain games from unlawful sources are employed, which might suggest that even when gamers have the money, they aren’t necessarily prepared to spend it on every new release.

The top three unlawful methods of consuming video game content in 2023 are reported as follows:

1. Downloading mod versions of mobile games for free – 9% (No change vs 2022)
2. Paying a small fee for account or subscription sharing – 9% (-2%)
3. Downloading emulator versions of older games – 5% (+1%)

Consumption of live sports is a relative newcomer to Australia’s annual survey. Overall, 39% of respondents consumed live sports online in 2023, with 75% doing so from entirely legal sources and an estimated 25% using sources likely to be illegal.

The chart below is provided for reference purposes but should only be considered informative after 2020. In broad terms, a quarter of Australians streaming some live sports illegally sounds roughly on par with comparable regions elsewhere.

The top three unlawful methods of consuming live sports content in 2023 are reported as follows:

1. Free streaming websites – 7% (No change vs 2022)
2. Free apps/services – 7% (no change)
3. User broadcasts on YouTube or social media platforms – 7% (+1%)

When considered as a whole, the results of the 2023 report offer something for everyone. Progress in the fight against piracy is a conclusion easily drawn from the large pool of information made available. Equally, showing the complete opposite wouldn’t be too difficult either. We will report on issues related to blocking and circumvention in due course.

Source

EDIT: Added images TF had been blocking

Founded in 1990, the Internet Movie Database, commonly known as IMDb, is one of the oldest online repositories.

The service predates the World Wide Web and was initially launched as the Usenet group “rec.arts.movies”. Three years later, it moved to the web in the form of the now widely known IMDb.com.

Ever since, the site has served multiple generations of video fans. Today, it is owned by Amazon and despite the many alternatives that currently exist, millions of people continue to use it regularly.

IMDB’s Piracy Problem

As an information resource, IMDb is broadly used by film and TV fans of all ilks. The site often ranks among the top search results for film titles which ensures a steady stream of users. However, this good track record on search engines also attracts shady figures.

We recently noticed that rightsholders had targeted several IMDb links with takedown notices and initially assumed that these were sent in error. After all, we have seen movie companies targeting their own works on IMDb before.

In this case, however, the takedown notices made more sense. It appears that scammers and spammers are abusing IMDb to promote what appears to be pirated content. The example below shows a user-curated IMDb list that advertises a pirated copy of Dune 2.

“Still Now Here Option’s to Downloading or watching ‘Dune’ Part 2 streaming the Full Movie online for free on 124movies, Reddit, Amazon Prime, Peacock, HBO Max or Netflix! [sic]” the message starts.

Prospective pirates should be warned; these apparent piracy advertisements typically don’t originate from the marketing departments of regular pirate sites. Instead, they are intentionally placed to lure in naive users.

Most people will immediately recognize the spammy nature of this message, discarding it in the process. However, some may still be inclined to click on the ☛☛ ~CLICK HERE TO WATCH NOW~ link.

People who fall for these scams are in for a huge disappointment. Instead of gaining access to pirated movies, they are redirected to shady sites that often promise ‘free’ content in exchange for the visitor’s credit card details.

IMDb is aware of this type of abuse. The site has removed many listings in the past and continues to do so, but new ones continue to plague the platform. Below is an overview of listings created by IMDb user ‘oqedqs’.

The problem isn’t unique to IMDb. In the past, we have reported that the European Commission suffered similar problems. The same applies to GitHub, Epic Games, Universities, and many others. In fact, the problem isn’t entirely new for IMDb either.

Simple Keyword Filter?

It would be naive to think that these companies can find a bulletproof solution to prevent the posting of these scams. By nature, spammers adapt to countermeasures. That said, there are options to explore.

Most websites maintain lists of ‘forbidden’ keywords that flag posts for closer inspection. These typically include excessive swearing, offensive terminology, or terms related to illegal activity.

A quick glance at the lists we published above, should provide some filter options. This could include “FullMovie”, “123movies”, as well as “CLICK HERE TO WATCH NOW”. But that’s just an idea.

Source

It’s a powerful, widely-used tool that takes millions of URLs and links offline every day. This often happens for a good reason, but some takedown efforts are questionable or even outright abusive.

Google Sues DMCA Scammers

Google is no stranger to DMCA abuse. The company has processed more than 8 billion takedown requests over the years and while most notices are legitimate, scammers regularly try to game the process to gain an advantage.

Last November, the search giant had seen enough. In a lawsuit, filed at a federal court in California, Google accused Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien of sending over 100,000 fraudulent takedown requests. Many of these notices were allegedly filed against third-party T-shirt shops.

The scammers used fabricated names but also impersonated celebrities for their takedown effort, including Elon Musk. It would be no surprise if this includes Elon Musk’s unusual t-shirt takedown action that was uncovered about a year ago. At the time, we already hinted at foul play.

“We seriously doubt that these DMCA notices were sent or authorized by Musk. It’s more likely that someone else is pretending to be the tech billionaire, to further their cause. For example, an imposter may be a player in the highly competitive Musk-meme t-shirt-selling business.”

A few months later, Google’s complaint against the two defendants also mentioned Musk, among other celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Kanye West, alleging a DMCA abuse racket with a competitive purpose.

“Defendants appear to be connected with websites selling printed t-shirts, and their unlawful conduct aims to remove competing third-party sellers from Google Search results. Defendants have maliciously and illegally exploited Google’s policies and procedures under the DMCA to sabotage and harm their competitors,” Google wrote.

Default Judgment

Following the complaint, Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien remained quiet. The defendants, who are believed to reside in Vietnam, were summoned via their Gmail accounts and SMS, but the pair didn’t respond in court.

Without the defendants representing themselves, Google now requests a default judgment. According to the tech giant, it’s clear that the duo violated the DMCA with their false takedown notices. In addition, they committed contract breach under California law.

“Here, Google has sufficiently alleged that Defendants submitted fraudulent DMCA Takedown Requests, unlawfully seeking removal of more than 117,000 third-party website URLs and corresponding product listings from Google Search results.

“Defendants have weaponized Google’s DMCA notice-and-takedown systems and procedures and used them not for their intended purpose of expeditiously removing allegedly infringing content, but instead to have their competitors’ legitimate content removed based on false allegations,” Google adds. `

This alleged behavior wasn’t well hidden either, as defendants allegedly promoted their abuse scheme on YouTube in a video blatantly titled: “2022 SEO 3 minutes to take top 1 google by Fake DMCA complaints”.

A default judgment is warranted, according to the search engine, as the company has no other legal means to stop the abusive activity.

“If this Court does not grant default judgment, Google will suffer prejudice because it will be without legal recourse to stop Defendants’ fraud and misrepresentation. Defendants’ conduct will continue to harm consumers and third-party businesses, stifle competition, and risk damaging Google’s brand.”

No Monetary Damages

Google’s proposed judgment holds Nguyen Van Duc and Pham Van Thien liable for DMCA violations and contract breaches. In addition, it also includes an injunction that prevents the defendant from submitting similar fraudulent notices in the future.

Interestingly, Google demands no monetary damages at this point. The company is not looking for financial compensation or punishment but mainly wants the abuse to stop. This should weigh in favor of granting the default judgment, the company argues.

Sprecifically, Google requests an injunction that prevents the defendants from “submitting any notifications of copyright infringement or takedown requests to Google based on false assertions of rights of copyright ownership”.

Proposed default judgment

The injunction would also ban the defendants from creating any new Google accounts and from using Google services to promote their websites or products going forward.

In theory, Google could have requested monetary damages. This wouldn’t be unprecedented, as WordPress was previously awarded $25,000 in damages in its case against a DMCA takedown abuser. However, for now, Google believes that a liability ruling and an injunction are sufficient.

—

A copy of Google’s request for a default judgment, filed as a California federal court, is available here (pdf). A copy of the proposed order can be found here (pdf).

Source

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 four newcomers on the list. “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on May 13 are:

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

Source

(Just a reminder that TorrentFreak physically stops the loading of their images outside their own articles. Apparently TF, the champions of file sharing, aren't that keen on sharing their own images.)

During a telephone call with Kim Dotcom, following the unprecedented raids that dismantled his Megaupload file-hosting empire in 2012, the tech entrepreneur insisted that this was no ordinary case.

It wasn’t just a massively scaled-up version of piracy raids we’d reported on dozens of times before either.

This prosecution had high-level politics not just at its core, but running so pervasively throughout that every twisted fiber had become inseparable from the corrupt corridors of power, Dotcom said. From the political goals of Joe Biden and the Democrats, to the importance of Hollywood support in a post-SOPA reality, much was at stake.

Dotcom Fights Back, Embraces Politics

Over twelve years later, the politics of the ‘Megaupload conspiracy’ are very much alive and for that, Dotcom shoulders much of the credit. The actions of U.S. and New Zealand authorities may have determined that path initially but, since then, Dotcom has done everything his power to ensure that his legal defense remains a persistent, controversial, politically-sensitive irritant.

Dotcom’s former Megaupload colleagues, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, fought back for a decade. But while Dotcom dug a policy trench of combative non-negotiation, his former friends were always less abrasive. Last year they did what Dotcom vowed never to do; they seized the opportunity to compromise, take the punishment, but crucially put over ten years of anxiety and uncertainty behind them.

Dotcom notes that the pair were originally charged with crimes potentially worth 186 years in federal prison should they have been extradited to the U.S.. Instead, an agreement saw them plead guilty to different offenses under New Zealand law and last year they were sentenced to 30 and 31 months in prison.

“10 Months in a Wellness Retreat”

Little has been heard of Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk since they were sentenced around 11 months ago. In an update to his social media followers, Dotcom recently claimed the men are already free.

“I hear that my co-defendants in the Megaupload case have recently been released after 10 months in what US prisoners would consider a New Zealand Wellness Retreat. They were originally charged with 186 years by the US DOJ for the so called ‘Mega conspiracy’ and got off with a 99.5% discount in exchange for false confessions. Obviously they just wanted to move on with their lives after 10 years on bail,” Dotcom wrote.

“No doubt the US DOJ and NZ Police will have milked my former friends and partners for every bit of criminal fantasy that they could extract. Before the National Govt and their Justice Minister decide to extradite me they will need some new bad optics: Kim Dotcom bad man. The US DOJ is currently working on delivering that to the National Govt of New Zealand and I’m sure we will learn about fantastic new tales before the Minister makes his extradition decision.”

To The Bitter, Political End

That Dotcom says he intends to fight, for as long as it takes, and he’s “looking forward to it,” will have been anticipated. However, the extradition decision will be issued by the government, not by a court, leaving room for more political complications should Dotcom face extradition to the United States.

Dotcom says that on the legal front, an adverse decision will lead to a judicial review and up to five years fighting in court where the New Zealand government will have to explain the “maliciousness and unlawfulness” in his case.

“These are real proceedings with discovery. We intend to get deep into the machinations of what really happened and we are well prepared. No doubt the Attorney General will try to get this in front of selected Judges like they did before. There’s a trail of promotions and titles for those who ruled against us in the past. But it will only add more stains to the New Zealand judiciary if reasonable requests for discovery are declined and approval for unreasonable redactions and secrecy is granted,” Dotcom adds.

“One thing is sure. We will fight to the very end,” he continues. “If I am eventually extradited to the United States it will happen at a great cost to New Zealand. Something I’m sure the perpetrators who have subverted New Zealand law for the US Govt will care little about.”

Case in the United States “Forever Tainted”

Dotcom’s political framing of the case against him hasn’t changed in the past 12 years. He describes a Joe Biden-sanctioned plot executed by copyright lobbyist Neil McBride, who Biden promoted to the role of US DOJ prosecutor for the purpose of destroying Megaupload on behalf of Hollywood. However, a more recent complication in the case seems to be viewed as more useful.

In 2022, District Court Judge Liam O’Grady was replaced in the civil cases pending against Dotcom in the United States. Shortly after the same judge recused himself from the criminal case too.

Describing the judge as “handpicked by the DOJ” to order the “destruction of Megaupload ex parte (without a hearing),” it transpired that he was previously a lawyer for Disney and while presiding over the Megaupload case, an active Disney shareholder.

Dotcom claims that this finding, which he believes taints the whole case, will have had an impact on the yet-to-be-handed-down decision of the New Zealand Minister of Justice to extradite him or not.

Sudden Movement in U.S. Criminal Case

With Dotcom clearly concerned over what information may have been given to the authorities by his former colleagues in New Zealand, a recent unexpected development in the U.S. criminal case seems to be adding to the pressure.

Dotcom says that after eight years of inactivity, the Department of Justice recently filed new ex parte motions under seal, asking the U.S. court to issue orders in secret, without his legal team being able to respond. The docket shows that is indeed the case.

“The new National Govt in New Zealand is proudly mean spirited and aggressively sucking up to the US Govt and has likely coordinated with the US DOJ to get new US Court orders that enable them to attack me, again,” Dotcom says.

“It’s not coming as a surprise. This is what I told you would happen after National won the election in New Zealand recently. The new Attorney General, Judith Collins, is as ‘dirty politics’ as they get and many years ago she declared openly in Parliament “I hope that Kim Dotcom will soon be extradited.”

The fact that she’s now in a position of power over my case couldn’t be a bigger conflict of interest after that statement. But that’s where we are.”

Dotcom Expects Another Raid, Bail Revocation

At this stage Dotcom appears to have no clear evidence on what’s coming next, but he has a few predictions.

“[W]hatever this new action by the US DOJ is it will be malicious, dirty and without substance. I have done nothing wrong,” he says.

“They want to silence me and take my freedom away. I’m expecting another raid, seizure of my devices and arrest with the goal to get my bail revoked and to stop me from being so successfully loud about the corruption that has ruined the United States and turned New Zealand into a nation that is subverting its on laws to please their US masters.

“It won’t be long until they take action. The US Judge will give the DOJ what they are asking for and the New Zealand Govt is ready to act for the evildoers who want to destroy me,” Dotcom concludes.

One of Dotcom’s “Closest Friends” Faces Extradition to the U.S.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Bitcoin investor Roger Ver, charging him with tax evasion causing an alleged loss to the IRS “of at least $48 million.” Following his arrest in Spain, the United States is working to extradite Ver to stand trial.

Following its collapse in 2023, Kim Dotcom’s BitCache venture is now in liquidation. Originally marketed as Megaupload 2.0, Ver was the second-largest shareholder in BitCache. While there’s nothing in the indictment to suggest any wrongdoing at BitCache, Dotcom describes Ver’s prosecution as similar to his own.

“This is a malicious attempt to vilify Roger and to punish him for exposing and opposing the crimes of US empire. Roger Ver is one of my closest friends and I vouch for his integrity and exemplary leadership,” Dotcom concludes.

Source

Following a rightsholder complaint about copyright infringement taking place on Telegram, a judge in Spain issued a controversial order for ISPs to block Telegram in its entirety, across the whole country.

As soon as the order was made public, nationwide and then international uproar led to the judge reconsidering whether the order really was a “necessary” and “proportional” response. After concluding that preventing around eight million Spaniards from accessing Telegram was probably a bit much after all, the decision was suspended.

While this is clearly a stand-out example, there’s something about the way Telegram conducts business, at times interpreted as a complete lack of interest, that frustrates courts, rightsholders, even some governments. Russia famously ordered the blocking of Telegram in 2018 but ended up blocking 1.8 million Google and Amazon IP addresses instead.

Telegram appeared unflustered throughout and emerged completely unscathed.

Frustrations at the Ministry of Communications

In its role as a harm prevention agency in Malaysia, the government’s Ministry of Communications (MCMC) regularly calls out user-generated content platforms and social media sites when it believes they need to do more to reign in bad behavior. Telegram in particular has received mounting criticism.

In 2020, MCMC said it was working closely with the Royal Malaysian Police and had even involved Interpol to tackle obscene images of citizens made available on Telegram. Then came alleged failures to tackle what the government described as a wave of fake news.

Last March, Minister Fahmi Fadzil, head of the Ministry for Communications and Digital (KKD), said his department would contact Telegram to discuss the problem of scammers undermining Malaysian citizens’ security. He said that although he appreciated that Telegram provided a useful service, utilized by Malaysia’s National Security Council, among others, something had to be done to clean up the platform.

“Telegram is indeed seen as a bit problematic, all kinds of information is entered there and there are also many scammer activities but at the same time, we know that it is a channel to convey information to the public,” he said.

“So the matter needs to be looked into and we will call Telegram to discuss helping the authorities to take appropriate action.”

Patience Running Out

Among the scam victims was a former Malaysian prime minister, so when Telegram failed to respond to an invitation to discuss solutions to the issues, which began at piracy and got worse from there, patience began to wear thin.

“Compared to other platforms, we do not see the seriousness of Telegram to cooperate. “I have asked the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to examine what appropriate actions need to be taken,” Fadzil said.

What followed was a meeting between the minister and Telegram founder Pavel Durov in Dubai. Durov said he’d like Telegram to expand its Malaysia operations and the minister invited him to continue discussions in Malaysia.

In May 2023, progress appeared to be going in the wrong direction. Telegram was reportedly refusing to cooperate with the Ministry of Communications and Digital on the basis it did not wish to participate in any form of politically-related censorship.

Malaysia Warns of Action Against Telegram

In a statement issued in early June, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said it was still considering limited action against Telegram after the platform failed to cooperate.

“So if it is decided that cooperation from Telegram’s side is not very positive, then we will ensure that any action to be taken will not affect users too much,” the statement added.

Within days, communications with Telegram improved and since then, commentary from the government has been much more positive. This week Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil offered assurances that Telegram is now prepared to work with the government to curtail piracy on the platform.

Rampant Piracy Will Be Tackled

After a local director found his latest movie being made available on Telegram for free recently, once again piracy was pushed to the forefront of the Telegram controversy. However, this week Minister Fadzil said that Telegram is now ready to tackle the problem after several meetings in April.

“We see [piracy] happening on several platforms, especially Telegram. We received complaints, including from [local broadcaster] Astro, about pirated films that are distributed on the platform,” he told reporters.

“This requires the cooperation of the distributors, and copyright owners, as well as supervisory bodies like the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and I hope we can ensure other platforms will also fight digital piracy.

“Maybe people don’t quite understand the law in Malaysia, so the MCMC has held several discussions (with those involved) about the copyright issue. Hopefully this problem can be handled better soon,” he said.

With no obviously public comment from Telegram on the matter, it’s hard to say how the social platform views its end of what appears to be an informal agreement.

Telegram will be acutely aware, however, that whatever it gives, others will demand too. That may ultimately limit Telegram’s response, whatever it may be, whenever it arrives – if it even arrives at all.

Source

The fourth installment of Marvel’s Captain America film series is scheduled to be released February next year.

Captain America: Brave New World is directed by Julius Onah and will star Anthony Mackie in the role of Samuel Wilson, better known to the broader public as “Captain America”.

In the lead-up to the film’s premiere, there’s been no shortage of rumors and leaks. This is a testament to Marvel’s passionate fanbase and nothing new for the movie production company and its parent Disney.

Captain America Leaks

Most of these ‘leaks’ don’t elicit a response. For example, when there were rumors that “Captain America: New World Order” would be renamed, there was no immediate reaction. This information was shared with the world by the popular scooper ‘CanWeGetSomeToast’ and turned out to be accurate, however, as evidenced by the title change a month later.

These advance notices must be frustrating for the filmmakers. While leaks are often unavoidable, it’s particularly concerning when a public social media account manages to front run official channels, especially if leaked footage is involved as well.

When ‘CanWeGetSomeToast’ posted an Instagram story with apparently leaked footage from the upcoming Captain America film, Marvel had seen enough. The ‘leak’ was discovered by a senior Disney paralegal and after internal discussions, Marvel’s intellectual property holding, MVL Film Finance, went to court in California.

Marvel vs. CanWeGetSomeToast

Through a DMCA subpoena, the movie company aims to find out who’s behind the scoop account. Specifically, Marvel wants Instagram to unmask the person or persons connected to the ‘CanWeGetSomeToast’ account.

While Instagram stories typically disappear after 24 hours, Marvel would like to know who is behind the alleged leak. According to a declaration from VP Global Security and Content Protection, Matthew Slatoff, the Captain America footage was posted without authorization.

According to a DMCA notice sent to Instagram in late April, the contested story included a “leaked, pre-release image” of the Captain America film that “has not been approved for distribution to the public”.

The film company wants Instagram to share all information that could help to identify the account holder. That includes names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and payment account information.

At the time of writing, a court clerk has yet to sign off on the DMCA subpoena but that’s typically just a formality, unless Instagram decides to object.

More Marvel Leaks

‘CanWeGetSomeToast’ certainly isn’t a newcomer to the ‘leak’ scene and Marvel and Disney must have been aware of the account for a while. Why they’ve decided to take action now is unknown, but it suggests that the latest leak is particularly concerning.

This isn’t the first time Marvel has gone to court to unmask alleged leakers. The company previously targeted several Reddit moderators after a script for ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ surfaced on the site. The film company also cracked down on “Spider-Man: No Way Home” leaks in 2022.

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A copy of the declaration of Marvel’s Vice President Global Security and Content Protection, Matthew Slatoff, in support of the subpoena is available here (pdf), along with the subpoena request (pdf)

Source

In 1983, Sherman Nealy and Tony Butler founded Music Specialist Inc, an independent label that recorded just one album and a few tracks.

The venture didn’t score any hits and it eventually dissolved after a few years. Nealy’s personal life was no major success either, as he spent time in prison from 1989 to 2008, and again from 2012 to 2015.

While Nealy was doing time, his former partner licensed the Music Specialist catalog to Warner Chappell. This was a big deal, especially after a ‘sample’ was used in Flo Rida’s hit song “In the Ayer”. That release sold millions of copies reaching the Billboard chart’s top ten.

The popular Flo Rida track was subsequently licensed to several TV-shows, while other works from Music Specialist ended up in recordings by the Black Eyed Peas and Kid Sister.

Nealy sues over ‘dated’ copyright infringements

The underlying deal didn’t benefit Nealy, who found out about it after he was released from prison for the second time. In response, he filed a lawsuit against Warner Chappell in 2018, demanding compensation for the alleged copyright infringements, dating back to 2008.

The backstory of this lawsuit is intriguing in itself, but it also sparked a key debate on whether rightsholders can pursue claims that are ‘dated’, as is the case here. Specifically, how long is the period during which rightsholders can recover damages for copyright infringement?

According to U.S. copyright law, there’s a three-year statute of limitations to file complaints. This period starts after a rightsholder ‘discovers’ the infringement. Courts have been split on whether this three-year limitation also applies to the damages that can be claimed, or if ‘damages accrual’ can go further back.

In the Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music lawsuit, the District Court previously ruled that a three-year bar also applies to damages. This means that the 2008 infringements expired a long time ago. However, the Supreme Court took on the case and reached a different conclusion.

Supreme Court Rejects Three-Year Time Limit

Instead of limiting the damages to copyright infringements that took place over the past three years, the Supreme Court finds that Nealy and other plaintiffs have no time limitation on their claims.

In a six-to-three majority decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, the Supreme Court rejects the narrow timeframe set by the lower court.

“The Copyright Act entitles a copyright owner to obtain monetary relief for any timely infringement claim, no matter when the infringement occurred,” the opinions reads.

The opinion stresses that there is no time limit on recovering damages. As long as the lawsuit is filed within three years of discovering an infringement, damages can be claimed no matter when the infringement occurred.

“The Act’s statute of limitations establishes a three year period for filing suit, which begins to run when a claim accrues. That provision establishes no separate three-year limit on recovering damages.”

Samples & Trolls

This Supreme Court ruling is good news for Nealy but not everyone is equally excited. Warner Chappell and other rightsholders can now face scrutiny over samples that were used decades ago.

Outside the music industry, the topic raised concerns as well. A few months ago, the EFF cautioned that an ‘unlimited’ damages timeframe may serve as an open invitation to copyright trolls. For example, those who use reverse image search tools to discover ‘copyright infringing’ images in old blog posts.

“An indefinite statute of limitations would throw gasoline on the copyright troll fire and risk encouraging new trolls to come out from under the figurative bridge,” EFF wrote at the time.

While these concerns may be justified, the Supreme Court concludes that the Copyright Act is crystal clear. As long as a lawsuit is filed in a timely fashion, rightsholders can pursue damages on claims, no matter when they occurred.

—

A copy of the Supreme Court Decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, is available here (pdf).

For the fans of electric funk from the 80s, the “Jam the Box” track that was interpolated into Flo Rida’s “In the Ayer” can be enjoyed on YouTube.

Source

The big debate over the effectiveness of site-blocking measures will form part of the discussion in the United States this year as Hollywood promotes piracy blocking on home turf.

Elsewhere in the world, Europe in particular, proponents of site-blocking claim it’s effective at preventing access to pirate sites, at the same time as traffic to pirate sites continues to rise.

In the UK, where pirates have been soaked in negative messaging and in some cases, banged over the head with piracy horror stories for more than a year, the underlying anti-piracy campaign seems to be producing predictable results.

Millions Flock to Pirate Football Streams

Pirate streaming domains sportshub.fan and sportshub.stream direct users to different parts of the same site; a Reddit-labeled subdomain of sportshub.stream with the title Reddit Soccer Streams, and the main page of sportshub.stream, helpfully labeled Buffstreams or something else, where applicable.

In February, sportshub.fan was receiving around 5.1 million visits per month while sportshub.stream was servicing triple that, 14.9 million according to SimilarWeb data. In March, .fan suddenly rocketed to 12 million visits, with .stream plummeting to ‘just’ 8 million. Which domain would survive?

At the end of April after suddenly plummeting towards oblivion, .fan bottomed out with 4.9 million visits and, at the time of writing, it’s still alive. Sportshub.stream, on the other hand, served 16.6 million visits in April, a 108% boost in traffic over the previous month.

In the UK, where in theory everyone should feel anxious at the mere mention of an illegal stream, traffic in April was up 190% over the previous month.

For perspective, right now Sportshub is the UK’s 1,004th most popular website, period. In the sports category, it’s the 21st most popular site in the country; the illegal forbidden filling sandwiched between the artisan bread slices of Chelsea and UEFA’s official websites.

More Problems: GiveMeRedditStream & FreeStreamsLive

Drawing most of its traffic from an .xyz domain, GiveMeRedditStream is smaller than Sportshub with around 4.3 million visits per month. Compared to March, traffic was up around 24% in April, with visits from the UK enjoying an 18% uplift.

Also in the mix are .me and .cc variants that may not have any direct connections to .xyz, yet somehow manage to appear at the top of search results. That’s unhelpful; at some point the latter may have attempted to offload some malware, at least according to the security alerts currently blocking the way.

Finally, that brings us to FreeStreamsLive, which draws most traffic – around 4.2 million visits per month – to a Malaysian domain. Other domains with less traffic redirect to that .my domain, with the notable exception of freestreams-live1.com, which is currently under the care of United States authorities, most likely on a permanent basis after being seized late 2022.

According to information passed on to us yesterday, rendering all of these sites inaccessible is now a priority for the Premier League.

Premier League Filed Blocking Application May 1st

While we can’t confirm with 100% certainty the application relates to the above, on May 1st the Premier League filed an application for a blocking injunction at the High Court.

The listed defendants were the country’s largest internet service providers; British Telecommunications PLC, EE Limited, Plusnet PLC, Sky UK Limited, TalkTalk Telecom Limited, and Virgin Media Limited. In common with most if not all similar applications in recent years, none of the ISPs contested or even appeared. Since these are no-fault injunctions, the ISPs remain passive and let the Premier League do the work.

Whether this process was different to others preceding it is unclear. If the application does indeed relate to the three platforms detailed above, permission to start blocking sportshub, givemeredditstreams, and freestreamslive, may have been signed off in less than 48 hours.

That seems very quick and if true, will undoubtedly please the Premier League. How the sites’ operators will respond remains to be seen, but there appears to be (un)healthy demand for pirate sports streams in the UK, despite the shenanigans playing out in the media.

It’s been said before, but fans can’t be scared into becoming loyal customers. Equally, the Premier League needs quite a bit more than the £5 per month currently being charged by many pirate suppliers, which in many cases also includes a VPN to circumvent blocking.

Source

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) protects the rights of several of the largest game companies in the world.

With promiment members, including EA, Disney Interactive, Epic Games, Nintendo, Take-Two, Ubisoft, and others, it is a force to be reckoned with.

In addition to sending millions of takedown requests on behalf of its members, ESA also attempts to target pirate sites directly. In some cases, that requires outside support.

Last fall, the association reported an overview of several key threats to the US Trade Representative. Among others, ESA flagged nsw2u.com, Game3rb.com, 1fichier.com, megaup.net, 1337x.to, and solidtorrents.to as “notorious” websites that host or link to pirated games.

TPD-Games

This overview is not exhaustive; there are plenty of other problematic piracy sites and services. In a subpoena request filed at federal court in the District of Columbia, ESA recently targeted tpd-games.org.

Tpd-games.org is predominantly targeted at a Brazilian audience and the site receives roughly 90% of its traffic from this region.

The site is a problem, ESA notes, as it offers pirated copies of popular games. This includes titles such as Assassin’s Creed III, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, God of War, Grand Theft Auto V, Hogwarts Legacy, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption II, and Resident Evil 4.

ESA Subpoenaes Cloudflare

Thus far, ESA hasn’t managed to track down the people behind tpd-games.org, which uses the services of Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare. Hoping to get more information, the game companies asked the federal court to issue a DMCA subpoena requiring Cloudflare to share information on its customer.

“ESA is requesting enforcement of the attached proposed subpoena that would order Cloudflare, Inc. to disclose the identities, including names, physical addresses, IP addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, payment information, account updates and account histories,” ESA writes.

ESA mentions that the information it receives will only be used to protect the rights of its members under Title II of the DMCA. This could include a lawsuit against the operator, for example, if it comes to that.

Subpoena Issued

From the information provided, it is not clear whether ESA sent a takedown notice to Cloudflare in advance, as is required. However, shortly after the application was filed a court clerk signed off on it.

Cloudflare typically complies with proper DMCA subpoenas, which is good news for ESA and its members. Whether the information will be sufficient to identify and locate the operator(s) of the pirate site remains a question.

At the time of writing, tpd-games.org remains online and there is no mention of any looming trouble. The site also continues to use Cloudflare’s services.

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A copy of the ESA’s declaration in support of the DMCA subpoena is available here (pdf) and a copy of the issued subpoena can be found here (pdf)

Source

After almost a decade of fine-tuning, including amendments to copyright law, the administration of Australia’s pirate site-blocking system looks organized and reliable.

Applications for injunctions filed at Federal Court are usually headed by local movie company Village Roadshow, with the main beneficiaries the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, and more recently, Apple.

This familiar format was evident again in a March application which requested ISP blocking measures against around three dozen pirate sites.

The Australian system is thorough but hasn’t always displayed the type of responsiveness needed to tackle a constantly shifting pirate marketplace.

More recently, however, the time between application and blocking injunction has contracted. In this case the time between rightsholders filing a statement of claim/originating application and obtaining an injunction was less than two months.

Justice Halley’s order dated May 8, 2024, was handed down Wednesday.

The order requires around 34 sites to be blocked by DNS tampering, IP address blocking or re-routing, URL blocking in respect of the target URLs and domain names, or any alternative means agreed between rightsholders and ISPs.

The full list of sites targeted, their domains and IP addresses, can be found at the end of this article. The summary reads as follows:

0gomovies.ws, watchseries1.video, 0gomovies.com.pk, 123series.art, abcproxy.org, cataz.to, emovies.si, ev01.sx, flixhd.cc, fmovies.style, gimy.ai, m4ufree.vip, moviehdkh.com, moviekhhd.biz, movies.do, musichq.pe, projectfreetv.cyou, projectfreetv.ru, rarbg.tw, serieshd.watch, soap2day-online.com, soap2day.tel, soap2dayto.io, thekickasstorrents.com, thekickasstorrents.to, thekisscartoon.com, uflix.cc, putlockersgo.net, watch4freemovies.com, watchseries1.stream, thesoap2day.com, animesuge.cc, putlocker.onl, m4ufree.site, m4ufree.to, watchseries.click, www15.4movierulz.to, ymovies.cc

The list of domains has plenty of recognizable brands but the fact they’ve appeared in a court order at all suggests they’re imposter sites with no connections or no provable connections to their previously-blocked namesakes. Australia’s blocking is carried out on a dynamic basis, meaning that a site can still be blocked regardless of domain or brand identity changes.

Blocking in Australia Marketed as a Success

After the MPA recently announced that it’s working with Congress to introduce site-blocking legislation in the United States, attention will inevitably turn to other countries where blocking has shown good results. Likely candidates include Australia, United Kingdom, and Portugal.

Whether site-blocking has been effective in Australia (or indeed anywhere else in the world) mostly finds answers in studies carried out on behalf of the MPA. We’ve reported on almost all of them and while the research itself doesn’t raise immediate concerns, some subsequently reported conclusions are difficult to square, not just with the position on the ground, but with the scale of subsequent blocking activity.

MPA report to Congress in 2023: The evidence shows that site blocking is effective both in reducing traffic to pirate websites and increasing the use of legitimate services. A site-blocking order applicable to the main access providers in a given country effectively reduces traffic to the targeted piracy domains in the period after blocking is implemented. For example, blocking 53 piracy websites in the United Kingdom caused an 88% drop in visits to the blocked sites and an 80% to 95% drop across user groups in other waves. Additionally, analysis in Australia, Portugal, and South Korea found average drops in visits to blocked sites of between 60 and 90% (pdf).

Of course, when the domains of pirate websites are suddenly blocked by a country’s main ISPs, a significant drop in traffic to the domains that have been blocked is the inevitable outcome. The reality is that when domains are blocked, pirate sites know instantly, and since it takes minutes or even seconds to switch to a replacement domain or subdomain, the effectiveness of blocking finds itself immediately undermined.

That being said, there is credible evidence to show that users affected by a blocking wave in Australia “increased consumption of content on legal viewing sites in the post-period following the blocking by 5%.” That 5% is not insignificant but the uplift refers to a traffic measurement, not an increase in subscription uptake.

More Blocking is Always Needed

Australia doesn’t publish an official blocklist so again, figures produced by those requesting the blocking is the only information readily available. What we can say with some certainty is that in early 2023, 2,000 domains had been subjected to blocking orders by the Federal Court.

To that background, a study carried out by the MPA found that there were 1.8 billion visits to pirate sites from Australian IP addresses in 2022, up 10% on similar research a year earlier.

Another claim from last year by Creative Content Australia stated the following: 6.3 million Australians aged 13+ have experienced a cybersecurity issue while pirating with 82% of teens and 72% of adults falling victim to fraud, malware or identity theft

Taken at face value, that sounds like eight in every ten teenagers aren’t finding blocking particularly effective.

In the UK, another country likely to be held up as an example of what blocking looks like when done properly, a conservative 10,000 domains have been blocked and piracy rates have remained static for years.

So for now, the sites listed below will soon be placed on Australia’s blacklist. Tests today reveal that some may have disappeared. Others already have new domains.

Blocking may still have some benefits but, in general, it just doesn’t really look like it.

The latest blocking order is available here (pdf)

Source

More recent generations of video gamers will undoubtedly have their own ideas about which company in business today has made the greatest contribution to the art of videogames.

Those who nominate Sony, for marketing the original PlayStation at adults and forever transforming public perception of video games, have a very solid case. Yet when one balances software, hardware, innovation, consistency, branding and longevity, the only answer that stands up to the most intense scrutiny is Nintendo. Should its demise ever be announced, “you only miss things when they’re gone” won’t even scratch the surface.

Yet despite its status as video game royalty, Nintendo receives significant criticism for its approach to intellectual property infringement. While smaller companies would metaphorically hack off body parts for a fan base as passionate as Nintendo’s, some believe the company has been taking that loyalty for granted. Its ruthless attitude towards fan-made labor-of-love games, struck down at the 11th hour because [insert your own reason here], certainly hasn’t done the company many favors.

Many viewed Nintendo’s smack down of the Switch emulator Yuzu earlier this year in much the same light. Yet those who took a few steps back probably could’ve predicted what lay on the horizon. The exciting and pioneering world of jailbreaking and homebrew had no chance of controlling the monster being created. It was only a matter of when it would arrive and who would end up paying the price.

When The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, leaked a week-and-a-half before its official release, and was reportedly played on up to a million hacked Switch consoles and emulators, that broke the metaphorical camel’s back.

That pivotal piracy bonanza wasn’t the direct work of the console hackers, homebrew developers, tinkerers, and others closely associated with the scene. However, as those who made the conditions for it to happen, while also making for the easiest targets, Nintendo’s plan for the future likely envisions nothing good for those who continue to circumvent its technical measures.

Nintendo’s Big Clean Continues

Following a series of takedowns in March that focused on various circumvention tools, a single DMCA notice filed at GitHub late April took down an unprecedented 8,535 Yuzu repos in the blink of an eye. While the scale of the removal may have given pause for thought, only one question needed to be answered; did the original Yuzu infringe copyright?

GitHub seems to believe it did so, on that basis, they all came down. While there was no pivotal lawsuit win for Nintendo against Yuzu, a point appears to have been reached where going over old ground concerning legality is mostly no longer needed. A pair of DMCA notices filed at GitHub in the wake of the Yuzu notice filed earlier, amount to a framework likely to be seen again and again moving forward.

“When a game is started on the Nintendo Switch console a Game [Technological Measure/TPM] is decrypted using cryptographic keys that are protected by Console TPMs. The games themselves can then be decrypted by the decrypted Game TPMs so the game can be played,” one of the notices reads.

“Nintendo owns or exclusively controls numerous copyrights in software and games that are protected from unlawful access and copying by the operation of these Technological Measures.”

The following is Nintendo’s justification for the removal of the software. The focus is on Lockpick_RCM, a circumvention tool for extracting protected cryptographic keys (prod.keys) from the Nintendo Switch that, in turn, allows the decryption of games.

“The use of Lockpick with a modified Nintendo Switch console allows users to bypass Nintendo’s Technological Measures for video games; specifically, Lockpick bypasses the Console TPMs to permit unauthorized access to, extraction of, and decryption of all the cryptographic keys, including product keys, contained in the Nintendo Switch,” the takedown notice states.

“The decrypted keys facilitate copyright infringement by permitting users to play pirated versions of Nintendo’s copyright-protected game software on systems without Nintendo’s Console TPMs or systems on which Nintendo’s Console TPMs have been disabled. Trafficking in circumvention software, such as Lockpick, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the United States (specifically, 17 U.S.C. §1201), and infringes copyrights owned by Nintendo.”

Kezplez-nx: Same Purpose, Same Law, Same Story

The targeting of Kezplez-nx repos follows on from the deletion of the original repo and Nintendo’s takedown of a popular fork in an earlier wave. The software received no mention in Nintendo’s lawsuit against Yuzu but as a tool to allow users to dump keys from a Switch device, which in itself requires circumvention of Nintendo TPMs, there’s scant basis for debate.

The fact that both tools were designed for infringing purposes, and have little to no other uses, effectively ends the discussion. The nature of the notices, anti-circumvention as opposed to regular DMCA notices, actually puts an end to the discussion; there is no counter notice process available.

The notices are available here and here. Elsewhere, through two main agents (Sonopress GmbH and Marketly llc) Nintendo takedowns average around 200 every day but in all likelihood the overall figure will be higher than that.

With the next Switch now confirmed but likely to be many months away from launch, Nintendo clearly sees benefit in clearing the decks, ready for whatever comes next.

Source

Seven years ago, a new global anti-piracy coalition emerged under the umbrella of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).

The Alliance for Entertainment and Creativity (ACE) bundled the powers and pockets of dozens of entertainment companies; many more followed in the years after.

While skeptics may have doubted the launch of yet another anti-piracy group, ACE was and is a grand success. The group has industry members and law enforcement contacts all over the globe, allowing it to pool intelligence and take action more effectively than before.

The group didn’t defeat piracy. However, it took down several key players including the original 123movies, Openload, Rapidvideo, Vader Streams, many Cuevanas, and pirate release group EVO, to name a few.

IP House Opens Doors

These actions were coordinated under the lead of MPA’s chief global anti-piracy director Jan Van Voorn, whose name also appeared prominently in over a hundred subpoena requests that were filed on behalf of ACE.

Going forward, these legal requests will have to be signed by someone else. Van Voorn left ACE and the MPA in March, ending his tenure at Hollywood’s anti-piracy arm, which began eleven years ago as an alumnus of the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN.

The departure doesn’t mean Van Voorn is moving away from copyright enforcement efforts. On the contrary, he will continue his work as the lead of the new private IP-enforcement company IP House, which was officially announced to the public this week.

Big Names, Big Numbers, Big Business

IP House is no ordinary anti-piracy startup. The company offers a broad range of every imaginable IP-enforcement service, while also covering brand protection and counterfeiting, all operating on a global scale.

While the company still has everything to prove, it launches with names and numbers that back up its ambitions. As a lauded anti-piracy expert, IP House CEO Van Voorn is flanked by IP House Executive Chairman Steve Francis, who boasts a 25-year career in U.S. federal law enforcement.

Francis previously worked as the Executive Associate Director for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and as Director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center). Both HSI and the IPR center were regularly involved in federal anti-piracy actions.

The two IP House founders are backed by funding from a private equity firm. These funds help to pay for more than 250 professional investigators, analysts, and IP law experts who work at the company. Together, these help to protect a growing list of nearly 300 brands.

Much of the workforce was added directly to IP House through acquisitions. The company plans to continue this strategy going forward, adding more ‘brands’ to their roster, in addition to outside clients.

All-In-One IP Enforcement and Protection

IP House doesn’t disclose the names of its acquisitions or acquired clients, but its services are not aimed at small creators. Instead, IP House appears to target large international companies, offering a one-stop solution for all IP-enforcement efforts.

“The new company is designed to deliver proactive, end-to-end intellectual property protection at scale, addressing threats more completely than the industry’s patchwork of point solution vendors can do,” IP House announced this week.

“Through proprietary technology and partnerships with government and law enforcement organizations around the world, IP House’s data-driven approach is able to escalate investigations through enforcement to achieve valuable commercial outcomes.”

Building on ACE and MPA Lessons

This broad, global approach doesn’t come as a surprise. In a way, Van Voorn and his colleagues are building on lessons learned in the past. To fight piracy and engage in other IP issues, collaboration is key. This was also highlighted by BREIN’s former director Tim Kuik a few weeks ago.

Van Voorn previously worked at BREIN and eventually went to the MPA, to revitalize Hollywood’s anti-piracy efforts. Speaking with TorrentFreak, he says that lessons learned along the way helped to design the blueprints for IP House.

“To be truly impactful in the IP space, you need to bring rightsholders across industries together so you can execute large-scale enforcement actions worldwide. It’s also critical to have a solid and proactive escalation strategy and work very closely with law enforcement partners to create the right level of deterrence,” Van Voorn says.

Tailored Anti-Piracy Solutions

IP House doesn’t have a strong focus on single issues or threats. Instead, it tries to cover all bases, tailored to the needs of its clients. The effectiveness and efficiency of the actions should be leading.

Actions speak louder than words and IP House still has a lot to prove. However, Van Voorn truly believes that they offer something unique. IP House sets itself apart through its high-level ‘in-house’ expertise in many IP issues, with partners and connections, including law enforcement, all over the world.

“We are the first and only global entity to provide end-to-end intellectual property protection services; from prevention to investigation to enforcement with a focus on data-driven solutions. There are many point solutions out there and many say they are global/international, but they are not,” Van Voorn says.

“Simply put, we provide a solution that is not currently on the market. This thesis is validated after speaking with many companies around the world. They are looking for a one-stop-shop solution to deal with any IP matter. This is exactly the house that we are building,” he adds.

IP House aims to offer all required tools and services for rightsholders. This includes takedown notices, piracy monitoring, intelligence gathering, training, intermediary outreach, criminal referrals, expert witness statements, and much more.

The names of its clients, many of whom came in through acquisitions, are not yet revealed yet, but they are from a variety of industries.

“The acquired companies and those that will soon be part of IP House have been established for decades and serve a wide array of clientele. As such, IP House’s current list of clients is broad, ranging from pharmaceutical companies to household electronics to luxury apparel, the automotive industry, and many more,” Van Voorn tells us.

Looking Back at Key Shutdowns

It would be an understatement to say that these plans are ambitious. Time will tell how IP House fares but, one thing’s for certain, Van Voorn stands on his successes at the MPA and ACE.

After more than a decade at the MPA, where he launched ACE in 2017, he leaves behind quite a legacy.

“I am most proud of restructuring the MPA approach to content protection, as well as launching and scaling ACE to what it was when I departed at the end of March. We built a very effective global enforcement program in the copyright space,” Van Voorn says.

Looking back, there are many successes to reflect on. While Van Voorn doesn’t have any clear favorites, he mentions the shutdown of Popcorn Time and the original YTS group as key victories. These required action outside of the U.S., in Canada and New Zealand, marking the importance of global presence.

The same applies to the more recent crackdown on piracy release group EVO, which was achieved with help from Portuguese authorities.

Other key actions mentioned by Van Voorn include the demise of the original 123Movies streaming site in 2018, which took place after consulting with the Vietnamese authorities, and enforcement actions in France which wiped the video hosting services Uptobox and Uptostream off the Internet.

“The most satisfying actions involve the global team collaborating closely to identify operators, with the outcome having a significant impact on the piracy space,” Van Voorn tells us.

Whether IP House will be as visible on the anti-piracy front as ACE has yet to be seen. That said, the money and resources that are going into IP House show that copyright enforcement and protection is no longer an afterthought or a side hustle; it’s a core business. It might even be big business.

Source

Any pirate site operating at scale risks negative attention from the authorities and once governments get involved, any movement in pressure is likely to be in an upwards direction.

Considering Z-Library’s well-publicized issues with the United States government, including a criminal indictment in New York, the seizure of hundreds of domains, and the site’s subsequent return online, things seem to be going remarkably well.

Indeed, the arrest of two of its alleged operators in Argentina back in 2022 doesn’t appear to have held the platform back in any noticeable way. When that matter will be resolved is a complete unknown because for a copyright infringement matter, things appear to be unusually complex, to say the very least.

From the couple allegedly having their phones tapped, and movements monitored as they traveled through Argentina, to an official inquiry into their alleged domestic air travel arrangements and the unexplained disappearance of news articles reporting on the case, controversy is rarely far behind.

And now there’s more to contend with, this time in China.

Access Disruptions Reported in April

Last month on the official Z-Library blog, the team reported that users in China were experiencing difficulties accessing the platform.

Source: Official Z-Library blog (April 17, 2024)

A similar message was posted April 13 on Z-Library’s official Telegram channel for China, which mentioned a workaround where users could email a particular address and receive a new link to regain access to the site.

Whether that helped the situation is unclear but a little over two weeks later, Z-Library users in China started to believe that their access to the site might be permanently over.

Dramatic Announcement On ‘Official’ Social Media Channels

To strengthen its presence in China, back in January Z-Library registered official accounts on WeChat and Bilibili, two Chinese social media platforms with massive reach.

We’re unaware of other issues since the launch of the accounts, but an announcement on WeChat last week strongly suggests that things weren’t going to plan. A translation of that announcement reads as follows:

In this era of rapid development of information technology, sounds from every corner can travel across mountains and seas and reach our ears. However, sometimes technical and regulatory limitations also become barriers to communication. Today, we must convey an important message to you: Due to the recent crackdown by Chinese judicial authorities on our website, donations and social media operation volunteers, we will have to make a difficult decision. Our mainland China social accounts will be logged out within seven days.

 

This is not just a simple farewell, but also a microcosm of an era. In the past few years, we have shared knowledge and spread ideas with thousands of Chinese readers. Every interaction and discussion is deeply engraved in our memories. We know that every click of every user is full of yearning for intellectual freedom and cultural diversity.

The announcement further notes that while Z-Library’s social media accounts will disappear, visitors from China will still be welcome on the site. No books will be removed from the library but donations via WeChat and Alipay will end indefinitely, leaving donation via cryptocurrency the only option.

Goodbye, China, but this is not the end, just another form of moving on. Let us hope that in the near future, technology and regulations can find a way to coexist, so that there will be no obstacles to the flow of knowledge and ideas.

 

At that time, we may not need to say ‘goodbye’, but only need to use warmer words: ‘Welcome back.’

Z-Library Lacks “Full Control” Over Volunteers

As ‘goodbye’ notices go, the above is fairly convincing. However, an announcement on Z-Library’s official Telegram channel for China seems to draw back on some of the claims.

Most likely this is a reference to comments made in a separate post by the volunteers which states that no donations from mainland China will be accepted, and all access to Z-Library from mainland China will be blocked until “the books are removed from the shelves.”

We deeply apologize for the confusion and concern caused by a recent post on the WeChat group ‘Z-Library’. We would like to clarify that our Chinese social media platforms are entirely run by volunteers and we do not have full control over their activities.

 

We assure you that we will not restrict access to our website to Chinese users. All books remain open to Chinese users, and the Chinese addresses of Z-Points (now called Litera Points) are visible to everyone.

 

However, if hiding some files prevents some countries from blocking the site and allows a wider audience in those countries to use the site without restrictions, we are willing to do so. Please be assured that these books are still available to users in other countries. We again apologize for any inconvenience caused!

A public statement that appears to have been published by the Chinese volunteers notes that “they did not participate in any operation of the Z-Library website, did not receive any donations, and were completely unaware of the political books uploaded by users on the Z-Library website.”

That may suggest that Z-Library’s mission to spread knowledge to people, wherever they may be, ran counter to standards enforced locally.

A statement published by Z-Library in Chinese yesterday, which mentions that its Chinese media coordinator has moved on “for personal reasons”, further notes that his “previous participation in VPN service-related activities” was something that Z-Library did not endorse and actively discouraged.

Source

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 four newcomers on the list. “Godzilla Minus One” is the most downloaded title.

The most torrented movies for the week ending on May 6 are:

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

Source

Anti-piracy outfits come in all shapes and sizes and due to the nature of the business, there has been no shortage of controversies over the years, some justified and others less so.

More recently, a strategy that has been seen only a handful of times before, has been playing out on social media. Protecting the interests of South Korean company Kakao Entertainment, the company’s ‘P.CoK’ anti-piracy unit has been engaging friend and foe alike, hoping to suppress piracy of local comics known as webtoons.

In Kakao’s latest report covering June to December 2023 (pdf), the company said its anti-piracy team had removed over 7.4 million pieces of pirated content and over 201 million links to pirated content.

Source: P.CoK Anti-Piracy Whitepaper Vol.4

Other anti-piracy work reported for the period includes legal action against pirate site operators and translation groups, civil/criminal action through local subsidiaries and overseas affiliates, establishing response strategies in accordance with local copyright laws, and overseas administrative actions.

Contrasting Images

In many respects the fourth edition of P.CoK’s white paper is much like the first three in the series; the report is informative, detailed, and presented in a formal tone. The latest report also mentions P.CoK’s work to increase global user awareness “for users to report illegal content and by publicizing the results of enforcement actions, such as the takedowns of illegal sites.”

Publicizing successful takedowns has been a component of anti-piracy work for years. The same is true for ‘tip lines’ which can come into their own when someone previously associated with a site or service feels disgruntled enough to start spilling the beans.

And then there’s the following, which suggests the type of behavior many people suspect happens behind closed doors, but in this case brings it right out in the open.

“Volunteers are emerging as key players in the effort to stamp out content piracy, working ‘undercover’ across each language region to monitor and report illegal content distribution and promote user awareness and correction of illegal translations and copyright infringements,” Kakao writes.

“This has effectively reduced blind spots in illegal content monitoring.”

Head over to X, where these partnerships with volunteers are fostered, and suddenly everything feels quite different.

P.CoK Says It’s Building a Team of Informants

On X, the formal tone of Kakao’s reports gives way to splashes of color, graphics, and P.CoK’s various calls to arms.

On May 1, the account was promoting its Tapas app, from which content can be reportedly downloaded for free, alongside a link to an article published in local media where readers are informed of P.CoK’s anti-piracy activities.

“The goal is to collaborate with domestic and foreign investigative agencies and establish a specific process for illegal site operators with the goal of arresting the operators,” Team Leader Kwon Young-guk told Daum.net.

Conversation then turns to P.CoK’s ‘undercover’ agents, fans who not only report back to base with details of illegal distribution, but also the personal details of pirate site operators. The article reveals that the team has already opened an “illegal distribution reporting window on Twitter, which receives reports of illegal content from users in each country, and then takes real-time action.”

Campaign Running Now Until May 21, 2024

Also on May 1, P.CoK launched what appears to be a time-limited campaign set to end on May 21.

The flyer openly states that with the help from its network of informants, P.CoK hopes to catch “Operators of illegal content distribution sites and English translation/scanlation groups for the webcomics on Tapas, including Free Access titles.”

P.CoK / Tapas anti-piracy campaign flyer (source: X)

This type of approach isn’t completely without precedent, but this is probably the first time we’ve seen such a wide-open appeal for regular people to assist a huge corporation in an extremely sensitive area of its work.

The sensitivity of the work seems to be on display in an image published by the local media outlet mentioned earlier. It features three apparent P.CoK team members lining up for a promotional photograph, with two feeling the need to hide their faces from the camera.

Big Risks, Big Rewards?

Taking precautions is sensible, but it does raise the question of how prospective informants will view hidden faces in light of their own security. After all, this campaign isn’t messing around when it comes to demands for information.

The flyer below was posted May 1 on X. It makes it extremely clear that informants should supply the personal details of pirate site operators, including their full name, date of birth, home address, and other details. It also seeks evidence that the person is running a piracy website, community, or scanlation group, yet there are no cautionary words or an age cut-off rule that excludes minors.

P.CoK / Tapas anti-piracy campaign flyer (source: X)

While the premise thus far is already remarkable, when it comes to rewarding people for providing valuable information, that also has the potential to put people at risk, the full proposition is difficult to put into words.

The first surprise is that no matter how many informants supply information, there will be only five payouts, with winners selected through a draw. The rest will get absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, pirate site operators can also cash in by giving themselves up and shutting their sites down. In this case there appears to be no limit on how many will get paid.

Rewards will be paid in Tapas Bonus Ink, an in-app promotional credit that may only be used to unlock certain content, and must be spent within 14 days because after that the credit times out.

So how much is the 20,000 Tapas Bonus Ink reward actually worth? According to the Apple App Store (Singapore), 22,500 drops of Tapas Ink will set the buyer back almost thirty Singapore dollars. Or roughly US$22.00.

In conclusion, then, the size of the reward seems to suggest that the personal details of a pirate site operator are almost worthless. Yet, as everyone knows, losses to piracy are enormous. Fascinating.

Source

After two decades online and maybe even a few more under Divxstation branding right at the beginning, veteran subtitle download site Subscene.com has finally thrown in the towel.

In various guises, linked to specific geographic regions, perhaps as many as 50 domains can be linked to Subscene over the past twenty years. At a time when legal streaming services didn’t even exist, Subscene offered subtitles for large libraries of movies and TV shows in multiple languages.

Making content accessible to non-native speakers, in countries where legal streaming services wouldn’t arrive for a decade, didn’t just help people to understand movies. For those hoping to widen their horizons, subtitles became opportunities to learn new languages. For the deaf and hard of hearing, subtitles represented a new connection with the wider world.

Competition – Finally

Things are, of course, very different today. While a disappointing number of legal streaming platforms still fail to provide acceptable subtitles on all content, Netflix releases often arrive with subtitles in dozens of languages. That seems likely to have played a part in reduced levels of traffic at Subscene, leading to a fairly quiet announcement two months ago.

“Hi everyone, i’m very sorry to be [writing] this, but Subscene cannot continue for much longer,” the site’s owner told users.

“It has not been paying for itself for several years now, visitors are falling, and maintenance cannot continue. I am amazed at all your administrative work with the content which is the primary reason that I have continued paying for the site for this long. Thank you all for this journey we have been on together. If I can do anything for you let me know.”

Shutdown in 24 Hours

On May 2, 2024, Subscene’s owner posted to the site’s forum to confirm what had been mentioned at least eight weeks earlier. Subscene would be shutting down for good.

Some Subscene users complained that 24 hours wasn’t enough time to back up subtitles they had uploaded to the site. Others expressed concerns that a giant subtitle collection shouldn’t just disappear without an effort to preserve it. The reality is that efforts to preserve the contents of Subscene had been underway for some time.

Archiving, Hoarding Data

Soon after the first announcement two months ago, indicating that Subscene would close down, members of the /r/DataHoarder subreddit had quickly sprung into action. They produced a full 90GB+ database, which they say even includes deleted subtitle files, and then made it available online via a regular .torrent file, a magnet link, and for the Usenet fans, an NZB file.

As mentioned on their Wiki, Archive Team sprang into action with the 24-hour shutdown period underway yet still managed to retrieve almost everything.

“It was announced on 2024-05-02 that the site would cease operations within 24 hours, and that a ‘takeover plan was not possible’. No reason was given for the sudden closure. A DPoS project was started 2024-05-03 13:56 UTC and was able to grab most subtitles before the websites demise later that day at 2024-05-03 21:11 UTC.”

Data Saved But in The Wrong Place for App Users

Users who prefer to use mostly Android apps for their movie and TV show fix, often have in-app access to subtitles. As the image below shows, Subscene.com is regularly used as a source for those subtitles.

Since the site’s URL appears to be hardcoded in many cases, only an app update will be able to point to a new location. Even then, open access to the files isn’t guaranteed and will only become more complex if there’s not enough centralized interest in creating or curating new subtitles for the latest titles.

There’s no suggestion from the site’s operator that Subscene has faced recent legal issues but nevertheless, blocking injunctions and personalized mentions in industry reports to government have played a part in the site’s history.

According to a message on the site’s main page, that history ends here.

Source

Last summer, Lithuania amended its Code of Administrative Offenses, allowing media watchdog LRTK to fine pirates, without going to court.

This legislative change is the latest attempt to deter piracy in the European country. The potential fines should make pirates reconsider their habits, the thinking was.

Tracking Torrent Trackers

Over the past several months, dozens of fines were handed out. The targets were first-time offenders and all received the minimum fine of 140 euros. For repeat offenses, fines can potentially reach 600 euros.

The early fines were almost exclusively issued to users of the private torrent tracker Linkomanija for sharing pirated films. However, the authorities have cast their net wider than that, a recent update shows.

According to LRTK’s latest information, it’s also keeping an eye on users of ‘private’ torrent tracker, Torrent.lt. This site was once among the twenty most visited websites in Lithuania and still has a dedicated user base.

A €140 Lesson

Three of Torrent.lt’s users were caught illegally sharing an audiobook of self-help classic “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” written in 1989 by the late Stephen Covey.

The book promises readers “powerful lessons in personal change” but whether the trio managed to improve their lives isn’t clear. They were certainly not very effective as pirates, however, as the book came at a cost.

LRTK hopes that the fine will offer a powerful lesson too. Since the audiobook pirates were all first offenders, who eventually apologized for their torrenting habits, the lowest possible fine was deemed sufficient.

“Since the identified persons were sincerely sorry for the offense committed, they were fined 140 euros, which they will have to pay to one of the collection accounts of the State Tax Inspectorate,” the media watchdog writes.

The print version ‘7 Habits’ book was originally published by Free Press, which wasn’t involved in the process. Instead, the enforcement action was taken on behalf of a local rightsholder, the Lithuanian Audiosensory Library.

Effective?

More ‘effective’ pirates may use tools to hide their IP-addresses from tracking companies but, thus far, LRTK has had no trouble identifying potential targets.

Although the catch rate is relatively low, and the fine somewhat modest, the watchdog hopes that its enforcement efforts will encourage change. In any case, it doesn’t plan to stop its fining campaign anytime soon.

“It should be noted that LRTK constantly monitors in order to protect copyrights on the Internet and reduce the scale of piracy in Lithuania,” the group concludes.

Source

This year, major rightsholders are hoping that data from similar programs overseas will persuade Congress that site-blocking is a measured and reasonable response to surging worldwide piracy rates.

The usual entrenched positions on whether site blocking is, or indeed is not, a type of censorship in conflict with free speech, will be heard once again. Yet on more neutral territory lies a debate that receives relatively little attention.

Proponents of site blocking insist that it’s an essential front line response to piracy and data shows that it really does work. The other side of the coin shows that since the introduction of site-blocking, with a few dozen ‘notorious’ sites blocked in a handful of mainly European countries, when taken as a whole, piracy rates have only increased.

That’s despite some nations’ blocklists easily exceeding 10,000 entries, a perpetual need to continuously add more domains and IP addresses, and more quietly behind the scenes, demands for more aggressive blocking measures, to counter constant circumvention. Even recently, the incredible number of domains blocked worldwide has been held up as a measure of success; there’s a sensible argument that the size of the list indicates quite the opposite.

Site-Blocking Circumvention and Motivation

On January 1, 2022, France launched Arcom, the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority. Among other responsibilities, Arcom is the national anti-piracy agency that oversees site-blocking and other mitigation measures. It also carries out research hoping to better understand the piracy landscape while educating the masses yet to kick the piracy habit.

This week Arcom published the results of a study titled ‘Use of Internet Security Tools For the Purpose of Illicit Access to Digital Goods‘. The study notes that since the launch of Arcom it’s been possible to block pirate sites much more quickly; between January and November 2022, around 800 sites were blocked by ISPs.

In the last six months, Arcom says that 40% of pirate stream consumers have been “personally confronted with a site blockage” while 27% heard from close acquaintances that they had experienced that too.

Through the study, Arcom hopes to better understand how and why, a representative sample of French internet users aged 15 and over, circumvent blocking.

The Majority Are Savvy Users

The study found that just under a third of respondents (31%) categorize themselves as more likely to be the last among their peers to use the latest technology. Almost four in ten (39%) consider themselves to be on par with others, while 30% place themselves on the cutting edge, eager to adopt and test new technology before most other people.

Overall, Arcom believes that almost a quarter (24%) of French users pirated at least one item of content illegally during the last year. However, awareness of technologies that are used to circumvent site-blocking goes far beyond, even if some users don’t yet fully understand them.

For example, the study found that 23% of internet users know that changing DNS settings is a way to circumvent pirate site blocking. Around 27% have heard of people changing DNS settings but don’t currently know what that means. Overall, 49% of internet users are aware of DNS modification, even if around half aren’t yet aware of its potential.

Arcom report on site-blocking circumvention tools. (Original in French, translated by TF)

The data on VPNs is remarkable. More than eight in ten (81%) French internet users have heard of VPNs, with just under a third (32%) still unsure of what VPNs are for.

In contrast, 49% of internet users have heard of VPNs and their functionality, and 42% know from experience.

Arcom report on site-blocking circumvention tools. (Original in French, translated by TF)

Over the last 12 months, 29% of French internet users deployed a VPN and 20% modified their DNS settings. When the groups are combined (some VPN users also modified their DNS settings and vice versa), over a third (35%) of French internet users used one or both in the last year.

Motivations and Illegal Consumption

Since the 35% overall usage figure above exceeds the 24% of French citizens said to have pirated content in the last year, there must be other motivations to use VPNs and modify DNS settings. Among users exclusively using VPNs, 57% said their use involved ‘illicit practices’ with 46% citing protection from perceived online risks. For those who cited exclusive use of DNS modifications, the figures were lower at 46% and 35% respectively.

Among VPN or DNS users as a whole, 66% said their use involved ‘illicit practices’ with 56% citing protection from perceived online risks.

Overall, 46% of VPN users admitted to being consumers of illicit content while 54% of those who changed DNS parameters admitted the same. Among VPN users, 69% consider themselves as on par or ahead of most internet users when it comes to adopting, testing or using new technologies, a figure that falls to 54% for those who only modify their DNS records.

Interestingly, reasons for illegal content consumption among VPN and DNS-modified users differ slightly from general consumers of illicit content.

“Users of alternative VPNs or DNS declaring illegal practices justify them by citing problems of offers rather than costs (compared to all consumers engaging in illegal practices),” the study notes.

Over half (56%) of VPN users who activate their connection before a specific action cite anonymity. Close to half (46%) say the reason is to enable access to sites unavailable in France, while just 14% cite gaining access to illegal sites blocked by ISPs in France.

Piracy and Unblocking Pirate Sites Not a Priority

While VPN use is regularly painted as a piracy indicator, Arcom’s study shows that protection of privacy is the main motivator, followed by security against hacking attempts, accessing geo-blocked content, and communicating with loved ones abroad via secure messaging.

Arcom report on site-blocking circumvention tools. (Original in French, translated by TF)

Reasons for using a VPN for piracy purposes have a lower priority, although when narrowed to use among pirates exclusively, the figures are higher for pirates as one would expect. Regardless, protection of privacy, enhanced security, and granting access to otherwise restricted legal content, remain the key motivators.

Regardless of Main Motivation, VPNs Unblock Without Prejudice

Arcom reports that “recent VPN converts are more motivated by the ability to bypass blocks.” With at least hundreds of sites blocked in France, and tens of thousands more blocked all around the world, that’s to be expected.

If those users are pleased with the VPN experience, in time they’ll simply forget that blocking even exists. After 15 years of site-blocking in dozens of countries, one has to wonder how prevalent that is.

While clearly anecdotal evidence, our experience of what is now an extraordinary volume of site-blocking, is that the chaos it used to cause has long since gone.

Email inquiries regarding site-blocking measures against site A and platform X were a regular occurrence up until around five years ago. When the most recent inquiry was received here is hard to say; in total, however, no more than a handful or two have been received in the last couple of thousand days.

There could be a number of reasons for that, but a lack of site-blocking isn’t one of them.

Arcom’s full report (French) can be found here (pdf)

Image credits: StockCake

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Over the last quarter-century the piracy landscape has regularly received major blows from which many believed it could never recover.

While in most cases the doomsday scenario never materialized, not all niches are created equally. Those that require a very specific set of skills usually face more complex challenges.

When Nintendo sued the company and ultimately the developers of the Yuzu emulator in February, that was a significant event. When the team settled the lawsuit just a week later, that was not just unexpected.

The speed of the settlement seemed to suggest some type of vulnerability beyond the paperwork, and real enough – whatever it was – for Yuzu’s developers to submit. Comebacks aren’t unheard of or impossible, but coding an emulator is an entirely different proposition than running a website or uploading movies; there’s certainly not much of a crowd to hide in either.

The Big Clean-Up

The law didn’t change overnight when Yuzu was sued but Nintendo’s messaging since then strongly suggests that the company’s tolerance of infringers has shifted. Nintendo started its post-Yuzu clean-up operation in March, targeting numerous projects that until recently had operated mostly without fear of serious disruption.

Then last week, Nintendo made its intentions clearer still when targeting Nintendo-themed addons for Garry’s Mod, potentially a couple of decades worth, according to the team. That fairly turbulent event has just been followed by perhaps the most efficient takedown filed anywhere on the internet in recent years.

A single DMCA notice filed at GitHub triggered a chain reaction that took out over 8,535 Yuzu repos, all in the time it took to send an email.

Had the lawsuit against Yuzu not been filed and settled so quickly, and Nintendo hadn’t articulated its legal position with such clarity, GitHub’s approach to the takedown may have been more difficult. In the event the platform says it contacted the owners of the affected repos to give them an opportunity to make changes, and provided information on DMCA counter notices and availability of legal resources.

Weeding out every last repo will clearly take much more time but given the diminishing returns, that may not be of particular interest to Nintendo. Resources directed towards emerging threats may be considered a more effective strategy, however.

Mig Switch / Mig Dumper Suppression

Last December, rumors began to circulate about an upcoming product, a flashcart for the Nintendo Switch billed as a backup and development device. Branded Mig Switch, it was claimed the device would have enough memory to store several ROMs and would allow users to select which ‘backup’ to play, no soldering required. Mig Dumper, a tool for backing up original games, would appear separately.

Videos and reviews of Mig Switch have been appearing online and while prospective buyers will need a Switch console to use it, in common with Yuzu the plan is unlikely to involve the purchase of games.

As a result, Nintendo is already attempting to remove Mig Switch and Mig Dumper reseller websites from Google search, including those whose screenshots are shown below, along with Nintendo’s takedown text.

At the time of writing, pages on around 75 domains have been targeted for deindexing. Nintendo used DMCA anti-circumvention notices which unlike regular DMCA notices, have no counter notice process available.

Meanwhile, Mig Switch reportedly faces competition from UnlockSwitch, a not dissimilar device with the same functionality that may (or may not) be a clone of Mig Switch, which in turn may (or may not) be a clone of UnlockSwitch.

The people behind Mig Switch alleged that UnlockSwitch is a pre-order scam and their review units are actually Mig Switch devices underneath. Which side to believe, if any, is a personal choice; there’s unlikely to be a patent or registered mark to clear up the dispute.

Genuine dubious device or merely a copy of one?

Things rarely stand still in the Nintendo piracy scene; its ability to recover seems inextricably linked to the size of Nintendo’s user base and the opportunity to generate revenue with the right product. As a result, it’s unlikely that Nintendo’s hardened approach will deliver a terminal body blow at this end of the market anytime soon.

As for the future of the Switch emulation scene, there’s no denying it looks more precarious now than it did in January.

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The United Kingdom is no stranger to website blocking.

The High Court granted permission for a blockade against Newzbin2 in 2011; The Pirate Bay and numerous other targets were blocked soon after.

A rough inventory carried out by TorrentFreak recently revealed that blocked domains, including subdomains, now exceed 10,000 separate targets. That’s a conservative estimate.

While people can still access pirate sites in the UK, it’s not as easy as it once was. The blocking efforts mainly make it harder for casual pirates to find content. To keep things this way, rightsholders have found an atypical ally in Google.

Google-Amplified Site Blocking

As covered previously, the search engine voluntarily removes pirate sites from its search results when rightsholders forward applicable site-blocking orders. As a result, domains such as ThePirateBay.org are no longer findable in the UK, France, and other countries.

Google’s compliance initially came as a surprise. After all, the tech giant previously opposed whole-site removals arguing that these would be counterproductive and jeopardize the free flow of information on the Internet.

Times have changed, however; Google has switched to a more cooperative policy which continues quietly today. New removal requests for torrent, download, and streaming piracy sites arrive regularly. Google has also removed thousands of YouTube-ripper domains after music group BPI alerted it to relevant court orders.

IPTV: Not Found

This week, we stumbled upon a new category to add to the list. After obtaining an IPTV-related blocking order last year, Sky asked Google to remove various domain names linked to IPTV providers.

In a recent notice, dated April 23, Sky reports geniptv.net, iptvmain.store, iptvmain.tv and iptvmain.uk as infringing domains. These are all linked to IPTV services subject to a High Court injunction issued in 2023.

As far as we know, none of the mentioned domains host any content directly. Instead, these sites are used to sell IPTV subscriptions that provide access to unauthorized live broadcasts, including sports, plus on-demand films and series.

The IPTVmain.store website notes that this is all above board. “IPTV Main operates within legal boundaries, providing legitimate streaming services to our users,” its FAQ reads. However, Sky believes otherwise and the High Court agrees.

More IPTV Sites Removed

The High Court injunction allows for dynamic and time-sensitive IP address annd URL blocking. In addition, it requires local ISPs to implement static domain name blockades for the IPTV sites in question. Google followed suit, removing the infringing domains.

The latest notice isn’t the first of its kind. While thrawling through the Lumen database we spotted a few other notices where Sky urged the search engine to take action. These include other IPTVmain and GenIPTV domains, as well as CatIPTV, BunnyStream, EnigmaStreams and GoTVMix, all targets in the High Court injunction.

The effectiveness of these search engine removals is unknown, but it certainly won’t hurt Sky’s attempts to make IPTV services less accessible. Whether Google is open to follow-up actions, such as DNS blocking, or even more direct Chrome browser blocks, remains to be seen.

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